How to Save Face When You Sell Nothing and Someone Is Watching
What happens when you hold a Mary Kay skincare class and you sell nothing…. and a new recruit is watching? Well nsd Anita Garrett Roe says it’s a good thing, and explains it like this.
She realizes that if you’ve got a new recruit along with you and you lay an egg on sales, it doesn’t look too good. The problem is that it is very common to have low sales at a class.
It is very easy to have 3 or 4 women at a Mary Kay skincare class and sell less than $100 retail. Don’t let them fool you with their bogus claims about averages and such. (”Average” in Mary Kay really means “I once sold that much as a class, and I think I could do it again, but I never have, and probably won’t, but I”ll still call it an average because it sounds good.”)
So here you have it. You’ve got a newbie along and your sales are terrible:
HOW TO SAVE FACE IF YOUR SALES ARE LOW ON AN OBSERVATION CLASS
Try to get her out to see you do one of your own classes.. Tell her, “for my sake, I hope I have a $700 Class, but for YOUR sake, I hope it is ZERO because you’ll learn more…”
Then do the class If the sales are HIGH you say, “Well, we had one for me tonight. Too bad the sales weren’t lower.. then you would have learned more…”
But, if the class was very low in sales, you say, “Tonight we had a class for YOU! There was a reason for this and it was because somehow I FAILED to inspire the hostess enough about what she would get out of this class…hostess coaching is so important, and that is the reason.” (Say this even if you think you DID do a great job on inspiring her. This helps the new consultant feel like there is a reason for everything.)
If you say,”Oh, she was a BAD hostess,” your new consultant is looking at you thinking…”if my fearless leader can’t even make this work, how can I?????” The way you handle it is so important, but never be afraid to take someone along on your classes. It is just good business to have a full datebook and take your new consultants out with YOU on the class instead of doing a class of theirs. If you hold your own classes, you will be “Let them LEARN while YOU earn!”
This is what Mary Kay always taught us. She never did business debuts. She never did tell a new person all they had to do was bake a cake and then she would come over and do everything. She never did say to Directors that this was the way to go.
If you are still doing Business Debuts (an invention in the past few years) please stop it. Go back to the way Mary Kay taught, try the above on your next 10 recruits. You will be simply amazed at how much stronger they will be.
Your new recruits should be following these steps: Observe 3 Classes, Attend Orientation where available, Book 8 and hold at least 5 in a two week period of her choice. This will get you strong team members. Do not do her first class for her.
If she asks you to, decline. Say, “Your friends are all going to be there, and if I am there, your friends are going to think you are an amateur. Besides, it is your class and you will be doing the talking. I might make you nervous, so it is better if you just have my phone number handy if you want to call and ask me something…you can do it!”
And, both types will run out of bookings one of these days. Guess which one is only going to sell lipsticks and reorders to her friends? Guess which one knows that the phone is her friend and she can get on the phone again and book some more classes from scratch?
Make your life easy and your unit strong! Take them out with YOU on your classes instead of holding business debuts!!
Do you see the key here? You don’t do ANYTHING that isn’t going to directly earn you money. Debut for a recruit? Nope. Doesn’t pay me. God forbid that we’d just help her out when she’s doing her first class.
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Comments (13)
New MK Consultant
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I thought I would be doing my debut class with my director there to coach/help me along, but she did the whole class and then let me write up the orders. One of my neighbors, a former MK consultant, told me she thought the director should have let me do the class. Although my sales for that class were over $400, I will never do another one after finding PT.
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Lazy Gardens
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Say this even if you think you DID do a great job on inspiring her. This helps the new consultant feel like there is a reason for everything.
Great tactic for deflecting blame from the business model onto the consultant!
This starts the consultant thinking “if there are no sales, it’s my fault for doing something wrong”. Teaching her to blame herself and not look for the business-based, fact-based reason for low sales.
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NeverWasPink
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This “business” advice is asinine.. “golly, I hope I make no money so that I can show you how it’s done!!” … really?!?! wow.
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Iwascrazy
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My director had said things like that to me. She only took notice of me if I was helping make her money. No other time.
It’s always blame the consultant. U didn’t listen u didn’t want to be mentored u wouldn’t follow. Where really it was they were lying this was a bad investment and this is not how to run a real business.
I remember one meeting where a director who was a former salon owner said how mk was easier bc u didn’t have to keep buying inventory. And then the next minute told us we should be stocking up on products bc mk moves so fast.
All they tell these women is lies. Wow! I made money guess ur not going to learn anything today. Aww I was really looking forward to learning how it was done director.
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no2MK
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This is exactly how I felt. I only was noticed when I was helping her.
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NeverWasPink
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Now, an even more helpful training this NSD could have taught her IBC’s would be: “How to Save Face when You Sell Nothing (every night) and Your ‘business partner’ GOD is Watching” hahaha
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Scrib
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“Do not do her first class for her. If she asks you to, decline. Say, “Your friends are all going to be there, and if I am there, your friends are going to think you are an amateur.”
I love how the director uses the IBC’s friends against her as a means of intimidation, as in “Your friends are going to think you’re an amateur!”
Your friends are going to think nothing of the sort. How can they? They know nothing of the business. They might, however, be thinking something along the lines of “Dear God, we’ve been at this skin care class for what, 72 hours now? WHEN WILL IT END?”
“…it is your class and you will be doing the talking. I might make you nervous, so it is better if you just have my phone number handy if you want to call and ask me something…you can do it!”
That’s funny, remember back in the recruiting interview when that starry-eyed director overcame your objection with, “If I promise to hold your hand and teach you how to do this, what would keep you from getting started today?”
Apparently, “promise to hold your hand” = “Here’s my number, so call me maybe if you get some souls recruited who need to be persuaded to come in with $4800 star orders.”
Mary Kay culture’ll tell you anything to get you into the fold, friends. ANYTHING.
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MLM Radar Detector
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Speaking as a customer at a “party”: I’d rather the director stay away, or at least sit down and keep her mouth shut.
Recently a good friend invited me over to taste-test some new products she got through an MLM. She was acting very excited about the products and I said, OK, but I’d like to try them side by side with similar products I got from the grocery. She said that sounded like a good idea.
I thought we were just going to have some girlfriend time. Wrong.
I walked in and discovered it was a staged show to promote the MLM. Her director was there, practically running the whole party from the start. Comparison tasting was not on the agenda. The MLM plan for rags to riches with a free-for-life car was on the agenda instead.
It was too bad, really. Had the director just played “guest” herself I might have at least made a pity purchase. But because she wanted to control every phase of the scripted “party” I wound up in an argument with her when I asked to do the promised comparison taste-test. I bought nothing.
Very quickly I started looking for ways to poop this party. I hate MLM sales pitches. Then I found out the only other people who showed up were themselves new distributors who were being “trained.” All the other invited “guests” who had promised to come were no-shows.
It was dreadful. Fortunately, my friend’s time as a distributor was short.
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enorth
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“I hope I make no money so that I can show you how it’s done!!”
And they want you to believe THIS is “taught at Harvard”??? LOL
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Kinzie
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Well, enorth, how else would someone be able to learn such a sophisticated and effective way of doing business than to get an MBA from Harvard?
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Oney
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Wow. I thought I’d heard everything. This is laughable.
Spin. That’s all MK NSDs do is spin. Spin the bs to make it all look good. National SALES Director? Ha. More like Notorious Spin Doctor.
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Pink Truth » Suckering Recruits Into Ordering As Much As Possible
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[...] goes about stealing recruits while technically following the rules, why it’s a good thing to have a class with no sales when a new recruit is watching, and a sneaky little technique she calls “backup [...]
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anthonysmom
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This has been around a LONG time – I remember it from when I was an IBC from 2003-2006. Some things never change… Based on how I remember my “classes” going – any new recruit I had taken with me would have gotten GREAT training since I rarely sold much of anything. What a farce.
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