Page 63 - Like No Business I Know

Beige

“You may wonder how such a non-medical procedure can be
protected by law: I assure you it is. Sid holds several patents on Beige
techniques and equipment, as well as a trademark. Competitors have
been, and will be, prosecuted if they infringe on our rights, or
doomed to failure if they try anything different. The trick, of course,
is optimization. As franchisees of Beige, everything will be provided
to you, all the proprietary elements as well as personnel training by
Sid Arthur himself. Beige is a private club; you will control its
membership. And those members sign an agreement, one with
provisions no medical clinic could impose. The sign-up fee is high, as
is the yearly charge. Each member is carefully evaluated to determine
the length of time he or she can initially spend in a Beige room. It’s
difficult to see—sorry!—but this schematic of a typical private room
in a Beige club has very specific dimensions, furnishings, colors and
ambient conditions of temperature, lighting, background sound and
air conditioning. Nothing in those chambers is arbitrary; the
calibration for all chambers is constantly monitored in a control
room not open to members.”
“But that’s not all that is monitored. Unobtrusive sensors provide
real time feedback to Beige personnel. That enables us to terminate
the member’s session just before the boredom becomes intolerable.
That, too, is a trade secret. Obviously, too short a sitting will be
ineffective; too much time in a Beige room is counterproductive and
may lead to the member quitting the club and giving it bad word of
mouth. And personal recommendation is exactly what will sell
memberships, no matter how expensive: satisfied customers who tell
their friends will do your advertising for you. At their socioeconomic
level, no one wants to be left out of a good thing—particularly if
non-participation might lead to the suspicion that one cannot afford
it. Down-market competitors might offer isolation tanks and
anechoic chambers; scandal-sheet journalists might decry ‘boredom
salons for the rich;’ popular medical authorities might deny any
benefit; but business will not suffer. Sid’s experience in five major
metropolitan areas has proved this.”
“He also has a good idea of how frequently a typical member will
return for another session and whether or not the treatment is
working, based on that frequency and the change in tolerance for
voluntary solitary confinement in a Beige room. The homeopathic

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