Inventory & SellingNumbers

Carrie Zuberer False Earnings Claims

We regularly talk about the false earnings claims made by Mary Kay sales directors. It’s an important issue because the MONEY is what gets so many women to sign up as beauty consultants. They’re led to believe they can make a decent income, so they spend their money on a starter kit and an inventory stash. Little do they know, the claims are completely false.

I mentioned Mary Kay sales director Carrie Zuberer in this post last year. She parroted a bunch of “facts” about Mary Kay:

  • The average income of a Mary Kay Director is $5,000-$25,000 a MONTH. (The truth is that the vast majority of sales directors make about $1,000 per month)
  • The average National Sales Director earns $300,000 to over a Million a year. (Actually, half of the NSDs make less than $120,000 per year.)

In her Instagram stories, Carrie promoted the following untruths about “full time” Mary Kay work as a sales director:

No, sales directors don’t work “max 30 hours a week.” You must eat and breathe MK if you want to stay on the hamster wheel. 50 hours per week is more realistic.

You’re not going to earn a “more than livable income for your family.” More than half of the sales directors in the U.S. make less than $16,800 per year. About a third of sales directors make between $17k and $40k per year. The rest make more than $40k per year. (And these figures are gross commissions, before factoring in any business expenses.) As a sales director, odds are that you’ll make less than $17,000 per year. Where is the livable income for more than half of all sales directors???

But what about part time?

They call it 2 to 10 hours a week. But that’s stretching it. They’re saying if you have one skin care class a week, you’ll work 2 hours. Not so. You’ll spend plenty of hours trying to find people to have classes, coach them leading up to the class, get to the class, do the class, follow up after the class. And of course, there is all the time you spend finding and pursuing women who never hold a class at all.

When you’re “part time,” there is never a “solid bonus.” You might get $20-$40 in commission from your team. Maybe more in an unusual month. But there is very little to be made from recruiting if you’re not a sales director.

The biggest lie is the average profit of $1,000 per month for part time work. Most people lose money in MLM, for starters. But even for those who do make money, $1,000 per month profit is rare. You’d have to be selling $600 to $700 per week to profit $1,000 per month, and this is unusual. You’d have to sell over $30,000 per year to profit this much. Ask yourself how many people in your unit actually sell this much? Almost no one.

Why do Mary Kay directors and recruiters insist on promoting these lies? If the “opportunity” was so wonderful, they wouldn’t have to lie. They could just tell the truth and still be successful recruiters.

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8 COMMENTS

  1. “Why do Mary Kay directors and recruiters insist on promoting these lies? If the “opportunity” was so wonderful, they wouldn’t have to lie.” –

    Indeed. Since MLM is inherently flawed, you must lie. Interestingly, the problem is two-fold as conveyed in the article. Not only do they lie about the income amounts, they lie about the “how”. It’s all one big, fat lie. If you do make significant money, you lied to get it. Get it?

    The hard “work” (or the lie of easy work) translates to……working hard at scamming others. So, don’t be confused by, “You didn’t work hard enough.” Still confused? I’d be asking, “Didn’t work hard enough doing what?” Answer: Lying

    I’m sure we can all agree that Walter White “worked” very hard keeping his lab clean, lying to Hank, driving miles into the desert, and digging deep holes. Digging holes is exhausting work. But wait, he was very “successful”………as a meth cook. Yes, this is an extreme example I often use to show that “work” isn’t always contextually positive. In Mary Kay, you work hard at scamming other women. The better the liar, the more successful the MLMer.

  2. OK- the problem is that MK directors and consultants put out this totally bogus AND substandard advertising, for some reasons they cannot adhere to the MK spiel on the actual “marketing brochures” including internet enticement of new downline. This is a sad desperate attempt to capture any “body” via social media, while confusing the “prey” with outlandish claims.

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