Donald J. Trump - Think BIG and Kick Ass in Business and Life

T hroughout my years in business there have been certain people who have left an indelible impression. Bill Zanker is one of those people. When I first met him, I realized he was not only a very intelligent and dynamic person, but a dynamo in every sense of the word. I found myself enjoying his ideas and his enthusiasm.

Creativity is an important element of success, no matter what your business might be. Bill has that creativity and he knows how to put it into action. Anyone who has been around Bill will never forget him. Hes a gifted promoter and his positive outlook has affected many thousands of people on a most productive level. Hes an educator who also knows and fully understands his subject.

He also loves his business, which is one of my prerequisites when talking about success. His passion for his work remains undiminished and The Learning Annex has unfolded in a remarkable way.

Think Big is a credo that I have embraced since my youth, and it has proven to be an effective way to achieve success. Bill has also employed this attitude and the results are evident. Writing this book together has been a kick ass experience for both of usand we hope you will not only enjoy the results, but learn a lot at the same time. Were hoping to see all of you achieve your biggest dreamsand if you work hard, you will!

Donald J. Trump

The Learning Annex was a small company until I met Donald Trump. Now it is a large company because I mastered Donald Trumps kick-ass attitude. About twenty-eight years ago, when I was a student taking film courses at The New School in New York City, I needed to make some money to support myself. So in 1979, at age twenty-six, I took the $5,000 I had gotten from my bar mitzvah and used it to start The Learning Annex. At first I thought of it as an informal school for experimental film instructors to share their knowledge with aspiring filmmakers. But my girlfriend at the time, a pottery teacher, talked me into expanding the curriculum and making a school for a different way of learning, a way for people to get a quick education about things they could not learn elsewhere. The Learning Annex was born.

In those early days I would dress up in a clowns costume and stand on the streets of Manhattan handing out course catalogs. I would tell people to call the office number in the catalog and say the clown told them to register to save five dollars on the class. Then I would run to the office and answer the calls. And to my excitement, loads of calls came in from people telling me a nice clown had told them about a discount. I would sign up each student for the class and send out the class confirmation letter. When there were no calls, I would look for new teachers to speak. I was a business of one and running it out of my $325-a-month studio apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

My film career never took off, but The Learning Annex did, and I loved it. I realized I was a born promoter and I had found my passion.

I changed the whole concept of continuing education to what I call edu-tainment. Everything is quick these days. Nobody has time for education. MTV and the Internet have created a generation of people who want everything to be fast-paced and entertaining. I decided to go after big-name personalities and celebrities to teach the classes. I wanted the teachers to have big personalities and to be larger than life.

When we added the glamour of celebrity names to our roster, attendance skyrocketed, and more and more luminaries were willing to say yes to my requests for them to teach. Sarah Jessica Parker, Harrison Ford, Richard Simmons, Henry Kissinger, P. Diddy, Suze Orman, Barbara Bush, Larry King, Desmond Tutu, Renee Zellweger, Deepak Chopra, and Rudy Giuliani have graced the podium of The Learning Annex, along with hundreds of others.

How did I lasso these stars? Since I did not have a lot of money, I got celebrities by using a different appeal: guilt. I would say, Youve made it big. Why dont you give back to society? I remember movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. He was an extremely tough cookie to get. I whined and whined and whined at him, You can give Learning Annex students an hour of your time for charity. He finally did it, and he was amazing at telling the most fascinating insights on how to break into Hollywood. And he ended up speaking for several hours. Same with legendary record producer Clive Davis; not only did he listen to students demos, he signed someone right there during the class. For most of these luminaries the money was irrelevant anyway.

Except for Donald Trump. He would not even take my calls. One day I called Trumps office and was put through to his personal secretary Norma. I knew I could not get Trumps attention using my usual pitch. He would not even talk to me. So I had to do something different to get his attention. I decided to pique his interest with money, which is extremely unusual for me. But I really wanted to get him, so I decided to go for it. I offered what to me was an enormous amount of money: $10,000. His secretary asked, Thats it? and dismissed my offer as if it were a cheap bottle of Chianti. She curtly added, I dont think so and hung up the phone.

It took a lot of courage but a few days later, undaunted, I called Norma again and said, Ill give Mr. Trump twenty-five thousand dollars. Norma said, Nope. Hes not interested. I was stunned. After that I realized I had been playing it safe. The following week I took an enormous risk; I offered $100,000. That was the most money I had ever offered a speaker, but it had no impact on Norma, who said without hesitation, No way. Donald still couldnt do it.

I sat back and thought really hard about what to do next. Should I drop the idea of having Donald Trump, or should I keep trying? I did not know what to do. Then I remembered what performance guru Tony Robbins had taught me, If you want to make it big, youve got to push yourself beyond your limits. Youve got to pump yourself up and get yourself into a hyper mental state. And you have to do this yourself. Nobody can do this for you. I decided I wanted to be big. Donald Trump was the ultimate Mr. Big. We all have heroes, and Donald was mine. If I wanted to play in the same arena as him, I had to push myself to a new level. I pushed out my chest, took a deep breath, and gathered all the energy I could muster. Then I called Norma at Donald Trumps office and offered one million dollars for Trump to speak for one hour at The Learning Annex. At the time, The Learning Annex had never grossed more than $5.5 million in an entire year. Think about it, I offered him a million dollars, and I was only bringing in $5.5 million a year. And I had rarely had a class of more than a few hundred students. How I was going to get my money back was beyond me at that moment. But I knew I had to do it. I just knew it. So I listened to my gut and made the call. And Norma said, Thats very interesting. Ill talk to Donald about it.