She was a single mother struggling to raise here children . She chose direct sales as a career as it allowed her the flexibility she needed to raise three children.

She started work as a sales representative for Stanley Home Products, presenting "home shows" at the residences of customers. She operated as an independent contractor who purchased merchandise from Stanley and then sold it herself. After a slow first year, the next year she became "sales queen."

She recruited other women as salespeople since Stanley paid a small commission to the recruiter for the sales of each person recruited. She eventually signed 150 women and received a small percentage of the sales of each. When Stanley made an unfair demand that she move to Dallas to develop its market but would not pay her any commissions for the sales of the women she had recruited in the Houston area, she reluctantly made the move but quit Stanley later.

Soon afterward, she became a representative for World Gift Company, where she quickly became its national training director. But quit in disgust when the man she trained was promoted to become her boss.

Sounds similar is n't it.

With no full-time occupation, She decided to write a book about direct sales, but it became a book on managing people. She began to think about what a "dream company" might look like, and the book waited 20 years to be written and published.

Meanwhile she decided to utilize her skills ans decided to start a direct sales company since that was the area with which she was familiar; direct sales also would be appealing to women who could sell part-time and follow a flexible schedule.

To everybody's horror she based the company on this fundamental principle

: God first, family second, and career third.

She chose as a product a line of skin care products she had been using for more than a decade.

She had been introduced to the skin care products while she was selling Stanley products at a home party. The hostess, a cosmetologist, was testing these products on her friends. This woman had developed the products from a leather tanning solution her father had formulated, after he noticed how young his hands looked from using the solution every day. Although the cosmetologist marketed the products to her friends, she did not achieve great success in sales and, after her death in 1961, She bought the formula from the woman's daughter.

She and her husband invested their life savings of $5,000 to rent a small office and manufacture an initial inventory of skin care products. They also recruited nine independent sales representatives.

In the first Year

Only a month before the company was to open for business, Her husband died, but still she decided to proceed with the opening. Her 20-year-old son, Richard Rogers, quit his job and for $250 a month ran the financial and administrative operations.

His qualifications consisted of two college marketing courses and experience as a sales representative for a life insurance company. Within the year, her other son Ben moved his family to Dallas, took a pay cut, and went to work for the family company.

Can you believe this ? What happened next.....

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