Selling Like Billy Mays: Five Essential Character Traits That Make a Product Easy to Sell

Billy Mays, who, sadly, passed away at age 50, was a potbellied, black-bearded Atlantic City carnival barker who wore a blue long-sleeve shirt and a white undershirt.

He had a loud, shrill, and annoyingly exuberant voice. And he seemed to lean forward, through the TV screen, and put his nose in your face, the way only pitchmen do.

Madison Avenue–style brand marketers who believe that asking for an order even once, unless it's in small gray type, is undignified, contemptible, and just plain bad manners, loathed him.

Direct marketers idolized him.

Consumers, well, they either loved or hated him, or were totally unaware of him (presumably TiVo owners).

The bottom line: Mays sold the hell out of stuff. And he didn't have to reinvent the wheel to do it.

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Barry A. Densa is a freelance marketing and sales copywriter at Writing With Personality. For more, visit his blog Marketing Wit & Wisdom.