Meet Mary Kay Ash of Mary Kay Cosmetics….

Even as a multi-level, direct sales company, Mary Kay knew how to inspire female entrepreneurs from her humble beginnings selling encyclopedias from door to door.  It was mostly an accident that she found herself to be an outstanding saleswoman.  She was asked to sell 10 sets of encyclopedias and did so in a day and a half.  She was surprised to learn that 10 sales was a three-month quota for the top sales reps in the business.

Several of her friends expressed their disdain for her selling encyclopedias which they believed to be a product that people didn’t really need, and Mary Kay took that to heart.  She later joined a company with a more useful product to sell and became a representative of Stanley Home Products.  They were another direct sales company that offered housewares and cleaning supplies.  It wasn’t long before she was crowned “Queen of Sales” at a company convention.

Soon after receiving her crown, Mary Kay’s husband returned home from World War II and left her for another woman.  Mary Kay was forced to support three children on her own and decided to make Stanley Home Products her full-time job.   Despite her outstanding performance and natural talent for sales, Mary Kay kept being passed over for promotions.  Frustrated with being a woman in the 1940’s business world and not being given an equal chance, she left Stanley Home Products to join World Gift Co. in 1952.

Inside of 10 years, Mary Kay’s expertise expanded the World Gift Co. into 43 states and earned a position on the company’s board of directors.  Dealing with years of being dismissed even while sitting on the board of directors, the final straw came in 1962 when a man Mary Kay trained was promoted to be her supervisor and given twice Mary Kay’s salary.  Enraged, she took an early retirement and resolved to write a book to help other women avoid the problems she faced as a woman in the business world.

While writing the outline for her guide to help other women in business, she came to the realization that she simply needed to start her own business.  Mary Kay was already buying skin softener from the daughter of a local hide tanner and decided that it was a great product worth promoting that she already used and believed in.  With her second husband’s help, they purchased the recipe, began forming the company, recruited sales people, and developed their product further only to have disaster strike one month before the opening.  Mary Kay’s husband had a severe heart attack and died.

Mary Kay’s attorney and accountant begged her to forget about the business and focus on planning for herself.  She persisted and opened Mary Kay Cosmetics on September 13, 1963.

First year sales hit $198,000.00 and second year lases topped $800,000.00 with a sales force of over 3,000 women dubbed “consultants”.  By 1983, Mary Kay’s company topped $324 Million.  She took her company back private when shareholders expressed concern about those “stupid pink cars” she gave to top reps.  Mary Kay knew that those pink Cadillacs were the goal of every woman that joined the sales force and refused to give them up.  It was a good idea to keep them and take the company back private, because in 1993, the company broke the $1 Billion mark in sales.

Today, Mary Kay Cosmetics has more than 500,000 sales reps and over $2 Billion in sales and is still growing.

- John