Jim McIngvale was born in Starkville, Mississippi in 1951. His father, George McIngvale, was a business owner. His mother, Angela McIngvale, was a stay-at-home mother.
Source: Houston Intown Magazine
After leaving college, McIngvale worked at a convenience store. He eventually got fired, which he saw as an opportunity to reinvent himself.
Source: KHOU 11, Gallery Furniture
After that, McIngvale got a job at a furniture store in Dallas, Texas. In this role, he learned the ins-and-outs of running a furniture business and developed a passion for the industry.
Source:LinkedIn
In 1981, McIngvale moved to Houston, Texas with his newly wedded wife Linda and $5,000 in life savings to open a furniture store called Gallery Furniture at an abandoned model home park located next to a freeway. They slept there for weeks to prevent the theft of inventory and worked late nights to pick up furniture.
Source: Gallery Furniture
Gallery Furniture's sales soared during its first year of business as Americans moved to Houston to work in the city's booming auto, oil, and steel industries and needed to purchase furniture for their new homes.
But by 1983, Gallery Furniture's sales dropped significantly. This forced McIngvale to rethink his advertising strategy which included signs nailed to telephone poles and door-to-door fliers.
Source: Gallery Furniture
McIngvale decided to spend his last $10,000 on a TV commercial shown on two Houston stations. He didn't like how the commercials turned out, so he stepped in front of the camera and improvised a sales pitch. He spoke quickly and energetically, ending his pitch by shouting "Gallery Furniture saves you money!"
Source: KHOU 11, Gallery Furniture
The advertisement was a success and led furniture sales to skyrocket. The "save you money" slogan is now famous among Houstonians who watched him on TV.
Source: KHOU 11, Gallery Furniture
Throughout the early 1980s, Mack appeared in a number of commercials where he wore a mattress costume. That's when the nickname "Mattress Mack" was born.
Source:Las Vegas Review Journal
During this time, he shifted away from selling solely value-priced furniture into higher-end furniture which attracted new customers. He credits the uptick in sales to his customer-centric approach to business, promising same-day delivery of furniture.
Source: Gallery Furniture
As McIngvale ascended to fame and fortune, he and his wife became executive producers of the 1992 film 'Sidekicks' starring Chuck Norris and Jonathan Brandis. In turn, Norris acted in several Gallery Furniture commercials.
Source: The Los Angeles Times
In 1991, Gallery Furniture generated $30 million in sales. By 1998, sales were at $100 million. McIngvale said that sales jumped because he adopted the W. Edward Deming's management method into his business, which focuses on improving manufacturing processes over cutting costs.
Source: Furniture World Magazine
McIngvale chronicled the lessons he learned from building a $100 million business into a book he co-authored with Thomas Duening and John Ivancevish titled "Always Think Big." The book was published in 2002.
Seven years after the book was published, McIngvale opened his second Gallery Furniture store, a smaller-version of the original store in Western Houston.
Source: Gallery Furniture
But disaster struck in late May of 2009 when a Gallery Furniture warehouse was destroyed by a fire that investigators said was caused by arson. The store lost millions of dollars worth of new furniture and racked up $10 million in damages.
Source: ABC 13, Houston Chronicle
Soon after the fire, the Greater Northside Management District where his business properties are located sued McIngvale, alleging he refused to pay $48,000 in taxes between 2005 to 2007. McIngvale said that the district did not maintain the area properly, calling its fiscal policies "taxation without representation."
Source: Houston Chronicle
Over time, McIngvale continued making million-dollar sports bets. During the 2019 World Series, McIngvale travelled the country by private jets to place bets on Astros winning at betting sites in three different states. When the Houston Astros lost to the Washington Nationals, McIngvale lost at least $11.6 million in wagers. He has also made bets on Houston sports teams playing in the NFL playoffs, the Kentucky Derby, and the Superbowl.
Source: ABC 13, Legal Sports Betting
But McIngvale's bets didn't stop his philanthropy. When tropical storm Imelda flooded Houston in 2019, he once again opened Gallery Furniture to evacuees and raised $106,000 for those affected. McIngvale also handed out thousands of free masks to Houstonians in early 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic led to a mask shortage. In 2021, he provided shelter to those impacted by the Texas power crisis.
Source: KHOU 11, ABC 13, The Washington Post
Even though McIngvale lost more than $10 million on bets from 2020 onwards, the furniture kingpin won $75 million dollars after the Astros beat the Philadelphia Phillies during the 2022 World Series championship — the largest payout in the history of sports betting.
Source: Action Network, CBS Sports, Insider
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