May, 2012 Issue

Meet Michael. Sexy with a shaved head, this slick-yet-trustworthy upscale salesman is just the kind of guy you (and Schwarzenegger) would want to buy your Mercedes G Wagon from.

He got his start as an enterprising Chevy salesman in Atlanta 20 years ago. Along the way he lost his accent and parlayed his knowledge of automobiles into a solid career and upscale compensation. Money breeds money, and he decided it would be just as easy to sell Jaguars as American-made edging his way up the proverbial ladder until he landed at Mercedes as the Director of Distribution for North America. He was well connected and his phone rang with billionaire after billionaire asking for the Mercedes G Wagon. Yes, he met with Michelle Pfeiffer, Bruce Willis, Rob Reiner, David E. Kelley and Brad Pitt within a 24-hour period of time. If he could do that, why not sell Lamborghini’s or jets?

He grew up with an appreciation of the finer things in life and he also grew up on stage so he feels right at home in the company of the rich and famous. He’s unflappable, never intimidated and is fluent in luxury-speak. In under two minutes, he crams in 10 minutes worth of conversation. He prides himself on mental acuity; the Dewey decimal system in his head alpha-ordered with easily accessible fast facts. (Celebs and the uber-rich don’t want to waste time.) He makes a practice of never asking movie stars about their next project or anything that’s none of his business. And he’s unyielding about delivering what the client wants. Once you do, he says, they’ll enjoy doing business with you and eventually trust you and become your friend.

Not so many years ago, Michael had a spacious home in Santa Fe and a 2-bedroom condo in New York with 2 luxury cars worth half a million in the garage. No one drives in New York. “At one point I was on a 105 ft.-Sunseeker Yacht alone for 12 days off of the Ft. Lauderdale coast,” he recalls…somewhat wistfully. “It was during spring break. And I was on an expense account.” He also sang at the White House and learned to play polo. But then the economy shifted into reverse. And so did his earnings. “Luxury became a curse word,” he says. “Excess used to be sexy and now it is hideous. We are now reaping the effects of a credit society and it is catching up to us. Instant gratification, the buy-now-pay-later, has caught up to us. We are now in that ‘later."

Michael has always dealt in the superfluous. No one needs a jet or a 100-ft. yacht and he didn’t have as much business in less-bullish times. Even though he was generating decent numbers, he was laid off from jets because the division was eliminated from the company. He relocated to Denver where he sold luxury vehicles for a year before hiring on with a destination vacation club as Director of Membership Development. Members paid the price of admission without flinching ($300,000 to $900,000) granting them access to luxury real estate all over the world at addresses in Aspen, Paris, Hawaii, et al. Sales stalled at year-end 2008, and he was laid off yet again.

He is single and a lot of his investments in the market were high-risk. His nearly 7-figure investment diminished to about $40,000. Mortgages sucked away his nest egg and a mere 18 months after flying high selling jets, he was reduced to working at a friend’s car wash wearing a shirt with his name on the left pocket.

Simple hard work saved him, putting him back in touch with reality. “That’s how you turn around…by getting over yourself and not thinking you’re above anything,” he says thoughtfully. “Knowing you’re self-reliant is a luxury in itself. The best reward of all is knowing you can do whatever it takes to get through the day.”

In hindsight, says Michael, “I was successful; I never defined the term ‘rich.’ I once had a client with a $600,000 car who didn’t own his home outright and another friend who drove a Toyota but had a $150,000 home theater.”

He still falls asleep nightly on 1200-count Ralph Lauren sheets, but insists that’s about priorities. “The thread-count only means that I was willing to spend money on quality sheets because I spend 6-12 of every 24 hours in bed.” You don’t have to spend long with Michael to know that name-dropping isn’t his thing…it’s just that some people find it hard to imagine that he led such a high-flying life before washing cars. Once a client picked him up in a 5-year-old Ford Taurus en route to the airport where the two men boarded the client’s personal jet to the World Series. The client’s name? Ted Turner. Oh, and Ted’s wife Jane Fonda accompanied them.

A gig selling aerial cinematography services to the movie and television industry for big name clients like National Geographic and the Discovery Channel. (not what he considered a luxury job, but it was a logical next move to get out of the carwash) introduced him to his latest career move: selling alternative investments. There is no telling what his future may hold, but it won’t be surprising if his name is in klieg lights. Maybe even at a comedy club, proving that survivors can laugh at themselves. He has reinvented his career and owns a confidence that he can count on himself to pull through, in these, or any other financially-trying times. No bull.