Written by Pink_Plunge

I wrote this letter to my nsd as I was leaving Mary Kay. I was hoping for honest answers to my questions and concerns. As you probably expected, I didn’t really get any.

I am writing this email to you to explain why I have decided to quit Mary Kay. You’ll notice an attached word document that is a letter written to my team members, customers, friends and family members to explain my story and how I’ve reached the conclusion to end my Mary Kay career. I thought I’d share the letter with you too, just to make sure that you are FULLY AWARE of how I feel and how things have changed for me! PLEASE DO TAKE THE TIME TO READ IT!! My team members and I would really appreciate being HEARD!!

Written by Verity Rose

It’s no wonder that Mary Kay recruiters in search of a downline will encourage potential recruits to watch Your Future is Now, in which NSD Lisa Madson tells her I-story to a room full of MK faithful and the guests they hope to bring into the fold.  TopDirectorTapes.com, whose stock in trade is flogging Mary Kay motivational materials, notes that “[t]he Field Force says, ‘when this DVD is shown with guests present, an average of one-half of the guests who are present make a decision, on the spot, to become Mary Kay Beauty Consultants.’”  This is no accident. If Madson is not quite Kryptonite for holdouts and skeptics, she’s pretty close.

Written by The Scribbler

Last school year I completely read through "Room at the Top:  The Success Stories of Some of America's Leading Businesswomen."  Only you won't find women from real companies listed, just NSDs gushing their personal I-stories.  As I read through the book, I noticed more than a few common threads, and I'd like to share the quotes associated with one of those threads today. 

Let's hit the button on the ol' Wayback Machine and transport ourselves to that first encounter with Mary Kay.  It could be any encounter, really; a facial, a skin care class, a 3-way call with Beezelbub.  You remember asking "Why does it smell like sulfur in here?" only for the director to shrug and hold up a Yankee Candle with the words, "Hell Fire" scribbled on its label in black magic marker.  It looked legit, and the tip of the director's tail had this cute bow on it, so you didn't pry.

Mary Kay nsds Cheryl Knight Carol Lawler, Linda Toupin, and Pamela Waldrop Shaw

The new “NIQ” requirements will no longer have the current four-month qualification period and there will be no production requirement. Instead, candidates for the position of Independent National Sales Director must:

• Have a personal unit with at least 24 unit members.
•  Have a total of 20 offspring Independent Sales Directors having one of the following configurations:

Written by The Scribbler

I have a foot-high thick assortment of Applause magazines dating back to 1977.  It makes a pretty handy (albeit low) end table if you throw a glass top on it and add some opulent home décor from the local Stuckey’s:  Star Trek collector’s plates, statuettes of President Obama flashing the “hang loose” sign (and carrying a surfboard), and the ever-popular “Single Fake Rose in a Plastic Vial filled with Fake Water.”  There’s no denying I’m brimming with high class, people.   Or brimming with something else; my eyes are brown, after all.  Heck, I’m open for interpretation.

A piece written by our member JTA, a longtime Mary Kay sales director who came close to becoming a national sales director, and then decided to give it all up.

1. I really analyzed my offspring’s production – About 1/3 of my offspring are at Grand Prix level doing that production regularly. After expenses, as you can see from the info posted on PT, that Grand Prix directors do not make very much money, 20k per year at best. The other 2/3 made and missed production, mostly every other month. Many of these were actually placing HUGE 2-4k orders on the odd months themselves to make the production happen. Almost always, in my National’s newsletter, the majority of the top 10 of personal wholesale were from my future area. This is heart wrenching. It is listed to be celebrated, like their personal sales are so huge, but I KNEW then and KNOW now that they were not selling this much. The orders are placed simply to make production. Add to this that several of those do National Court of Sales. So they are celebrated for this, when behind the scenes there are major debt issues, warehousing of product, etc. Very sad.

Written by The Scribbler

Because I can’t take another episode of Man vs Food’s Adam Richman stuffing a baseball-cap sized meatball into his face, I’m ripe for some “B” list entertainment:  Mary Kay National Sales Director training videos!  They’re the videos that – like the Hurliator ride at the state fair – have the ability to tickle your ribs and turn your stomach at the same time!  I’ve brought enough Pepto for the whole class, teacher, so let’s explore the dopey delights of our NSD of the Hour.

NSD Gillian Ortega’s website features an interview between Ortega, one of her sales directors, and the director’s two daughters.  Of particular interest is Part 3 of the video, titled, “Using your Children as a Reason, Not an Excuse.” In this segment, NSD Ortega asks the director’s daughters what they love about their mom’s Mary Kay business, but not before she works a goopy handful of dream-casting into the director’s coif (which, incidentally, has received a generous visit from the Kate Gosselin Hairdo Fairy.)

The news of Allison LaMarr quitting Mary Kay has rocked the pink bubble. Sure, the “spin” is that she is “retiring” to do other things. The reality is that she’s a quitter, just like every single one of us at Pink Truth. Allison LaMarr is officially one of us, whether she wants to admit it or not.

The story she’s giving in her Digging Deeper blog is that she paid her “mentor” Murray Smith $50,000 to tell her to quit Mary Kay. She is going to spend more time selling her “Sharpen Your Edge” road show to MLMers everywhere. Allison’s public speaking skills are atrocious, but in spite of that, Murray says she can make millions peddling her seminars.

The rumor mill is churning, and here is the latest:  I have been told that Mary Kay is changing the rules for NSDs. They must have 8 first line sales directors or they can no longer be an NSD. There also will no longer be a NIQ program. Any sales director with enough first and second line directors to qualify for NIQ would automatically become a NSD, and stay one so long as she met the requirement for first line directors.

I have no way of confirming this information, and I can’t even evaluate how reliable the source of this information is. Obviously, if this is true, we know why Allison is quitting MK…. she doesn’t have enough first line directors to stay.. (And it seems there would be several NSDs who will lose their areas!)