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, Zanker owned 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, Zanker dabbled 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 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--Zanker found 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?" Zanker recalls. "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, Zanker had developed a vision that couldn't be denied. He says Zanker was 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," Zanker is 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, Zanker is 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 Zanker tells 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, Zanker replied 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," Zanker recalls. 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. Zanker offered $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," Zanker says. "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 Zanker that 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 Zanker sprints 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.
