I have an outdoor office where I like to sit and work at the computer. It’s a nearly flawless location, breezy and sunlit and right by the garden, but it’s not perfect. There is a bit of noise coming from a second-floor window a few doors down. I didn’t think much of it at first, but as the days and weeks passed, I listened to this noise throughout the day, and concluded finally that it wasn’t going to go away. It sounded like people holding some kind of church revival meeting up there. There was something a little funny about the whole vibe—but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, so I decided to investigate.
The company that has rented the building down the street is a sales training organization. There is no sign out front, but the employees all dress formally every day—the men wear green polyester suits with a white starched shirt, and the women wear green polyester sport coats with matching skirts, and nylons with high heeled black pumps polished to a blinding shine. They have not a hair out of place, these people. Which is highly unusual for Iquitos, which is more of a t-shirt and flip flop kind of town.
The formal dress code told me that these people wish to project an image of prosperity, professionalism and financial success. What they do is recruit Peruvians who are looking for honest work, and train them to be salesmen. Those people are also trained to bring in new recruits, to start the process all over again. But it is so much more than that. When I asked the company what kind of business it was, they replied that they are an economic and lifestyle development training organization. They teach people how to get excited about their careers, and in doing so feel good about themselves–how to be motivated, confident, and full of self-esteem. They teach them to believe in themselves, and then get out there and sell, sell, sell.
The basic format might remind you of a Tony Robbins seminar. Except that this is the developing world, and their methods have an equivalent level of sophistication. How can I make that sort of judgment? I’ll tell you.
I worked in a hard-core, 100% commission sales environment for five years. I was an executive recruiter in the construction industry. It was a classier version of Glengarry Glen Ross. I know what it is like to make cold calls all day long, to cultivate long-term business relationships, to be self-motivated, and more importantly to be money-motivated. The people I worked with were very highly motivated on both counts, and while the founder/CEO of the business was an evangelical Christian, he was the best kind of evangelical. He wanted to use his wealth to help other people. He had compassion, and he practiced it in real life. OK, there were Bible study groups every Wednesday in the company conference room, for example, but they were also attended by non-Christians, non-denominationals such as myself and even some of the Jews who worked there. It didn’t hurt that the half-hour lecture on scripture was followed by a nice catered lunch, paid for by the boss. For me it was a bit like sitting through a time-share presentation in order to get the free meal.
It was always interesting to me that the most successful salesmen in our company, (which was in fact the largest and most profitable in the country in its industry) were evangelical Christians. With a handful of exceptions, the true believers tended to be the best and most natural at the whole business of sales, and I believe this is true for a very simple reason. They had total faith in the product they were selling. They had complete belief in what they sold, and that confidence projected across the telephone to everyone they talked to, client and candidate alike. They were tireless workers, non-drinkers and smokers for the most part, and they were focused on the goal like you wouldn’t believe. Sales and evangelizing are really two sides of the same coin, if you really look at it. Every priest and monk and man of the cloth who ever ventured out to distant lands, preaching the message of the Good Book, had to be a good salesman in order to win converts. And in the sales industry, as in the religion business, confidence in your product is everything– winning confidence is the same as winning converts.
I say all this with respect. Some of these people that I worked with in the headhunting business remain my good friends. I loved my boss, he was the best one I ever had. Some of the recruiters in my company consistently earned several hundred thousand dollars a year, and they deserved it—it’s very hard work. It’s just an interesting observation, is all, that sales is evangelizing and evangelizing is sales. All that’s different is what’s being sold.
I share all of that so you can appreciate my unique perspective on the neighbors, who hold sales training ‘classes’-slash-lifestyle development seminars every single day. Sometimes they go on for hours. I’ve listened to enough of them that I now know the entire script. They start by chanting a little mantra-like thing that is basically a commitment of their seriousness to the cause. They actually chant words over and over in a monotone during this part, usually ‘trabajo trabajo trabajo trabajo’ or ‘dinero dinero dinero dinero.’ Work and Money. Repeat as necessary. Then there’s a series of lectures, in which the speakers often get worked up to a fever pitch of yelling and preaching with intense urgency. Then more chanting, then more talking, sometimes with a soundtrack of eighties power ballads playing in the background. They break up the preaching with a round of games, some sing-a-longs, and then some call-and-response type cheerleading (a lot of it actually) where the intent is to get everybody whipped up into a big froth of entrepreneurial enthusiasm, and it always works.
After that, the big boss comes in and delivers the main sermon. He’s up there with the microphone on the PA system, and he’s talking fast, using the dry-erase marker on the board to lay out all the math, and he’s wheeling and dealing, and he’s talking fast in cascades of rhythmic cadences, and he’s making true believers out of everybody. The numbers don’t lie. You too can be rich, you too can drive a shiny new motorbike and wear green polyester suits in the midday sun. Then the big boss hands it back over to the emcee, and they finish by playing the theme from “Rocky” over the PA system and sending everybody off to go knock on doors in a flush of enthusiasm and confidence.
My friend La Gringa, who has lived in Iquitos for ten years, once made an observation about Peruvians here that has proved unfailingly accurate. She says that, whenever you are in the middle of a business deal or wherever money is being exchanged between two parties, you know you’re being lied to when you ask for an explanation and they start to talk fast. They feel the need to over-explain themselves, and so give themselves away. I’ve tested this many times, and it’s never wrong. When they start talking fast, you’re probably getting scammed.
So anyway, the big boss is up there sermonizing with his hair gel and starched collar, and he’s talking fast– really fast. He’s breaking it all down by the numbers, just how much each person needs to sell in order to make good money, as well as tips and tricks for selling to people that aren’t motivated to buy, and also (this is key) how to recruit other people to the cause along the way. He’s showing them that, if they bring other people on board, and those they recruited become successful salesman, then they will actually earn a cut of the other person’s sales!
Does that sound familiar? It should, it’s called a Ponzi scheme, or a pyramid scheme. Pyramid schemes are as common as greed, although many times they’re disguised as something else. Let it not be said that all pyramid schemes in Iquitos are doomed to failure, as this is one that seems to be doing very well indeed! What really fascinates me about the salesmen next door is that they are this bizarre hybrid between a Tony Robbins-style motivational program, an Amway or Avon type pyramid scheme in which products are sold door-to-door, and a cult. But nowhere in this entire script is God or Jesus mentioned. No, instead, what they are explicitly worshipping is money! And in that, I have to grant that they at least have the courage of their convictions.
The vibe you get from this place reminds me a lot of the small-town country evangelical churches that were everywhere when I was growing up. But instead of preparing people for the afterlife, they’re running a secular seminary, training their acolytes to go out and sell as much as they can in the here and now. And what, you might be wondering, is this product that needs so much motivation, training, and instruction in enthusiasm in order to sell?
In truth, it could be anything, really. Just as the fruit that Eve gave Adam could’ve been a pear or a peach instead of an apple. It’s not the object itself that matters, it’s the context in which it’s presented. Temptation has a thousand faces, it’s all in how badly they make you want it. In this case, the company is selling a line of women’s beauty products, including perfume and skin and facial creams. All of it made in Lima, where the business is registered. I know this because, after taking an interest in their business model, I did a little internet research to fill in the missing pieces.
The only problem I really have with these people (besides the noise) is that they are manipulating all those upwardly-mobile-inspired Peruvians into believing something which is basically an illusion. They are selling a lifestyle to them, saying, ‘look at me, I’m wearing this green polyester suit in the blazing tropical sun, and see how shiny my shoes are? I must be very successful! Don’t you want what I have?”
They’re preying on the enthusiasm of people, some of whom I’d venture to dare grew up going to an evangelical church (an introduced species similar to other exotic invasives that have long been popular here) and who likely aren’t much appreciating the substantive differences between the style and subject of their worship. The format, after all, is almost identical, and I really do wonder whether that is more accidental or intentional.
So after being properly taught to worship wealth and prosperity by their handlers, the congregation are sent forth door-to-door to peddle perfume and facial cream to locals out in the neighborhoods who probably don’t want or need it. I feel for these people, the congregation I mean, because they are being manipulated. As new recruits, if they don’t make their minimum quota for the month, they get nothing. But their bosses above them still get their commission.
And that kind of sucks. I know it well because I was once a fledgling salesman myself. And I feel that most of the people up there on the second floor, sitting for two hours in front of the dry-erase board going through their motivational training, would be better off getting an actual job. Instead of getting involved in all this sales programming propaganda cult nonsense and paying—yes, actually paying out of their own pockets!—to attend classes every week. But then, it’s a lot harder to leave a cult than it is to join one.
And that’s what brings me to the punchline, the incident that made me realize I could finally laugh about it instead of just complaining. Corrina and I recently went to talk to the sales-cult people directly, and Corrina very diplomatically asked them to close the windows and turn down their PA system during their revivals (classes). They agreed, but then did nothing about it. So we went around and talked to all the neighbors. And what do you know—all the neighbors were sick of the noise just as much as we were! Let me tell you, that’s saying something. Peruvians have no concept of noise pollution, they do not care if other people make noise, and half the time they don’t even notice. But the accountant at the office next door said they’d been to the police, only to discover that this group had legal permission to do what they were doing. Corrina got everyone’s names and vowed to carry on the paperwork fight with the Fiscal, a government agency where you can lodge complaints, even though we already know very well that trying to use the legal system to effect change here in Peru is a symbolic gesture and nothing more.
And so, this morning, when the big boss came up and took the microphone for the morning’s sermon, I just decided that I’d had enough. I got the ladder from the back and propped it up against the wall. I climbed up until I was at eye level with the open window, perhaps thirty feet away, and I started yelling at them in Spanish, “Attention, sales group! You are too loud! Please close the window! I can’t listen to this anymore, close the window please!” But the boss carried on oblivious, or else he was ignoring me. I yelled at them again, very loudly. Yes, there was no question now, they were ignoring me. I left the ladder up, and went down the street to check the price of a megaphone at the pawn shops around the corner. A hundred soles—about thirty five bucks—and I could take the audio assault to a level that would get their attention. And in that moment I realized that I did in fact know enough about their organization to make fun of them and embarrass them in front of their students/clients/congregation. Tempting as it was, I did not buy the megaphone. Instead, I went back to cool off and think about it. Because neighbors have to find a way to work it out, after all, and I am not planning on going anywhere.
Then my business partner came home. The Brasilero had long lost patience with these people, and he tends to be very much more direct than I am in these kinds of matters. I told him why the ladder was against the wall, and his reaction was to yell at them also, even louder than I had, but he was ignored in turn. So he bent down to search the garden for rocks. He found a small one and threw it over the wall, aiming for the tin roof. It missed, and went into the neighbor’s garden.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I said.
“Just to get their attention. I need a bigger rock,” he said.
He found a good size chunk of concrete and hurled it high into the air. It landed right on the roof, smack! That got their attention. The Brasilero pointed at them and yelled, “Hey, yes, you see me now? That was me that threw that! You are making too much noise, as always! Close the window, dammit!”
And what do you know, they closed the window. And they kept I closed for the rest of the day, and the noise level was much better. Almost acceptable, even.
I suppose the lesson here is that you can forget about diplomacy or the legal system if you have a dispute here in this little corner of the developing world. Work it out yourself, in whatever way works best; throw rocks if you must. For us, throwing rocks did in fact accomplish more than a thousand pleading words or threats. And we may still have to upgrade to megaphones, if the problem persists. But I now feel ready for something like that.
Jungle Love 