名人轶事:Mary Kay: One of America's Most Influential Women

VOICE ONE:

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 1. Today, Mary Kay Cosmetics 2 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 3 and equipment helped ease 4 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 5 praised

her work. But they never increased her earnings 6. 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 7 from this experience. It taught her that

men did not believe that a woman could succeed in business. She decided 8 to

prove them wrong. So she bought the rights to Mister 9 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 10 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 11 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 12 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 13 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!