Alyssa Harland of Perry sells Mary Kay products.
Photo courtesy Red Door Photography
This week I met Alyssa Harland of Perry, a top sales director for Mary Kay inc., a privately owned dual-marketing and direct-sales company that sells cosmetics. According to Direct Selling News, Mary Kay was the sixth-largest direct-selling company in the world in 2011, with net sales of $2.9 billion.
I was able to sit with Alyssa in her Des Moines studio and chat about her business, her dreams and the positives and negatives of running your own Mary Kay business. What began for her as a simple venture to make some extra pocket money became a big business that has thrived for the past 12 years.
Alyssa was able to take the opportunities given to her and grow as a person as well as a wonderful business owner, wife and mother to a 2-year-old toddler. With these pressures, a Mary Kay business offers the widest flexibility so Alyssa she is able to fulfill all her other responsibilities without sacrificing the needs of her clients.
Our conversation went like this:
Yeisha: What is your mission?
Alyssa: My mission is to carry the torch of enriching women’s lives and the purpose upon which Mary Kay Ash started her company.
Yeisha: What is your background and work experience?
Alyssa: There really are no prerequisites to starting and running a successful business. I was a college student when I first started and upon graduation, I taught elementary school for one year before I decided to pursue my business full-time.
Yeisha: How long have you been in business?
Alyssa: 12 years!
Yeisha: Where do you see your business in the next year?
Alyssa: We just qualified to be a prestigious Premier Club unit and are tracking for becoming an exclusive Cadillac status unit, plus I’m working to develop a couple of women I mentor into leadership positions of their own.
Yeisha: How has technology impacted the way you do business?
Alyssa: Wow! It truly only makes things easier and faster. Technology in life makes everything this instant, and I can not only do things instantly but from practically any location, including taking my very busy 2-year-old to the park.
Yeisha: Whom do you seek advice from for your business?
Alyssa: In Mary Kay, our mentors are kind of built in because the person that has gone before us has already done what we are working to achieve or build. At the same time I’m blessed to have an additional resource and be personally coached by a retired national sales director, the highest position in Mary Kay. She was trained by Mary Kay herself and epitomizes the heart of Mary Kay.
Yeisha: What are the biggest issues you’ve faced since running this business?
Alyssa: The biggest issues merely are people. The only obstacle to someone’s success is their own willingness or belief that they too can accomplish what is in their heart to accomplish. If I could help every woman I coach merely to believe she “can,” then that would overcome the biggest obstacle to her own success.
Yeisha: What apps have made running your business easier?
Alyssa: So many! Facebook is of course a great tool for staying connected with people, and I have a personal page to keep my customers updated plus a couple other groups for resources or staying connected with my unit. All the above reasons are the same for the app called Voxer. PicCollage is another favorite as is Pinterest. The Mary Kay e-catalog lets me take my business on the go as well. These are just a few plus a few others the company has developed and won awards for as a tool for our businesses.
Yeisha: What is the biggest perk of being a business owner?
Alyssa: In Mary Kay you can’t pick just one. There’s tangible perks like free diamonds. Last summer I received two free large flat screen T.V.s. We get quarterly prizes, too, including jewelry and purses. The intangibles are more than I can name: making a difference for other women in a business where it’s truly about that personal relationship, setting my own schedule and working along with being home with my son, being in a truly positive environment where women are praised to success. That our company operates in the Golden Rule I count as a perk because not everyone can walk into their place of employment knowing they will get treated as valued and really how they would want treated.
