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•Four Greatest Door-to-Door Salesmen 55

Ask yourself

• When did you last check that you had the right amount of life insurance? By
the time they get to middle age, a lot of people when they add it all up find
that they have too much life insurance and not enough long term or pension
savings.

Idea 35 – ‘We’ll over the Border and gi’e them a brush’ –
James Hogg (Kleeneze)

It is a startling tribute to their salespeople, that, as children, my sister and I looked
forward to the arrival of the man with the caseful of brushes, clothes and polishes –
the Kleeneze man. We liked the little free samples of polish he gave kids, which we
used for polishing dolls’ shoes and Hornby trains, respectively.

The story of Kleeneze starts with a young man emigrating with his family to the
USA. There he discovered the Fuller Brush Company, who sold door to door high
quality brushes using twisted-in-wire methodology. So impressed was he that he
came back to the UK and in Bristol started the Kleeneze company. The man’s name
was Harry Crook, as unlikely a name for anyone in the selling game as any you
could think of. In fact if you can sell door to door with the name Crook on your
business card, you must be able, as they say, to sell pork chops to a rabbi.

Kleeneze claims to be the first company in Britain selling door to door, and the
first to introduce network marketing (see Amway Idea 9).

The company, which operates in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, has traded
profitably every year since 1923. There are 12,000 distributors, a number that is
still said to be growing, who deliver catalogues and deliver door to door. They also
recruit new distributors to take advantage of a sales-based commission scheme. Sales
in 1998 were £39 million with profits of over £3 million.