Written by ThePinkStink

Today I woke up and thought to myself, “I can’t do this anymore.” I graduated with a degree in Japanese. In other words, pointless degree. I loved the program, so I stuck with it, earned the degree, graduated, then thought… now what? Along came Mary Kay. One of my best friends held a “class” at her mother-in-law’s home and I attended it. She painted such a pretty picture, and I was feeling so down about my worthless degree that I thought, why not give it a go?

I did pretty well. Three recruits one month. Five recruits the next. Decent enough sales, I suppose, but after all, most of the profit was spent on re-ordering, re-stocking, taxes, shipping, cost of gas to get to and from parties, etc.

Last October I was talked into getting a credit card, although when I first joined I refused. But I was doing SO well, with all my recruits, that I thought, it’s time I’m a star consultant. Notice, I wasn’t doing enough in sales to get me to that point yet, so that’s why I said my sales were only decent. In the poor area I live in, my average class of 4-5 people gave me about $100 in sales. And that was on a really, really good day. I know skin care, and makeup, too by the way. I went to school (before Japanese) for esthetics for a while (and will be returning for esthetics this fall, thank goodness). I’m also a good salesperson. But my director said I was just making excuses when I said that my area is poor.

Written by SnoBaby

It annoys me to no end when people make statements of truth but don’t provide factual evidence to prove the point.

I used to only consider this when talking politics.  I’ll give an obviously silly and hypothetical example here.  My husband says, “I’m not going to vote for Candidate A.  He hates old people.”  My question…”How do you know he hates old people? What evidence do you have?”  Now, he may very well have evidence.  Great.  Just give it.  Maybe Candidate A helped write legislation that would cut social security or raise the retirement age.  NOW there is evidence to support his claim.  Perhaps it is hyperbole to say he “hates” old people, but at least you have grounds for saying you won’t vote for him due to his “actions” affecting old people.  Otherwise, the statement is just words spewed out with no relevance or validity.

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 Rachel

I recently read a quote from a site promoting an MLM:

To recoup your initial $570 costs, focus on enrolling two distributors into your downline and then help them also enroll two people each.

This is the problem. Right here. It’s the exponential growth caused by unlimited recruiting (what MLMs like to bill as “unlimited earning potential.”) In the midst of a lot of talk about selling the product, the real focus for leadership in any MLM is recruitment. Some MLMs push recruiting harder than others, but they all have two things in common.

Robert FitzPatrick of Pyramid Scheme Alert has conducted extensive research on multi-level marketing companies (MLMs). The research can be difficult with companies like Mary Kay, which are privately owned and therefore don’t release hardly any information about the dismal earnings of the sales force. (Who would want to admit the financial truth unless forced to? And don’tcha think that if consultants were doing so well in Mary Kay across the board, that the company would be out there touting these statistics left and right?)

On the other hand, certain companies using MLM models that are similar to Mary Kay’s way of doing business, do release public information about their representatives. Robert studied figures for Amway (Quixtar), Nuskin, Nikken, Melaleuca, Reliv, Arbonne, Free Life International and Cyberwize.com.

This story comes from a new reader of Pink Truth whose mother has been in Mary Kay for 25 years. For all those former Mary Kay consultants who lost money and were told they didn’t try hard enough or weren’t in long enough….

I just need a place to rant. I am 25 and my mom has been doing Mary Kay for 25 years. She just got back from seminar today. She hasn’t even been selling much of her products lately, but seminar convinced her she needed to take action by placing a big order.

So she borrowed $2,000 from my dad to make a Mary Kay order.

I just don’t understand why she can’t see or won’t accept that after 25 years, she’s not and will never make a profit from Mary Kay.

Remember, Mary  Kay is a numbers game. Getting people to order the largest possible numbers so you can make money from their orders. (For the uninitiated, Mary Kay has nothing to do with selling. Commissions are paid when consultants place orders with the company. So the focus is never selling, and always ordering.

THE VALUE OF ONE

NSD Linda Toupin

(figures based on Director commission of 26%)

ONE customer who purchases $450 a year =$225 commission

Today I’m ranting again about the lack of the “executive income” in Mary Kay. Oh, I know the arguments by the Kaybots…. but what if women really don’t WANT to make an executive income.

I dunno. I heard so many women recruited with the promise of executive income and I heard so many women in Mary Kay talking about wanting to make an executive income… that I believe there are many, many women in Mary Kay who would like to be able to do it!

The fact is, almost no one is making that executive income. If they say they are, they’re probably lying.

How to Finish Mary Kay DIQ

Director in Qualification! DIQ! The one big hurdle any Mary Kay wanna be “big girl” has to clear. In order to become a sales director, the consultant must complete DIQ. So today, we are going to receive a lesson from Christina Mike, a Mary Kay consultant who just finished DIQ on June 30. She is going to show us how it is done!

The DIQ rules since 2009 require the following: