I thought it would be fun to tell you about some of my favorite lies told in Mary Kay. Lies? Lies, you say? But you thought Mary Kay was a “Christian” company!
Wrong! It’s a company that exploits Christianity for monetary gain. By spouting things about Christianity, they get women off their guard. Their defenses are lowered, and they’re more likely to believe the lies they’re told.
So here are a few of my favorites..
Probably the most frequent challenge I hear to our real-life experiences with Mary Kay Cosmetics is, “Oh, there’s always one bad apple in the bunch. Don’t judge the entire company by that one person!”
Yet in maintaining this site, I hear similar stories daily. Stories of lying and deception in an effort to get to the top of Mary Kay Inc. I don’t care what anyone says. These incidents are not isolated. I have heard literally thousands of similar stories. Women in MK compromise their morals to move to the next level, get a few extra recruits, or win a prize.
The lies that multi-level marketing recruiters use to con people into signing up for their scams change little from company to company. Dr. Jon Taylor, a noted expert on MLMs, put together a list of common misrepresentations, and here are some of my favorites.
I bet all of us have heard most of these at one time or another in our Mary Kay experiences, either when we were being recruited or when others were being sucked into the pink vortex…
Presented as a great “income opportunity,” with huge incomes reported for many.
Recruiting MLM’s nearly always lead to certain loss for new recruits. A few are at the top of a pyramid of participants are enriched at the expense of a multitude of downline participants, about 99% of whom lose money.
Written by Raisinberry
Many years back, I stepped through the doors of my first Mary Kay event, completely uncomfortable by what I saw. I thought it was me, since they appeared to be so close and having so much fun. I must have had “issues”. They were so happy and warm and huggy and supportive. I lived outside their world, and some part of me wanted what they had, while at the same time, I distrusted what I saw.
As a child, I learned not to trust my own instincts. When you grow up in a crazy dysfunctional home, you pick whatever coping skill works for you, and denial and humor were working for me. By the end of the event, I was interested in the ca$h these gals were making, but the huggy stuff still freaked me out. Something just wasn’t right.
Written by A Mary Kay Husband
Recently I read a particularly disturbing email from my wife’s NSD. In the National Sales Director’s “marching orders” for the upcoming months, the NSD referenced the name “Mary Kay” no less than 40 times.
Can you imagine that? FORTY one-liners, listing the attributes of this God/lady/or company called “Mary Kay.”
Written by Raisinberry
No matter what we Pink Truth women do, how charming we are, how honest and forthcoming, we are still labeled “negative” by the “I haven’t found out yet” Mary Kay World. Now this characterization begs the question.
When did sharing real life experiences mean someone was “negative”? If our experiences were negative, do we have any choice when retelling the story? While you might think that accentuating the positive and omitting the negative serves humanity better, we have a difference of opinion. If we see you are bleeding to death, keeping the secret might make you feel better but it doesn’t solve the problem. We keep silent and you’re dead. Kind of like the Mary Kay Career Path. If we keep silent, you will wish you were! We’re positive about that!
Written by SuzyQ
This was the hardest part for me. I remember running into a director at a gas station after my first seminar in 1998. I asked her “I don’t get this part of making God my business partner.” She said “You will.” At that seminar I heard Cindy Williams say “God does not call the equipped, He equips the called.” I was stunned. Born and raised as Episcopalian, I had never heard God’s name evoked in any business opportunity before, and I was at a loss for words.
Fast forward a few years and I am a member of a semi-elite Bible Studies group for directors only. This involvement calls for me to drive 100 miles round trip to breathe the same air as other directors who are more worthy than me. I remember the first time we prayed for more red jackets and more production. Another stunning moment.
From a Mary Kay sales director to other sales directors:
Hey Ladies,
I’m not sure if everyone realizes this, but every single time we go to a negative MK site “just to see” what is going on there we increase their hits which causes their sites to come up higher on search engines.
What does that mean to us. It’s simple. Anyone who is thinking about becoming a consultant could have her dream taken from her if she decides to go online to do some research herself and happens to land on one of these sites.
Written by Blackbird
This is an article for those people out there who enjoy being a MK consultant, director, etc. For those who think the company offers a lot of good things to women and who want to see the company succeed.
If you really care about MK (and I mean actually care about the company and not just your bottom line) then LISTEN TO WHAT THE WOMEN ON THIS SITE ARE TELLING YOU.
Written by SuzyQ
Tracy’s Note: This is one of my favorite topics in Mary Kay. Your upline is notorious for telling you to “burn your bridges” so you can be fully committed to Mary Kay. Nowhere in the real professional world would anyone else tell you that. Got a CPA license? No one in their right mind will tell you to let it lapse because of a new career “opportunity.” They’ll tell you to keep it current because you never know when you might need it in the future. But not in May Kay. Common sense and business acumen are thrown out the window in an attempt to make sure you never leave the big pink cult!
As some of you know, I was a non-top director and was in MK for 10 years… had a wildly successful quarter and the rest of my career sort of sucked. I moved up fast because I loved the attention and the trinkets (and my credit score was perfect)… Ended up with 4 MK cars (the last one was towed away in a mildly dramatic manner), 35 some stars (mostly emeralds), and queen’s court of sales (got the ring that a jeweler bought for $50 for the gold, the stones weren’t worth anything.)I used Pink Truth’s form to return my huge inventory so my senior director would not find out (apparently she was hit with a huge chargeback in June of that year, oops, soooooorrrrryyyyy)