I’m Mary Tillotson.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program PEOPLE IN AMERICA.
This week, we tell about one of the most successful American businesswomen.
Mary Kay started a company in nineteen sixty-three with a five thousand
dollar investment. Today, Mary Kay Cosmetics is an international company
worth thousands of millions of dollars.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Mary Kathlyn Wagner was born in the state of Texas in nineteen eighteen. For
much of her childhood, she cared for her sick father while her mother worked
long hours at a public eating place. Mary Kay married Ben Rogers when she was
seventeen years old. They had three children before he left home to serve in
World War Two. When he returned, their marriage ended. Mary Kay looked for a
job so she could support her children.
Mary Kay began selling different kinds of products. At first, she sold books.
Later, she visited peoples’ homes to show how home care products such as
cleaning fluids and equipment helped ease housework.
One night, Mary Kay was showing these products at the home of Ova Heath
Spoonemore. Later in the evening, Missus Spoonemore began giving her guests
some home made skin care products. The products were developed by her father,
J.W. Heath, in Arkansas. Mary Kay tried the skin care products and found they
made her skin smooth.
VOICE TWO:
Mary Kay was successful selling home care products. Her supervisors praised
her work. But they never increased her earnings. She left the company after a
man she trained was given a more important job than she had.
Mary Kay said later that she learned from this experience. It taught her that
men did not believe that a woman could succeed in business. She decided to
prove them wrong. So she bought the rights to Mister Heath’s skin care
products and started her own company. She paid five hundred dollars for the
legal rights to the products.
VOICE ONE:
The Mary Kay Cosmetics company began operating in Dallas, Texas, in nineteen
sixty-three. Mary Kay’s twenty-year-old son Richard was the company’s
financial official. The idea was to sell skin care products through
demonstrations in homes and offices. Nine sales representatives were chosen
to sell the products.
The sales representatives were independent workers. They bought products like
soaps and skin softening liquids from the company and sold them at higher
prices to friends, family members and other individuals. Mary Kay decided
that each representative who brought other sales women into the company would
receive part of the new person’s earnings. That way, experienced sales
representatives would be willing to help train new ones.
Mary Kay told the women who worked for her that to be successful in life a
person should put God first, family second and work third. She said women
must discover how to be good wives and mothers while at the same time
learning how to succeed in work.
VOICE TWO:
Two years later, in nineteen sixty-five, the company was selling almost one
million dollars worth of products. Mary Kay once said that success came fast
because she did not have any time to waste. She was already forty-five years
old when she started the company. She said a woman needs money fast as she
gets older!
