vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #152 / Business / Reading article...

In a town with high unemployment, Mary Kay makeup saleswomen often end up as the family breadwinner.

Natalya Bulova pushes the play button on a VCR hooked up to a large-screen TV. Scenes of Dallas appear, and the crowd lets out murmurs and sighs.

“Just think,” Bulova tells her attractive, impeccably-coifed audience of 200 women, “Mary Kay will send you to Dallas, too. You can do it.”

Bulova, just returned from the international Mary Kay conference, is the senior business-group leader of Mary Kay in Vladivostok. Maybe you’ve seen the discreet pink signs in store windows around town. Mary Kay is thriving and spreading quickly.

The success of the women shows that some people are picking up marketing and sales quickly — despite some uniquely Russian obstacles along the way.

The Vladivostok chapter began here just four years ago, following Moscow, St. Petersburg and many cities in between. Since then, Vladivostok’s group has grown to at least 400 “beauty consultants.”

Mary Kay’s multi-level marketing system is the same around the world: Women recruit others, and they receive “promotions” based on their monthly sales and recruitment success. The make-up cannot be sold in stores.

Bulova says there are limitless opportunities for success with Mary Kay here.

“Two years ago, I couldn’t even imagine having a servant and nanny,” Bulova, a former gynecologist, says from her tasteful pink office in the city center. “Now, I can be my own boss.”

Vladivostok was third in Mary Kay sales throughout Russia in March. But Bulova’s “team” faces many problems out of their control, problems that make it much harder to do business here than in the West.

Because so many Vladivostok residents wait at least three months to receive their salaries, it is difficult to meet Mary Kay’s sales targets, many consultants say. One consultant said the company has actually lowered its requirements from last year, since the economic problems have saturated the entire country, she said.

It seems that in a city with regular power cuts, strikes and few washing machines, pressed powder and eye shadow would hardly be profitable. But Bulova explains that Russian women fiercely guard society’s changes since the Soviet Union, when they were expected to be strong and dependable — not sexual or feminine.

“Every woman wants to be beautiful,” she said. “I’ve had clients who had to decide between lipstick and sausage. There have been times when they chose the lipstick.”

Vladivostok’s economic upheavals, which have left many men unemployed or earning unlivable wages, mean that almost all Mary Kay consultants here have become the sole bread winners in their families.

Moreover, many women say their husbands now help them, either driving them around town or even doing housework.

In a society where a favorite proverb is “the husband is the head, the wife the neck,” this is an unprecedented shift.

The clients get something else unusual in this town shrugging off the Soviet legacy — service.

“I don’t know how it is in the United States,” said consultant Olga Belyakova, “but our women go to work and use their lunch hour for errands. Then they drag their shopping bags home, clean, do laundry and cook. We treat our clients well. They like the personal profiles and extra time we spend with them.”

Sometimes, the adjustment to Western-style service is difficult. “When I congratulated my first clients on their birthdays, they were scared and wanted to know how I got the information,” said Alla Visikova, who runs a small salon. “Then they got so excited that they invited me to the party.”

While Mary Kay has managed to import almost intact its corporate culture and rules from the United States, consultants here say few women actually go door to door. No one lets them in.

And, since less than half the families own cars and apartments are tiny, consultants have begun setting up “salons” where they can sell make-up to established clients.

They aren’t supposed to sell product to people who come in off the street, but it’s hard to turn away business.

In Applause, the Mary Kay publication for Russian consultants, a district leader in Siberia sounded off on women who stoop to selling make-up in markets and stores. She reported the offenders to her local tax police, who swiftly removed the consultants’ licenses. Consultants here agree with the action. “Our niche is offering personal service. My clients can call me at any time. If you just sell our make-up to strangers, they will think we’re just like anyone else,” said Visikova.

Vladivostok consultants’ biggest challenge now is getting customers to buy this year’s lipsticks. Everyone thinks they smell like old oil.

In an official letter from Moscow, National President Julie Rasmussen explained that American women have no problem with the odor — which resembles beeswax — but that “their laboratories are working to neutralize the smell.”

Visikova explained that Russian women have a bad association with the odor.

In the Soviet days, women went to Moscow and bought huge amounts of lipstick to hoard, just in case. The make-up would get old and acquire a smell similar to Mary Kay’s new line. “Plus,” said Visikova, “they stopped making the old colors, and all the new lipsticks are matte. Russian women don’t like matte.”

During the interview, a desperate consultant rushed in and asked how to replicate Copper, one of last year’s discontinued colors. It’s one of the most popular Mary Kay hues in the city, and many customers go everywhere trying to find leftover supplies.

Visikova explained how to mix two of the new colors. It’s almost the same, she added, then winked. “You wouldn’t believe what we do to sell our make-up,” she said. “But I believe you can sell an elephant, if you know how.”