Meet The Masters. They Could Sell You Anything

At American Marketing Services, selling is theater. The customers are just part of the show.

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Every morning before Rob Michaels goes to work, he gets sick to his stomach. Jesse Williams, on the other hand, tells himself he is something else. "I'm a radish," he will say. "You have to be something else. You put your real life behind you, because this life is a killer."

Rob's real name is Robert Michael Acker. Jesse's real surname is Roth. For nine hours a day, sometimes on Saturdays, Jesse, Rob, and six other telephone salespeople at American Marketing Services Inc., in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., attempt to induce people who don't want to talk to them to buy products they don't need at prices they probably shouldn't pay.

Vern, the reason that I'm calling. I know you're busy, and I don't want to take up much of your workday. . . . Vern, my name is Rob Michaels. I'm the executive vice-president and chairman of the board for American Marketing Services. . . . Way back in July you did some business with one of my salesmen, Mr. Ron Green.

Well, Vern, when you spoke with the Rotund One, do you remember him explaining to you that he got you the fur coat for your wife because on the first phase of this promotion your name had come out as the finalist for the entire state of Nebraska? Now, he should have also explained to you that every one of the 50 state winners would all be entered into the second and final phase of the promotion, where we were going to award our top grand bonus for '84 and our twentieth anniversary. . . .

Well, Vern, the reason my company told me today as chairman to handle your call, on the morning of October 23, Vern, it was your name that came out of our computer match for the single most expensive bonus premium we have ever had in our entire 20-year history. . . . a beautiful diamond and emerald necklace. . . . Congratulations to you.

A few of this story's essentials are true. Vern did do some business with the company before, and, yes, American Marketing is prepared to "give" Vern a diamond and emerald necklace, provided he is willing to place an order. The rest is pure hype. Rob isn't the executive vice-president or the chairman. There is no promotion, no 50 state winners, no "top grand bonus." The company is only seven years old, and Vern's name wasn't matched to anything except a computer-generated piece of paper indicating that he had bought from American Marketing before and was therefore a prime target for another pitch.

American Marketing Services is a "phone room," an enterprise in which commissioned salespeople use the promise of glamorous premiums to peddle advertising giveaway items to Main Street merchants and other small businesspeople all over the country. Although most phone rooms are located in South Florida and in Las Vegas, it is hard to know precisely how many there are. Many change their names and addresses every few months in an effort to stay a jump ahead of U.S. Postal Service and law-enforcement authorities.

There is a reason for this: Some of the phone rooms are outright frauds. They will sell a customer a carton of glow-in-the-dark key chains then send a box of bricks COD instead. Others promise pricey premiums -- weeklong Hawaii vacations, for example -- that they never intend to deliver. American Marketing is not in that category. What keeps the company on the right side of the fuzzy line separating legal from illegal in the telephone sales business is that, however enthusiastic the salesperson's spiel, American Marketing's customers actually get the products and the premiums described to them -- or something very close. "We can puff the premium," says one of the company's managers, "only to the point that we don't undermine satisfaction. The customer is our regulator."

Ah, but the hype. Some businesses depend on sales; this business is sales. The only demand for the company's product is the demand Rob, Jesse, and their colleagues create over the phone, buyer by buyer. Even steady customers -- and 80% of American Marketing's sales are to repeat buyers -- have to be sold anew every time they are called. What makes them buy is simply that the company's sales force plays on their fantasies the way Liberace plays on his piano. To watch these artists of the marketplace at work is to watch a mixture of theatrics, pressure, appeals to greed, and fine-tuned sensitivities to the customer, all assembled into a variety of well-orchestrated sales pitches. Over and over, the pitches are repeated -- and over and over, they work.

Bob, never in the history of our industry has the federal government authorized the expenditure of such a tremendous amount of money when it's going to just one businessperson. And I feel darn proud to know that this diamond and emerald necklace, our most expensive bonus ever, is going to an independent businessman and not to same large corporation.

These pens, Bob, when you buy them out of a stationery store, they're a fair trade item, Bob. They sell for $4.99. If you were to order them out of our catalog, we wholesale them completely printed for just $3.59. But today, Bob, you get the same pens for exactly what my company pays for them, just $2.99. . . . Take 200 and I will give you a $100 courtesy discount below my cost. I'll pay all the Illinois state and local taxes. I'll pay the shipping, the freight, and the insurance. I will even pay the gift tax on the emerald and diamond necklace. I'll get it out to you in two weeks for just $498. . . .

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