JIM PLOUFFE’S STORY

Jim Plouffe has been a salesman / PEDDLER all of his life. He has a passion for business and sales. You can find him in Who’s Who Worldwide of Global Business Leaders and Who’s Who in Executives and Professionals. You could have read about him in Entrepreneur Magazine or Cars & Parts Magazine. You could have seen him on Public TV in Metro Detroit or on Channel 9 & Channel 10 News, where he has been featured several times. You could have been in the crowd when he gave his award winning humorous speech for Toastmasters.

Jim Plouffe has been a hippie, father, sales rep, business owner, a democrat then a republican, a successful stock option trader, tourist trap operator, and he currently operates an outside wedding and reception business. He has 17 cars not counting the ones he drives everyday, his own motor home, a huge Disney art collection, 2 homes in Arizona, 2 commercial buildings, 1 home in southeastern Michigan on Pine Lake, and a private 18-acre estate on the shores of Lake Michigan.

Jim Plouffe left home when he was 15, but before that he sold garden seeds door to door to everyone in his neighborhood that had a garden. He sold subscriptions to the Detroit News and Free Press the same way. Then he sold Amway products where he developed a loyal client base and earned his $100.00 pin, his first sales award. He managed to finish high school by going to night school.

His first real job was with Genesee County Parks & Recreation Department. He made $1.75 an hour. Then he got a better paying job at Arby’s for $2.00 an hour. Perry Drug Store paid him even more at $2.25 an hour. By the time he was 19 he was working 3rd shift at a tobacco and sundry warehouse for $3.15. His income was moving up.

At the same time that he was working 3rd shift in the warehouse, he took a job selling advertising specialty products on straight commission. Advertising specialties are anything that a company prints its name on like pens, key rings, calendars, etc., that companies give away to clients and prospects.

Jim says “I’d come home from working all night in the warehouse take a shower put on the only suit I had and headed out to TRY and sell somebody something. I worked over 30 days without selling a thing. Then my district sales manager spent the day with me and taught me the 2nd rule of selling.”

Then Jim hit the jackpot, or so he thought. Jim got a job selling industrial paints and chemicals that paid him $385.00 a week plus a gas allowance and commission. He was just 20 years old.

The job turned out to be too technical for Jim. He was in way over his head for the skills he had at the time. He knew it before his boss did but he was sure the boss would find out soon enough. So when a friend purchased the distribution rights and marketing plan of Zee Medical Products, an industrial first aid supply company, and offered Jim a job selling on straight commission, he took it. It was at this job Jim learned the 3rd rule of selling.

Luckily Jim’s friend turned out to be a lousy businessman and Jim was an OK salesman. Jim bought the business from him in 1975 for $1,750.00. It had a negative worth of $12,000.00. From this example you can tell that Jim was already a shrewd dealmaker.

While Jim owned his Zee Medical distributorship it was always one of the top 10 in the country. In 1976 he also won the largest sale in the country award from Zee. By the time Jim was 27 he had given up the rights to distribute Zee Medical Products and had started Respond Industries, Respond Franchise Corp. & Respond First Aid & Safety with 2 other former Zee distributors. In 1983 Jim moved to Colorado to run the Respond organization. By 1987 Respond had grown to 35 franchisees with just over $4,000,000.00 in wholesale sales, plus Respond received a 7% royalty from the franchisees retail sales. That year with Jim running things Respond made more money than it had in all of its previous 8 years combined. Jim got FIRED. That’s when Jim learned many business rules that have nothing to do with selling so he won’t go into those rules today.

So in 1988 Jim moved back to Michigan, took back the daily operation of his franchise, renamed it Dot First Aid & Safety, and started all over again without any partners this time. Sales grew from under $800,000 the first year to just under $5,000,000.00 in 10 years.

In 1998 Jim was lucky enough to receive one of those “offers you can’t refuse” and he sold Dot First Aid and retired

Retirement didn’t last long however. Jim soon started “The Millionaires’ Cars & Disney Collection” a northern Michigan tourist attraction and then he started Lighthouse Point an outside wedding and reception business.

So let me introduce you to the world famous Jim Plouffe and his talk titled “selling made easy”.