I just heard about all this. I worked for DEI as a “Senior Business Development Manager” for about a year. I had been a professional sales person my entire career (25+ years) and found myself out of work. A friend suggested I come to work for DEI because the $ were big. I started out as a fronter. This was in a boiler room of some 100+ fronters in cubes. When we got a “live one” that is to say, someone with a credit card with money, we did a turn over to a closer. We had to present a case to the closer, that these people were ready to buy and had money. The job of the closer was to increase their purchase with additional product and services. These closers by the way, would use any tactic to squeeze every penny out of your resources with NOT promises of success, but implications of success. Russ used to say on our Monday morning meetings that we had the best sales people on the face of the earth. The “hard sale” tactics used were, absolutely, the best in the business. There are no used car salesman that could compete with these people. They are more suited to work for the CIA in extracting information from potential terrorists. We had phone monitors that would listen to these communications to make sure that we did not represent any solid promise of income. Often, the closers would comment that the customer didn’t really believe they could spend $39.95 and become a Millionaire???!!!!! The response was always, of course not. So, let’s move to the next level that will increase your chances of success. Often times, we were instructed to tell the potential customer that we were looking at Russ Dalbey, sitting in his office, and while we can’t make any promises, they sound like the kind of student that Russ would like to have in his next personalized “Boot Camp”. Let me transfer you to my boss to talk about your commitment to the business, and in the mean time, I’ll go talk to Russ personally on your behalf to see if he will allow “One more person” to an already filled class. In every case, they were approved…….duh??? There was never any meeting with Mr. Dalbey. They merely had to come across with their credit card number. “WOW, I feel special!!!!!” I did what I did, because I’m a single dad that had to make a living. Every time I left my shift, I felt like I had to take a shower. I knew I was leading lambs to the slaughter and did it anyway. I’m ashamed that I did that.

I remember one of my peers had convinced an elderly widow to take a mortgage out on her paid off home to invest more than $30k in the program. She did it and he was a big hero in the sales group. Can you guess how much money and coaching she got from her sacrifice? Just another call from DEI that she needed to invest another $7K for a personal mentor to walk her through how all this works.

The toughest thing in life to deal with is regret.