In 1999, when I began a career in sales, a good friend—Justin Kuzemka, who had built a formidable record selling copiers before building businesses—offered simple advice: buy Tom Hopkins’ How to Master the Art of Selling, read it closely, and, if possible, commit it to memory. I fell short of that final instruction, but the book nonetheless reshaped how I thought about the profession.
Sales, as Hopkins understood it, is not merely persuasion. It is persuasion in service of an outcome that endures.
The modern temptation is to confuse attention with effectiveness. Hopkins would not have made that mistake.
By that standard, the question of the deal becomes central.
Donald Trump is, by most accounts, an unusually effective salesman—capable of commanding attention, sustaining loyalty, and—against expectation—returning to the presidency. That is no small feat. But salesmanship, in its fuller sense, is tested not in attention, but in agreement. A deal, after all, must work not only in its announcement, but in its execution.
And here, the distinction between attention and agreement becomes unavoidable.
They are not the same skill.
The administration has signaled, repeatedly and publicly, a desire to reach an agreement with Iran. Yet the manner in which that desire has been expressed has, at times, undermined the very objective it seeks to achieve.
From Hopkins’ perspective, a few principles come to mind.
First, restraint has value. Early in the conflict, public calls for internal upheaval in Iran suggested not only ambition, but uncertainty—raising questions about the ultimate objective. In negotiation, clarity of purpose is often more persuasive than breadth of intent.
Second, tone matters. It is one thing to negotiate from a position of strength; it is another to do so while simultaneously escalating rhetoric toward the very party with whom one seeks agreement. Respect need not imply concession, but its absence can make agreement more difficult. More pointedly, rhetoric—and at times actions—that extend to the removal of leadership materially complicate the possibility of agreement.
Third, the appearance of necessity is itself a liability. A negotiator who signals, repeatedly, an urgent desire for a deal will often find the terms shaped accordingly. It is not essential that the other side believe you want no agreement—but it is useful that they believe you can tolerate that outcome.
Fourth, opening positions matter. Reports of early concessions that closely resembled the other side’s preferred framework—however provisional—narrow the space for subsequent negotiation. In most negotiations, both sides begin at distance and move, gradually, toward something more balanced.
Fifth, credibility must be preserved. There is a cost to making threats that are not carried through. Early in the conflict, the administration issued warnings of sweeping destruction—only to step back from them as circumstances evolved. That restraint may be prudent in practice; few would advocate for its full execution. But in negotiation, words accumulate. A threat that is not realized does not simply disappear—it recalibrates expectations. Over time, the other side begins to discount not only what is said, but what might be done. And once credibility is discounted, leverage becomes harder to sustain.
Finally, discretion has its uses. A durable agreement is rarely one that leaves either party feeling publicly diminished. Excessive celebration—or embellishment—can undermine what has been achieved, particularly if the substance does not match the rhetoric.
None of this is to suggest that negotiation, particularly in matters of state, can be reduced to the logic of a sales manual. The stakes are higher, the variables more complex, and the consequences more serious. And yet, it is worth recalling that the promise of dealmaking itself once stood at the center of the case for this presidency.
The principles, however, remain.
It may be that a deal will yet be reached. If so, it will not be because it was announced often, or described in grand terms, but because it was constructed with care—on terms that both sides can sustain.
Tom Hopkins, I am told, is still with us.
One suspects he might find it mildly surprising that a man who built his case on dealmaking has so often mistaken the performance of the deal for the discipline required to complete one.
Because in the end, a deal is not measured by how often it is declared—
but by whether it holds.