The “Sometimes” Success Scam – A Letter From Your De-Fogged Director
Written by Raisinberry
How do I explain all this? I know I do not have a leg to stand on. I was your Director. You trusted me. Just like I trusted those above me. And even though I didn’t buy into all the hype, “hook, line and sinker”… I did say the things I was taught to say.
Truth is, I did know that what you ordered was not what you sold. I knew because I saw you sitting every week during scoreboard, or only standing up intermittently for sales, so yes, I knew your orders never ever matched your retail sales results. I didn’t stop you. I knew I had to get orders. I looked the other way. I thought, maybe it will all work out. Maybe we all really could make it to the top! Some women really do make it! Sometimes it really does work!
I believed that, because I was taught that… and also because I saw success happen! I did! I really did! I knew that sometimes, while warm booking, a sharp recruit gets signed who changes everything. I knew that sometimes, lots of boutique booth activity pays off or a great referral comes through and sometimes you get a great customer turned hostess that causes many shows to happen. Since I never knew when the moment would be that you would get that super hostess, or super recruit, I had to stay positive and keep encouraging you! I have seen this business turn on a dime! {readmore}
I know, that not quitting sometimes produces a yes on the phone… and a yes leads to more calls and more yeses… sometimes.
And because I know this, I could never say that MK didn’t work… because sometimes IT DOES WORK. What I didn’t realize is that “SOMETIMES” is never enough times to make a viable business… but it is enough times to make uplines sell you on the fact that it could.
The unbee-lievable strategy of Mary Kay is knowing that SOMETIMES it will work, and that you will always wander back in your mind to the “day” when you had the $600 class… the $1100 week, the signed recruit… and you will overlook your lack of daily, weekly or monthly results… for the prize to be attained…”someday”. After all- you did it once before, you can do it again!
My job was, to keep hope alive for you. My NSD’s job was to keep hope alive for me. Positive attitudes and enthusiasm was what we sell, because enthusiasm will always get a better result than a “neutral” or “dead” frame of mind. You and I had a chance if we just stayed positive!
The sad truth is that being “positive” really does not cause the universe to align in your direction… no matter what pop culture tells you. It only makes you “feel” better. When all the believing does not cause “achieving”, if you believe Mary Kay mentors, you are scarred, left with no self esteem, thinking you never measured up, didn’t have faith, or worse, didn’t deserve success. Becoming a de-fogged Director means you suddenly realize how “anti-women” this company really is! It is astounding! And painful! And utterly contrary to what you were programmed to believe.
A company and system and sales management force that KNOWS you are ordering product over and over, by a system of manipulated and contrived benchmarks that they themselves have created, that have nothing to do with retail sales success, is ABUSING YOU. And worse yet, because it is not an “accident”, it is a planned scheme, that operates under the idea that since you are a woman hungry for praise and recognition, you will do just about anything to jump through those hoops. They are counting on it.
We were counting on it and pathetically, never realized we too were being “handled.”
All we had to do was wait for that “sometime,” when you had a great outcome and you would sell yourself, and then hype and events, and other people’s “sometimes” would testify to the fact that if you just never quit, you would make it. But 340 days of struggle and discouragement, no activity or negative activity never seem to surpass 25 days of “sometimes.”
We lived on, promoted, and celebrated those 10, 15, or 25 times in a year that something decent happened in your business, like a lipstick gloss add-on, an internet order, a good week, a new recruit. We pushed you up the career path, until you hit the wall, or your cards maxed, and watched you regroup… and waited for another event where you could get around other people’s “sometimes” and Bee-lieve again. And the pink fog truth is that is exactly what we did as well.
How sick it is that we believed in the selling of hope, that sounds so positive and wonderful and noble, only to suppress the truth that we personally had exhausted ourselves looking for the magic solution to a sustainable Mary Kay Business. It never ends. You will forever lose what you have built. There is no firm foundation under a Mary Kay opportunity unless you are callous to the plight of the masses of recruited women.
This Multi-level marketing pyramid “opportunity” DEPENDS on large frontloaded orders of product, and the MK SYSTEM will keep further re-ordering in place, capitalizing on women’s need for recognition. MLM requires masses of recruited failures that churn in and out because it is IMPOSSIBLE to have that much consultant competition. You are supposed to quit, leaving all those orders in tact, so you don’t close the door permanently by returning it.
With 30 to 40,000 recruits a month, and 40,000 quitting a month , and over 45 years doing this… just how many women could be sustained at the NSD level? The consultant IS the customer, and as long as no one knew the truth, Mary Kay could continue to persuade the blind, naïve and hopeful of heart.
I never realized what was under all this and like you, I believed. An occasional “win” should not make us blind to the reality of culminating severe and sometimes irreversible losses. “Sometimes” is exploited in Mary Kay, and so often every Director and DIQ continues on in the hopes that “sometime” in the future they will make enough money to pay down their debt, be able to be with their children, retire their husband, do something good with their resources, all the while drowning in the reality of the opposite! Because SOMETIME, it will all be okay!
How tragic that in Mary Kay, the selling of hope is a destructive ruse that locks women into a perpetual fog, whispering platitudes and sayings and never evaluating the MAJORITY of the days where losses, lies, manipulations, expenditures, denial and doubt rear their ugly heads. It is the extremely rare woman who can build a consistently successful cosmetics business without becoming an annoyance and nuisance to her “circle.” And the ones who prize well balanced honest approaches and good service will not have consistency or volume. Their business will be hit and miss, all their days. The business model and method is anti-retail. And Mary Kay’s own documents prove it.
Defogged Directors are asking for your forgiveness because we are no longer selling “sometime.” We refuse to let those who speak the facts be labeled “negative” or worse, allow the facts to be kept from you. We want to look at the entire picture and evaluate whether we can promote the selling of “morsels” of success, wrapped in hope at the expense of your self esteem, finances, marriages, family life, and integrity. Or at the expense of our own.
We can not. We refuse to abuse women with “hope,” denying the reality of hundreds and thousands of consultants who have signed on with us over many years. A woman who loves other women and shares their REAL HOPE for themselves and their families would never take advantage of them. Especially when the results we pointed out to you… the “sometimes” that worked for other Units and Other Directors , were 9 times out of ten, based on fraud, anyway!
“Sometimes,” your only hope, is solely based on truth.
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Comments (12)
NeverWasPink
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Hot damn, another amazing article!! I’m sending this link to a few people I know <3
Funny thing is, I bet the articles are maintaining their level of amazingness, and it's the changes in ME that are allowing me to get more out of them!!
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skeptigal
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That was wonderful…and sheds much light on the mindset that keeps Mary Kay consultants in the game, month after month….even when the numbers don’t add up.
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raisinberry
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I read something recently on the net where a Director called what we share here, “lies”.
That is one amazing distillation of all the material on this website. Lies, huh? Where? Point one out.
Directors, were you not told that production comes from new recruits? Well then what would that mean? Production DOES NOT COME from veteran selling consultants. True or Lie?
Directors, Your Year to date Top “sellers” listed in your year end Newsletter…Of the top ten, how many are new recruits who simply have their wholesale doubled? So the standings do NOT come from 5,10, 20 year consultants selling retail? They come from On Targets. DIQ’s trying to pull production and the newbies…CORRECT? Not “sales”. TRUTH or LIE?
You were told to pump up the 6 to 7 week recruit cause that’s when she starts fading… CORRECT? Truth or Lie?
WHY does she FADE? No more friends and family…CORRECT? Truth or Lie?
You were Told that 20% of your Unit is “working” and the remainder is gone or on their way out. IF MARY KAY was a VIABLE business, WHY would ANY of them be “on their way out”? Truth or Lie?
And if 80% are “not cut out for Mary Kay”…WHY did you throw a big wide net at GUEST events telling EVERYONE that ANYONE could do this??? Just smile and squirt? TRUTH or LIE?
So since you know all this already…WHO is doing the Lying about the Mary Kay opportunity and who is not ???
Time to stop lying to YOURSELF!
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Sophia
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This is SO true! I was sold the lies when I was laid off. Mary Kay caused me even more financial stress and made me even more bitter towards “friends” and family. I wondered how can my director drive a new Cadilac and make thousands in monthly commissions (per Applause) when I can’t even get anybody to host a “party” for me! Talk about a toll on one’s self esteem, especially when my director is the fakest person I know! When you are pressured to buy inventory and its advertised as your “sales,” you end up having to tell other women when they congradulate you, that no, these are not my sales. I have been dealing with these issues for the past 3 years and am still trying to unload this product. My director won’t even look at me unless someone else is watching. This a business where only the fake and greedy are successful.
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pastpink
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Awesome article!! That “sometimes” success and watching others’ supposed success kept me in WAY too long!!
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raisinberry
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oh pastpink you are SOoooo right! I really bee-lieved that all those other consultants and Directors had something going on that I apparently had to work ten times as hard to do.
My jaw dropping experience was when a Director helping to finish National Area for her NSD confessed 30K in debt. Then another…then another. Then my adoptees “shared” that their New Director in X-town didn’t even know all her Unit members yet…she hadn’t met them because her National and another Director “put” them in her Unit to finish. What do ya know? The new meaning of Integrity.
This was all that “success” we were watching and comparing ourselves to as they waved from the stage! “Sometimes” your success is nothing more than access to available credit.
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pastpink
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Exactly raisinberry! I have loved reading all of your articles…and my favorite lipcolor was raisinberry.
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H. H. Henry
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Perfectly describes my experience. I joined MK in late 1996 and in 18 months became a Director. Once I realized what a house of cards the whole thing was I could no longer recuit and sell false hope to other women. I gave up my Directorship in early 1999 and it was one of the best decisions ever.
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onelessSD
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Raisin- you are absolutely right in all of your assessments. Each point you made brilliantly shined the light on their lies – at every stage. I recently told a friend who is trying to jump-start her ‘business’, the lies that the SD’s tell in order to get you to do what they want you to do- is unbelievable. I confessed to her how much debt I had accumulated just from being a SD- and her jaw dropped. I told her in no uncertain terms- it was a living hell to be a SD – you will never work so hard and get paid so little. I hope she heeds my warning.
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raisinberry
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And you know what oneless…all those “incomes” look SO GOOD on paper. I mean, you start with getting 4%…do a 600 and it jumps to 13% when 5 of your team order….you never even SEE that you kicked in 300 more dollars (plus retail tax and shipping) than you NEEDED from doing a 60-40 split…but no matter…you get that WHOPPING 9% more!! On WHAT? 9% more on 2K worth of wholesale? CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL…You negative nellie! You’re a TEAM LEADER!! Yippee!
“ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS” scenarios where they project out “JUST” doing 3 classes a week @ $250=$750.00 times 4.2 = $$$$ and….AND….your 13% = ….AND IF YOU WERE A DIRECTOR YOU WOULD HAVE GOTTEN…..13%, another13% on personals, 10% production bonus/ plus any recruiting bonuses….OMG they “projected” our incomes and we KNEW we had to “make it happen”!
It was THE ONLY WAY, to pay down the massive accumulating debt from “winning that FREE CAR”.
God I could laugh my butt off right now. What a maroon. How I kept trying to make Mary Kay math work is just a stunner. Blind faith I guess. Six cars later and one of them “purchased”.
I figured it out that the pattern of my Mary Kay Director’s commissions funded my Unit expenses, and gave me just enough extra to place an order to get the next bonus level! So I gave it back to them! And then they gave it back to me the next month. Some monthly variations for sure, but always the same game…back and forth in a holding pattern, as I scoured the earth for new recruits to replace the ones dropping off.
This would be a Zero sum gain for Mary Kay Corporation, if they didn’t CONVINCE each and every IBC that SHE was responsible for her own laziness and that She BETTER NOT CLOSE THE DOOR by returning product, cause some day she might NEED Mary Kay to support herself. Cha Ching!
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Lazy Gardens
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The unbee-lievable strategy of Mary Kay is knowing that SOMETIMES it will work, and that you will always wander back in your mind to the “day” when you had the $600 class… the $1100 week, the signed recruit… and you will overlook your lack of daily, weekly or monthly results… for the prize to be attained…”someday”
Intermittent reward … a very effective motivator, and the core of gambling addictions.
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candy
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*SLOW CLAP*
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