Editorial Content for Selling Opportunity: The Story of Mary Kay
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
In SELLING OPPORTUNITY, Mary Lisa Gavenas offers a close look at Mary Kay Ash, one of America’s most daring women. Throughout her life, Ash worked to satisfy her need to achieve and left an example for other females to follow, rising from the lowliest position to the greatest heights in what she correctly identified as her true profession.
Growing up at the onset and amidst the chaos of the Great Depression, Ash --- who was born Mary Kathlyn Wagner --- had numerous crucial childhood duties as her parents struggled for family income. This experience helped to form the character of a dedicated worker whose inward intelligence and vision converted her status at the bottom of the ladder to one of the top business managers of her day.
"Gavenas’ dynamic and detailed account of the public and private life of a globally recognized industrial and charitable pioneer will be appreciated by readers who admire Mary Kay Ash and the unique, enduring pathways she carved."
Married at the age of 17 to the first of her three husbands, Ash learned from a door-to-door saleswoman that she could sell products herself. Going to work for Stanley Products, she rose in status, observing the company’s diligent indoctrination of its employees and following their template. Rather than selling door-to-door, Stanley’s salespeople successfully organized party gatherings to sell their products.
By the early 1960s, battling the generally accepted preference for men at the upper levels of industry, Ash launched a cosmetics company --- Mary Kay --- that is still, even after her death in 2001, an international entity worth millions. One of its notable features, initiated by its undeniably plucky heroine, is rewarding employees not with cash bonuses but with such extravagant prizes as pink Cadillacs.
An esteemed biographer, commentator and columnist, Gavenas is known for her insightful expertise when it comes to women’s achievements, and she devoted many years of research to produce this vibrant story. Ash was the first woman whose company had a chair on the New York Stock Exchange, garnering numerous professional awards and later devoting a significant portion of her energy and resources to assisting female cancer patients and victims of domestic violence.
Gavenas’ dynamic and detailed account of the public and private life of a globally recognized industrial and charitable pioneer will be appreciated by those who admire Mary Kay Ash and the unique, enduring pathways she carved.
Teaser
Growing up in Depression-era Texas, Mary Kathlyn Wagner is a dutiful daughter and diligent student with ambition aplenty and no place to use it. Married at 16, she is a grandmother at 34. When she is not cooking or taking care of the kids, she peddles cleaning products to other housewives. In 1963, she sets up her own company, selling second chance and self-invention for the price of a skin care showcase. Soon millions know her as the little lady in the big wig who gives away pink Cadillacs. From its unpromising start in a 500-square-foot Dallas storefront, Mary Kay Inc. grows into a global phenomenon. Based on 15 years of research, SELLING OPPORTUNITY gives us a page-turning rags-to-riches story set against the background of direct selling in all its overstated, over-the-top glory.
Promo
Growing up in Depression-era Texas, Mary Kathlyn Wagner is a dutiful daughter and diligent student with ambition aplenty and no place to use it. Married at 16, she is a grandmother at 34. When she is not cooking or taking care of the kids, she peddles cleaning products to other housewives. In 1963, she sets up her own company, selling second chance and self-invention for the price of a skin care showcase. Soon millions know her as the little lady in the big wig who gives away pink Cadillacs. From its unpromising start in a 500-square-foot Dallas storefront, Mary Kay Inc. grows into a global phenomenon. Based on 15 years of research, SELLING OPPORTUNITY gives us a page-turning rags-to-riches story set against the background of direct selling in all its overstated, over-the-top glory.
About the Book
The only woman in Forbes’ Greatest Business Stories of All Time and the first woman to chair a company on the New York Stock Exchange, Mary Kay Ash has a life story that reads like a Barbara Taylor Bradford novel.
Growing up in Depression-era Texas, Mary Kathlyn Wagner is a dutiful daughter and diligent student with ambition aplenty and no place to use it. Married at 16, she is a grandmother at 34. When she is not cooking or cleaning or taking care of the kids, she peddles cleaning products to other housewives. The work has no salary and no security, but she sticks with it, sure that direct selling will somehow make her dreams come true.
In 1963, after she has been divorced three times and widowed twice, she sets up her own company, selling second chance and self-invention for the price of a skin care showcase. Soon millions know her as the little lady in the big wig who gives away pink Cadillacs. From its unpromising start in a 500-square-foot Texas storefront, Mary Kay Inc. grows into a global phenomenon with 3.5 million reps in over 35 countries. She becomes the most famous saleswoman in the world. Maybe the most famous ever.
Based on 15 years of research, SELLING OPPORTUNITY gives us a page-turning rags-to-riches story set against the background of direct selling in all its overstated, over-the-top glory. Here, for the first time, is the definitive history of a peculiarly American industry and a mid-century mindset that ennobled extreme self-reliance, sticking to your guns, and blind faith in the American dream.
Audiobook available, read by Barbara Henslee
