Granbury woman awarded her 13th Mary Kay Pink Cadillac

It’s been more than 40 years since Granbury resident Nancy Danley quit her full-time job from a New Mexico school system and decided to join Mary Kay as an independent beauty consultant.

Within her first two years at the company, she quickly gained pace and transitioned into a sales director position, a role that she’s had since 1979.

Four decades later, Danley is known as one of the state’s best Mary Kay representatives, even at 74 years old.

Through her hard work, she has earned several rings and 20 cars from the company, and recently received her 13th Mary Kay Pink Cadillac — the highest honor bestowed to a Mary Kay representative.

Of 144,000 independent Mary Kay sales force members, only about 1,300 have sold enough beauty products to drive a pink Cadillac — which Danley said requires about $18,000 worth of wholesale products per month.

“Cars earned by the independent sales force through this exciting program serve as a symbol of their hard work and success in their Mary Kay businesses,” Mary Kay President Darrell Overcash said in a news release. “And the pink Cadillac is the ultimate, most recognizable symbol of achievement.”

Although it wasn’t always easy to transition from working as a full-time employee to becoming her own boss, Danley said the change was worth it.

“When I first started, I was working more than full-time (about 60 hours a week),” Danley said. “Now that I’m older, not so much.”

When she started out, she said she’d host eight to 10 parties a week, letting consumers test different products. Each party accounted for, at least, two hours of work, excluding the drive time.

Now, she has 130 consultants under her and her husband, Ranny, who assists on the technology side when she sends out her monthly newsletters.

“He’s very involved,” she said. “And he knows all about it, too.”

Danley said a lot of people leave Mary Kay because they quickly learn it’s not for them. Her secret, she said: time, effort and self-accountability — just as any other role in the workforce.

“You’ve got to treat it like a business because it is a business,” Danley said.