No Time Left for You?

Do you ever feel like there's no time left for you?

I have felt that way most of my adult life. I could hear that song in my mind No Time left for you. . .

Press play if you haven't heard it or want to hear it again.

When I turned 50 I calculated I was more like 82 based on the hours that I worked. (avg 60 to 100 per week) & I am now back at that pace 20 years later.

It is playing in my mind once again.

But this time I'm on a Mission because I have something I want t give you before it is too late.

More people to talk to than time to talk them has been the story of my life since the late 60's, not long after I learned marketing. That may sound like a good marketing problem to have, but it's not.

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When I retired for the first time in my late 40's prior to 9-11 I as the youngest of the Anchor Founding Fathers after I took some time to relax, recharge, & refresh with my wife I started thinking about how to adapt what we had built so it could continue for generations without the need for large offices and massive overhead like we had before I retired.

I did this to keep my commitment to our Sr. Founding Father who retired in 1981 just over a year after he and I founded our Mortgage Company that grew from 2 guys with briefcases working out of a small 600 sq ft office we sublet month to month, to 70 full time L/Os and over $100,000,000.00 our first year when we ended up in a 8,000 sq ft office that took up half of the top floor in an atrium building.

I know now how we can do better than that, but you have to get in as an Associate while you still can.

All prices went up on January 1, 2023 to improve the Associate opportunity since an Associate is required to assist new Clients and we are planning our Grand Reopening to new Associates & New Clients.

I remember sitting down talking with my mother on a visit about a year after she retired, and I asked her how she was was enjoying her retirement, she said she was so busy she didn't know how she ever found time to work.

I didn't understand her comment at that time, but I do now.

My mother was the head of payroll for a trucking company for 40+ years, she was forced to retire when the company filed for bankruptcy.

Her experience can be a good lesson to people with a conventional job.

My mother started out as a payroll clerk in the trucking company, which was the same one my father and grandfather had worked for. Over time she was promoted to be the head of the Chicago terminal payroll department.

In order to get the promotion she was told she would have to leave the union and become management.

The job came with a raise and a salary instead of hourly + overtime.

At first she turned them down because even with a decent raise, with the hours she had been working she was already earning more than the offered raise with her overtime which she would no longer receive if she accepted it.

Interestingly enough, recently my middle daughter who works for a non profit care facility was recently offered a promotion to Program Director on a similar basis, she turned it down for the same reason. (plus she remembered what happened to Grandma)

My mother's office manager and the Vice President that ran the Chicago terminal who were both friends of hers, talked her into taking the promotion assuring her she would get some help so she could work less hours.

The reality was payroll had to get out on time, and although she did get some more help that they had promised, it wasn't enough, and her hours did not improve much, if any.

In my preteen and early teenage years I would help her because she frequently brought work home. I didn't mind because I was earning near union scale from home before I was even 16.

I also got to work part time at the Chicago terminal when the Terminal was moving from Chicago to the suburbs, and at the suburban terminal for some time after they moved in.

When the trucking industry went through struggles in later years and the company eventually went BK, because the pension fund was mismanaged, after 40 some odd years of work my mother ended up with a pension of slightly over $100 per month.

Job security? No such thing.

The only security you have is what you create for yourself, and thankfully my mother and father both did well in that department.

The only security you have is what you create.

In planning for our Grand Reopening to New Associates and New Clients I believe we will rival and greatly surpass our original launch of our Mortgage Company which after over $100,000,000.00 our first year we had our first $100,000,000,00 month before the start of our 2nd year.

There are a number of stories and lessons to learn from that part of our evolution that I will address later as time allows.

For now, I know with absolute certainty that we have the potential to greatly surpass what we did in our mortgage company launch, however we wont have the capacity to do it unless and until we onboard at least 30 new Associates fairly quickly to help out.

One of the things some of the new Associates will be tasked with is responding quickly to new associate candidates applying to our various open roles and getting to know them.

That is a critical step in The Process that we have nobody filling right now as everybody that is an existing Associate has their plate more than full, and like me, are not adding any new members to their teams at this time.

That provides a great opportunity for you as an associate candidate to be on the fast track to become a Team Leader with a lot of upward potential if you are reasonably competent.

Ideally a new candidate inquiry should be contacted ASAP by an Associate who is currently recruiting more Associates to add to their team so they can get to know the candidate, who they are, their situation, what they are seeking, & why, what they bring to table, and what they lack.

The candidate should get a brief overview of Anchor and the Associate role and either be invited for an orientation to learn more or dismissed from consideration based on mutual interest.

The Objective is to determine if you feel good enough about the candidate, and if the candidate fells good enough about you and Anchor to try a 90 day part time U Earn While U Learn training and probation period to find out if there is a good fit.

Having personally interviewed thousands of candidates in office and/or approved them to take the next step (orientation) over the years I would not pay much attention to the resumes which all started looking the same after a while.

Your resume tells me what you've done, while I do want to know that, I'm more concerned with Who You Are, than I am with what you've done. Because you haven't done what we do.

As a team leader you will (or should) want to know who your candidates are also.

Who Are You?

We do really want to know who you are and what you want to achieve.

We really do.

I don't believe the 'Who are You' song by the Who was even out when I was first learning The Process. The first step of the 2nd '3 Step Process' in The Process was the initial in office interview if the candidate passed the phone screen interview.

Play the first minute or so of it, it should sound familiar if you've seen CSI, it's a good song that was the last of era for the Who.

I believe with absolute certainty that we we absolutely need to reinstate The Process and have new candidates learn it in order to assure the highest of new Associate success.

I know I am grateful I learned it. If you are fortunate enough to get in to one of the 3 Beta Groups that I will facilitate you will be thankful too.

While there is no such thing as try, you either do or you don't do something, there is no try.

Try to pick up your coffee cup . . . you can't . . . you either pick it up or you don't.

It's the start that stops most people. Don't let that stop you. Start now.

That's why you must commit to a 90 day part time trial where when you start U can Earn and Learn before you make a full time commitment.

You still have a chance to get on the inside with our U Earn While U Learn Training & Probation Period once you are ready to commit to it.

We are at the start of what will be one of the biggest wealth transfers in history, and You have a chance to be a participant in the profits when you commit as you will soon learn.

Do it now or regret it later.

People change when they’re forced to change.

But there is moral virtue in pushing yourself into the unknown before you are forced there.

There’s a scripture that says, “Anything not done in faith is sin.”

Some part of your life should always be “out on a limb of faith.”

Helen Keller once said, “The fearful are caught as often as the bold.”

Neil Young put it this way: “It’s better to burn out than it is to rust.”

In Taylor Pearson’s great book The End of Jobs, there is a passage where he talks about “Extremistan.” Living in Extremistan always feels dangerous, but people who don’t live in Extremistan and settle for Mediocristan get laid off from a corporate job at age 55 and never find a better job the rest of their life.

Over the years I've interviewed plenty of people in that position and provided them with a viable option.

In the same book, he quotes Nassim Nicholas Taleb:

“Consider a turkey that is fed every day. Every single feeding will firm up the bird's belief that it is the general rule of life is to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race. But on the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief.”

If you’re waiting to be in sufficient pain before you evolve and implement systems for changing your system you’re the turkey waiting to be chopped.

I'm no turkey so I've got them started, but I need your help to finish

You will profit from deals you work on with seasoned people doing all the things you can't do yet which is most things when you're brand new. Sounds like free money to me, be sure to say thank you.

Commit now and thank me later.

Joe

P.S. I've been fortunate I learned some Real Estate, Finance, and Marketing lessons starting at a very early age and as a result have had more people to talk to than time to talk to them since the late 60's and can share some of those principles with those of you that would like to lead a team.

You only need to be 1 step ahead to lead a team.

The Commitment Fee went to $750 on 1-1-23. It is still covered by our Tuition Reimbursement Program.

Procrastination is the Assassin of your Destination.

Don't let your procrastination cheat you out of the life you want.

Commit - Do it Now! Commit

More people to talk to than time to talk to them sounds like a good marketing problem to have.

But it's not.

And it's compounded by more things to do than time to do them.

Neither are good, but both are easy to fix.

Add more people & divide up the work.

That's probably what brought you here, you responded to one of our open roles where our proprietary 90 day Part time U Earn While U Learn Basic Training & probation period can get you from unconsciously incompetent to consciously. competent during that 90 days.

More people to talk to than time to talk to them sounds like a good marketing problem to have.

But it's not, and it's easy to solve once you join us.

And we're tired of waiting for you as the Kinks song above implies, another song that popped into my mind. Go ahead and play it.

It's good 60's music with a good message.

You don't get a 2nd chance to make a good first impression and when a new inquiry comes in and there is nobody available to answer questions you had your chance and blew it.

Unfortunately that is what is happening to our new associate candidates right now. Maybe even you.

Even worse, the same thing is happening to new potential client inquiries. Which is costing you money and you don't even know it.

That needs to change ASAP, and it will be up to you and the other new associate trainees to drive that change over the short term as our existing Associates are listening to the song 'Love the one you're with' as they should be.

This does provide you with a great opportunity as as Associate Candidate, once you commit, get on the inside, and start your U Earn While U Learn training & probation period, you will be able to profit from some of the backlog with seasoned people doing what you can't do yet while you Learn and Earn in the process.

Who knows, you could end up talking to someone who wants or needs to become Client using one or more of our Programs and ends up going on to do quite a few deals over the next few years.

That is your Client for Life and you will earning from all of those deals with seasoned people that have your back and your Client's back while U Learn and Earn.

You will get to unconscious competence quite quickly with a little practice.

But we are tired of waiting for you so it's time you commit or move on.

I've invested far too much time and money in tools that would be of use to new Associates over the last 11 years to save you the expense of buying your own until your earnings can justify it.

I will stop doing that until we get the first 2 or 3 new trainee classes behind us and promote a Training Manager.

That gives you a big opportunity.

It was recently announced that ChatGPT surpassed 100 Million users, in only two months.

That's the fastest that any app has hit that milestone. It took Instagram over 2 years, and it took TikTok 9 months.

Why did it grow so fast?

One word: automation.

Everyone is looking to automate various aspects of their business and their lives.

The problem is, there is a lot of misinformation about it, and there are currently hundreds of millions of people trying to FIGURE OUT HOW TO USE IT. So . . .

We've created a ChatGpt Masterclass teaching you how to use ChatGPT to increase your productivity and make more money.

It's a good thing ChatGPT wasn't invented yet when I was in school.

ChatGPT can instantly spit out essays, & more and since I'm all about automation, I probably never would have learned to write for myself!

So no, ChatGPT didn't write this! But it can write a pretty good email, or copy pf most any kind, maybe better than this.

Overall, I wouldn't say ChatGPT is overrated. It really can do an awful lot.

Thankfully, there are ways to implement it in your business even if you're not a programmer and you don't know anything about using AI.

You can learn from this course to create content to boost your business, or for profit since many people your need content of 1 type or another and don't have the time, talent or tools to produce it.

Click here to learn more.

"It’s the start that stops most people".

Don't be one of them.

And don't procrastinate.

Procrastination is the assassin of your destination.

Commit & Do it Now!

There are 158.94 million people employed in the United States …

85% of these employees are ‘“disengaged” in the workplace, according to a leading think tank’s State Of the Global Workplace report.

Eighty-five per cent!

How many are on the human hamster wheel?

If you feel like you are stuck in a human hamster wheel we can get you out when you commit.

Imagine how good you will feel when you are fully engaged and making a difference.

Work really can be fun when you are making a difference.

Especially when you can Go Your Own Way.

We started the Fleetwood Mac live recording of Go Your Own Way at the 1 minute mark after their opening jam. They closed the show in 1997 with this song, enjoy it.

Go Your Own Way is more than just a great Fleetwood Mac song, it's the freedom and flexibility you will have as an Associate to go your own way with our Programs and Private Deal Platform.

Once you commit and enter our proprietary 90 day part U Earn While U Learn Basic Training & Probation Period where you will receive a brief exposure to most all of our programs, some of our forms, and basic principles after which you can choose to Go your own way.

You can initially choose to specialize in the 2 or 3 Programs that resonate with you the most, but you do get full access to, and the ability to profit from the whole 'house' of Programs.

We used to encourage our Associates to go their own way after they had mastered enough to build the life they wanted on their own.

Many of them did and that is one of the reasons we've had a hard time getting long time Associates to assist with recruiting new associate candidates.

Can't really blame them, if you are not adding people to your team there is no reason to screen associate candidates that will end up on someone else's team.

It is the Team Leaders that are adding to their teams that should do the screening and build the relationship.

With our upcoming Grand Reopening right now you have a great opportunity to become an almost instant Team Leader and build a team that will never be better.

Back to the first few years after I retired for the 1st time (before 9-11) and not long after the Fleetwood Mac show above the song I kept hearing in my head was Too Much Time on My Hands by Styx.

Press play if you haven't heard it or want to hear it again.

This was after a 30 day+ vacation to Arizona & Hawaii from early February to mid March where my wife Sandy & I left with winter coats in the snow and returned in short sleeves to great Chicago weather. Picture above was from our first Hawaii leg om Oahu. (reminded me of my 6 month+ stint in Jamaica in 79/80 on a resort project) There are a couple of great stories from then we'll get to later.

I loved this song because I did have too much time on my hands which was very unusual after 60 to 100 hour work weeks.

I also enjoy everything by Styx since they used to play regularly for my high school dances back when they were the TW4 before they added a couple of members and became Styx in 1972.

Yes, we had dances back in the 60's those were the days before concerts became the thing.

Those were the days of the 'Wild Goose' a local dance/concert venue sponsored by a local radio station, where with a $2 admission I got to see people like, Steppenwolf, Vanilla Fudge, the Bob Seger System, the Spencer Davis Group featuring Steve Winwood, & more.

Not long after TW4 became Styx I joined the core group of what would become Anchor in the mid 70's when we were marketing a Townhouse project at a resort property in Lake Geneva Wisconsin.

The Lake Geneva project was so successful due to the way our offsite office was marketing it that as we were nearing sell out, the resort owner decided to build additional townhouses and asked us if we would do the same thing for his resort in New Jersey.

Our New York offsite office started the Commitment Fee policy addition to The Process which greatly improved efficiency and sales.

We set some records in the process and had a very smooth running operation for a while, until our Sr. Founding Father called a managers meeting.

Wait til you hear what happened when he pushed the button on his laugh box. More on that later.

So the songs in my head were soon back to No Time Left For You along with the current hits.

Once I started working on the plans for a rebirth to allow future generations to access our Programs, Platforms, & Resources to keep my commitment to the Sr Founding Father the next song that I couldn't get our of my head was Change the World by 10 Years After.

See the playlist below to hear it

You should enjoy some of the music I added here.

As I started formulating the plan I knew it's core needed to be based on The Process, which is what we used on all of our projects.

It was not long before the song in my head became Taking Care of Business by Bachman Turner Overdrive.

See playlist below.

Of course with my work ethic No Time Left for You made plenty of reappearances.

They say music is the story of our lives and I suppose that does ring true to an extent, I do enjoy music having lived through the 50's, 60s, 70s, and 80s which saw a great evolution in music.

In the 70s I went to a small coffee house in Westmont to see Ted Nugent which would never happen today.

Once I started this page after I started adding some content it dawned on me that this could become a good page to add some stories about the Anchor evolution that would prove useful.

So it will turn into a work in progress that will be under construction for quite a while due to my very limited time and the fact that I'm the last one working that has any first hand knowledge of our evolution and The Process that we used as we evolved.

One important thing to make note of is our FAQ has a lot of info you need and is one of the pages I work on with my very limited time.

In the early years we worked on a lot of projects so we would have regular inventory to market because real estate prices were so low at the time which made marketing a 1 of a kind property like a house to a buyer which is akin to trying to find a needle in the haystack, and hardly worth the effort when there are other options.

So developed land, condo projects, condo conversions, town houses in a development, and recreational property were easier to market as there was more inventory to sell and a bigger pool of buyers to sell to.

One challenge with taking on the marketing of projects is; the better we do our job the sooner we don't have one because the project would sell out.

So we would have to look for another project, or be fortunate enough to have 1 waiting in the wings, which we did where we could and had more often than not unless we got caught by surprise which did happen a couple of times I'll tell you about later.

Which was a more productive process when coupled with investment property where the prices are higher, buyers are investors who could do multiple deals over 1 or more years rather than home buyers that don't usually buy more than 1 or change more often than 7 years on average.

Note: The paragraph above is one of the major keys to our longevity and success.

Apartment buildings were what we specialized in although we did do hotels, mixed use, shopping centers, and strip centers too.

I can do some training on apartment buildings if I get enough interest from new Associates that want to learn about this very profitable niche when it's done right, that can be a poor paying job and money sucking siphon when it's not.

Since that was my specialty for many years you will not want to miss an opportunity to learn how to profit from apartments while avoiding the hidden pitfalls that can cost you dearly.

I strongly encourage you to learn about apartment investing which will take some time and money to do and I can assure you that it is time and money well spent when done properly.

Due to the current market conditions I have been asked if we could have a real estate syndication the Associates and Clients could participate in that would allow them to share in the benefits.

My answer was only if we could do it right and have enough interest from Associates and Clients including new ones.

To do it right I would envision it strategically building to the following goals to make it worthwhile;

Initial Goal: 10,000 Doors

Mid Point Goal: 25,000 Doors

Maintenance Point: 50,000 Doors

It will obviously take some time to get there, but far less time than you would imagine.

We will be buying the same type of buildings my Clients & I will be; A Class well located & managed 64 Doors & up, ideally 128 doors & more.

I have also been requested to put together some training on Apartment Investing which I have agreed to do.

The final course will be a $10,000 product because of the incredible value it will bring. We may or may not make financing available.

We will have 3 to 5 beta groups that I will facilitate so we can have a good base of questions and answers to include in the final course.

See: REI1

The image below shows some of the Advantages available with quality Real Estate Investment.

I got an email from Grant Cardone who is a testament to the Advantages of Real Estate Investment a few weeks ago that said;

"I saw an interesting study this morning.

The researchers surveyed more than 3,000 college students on 29 campuses across the country.

Then they compared those survey answers with standardized test results of the same students.

Those standard tests gauged the students’ critical thinking skills… analytical reasoning skills… and writing skills.

And the survey/test combination had some shocking results…

It showed that after 2 years in college, nearly HALF the students had learned basically nothing.

Nothing!

And after 4 years - 36% of them had still learned nothing.

Which means even after graduating from a 4-year program… more than 1 out of every 3 people hadn’t learned a damned thing - even though they spent tens of thousands of dollars to learn something.

These weren’t “dumb” students either. Their average GPA was 3.2. Meaning the kids aren’t the problem - the education system is."

Boy did he hit the nail on the head.

In The Week (9/2/22), Managing Editor Mike Gemein wrote:

"In red states... the very notion of education as anything more than training for efficient work is treated with contempt."

The implication: the primary objective of a college education is to prepare you for a well-paying job. Lewis Black says as much in the Justin Long film Accepted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz79FysXPJQ

Majors commonly viewed as able to achieve that goal include engineering ... computer science ... pre-med ... accounting ... and psychology.

But the problem today is that the cost of a college education is out of control.

For instance, a 4-year undergraduate degree at some IvyLeague and (what Newsweek has dubbed) New Ivy League schools can run a quarter of million dollars or higher.

As a result, a large number of these graduates need an immediate job and income to start paying back hefty student loans right away.

Now, here are just a few of the reasons why some people are saying No and choosing to forgo college:

First, it costs a frigging fortune.

Second, it takes a lot of time and effort.

Third, it delays entry into the real-world of work.

Fourth, certain fields of study are not promising for finding a good job.

Fifth, some college students party too much -- do not take their studies seriously -- and in so doing fritter away daddy's and mommy's money.

President Calvin Coolidge was especially skeptical of the notion that getting a college degree would ensure a person's success.

He famously said of higher education: "The world is full of educated derelicts."

But what do you think -- should people go to college? -- or instead get a job? ... or start a business?

I learned the education lesson before I even entered high school by observation, paying attention, listening, and reading, I kept the curiosity from my childhood.

I remember my Marketing Class teacher in high school was one of my favorites, and one of his favorite topics was to rant about was how most people stop learning when they no longer “have” to learn.

He whispered that there were 40- and 50-year-old faculty members who hadn’t read a single book or learned a single thing since they left school.

Here’s the ironic thing about our higher education institutions.

Because they force you to read so much boring, irrelevant, and poorly-written dreck, they murder your curiosity.

Who would want to keep learning if learning means doing that for the rest of your life? Sounds like a prison sentence.

In fact, that’s exactly how a lot of Americans view the education they get in college. Something to be endured and tolerated and death-marched through…until they finally release you with their approval and pricey piece of paper.

Rather than spurring your intellectual hunger, they stuff you full of bland crusty slices of bread. And you become jaded, bloated, numb. And a little bit proud. “I now have a degree in English literature". And the last thing I ever want to do is read another book about English literature!

But that’s not how kids are. Kids are curious about everything. So, if you can somehow not get bloated and jaded…and keep that curious hunger alive….

If I wanted to discover something new, that would require experimentation, conjecture, speculation, and probably more than a few mistakes. So an ‘A’ in school became the enemy of curiosity. The arch-enemy of intellectual discovery.

Most people give in to that system. The system that says the end is more important than the means. The product is more important than the process. The piece of fancy paper is more important than actually discovering something new and exciting.

And your natural curiosity withers and dies on the vine.

For most of the past century or more, that was OK. If you got a degree and paid attention in your first few years on the job, you could actually make a good living in this world solely on what you learned up to age 30.

Then you could coast.

Because everyone bought into the system and nobody wanted to upset the status quo. People just did what they were told. They cranked away on their little human hamster wheel.

But that’s not the case anymore.

If you just surf along in the 21st century, you’ll either get swallowed by the sharks or you’ll crash in the giant wave of the next economic tsunami.

Coasters get crushed.

Real compound interest accrues to you when you keep learning, keep climbing that ladder as aggressively as you can. Even when you’re 35, and 40, and 45, and 50, and 55, and 60. Sometimes it takes years for this “compound interest” to hit pay dirt.

But it always does, if you keep investing in it.

So I was bored in school, started working early, learned what I could and then advanced rapidly.

But this is not about me, it's about you and what you can accomplish as an Associate and in life once you learn The Process that has generated multiple billions of dollars in sales, kept us going for almost 50 years, and is product and service agnostic. (i.e. adaptable to most any quality product or service no gimmicks, tricks, or junk)

Specialized education is far more valuable to you than what a conventional school system education provides you, (especially in real estate) and we can supply you with a good specialized education, and help you implement it before you graduate.

We have a proven step by step process that you can utilize to profit from and learn from with people that know what they're doing that have your back and can do what you can't do yet.

That process includes helping you define and create the plan to achieve your Personal, Professional, and Financial goals which has always been baked into our DNA and helps provide the longevity.

It's there for you when you are ready to commit to it. But don't blame me if you don't take advantage of it.

December brings the Holiday Season, the 1st day of Winter and surprisingly historically represents one of the biggest business months of the year for us. (along with quite a few other businesses)

Earth, Wind, & Fire celebrates December in the video above with a song inspired by their hit September.

December ends up as one of the biggest months of the year for a number of reasons;

The before year end tax advantages

New plans for the New Year

The Holiday Spirit

The why doesn't matter but history validates the trend.

December of 2022 brought my 70th birthday toward the end of the month. I was born in time to give my parents a tax deduction for the whole year.

In the month of December of 1979 we got another big surprise we were not ready for.

Do you remember what happened in December of 1979?

If you lived though it you will recall it was a fairly eventful period of time.

Historical Events for December, 1979

3rd » In Cincinnati, Ohio, 11 fans are suffocated in 1979 The Who concert disaster a crush for seats on the concourse outside U.S. Bank Arena Riverfront Coliseum before a The Who Who concert.

3rd » Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini becomes the first Supreme Leader of Iran.

9th » The eradication of the smallpox virus is certified, making smallpox the first and to date only human disease driven to extinction.

23rd » Soviet war in Afghanistan: Soviet Union forces occupy Kabul, the Afghanistan named Afghan capital.

27th » The Soviet Union Soviet war in Afghanistan or The Soviet Union invades the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

Because of he Soviet war in Afghanistan and related factors we had:

The “Price of Gold” go from $380/oz. in November 1979 to $850oz. in January 1980.

The 1979 inflation rate was 11.35%. The inflation rate in 1980 was 13.50%.

Late in 1980, interest rates were pushed back up, and the funds rate averaged over 19% in June 1981. A new recession began in July, one that saw the unemployment rate reach almost 11% by the end of 1982. By that time, though, inflation, which had averaged 14.6% in the year from May 1979 to April 1980, had fallen below 4%.

All were fairly eventful, but before we give you the consequences of some of those events that had us rattled, let's back up to our first big surprise.

The first big surprise we had came when our Lake Geneva and New Jersey resort projects were thriving and we were waiting for the announcement of the construction start date for more townhouses.

Here comes the first appearance of the laugh box.

When the Managers meeting that was called for the anticipated announcement, our Sr. Founding Father sat there stone faced for what seemed like 20 minutes, until the room got quiet.

Once he had silence, he raised his hand high, and slammed it down hard on his laugh box that played loud laughs for about 2 minutes.

Once it stopped the room got quiet quickly.

Still stone faced he said I got the call I was waiting for from the developer . . . about when they were going to break ground on the new townhouses . . . and the , answer is, they're not . . . . . . . . . they decided to put all their resources into opening a casino instead.

We will be fully sold out by the end of next month, and we have no backup project ready to go. So . . . & he hit the laugh box again.

So we'll be out of work until we find another project to market.

Totally unexpected, we were totally blind sided, but we rolled up our sleeves and went to work selling out our remaining inventory, scouting viable projects, and searching for better office space.

As LUCK would have it, (LUCK is Labor Under Correct Knowledge) our core management team came up with 3 or more viable project and office candidates in just over 30 days.

We had just accomplished the birth of what would become Anchor out of the dust of remains of the Lake Geneva and New Jersey Resort projects we marketed.

Our next resort project was the Dragon Bay Villas and Resort in Port Antonio Jamaica which was not only an absolutely beautiful property, our Sr. Founding Father negotiated a tremendous deal that included building additional Villas on the property so we wouldn't run out of inventory prematurely.

Dragon Bay is pictured below.

It took some time to get all the details of the contract hammered out, and the office opened.

We kept our core people but lost most of our part time Associates who had to find other part time work.

Our Chicago offsite crew went down from a high of almost 700 to just over a dozen that were able to hang on and hang in there after our income source dried up.

Our Lake Geneva Project was so successful for 2 reasons, first it was a nice property with good amenities, and good pricing, and mostly because offsite we ran a 2 step sale, unlike onsite that had a 1 step sale.

So obviously we chose to use the same 2 Step sale model to market Dragon Bay with some logistic modifications due to the distance. (i.e. fly vs drive)

So where we had a 2 Day 1 Night 'Buy & Dive' for the Playboy Resort & Country Club in Lake Geneva WI. (the developer of the Lake Geneva & New Jersey Resorts)

We went to a '4 Day 3 Night Buy & Fly' for the Dragon Bay Property.

The primary reason our 2 Step sale was so successful is it was a relaxed no pressure transaction. Step 1 was an educational preview seminar where our guests could learn about the resort, the amenities, facilities, and available options, and make a reservation for an inspection if they were interested.

We found that depending on the project any where from 42% to 68% of the guests would purchase with the 2 Step sale where with the onsite 1 step sale crew would get anywhere from 8% to 17% to purchase.

We got our office open and started hosting Associate Orientations and Preview seminars for prospects and started booking 4 day 3 night inspection tours.

We were booking our inspection tours farther out since they were longer and some guests wanted to combine it with a vacation.

Shortly before our first inspection tour was due to depart a 6'5" well dressed man walked in and asked to speak to the boss.

At that time my girlfriend (now wife) was our receptionist, so she checked and showed him in.

She buzzed me and told me an attorney who was not expected just went into Johnny's office. (our S Founding Father)

One of the updated Bay View rooms is pictured below,

After the 3 hour+ meeting was over and the attorney left, Johnny buzzed Kathy our office manager and asked her to have the managers come to his office in 5 minutes.

As we assembled in his office he sat there stone faced. Once we were all in he said "the man that just left is an attorney who represents some of the largest investors on the island of Jamaica and is close with the Prime Minister."

He said that they know what we did with the Playboy resort and suggest that if we don't want our guests detained overnight or longer when they arrive in Jamaica that we drop the Dragon Bay project and instead market 4 of the NHP properties, 2 in Montego Bay and 2 in Ocho Rios to start.

Needless to say we were all in shock, and had a lot of questions. NHP is short for National Hotels and Properties a Jamaican government owned body that owned 40% of the hotels on the island and were acquiring more.

They had blacklisted the owner of the Dragon Bay Resort and did not want the project we negotiated to succeed or us to be involved in it.

They wanted to us our expertise on the 4 designated properties in Montego Bay and Ocho Rios starting immediately.

We were between a rock and a hard place and didn't have much of a choice.

So after a few days of internal discussions and conferences with the attorney and NHP officials I was selected to lead the project, take 3 other team members, and move to Jamaica.

I decided on taking my Assistant Program Director and 2 other team members with me on a one way trip to Jamaica with government work Visas, a small Jamaican base salary with Commissions paid directly to our US bank accounts.

As the team leader I was also given 'power of the pen' at all NHP properties and a crew of Jamaican sales associates to direct.

The 4 NHP properties we were assigned to market were: The Holiday Inn and the Rosehall Intercontinental in Montego Bay and the Hyatt and Intercontinental in Ocho Rios.

This all took place in August and September of 1979 and our crew of 4 lead by me landed in Jamaica in early October 1979 to see what we were up against.

Flying into Montego Bay was our first scary experience as the short run way ends abruptly and it appears the plane will land in the Caribbean sea.

The Montego Bay Holiday Inn Resort is pictured below.

The Ocho Rios Intercontiental is the one in the distance The Hyatt is next to it and the 4 buildings are the Turtle Towers apartments and condos where our team stayed. A short walk on the beach to the 2 Hotel Properties and where the cruise ships docked.

The long bus ride from Montego Bay to Ocho Rios was a little scary too, on the 'wrong side' of a narrow road, through a 'shanty town', dodging goats and other vehicles and when we arrived at the Hyatt property we were greeted by the 'Warning Sleeping Policeman' sign which we quickly found out meant speed bump.

This video and the music by Peter Tosh is worth a listen. Reggae and specifically this song is a great intro to 3 or 4 stories from just after the birth of Anchor you will definitely want to hear about.

It may take some to add them, but they will come.

While we were stationed in Jamaica that song was #1 and would play quite regularly.

Our first month or two took some getting used to, but we managed and made due the best we could with what we were given to work with.

That is until December

With the big run up in interest rates and gold after the Russians invaded Afghanistan sales took a big nose dive as a result of the change in our process we had to make to accommodate the wishes of the Jamaican government.

With limited direct communication to the US or upper level Jamaican officials and no return ticket we felt trapped and wondered if or when we would get off of the island.

Keep in mind this is 1979, land lines are expensive if not local, cell phones are still 2 or 3 years out.

See: https://flauntdigital.com/blog/evolution-mobile-phones/#content_4

And with very limited notice we sent 2 of our top Program Directors and their top Assistant Program Director to a third world nation on the verge of a revolution on a one way ticket after a not so veiled threat from a heavily politically connected 6'4" + Attorney.

What could possibly go wrong?

Ever heard of Murphy's Law? . . .

. . . What ever can go wrong will go wrong.

Most every in has, and it's real.

If you are not already on the inside, you're probably not familiar with Dorner's Law . . .

. . . Murphy was an Optimist

The full 'buk in hamm palace' song is below.

Changing conditions require changing focus . . .

You can click the image above if you have a deal to provide info to us so we can help you captialize on it.

We have had to change focus multiple times over the last 50 years as market conditions changed.

December of 1979 was 1 example and December of 2022 is the most recent one.

To learn what it can mean for you and fill in some of the blanks you will have to commit & attend basic training, and 1 or more of the beta groups that Joe will be facilitating.

your Associate Commitment fee has been raised to $750 for 2023 as you will see on the commit page.

A change that was long overdue that will help you more than you can imagine.

Since the market conditions are favorable for acquiring apartment buildings just like it was in 1980 not long after we got back from Jamaica and the reason we launched our mortgage company a lot more focus is on Apartment Building acquisitions by our existing Advisors, Associates, & Clients.

In today's market our focus is on better buildings for cash flow and passive income distributions. Where in 1980 & 81 it was more on 24 to 36 unit buildings that would be good candidates for condo conversion within a short period of time.

Revenue is greater when you sell by the slice rather than by the whole.

Our pricing for the Apartment Investing Course and Beta Groups is below.

$397 Apartment Investment Beta Group 1

Each beta group will have 1 new focus topic and different questions and answers from the participants, and each will receive a copy of the video recording of the sessions.

Once you have paid for and attended your first Beta group you will be able to join the next in the series for only $100 to gain additional information and insights.

We will extend the same policy to The Process Beta groups.

I believe the future price of both courses will double or more shortly after they are edited and published due to the value they will provide.