BillyMays

Mays was born in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania. After graduating from high school, he began his career as a salesman on the Atlantic City boardwalk, selling the “Washmatik” portable washing device to passersby. Working alongside other pitchmen, he developed his trademark style of salesmanship.

Mays later traveled to home shows, auto shows, and state fairs across the United States for a period of twelve years, selling various maintenance products and tools, including cleaning products and food choppers.

At a Pittsburgh home show in 1993, Mays struck up a friendship with rival salesman Max Appel, founder of Orange Glo International, a Denver-based manufacturer of cleaning products. He was then hired by the company to promote their line of cleaners, OxiClean, Orange Clean, and Orange Glo, on the Home Shopping Network in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Customer response to Mays’ sales pitches were enthusiastic, with a sharp increase in sales after his first day on the network, although some reviews were poor. He is very well known for shouting in lieu of talking during infomercials and regular life. For example, Washington Post staff writer Frank Ahrens called him “a full-volume pitchman, amped up like a candidate for a tranquilizer-gun takedown”.

Following the success of the Home Shopping Network campaign, a line of successful television commercials and infomercials for the products was produced, featuring Mays demonstrating the effectiveness of the products to viewers hands-on. He typically begins such commercials with: “Hi! Billy Mays here for [advertised product].” Their success led to OrangeGlo International being named among the top ten privately growing companies from 1999 to 2001 by Inc. magazine, and its eventual buyout by Church and Dwight. Appel credited Mays’ brilliant salesmanship for much of the company’s success.

Mays is the CEO and founder of Mays Promotions, Inc., based at his home in Odessa, Florida. His services as a pitchman became highly sought-after, and he has appeared in commercials for many diverse “as seen on TV” products. Mays claims to be an avid user of the products he promotes.

Mays was named the new voice of iCan Benefit Group, LLC., “the first company offering Health Insurance Billy Mays has been excited to endorse”. The TV commercials, featuring Billy Mays telling “the iCan story”, began to air nationally in May 2008.

In December 2008, Mays began appearing in ads for ESPN’s online service, ESPN360. These ads were a slight departure for Mays as they were designed to be parodies of his and other infomercial cliches with Mays appearing to be doing a parody of himself. He also made a live appearance during the 2008 Champs Sports Bowl promoting ESPN’s and ABC’s January 1, 2009 bowl games.

Mays currently resides in Florida in a US$1.8 million home built in 2005.

February 10, 2009 on the Adam Carolla radio talk show, Mays publicly challenged Vince Offer, the spokesperson for Shamwow to a “pitch off.”

Billy Mays has also become the subject of an internet meme. There have been incidents in which players calling themselves ‘Billy Mays’ will join Garry’s Mod servers and spam down their headset/microphone by playing Billy Mays advertisements. There are also several YouTube videos in which users will ‘poop’ his videos.