In Des Moines: Worms for Sale

By Gregory Jaynes

It may not be the next Pac-man, but the hottest thing going right now in certain rural areas of 21 states is a coin-operated vending machine that dispenses live bait to fishermen, and the force behind it is a supersalesman from Des Moines who found God in a federal penitentiary. The machine is called Vend-A-Bait, and, as one Texas distributor put it, "It's one great moneymakin' sucker." So, for that matter, is Vend-A-Bait Mogul Glenn McClintic; he drives a car longer than most people's memory.

"It's hot all right, and I'm not bragging," said Joe Shaddy, who was supervising the installation of two machines in Jackson, Ga., the other day. "When we first come into an area, people giggle. They say you can't do it; you can't keep 'em alive in a machine. But we can. The only thing we have trouble with is minnows. Night crawlers, crawfish, goldfish, leeches--they're all pretty tough. But with minnows, after seven days we have about a 50% loss. We try to get those minnows out of there before that happens and rejuvenate 'em, same as you would bread or potato chips."

Shaddy, fetching a cup of night crawlers from one of Georgia's new machines --"Is that pretty, or what?"--explained the process. Worms and other slithery kinds of bait are packaged in ventilated 8-oz. cups with a bedding of moist paper shot through with feed, fattener and conditioner. Minnows, goldfish and the like are in water-filled plastic bags with a chemical that slows their metabolism. "What kills them is their own waste. They pollute the water. The chemical slows them down in their movements, so to speak."

Meanwhile, back in Des Moines, McClintic is looking toward expansion. He has 1,200 machines out now. In a year he wants 5,000 scattered over 48 states. He is not the first to offer fish bait from a machine, but he is the first to aim for the national piscatorial throat. "The machine's got so much charisma," he says. "I tell you the charisma is unbelievable. When you make three presentations and for every three you get a solid sale, you got to have a dynamic product."

Or a dynamic salesman, as McClintic is the first to add. Listen to the pitch: "You go out and find the proper distributor, a guy who knows the good fishing places. O.K., you say, show me some areas where you would like a 24- hr. bait house, because that's all it is really, a bait house. You sell it for $3,800. You take $300 down to assure yourself you have the order. You offer financing for $3,500. Payments of $120 a month to $150. This means Vend-A-Bait will cost the customer $4 to $5 a day--are you listening to me?--which means if he sells six or seven cups of bait a day (at prices ranging from $1.25 to $2.75), that business is self-supporting, O.K.? Space that was earning nothing is now a self-supporting business. There's your hook! Now of course we have accounts that do three times more business than they need to be self-supporting."

Since he was 19--33 years ago--one out of three people this man has approached has bought what he was selling, or so he claims. Hot-drink machines. Popcorn machines. Pool tables. Business machines. Copying machines. "I have a God-given talent for sales. I love the zip, zing and sizzle of it. The cold sale, the one-stop sale. It takes me ten minutes. Approach, presentation and close. You gotta know how to handle a prospect, or as I say a suspect. I can qualify a guy in two or three minutes. I know then if I've really got a prospect."

Speaking of God, McClintic lets drop that he is a born-again Christian, saying that a few years ago he decided he "didn't like the old things any more. I didn't like Vegas, the fast track, fast women, smoking, drinking. The blood of Jesus cleansed me, but don't get me preaching." He says that in the "depths of despair" one night he demanded, in return for a switch to impeccable behavior, some sign that there was a living God. Almost at once McClintic got very warm, and the room grew light. He and God had a deal. Then McClintic returns to the subject of Vend-A-Bait.

Somewhere along in the salesman's personal chronology, a connection or two are missed, and a listener notices. In time, the speaker volunteers, "Well, I was in a cell when I was born again." That was Aug. 22, 1978, the night of the day when federal agents surrounded his condo in Palmer, Mass., where he had been living under a phony name, with fake credentials, after having cosmetic surgery to change his looks, after having jumped bond in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, after he was sentenced to serve 20 years in a maximum- security prison for business fraud. He was taken to Leavenworth from Massachusetts where, characteristically, he had been a success, marketing desserts. It almost seems the guy could sell used chewing tobacco.

Five years and four months of good behavior later, McClintic was back in Des Moines, selling, and witnessing for the Lord. He was on probation and living in a halfway house, where the rules required him to turn over his weekly earnings for safekeeping. While his fellow parolees were ponying up their meager minimum wages, McClintic said he would step forward, beaming, with $3,000 to $5,000. Though it looked suspicious, he said they were honest bucks from honest sales. He was pushing vending machines.

For some reason--maybe people grew tired of the plastic taste--the bottom fell out of the market for vending-machine sandwiches soon after McClintic had re-entered the world of sales. Providentially, the downturn coincided with a suggestion from an associate, Larry Kramer, a fisherman who had noticed that most bait shops were not open during the weird hours when fish want to feed. Into the old sandwich machines went the worms, and Vend-A-Bait was born.

Now a firmly established businessman and "married to a good Christian woman," McClintic has written and privately published a little pamphlet concerning the changes in his life since he got religion, complete with selling techniques for fellow Christian salesmen. "I feel clean and honest," he writes. "It's true there is fun in sin for a season, but it doesn't last long. I got satisfaction making quick money and having nice things. I lived to impress men. I liked cars, homes, diamonds, good-looking women and a big bankroll."

He is still fond of material possessions--the man is a walking jewelry display case--and he feels conspicuous success is an asset when it comes to winning souls. It says, look what I have achieved.

"I know the power of persuasion is one of the most glorious gifts that God can give us," McClintic writes, "but it says in James, 'The tongue is a very unruly member.' (A more expansive thought along that track from the King James version of the Bible is 'but the tongue no man can tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.') I abused this gift in a world of loose morals and loose living. I could stimulate or excite other men into becoming part of different programs or buying various products. When it came to communicating the importance of an idea or product, I felt I had no peers."

And that is what got him into trouble. "I made over $100,000 a year for many years. One year I made close to a million dollars. But I wasn't happy. I was trapped. Although I was earning big money, I had attorneys following closely behind cleaning up the messes my business tactics were creating. They - would constantly bring me notices. But I was not concerned with being sued. I truly felt the power of money could buy me out of any problem."

McClintic's writing never goes into the specifics of the charges against him, nor does he when he speaks of "my nefarious past." His pamphlet mentions "misrepresentation and fraud" but does not cite any examples. However, files in Cedar Rapids show he was convicted of obtaining merchandise by fraud. Dummy corporations he set up ordered calculators, watches, radios, stereos, TVs and musical instruments from out-of-state manufacturers, then sold the products locally for cash at discount prices. Problem was, McClintic's corporate ghosts failed to pay the suppliers. Thousands of dollars worth of merchandise were involved.

To his credit, the salesman reveals his past to potential Vend-A-Bait distributors. Such is the spell of his silver tongue that a remarkable number of people quickly dismiss the information. In the blink of an eye, the pitch can slide from McClintic's shady years to his next project, vending fishing tackle. "This is going to be a barn burner!" Rare is the listener who then exclaims, "Wait a minute! Did you say LEAVENWORTH?"