System Mechanic - Clean, repair, protect, and speed up your PC!Mary Kay Ash
Mary Kay Ash, the founder the Mary Kay cosmetics company, died Thursday, November 22, 2001, at her home in Dallas. Known for her pink Cadillacs and mesmerizing speeches, she inspired devotion from a sales force of 400,000 women who peddled her cosmetics. Ash, who had been in fragile health in recent years, died of natural causes. She was 83.
Born in 1915, in Hot Wells, Texas, she was known to most people simply as 'Mary Kay'. Mary was the youngest child of Edward Alexander and Lulu Vember Wagner. From an early age Mary was responsible to maintain the household for her family. Older siblings had already left home and her father had been permanently disabled by tuberculosis. To support the family, Mary's mother worked long hours as a restaurant manager, so it was left to Mary to do the housework, cook and help take care of her father.
At 17, after finishing high school, Mary wed Ben Rogers and started a family.
In the late 1930s, the young housewife and mother began selling child psychology books door to door in order to make extra money for the household. From these humble beginnings she embarked on a career in sales with great success.
In 1938, the marriage broke up and Mary found herself a single mother of three children. She then went to work selling household products for Stanley Home Products by conducting home parties. She was again very successful and she stayed at Stanley for the next twenty-five years, from 1939 to 1952. It was here that Mary began to feel some unhappiness with the business world. She enjoyed the selling part of her job as well as the meeting and dealing with customers, but she felt that she was underpaid and not promoted as far as the men who worked there. She also felt that her ideas for the company were ignored and laughed at.
In 1952, Mary took a position as the national training director for the World Gift Company. In her time with this company, she took earned herself a seat on the company's board of directors and extended the company's distribution to 43 states. But in the early 1960s, when a man that she trained, was promoted to her supervisor and was paid twice as much as her, she decided to retire early. So in 1963, she quit.
Undaunted by her negative experience in business, Mary felt she might start a writing career. She had remarried and she began to write a book for women who were part of the working world. This book, she decided, would help other women face the challenges and problems that she had already faced in the ever-changing world of business. While working on the outline of her book, she made two lists. One list was made up of the positive things, of the companies she had worked for, while the other list was made up of negatives. When she looked the lists over, she realized that she had the rough plans for the perfect company. This company would allow women to work hard and succeed in their goals.
Now, all she needed was a product to market. The product came from a skin softener that she had used for years that was make by a hide tanner. Ash took her life savings of $5,000, and bought the recipe and set up shop. As her business became ready to open, her husband passed away. Even still, she continued on. And on September 13, 1963, through much labor and with the help of one of her children, a now-grown son named Richard Rogers, Mary Kay Cosmetics was born. Founded in a Dallas storefront. The firm sold products door to door using nine saleswomen, called 'beauty consultants.' That first year she sold almost $200,000 worth of products. By her second year, she sold close to $800,000 and had a sales force of 3,000 women. Mary Kay started the long process of making her dreams become a reality for her and the millions of women across America. The business grew steadily, helped by Ash's positive philosophy and her generous use of incentives, such as free pink Cadillacs and diamond jewelry, for successful sales people.
She told employees to put God first, family second and career third. "We must figure out how to remain good wives and good mothers while triumphing in the workplace. This is no easy task for the woman who works full-time," she wrote. "With your priorities in order, press on, and never look back. May all of your dreams come true. You can, indeed, have it all." "I want you to become the highest-paid women in America," Ash said in her motivational speeches.
With over 300,000 sales people and more than $1 billion in sales from 19 countries, the firm remains a major presence in the competitive beauty market. In the mean time, Mary ended up remarrying, but she lost her husband Mel in 1980 after he lost his battle with cancer. Because of that heartbreaking experience Mary established the Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation to help fund cancer research.
Mary wrote three books of her life. The most recent, was released in 1995, called "Mary Kay" You Can Have It All,? with the proceeds being donated to cancer research.
She was married three times and had a daughter and two sons.
Below are some inspiring words from Mary Kay Ash:
-Listen long enough and the person will generally come up with an adequate solution. -If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right. -A mediocre idea that generates enthusiasm will go further than a great idea that inspires no one. -People fail forward to success. -Sandwich every bit of criticism between two layers of praise.
