Mary Kay Ash

By : Farkahnda Kiran

"Pretend that every single person you

meet has

a sign around his or her neck that

says

'Make Me Feel Important.'

Not only will you succeed in business,

you will succeed in life.“ - Mary Kay

Ash

Founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics Inc.Founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics Inc.

Early Life

• Ash believed "a lady never reveals her age“

• estimated to be 1916

•Parents: Edward and Lula Wagner

• In Hot Wells, Texas• youngest of four children.

Early Life

• father was ill with tuberculosis • responsibility to clean, cook, and care for her

father • She excelled in school• family could not afford to send her to college.• married Ben Rogers at age seventeen • had three children.

Working MotherAsked to name her greatest achievement,

Mary Kay Ash proudly replies, "I think the biggest legacy we are going to leave is a whole community of children who believe they can doanything in this world because they watched their mamas do it.”

Working Mother• In half of the 1930s• A saleswoman struck a deal with Ash:• If Ash could sell 10 sets of encyclopedias, the

saleswoman would give her a set free of charge. • Ash agreed and sold 10 sets in just a day and a half. • This was a rather remarkable feat, considering

10 sets was the three-month quota for the

company's most accomplished salespeople.

Working Mother• Ash continued peddling encyclopedias part time and

was soon earning enough money to help support her young family.

• Ash searched for a more useful product to sell. • She turned to Stanley Home Products, a direct-sales

company offering housewares and cleaning supplies.

• Ash was crowned "Queen of Sales" for being the most successful saleswoman

Working Mother

• major turning point in Ash's life:– Husband returned from World War II – Divorced

• With three children , Ash was forced to make Stanley Home

Products her full-time career. • As men who had less talent and knowledge were

promoted ahead of her.

Working Mother

• In 1952 Ash joined the direct-sales firm World Gift Co.• Within 10 years, she had extended World Gift's distribution

into 43 states• earned a position on the company's board of directors.• But her suggestions were often dismissed by male members

of the board with the comment,

• "Oh, Mary Kay, you're thinking just like woman“

-a remark that never failed to enrage her.

• Quit in 1962, after a man she had trained was

named her supervisor and given twice her salary.

Starts Her Own Company• Ash set out to write a guide to help other women avoid the pitfalls she'd

faced in the male-dominated corporate world.

• She composed two lists.• The first outlined her negative experiences. • The second detailed the qualities she thought would constitute an ideal business-a "dream

company" for working women with families that would

1) treat everyone equally,

2) base promotions on merit

3) choose products based on their sales performance and marketability, rather than profitability.

• Looking over the second list, Ash realized she'd created a workable

direct-sales company and thought,

"Why am I theorizing about a dream company? Why don't I just start one?"

Starts Her Own Company

• First she needed to find a product. • It had to be something women could believe in• it was already sitting a top her bedroom dresser• For nearly 10 years, Ash had been buying a skin softener• With her $5,000 life savings, Ash bought the recipe for the skin softener,

furnished a small storefront in Dallas• While her second husband dealt with the legal and financial matters• But one month before the company was scheduled to open Ash's

husband died of a heart attack• Convinced that she could not succeed without her husband's help, Ash's

lawyer and accountant urged to abandon her plans. • But like most great entrepreneurs Ash ignored the advice of the experts,• Mary Kay Cosmetics opened its doors September 13, 1963.

Starts Her Own Company

• Within three and a half months, sales of Mary Kay products totaled $34,000, and by the end of the first year

• A year later, sales had quadrupled to $800,000.

• Mary Kay once said “success came fast because she did

not have any time to waste. ”• She was already forty-five years old when she started the

company. 

MK Cosmetics

• Now Mary Kay Cosmetics is one of the largest direct sellers of skin care products in the world. 

• It develops and tests skin care and beauty products for the face, body, hair and nails

Motivating Employees• Awards Night• Winners receive special paid holidays, jewels, furs,

and pink Cadillac automobiles

Pink Toyota

Pink Mercedes Benz

Motivating Employees• Mary Kay competitions are designed around the idea that

it is best to compete with yourself.  • That means every individual is trying to do better then she did

last week or last year.• Competition winners are rewarded well. • For example, winners of one of the competitions get a gold pin

called the Ladder of Success. 

Later Years

• MK wrote three books

"Mary Kay Ash" told the story of her life 

"Mary Kay on People Management" 

described her business ideas

"Mary Kay—You Can Have It All“

  released in 1995 The money earned from its

sales went to help fight cancer.

Final Days• Ash health declined after she suffered a stroke in 1996. • Died at her Dallas home on November 22, 2001. • She was a tough businessperson with a thorough

knowledge of marketing and sales.• She made the dream of a successful career a reality for

hundreds of thousands of women worldwide.

An Inspiration• “To be successful in life a person

should put God first, family second and work third”. • Just three simple words – One Woman Can™ –

capture the enormous impact Mary Kay has had

on the lives of women worldwide. • And those same three words also represent the

encouragement and empowerment that every

woman can experience through Mary Kay. • One Woman Can™ really do anything she dreams

possible. 

"We must have a theme, a goal, a purpose in our lives. If you don't know where you're aiming, you don't have a goal.

My goal is to live my life in such a way that

when I die, someone can say, she cared."

-Mary Kay Ash

Thank you