Superachiever Ed McMahon

On May 18, 1984, Ed McMahon received the Horatio Alger Award, a distinctive honor given to people who have come from humble backgrounds and have made extraordinary achievements.

Ed McMahon is a Superachiever. Although his is nationally recognized as one of TV’s biggest stars (The Tonight Show, Star Search and TV Bloopers), only a few people know about his outstanding abilities and skills in selling.

He discovered his selling talents at a very early age. Upon hearing that he could earn a bicycle by selling subscriptions to the Saturday Evening Post, he sold three the same afternoon. (He rode his own bike shortly thereafter.)

As a speech and drama student at Catholic University in Washington D.C., he supported his wife and child by selling stainless steel cookware door to door.

During the summer he perfected his techniques by pitching products on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. His talents as a master salesman and master showman are two powerful drives that have advanced his career far beyond his own dreams.

Personal Selling Power was privileged to spend an unforgettable afternoon with Ed in his Burbank office. Here is the eye-opening transcript of our discussion.

PSP: In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, you said, “I am proud to be a salesman.” What is it about selling that makes you proud?

McMahon: Well, it’s an ability, like the ability to play the trumpet, or to tap dance. It’s a great asset to have. I was very lucky to discover at a very young age that I could sell. As a kid, I used to sell the Bayonne Times. I bought the papers for a penny and sold them for two pennies.

PSP: You were in business for yourself…

McMahon: Yes, if I didn’t sell those newspapers, I had to eat my profits. We used to customize our pitch according to the neighborhood. In a poor neighborhood we would holler about the new relief programs. In a rich neighborhood, we’d pitch the latest news about the stock market. I used to sell out every day.

PSP: Do you feel that salespeople in general are not proud of their profession?

McMahon: Well, some say, “I’m just a salesman.,” and don’t have the pride they should have. Several years ago, I read about a researcher who interviewed people about their work. He found that the majority didn’t like their jobs. This was surprising to me because I love my work and can’t wait to get started in the morning. I love it when someone is enthusiastic about what they are doing.

PSP: In your autobiography, Here’s Ed, you mention, “I have the mind and instincts of a hustler.” What did you mean by that?

McMahon: I used the word hustler to describe someone who would take almost nothing and make something out of it. As a kid, one of the first things I ever did was sell pineapple juice. I didn’t have a lemonade stand; I wanted to do things differently. I loaded the stand with pineapples. My uncle used to tease me by saying, “He loses 2 cents on every glass he sells, but the volume eats up the loss.” (He laughs heartily – that famous McMahon belly laugh). By hustling, I mean the ability to start something from scratch and get something going – which I have done many times in my life.

PSP: How would you describe your qualities as a salesman?

McMahon: One of the things I learned very early is to use positive statements in selling. The choice of words is very important. When I was selling pots and pans, the question of price would always come up. When the prospect would ask, “How much does it cost?” my answer would be, “That depends on how you are going to purchase it.” The next quality would be the use of positive body language. For instance, I sold fountain pens on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. I learned that you don’t pick up a fountain pen like just anybody else does, you pick it up like this (He carefully lifts up an imaginary pen.) You see, the way you handle it…is like a piece of jewelry. Your body language says: This is special, this a fine writing instrument, this is better than somebody else’s.

PSP Did your stage experience help you in selling?

McMahon: Of course. All the good techniques of performing and acting are used in selling. Also, I learned to limit the choices. One time I set up a counter for a dealer who offered many different colored fountain pens. I told him, “I want red and green. Don’t give me any other colors.” He couldn’t understand that, but I wanted to limit the choices. In my pitch, there was a point where I asked the customer, “If you were to buy this pen, would you prefer the red one or the green one?” So they’ve got to make a choice. Let’s say the customer answered, “Red is my favorite color.” I’d say, “I am awfully fond of red myself. Let me just put this red pen in your hand. Would you write with it and see how it feels?” Eliminating choices is very important. You don’t offer 20 things to sell, just a couple.

PSP: You mentioned acting and selling. How do you see the similarities between the qualities of a salesman and the qualities of a showman?

McMahon: Selling and showmanship have one element in common that is so vital for success: First, you have to have their attention. No matter whether your audience consists of a single person or one hundred thousand people, before you can sell or show them anything, you have to get their focus on you.

PSP: How?

McMahon: As a showman, the first thing you have to do is to get your audience together into one unit. Like when I come out to do the warm-up for The Tonight Show: here are people from all walks of life, different social backgrounds, financial backgrounds, and ethnic backgrounds. My job is to get them all together as a unit. It’s like making a necklace, where you take a lot of pearls and put them on a string. When I am finished with the warm-up, I turn that necklace over to Johnny Carson.

PSP: That’s a nice analogy.

McMahon: Sometimes, when you’re emceeing a show, you can get a noisy crowd…especially people who have paid a lot of money for their seats. They are important – at least they think they are important. They are important in their professions, in society. They are a little blasé, they are drinking, talking to each other, and you want them to listen to you.

PSP; How?

McMahon: I have a great device! I will finally intimidate them if I have to go that far. I’ll say, “Friends, I agreed to come here tonight, I’ve got no place to go, it’s the only place I’m going to go to tonight. Nothing is going to happen back there – everything is going to happen right here. Everything that’s important to this show is going to come from right here. So whenever you’re ready, you’ll let me know by your silence.” And then I wait. I just wait until they finally realize that nothing is happening. As they quiet down, I continue, “Now that I’ve got all your attention, we’ve got a wonderful show for you tonight…” I don’t have to do that now, but in the early days, before they knew who I was, I had to do this with tougher crowds.

PSP: Have you ever used this in selling?

McMahon: It’s the same. When I was peddling pots and pans in someone’s house and the kids were running back and forth, I would say something like, “Perhaps I might come back at another time…” and they would respond, “No, no, no…Jimmy and Mary, go to your room…” You see, when the kids are distracting, I wouldn’t have their attention and I couldn’t make the sale.

PSP: You need to set the stage for your presentation

McMahon: Yes, exactly.

PSP: You have an interesting way of choosing words and telling stories. Where did you learn that?

McMahon: My father was a great storyteller. I learned by listening to him. He would take an ordinary story and embellish it. I remember when he and his cronies would come back from fishing trip and someone would start to tell a story about something unusual that happened, they would always stop and say, “Let Eddy tell it,” because it would be a better story, it would have more elements, he embellished it. That’s one of the great gifts I got from him. I still use that.

PSP: A good story can be a very persuasive selling tool if it’s told well.

McMahon: There is nothing more annoying than hearing someone tell a story during a dinner party, “I heard this great story,” and halfway through he tells you, “Oh, I forgot to tell you, the guy is a priest.” By then, you don’t want to hear more. If you want to tell a good story, you begin by setting the scene, like: (He lowers his voice.) “There was this priest in a tiny little village…” You have to set up the story, you need to have an objective, a direction.

PSP; When you were selling on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, you pitched the Morris Metric Vegetable Slicer.

McMahon: The famous Morris Metric Slicer. Yes, I was a pitchman, they are a very exclusive group of people. It was a well-paying job. I made $500 a week on the boardwalk in the late forties.

PSP: How long did it take you to learn that pitch?

McMAHON: Not long at all. I just hung around, watched the Morris brothers do it and took the best parts of all. I finally convinced them to let me try to sell the Morris Metric Slicer at eight o’clock in the morning. It was the worst time of the day to be selling on the boardwalk. But people stopped and listened and bought. Soon, I would match what the salesman was producing at 10 a.m. As I got better, they would give me the choice hours. I became one of the top salesmen in the business.

PSP: What was your first job as showman?

McMAHON: My first paid job was in the back of a sound truck, announcing that a big fair was going to take place. I made up my own spiel, I made up jokes and was successful. Then I got a job announcing a horseracing game at a resort.

PSP: This led you to the bingo business?

McMahon: Yes, I got the bingo job. That was a big job. I was not only the announcer, but I became the manager and also drove the semi-trailer with all the bingo equipment.

PSP: That was right after you finished high school.

McMahon: Yes, I was just a kid. But that’s how I made a living.

PSP: You said once, “You can sell almost anything if you go about it the right way and work hard enough.” Do you think that a lot of people know the right way, but don’t work hard enough?

McMahon: Sure.

PSP: Why not? What seems to be the reason?

McMahon: I think it’s the inability to handle rejection. When I sold pots and pans from door-to-door, I worked every night from six o’clock to ten o’clock in the evening. Sometimes at nine I hadn’t sold anything, but I was still out on the road making calls. One evening at 9:45, I sold three sets. I dropped in on a family, they had friends over and everyone bought. If I had quit at 9:15, I wouldn’t have sold anything that night. I persevered and I kept trying.

PSP: How do you suggest salespeople deal with rejection?

McMahon: First of all, you are not unique when you get rejected. Being rejected is something that you haven’t invented, it doesn’t just happen to you alone. When I first went to New York, I won the first audition. I figured that I’ve got this place in my pocket, but I lost the next thirty. That got me straightened out quickly. In selling, you know that you’re going to be rejected or turned down, that’s the nature of the beast. It’s a built-in part, it comes with the territory. You can’t be a salesperson without failing. I guess everybody can find their own way in overcoming it. For me, it was perseverance, pressing on, discipline. It’s knowing that sooner or later you get back on track.

PSP: What was the worst rejection you’ve ever experienced?

McMahon: I got a chance to become the announcer on a comedy game show in New York. I did what I thought was a great warm-up and did everything right. The following week I did the same show and I assumed that everything was fine and wonderful, but they fired me. Nobody would tell me why. I got on the train home to Philadelphia and figured my career was over and I’d better get out of show business and back to selling. Later on, I found out that I got fired because the producer took exception to a joke I told. That was the worst rejection for me. But interestingly, after a few years went by, I auditioned for a new TV show. The same producer who fired me liked me so well, he wanted me to host two of his shows. Since NBC didn’t want to let the same person host two shows, I ended up with doing only one.

PSP: Which one?

McMahon: “Snap Judgment.”

PSP: Great. How important is humor in selling?

McMahon: I think it is very important for two reasons. First, it’s a great tool for breaking the ice and eliminating buying reluctance. Second, it makes the presentation less boring for me. I stay more in focus and more interested if I’m going to do a joke and get a laugh. On the boardwalk, when we sold the vegetable slicer, we used plenty of humor and lots of funny comparisons. It helps you stay in focus and excited. If you are just droning along with the same old pitch, you lost interest in it, and then it gets harder to get somebody else interested.

PSP: Could you give us an example on how you used humor in your famous Morris Metric Slicer presentations?

McMahon: Well, for instance, we’d slice a tomato with a knife and say, “Did you ever see a lady slice a tomato? She takes a poor, defenseless tomato and stabs at it with a butcher knife. And the poor little tomato dies of a hemorrhage before it ever reaches the table.” Then we’d use the Morris Metric Slicer: “Now watch as I show you how this wonderful little invention handles your tomato problems. Look at those slices. Each one is so thin, it’s no wonder stingy people adore this little machine. I sold one of these to a lady in Bayonne, New Jersey, and it made one tomato last her all summer long.”

PSP: I can see you selling hundreds of those machines.

McMahon: I did.

PSP: So you are saying that humor helps you stay in focus. Do you feel that there is a relationship between staying in focus and confidence?

McMahon: Yes. Focus makes you better at what you are doing. The minute you start getting better, your confidence grows. Once you know that, it’s easier the next time.

PSP: Is it true that Charles Bronson and Jack Klugman learned from your presentations in Atlantic City?

McMahon: Yes. They worked for my father in what was essentially a bingo game, but it was called SKILLO, because there were some skills involved. They were trying to become mike men. My father would send them down to watch me and listen to my pitch. They had been studying like I did and made money using their voices on a microphone to get where they wanted to go. Atlantic City was a great experience for me because it not only gave me a chance to be selling, but be very funny in front of a crowd. I had people so excited they were throwing money at me shouting, “Don’t forget me! Don’t forget me!”

PSP: In your autobiography you wrote that W.C. Fields was your idol. What did you learn from him?

McMahon: He was a master of comic timing – verbal and nonverbal. I have a room in my home which I call the W.C. Fields room, it’s the W.C., the water closet. Inside are all kinds of paraphernalia of him, a wood carving on one wall, little statuettes…When you turn on the light, you hear an Old Lucky Strike show. I keep changing it, but the one that is running right now can give you an example of how funny he was. He was using words that no other comedian ever used. In the show he’s talking backstage and the announcer says, “Mr. Fields, everybody can hear what you’re saying. Don’t talk until you’re introduced.” Now his response was (McMahon tilts his mouth and imitates W.C. Fields’ voice) “The man asked me a civil question. I have to give him a civil answer. My grandfather was a Civil War veteran. I’ve got a brother who is a civil engineer. It’s in the family to be civil.” (big belly laugh) He was one of the greatest jugglers in the world. He did tricks that no one has ever duplicated.

PSP: You are selling many different products on TV. How many commercials do you do a year?

McMahon: Between 600 and 800.

PSP: That’s two or three a day.

McMahon: We do more than that. When we shoot commercials, I come to the studio at eight o’clock in the morning and usually I do eight different commercials on eight different sets and I leave at noon.

PSP: What was your favorite commercial?

McMahon: A budweiser commercial with Frank Sinatra which was shot in Florida. We were doing six commercials that day and I was told that “you have Mr. Sinatra for only one hour.” We had to be very efficient and I rehearsed the previous day with a stand-in who looked exactly like Sinatra. When Sinatra arrived the next day, everything went like clockwork. He’s very efficient and he really knew his lines. In less than one hour we had done five commercials. On the last one, we were cavalry officers, tied to the wheels of an army wagon and I was supposed to say, “What do you think got those Indians so upset?” and his copy was, “You, by telling them that the gold they had was unredeemable quartz.” But Frank couldn’t say “unredeemable.” He blew it about six times in a row. He was getting angrier by the minute and everybody was petrified. Before the seventh take, I looked at him with a stern face and said, “Look, Frank, I don’t have all day!” and there was this long pause. Then, he exploded with laughter. He was laughing so hard, he had to leave, and was hitting his hands on the side of the studio. I nailed him in front of his cronies. The upshot was that he did it the next time.

PSP: He redeemed himself.

McMahon: That’s right.

PSP: You seem to be very cool under pressure. As a marine fighter pilot, you once landed a plane that had a defective wing.

McMahon: Yes, I flew a Corsair that had been rebuilt after it had lost a wing. It needed to be tested and the moment I got off the ground I knew there was trouble. I couldn’t get the plane into a level position. It remained at about a 45 degree left bank. I didn’t want to jump and tried to save the plane. After eleven approaches, I said, “I’m coming in at this pass – regardless.” They had everything prepared, the firetrucks…the meatwagons. My hands were tired and I mentally shut my eyes and did it.

PSP: How do you tune out reality consciously?

McMahon: Good question. I see through the rainbow. I see myself doing it. I focus on that and I get there.

PSP: You are talking about visualization techniques.

McMahon: Yes. For example, when I wanted to work in Las Vegas, I saw myself on a Las Vegas stage and went ahead and did it. Of course, it took a while to get there. I developed an act, I honed it and fine-tuned it and went all around the country breaking it in. When I walked out on the stage in Vegas, I was successful. They hired me on the spot for another two weeks, later for the season.

PSP: Did you use visualization techniques in selling too?

McMahon: Sure. You need to see the finished situation. When we used to sell the slicer, there was a certain point where you entice them enough and you start, “Alright, who is going to be number one?” Then you see someone responding and you say, “Yes, hold your hand up high, you’re number one!” Once you are at that point, you see people with their dollars way up high in the air. “Alright, who will be the second person?” You see that happening and all you have to do is to take the dollar and hand them the merchandise as fast as you can.

PSP: You anticipate the positive event.

McMahon: Yes, it’s the same with the warm-up at The Tonight Show. After I get a few laughs from the audience, the next thing I want to get is my big laugh. That first, real, BIG laugh that they did not want to give me. I know it’s coming. I am waiting for it. I know where it’s going to be and I go for it. The answer that you need is that you have to see the finished product of your efforts.

PSP: Do you feel you had a tough time as a kid?

McMahon: I had a very lonely childhood because we were moving around so much. I never knew anybody. I never had any friends. That bothered me a lot. Now that I know how gregarious I am and how friends mean so much to me, I realize how terrible a void that was.

PSP: A void that became the cradle for ambition.

McMahon: Very good point.

PSP: Do you feel you were not accepted when you changed schools and neighborhoods so quickly?

McMahon: Yes, I remember when I went to a high school in Philadelphia, there were 5,000 students and I didn’t know a soul. I got on a trolley every morning and went to school across town and no one said hello to me until May. That’s a long time. I was practicing being a radio announcer using a flashlight as a mike in my grandmother’s dining room.

PSP: But you turned your dreams into reality.

McMahon: Yes. When I began to blossom, I really blossomed. I went after it all.

PSP: What’s your definition of success?

McMahon: To set some wish on fire.

PSP: How?

McMahon: Take something you want and get it so heated and boiling, so it will get you going until you get it.

PSP: I’ve got it. Thank you.

Important Notice

To show our readers just how effective Ed McMahon was in selling the famous Morris vegetable slicer, we have transcribed his famous sales presentation word for word. Discover the secrets of his timeless sales magic! Don’t miss our next issue which will feature the complete Morris vegetable slicer pitch with an x-ray look by Dr. Donald J. Moine explaining step by step what makes Ed’s presentation so powerful and persuasive.