Born on August 5, 1938, in Lexington Kentucky, Jim Murphy has spent a lifetime pursuing the skills of the sale. He started his career as an IBM salesman in the North Florida territory selling the IBM Selectric typewriter, which débuted in the early 1960s. Jim's outstanding performance as an IBM salesman caught the eye of the Florida branch manager for World Book Encyclopedia, owned by the Field Enterprises Corporation. This is where Jim spent the bulk of his selling career as a door-to-door salesman, eventually breaking records and establishing himself as a successful branch manager. He earned the company’s highest awards in all categories—individual selling, service, recruiting and branch management. Some of his achievements at World Book included: the Superior Service Key Award, the Tree of Life Award (the company’s highest award for superiority in recruiting), the division manager’s Flying Circus recipient (the company’s highest overall sales honor) and an appointment to World Book’s President's Advisory Council. Jim hired and trained over a thousand salespeople, a significant accomplishment for any company. He then took over branch operations in Kentucky, where his team consistently drove more than $5 million in sales revenue each year until he retired at the early age of 51. He then invested in the Toshiba copier and facsimile dealership in this area of the country and quickly grew that business into four offices and over eight million dollars in annual sales. Jim sold that company in the late 1990s and retired to his horse farm in Shelbyville, Kentucky.