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The Story of Mary Kay
by Mary Lisa Gavenas
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 sixteen, she is a grandmother at thirty-four. 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 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 Dallas 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 fifteen 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.
"[A] brilliant biography of Mary Kay Ash... The author also takes seriously the groundbreaking nature of Ash's endeavor... It's a remarkable depiction of a transformational businesswoman." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Enthralling ... Gavenas is a stylish writer with a knack for spotting telling details. The bewigged and bejeweled Mary Kay, forever spouting aphorisms,...is a vivid presence in these pages, even if her inner life can be difficult to fathom." —The Wall Street Journal
"Plenty of colorful details boost the compelling narrative, and readers will certainly enjoy the brisk pace and playful tone of the book." —Booklist
"Mary Lisa Gavenas has given us a true rags-to-riches story, as inspiring as it is fascinating. Brilliantly researched and delivered in a style whose directness and accessibility perfectly suit its heroine, Selling Opportunity paints a vivid portrait, not only of an extraordinary woman, but of the times and places that formed her. We start rooting for Mary Kay on page one. She never looks back, and neither do we!" —John Matteson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Eden's Outcasts and A Worse Place Than Hell
"With careful attention to the realities women faced, Gavenas traces how belief, discipline, and a desire for self-improvement opened a path from real hardship and into new forms of economic and personal freedom... . More than a biography, this is a portrait of how the hope of becoming someone new reshaped the lives of countless American women." —Claire Hoffman, author of Sister, Sinner
This information about Selling Opportunity was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Mary Lisa Gavenas, author of Color Stories: Behind the Scenes of America's Billion-Dollar Beauty Industry, was named a fellow at the Leon Levy Center for Biography and has been cited as an expert commentator on female entrepreneurship (CBS, NBC, CNN, BBC-4). A former senior editor at Glamour, department head at InStyle and Mirabella, and columnist for Elle, she has contributed to The New York Times Magazine, Fast Company, and other national outlets.
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