Do You Sincerely Want to Be Rich?: The Full Story of Bernard Cornfeld and I.O.S.

By Charles Raw, Bruce Page and Godfrey Hodgson

In the fall of 1955, Bernard Cornfeld arrived in Paris with scant money in his pocket and a tenuous relationship with a New York firm to sell mutual funds overseas. Cornfeld, a former psychologist and social worker, knew how to make friends fast and soon targeted two groups of people who could help him fulfill his economic ambitions: American expatriates who were looking to build their own fortunes and servicemen abroad who loved to live high-rolling lives and spend money. Using the first group as door-to-door salesmen and the second group as his gullible target, Cornfeld built a multi-billion-dollar and multi-national company, famous for its salesmen’s winning one-line pitch: “Do you sincerely want to be rich?” In this eye-opening yet entertaining book, an award-winning “Insight” team of the London Sunday Times examines Cornfeld’s impressive scheme, a classic example of good, old-fashioned American business gumption and guile.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: May 17, 2005
• ISBN: 9780767921596

Reviews for Do You Sincerely Want to Be Rich?

[miro_4 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The authors provide a first rate account of the rise and fall of Investors Overseas Services (IOS) from its involvement in the first mutual funds of the early 1960's to bankruptcy in the early 1970's. As they say, "The real lesson of the IOS story is an old one: it is that human communication is so fragile that a man can put out whatever propaganda he likes in his own interest and be sure that enough of it will be believed to make his fortune."IOS was essentially Bernie Cornfeld and Edward Cowett using Cornfeld's line that they were the first to provide top class investment advice to the small man. The IOS funds used a very committed and well paid international sales force to market this concept and it was eventually the cost of this effort combined with desperate performance chasing investments that sank them.I found this book as enjoyable as Eichenwald's "Conspiracy of Fools" (Enron story) for the similar high quality research and psychological understanding of the main characters.