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:

Written by Pinkpeace

How many times have we heard it or read it? “No one put a gun to your head to make you go into debt.” Well, technically Ms. Kaybot, that is a true statement. Nearly 13 years ago at my inventory talk, I don’t recall my sales director pulling out her .45, placing it at my temple, and removing the safety.

What I do recall is her insistence that the very best way to run a Mary Kay business was with a “full store.” That was a $3,600 wholesale order, and with tax and shipping, it was around $4,000.

Written by SuzyQ

The truth is that can’t stay at home with your children and make a living at Mary Kay. It takes lots and lots of time away, no matter what they tell you when they’re trying to recruit you.

You can (not) have it all.

One of the many myths of a Mary Kay business is that women can quit their horrible JOBs (often referred to as Journey Of the Broke) and stay home to raise their children and have an executive income while doing so. This is powerful motivation to hand over the $100 and get started. The reality, of course, is very different.

I have always been a big Dave Ramsey fan, and believed that his financial advice for consumers is first rate. But today Dave Ramsey got it wrong in a big way. On his blog, he published an article about making money in multi-level marketing.

The article failed to acknowledge the fact that over and over again, it has been proven that 99% of people involved in MLMs lose money. Front and center in the article was this lie:

Truthfully, if you have a go-getter personality, and you can follow some basic business and personal etiquette, you can make a lot of money in an MLM. The trick is to avoid all the potential pitfalls along the way.

Truthfully? No, there is no truth in what was said.

Written by Raisinberry

I’ll have to admit I bought into this hook line and sinker. Anybody with a Sales Training background is conditioned to believe that sales is a numbers game and so it requires more calls, more leads, more effort to make the numbers work. Striving is success. Never quitting. Press on. It’s all about being that one who goes forward with laser like focus on the goal. Who wouldn’t want to be this person? Aren’t we part of a greater society that rewards the champions? Don’t we love the “beat all odds” stories that supposedly show our greatness?

In Mary Kay, we are bathed in “if it is to be it’s up to me.” Teachings like these are part of a very dark environment that I really did not realize until years after I got out. At first blush you might think I am exaggerating.

Each of us are influenced by those around us, and sometimes we take in and trust people who have limited knowledge or depth. Many times people just grab an idea and take it in without even processing its ramifications, and then pass it along…particularly in this arena of sales, sales trainers and motivational speakers. It’s a world of quippy sayings and feel good platitudes that can really camouflage what’s irrational and downright wrong about the actual environment of Mary Kay.