50 Years Of Adventures In The Mary Kay Ministry

Several women scoot their chairs up around a folding table, mirrors strategically placed on the tabletop so they can see their faces. As the ever-bubbly Shannon Garrett walks around the room telling the story of how she became an independent sales director for Mary Kay Cosmetics, all eyes are fixed on her. None of the ladies would believe it if she confided in them that she was once very shy.

Garrett moved to Little Rock about a year ago from Houston, where she had a very successful Mary Kay business. She retired from teaching after five years in the kindergarten classroom to teach a different group of people: grown women.

“I always knew I was born to be a teacher,” she says.

Many women try their hand at becoming a Mary Kay independent beauty consultant; however, it’s not a career choice fit for everyone. The marketing plan has remained the same since Mary Kay Ash began the company 50 years ago. It’s a plan based on rewards, positivity, education and praise.

“The journey is so different for everyone,” Garrett says. “The number one reason people don’t try is fear. It can be so much to so many.”

To Garrett, it has meant driving five free company cars over nine years and averaging an annual income upwards of $80,000. She also added that she believes Mary Kay is her ministry.

Whether Garrett is teaching women how to enhance their beauty or by sharing the business opportunity with them, she believes she is changing lives.

“My words were moving people, inspiring people, blessing people,” she says. “I could change their lives. God is using me as a tool to be a life changer.”

CAREER CHANGE
Another woman who has drastically changed her career is independent sales director Annamary Thompson of Little Rock. She agreed with Garrett that the business opportunity isn’t for everyone.

“But everybody plays an important role and not everybody wants to be sold to. If they say no, you have to respect that,” Thompson says.

A few years ago, Thompson and her husband, Greg – owner of Greg Thompson Fine Art Gallery – took a financial planning class and the couple decided that something had to change.

“We had to dump some debt,” Annamary Thompson says. “If anything was going to change, it was up to me to take on another job.”

She was working as a lawyer, but there still seemed to be something missing: She wasn’t happy.

“I hated my full time job. There was no challenge.”

After four months from beginning her Mary Kay adventure, Thompson says she had replaced her income as a lawyer.

“I practiced law in Little Rock for 16 years,” she says. “I had used the [Mary Kay] products and thought they were good, but I didn’t know the business plan.”

THE MARY KAY PHILOSOPHY
The Mary Kay philosophy is God first, family second and career third. This was a foreign concept to Thompson because in her world, career was expected to come first.

“I had to realign my priorities,” Thompson says. “When you work for corporate America, it doesn’t work that way. Your priorities get out of whack, and you are expected to put your career first…. The culture of Mary Kay is the Golden Rule and to treat people the way you want to be treated.”

Thompson says the family-before-career philosophy has enabled her to put her three children through private school and to spend more time with them and to take family vacations.

“I want to be able to write a check for college,” she confides.

One of the bonuses of her career change is working in her home office with her blind pug, Earl, at her feet. But one of the biggest bonuses is that this year, Thompson says she will make six figures with her Mary Kay business alone.

“I could be successful – I was successful, but I always had to push myself into someone else’s mold,” she says about being a lawyer.

A REVERSE PYRAMID
Thompson and Garrett aren’t alone in the number of professional women who are changing careers to join Mary Kay. Thompson says in her unit, there are several lawyers, teachers, accountants and a journalist. She believes the reason many of these women have chosen a career change is because they aren’t getting recognition they deserve for a job well done.

“One of Mary Kay’s philosophies is to praise people to success,” Thompson says, taking a moment to run her hand over Earl’s furry head. “None of us are perfect, and we all make mistakes.

“In the corporate world, the evaluations are structured toward what you don’t do or haven’t done. It’s structured to the negative, rather than what you have done and the blessings that have come out of that. If you try to coach someone in a weakness, they’re never going to be positive, coach them through their strengths.”

Thompson and Garrett are prepared to explain the company’s structure to those who may doubt the validity of the business plan.

“You have to understand the company’s structure and how it works,” Thompson says. “Mary Kay is duel level, not multi-level. You don’t have to build a team to make money in Mary Kay. There’s no middleman. We all get paid by Mary Kay corporate.”

Garrett chimed in her response to negative views of the company, “It confirms that they only know what they know, and they don’t know what they don’t know. … For instance, the school where I worked, it was a pyramid. There’s only one person at the top, and Mary Kay is like a reverse pyramid.”

The universal symbol for Mary Kay seems to be the pink Cadillac, and Thompson plans for her fourth free car since she began her Mary Kay career a little more than two years ago, to be a pink Cadillac. She’s on target to turn in her black Mustang for her Cadillac this summer.

“ONE WOMAN CAN!”
That’s not only the theme of Mary Kay Inc.’s 50th anniversary year, but Mary Kay Ash was one dynamic woman who made it possible for many women to support their families.

With $5,000 and nine independent beauty consultants, Beauty by Mary Kay opened its doors on Sept. 13, 1963 in a 500-square-foot storefront in Dallas, Texas.

Ash’s dream was to offer women the opportunity for financial independence, career advancement and personal fulfillment.

In addition to helping women gain independence, Mary Kay Inc. established the Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation in 1996. This nonprofit public foundation is dedicated to fund research for cancers that affect women. It also funds programs to prevent violence against women through awareness programs and grants to women’s shelters throughout the United States.

Now with 2.5 million Mary Kay independent beauty consultants and $3 billion in global annual wholesale sales, Mary Kay is a top beauty brand and direct seller in more than 35 markets around the world, according to the corporate website at www.marykay.com.

Editor’s note:  This story appears in the latest magazine issue of Talk Business Arkansas, which you can read online at this link.