Bill Zanker Never Wants to Come Down

He's got Tony Robbins! He's got Donald Trump! And, man, has he got a positive outlook! Meet the founder of the Learning Annex, who might be having more fun than anyone else in business today.

Bill Zanker knows what you're thinking. He knows that you paid $99 or $149 or, if you absolutely had to have the VIP package, $499 to come here, to the Broward County Convention Center, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to figure out how to get rich. By signing up for this two-day installment of the Learning Annex Real Estate & Wealth Expo, you have told him that you want a change. You are here to make contacts, to be taught how to lower your tax burden, to study the art of flipping houses, to unravel the mystery of federal grant programs, or most probably just to learn how to make a fortune from real estate like all the guys on the cardboard cutouts posted around the lobby. If Chris "Free Money" Johnson can do it, so can you. So here you are, at 7:50 a.m. on a sunny Saturday, standing in a long line next to some potted palms while your friends are Saran-wrapping sandwiches for the beach.

At 8 a.m., a single door to the convention center's main exhibition hall swings open, and the opening guitar fuzz of Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild" blasts into the lobby. Inside, attractive men and women in tight shorts and tighter shirts imprinted with "FUN" in bold red letters form a high-fiving phalanx through which all seminar attendees must pass. Every Learning Annex worker, every usher and guard and Ambassador of Fun (as these tight-shirted people are known) stands along the center aisle, high-fiving patrons while dancing to Gwen Stefani and the Black Eyed Peas.

And there is Zanker, off to the side, circling a pillar like a dog that's about to lie down. He dances awkwardly but unselfconsciously, almost in time with the song, then bobs into the line of patrons, delivering high-fives with great verve. Zanker is founder and president of the Learning Annex and the ringmaster of this circus. "We change people's attitudes," the 53-year-old says as he points to a man about to pass through the door. "Look at this guy. Watch his face." The man in question looks like someone who is about to enter a seminar, which is to say his face is absent of expression. A few high-fives later, he's practically giggling. Up onstage, some of the more comely Ambassadors of Fun have reassembled and are gyrating wildly along with members of the audience and a guy wearing a giant Donald Trump bobblehead that seems perpetually on the verge of tumbling off. There are balloons and streamers and ThunderStix, all of them in the red and white colors of the Learning Annex. Six jumbo screens display inspirational sports moments carefully targeted to local tastes--the Miami Heat wins the NBA championship! The Florida Marlins win the World Series!--intercut with close-ups of crisp, green $100 bills.

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. Zanker absolutely 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 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 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. Zanker is 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 Zanker's estimation, impossible to be grumpy or stressed or to possess negative thoughts of any kind while bouncing on a trampoline.

 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6  NEXT