Qa With Pitchman Billy Mays

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The economy might be tanking, and Wall Street is on the brink of hysteria, but none of that dampens the enthusiasm—that is, the crazed, rabid, evangelical fervor—of television pitchman Billy Mays.

And why should it? The bearded, barrel-chested Mays (whose mantra could be A.B.P., as in "Always Be Pitching!") has gotten rich from his only-in-America career as an inescapable presence on broadcast and cable. Part confidence man, part carnival barker, he is shouting in every media market in the United States, to say nothing of 57 countries around the world, hawking household products ranging from Mighty Putty (a gloppy adhesive) to Samurai Shark (a knife-sharpening tool). It's no wonder that the 50-year-old Mays will soon be starring in his own reality show, Pitchmen, now in production for the Discovery Channel.

In an exclusive interview with Portfolio.com, Mays argues that the possibly approaching recession is even good for his business (already a $150 billion industry by some estimates), encouraging cash-strapped Americans to choose cheap do-it-yourself fixes at home instead of hiring professionals, and repairing smashed crockery instead of buying anew.

Lloyd Grove: You obviously made it back from New Jersey okay.

Billy Mays: Barely. I had a little complication, but I'm hurting a little bit. I don't know what happened, but I'll see the doctor on Thursday.

L.G.: What did you hurt—your hip?
 
B.M.: The hip is fine. It's just the muscles around it—they go on guard. Doing a lot of walking on it, they get real spasmed up around my butt and my front and my pelvis, my thigh. Just got off the phone with the doctor. He said that's your natural defenses when you push it—you know, I was walking through the airport a lot, had a long day of shooting. But I think it's fine, I just feel it's muscle pain, which is fine. Just going to a little rehab the next couple days, then see him on Thursday.
 
L.G.: It would be nice for somebody to come up with a product for guys our age—my back has been killing me—and then you can get on television and pitch it.

B.M.: I would love to do that.
 
L.G.: I noticed that in 2004, articles about the infomercial industry said that it was about $150 billion of products sold through infomercials. Do you have any sense of what the scope of it is today?
 
B.M.: I really don't keep on the actual number, but if that number's right, Lloyd, it's certainly increased. I think the business has been legitimized. A lot of people still have their doubts about it, but let's face it, everything that comes out of my mouth has to be approved. We have to have documentation. Every demo [demonstration] has to work, and so there's a lot of legal work going into it. I think the numbers really don't lie. Talk about the infomercial, you're talking about everything from Chuck Norris to all the health-care stuff, all the beauty care, beauty lines, I mean, geez, we're talking about scooters, hub-arounds, they've all gone D.R. [direct response]. We have insurance now, ICanBenefit.com, which has been massive for me—you know, getting people affordable health insurance. Reverse mortgages. Premiere bathtubs. So that all falls under the spectrum of infomercials.

L.G.: Do you think there are some products that just can't be effectively sold via infomercial or can you sell pretty much any product?
 
B.M.: Well, first of all, if there's a need for it. There's a couple different ways to skin a cat there: Either it's going to be $10, $15, $20 on the two-minute spots, short form, or you're going to have an offer at the end where people are going to call in. Then you have 15 to 30 seconds that I do with OxiClean and Kaboom, which were already branded and in the stores. So they're image spots, and we drive them right to retail. And then you have the half-hour infomercial, which will actually give you a lot more time to ask for a lot more money. I feel that the magic number on the infomercial, the two-minute spots, it's kind of hard to get past $20. That seems to be the magic number. Or $19.95. The best things in life are free and $19.95. [Chuckles.]

So there's a lot of free offers out there, try it for free. David Oreck has done a fantastic job as far as his vacuum cleaners, you know. He's built an empire, and it's built on trust. I don't know him personally, but I've read about him and I like how he approaches the infomercial. "Try the product and if you're not 100 percent satisfied, send it back, and we'll not only ship it to you for free but we'll pay to have it shipped back for free, so you have nothing to lose." There's some really compelling stories out there. Of course, all the products I sell have a "Billy-back" guarantee, a money-back guarantee.

L.G.: But not shipping?

B.M.: Some of them, the $10 ones, the $20 ones, a few of them, we do. But especially with the presidential campaign and the Olympics, advertising time is such a high premium right now, that it's almost impossible to ship it to you and have you ship it back for free. Oreck will not only ship it to you free, he'll ship it back to you free. He has a bigger markup, he's at $300 to $400.

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