http://www.pinktruth.com

One of the common denominators shared by “career path consultants” on Pink Truth is how they know they are responsible for the decisions they made in Mary Kay, yet they still feel as if they were “led” and manipulated, by the “do what your Director says” training they absorbed “sitting at the feet” of their upline.

Some people want you to think that our concerns here at PT are abnormal and do not reflect the “opportunity” that the majority of Mary Kay Directors have experienced. This has intrigued me on many levels, since so many want to blame MK Directors for what has happened to a great deal of them as if they hadn’t an ethical bone in their bodies.

You never saw this coming.  This one is going to be painful. This is one for the “career path” consultant.  You are sitting down... that’s good.

This is a recap of your life in Mary Kay. Some of the facts will vary, but the general “technique” should open your eyes fully. Hopefully, today is the day, you see how it was done. And then you will have a decision to make.

You just recruited your first recruit and boy are you excited! Your upfront recognition is great and you get to pin her and feel excited for her all at once!

We often discuss Mary Kay director incomes on Pink Truth, criticizing how the numbers are presented.  I want to show lurkers and other readers how directors twist the truth to present an unrealistic picture of income potential in Mary Kay. The sad part is that, not only do they deceive prospects, they deceive themselves.

I would venture to say that every recruit was presented with the Applause magazine pages showing NSD incomes and top director checks. I know I always showed those pages to prospects. My national was Christine Peterson, and she was consistently in the top three of the Sapphire sales division, with monthly checks ranging from $40,000 - $75,000.

"Can you believe it?" I would gush. "She was a kindergarten teacher making little more than $20,000 a year. Now she makes three times that in ONE MONTH!" I would explain that this was our "legacy" in our national area. "Christine just teaches all of us to do what she does, so that we can make the same kind of money she does."

Then I'd point to sales directors who I personally knew, and show the prospect their paychecks. "I know Susie Smith – she's just the nicest person – and she made $8,500 last month.  And here's Janie Jones. She's a single mom with three kids, and look at her check for just working part-time: $6,000 last month. Can you get excited about that?"

What seemed like good counsel was her notion that each achievement one attains should only be celebrated, briefly, with the next goal clearly in view. I believed this whole heartedly. I won my first car in Mary Kay back in the days when they sent you a small car poster cut in 4 parts, and as each month of $4,000 wholesale was completed, then sent you the next part.

You were building a 4 part- 4 month, $16,000 finished picture of the Grand Am in all its glory. The minute the month was done, the next month was up. Before that, when I got into my Red Jacket, I remember the letter I got from Mary Kay telling me all I needed was 2 more to become a Team Leader. And before that, when I had one recruit, the letter mentioned getting into my Red Jacket as soon as possible. I was told, “A laurel rested upon, soon wilts!”

Many of you have “stumbled across the Pink Truth website” and have read with horror and anger some of the posts and responses. Someone used the “watching a train wreck” metaphor and that is pretty descriptive. I did the same thing not so long ago.

I was bored and googled “negative Mary Kay” and found enough reading material on a variety of sites for several days. I was stunned. I ended up reading everything on the Mary Kay Sucks (now Pink Truth) site.

While reading I started making a list of “don’ts.” Frontloading was number one. I had never heard of the term until PT. Mary Kay Ash always said “You can’t sell from an empty wagon.” Start MK without an inventory? If I did that, I would be setting my new unit member up for certain failure. I was unable to “pull” emeralds and pearls, and believed I was at fault, because I was not an effective director.

Less than $14,00 of income per year. And that's being very conservative on the expenses included here. There are likely more expenses...

Oh, and she was even a Cadillac director. So much for the argument of not working hard enough and being a lazy loser. The Cadillac directors have really "made it" in Mary Kay, right?

Why do I share this? Because I'm not an exception to DIQ - I was the standard!!

Not to make excuses, but I was being led by my senior and her senior by with sayings such as "you are a find a way, make a way gal", "you'll never work as hard as you do in DIQ" and "the only way to fail is to quit". Oh and my favorite line of all while I was in DIQ: "Your debuting unit is never the unit you have a year later".

 So like a good DIQ I just kept telling myself "I'll make up for it once I'm a director and out of DIQ". I am a very accomplished professional (have 2 degrees and numerous certifications/awards from my past career) so I was gonna get this thing done. I was bound and determined to run the race to win, and I KNOW darn well that I was doing it the same way as so many other directors were doing it.

There is a constant battle in Mary Kay to find new customers. It's just the way of the world. Women are too busy to have home parties. They can access all the cosmetics they want from the comfort of their internet connection, or in any of a zillion stores between their homes and anywhere else they go (without the fear of being strong-armed into signing up!).

One popular technique we've criticized heavily is "warm chatter." The essence of this activity is stalking strangers in public, trying to strike up sincere-sounding conversations with them, and then coming in for the kill with the Mary Kay spiel. It's creepy. It's slimey. It's bothersome to women. And it violates the "no solicitation" rules that most stores, coffee shops, and restaurants have.

But those rules don't apply to Mary Kay, right? After all... other people talk about their businesses in Target, so why shouldn't the Mary Kay lady be able to? And she's actually trying to "help" people!

Mary Kay NSD Allison LaMarr (whose most recent monthly income reported in Applause magazine was a not-so-executive $9,708) is pushing this warm chatter method which I prefer to think of as warm stalking. We're not supposed to talk about this though. Here's her word of caution to everyone accessing her materials: