Peddling Hope: 'Steel Wheel' Salesmen Take On Chicago

By: Rebecca AndersonThey seem to be everywhere: Professionally dressed men, most of them young and African American, walking the streets of Chicago, lugging bulky cardboard boxes balanced on luggage carts.

They sell novelties: battery-operated massagers, coloring books, calculators, gumball machines and travel alarm clocks. They ride buses and trains, popping in and out of neighborhood stores and approaching people on the street.

“Would you like to check out some of our great deals today?” Andrew Driver asked a prospective customer on a Monday in March near the corner of 18th Street and Damen Avenue in Pilsen.

“I have no money,” a young woman holding a toddler said. “We have things for ‘no money’ people,” Driver said. Rejected a second time, he thanked the woman, his eyes searching for the next prospect.

This is what Jose Laboy, a trainer for Midwest Impulse Inc., a North Side wholesale distributor, calls “getting your no’s in. If you can’t accept a no, then this business is not for you.”

On a typical day, Laboy expects to be turned down 200 times. “It fires me up,” he said. “Makes me work harder.”

That’s what Midwest Impulse is counting on. The company, at 1940 W. Irving Park Road in Lakeview, opened in 1992. It is one of two Chicago wholesale distributors of DS-MAX, a multinational direct sales firm based in Irvine, Calif. The second company, DYM Enterprises Inc., started operations last year at 8248 S. Cottage Grove Ave. in Chatham.

Richard Toplak, the owner of Midwest Impulse, acknowledged that for every 100 applicants for sales jobs he gets each week, roughly five are hired, and of those, two or three will last at least six months. As independent contractors, they are paid in cash, get no health benefits and are responsible for their income taxes and Social Security. Street sellers also risk arrest for illegal solicitation, peddling without a license and trespassing.

As of April 27, 1,139 licensed peddlers were working in Chicago, according to Chicago Department of Revenue records.

The companies provide opportunities to people who may get few chances, said Toby Herr, director of Project Match, a welfare-to-work program at the Erikson Institute for Advanced Studies in Child Development at 420 N. Wabash Ave.

In 1997, unemployment for African Americans in Chicago stood at 13.8 percent, compared to 8.5 percent for Latinos and 5.4 percent for whites, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And there’s also “a very large pool of African American males who are not counted in unemployment [statistics],” Herr said. “There aren’t many employers that cast their nets so wide. A lot of people without a degree or with a criminal background are shut out of this labor market.”

“There’s no question it’s good to see people go to work,” said Luke Weisberg, associate director of the Chicago Jobs Council, which advocates for jobs for low-income people. But, he added, “It just doesn’t feel like a good opportunity. It’s not really the same as being a salaried worker.”

People Person
Last March, Laboy spent a cold, clear morning coaching two trainees, 21-year-old Larry Person of the Near Northwest Side and Driver, 29, of Englewood on the South Side. The three left Midwest Impulse at 9:30 a.m. and loaded their four boxes of merchandise on a southbound Damen Avenue bus.

During the ride, Laboy urged Person: “Just 35 pieces—if you get 50, good, 70, great. Just have fun. Relax. It’s your first day.”

Person wore a crisp, blue Perry Ellis jacket over a shirt and tie, and black, loose-fitting pants to work. A high school graduate, he worked at Einstein Brothers Bagels in Lincoln Park before taking the Midwest Impulse job. “It’s cool if you’re a people person,” he said of his new post. “Your product has a lot to do with your smile.”

Driver, with the company for six weeks, was on a “retrain” to brush up on his skills. His tie, printed with images of $1,000 bills, was an incentive gift he received from Midwest Impulse, along with a trip to a DS-MAX owners conference in Miami after four weeks on the job. “It’s beyond what a normal person expects punching a clock,” he said of the job.

The three men got off the bus in Pilsen, and by 10 a.m. they were ready to sell. They exchanged high-fives, then Driver and Person headed northeast on Blue Island, walking almost at a trot.

Speed is essential. The sellers walk fast, to pitch to as many buyers as possible, and they talk fast, to induce them to buy impulsively. On this day, they were offering carving knives (two for $5), greeting cards (two sets of 20 for $5), a set of four small vinyl purses ($5) and a pack of Winnie the Pooh miniature books ($10).

Throughout the morning, Driver joked and smiled with every person he passed. A man grabbing a smoke outside a car repair shop declined Driver’s pitch for the carving knives, but he said the rejection just fit the law of averages. “You might have four [buying] customers all day long and then the last one you see, bam, buys half the box.”

New Recruits
DS-MAX USA Inc. was founded in 1981 by Murray Reinhart, according to company officials and brochures. The company provides merchandise to distributors in 44 states and 88 countries, who in turn employ 75,000 contractors. DS-MAX is privately held, and officials would not disclose earnings.

In Chicago, two owners and six managers oversee the two companies, Toplak said.

Most days each of the 100 sellers aim at 200 businesses in hopes of selling at least 50 units, he said. A May 3 newspaper ad for the company beckoned “NO CAR, NO PROBLEM”—most of the peddlers take public transportation. They saturate commercial strips across the city and also sell to individuals. Salesmen only pay for what they sell, earning about $1 to $3 per item. The average salesman makes $60 a day, Toplak said.

Assistant managers make an additional $100 to $200 per week and managers can make up to $300 extra per week. Company officials say they hire a racially diverse sales force but could not provide a breakdown. Driver and Person are African American; Laboy identified himself as half Puerto Rican and half Creole.

“I’ve got a guy that just graduated Western Illinois [University] with a 3.5 [grade point average], and I got a guy who’s been in jail for six years,” Toplak said. “All I look for is people who will be on time, dress sharp and have a good attitude about working hard.”

Steel Wheels
After visiting four small stores, Person still had not made a sale. Driver then took the cart they were sharing, approached a garage on Blue Island Avenue and loped toward the employees and customers inside. “He’s got it down,” said Person, his voice a mix of admiration and envy.

None of the mechanics were interested in Driver’s merchandise, but one of their customers, Englewood resident Thomas Steward, bought $30 in greeting cards, knives and coin purses. Steward, 43, a substitute teacher who also works in security, described Driver as “professional” and “a good deal-maker.”

“It’s a legitimate hustle,” Steward said. “The steel-wheel salesman is a common occurrence in the urban setting because the overhead is so high on a storefront.”

But Driver said he often gets no respect on the job. “People have the nerve to ask us, ‘Are those things stolen?’ Like we’d have the nerve to walk up and down the street in broad daylight with two boxes of stolen goods.”

Melissa Sullivan, a 28-year-old Wicker Park resident, said she encounters Midwest Impulse salesmen once or twice a month at her job as a clerk for Second Hand Tunes, a used record and video store at 2449 N. Lincoln Ave.

She recently bought a car tool kit from one salesman, but normally declines and asks them not to sell in her store. Most are polite and respectful, she said. “It’s totally random. I think there’s some guys that are obviously trying to support themselves by doing this and some guys that just don’t [care].”

Midwest Impulse salesmen and other peddlers are a “real thorn in our side,” said Walter Kogelis, owner of Pass the Salt and Pepper, a specialty store at 3337 N. Broadway Ave.

“It’s not fair to the merchants who work seven days a week in their business, pay for a storefront, pay taxes, pay for insurance and try to bring a little class and dignity to the neighborhood,” said Kogelis, who is also secretary of the area’s 600-member Lakeview East Chamber of Commerce.

City ordinance restricts peddling near Wrigley Field, Comiskey Park, the United Center, in the Loop and along parts of more than 30 other streets.

Working the street has other pitfalls. For example, since 1991 three company salesmen have been charged with peddling without a license, illegal solicitation or criminal trespass, Cook County Criminal Court records show. Toplak said such incidents are “very uncommon” but would not comment further.

Police citing of peddlers in some areas of the city is not uncommon, said Police Department News Affairs Director Lauri M. Sanders. “If they run into police in a prohibited area, they’ll be cited or arrested, licensed or unlicensed.”

In 1995, the company argued that its employees didn’t need peddling licenses, which cost $75 per year. But after several meetings with revenue department officials, Toplak said he now tells his employees they need to buy licenses and follow city laws.

Melvin Smith, a 38-year-old African American from southwest suburban Broadview, worked for Midwest Impulse for about four months while he was between jobs in 1995.

Smith, who now works at Unisource Worldwide Inc. as a paper cutter, said he enjoyed the experience. Some salesmen, he said, might “be young men that have in their past gotten in trouble with the law. They have records, they can’t necessarily get a 9-to-5 job, so they think of something to do as opposed to going back to maybe their old way of life.”

Person lasted only a few weeks after that cold day in March. He quit the firm a month ago to “find something with more steady pay.”But Driver, who is still with the firm, explains the intangible things that mark a good salesman: “The things you can’t actually see or feel but you know they’re there”—the confidence and ease that can pull a smile and a sale from a stranger.