celebrity pitchmen

Who would have thought that those individuals pitching products at state fairs, flea markets, and home expos would not only become big business magnates but celebrities? If you do not know them by name, you will know them by product. There are people like the late Billy Mays who is known by numerous products, but probably by his catch-phrase "Billy Mays here for..." Then before Billy Mays there was Ron Popeil of Ronco fame. He had products such as the Pocket Fisherman, Dial-O-Matic, Chop-O-Matic, Electric Food Dehydrator, and Inside-The-Shell Egg Scrambler. The most recent pitchman celebrity is Vince Offer of ShamWow and Slap Chop fame. All started as real world pitchmen.Ron Popeil develoed his real world pitchman skills doing demos on the streets of Chicago. His father being a inventor, started in selling by selling his father's products to department stores. Then one day he saw pitchmen working a busy street and decided he could do that too. He was very successful and actually returned to pitching the items individually inside the very stores he used to sell the products in bulk. He made much more money that way.Billy Mays got his start as a pitchman on the boardwalk of Atlantic City. The boardwalk being a long time location for the product pitches to the tourist crowd, Billy pitched a bucket based car washing product. He even was called "Bucket Billy" because of his continual hauling of buckets. He was mentored by many of the old time Atlantic City Boardwalk pitchmen. Then he began to hit the state fair, home show, and car show circuits to pitch products.Then there is Vince Offer who pitched products at flea markets. He had and still has aspiration to be a filmmaker, but his pitchman experience still has been useful. Actually, it was a combination of filmmaking and pitchmen skills that propelled him to his ShamWow and Slap Chop success. He produced and financed his first television product in the ShamWow.For all the parodies that these celebrity pitchmen have inspired on YouTube or Saturday Night Live, their success is a direct extension of the years they put in pitching products. That is to say that one cannot simply mimic what they see on television, and be as successful. The zany, high energy demos are highly planned and tested sales models. There is timing and reasoning for every "but wait, there's more." Like any great performing making something seem simple, there was a great deal of practice given to making it seem so simple.

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