TollGate Riches an easy way to make money by just connecting people

• Finally a move away from fun stuff and into big business (this was in 1996).  A friend calls me and asks if I would like to salvage one of his branch offices in the mortgage business
• I’m on a roll so I see little risk in giving it a shot…besides I know a little about the business so it would be an excellent challenge to test my skills in a new industry
• My job was to motivate a bunch of old over the hill loan agents…LOL

 So not knowing any better I set out to do just that and gave it my all for 18 months.  In just 18 months I had turned one of the worst performing offices out of the 20 or so California offices into one of the best performing offices.  How did I do that?  I used and put in place various tactics that brought in more agents, moved to a large office space (got to think big to get big), hired an ex-athlete to be the company spokesperson but most importantly I ran the following ad.  “Think you can’t qualify for a home loan…think again.  Think you don’t make enough money…think again.  Think you have too much debt…think again.  Stop thinking and call us today.”  This ad was so successfully that we had to turn of the phones.  We had 100’s of people calling us for weeks.  In 18 months we went from a paltry 5 million in originations to over 40 million.  Finally a success in a field outside my niche.  Nothing could stop me now or so I thought.

• Continuing with our fad and hot market stuff the next deal falls into the same category
• Who can ever forget the outrageous antics of the characters of South Park?
• When this property was still unknown friends of mine were able to secure the rights to do cardboard stand-ups of Cartwright and the rest of the gang and this is where it gets really interesting

 This was the Wild West to say the least.  The characters were as wild as the creators or visa versa.  The rights were secured by a no name company on the East Coast.  Not only was there no name there was no money.  What the heck it’s time to think way outside the box.  I hooked the company up with a printer who decided he liked the project so much he fronted all the money to do the printing.  Talk about a win win deal.  Anyway the product was produced and sold nationally at many leading retailers including Music Land.  Sales were in the $400,000 range with a nice profit margin and everyone was happy except maybe Cartwright.

• Are you starting to see a major trend here?
• I was then approached by Yosemite National Park through some friends to install and monitor the entire phone card program for Yosemite
• This was more than a great business deal as I spent much of my free time in Yosemite so it was also a labor of love

 In this particular deal I was contacted by Yosemite to source the manufacturer and also implement the entire Yosemite Park phone card program. This was a tough deal simply because of the entire infrastructure surrounding the National Parks.  Unless you have worked directly with the parks you will never know all the rules, requirements and regulations they have in place.  It took a lot of the fun out of the deal.  The process was long and complicated and required tons of man hours beyond any budget in place.  While the program never made us much money it was one of the more enjoyable deals I have every put together and would repeat it in a heartbeat.