We had our regular meeting at the Hibernia Diner on Thursday morning.
In attendance:
Greg Angelillo – Chapter President
Dan Gehrig – Vice-President
Michelle Clevenger – Membership Chair
Robin Wolfe – Tip Mistress
Bimal Gupta – Treasurer
Joe Troy
Marianne Jones
John Tully
Janet Navarro
Dan Linkletter
Heather McManus
Andy Krauser
Lee DeCarolis
Joe Nugent
Kevin Dulio
Rudy Riveron
Jeff Jones
Amanda Best
Absent
Joe Bellistri
Justin Marcus Smith
Martha Paravati – Secretary
We welcomed Amanda Best of Best Law Office LLC as our 21st chapter member today! We look forward to hearing more about her family law practice over the coming weeks and months.
Everything is in full swing for the LeTip of Denville’s Summer Happy Hour Party at Joe Nugent’s office/home on Friday August 10. We won’t be having a regular Hibernia Diner meeting on August 9 in preparation for the party.
Today’s speaker was Jeff Jones, who modestly transferred his joke telling to a specialist joke teller – in this case Bimal Gupta. Jeff’s talk was a wrap up of his career to date (mainly for the newer members) and an advertisement for LeTip rather than for Jeff Jones. As the commercial real estate market has fallen into shambles so Jeff has credited marketing with LeTip and other similar venues as being an integral part of his success.
Jeff Jones addressing LeTip of Denville
Jeff trained as a teacher and worked in that field for 5 years before moving into real estate with Maryann’s dad, where he made more money one summer than he had during his 5 years working! He worked for the same company for 18 years learning the trade. During that time business came to him – now it needs to go the other way.
From the small agency he moved to a larger company where he rose to Director of Marketing but he was unhappy with the level of bureaucracy in a larger firm so moved on to manage a private real estate portfolio, where he continued to learn – this time learning about “change”. He was too successful at managing the portfolio because it became so valuable it was purchased by another company who then fired him and installed their own manager!
Chapter members listening to Jeff Jones
So 7 years ago he started his own company and bought his own building in Parsippany which he shares with Maryann’s mortgage company. (He always tells people that the “Best thing about him is Maryann!”) Although he had many worries about starting his own company he’s done very well and has branched out and started other successful companies that piggy-back on each other. AmeriSource is the commercial realty company which spawned American Office Center which handles executive office suites which in turn spawned American Office Center Consulting which trains other building owners about managing executive suites. With Maryann he also owns a small residential hospital in New England and between their companies now employs about 200 people. Quite a commitment!
Wrapping up Jeff again mentioned that LeTip and similar marketing efforts were pivotal in his success and he heartedly endorsed any of the other members and their services to the newer members who might be looking to expand their business too. Jeff ended with a brief Q&A session.
The meeting wrapped up with our commercials and the passing of the tip jar.
Posted by John Tully
