6 Things Mary Kay Recruiters Look For
Did your Mary Kay recruiter tell you she’s looking for 6 characteristics in women for her team? Here’s her script, along with the reality behind it.
Let’s review the characteristics that recruiters look for in potential Mary Kay victims. I always found these things so funny, because generally everyone falls under AT LEAST one of them. And, unfortunately, they’re really all things that are setting you up to fail. That’s right. The recruiter claims it’s something they “look for” in a consultant, but in actuality, these things are only going to help you fail.
1. We look for busy people.
The first quality that I look for is a busy person, because busy people are good time managers and they know how to prioritize and juggle lots of tasks and still maintain a balance.
Busy people are usually the most successful because they are time managers. You know how to prioritize your time. You may not have 10 hours, but you can find 15 minutes three times a day!
Busy people get more done! In Mary Kay, you don’t have to devote huge blocks of time; you can work it in around your other priorities in life.
REALITY: Be prepared to leave your husband and children home without you most nights. You’ll be going to a weekly pep rally (called a sales meeting or unit meeting). You’ll be heading out to do appointments (if you can get any) and to look for fresh meat at malls, church, and other social gatherings. When you’re not doing that, you’ll be attending guest events and other pink brainwashing. If your priorities aren’t Mary Kay, Mary Kay, and Mary Kay you won’t receive much support from your recruiter.
2. We look for people who don’t know a lot of people.
The second quality we look for is someone who thinks she doesn’t know a lot of people. Family and friends are a great place to start. I recommend you quickly move on to what we call real customers; and, if you’re willing to expand your comfort zone just a little bit, I’ll show you how.
REALITY: Come on now! How stupid do you think we are? You don’t really think that we will fall for the line that NOT KNOWING lots of people is HELPFUL in this business? Give me a break!
3. We look for women who aren’t the sales type.
This business is about building relationships, providing quality products and offering valuable services. Mary Kay teaches you to be informative, not pushy. Mary Kay consultants are more like teachers than sales people. In Mary Kay we want you to have a strong reorder business and build relationships. We teach skin care and show our customers how to use our products and then let them make an educated decision. If you’re teachable & trainable, you can be successful in Mary Kay!
REALITY: The entire Mary Kay “business” is built upon selling, selling, and selling. To tell you differently is just plain dishonest. There’s some teaching going on with the products, but it’s often done by a consultant with little to no REAL training on skin care. The bottom line is that in order to succeed you must sell the products, sell the recruiting spiel, and sell large inventory packages.
4. We look for women with more month than money.
If you have more month than money, you are like most consultants starting out. I want someone who has financial goals and can get excited about reducing debt, saving for the future, or having extra money to contribute to the family’s finances.
The beauty of Mary Kay is that it only costs $100 plus tax and shipping for the Starter Kit which equips you to start building your business right away.
REALITY: Your recruiter is looking for women with access to cash. Whether it’s cash in a bank account or cash via a credit card or loan, fast cash is her focus. This cash is needed to sell the large inventory package. Those who don’t have cash might still be recruited, but they shouldn’t pin their hopes on making big money in Mary Kay. You’d be better off getting a real job if you need money.
5. We look for a woman with a family as their priority.
I look for someone who is family oriented because she’ll do a lot more for her family than for herself. Independent Beauty Consultants are motivated by the needs of their families and see their families not as excuses, but as reasons to be successful! I want a person who wants more for her family and will use Mary Kay to help achieve that.
REALITY: They are trying to con you with their fake motto of “faith first, family second, career third.” They know it sounds GREAT, but it won’t really happen once you sign up. See the reality under number one above. You will be leaving your family behind day after day, and not have much income to show for it.
6. We look for decision-makers. (the time isn’t right)
I look for a woman who does not procrastinate and makes a decision. Some feel they need to think about it, and a year later they are in the same situation. You’re probably considering the Mary Kay opportunity at one of three times in your life: You will either be in the middle of a crisis. Or you will be finishing your current crisis. Or you will be about to start a new one!
For women, the crisis atmosphere just never really goes away; and it rarely seems like an ideal time to add something more. Our lives are always happening around us, and we can’t put important things on hold until things are smooth. So waiting a couple of weeks or a month or a year just doesn’t make a difference, does it?
Successful women take advantage of opportunity. They know that the only way to change their futures is to act in the present. There is never a “perfect” time to do anything.
REALITY: They want you to make a decision right now because if you think about it or if you talk to someone you trust, you will start seeing the holes in the story you’ve been given. They have to get you to sign up before you can realize something isn’t right. Then once you’re signed up, they immediately begin to pressure you to buy inventory for the same reason. They don’t want you to think about it and come to the (logical) conclusion that something is wrong.
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Comments (15)
Lori
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Everything stated above is absolutely true. However, rather than go with the flow or allow oneself to be swayed by peer pressure, we as women need to do what’s best for US and our families, but that doesn’t mean we won’t succeed in Mary Kay. Define what “success” means to you and then work towards it.
Sure, it would be nice to rake in huge commission checks & drive a “free” car, but is the work required to qualify and remain qualified realistic for you? Is it worth it? Base your decision(s) and your work load on your answers.
My very first consultant DID teach this former Tom Boy how to care for my skin. I credit that fact that my skin looks significantly younger than that of my younger sister to a lifetime of properly caring for my skin with gentle cleansers, suitable moisturizer & sun protection, rather than ignoring or abusing it with harsh, drying cleansers & prolonged unprotected sun exposure. So yes, done right, a skin care class CAN make a lasting, positive impact.
It was my experience with and belief in the skin care product line that motivated me in part to become a consultant. I HATE sales, but I LOVE the product. I HATED the extremely pushy consultants who wouldn’t just deliver my product take my money, so I signed on to do just that, service customers who want to purchase product without being hassled to host and/or sign on. I’ll never qualify for a car, but my quality of life is worth it.
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Anne
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Lori: I’m right with you. My skin looks great, I love the product, I don’t recruit, I don’t push my customers to buy, and I try to give them good service. I came to MK because I loved the product. I am staying because Iove the product. Career Conferences and all those meetings did nothing but waste my time and money. I have a reasonable inventory and I am staying “active” because I purchase when I need to replenish. It’s not the hell that some consultants describe, but it’s not heaven, either. It’s another part-time job.
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Susan
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Lori,
You lost me at “rather than go with the flow or allow oneself to be swayed by peer pressure”. Once again, PTers, a troll has done a drive by in order to tell us how gullible, weak-minded, unrealistic and spineless we are. Lori, please read the front page which states that pro-Mary Kay opinions are not welcome. It appears that you didn’t really read the article. I shall go back and re-read it myself, but off the top of my head, your entire post seems to have zip to do with the contents. What was stated in Point 3 is that the job of a consultant is sales–not that an impact isn’t made.
BTW, great article Tracy.
Susan
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cbbgreat
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” We look for decision-makers” – SO GLAD I made the decision to leave this company!
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Pink Haze
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Lori,
You hate sales? Oh, that’s right you have noble intentions of being the non “pushy” one for the people just lining up to purchase Mary Kay. Why don’t you just send them (and yourself) to eBay? Plenty of product there – zero pushiness – and lower prices. Everyone wins. Today – 54,669 listings.
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ThankfulGirl
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Thank you so much to PinkTruth and all of the writers who contribute to this site. I’m a new consultant and something didn’t feel right. I’m so thankful that I found this website. I’m feeling a bit stupid for ever having fallen for the sales pitch, but it seems that I’m not alone. Fortunately for me, I’ve found this information before buying inventory or spending more time away from my family. If the starter kit is the only money I lose on this then I think I’m coming out ahead of many.
Seriously, thanks ladies (and gents).
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KatieRPowell
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ThankfulGirl,
Don’t feel stupid for falling for it! They find out exactly what you may be missing in your life and use fulfillment to bring you in. Everyone is unhappy about some aspect in their life and they are the answer to that. I was in your position just about a year ago. I had little red flags going up all over but ignored them until my director sat me down and had the inventory talk. Then the alarm bells were ringing loud and clear. I have quite a bit of medical debt and was unwilling to take on more debt for this, but she wanted to teach me the difference between good debt and bad debt. Its all bad. There was also the pressure to go to every meeting, even though I didn’t have anyone to watch my son. She said just call the college and they’ll send someone over to your house. She’s crazyI stayed in a little while longer and had one skin care class with her. Thankfully my child’s babysitter (for when I was at my actual job) actually loves home parties. But my director spent over 3 hours talking down to everyone there. Thats when I decided I was done. I was only out the money I spent on my starter kit and I’m thankful I got out when I did. I still get the emails and newsletters and it only makes me sad that she keeps tricking more and more people in to joining. Wow, that was longer than I meant it to be, but in the end, please don’t feel stupid for falling for it! Be glad that you listened to your gut and got out before being sucked too far in to the pink fog
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Barbara Reggio
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Does she BCC you in the emails or just send to everyone? My director sent emails to everyone, so we had everyone else’s email addresses. Well, I replied to one of her emails with a link to a pinktruth article. A friend I met through MK (the only good thing about my time in MK) who does not have computer access called me yesterday, and said, “I don’t understand it… it’s like you are the pied piper… you left, and everyone followed.” She had no idea that everyone else read the pink truth article I linked to in the mass email. They all either quit or became personal use consultants, but almost no one goes to Julie Villumsen’s meetings anymore!
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KatieRPowell
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She emails them to everyone. I’ve thought of replying to everyone else with a link to PT but haven’t yet. I wasn’t friends with anyone in our unit. I never even met anyone else. From the newsletters it looks like about 2/3 of the women in the unit are inactive.
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Alyx23
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Just had to share – I got pitched yesterday by a MK director the 6 points above were verbatum what she told me. At one point, I actually saw her mentally going thru the list in her head. And don’t worry, I politely declined the “wonderful” opportunity presented to become a MK consultant.
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exIBC78
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Thank you…you just made my morning.
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raisinberry
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Yea YOU Alyx23!!!..thanks for validating this “whistle-blower” website!
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advertisingchick
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I’m currently getting my masters in teaching so it makes me sick that they compare this “opportunity” to that of a teacher.
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Pink Truth » Welcome, New Visitors to Pink Truth
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[...] Kay consultants and directors use scripts to recruit team members. (Were you told about the “6 things we look for“? Did your recruiter have an answer for every possible objection you came up [...]
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DanielleB
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This is completely true! Currently, I’m a consultant and immediately when I first started I noticed somethings were strange. The stupid inventory purchase (which I did not buy and dealt with negativity from my director), the language, and the six things they look for. This is a predator and prey relationship. And they really do have comebacks for everything.
I started in July last year and now it is January. I have finally made more money than I lost. My director told me that I was making the wrong decision by not having inventory, but in fact it was a smarter move for me. I only sell what people order and nothing more. So I’m not losing money anymore.
The sad truth behind all this is that they don’t really care like they claim they do. The six things that they look for make sense for weak minded people. Honestly, I must admit I wasn’t paying much attention when she said all those things. I’m a make up enthusiast so I thought I was going to be able to live my dream. This is a business and their main concern is making money. Whether it’s from customers or consultants, they want and are going to get their money.
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