Qa With Pitchman Billy Mays

L.G.: Give me an example of some of the products that have come over the transom that you thought were not right for you.

B.M.: Um, geez. One was a propane caddy.

L.G.: What is a propane caddy?

B.M.: To carry your propane on a little wheel—which I thought was just kind of not D.R., direct response. Another was a siphon, or an anti-siphon, so that you can stop people from siphoning gas, because it's a big thing now with the price of gas. I think things like that—the grill tamer.

L.G.: What does the grill tamer do?

B.M.: It keeps the grill open a certain length or a certain area so that you can get the smoke to come out and so you don't burn your food. And it adjusts, has different gauges on it. The guy invented it from a beer can, just smashed a beer can.

L.G.: But you passed on that.

B.M.: Yeah, he got really sophisticated about it, he's made it nice-looking—it's made out of high quality material and you know, "40 million grills, 40 million people that own grills!"—that was his pitch.

L.G.: Why did you pass on that? Why do you pass on something?

B.M.: I have a checklist. It has to have mass appeal. When you have 40 million grills out there, he thinks that he's going to sell 15 million. First of all, you don't sell 15 million of something. I've sold that much of OxiClean. That's different because that's ongoing. Mighty Putty is way up there. That's one of my biggest products, and of course OxiClean is a standard that everything is set by. And Kaboom. The company was sold to Arm & Hammer. I started with OxiClean, or Orange Glo International, which is a family company. And it was sold for $325 million.

L.G.: And you were one of the lucky stockholders?

B.M.: No, I wasn't. I wasn't even involved in anything. It made me, Lloyd, such a strong pitchman after that. I worked for OxiClean, and Orange Glo, I worked with them four, five, six times a year, shooting commercials. It made a stronger pitchman.

L.G.: In other words, everybody would know you as the guy who insured the success of OxiClean, so you were the go-to guy for that kind of thing?

B.M.: Yeah, and I felt that I built all three brands—also Kaboom and Orange Glo. [Not profiting from the sale] was a hard thing to swallow but I used that. I think that he [Max Appel, the head of Orange Glo] would probably have done things differently but it's not too late, it's only been a couple years. I felt that I should have got something. Look, I believe things happen for a reason, I'm a much more successful pitchman. People say that I have more hits on TV than anyone. I like it that way. I don't want to be handed this and handed that.

L.G.: And it's not like you're living on a grate here. And even though you drive a Rolls-Royce or whatever it is, you manage to keep your feet on the ground?

B.M.: Right, it's a Bentley.

L.G.: Like James Bond.

B.M.: [Laughs.] I enjoy what I do. I think it's just beginning. I'm going to go and take this to another level, and really legitimize the business that we're in, not that it needs legitimization. But there are skeptics out there that are still a little leery about "As Seen on TV," even though we're regulated so much.

L.G.: You're regulated by what?

B.M.: The F.T.C. [Federal Trade Commission]. We're very regulated. You better have the claims backed up and if they call you on them, and that demo is not actually documented, you're in trouble. A lot of trouble.

L.G.: You're not facing jail time if you try and fool the people, but it's a civil penalty, right?

B.M.: Yeah. I'm the frontman, I'm the quarterback, I have a good relationship with everyone I work with. I know that their priorities are to be clean about it, and that's important. I won't work with some of the ones that are a little leery. There are a few out there. I think in every business, there is.

L.G.: Right, well there's a tradition that goes back to the medicine shows, obviously. But they didn't have an F.T.C. then.

B.M.: Oh no, you could pretty much get on TV and say anything you wanted. But now we're really carefully watched.