According to Mary Kay CMO Sheryl Adkins-Green, powerful, lasting
corporate transformations need not always stop traffic. Sometimes,
understated transformations can yield ravishing results.
BY CHRIS WARREN WITH GORDON PRICE LOCKE
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It all could have ended very badly. A
few years ago the local marketing team for
Mary Kay Inc. in China came up with the
idea for a promotion — a model search
contest — that frankly didn’t dovetail
neatly with the global brand strategy
the cosmetics giant had developed at its
corporate headquarters a world away in
Dallas,Texas.
Faced with the question of whether to
nix the idea altogether, Mary Kay’s chief
marketing officer, Sheryl Adkins-Green,
instead offered some guidance about
how her Chinese colleagues could tweak
their idea to be more synergistic with
company-wide efforts, but otherwise gave
her blessing.“We said we look forward
to what you’re going to learn from this,”
recalls Adkins-Green, who has been Mary
Kay’s CMO for the past five years.
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Mary Kay Inc.
celebrates its 50th
anniversary with the
company’s largest
ever pink Cadillac rally,
50 years to the day
after the iconic beauty
company was founded.
FALL 2014
The resulting program was such a
rousing success that the team behind
it was invited to the company’s global
marketing conference to share what they
learned – the contest has continued to
evolve, and Adkins-Green herself is now
a judge. More importantly, the hands-off
approach is symbolic of the philosophy
that has allowed this half-a-century-old
company to grow from founder Mary
Kay Ash’s single 500-square-foot Dallas
storefront into a global leader in the ultracompetitive cosmetics industry. “I think
that is an example of knowing when,
where, and how to let go and leverage
local insight and the talent of the local
marketing team and look to that as
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content that other markets are going to be able to leverage down the road,” says
Adkins-Green.
In other words, it’s about trusting and empowering people to drive the kind of
continual transformation companies need to flourish — both internationally and at
home. There is an abundance of evidence to demonstrate that this quintessentially
American brand has developed an enviably successful approach to the always complicated
and nettlesome goal of global expansion. Indeed, Mary Kay, which manufactures and
distributes over 600 cosmetic and beauty products, currently operates in 37 countries
and has a global network of over 3 million independent sales consultants.
China has long been a focus of attention, particularly areas of the country other
retailers might ignore. “Over the course of the last five to eight years, we’ve started
to look at what China will need in five years,” Mary Kay CEO David Holl told
Bloomberg News in 2011.“We’ve managed the transition, so it’s no longer all about
the U.S. …We don’t need a shopping mall to sell, so we can do extremely well in
[Chinese] cities where they don’t have all the infrastructure.”
It has been an effective strategy. At the start of this year, Forbes ranked Mary Kay
at number 163 on its list of the largest privately held companies, with estimated
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[Clockwise from top
left] Independent sales
force members organize
and host Mary Kay
Skin Care Parties — a
critical component to
the company’s business
model; Scenes from
the 2014 Mary Kay
Seminar, an 18-day
event in Dallas, which
is estimated to have
pumped $32.1 million
into the local economy;
Mary Kay’s corporate
headquarters, located
in Dallas; Mary Kay
Foundation donates
$25,000 to Hope’s
Door, which is aimed at
helping families affected
by domestic violence;
Purdue University
Calumet wins the 2014
AAF National Student
Advertising Competition
for a campaign
showcasing Mary Kay.
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revenues of around $3.5 billion annually.
Several independent analysts pegged
2013 as a marquee year for Mary Kay
— it’s estimated that the company
recorded a number of its highest grossing
months in history during the year — and
international sales play a central role in
its ongoing growth. In fact, over the past
decade, the portion of Mary Kay’s overall
revenue from international markets
spiked from 30 percent to 70 percent,
with countries like China, Russia and
Brazil growing in importance.
While Mary Kay has clearly found
a recipe that seems to work as well in
Shanghai and São Paulo as it does in St.
Louis and Seattle, Adkins-Green is the
first to say there’s nothing easy about
international success (see sidebar for
her tips on going global). Take China,
now the company’s largest market.
Everything about succeeding there
is a challenge, starting with the huge
geographic distance, which makes it
hard to train or even communicate in
real-time with colleagues.But even when
communication is not an issue, culture is.
“The challenge with China is not actually
because of cooperation, but culturally,
it’s probably the most different than the
U.S.,”Adkins-Green says.
TIPS ON PURSUING GLOBAL GROWTH
Expanding into global markets isn’t easy. Besides the obvious
challenge of different languages and cultures, there are legal
and regulatory hurdles to overcome. Is it worth the hassle? Well,
for Mary Kay, which first ventured internationally when it entered
the Australian market in 1971, the answer is a resounding “yes.”
Over the past 10 years, the company’s international revenues
have grown from 30 percent of total earnings to 70 percent.
As one of the executives who has helped guide that growth,
CMO Sheryl Adkins-Green has some suggestions about how
brands can successfully expand globally.
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THINK LIKE MARCO POLO: When you have an
explorer’s mindset, she says, you are not judging
but you’re very open to learning.
GIVE YOUR EARS A WORKOUT: Engaging a
global team will determine your success. And they
have a lot to tell you about what works and what
doesn’t on a local level. Listen to them.
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MAKE THOMAS EDISON PROUD: Or, for that
matter, make Mary Kay Ash proud. Ash once said
“we fail forward to our success,” which is an eloquent
way of saying that you won’t succeed if you don’t embrace
experimentation. Adkins-Green says she loves that she can go
back to those words and encourage her team that it’s OK to fail
when something hasn’t gone as planned. Although she has
a team of perfectionists, she often points out why a particular
action was taken, what was learned, and why it’s usable.
A CULTURE OF QUIET,
EVERYDAY TRANSFORMATION
Although it’s just one small example,
the Chinese model search contest Mary
Kay pulled off is emblematic of the kind
of transformation and adaptation that is
required to win in new and challenging
markets — one that doesn’t necessarily
require seismic changes to strategy
and culture. Rather, while less splashy
and much less disruptive, Mary Kay
has established a culture that embraces
daily transformation — perhaps more
accurately described as evolution — that
nimbly adapts to the inevitable avalanche
of new opportunities and challenges.
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C OLLABORATE: This doesn’t just mean
coordination and consensus building. Collaboration,
Adkins-Green says, relies on trust. To collaborate
means you let go and let your partners run with the ball. If the
CMO is the quarterback, you need to be comfortable handing
things off.
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CELEBRATE: If you have success in your overseas
efforts, indulge in some well-deserved celebration.
It’s a way to keep good things going. Bring the
energy back to what got accomplished, what was fun along
the way, and the excitement of that accomplishment. It is that
energy that’s going to fuel the next round. That’s how you keep
momentum going.
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Mary Kay VP of Public Affairs, Anne Crews (right) with winners of the Unsung
Heroes Awards — an anti-domestic violence task force — in Washington, D.C.
There are a host of reasons why Mary Kay eschews the typically painful culture
pivots that so many companies endure when they decide reinvention is a must.
Simply put, the company’s executives have never lost sight of the value of the
trusted relationships between the Mary Kay sales force and their customers.
“In the case of Mary Kay, the brand is the independent beauty consultant,”
says Adkins-Green. “The independent beauty consultant knows her customer
personally,” she says. “She’s going to see her next week at the PTA meeting, so
there’s an accountability and trust that comes out of that relationship.”
The CMO says it’s the executive team’s job to provide their salespeople with
whatever they need to excel — which, of course, makes sense because the
company’s business model is such that the individual success of a salesperson
translates to company success.The most obvious way Mary Kay helps its beauty
consultants is by developing and distributing a steady stream of high-quality
products while also handling the not insignificant regulatory requirements that
come from serving dozens of markets around the world.
Adequately listening to and serving the
needs of millions of beauty consultants
located around the globe requires the
capacity to adapt and transform on a daily
basis. Still, while allowing for the sort of
fluidity and flexibility that is so essential in
order to have success in different markets,
there is a bedrock core to the Mary Kay
culture that provides important focus.
“We are all aligned around a common
mission of enriching women’s lives and
supporting the success of the sales force,”
says Adkins-Green.“By definition,we are
all on the same page.”
Which is not to say that the best way
to serve the sales force and, ultimately,
women customers is not a subject of
vigorous internal debate.“While we have
differences of opinion, it will never really
get to the point of being a struggle or an
argument,” she says. “When we do have
a difference of opinion, we talk in terms
of what is going to help the independent
beauty consultant be successful and that is
usually the tie-breaker if there is a debate.”
DISTILLING THE MARY KAY MESSAGE
With customers and beauty consultants located across the globe, one of the most
difficult questions Adkins-Green has faced as CMO is how to settle on the right
messages to appeal to customers. “The toughest challenge when I took over
this responsibility was to really consolidate and combine our brand messaging
around the world because it means so many things to different people,” she
says. As a start, she examined the kind of adjectives people already used to
describe Mary Kay and found a mixture of positive and negative, old-fashioned
and innovative terms — it was a confusing mélange for some members of the
executive team, many of whom didn’t agree on what the brand stood for. So
Adkins-Green worked with a team to crystallize the essence of the brand and
develop a vision statement. “It’s aligned around three key components: irresistible
products, a rewarding opportunity, and positive community impact. So, with just seven words, we built a communication strategy
that not only resonated with the Mary Kay business around the world but, most importantly, with the independent sales force.”
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THE COLLABORATIVE NATURE
OF TRANSFORMATIONAL
LEADERSHIP
For her part, Adkins-Green feels
as though she landed at just the right
company to match her own personality,
skills, and leadership style. Before
arriving at Mary Kay in 2009, AdkinsGreen held senior marketing positions at
Alberto Culver,a leading beauty products
manufacturer whose brands include
Noxema and St. Ives, as well as Citibank
and Kraft Foods. As has been the case
in her previous jobs, Adkins-Green has
seen her role largely as a facilitator. “I’m
passionate about connecting ideas and
people and I think that’s always been my
strength,” she says.
While that talent has undoubtedly
played a central role in Adkins-Green’s
successful career, at Mary Kay the
ability to build and foster relationships
is particularly resonant — after all, that’s
how the company’s beauty consultants
have performed so exceptionally. Not
surprisingly, Adkins-Green estimates
that about 80 to 90 percent of her time
is spent engaging people at Mary Kay
and cultivating relationships — which
is far different from her job at Kraft, for
example,which included devoting plenty
of hours to product development.
It’s important to understand the
nature of all of this people-focused
effort.While it’s true that Adkins-Green
has an essential role in developing and
implementing branding and marketing
strategies, she also says that it’s her task to
influence and shape decisions rather than
outright dominate them. Part of that, she
says, means being an internal advocate.
“Part of my style is that I’m a cheerleader
for the brand and for marketing’s role in
the sales force’s success every day,” she
says. “So when it comes time to actually
advocate for a new initiative, I feel like I
already have some momentum before the
conversation even starts.”
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TECHNICALLY BEAUTIFUL
Like every large company, Mary Kay grapples with how to best
use technology to drive results. “As a brand that has always been
driven by word of mouth, the whole shift for digital and social media
to be the primary marketing channels is a huge opportunity for
Mary Kay,” says Adkins-Green.
“The independent beauty consultants websites are like a
personal makeup concierge,” Sara Friedman, Mary Kay Inc.’s vice
president of U.S. marketing, said in a press release announcing the
changes, which came as part of the company’s 50th anniversary
celebrations in 2013. “Once a woman goes to her personal Mary
Kay independent beauty consultant’s website or connects with
one through the help of the consultant locator, she can save her
favorite products, view application tips, get personal product
recommendations, and order products. Plus, she can always see
how the newest trend looks on her with our popular online virtual
makeover. The website makes running a Mary Kay business easier
and makes buying our products even more fun and convenient.”
Clearly, that’s not all there is to making sure that marketing efforts receive the
C-Suite attention and assistance they need.When she wants to push an important
initiative that she thinks is the “proverbial no-brainer,” she’ll often “come in and
hit it hard with an energetic pitch.”Then again, if something is potentially more
controversial and delicate, she’ll seek out input from as many people as possible
before she even puts together a recommendation.“It really does depend on the
initiative and where I think that stakeholder is, in terms their ability and readiness
to support,” she says.
But if Adkins-Green wants any confirmation that she made the right decision
in coming to Mary Kay, it comes each night at bedtime.What prevents slumber
aren’t challenges and headaches and deadlines, she says.“What keeps me up, with
all sincerity, is excitement about what we can do and what we will be doing,”
she says. And when does she sleep like a baby? “It’s when I have good feedback
from the sales force.”
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