A Not-So Inspiring Note From a “Senior Cadillac Director”
Another one of those “you didn’t work hard enough” emails from a director in Mary Kay.
Note: Yes, she inflated the sale figures. No, it’s not really fun to count each “no.”
I first want to remind you that you are running a business and you have treat it like a business. When a major corporation is not getting their desired results, what do they do? Usually call in a consulting firm to evaluate their business. Do you treat your business like that? Do you call in your Director, a sister Consultant who is doing what you want to achieve, a National Sales Director to help? Do you evaluate your business constantly?
Mary Kay taught us to evaluate your class on the way home and ask yourself…
1-How many new clients did you gain?
2-How many bookings did you book?
3-How much did you sell?
4-Who is your strongest recruit prospect?
If you fall short in one of these 4 categories then it’s time to make an evaluation and in 17 years of business I can safely say that it falls into one of these categories…
1-Do you have enough skills? Skills are the difference between a $50 class or a $500. Did you show sets? Did you do a table close? Did you do individual 5-10 min consultations with each guest? Did you give her two options? Did you help her to feel in control of the closing decisions? Just to name a few. Scripts are imperative!!! Skills are completely teachable if you are willing to learn. Start with the Consultants Guide in your kit…. amazing stuff in there!!!
2-It could be the numbers… average class is now $250…. and for some it’s $350. Did you have a $1000 party last week and the $50 one this week is just keeping your averages in line? Try to prove me wrong 1 out of 4 interviews recruit. 1 out of 3 bookings hold on their original date. 10 new names will be one appointment. Face it… you have to get more no’s then yeses to be a success! Sometimes it’s fun to count how many no’s you can get.
3-Attitude…did you have an attitude of expectancy or did you know they were going to cancel before you made the call? Your tone can create the expected answer. Consider these two scenarios…”Hi Karen I am calling to confirm our appt for tomorrow at 10.” or… “Hi Karen I can’t wait to see you tomorrow and pamper you with a MK makeover…it’s so much fun and you deserve it… remember it’s at 10 tomorrow and will you be bringing a friend with you?” Confirming appts is a yes/no and chances are they will say no. Or “you don’t want to have a party with me do you?” Enthusiasm sells!!!!!
4-You didn’t create a big enough “what’s in it for her” She had good intentions but maybe you didn’t bond with her enough and she is too scared to meet a stranger in a hotel for a MK meeting. Bribing works! Maybe she was doing it for you but when she got home and Johnny needs help with homework then helping him became the priority … but she was helping you AND she was getting $20 free products and she needs stuff then she will show up. Does she know what to expect? Did you tell her what was going to happen at the event or at the party? Did you tell her that you have just the product to help her special need after pre-profiling her?
Be about business and use the business skills you may have learned in school! If you didn’t learn them there then call up your Director or National and ask for help!! I believe anyone can do this business and be successful…. if you learn the business and then just do it!!! Which goes back to an old email about respecting the time you need to work.. it’s an investment in your future!!
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Comments (18)
Missy C
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For a company that spouts the line, “God first, then family, then career,” if a child needs help with their homework and that becomes the priority for the mom, then that is as it SHOULD be.
Secondly, businesses in trouble will often hire OUTSIDE consultants with no ties or agenda to the company to help them with the due diligence needed to make operational decisions.
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Lazy Gardens
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When a major corporation is not getting their desired results, what do they do? Usually call in a consulting firm to evaluate their business.
They look at the market, look at the competition, look at the results, and if it’s not making them any money, they shut down the money-losing division or stores and concentrate on those areas that are making them money.
If they have too much money locked up in inventory, they sell it off and stop buying more than they can sell. If they are spending on conferences and office parties, they stop. If they are discounting too much trying to get sales, they stop … in other words, they don’t act like this director would want an IBC to act.
If they call in a consulting firm, it’s an INDEPENDENT firm, and they open up the books and lay it all out. If the consulting firm – those negative Nellies – says it’s a money pit and should be shut down, they shut it down.
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Lazy Gardens
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Be about business and use the business skills you may have learned in school!
I took a few business courses … and by the skills I was taught in those courses, if I were in Mary Kay, I’d have to quit because it’s a failing business model.
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mkson
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Hi, i love your site and wish my mom had read before getting sucked into MK. Fortunately she didn’t lose allot of money but i think the failure did affect her self esteem
I do want to comment on the”failed MK business model”, i actually think they have a great business model, making their consultants their primary customers. They are in the selling business and sales are good. Its not that MK has a failed business plan, ours that they don’t tell their consultants the real business plan which its to sucker their consultants.
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Skeptigal
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Most businesses do a market analysis before setting up shop to answer the following: Is there a demand for the product/service being offered, what are the demographics and purchasing habits of the targeted client base, what is the primary market area (i.e., a five mile radius) and who is the competition? So if MK were based on real business practices, they’d encourage potential IBCs to take into account the number of existing consultants in their market area, socioeconomics of that area (are half of the people in the area on unemployment or WIC?) how far is the nearest Ulta store, and so on. But they don’t…because MK uses indoctrination, brain-washing, and hot-button pushing to maintain their reps, and exploitation of relationships to sell product.
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MLM Radar Detector
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“2-It could be the numbers… Try to prove me wrong”
Try to prove her wrong??? How about she tries to prove her numbers are right? 1 in 10 books, 1 in 3 holds… I heard those numbers when I was working for an insurance company, calling people who pre-qualified themselves by mailing in cards asking for more information.
Those numbers weren’t true for that insurance company’s pre-qualified leads. They’re certainly not true for total strangers you “bump into” when peddling Mary Kay.
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gotheart
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Mary Kay Consultant Wins 15th Car
Npros,com | 7/9/2010
Pam Stinnet has not allowed a troubling recession to interfere with her business as a Mary kay Consultant, and has reported that her sales have actually increased in the current economic situation. Just recently, Pam received her 15th career car with Mary Kay Cosmetics, a pink Cadillac. Showing deep appreciation toward her 300 customers, along with the women in her unit for her success, Stinnet started winning cars when she became a Mary Kay director 27 years ago in July, and recently took delivery of the Mary Kay Pink Cadillac and will keep it for two years on a co-op lease.
“We are not multi-level; it is a dual marketing plan, what we know in the bad economy is that women will still use their makeup. You can’t afford a new dress or new shoes but you will get your lipstick. Personally, my sales are up almost $3,000 this time last year.” Stinnett said, as she described the Mary Kay empire that sells products in more than 35 markets worldwide with an independent sales force of nearly 2 million.
“I am positive proof that perseverance pays,” she said. “Everybody has ups and downs. Just keep at it, and it will pay off.”
Wait a minute, 300 customers after 15 cars?!
Every two years a new car?
So that means in order to obtain her 300 customers it took 30 YEARS?!
So that means 10 CUSTOMERS EVERY DANG YEAR!
Naw!
It is evident that she hasn’t a clue to what she said.
She is seriously brainwashed.
Not a MLM?! OMG.
Her sales are up $3000. more!
So if she is doing the 60/40 split then she is earning 100. more a month.
LOL! 25. more a week.
This is what brainwashed looks like.
This is what 30 years will getcha in in Mary Kay, a Senior Sales Director position.
Can ya imagine what this gal would of done if she really did own her own business. Now she gets nothing whit her, “I am positive proof that perseverance pays,” she said. “Everybody has ups and downs. Just keep at it, and it will pay off.”
Pays off! Where is your pay off Pam!?
Where is your retirement?
Your ability to sell your store?
Your 401?
Your insurance package for when you retire?
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Freefrmpink
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Sadly still treading pink fog. All those years & stil perpetrating success. He goal this year, $500,000. Highest so far, $400,000. This is MK prey week. Consultants beware of the schemes to get your credit cards. (big one – Be a team player)
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chaimsmom
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>>Maybe she was doing it for you but when she got home and Johnny needs help with homework then helping him became the priority … but she was helping you AND she was getting $20 free products and she needs stuff then she will show up.<<
Seriously? How does this woman sleep at night?
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Kinzie
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Lady, are you tellling us that helping someone else meet their sales goals and getting free makeup shold take precedence over helping her child with homework?
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Kinzie
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*should*
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Verity Rose
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“Your tone can create the expected answer. Consider these two scenarios…’Hi Karen I am calling to confirm our appt for tomorrow at 10.’ or… ‘Hi Karen I can’t wait to see you tomorrow and pamper you with a MK makeover…it’s so much fun and you deserve it… remember it’s at 10 tomorrow and will you be bringing a friend with you?’”
Just in case any IBCs and/or SDs are reading this, I’m gonna do you a solid and give you some totally free marketing advice. Here goes: The instant the word “pamper,” or any version of it, comes out of your mouth, that’s the instant you lose my business. You are not pampering me when I have to wash my own face or massage my own hands. Nor are you pampering me when you lean on me to bring a few friends along. “Pamper” is code for “I want your money and I believe I can get it by underestimating your intelligence and by psychologically manipulating you.” I’ve never, but never, felt that way about anyone who called to “confirm an appointment” with me. Call me crazy, but I *like* being treated like an adult.
So, yeah. Please take your “Enthusiasm sells!!!!!” and bury it. Deep.
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Olivia
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I totally agree….the first time I went to a “party” thrown by a friend of mine, I had no idea what to expect. “Free facial and makeup application” – great! Oh wait, you have to do it all yourself and then listen to the sales pitch…LOL.
I have turned down every one of those types of MLM parties since then….they are all the same!
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job4me2
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No, you are not running your own business. You are a lackey for someone else’s business. Real business owners don’t recruit their customers, and they don’t call ordering “selling”.
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Alex Colon
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I have a regular job, that I bent over backwards for and at the end of the year I am lucky if I get a vacation, a bonus, or a raise. I have to be calling all the time to get customers in the door, promote someone elses business they get all the profits then at the end of the year does that hard work get noticed no. I am told we did not make enough money but yet the boss is now taking his third, two week trip to who knows where. If he sells the business I am left without a job, income, and just another lackey for another selfish business owner. By the above comment you are telling me that working for some one else is Gods gift. I worked at the guys business for 10 years and put in 50 hours plus and never got appreciated only excuses. So pardon me in not believing when you say Real business owners don’t recruit. Oh yes they do the employees to work while he vacations, and the customers who get cheated when the boss does not want to refund them their money due to crappy service or merchandise. You are a lackey when you work for someone else and work for peanuts and abuse by the boss.
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TRACY
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Alex – As a business owner, I can see exactly why you are not getting a raise or bonus. You are an entitled employee who has none of the risk in this business, is making judgments on how your boss spends his time, and the owner could never appreciate you enough. I suspect you do just enough work to get by, and that is why you are not paid more.
Real business owners do not recruit people to become competitors. The owner of the company you work at may recruit employees which he pays, but he certainly isn’t recruiting someone to open a business just like his down the block. That is the difference.
Further, in MLM, the people pay to play. They put money in, and approximately 99% never turn a profit. In contrast, you earn money at your job. You do not pay the business owner. You get a paycheck every single pay period.
If you are such a wonderful employee and your boss is so abusive, I suggest you find a different job. Surely with your attitude, employers will be lining up to hire you.
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Joe
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That was funny!
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Lazy Gardens
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The more I read this, the wronger it is …. like this Do you have enough skills? Skills are the difference between a $50 class or a $500.
Well, Ms Director, that IBC has the skills you taught her. Remember the “free training” you talked about when you recruited her? Well, what skills did you train her on.
Her failure to sell indicates YOUR failure to train and equip her with the skills to do well.
Skills are completely teachable if you are willing to learn. Start with the Consultants Guide in your kit…. amazing stuff in there!!! Because you sure as heck aren’t going to learn any skills from this director.
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