This week’s lie isn’t specific to Mary Kay. It’s for all multi-level marketing companies (MLMs) and pyramid schemes like Mary Kay, Arbonne, Amway, Usana, etc. This comes from the Direct Selling Association, the bogus member-run organization that seeks to keep these pyramid schemes operating, even when violating the law.

Research shows some of the most popular reasons people choose direct selling are:

• Direct selling is a good way to meet and socialize with people.
• Direct selling offers flexible work schedules.
• Direct selling is a good way to earn extra income.
• Direct selling is a good way to own a business.
• Earnings are in proportion to efforts.

My favorite is “earnings are in proportion to efforts.” Uh, not quite. Check out the 40,000 Mary Kay consultants who quit every month. Their lack of earnings is because they didn’t try?

Written by The Scribbler

FESSD Kimberly J. Chatak-Nelson tells us to pretend it’s a privilege to be recruiting into Mary Kay Cosmetics.

Recruiting is a privilege.  It is a form of flattery.   When you realize that you are offering an awesome opportunity to someone with whom you’d like to grow and you help her realize that she should feel honored that you would CHOOSE her over so many others, then you will accept recruiting for what Mary Kay Ash meant it to be: an awesome opportunity.

Recruiting is not a burden.  Don’t apologize to me, to yourself, to those you interview.  Don’t have a burdensome feeling or an apologetic feeling in your heart or it will come out in your voice and body language and mannerisms.  

Written by Lazy Gardens

Winning Phase
Short or non-existent phase with several small or large sales wins, a sense of emotional escape from problems, a boost in self-esteem, and a sense of empowerment. Excitement, titillation, and a social life at the casino with other Mary Kay consultants fill a vacuum in the life of those predisposed by their conditions and considerable loneliness.

Losing/Chasing Phase
Losses are explained away as poor luck, but no win is enough. Individual hides their purchases gambling, as losses puts person behind a financial “eight ball”. Consultant Addict begins to ignore family and become irritable when not gambling. Gambling Mary Kay becomes the sole, but spurious coping mechanism. Participates in Mary Kay Gambles to the edge of insolvency and is unapproachable about the problem. This phase can last multiple years, with progressively larger bets on longer odds. Conversations only involves winners, not losers, which are purged from consciousness.

Written by Blackbird

Every successful predator knows how to hunt its prey, right?

Some predators use speed, agility, or ambush to accomplish their goals. Really intelligent predators though, don’t bother wasting time and their own energy chasing or stalking things. They have learned that running towards some kinds of prey actually induces them to run away. Instead of pursuing-they have mastered the art of being pursued.

These smart predators know how to purposely bring the prey to them. They don’t rely on luck or even their own physical skills, but rather cash in on the mental and emotional weaknesses of those they are hunting.

Their deadliness comes from the very fact that they don’t appear to be deadly at all-and hence they entice the hunted to participate in their own demise.

An email from one of our new readers:

I just wanted to tell you that I think your website is terrific. It’s so addicting to read! I stumbled across it after I started doing research on Mary Kay after a weird experience with a MK consultant.

A couple of weeks ago, a Mary Kay consultant came to my apartment to give me a makeover. I didn’t know her personally. She got my name from a church event that I had participated in. We all got mini-facials at this church event. In order to get it though, we had to fill out this little form about what we knew about MK products and the company. She said the forms we filled out would be entered into a raffle drawing for free MK products. Cool, I thought.

Anyway, she called me about a week later and said I had “won” $10 worth of MK products. The only caveat was she would have to come over and do a makeover on me.

A Mary Kay sales director has a page on her unit website listing about 30 “Mary Kay Facts.” I’ve selected several of them below. I seriously question the accuracy of them. And some of them are quite clearly lies. Have fun with these…

• Mary Kay is #1 in brand loyalty among customers who buy skin care products. Three out of five women will buy the product after being introduced to it. It is estimated that 80% will continue to use the Skin Care after they have been introduced to the product
• Some 30 million consumers purchase approximately 200 million Mary Kay products each year.
• Mary Kay is the #1 best selling brand skin care in the U.S. for the 10th year in a row!
• Mary Kay returns 37% of every dollar earned to Consultants and Directors in the form of bonuses and incentive programs. In 2000 this amount equated to over $400 million.

Written by Lazy Gardens

Admin Note: This article was first published in 2007. But the results are still valid, so I’m running it again.

Just for fun, I analyzed a bunch of Court of Sales data that I collected. My collected data contained the estimated retail sales for 26,279 consultants in 519 units, mostly for July, August, September, October of 2006, with some data from the full 2005-2006 Seminar year.

What did I find? First, there is no evidence that anyone is regularly having $300 parties, $1,000 days, or any of the types of results shown in Mary Kay propaganda.

Written by DupedByPinkFriend

Many folks visit Pink Truth and are surprised or appalled at the personal accounts of women who were manipulated by their Mary Kay Sales Directors and National Sales Directors.  They are so excited about their new businesses, and their SDs are so kind and seem to really care about them, they can not imagine that any of the accounts here at Pink Truth could possibly happen to them. They rail against the true stories posted here simply because it has not happened to them. Yet.

How do you know if your recruiter or Sales Director is as honest and forthright as she seems to be? How will you know if you are being played, or groomed for a career in Mary Kay regardless of whether you are interested in such a future for yourself?  How can you be sure your SD is not working on gaining your trust as she slowly lays a trap for you? In short, how do you ensure you are not conned by a highly trained manipulator?  Here are a list of red flags you should watch for if you are a Mary Kay Consultant or thinking of becoming one:

Written by The Scribbler

I’ve decided to spend my evening relaxing a bit. Put the feet up, light a candle or two, and pop in the New Consultant Inventory Talk CD by NSD Dawn Sweeney. I know, I know – to subject myself to such terror of my own free will is scary, but egads, it must be done!T he last track on this CD both delivers and sickens, my friends – it features Sweeney and a brand-new consultant having a lively back-and-forth conversation regarding inventory.

Imagine yourself in the front row of this pink pow-wow, only instead of wearing your Great Value pantyhose (hey, it was a pack of six for three bucks – lay off!) you’re wearing baggy shorts, flip-flops, and a shirt bearing a witty slogan, such as “Don’t Hassel the Hoff.” Count how many times you cringe as you read through this transcription – my comments are in bold:

Written by A Mary Kay Husband

As a husband of a wonderful woman who has been a Mary Kay IBC for over two decades, I have seen a lot of water flow over the dam. There has been much about this business I do not like but on the other hand, it hasn’t been entirely bad.

Once my wife realized the power in the “independent” status of her business, she was able to make huge changes that allowed her to see profit rather than deficits.

What this amounted to was a simple decision to control her own business – not to be subservient to anyone else. After the costly areas of operating were identified as non essential, she made changes and cut out all non profitable activities. She concentrated only on activities that were cost effective. She eliminated the non productive and costly events and dedicated herself to personal monthly profit.