Pyramid man
Golden opportunist
Peter Martin
In June 1971, bored with my 9 to 5 rut, I formed Torismon Services. Today I own a £38,000 house and a Bentley. If I could show you how, would you be interested in repeating my success? For interview phone 01-731 2691. No salesmen.
This ad will beckon no more from the jobs vac columns of London newspapers. For its author, one Simon Greenly, has been running Golden Products' pyramid (soap) selling operation in the West London area and, henceforth the new Fair Trading Act will make it illegal, that is to say difficult, for anyone to repeat Mr Greenly's success. Unless they perpetrate it abroad. As for Mr Greenly, his golden goose — force-fed and hypnotically induced — would appear, at last, cooked. Doubtless the clamour of complaint and. failure of the many who haven't made it free within Golden Products or similar crumbling pyramids will soon, via the media's megaphone, deafen us. Mr Greenly, however, isn't openly complaining. At first sight, you wonder just how he did it in a little over two years. Just twenty-eight and face fresh like a schoolboy, eyes shining, his smile is so total it takes a second or two to inflate, Merit diamonds also glitter from the gold GP badge in his lapel and so glowingly, so confidently clean is Simon Greenly that he tends to stand or sit six inches closer to you than is natural, achieving pressure rather than intimacy. In his briefcase there are Polos and a deodorant. Hygene and smartness memos are always whizzing around within GP and the .ore anxious execs carry Amplex (double strength), Gold Spot, an extra can of Sure and a complete manicure set. Essential, too, are sticks of chalk for instant sales instruction. The London Hilton has often received complaints that it doesn't supply enough chalk for GP's opportunity meetings. If you think the Golden Way, you know that not to have enough chalk at the right time is to lose money. Have chalk, be positive. Simon's hero is Al Moravec, head of GP, Germany, whom I saw addressing an opportunity meeting in the Hilton's Balmoral Suite last March. With soap stacked up behind him, Moravec paced the stage with the style and microphone manners of the young Frank Sinatra in encore, shooting his cuffs, tucking his tie, hawking up a storm. ". • So the Success Laws, which you must follow in order to make work the Law of
Tenfold Return, are 1) worry, 2) motivate, don't manipulate, 3) use truth and clarity — always, and 4) chase success, not moneY . . . . And you know," hushed now, " I never noo a successful salesman who wasn't also a successful yooman being." Whamming, back up again: " Anybody not want a Golden Opportunity, there's the, door," pointing. One man did get up an leave. " You know why that man left? I know why. I could see in that man's face why he left," Moravec bawled after him in his irn' ported and sibilant Brooklynese. Everyone waited. " . . . He was stooptd, that's why he Left" Cheers, hoots, mainly from GP men la the audience.
Simon, too, was a bit suspect. His imme' diate boss in London, Robin Fielder, who was, recently switched into GP's " anti-cancer' bra operation, always wore a dark suit in the City and nothing more rowdy than a broval one elsewhere. Simon, though, Simon, would wear his tan suit to the West London meetings. It was noticed. It was dangerous. But Simon at his most positive was matchless. "1 don't help people to need help," goes one Greenly-ism, "only people who helP themselves." Particular delight he took in a sales system GPM taught him which was said to be based on a brainwashing technique. Chinese communists allegedly used it once on a dozen Buddhist monks. Eleven were cofl. verted, says the legend, the twelfth coin. mitted suicide.
Every now and then GP would stage peP. up conferences for its 'generals ' and Simon would return a killer. Fitness had once been the conference theme and Simon immediatelY organised himself a new tracksuit and an afternoon running schedule. Worried, to°, about his diet, he had his char prepare hill casserole lunches, and, with silver set for one, he would eat alone, still talking work at his unlunching assistant or leaving her to the local pub.
Occasionally, adrenalin spent, even Simon Greenly would go negative, not work for a couple of days, rant against the bloody corn' pany, rave that he was going to pack it all in. Just as quickly he'd return to the Golden Way. Newspapers were not allowed in the house because tney were negative, Watching telly was also ' neg.' the news in particular. Simon much prefers to browse through his small library of' success 'books, Each day of Simon's week divides into three working parts — morning, afternoon, evening. A GP dictum is that one day a weeh thou shalt rest — which Simon does on Satur' days. Some Saturdays he would even alloW himself a few cigarettes. Sunday evening, he found, was the prime time for telephone selling, "especially when the religious programmes are on. People are depressed then, not wanting Monday to come." Working down his contact list, Simon would talk stic. cess and soap down the wires, always closing on the value in Es of his pupil's next move, gold tomorrow.
A few months back and after only five hours' association with GP, I was being encouraged by Simon to produce £1,100 for a 'direct distributorship' — and he was tired. He was suggesting that if I couldn't raise the money within a day or so (and I'd best hurl for the fee was about to go up to £1,300) he could probably arrange a loan through a W Lloyd, manager of the High Street branch of the National Westminster, Hitchin, Herts. Failing that, perhaps a Mr Gordon Bake would help. Baker, incestuously enough, is co-trustee, with Ray Mawby,. rop, ,of GP's very own Buy-Back Guarantee Trust Fund.
Anyway, no, I said, I'd rather talk with MY own bank manager but wouldn't have the time until the following Thursday. Simon Greenly's all-purpose smile collapsed.
It has been announced that GP will probably attempt to get into the retail trade. "Actually," Simon, brightly, "it's what I've been forecasting for — 000h, what? — seven months now. I'm sure it'll be a better thing all round." Is he happy, then, to remain with Golden Products? Oh, quite happy, Yes' thanks," an unusually shaky close for Simon Greenly.
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