DOUG BIEDRON owned a gift shop until he started selling dreams. That was another life. Now, his business is people. The audience murmurs as he walks into the conference room. At first glance, the 50-odd people do not appear to fit into any single demographic. There are men and women, white and black, young and old, all dressed as if they’re in a church rather than some hotel.

Biedron — in a gray suit and red tie, with what remains of his dark hair slicked back — steps confidently to a dry-erase board at the front of the room. The audience rises in ovation. Eventually, he waves them down. When he talks, his voice is nasally, filled with a greasy Parma twang.

“I want to tell you about TEAM,” he says. “What they’ve done is create a new business on the Internet. All I ask is that you keep an open mind.”

And so begins the Tuesday-night meeting. Like church, it’s a weekly deal. The speakers rotate. If it wasn’t Biedron, it would have been one of his partners; Bob Meter, perhaps. Or a 27-year-old from Youngstown named Phil Simon. Doesn’t matter, though; the pitch is always the same.

“How many of you understand the Internet is a baby that is growing?” asks Biedron. He waits for several hands to raise, nods, then continues. “Basically, they say the Internet is going to generate $7 trillion in e-commerce.”

The congregation murmurs loudly.

“If time and money were no object, what would you do? What kind of car would you drive?”

“I’d hire a guy to drive for me,” shouts a man in the crowd. Laughter.

Biedron draws shapes on the dry-erase board. Circles, long rectangles, but no triangles. He explains how Internet companies lack loyal customers; how TEAM was formed to drive groups of people to these Internet sites; how buying in volume saves everyone money; how TEAM will make you “financially free.”

“You will make two to three thousand a month if you put the energy into this system,” he says. “It’s only going to cost you around $250. The worst that can happen is you get a 25 percent rebate on everything you buy.”

Actually, it can get worse.

TEAM WAS FOUNDED in 1999 by Michigan opportunists Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady. The name stands for “Together Everyone Achieves More.” It’s a bit of a misnomer.

TEAM is a group that buys products from Quixtar.com. Toothpaste, shoes, TVs; you name it, they got it. Quixtar is owned by Alticor, which also owns Amway, the granddaddy of all pyramid-shaped businesses.

The invitation-only TEAM meetings are generally held in hotel conference rooms. A local TEAM leader pitches the concept for an hour. Anyone who wants to learn more is given a “starter kit” that includes two motivational CDs and Woodward and Brady’s book, Leading the Consumer Rebellion.

Those who become members can start buying products they would normally purchase at Tops or Wal-Mart from Quixtar instead. Because Quixtar is buying directly from manufacturers in bulk, it can “cut out the overhead.” However, most of these items are substantially marked up. For instance, a family spending $300 on household goods might spend $350 buying the same products through Quixtar.

In one of the CDs, Woodward justifies this as just a part of a two-year business plan. “In that two years, spending $50 a month, you have accumulated $1,200,” he says in manic staccato sentences recorded at some live convention-center rally. “You’ve invested $1,200 over two years for the right to make an extra six or seven thousand dollars a month.”

The promise of making money hand-over-fist is subtext to everything. And here’s how you do that: sign up everyone you know as a TEAM member.

TEAM mentors, or “uplines,” are assigned to new recruits. They sit down with newbies and comb through their address books, lists of friends, and names of family members. Invites go out to as many as possible. Because in order to earn a lot of money as a TEAM member, they need more TEAM members to sign up below them. The more business they drive through their personal account (assigned when they become a Quixtar independent business owner, or IBO), the more rebates they receive from purchases. After enough people sign up through them, IBOs start receiving bonus checks from Quixtar. Reaching Platinum status earns them a check for $2,500.

Technically, TEAM is not a pyramid scheme, according to federal and state guidelines. Robin Luymes, manager of PR for Quixtar, explains: “A pyramid scheme is based on the exchange of money without products. No money is exchanged in our business until products are purchased. Your income is purely derived from the movement of product.”

Still, Woodward admits to having found a loophole to speed things up.

“It got to the point where, if I have to buy these products and bury them in my backyard, I’ll do it for two years,” he tells a live audience on CD-71. “I’m not saying do bury them, but it made sense to me.”

The Ohio Attorney General’s office has received complaints. In 2000, a woman reported being asked by employees of the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation to sign up with Quixtar during a business meeting. In 2001, a Shelby man complained about losing $260 to a Quixtar pitchman; he asked the AG’s office for help keeping the persistent salesman away. “And they better not mess with me, because in a righteous, Bible-approved way, I will deal with them,” he wrote. The latest complaint, from August 2005, is aimed directly at TEAM members.

Orrin Woodward did not return calls. His assistant said he was too busy snowmobiling with his children. Those at the top of TEAM’s structure have it pretty good. And that lifestyle is very attractive to those still struggling in the bottom tier.

HEINZ WERNER is a member of Cleveland’s branch of TEAM. Typical of most members, he once owned his own business — a tanning salon — but fell into financial trouble. He’s thirtysomething, wears a sharp suit, and mimics many of his TEAM leader’s points during idle conversation. He’s still really excited at the prospect of becoming financially free, even if that goal remains slightly out of reach after nearly three years in the program.

“Right now, the income I receive [from Quixtar] is enough for me to break even,” he says. “It covers all the meetings, seminars, CDs and books. I’m probably less than a year away from making Platinum.”

Besides the bonus check, Platinum members also get to divvy up the weekly meeting fees. Werner can almost smell the money he’s about to rake in.

“Get on the TEAM, even if you don’t know how it works yet,” he says. “It took Wal-Mart 20 years to reach $1 billion in sales. It took us five years. We’re going to kick Wal-Mart’s butt. Are you going to watch it happen, or are you going to make it happen?”

Those sales figures come from Quixtar, and are suspect at best. And at least at Wal-Mart, workers are guaranteed minimum wage. Even TEAM leaders are struggling to get that much.

“I’m not financially free,” says Bob Meter, who organizes many of the weekly meetings around Cuyahoga County. He’s been in the program for over two years and is considered one of the more motivated local leaders. “But I’m about to see some big results.”

Not that money matters, he says. “What they didn’t tell me was how it would help my relationship with my wife and kids. It’s a Christian-based organization, you know?”

Scott Larsen, a longtime Amway watcher, wrote about TEAM’s affinity for Christians on his Web page. Until Orrin Woodward sued and forced him to shut the site down. Due to the court settlement, he cannot speak about TEAM. But he can rant all he wants about Quixtar.

“There’s definitely a right-wing religious base,” he says. “I believe they prey on these people because they have too much trust. They win their trust more easily.” (Larsen’s original essays are on Carnegie Mellon University’s Web site, www.cmu.edu. Search “pyramid scheme.”)

While many Cleveland members are Christians, they apparently do not promote the love-thy-neighbor doctrine outside of meetings. The desk clerk at the Hampton Inn in Middleberg Heights remembers them as pompous bullies. “They were always mean, real rude,” she says. “Then they just left.”

TEAM Cleveland doesn’t stay in one location for long. In the past year, they have bounced from a room at Ohio Wesleyan University’s Independence campus to Middleberg Heights, to a conference center off I-77. Next Tuesday at 8 p.m., you’ll find them at the Westlake Holiday Inn

AT A COFFEE SHOP in North Royalton, Doug Biedron defends his burgeoning business, even though no one in Cleveland seems to be making money at this.

“We’re not a pyramid,” he says. “Call the Better Business Bureau, call the Federal Trade Commission. We’re governed by them.”

Then he switches back to sales mode. “Not everyone in this business is going to make money, but I’ll help you as far as you want to go. Look, I’m a Christian. Have you ever read the Bible? This world revolves around people, so how many do you want to go out and help? I love dealing with people.”

Cleveland, he says, is on the verge of being taken over by TEAM. “It has exploded here. That’s all I can tell you. There were six people in my first meeting, now there are sometimes a hundred. It works because it’s so duplicatable.”

But that’s not really a word.

“Yeah, technically,” he replies. “But ‘ain’t’ wasn’t a word either. Is now.”

jrenner@freetimes.com.