Get To The Point

Episode 50

Lucy Rhule put down her bamboo knitting needles to admire her finishing touches on a pink sweater she made for the Christmas season.

Pink defined everything about Lucy.

As a veteran Mary Kay sales director, Lucy had built a statewide network of beauty consultants.

Years of persistent effort were now paying dividends. 

Lucy, consistently gleaned national sales honors at Mary Kay’s annual award conferences.

She proudly drove Mary Kay’s signature “pink cadillac”, given only  to top sales producers. 

Lucy’s success was not by chance.

Her team of consultants, dubbed Lucy’s Ladies, by her peers, achieved enviable, fruitful results under Lucy’s careful, inspirational leadership and coaching.

Each team member was trained meticulously in product knowledge and the art of selling.

Lucy skillfully taught her sales force how to build bonds with clients and close the deal, efficiently.

Lucy’s constant refrain to her rank and file, especially neophyte team members, was, “Get to the point!”

Time was money. Lucy did not want her team wasting time, prolonging the sales process with idle talk.

Lucy reminded her consultants, repeatedly, that she had made, “All the mistakes one could make in this business. Do what I say to do. You will save time and make money.” 

Sales meetings were closed with an emphatic, “Ladies, get to the point!”

Shelley Lynn, a well-liked member of Lucy’s Ladies, was reluctant to embrace Lucy’s proven, “best practices”, preferring to rely on her gift of gab and inherent charm to win customers and generate sales.

Her product knowledge was greatly lacking and her sales presentation poorly executed. But her customers bought and bought often.

Sassy Shelley, as she was called by her circle of Mary Kay consultants,

was, clearly, not a favorite of Lucy’s.

Lucy tolerated Shelley’s presence, only because Shelly consistently exceed her sales goals, despite dismissing Lucy’s techniques and “Get to the point!” mantra.

Unwinding, from a full week of sales calls and coaching sessions, Lucy sipped on a glass of Pino Grigio, sitting in the warmth emitted from the glowing fire in her fireplace. 

Wearing her pink sweater with pink slacks, Lucy gazed contently at her pink, shimmering artificial tree.

Deciding to add one last ornament,

Lucy stood on a small, narrow stool,

reaching to put the decorative ornament in the perfect spot.

Bending too far, Lucy caused the stool to flip beneath her.

Lucy’s head just missed the stone fireplace by inches, but not her knitting basket.

One of the bamboo knitting needles perforated her left eardrum, before penetrating her cerebral cortex. 

At her funeral, Lucy’s Ladies, adorned in black, all wearing pink carnations, sat together, somberly.

All, except Shelley Lynn.

Tanya Pierce, Mary Kay’s national sales director eulogized Lucy for her, “impeccable standards and unparalleled successes.” Shelley Lynn, unable to restrain herself, whispered to the consultant next to her, “I guess Lucy got to the point!”