Shane Parrish

Follow through worked.

Writing it down worked.

Treating customers like relationships instead of transactions worked.

She had a method, and that method got results.

Then she discovered recruiting.

Stanley Home Products offered small commission percentages on sales made by people you recruited to become salespeople as well.

So most dealers ignored this because the percentages were so tiny.

But Mary Kay understood the mathematics of scale.

If she recruited 10 people who each sold $500 a month, that was $5,000 in sales generating 100 to 150 in commissions for her.

But if she recruited 50 people or 100, those small percentages compounded into real money.

So she started recruiting systematically.

She wasn't aggressive about it.

But at the end of successful parties, when women asked, could I do what you do?

She'd say yes and then share everything she'd learned.

Over time, she recruited about 150 women as salespeople.

She was building a huge network.

Each of those 150 women had their own customers.

They threw their own parties and they had their own recruits.

And Mary Kay earned a small percentage from all of it.

And this is where she learned the fundamental architecture of multi-level marketing.