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, this is the first biography of Mary Kay Wagner.
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 ... While the author acknowledges the distinction between the accounts of a few high-flying sellers and the reality of what most consultants earn, her generous account prefers to see the story of Mary Kay through pink-colored glasses.
Gavenas, a onetime beauty editor who wrote Color Stories, takes her time unspooling Mary Kay’s tale, with a great deal of evident research ... Be warned: Readers must really enjoy both this woman and this world to take pleasure in Selling Opportunity ... Instead of so much time in the pink fantasia of Mary Kay, it would have been nice for a few detours showing how infrequently the opportunities the company sold were truly realized.
Who was this wonder-worker? To find out, Mary Lisa Gavenas had to clear away a lot of debris ... She spoke to millions of women with an almost telepathic intuition, and in sales she found, bizarrely, a celebration of life.
