Shane Parrish

critics also pointed to pressure to recruit, suggesting this made it pyramid-like.

And some consultants have oversold the opportunity to friends and family, making it sound easy, but it required a significant amount of effort.

And this had a bit of merit, but Mary Kay had tried to counteract it through training and culture.

She'd tell consultants, don't recruit someone unless you genuinely want to help them succeed.

The real test of whether a multi-level marketing company is legitimate or predatory is, are consultants making money by selling products to customers or recruiting other consultants?

And by that measure, Mary Kay largely passed.

The company's revenue came primarily from product sales to end customers.

The average consultant maintained reasonable inventory levels and not garages full of unsold merchandise.

Mary Kay stepped back from operations in the 1990s, and she died in 2001 at age 83.

And by then, Mary Kay Cosmetics had over 800,000 consultants in 37 countries, generating over $2 billion in sales.

But her greatest legacy was what she proved about building companies.

She proved that you could scale collaboration.

She proved that recognition systems aren't soft, they're performance drivers.

She proved that getting incentives right matters more than having the smartest people in the room.

She proved that you don't have to choose between principles and profits.

When Wall Street demanded she cut recognition spending to boost quarterly earnings, she bought the company back rather than compromise.

She proved that culture isn't what you say, it's what you systematically reward.

Every policy traced back to a specific problem that she'd experienced.

Every system reinforced the behavior she wanted to see.

And most importantly, she proved something about human psychology that people still miss today.