The Real Trump Deal. Martin E. Latz
be stubborn.
Star sports agent Leigh Steinberg in his book Winning with Integrity wrote that his negotiations with the Atlanta Falcons on behalf of quarterback Jeff George lasted from 1995 through 1996 and involved “what seemed like hundreds of hours of phone calls…and seven trips to Atlanta during that time.”120
Over the course of these types of negotiations, Steinberg said he might “have to revisit an issue over and over and over again.” Some might find this upsetting. A waste of time, right? Wrong. It’s an important part of the process. As Steinberg noted, effective negotiation requires “tremendous patience and persistence, as well as physical stamina, resilience and perseverance.121
Trump spent years putting together the Commodore Hotel deal. This required perseverance.
As noted earlier, however, Trump lost this focus and stick-to-it-iveness in the mid-1980s. His deals then came fast and furious. Perhaps too easily. As Trump Show noted,
[Trump in the 1980s was] buying up airlines, department store chains like Alexander’s, and majestic hotels. The Hyatt [Commodore] had taken him six tortuous years, while the campaign to acquire the Plaza Hotel was over in six quick weeks. Even Donald complained about how “easy” it had become.122
His lost focus came with a big price: Almost all his assets in those deals later went to pay off his creditors when his businesses failed.
LESSONS LEARNED
| Trump’s Strategies and Tactics | Extremely aggressive goal-setting marked many early Trump negotiations. |
| Trump lost sight of his goals in the go-go ’80s and got caught up in a deal-making frenzy. | |
| Aggressiveness returned when Trump faced financial ruin in 1990. | |
| Passionate expectations of success permeated Trump’s negotiations. | |
| Trump’s confidence led to good deals and effective branding. | |
| Hard work and perseverance characterized early Trump negotiations. | |
| Lessons Learned | Getting sufficient information first should underlie goal-setting efforts. |
| Specific, aggressive, and realistic goals should drive strategic decisions. | |
| Too much aggressiveness in goal-setting can lead to failure, lost confidence, and long-term harm. | |
| Tying goals to realistic standards increases the likelihood of achieving them. | |
| Passionate expectations and confidence lead to better negotiations. | |
| Hard work and perseverance underlie effective negotiations. |
THE KING OF HYPERBOLE: EXAGGERATE!
“[One] key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular…. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration—and a very effective form of promotion.” 123
—Donald J. Trump, The Art of the Deal
Wayne Barrett, the investigative reporter who started reporting on Trump in 1978 and author of Trump Show, said Trump “was born with bullshit capabilities beyond what you and I could possibly imagine.”124
One typical example—the sale of Trump Tower condos—illustrates Trump’s tendency to use “truthful hyperbole” in his negotiations.
The Sale of Trump Tower Condos
Donald Trump’s first major independent effort to sell to people’s dreams came with Trump Tower. How did he do it? “You sell them a fantasy,” Trump said of his strategy to sell the 266 Trump Tower luxury condos that started at $500,000 for one-bedrooms in 1982 and went up to $5 million for a triplex.125, 126
One preliminary note about sales versus negotiation. The terms suggest separate processes. In reality, they represent two sides of the same coin. In my sales negotiation training programs, I suggest these be viewed as parallel processes that work in close conjunction with each other.
Of course, each has a slightly different emphasis and uses different terminology. But their differences pale in comparison to their similarities. We will use the terms “sales” and “negotiation” interchangeably, as Trump seems to view them all as “deals.”
So how did Trump sell Trump Tower? He wrote, “From day one, we set out to sell Trump Tower not just as a beautiful building in a great location but as an event. We positioned ourselves as the only place for a certain kind of wealthy person to live—the hottest ticket in town.”127
And he received great publicity. TV talk show host Regis Philbin recalled the following about Trump Tower:
I remember coming back to the city in 1983 and the Grand Hyatt had replaced the old Commodore Hotel and Trump Tower had just opened. And I went over to Trump Tower and there was this doorman with this huge fur hat on and I thought: Who’s putting out a doorman like this? Well, lo and behold, it was the Trumpster! And he had a waterfall inside…! And let me tell you, he saved Fifth Avenue. It was not in good shape then.128
TrumpNation author O’Brien described the process this way: “Donald and [Louise] Sunshine [a politically connected lobbyist who worked with Trump on many of his early projects] pitched Trump Tower as the cushy choice for a cushy era…and the media lionized the boy builder as the new face of Manhattan.”129
But this didn’t just happen with regular salesmanship. As described in Trump Revealed,
Trump spread a rumor, printed in the New York papers, that Britain’s royal family—Charles, Prince of Wales, and his wife, Princess Diana—were interested in spending $5 million to buy a twenty-one-room condominium, an entire floor of Trump Tower. They never showed. Trump didn’t confess to creating that rumor, which the Times attributed to “one real estate official,” but did say later that the rumor “certainly didn’t hurt us.”130
Trump Tower and its highly successful sales and marketing effort launched the Trump brand worldwide. As leading Manhattan real-estate broker and Shark Tank star Barbara Corcoran said, “People might have laughed at the image that Trump gave, but the rest of the world fell for it. It was the first recognized superluxury brand in America known outside the United States. He bullshitted about it, but by bullshitting about it, he made it sell. I don’t know of anyone who is a better marketer.” 131
The Trump Tower Marketing Effort—Puffery or Lies?
The only problematic element in the Trump Tower sales effort related to whether Trump intentionally told a journalist that Prince Charles and Princess Diana were considering a condo there. Everything else falls within the normal bounds of puffery, at the least.
But what does puffery even mean in sales negotiations? Is it just a pseudonym for lying? No.
The “Puffery vs. Lying” Standard
Black’s Law Dictionary defines “puffery” as “the use of exaggeration or hyperbole in statements made to promote or sell a product or service.