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Mary Kay Cosmetics is known for the pink cars top sellers drive. Once a salesperson makes enough sales she's given a pink car- the ultimate goal being the coveted pink Cadillac!
Mary Kay Ash started the company when she discovered a cream that really did make skin look great. Unfortunately it smelled horrible, so she had it remixed until it smelled good. At the same time she had retired and was working on a plan to help women make it in a male dominated work force. She realized that the plan she was devising was a great business plan for herself! The year was 1963.
She took her life savings of $5,000 and with her son's help started Mary Kay Cosmetics. Starting from a small direct sale company, Mary Kay Cosmetics is now the highest selling cosmetics company in the world! Women work as independent sales people and develop their own clientele. It was Mary Kay Ash's idea that they should have unlimited potential.
The Golden Rule is the rule they live by. But Mary Kay Ash also wanted women to have the opportunity through her company to attain unlimited success. The Company has done this and more. She created this nontraditional employment opportunity specifically to allow women to set their own hours, to work around family and other commitments, to supplement other income or to be a primary income by itself. In addition, women didn't need formal education or work experience to be successful in Mary Kay.
Ash awards her employees all along the way with bonuses and awards. All advancements are merit based. Over half of the national sales directors earn over a million dollars a year. Mary Kay Cosmetics is a Fortune 500 company with annual sales exceeding a billion dollars. Three times the company has been named one of the ten best companies in the country to work for.
When her husband died in 1980 of cancer, Ash devoted her considerable speaking and fund raising skills to raising money for cancer research, and started the Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation, St. Paul Research Hospital has a wing named after her.
She has written several books including one entitled "You Can Have It All" which, like her life's work, encourages women to go for it all, because they have the potential!
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