Selling Among Salesmen — Beth Dawkins

Before I was twenty-one, I worked for one of the largest car dealerships in the southeast. For two years, or one and a half—I don’t know, twenty was a long time ago. I could talk a lot about my time there, but that isn’t this story.

The sales force was almost all men, and there were unspoken rules for women that worked in this place. But that isn’t this story. This story is about pyramid schemes of MLMs and the rise of açaí.

Right before being invited to a “party,” açaí juice had become all the rage at work. It was described as a juice that could fix all kinds of things from hair loss, energy boosting, to erectile dysfunction. It was a fad sweeping the sales department.

One of the salesmen was in his late twenties. He was a middle ground salesman, new father, and full of shit. He invited a large group to go to a party, including me. I was curious. He made claims along the lines that we were getting in on the ground floor of something big. You guessed it, it was the juice that solved all woes.

I remember asking a lot of questions in a car full of people and coming to understand that I was on my way, not to a party, but to an upper middle-class Mary Kay like party, or those Tupperware parties. I remember saying, “Isn’t it just a pyramid scheme then?” The entire car went silent as if I just cut a gigantic fart. I was given a lot of words and sentences that sounded nice, but didn’t make sense. It wasn’t a pyramid scheme.

Oh, but it was. It was.

You might be thinking I wanted to go home after this, but I absolutely didn’t. I felt like an upper middle-class explorer that had gotten away with the biggest trick of all; I was blending in. I nodded and nodded after my fart of a statement, not trusting myself to open my mouth. I wanted to tell everyone how we were being used to pay for what was likely the salesman’s investment, after he figured out he'd been ripped off.

I remember being excited to meet the people who could rip off one of these sales guys. The salesmen were good at their job. When you met them, you wanted to like them. They had reassuring smiles, firm handshakes, and a voice that could set a stranger at ease. Each salesman also had a different type of persona. Did you want to feel like you were buying a car from your kindly grandfather? He would show you the best bang for your buck. What about your hilarious uncle who always had a funny story? There was a salesman for that. There was even one that I called, “small town hero,” in my head.

So, I was driven out to this house that for me was close to a mansion. It was warm wood, clean lines, and shining glass. Samples of fruit juice in tiny, plastic cups sat on top of a dining room table. The carpet was a pale cream without the first stain. One drop of the thick liquid would end the illusion carefully crafted in front of us. The house smelled similar to a new car.

The dining room chairs were set up as if we were about to listen to a sermon. In front of us was one of those office easels used before projectors. I was told to sit up front. There was a lot of pressure to buy, and how it would solve any problem I had, if I only joined them in selling juice. This was the point that I wanted to bolt. I cannot remember the husband-and-wife team that walked us through the juice—but I was getting cult vibes. The wife had a simple cross shining on her chest.

And then the wife flipped the page, showing us a graph of a literal pyramid. I almost chuckled. I knew I made a sound. I might have said, “That’s a literal pyramid.”

One of the tiny cups was handed to me. I was told to drink. I thought of cults and communion as I gazed into my tiny cup. It was a well-crafted trap and I wasn’t buying. They knew it. In fact, I was ready to tell everyone I’d come with not to waste their money. My mom used to buy Avon. How did they not know?

I don’t remember the ride back. I just remember everyone’s annoyance with me. They wanted this fantasy that they could win a car and get rich with juice. I couldn’t buy into the lie.

Every time I hear about someone getting an açaí bowl or drink, I think of that damn juice. They were buying into a miracle fruit because they’d never heard of it. They were salesmen buying into their own tricks. I wish I could buy into anything instead of analyzing why it might ruin someone’s life.