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

（单词翻译）

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 investment¹. Today, Mary Kay Cosmetics² 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 fluids³ and equipment helped ease⁴ 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 supervisors⁵ praised

her work. But they never increased her earnings⁶. She left the company after a

man she trained was given a more important job than she had.

Mary Kay said later that she learned⁷ from this experience. It taught her that

men did not believe that a woman could succeed in business. She decided⁸ to

prove them wrong. So she bought the rights to Mister⁹ 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

demonstrations¹⁰ 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 softening¹¹ 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, experienced¹² 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

learning¹³ 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!#p#副标题#e#

Now Mary Kay Cosmetics is the largest direct seller¹⁴ of skin care products in

the United States. It develops and tests many skin care and beauty products

for the face, body, hair and nails -- many more than it started selling in

nineteen sixty-three. Today, Mary Kay Cosmetics has sales of more than one

thousand million dollars. It has more than eight hundred thousand sales

representatives in thirty-seven countries around the world. You can find Mary

Kay products and company sales representatives in Argentina, Brunei, the

Czech Republic, Kazakhstan and Singapore.

VOICE ONE:

Every year since nineteen sixty-five, Mary Kay Cosmetics has held a yearly¹⁵

conference in Dallas for its sales representatives. The first one took place

in one large room. Mary Kay cooked food for two hundred people and served it

on paper plates.

As the company grew, so did the conference. Now, more than thirty-five

thousand sales representatives and company officials pay to attend education

meetings at the yearly conference. A special event at the three-day

conference is Awards Night. That is when prizes are given to those

representatives with the most sales for the year. Awards Night also includes

a show in which famous singers and dancers perform.

The Awards Night winners receive special paid holidays, jewels, furs, and

pink Cadillac automobiles¹⁶. In Germany, winners receive a pink Mercedes Benz,

and in Taiwan they are given a pink Toyota. By nineteen ninety-four, seven

thousand cars had been given to sales representatives. The cars are pink

because Mary Kay products come in pink containers. Mary Kay liked that color.
VOICE TWO:

Mary Kay believed that recognizing good work is the best way to increase a

company’s sales. She said her company tried to have competitions in which

everyone has a chance to win. She did not want to organize the kind of

competition where someone has to hurt another person in order to win.

So the Mary Kay competitions are designed around the idea that it is best to

compete with yourself. That means every individual is trying to do better

then she did last week or last year.

Competition winners are rewarded well. For example, winners of one of the

competitions get a gold pin called the Ladder of Success. Sales

representatives earn a pin by selling a large number of products. Then they

earn jewels for the pin as they increase their sales. Each jewel is placed

higher on the ladder than the others. The pin of a top sales representative

is covered with diamonds.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Mary Kay’s third husband, Mel Ash, died of cancer in nineteen eighty. She

wanted to help find a cure for the disease¹⁷. At first, she helped

organizations raise money for research. Later, she started the Mary Kay Ash

Charitable Foundation¹⁸, a non-profit group that provides money to support

research about cancers affecting women. In two thousand one, the company and

foundation expanded their goals in an effort to help stop violence against

women.

Through the years, Mary Kay Ash received many business awards. She was named

one of America’s Twenty-Five Most Influential¹⁹ Women in nineteen eighty-five.

She became a member of the National Business Hall of Fame in nineteen ninety

-six.

VOICE TWO:

Mary Kay Ash wrote three books. The first book, “Mary Kay,” told the story

of her life. More than one million copies in several languages have been

sold. She described her business ideas in the book “Mary Kay on People

Management.”  Her third book was released²⁰ in nineteen ninety-five. It is

called “Mary Kay--You Can Have It All.”  The money earned from its sales

went to help fight cancer.

Mary Kay Ash continued her involvement in her business until she suffered a

stroke²¹ in nineteen ninety-six. She died in November, two thousand one.

Business experts say she was an important business leader who cared about

people. Mary Kay sales representatives say she developed a way for women to

earn money and still spend time with their families.

VOICE ONE:

One example is Valerie Yokie. She started selling Mary Kay products twenty

years ago. She was an official at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.,

but left her job to stay home with her two small children. She became

interested in the Mary Kay Cosmetics company because it was a way to get

started in a business for a small amount of money. She paid less than one

hundred dollars for her supplies.

After one year and one half, Missus Yokie became a director of the company

and started helping²² other women become successful Mary Kay representatives.

Soon after this, her husband lost his job. Then he developed cancer. Valerie

Yokie has supported her family for twenty years through Mary Kay Cosmetics.

She is an extremely successful businesswoman. She has won many prizes in Mary

Kay competitions, and receives a new pink Cadillac every two years.

Valerie Yokie’s story is similar to those of other Mary Kay representatives.

They agree that Mary Kay Ash changed the business world. They say she opened

a door for women by providing them with a way to earn money that balances

work and family.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

This Special English program was written by Nancy Steinbach and produced by

Caty Weaver²³. I’m Mary Tillotson.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Steve Ember. Listen again next week for another PEOPLE IN AMERICA

program on the Voice of America.