{"id":1049,"date":"2015-04-06T10:00:27","date_gmt":"2015-04-06T10:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/?p=1049"},"modified":"2015-04-08T19:09:26","modified_gmt":"2015-04-08T19:09:26","slug":"the-pink-cadillac-fleet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/the-pink-cadillac-fleet\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pink Cadillac Fleet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 2001, Mary Kay Ash passed away. \u00a0Back in 1963, she founded what is now the third largest cosmetics and skincare provider, Mary Kay Cosmetics. \u00a0At the time of her death, the company had over 800,000 representatives in thirty-seven countries around the world, and annual sales around $200 million.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to launching her company, Mary Kay was married twice; one marriage ended in divorce, while \u00a0once, and widowed once. \u00a0While her husband served in WWII, she gained a wealth of\u00a0sales experience selling books door-to-door. \u00a0She then moved to Stanley Home Products where, in 1945, she was frustrated that a man she had trained was promoted to a salary twice that of hers. \u00a0In 1963, she retired from her job, planning to write a book to assist women in business. \u00a0That book ended up\u00a0turning into a business plan for Mary Kay Cosmetics, which she took public in 1968. \u00a0The sales strategy relied on women to sell merchandise to their friends and acquaintances through direct sales. \u00a0Furthermore, she was a strong believer in positive encouragement and pioneered the use of sales incentives, rewarding her top-selling sales associates with signature pink Cadillacs.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1052 size-medium alignright lazyload\" data-src=\"http:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Pink-Cadillac-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Pink Cadillac\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Pink-Cadillac-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Pink-Cadillac-624x468.jpg 624w, https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Pink-Cadillac.jpg 800w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/225;\" \/>Beyond her business success, Mary Kay has been praised (even past death) for her entrepreneurial attitude, her charitable giving, and for creating an incredibly attractive company culture. \u00a0More than anything else, the most likely source of her success was the Golden Rule, which she considered to be the founding principle of her company&#8217;s marketing plan. \u00a0She wanted women to advance by helping others succeed, which is why her company has grown since her death to net wholesale revenue of $3 billion last year, coming from more than three million sales associates around the world. \u00a0Perhaps Mary Kay&#8217;s slogan &#8220;God first, family second, career third&#8221; best expresses the thinking which informed her\u00a0sales strategy, and which any aspiring salesperson should keep in mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2001, Mary Kay Ash passed away. \u00a0Back in 1963, she founded what is now the third largest cosmetics and skincare provider, Mary Kay Cosmetics. \u00a0At the time of her death, the company had over 800,000 representatives in thirty-seven countries around the world, and annual sales around $200 million. Prior to launching her company, Mary [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sales-figures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1058,"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049\/revisions\/1058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}