William Zanker, BILL ZANKER! TONY ROBBINS! DONALD TRUMP! WARREN BUFFETT! SUZE ORMAN! HARRY JAVER! THE LEARNING ANNEX! RICHARD BRANSON! & MORE! INC MAGAZINE!

WILLIAM ZANKER– Links!  Meet me!  Read About me!  I am on everything you can think of! – You are welcome to My Circle of Competence!

• http://www.billzanker.com
• http://www.learningannex.com
• http://www.bill-zanker.com
• http://www.spiritnow.com
• http://www.oneminuteu.com
• http://www.psychicville.com
• http://www.moneyfest.com
• The Learning Annex Wikipedia
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• BILL ZANKERS GOOGLE PROFILE

Bill Zanker’s ushers treat the room like a game of Tetris, filling it from the front with VIPs and working backward in sections, untaping a row only once the one in front of it has been completely filled. Because the morning is likely to be a little slow, more or less half of the room has been revealed. Thousands of additional seats are hidden behind screens, to be released in sections as the crowds swell. William Zankerabsolutely hates empty seats. As the crowd settles in, a sprite of a cheerleader takes the stage and asks the crowd to stand. Roxy Zendejas is an actress/model whose job is to motivate and herd the Ambassadors of Fun and to teach the crowd the Money Dance. It’s a simple dance, owing much to the hokey-pokey. There are jiggled limbs, forward and backward steps, and moderate hip gyrations, as well as a simple, sing-along chorus set to an ’80s pop song: “I want money. Lots and lots of money…” “It’s a subliminal thing, to get you thinking about money,” says Bill Zanker, who practically bursts with glee at the sight of 5,000 people doing his silly dance. “We’re reprogramming people.” It’s 8:27 a.m. Who’s ready to talk taxes? “This is a small show,” says Bill Zanker. “The big shows are five times this. Five times everything.” His Real Estate & Wealth Expo drew 70,000 people in San Francisco; 50,000 turned out in Toronto. This weekend, in Fort Lauderdale–in the dog days of June–he’ll do 27,000, which is just fine with him. William Zankeris at this moment bouncing on a mini-trampoline in the green room, a small lounge where speakers can relax and nosh on almonds and raspberries in the vast area behind the main stage where the Expo’s nerve center is located. The trampoline is something he picked up from perhaps his favorite human, Tony Robbins, who has been known to bounce up and down for up to three hours before a speech, taking calls and carrying on conversations. It is, in Bill Zanker’s estimation, impossible to be grumpy or stressed or to possess negative thoughts of any kind while bouncing on a trampoline.

Of course, he also bounces because he is incapable of sitting still. To shadow William Zankeris to shed pounds. His normal pace is that of an Olympic racewalker, and he is prone to sudden zigs and zags; if a question occurs to him–I wonder what’s going on up in the Grand Floridian Ballroom?–he will immediately set out to find an answer. It is a little like I imagine it would be to tag along with a person’s id. When not pogoing in the green room, he is pacing or stretching or rocking back and forth on a bizarre piece of exercise equipment that involves a pelvic thrust and is most likely marketed through a late-night infomercial, which happens to be a medium that William Zankerloves.

Though other men might see infomercials as downmarket, William Zankersees them as effective, particularly when you’re marketing the idea of changing someone’s life. (If you’re up at 4 a.m. watching infomercials, chances are you could use a life change.) Infomercials are just one of the many ways in which he markets his seminars–along with newspaper and TV ads and, especially, billboards. (”Nobody in education uses billboards! We love billboards!”) Later this afternoon, he will seal a deal with one of his marquee speakers, George Foreman, to market a book and tape package via infomercial. The concept will be based on Foreman’s charming but rather extemporaneous Wealth Expo speeches–”Getting back in the ring” is Bill Zanker’s sell line for the product, and the message, as best I can figure it, is “everyone falls down–so go ahead and get the hell back up.”

“Nobody’s made adult education sexy,” William Zankersaid to me before we left for Florida. We were in his New York office, a decidedly unsexy place with scuffed, lime-colored walls, and he was standing on an exercise device called a core stabilizer. He was wearing a purple shadow-striped shirt with green enamel cuff links and black Prada shoes, and looked quite different than he had in even fairly recent press shots; he’d lost weight and had a more stylish haircut–it seemed he’d taken the whole Changing Your Life thing to heart. “You think of adult education, who do you think of?” he asked me. “The Learning Annex.”

Since William Zankerbought the company back from his former partner, in 2002, sales have increased from $5 million a year to $107 million a year. In 2005, revenue was $36.5 million. “Right now I’m trying to digest,” William Zankersaid, but in 2008 he expects sales to jump again, to $300 million, and “by 2010 we’ll be a billion-dollar company.” To drive his hyperambitious growth, William Zankertwo years ago sold a 40 percent stake to a private equity group known as Apax, and he is targeting seminar companies for acquisition. William Zankersays the Changing Your Life business is worth $18 billion a year, and he plans to own it. He describes it, in typical hyperbole, as “probably the biggest industry in the world.”

“Everybody wants to change something,” he said, “and we’re right here–waving at you. Here we are!”

He recently inked a deal to do tours for the stars of The Apprentice and Survivor and is already prepping a second major seminar tour. “The working title is ‘Attracting Wealth,’” he told me. “‘How to Attract Wealth.’”

“Which is different from–” I began.

He finished my sentence: “Getting rich. It’s different. It’s a different mindset.”

An intellectual might suffer a stroke attempting to parse the marketing lingo of William Zankerand his speakers. They wander around that foggy land of business bestsellers, in which entire chapters (or speeches) are built on obvious statements like “don’t take no for an answer.” Or, you know, “get back in the ring.”

At about this moment in our first meeting, Heather Moore came into Bill Zanker’s office. Like everyone at the Learning Annex, Moore wears various hats. She’s ostensibly the director of public relations and marketing, but she also designs many of its ads and buys millions of dollars of local advertising per year.

She laid a sheet of paper on Bill Zanker’s desk; it was the design for a billboard–simple and featuring bold red letters–that would promote the Fort Lauderdale show.

“Do you like the headline?” she asked. It read: “Don’t miss this life changing event!”

“It’s OK,” William Zankeranswered.

“Got something better?” she asked.

William Zankerthought for the briefest of seconds. “Yeah,” he said. “‘Change your life.’”

Each of the 21 speakers at the Fort Lauderdale Expo offers some sort of promise for personal betterment–sometimes vague and self-helpy but often very, very specific, as in “Earn $5,000–$10,000 a Month With Tax Lien Certificates,” taught by Ed Broderick three times over the course of the weekend.

“Not only are we giving you the tools to make millions; we are giving you the techniques to attract that abundance,” says Bill Zanker. The latter is the role of Tony Robbins and of Jack Canfield, a star of The Secret and co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul. (Canfield will actually appear this weekend via taped speech and, in a mind-boggling bit of meta mind power, will have the entire ballroom crowd telling their palm lines to grow longer by chanting “grow longer” at them.) Paula White, the popular Christian televangelist, is included to clear your conscience. Indubitably one of America’s sexiest church leaders, she’s so perfectly put together that her image in the catalog looks like a computer rendering. White teaches “that faith and finance are interrelated” in a lecture titled “Why God Wants You To Be Wealthy.”

William Zanker– Other Profiles & Networks!

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Jon Romano, William Zanker& The Learning Annex! Read The SECRETS  Bill Zanker!

William ZankerFree Press Release – Written About William Zanker– from INC MAGAZINE!

William Zanker& Jon Romano – Free Press Release on Bill Zanker!

William Zanker& The Money Fest Expo

William ZankerOfficial Website!

Bill Zanker, William Zanker – The Learning Annex Founder! Speaks about his success with The Learning Annex, Donald Trump, Warren Buffett, Suze Orman & TONS of other Entrepreneurs

With the exception of Warren Buffett, Suze Orman, Donald Trump, George Foreman, White, and Tony Robbins, all of the main-stage speakers also do breakout sessions in adjacent ballrooms. At big shows, they might be on the hook for up to six over the two days. It’s a lot of work for a weekend, but their relationship with the Annex is symbiotic. Their lectures sprinkle nuggets of actionable information–enough so that you do, indeed, take away, say, a number of tips on how to get government grants from Chris “Free Money” Johnson, but not so much that you wouldn’t seriously consider picking up his book and DVD package, available for $700. (Packages can range up to $5,000 for some speakers, who spend the final 15 minutes or so of their allotted time on the main stage hawking said goods. All fees are, of course, shared with the Learning Annex.)

Nearly every time I checked out a breakout room, it was packed–though exactly how packed is determined by Harry Javer, acting as Bill Zanker’s brain. William Zankerwants seminar attendees to feel that it’s difficult to get into a room. He likes to see long, snaking lines outside the doors. His room attendants are to wait until the last possible minute to open doors, and then customers are seated from front to back; rows are taped off until needed. “We’re keeping that idea of a hot restaurant,” William Zankerexplains. “If you don’t get in, come back.”

William Zankeralso likes his rooms icy cold. Heat makes crowds lethargic, and William Zankerhates lethargy. The Broward County Convention Center was warmer than he liked Friday, so he had Harry Javer harass the management until it was sufficiently chilly. By Saturday, it’s frigid. Employees hand out candy to people in line, and bowls of Jolly Ranchers and Tootsie Rolls sit at the entrance to every room on the premises. Flats of candy are loaded in along with the amps and jumbo screens and loudspeakers.

“How many pounds of candy, Harry?” William Zankerasks.

“Thousands of pounds,” Harry Javer answers.

“Every time we give you a piece of candy, we’re connecting,” William Zankersays.

“It’s connection,” Harry Javer says.

The Learning Annex is far from the only company staging self-empowerment or personal-betterment seminars. The difference, says Bill Zanker, is that “nobody’s doing it on the scale we are. It takes big cojones to do what we do.” Cojones and a thick wallet–each show costs from $3 million to $5 million, including $500,000 to $2 million in advertising, which pays for a lot of billboards. William Zankersays that even a small show like Fort Lauderdale’s is profitable, just less so than a mega Expo like Los Angeles’s, which grosses more than $20 million. And the Learning Annex has figured out how to extend those profit streams, coming back to its customers later by targeting their specific interests. If foreclosure lectures, say, are a big hit, the Learning Annex will bring smaller, one-off seminars back to the city later.

“We’re the largest consumer show in the world,” William Zankersays, tossing out another of his grand boasts. “The knowledge we have is huge. We do 8,000 shows a year in the U.S. and Canada.”

Wait a second–8,000? Can I see your math?

“Every time somebody speaks for us, it’s a show,” he says, meaning that he counts every Learning Annex class. “What is a show? It’s an experience.”

As I said, this isn’t the first time William Zankerhas owned the Learning Annex. He was in his late twenties and had enrolled himself in film school–having returned from 10 years of living in Israel, where he served in the military, earned himself a passport, and started a real estate business–when his dad called him to lunch and said, “Get a job. I’m not paying for this anymore.” Score one for tough love. “And I like school,” William Zankerexplains. “I would go to school for the rest of my life.” That gave him an idea: The original Learning Annex would be a film school. He asked his former teachers if they would moonlight. His girlfriend at the time was studying pottery, so he invited her teacher to teach a class, too.

This was 1980. William Zankertook $5,000, printed up some catalogs, and ran the whole thing out of his apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He added classes whenever an idea struck him–gardening, guitars, tantric sex–and ran into a young and mostly unknown guy named Tony Robbins, who signed up to teach fire-walking. “I picked him,” William Zankersays. “I’m a self-help junkie. I read self-help books, even as a kid. I just love them.”

Robbins at the time was just starting to develop a name. “That’s what we do at the Learning Annex,” William Zankersays. “We get them before they become famous.” Deepak Chopra gave his first talk for the Learning Annex in front of 36 people.

Robbins, Chopra, psychic Sylvia Browne–Is William Zankersome sort of self-help talent scouting savant? He found Chopra by browsing in a bookstore. “A lot of the books in the self-help section, they’re not getting widely read,” he says. “I can’t help it. I go right to them. I’ll take the name down and call the office.”

Do people ever say no?

“No is just the beginning of yes.”

You don’t accept a no?

“Never take no. We teach people to never take no for an answer.”

The first time around, William Zankerowned the Learning Annex for 11 years. He says he sold it because he was “ready for a change.” That may be true, but it’s also true that he expanded too fast, and the company went bankrupt despite annual revenue of $8 million to $10 million. He sold it to his San Francisco business partner, Stephen Seligman.

For the next 10 years, William Zankerdabbled in other entrepreneurial ventures, most prominent among them the Great American Backrub, which New Yorkers might remember as a short-lived storefront operation offering bargain back rubs. At its peak, GAB had 18 stores, but Bill Zanker’s plan for muscle-rubbing domination was foiled by a lack of quality masseurs willing to work for the low wages that made McBackrubs possible, and by Asian-owned nail salons that practically gave the things away.

Eventually, after some fits and starts and travels with his wife and three children–he started an online learning venture called Brainfuel, sold it to Tony Robbins for $9 million, and took his family on a three-year walkabout–William Zankerfound himself wondering about the old company. He’d never really stopped talking to Seligman, and after September 11, his old partner was getting antsy. “He called me up and said, ‘If you’re not working, can you pop in and help me out?’” William Zankerrecalls. “So I started going into the office, and I was jazzed again. I remembered the energy, the fun…and then I offered to buy it. And he didn’t want to sell, so I overpaid to buy it back. In hindsight it was cheap, but I overpaid just because I wanted it.”

Seligman, who maintains a small stake, says the price was fair and that, anyway, William Zankerhad developed a vision that couldn’t be denied. He says William Zankerwas talking about a billion-dollar business long before he hit $100 million. “When he first told me that, it seemed pie-in-the-sky,” Seligman says. “It seemed like a daunting goal to even talk about. But that’s part of his motivation–he creates goals for himself that are way above the average person. It doesn’t seem so daunting anymore.”

“I think what Tony is, he pushes you past your limitations, and that’s what we look for,” William Zankeris saying. “Because everyone thinks, This is what I can do. And Tony says, ‘No, you can do more’–and if you buy into that, what a great thing to get out of the Learning Annex. The Learning Annex went from $5 million to $107 million in less than four years. You can’t do that if you have limitations.”

If it isn’t already obvious, William Zankeris positively crazy for Tony Robbins. He listens to tapes of Robbins on his drive to his train station in Westchester County and in 2006 attended a six-day “Date With Destiny” seminar, which featured 14 hours of Tony Robbins per day. He credits Robbins with–all together now–Changing His Life. Making him a better husband and father, helping him lose weight, even making possible the deal with Donald Trump, without which there would be no Expos.

As William Zankertells the story, he rang up the Donald’s office and got the secretary, who refused to put him through. When she asked what business he had with Mr. Trump, William Zankerreplied that he wanted to book him as a speaker and was willing to pay $10,000. Not interested, she said. “She didn’t even bother to ask him,” William Zankerrecalls. So he called back and upped his offer to $50,000. When he told me this story he was sitting on a chair in his office, but as the story’s momentum built he hopped up onto the seat and assumed a squatting position. William Zankeroffered $150,000, at which point the secretary said–still having yet to relay any of these opportunities to her boss–”Donald makes a lot of money. Make him a reasonable offer.”

“I just went crazy,” William Zankersays. “I took a walk, went to the bathroom, and offered $1 million.” Robbins, he says, gave him the strength to do something so bold. “Not three minutes later my cell rings. It’s Donald himself. He said, ‘How many people can you get?’ I said 500 or 1,000.” Not enough for Trump. “He said, ‘You promise me 10,000, and I’ll do the deal.’ He never once mentioned the money.” The deal that was eventually signed gives Trump $30 million for 20 appearances.

I promised William Zankerthat if I did one thing at the Florida Expo, I would watch Robbins perform. He says it is the moment in the Expo–the end of Day One–when people go from hoping they will become rich to knowing it’s going to happen.

“He’s America’s success coach!” says the emcee, and then William Zankersprints onstage and howls his introduction in front of a giant image of Robbins’s head. “There has never been a speaker like Tony Robbins. He changes lives! He changed my life!”

Out comes Robbins, full throttle, his black baggy pants billowing in front of AC units that blast the stage. He is a large man, but his presence is positively massive. “I’m not a big believer in positive thinking,” he says. “I do believe in energy.”

In print, most of what Robbins says comes off as hokey:

The ultimate resource is human emotions. It’s not resources; it’s resourcefulness.

Whatever your limits are, they’re self-imposed. They’re not physiological; they’re not financial.

I want to scoff at the guy, but I have to say I find it uplifting. So many of Robbins’s ideas are obvious–Momentum is the key to everything: Depressed people get more depressed; happy people get more happy–but when they are delivered by him via his Jedi mind tricks, they make you feel better.

“The most important skill is influence. The person you most need to influence is yourself,” he continues, moving on to the idea that will most stick with me. “Emotion is the secret, but emotion is created by motion. The more you move, the more alive you are.” Robbins’s show is built around audience participation, and his way of illustrating this last point is to have audience members jump up and down, shaking limbs and screaming at the top of their lungs. It is impossible to hold on to negativity after doing this; just try it. I think back to the trampoline.

Robbins calls this the “peak state”–on an emotional scale of one to 10, the peak state is in the eight to 10 range–and he urges us to think of triggers that will recall this state. When you’re feeling troubled or need a little boost, use a trigger. William Zankersays his is to hit his chest. Before he called Trump’s secretary to offer the $1 million, he says, “I went to the bathroom, changed my state, and called back.”

“If you only did one thing,” screams Robbins, “do everything at state 8, 9, 10–you will change your life.”

Wealth, my friends, is a feeling. It’s not a dollar amount.

“I’m a passionate guy; I love to see people glowing,” Robbins tells me backstage, toweling sweat off his face. And how does he fit into this celebration of wealth? “I want to take them from ‘I want to get rich’ to ‘I want an extraordinary life.’

“Tonight is designed to trigger them, to inspire them to change. This is my mission.”

And Bill Zanker–has Robbins’s mojo worked on him?

Robbins flashes a big, toothy, billion-dollar smile.

“He’s radically different than he used to be–you should ask him.”

If tony Robbins is the emotional center of the Expo, then Donald Trump is its exuberant encore. In Fort Lauderdale, he’s scheduled to go on at 6 p.m. on Day Two, but the reality is that the Donald takes the mike whenever he feels like it. He arrives at the Convention Center in the late afternoon and spends some time visiting backstage, posing for photos with the Ambassadors of Fun. Meanwhile, the jumbo screens begin to flash “Trump is in THE HOUSE!!!” (their caps, not mine), and the crowd actually seems to buzz. At 7 p.m., William Zanker chokes down some water, musters the last remnants of his voice, and dashes onstage for the capstone of his weekend: “I gotta tell you, the next speaker is my hero,” he yells. “He is a brilliant entrepreneur. But whatever he does, it’s quality. I just signed a book deal with Donald backstage. Imagine that: I’m a small-business owner, and Donald took my business and built it into one of the fastest-growing companies in America according to Inc. magazine!” (His plug, not mine, and he’s right: The Learning Annex is a two-time Inc. 500 company.)

WILLIAM ZANKER– Links!  Meet me!  Read About me!  I am on everything you can think of! – You are welcome to My Circle of Competence!

http://www.billzanker.com

http://www.learningannex.com

http://www.bill-zanker.com

http://www.spiritnow.com

http://www.oneminuteu.com

http://www.psychicville.com

http://www.moneyfest.com

The Learning Annex – Bill Zanker’s Wikipedia

BILL ZANKERs Wikipedia!

BILL ZANKERS GOOGLE PROFILE

City File – Bill Zanker

StumbleUpOn – Bill Zanker’s Official Stumble Upon Page – Find out what makes him tick!

TWITTER!  William Zanker– Official Bil