Do You Sincerely Want To Be Rich? by Charles Raw, Bruce Page, Godfrey Hodgson Page A

headquarters of the firm, really,' says Marx. 'Each weekend Bernie would load it up with salesmen and sales material, and drive out to Orleans. Sometimes, we would sleep over Saturday night in the car before starting in again on Sunday.' But by the time Marx joined, the firm was on its way to fame. Bernie's advertisement in the Paris Herald-Tribune, offering 'American men and women' over $10,000 a year for 'sales ability, a willingness to work hard in a fast-growing industry, and a sense of humour', was running regularly, and striking a very effective chord in the exile community, which prided itself, above all, on its sense of humour.
        Marx's close friend, John Curran, a quiet, bookish journalist, quit rewriting cables for the Herald-Tribune and joined up. Lester Hayes was a professional ballroom dancer, who had been working the cruise ships with his wife. Jack Himes had been in the us merchant navy too. Alvin Ostroff had known Bernie in Brooklyn College, and trekked to Europe to join him. Berton Cantor (not to be confused with Allen Cantor) had been studying at the London School of Economics on a Fulbright grant: before that he had been a newspaperman in Chicago. Gladis Solomon was the first woman aboard, den-mother of the crowd. Her previous trade had been reading your character from the way you drew a horse.
        Victor Herbert joined in characteristic circumstances. He had been bouncing around Europe since 1949, making a living by purchasing rare music and musical manuscripts for an antiquarian bookshop in New York. By 1956, Herbert had reluctantly acknowledged that there was no real future in what he was doing.
        The prospect of going back to Chicago appalled him, but although Herbert had met Cornfeld, he did not care for the idea of selling mutual funds. By way of a reprieve, before the trek home, Herbert decided to take a holiday with a friend who knew Enrol Flynn, on a yacht moored off the Algerian coast, and he spent a memorable fortnight of Mediterranean pleasures in his company. Under the influence of sea and sun, Herbert decided that anything was better than going back to Chicago. He went back to Paris, and looked up Cornfeld. Bernie asked him only one question:
        'Do you want to start selling tonight, or tomorrow?'
        Despite his lack of initial pleasure at the idea of selling mutual funds, Herbert found Cornfeld as impressive as did Marx. Especially, he was impressed by Bernie's account of 'dollar-cost averaging'. The use of this piece of arithmetical patter reveals a great deal about the essential techniques of mutual fund selling. The standard sales pitch is predicated upon the idea that stock markets everywhere are set upon an upward course. Get your money in now, the customer is exhorted - before prices rise even higher.
        From time to time, however, stock markets actually do fall. What to say now? Well, when stocks are going down, then it's an even better time to buy. Suppose shares are worth buying at 1oo. If the market drops, they must still be worth buying - but for the same amount of money, you can buy even more of them. You get better value for money! The flaw, of course, is that some shares may fall and never rise again. But in 1956, Herbert was hardly alone in being impressed by this magical calculus.
        Still, Herbert wanted to know a little more about what was involved in selling for IOS. Cornfeld brushed aside. 'Let me tell you about the opposition,' he said. 'There's one guy who smokes big cigars, and another guy who wears big cufflinks.' What he meant was that the other enterprising fellows who had seen the potential of the military market were out to make themselves rich fast. He, Cornfeld, had a more enlightened self-interest in view. He proposed to make the salesmen rich along with himself.
        'He said he would make us all millionaires,' says Herbert, a by no means uncritical admirer in later years, 'and he did.'
        Bernie might never