Part 2 interview with New Jersey entrepreneur Anthony Talley, where he discusses the future of his business, his legacy and the credo of “Keep it all in the family”. To read Part 1, visit: https://njurbannews.com/2023/06/18/business-in-black-2/
NJ Urban News: Is this your first business? Do you want to keep the business in the family and pass it on to your children?
Anthony Talley: This is not my first business; I had another construction company years ago… I’ve always been entrepreneurial. When I was 19, I bought my first home; before I was 28, I bought ten more houses, like my first business, which was very profitable. Back in the 80s, when we were in sort of a boom that we used to be in, we’re out of the boom now, the real-estate boom, it was almost unheard of for a 19-year-old Black man to buy a house, but I was able to see my family and see other family members with multiple properties. I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I do want to pass my business on to my children; that’s my hope, but in this economy, it’s going to be very difficult because I can’t just walk away and leave the business; I’m building my business, so it can be sold for several million dollars.
NJ Urban News: A family-owned business is the most common method of creating and maintaining generational wealth. Do you advocate for “Keep it all in the family” in business?
Anthony Talley: I advocate for keeping things in the family, but at the same time, I’m a big proponent of knowing what works best and what has worked for some of the world’s largest and brightest family-owned businesses. Another important thing people need to realize is that life insurance policies should be in a trust. When you do that, you can do things that the Rockefellers and some of the more prestigious families have done over the years. Say, for instance, I have a $100,000 life insurance policy; when I die, my son will get $50,000, it’s valued at $100,000, but then the other $50,000 will stay in a trust, and then that will stay in there until he passes away, and then his son will get the $50,000, but by that time, the $50,000 would have grown to more than double of what it is. Then it’s a continual process, his son and then his son and then his son, everyone gets money, so generations down the line, when my great-great-great grandchild would say, “Grandfather Talley, he made it so that now that I’m 18 or 19, I have $100,000, I have $200,000. That’s where the term “generational wealth” comes in at, you pass it on from generation to generation.
NJ Urban News: Please share the most recent revenues of your company if you’re able to or comfortable. It could be a ballpark, roundabout figure, or even a projection for future revenues.
Anthony Talley: We do about $2 million a year gross revenues, but we still need to make $2 million annually, which means we gross around $2 million annually. That should be quadruple, and we’re trying to position ourselves so that we’ll get some more of those dollars by strategically hiring the right people and doing some of the right things to retain more of the gross revenues that come in.
NJ Urban News: What’s the most significant project the company is undertaking? Please share the details about one or two of the firm’s most successful and lucrative projects.
Anthony Talley: Our most lucrative and most significant project to date is a townhouse project in Atlantic City, NJ. We are poised to bring up 18 townhomes that we currently own. The properties aren’t out of the ground yet, so they’re not built yet, so we’re in the pre-construction phase where we’re going through preliminary design, we have all the designs, we have all the architectural drawings, we own the land, we own the site, but we’re going through the process of being able to fund it, and to build it. We hope to finish the project in the next two years, but we hope to come out of the ground in the next eight months. Another one of our most significant ventures and projects is multi-family projects; over the last year, we’ve completed several multi-family buildings. Multi-family is the wave of the future, and we’re hopeful that we will continue in that vein and be commissioned to do many more multi-family properties. Philadelphia is an epicenter of multi-family properties, right now, there are over 10,000 permits in the city of Philadelphia that have been approved, which means that [out of] those 10,000 permits, those properties will be built given the finances and the people having enough finances to get them done. All over the Delaware Valley, properties and multi-family properties are coming up everywhere you look.
NJ Urban News: What do you want your legacy to be?
Anthony Talley: I want my legacy to reflect teaching, learning, and giving to others, not just my family members, because my legacy is not just my family; my legacy is those that are around me, those that experience A E Talley Construction and Anthony Talley. We try to educate young and older adults on how to create a legacy and a long-lasting impact on their world and the people around them. We’re constantly counseling people on fiscal and financial responsibility. We teach people many different forms of investing, responsible credit, and keeping their credit high. I tout an 800-credit score, which means a lot; it takes work to be in business and have an 800-credit score. In this day and age, people want to go with the YOLO (You Only Live Once) mantra, but when you only live once, you don’t save any money, you don’t do some of the things that you need to do for when you get a little bit older in life, some of those things are what we continue to preach and teach people.
For more information on A E Talley Construction, visit www.aetalleycms.com, on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/aetalley1 or Facebook A E Talley Construction.
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