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party plan. My life as a secretary changed on that June evening in 1971 when I first joined a cosmetic party plan company. I had no idea of the path it would lead me down. How did it start? One of my best girlfriends, Frances, invited me to an in the home party. I remember vividly saying to Frances, I just don’t do these in home parties, so no thank you. But she kept pestering me and saying, “Pat this woman is coming and I promised to have at least 6 people there. You can at least be a body and you don’t have to buy anything, I just really need you to be there.” You have to understand that Frances was the kind of girlfriend who, if I didn’t agree, would never leave me alone. I decided it was easier to go than to have to deal with her later, so I told her I would go, but I wouldn’t buy anything. With that attitude and also
very little knowledge of how the party plan business worked I most certainly didn’t go to the party to make a career change. At that time in my life, I was a newly married young mother. Even though my husband had a good job and he worked hard, we were struggling financially to cover the cost of two young children, a new home, car payments and we didn’t even have money to buy living room furniture since we were just adjusting to the mortgage payments. So there was no way I could spend anything at what I thought was a frivolous home party. But I went and ended up buying $40 worth of products; to put that in perspective, my mortgage payment was $90 (no I didn’t live in a one room shack – it was the price of a mortgage payment in 1971. Looking back, that was quite a substantial amount to purchase, especially after I said I wouldn’t buy anything. It was almost equal to half
PAGE 16 • September, 2012 • Moms In Business Magazine
my mortgage payment. If I bought half of my mortgage payment today I would be a favorite customer. After the party, Frances called and asked if I would book a party. I reminded her that I rarely went to such parties much less held them. She said she needed one more booking to get a special gift that she wanted. I finally agreed again because she was the kind of friend that if I didn’t, she would never let me forget it. Then, before I could even host the party, knock knock on my door was Frances and her husband Gerald , who was my husband’s best friend. They stood there on my doorstep with a blue demo kit suitcase saying, “We are so excited, we have this great opportunity for you.” I told them to just stop right there...