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Seminar 2008. It was my third time through DIQ (I'd go through one more time before I hung up my heels), and I was on my way to the director's meeting. My husband and I had just gotten off the plane, and I ditched my poor hubby with all our luggage, and ran like the wind in three inch heels to get to the meeting. Nothing quite like that red polyester jacket to give you a sauna treatment in Dallas, is there?

Anyway, while I am walking into the hotel, I met up with a new DIQ in our area who had also just finished her car, first time through DIQ though, and she'd just signed 5 women the day before, four of them activated the same day. She had 21 active consultants at the end of her third month. My jaw hit the floor. I had 20-some on my team, but only 11 active.

What was this chick doing?! She explained to me that "All you have to do is sit them down, sign the agreement online, and then without letting them think about it too long, have them fill out the MK Chase Visa credit card application. You get on the spot approvals, and then you just place their order. It all done in a little over an hour!" (She finished DIQ the following month, and taught at fall retreat about her methods).

Oh my, so much to say and so little time.  For the newbies, June is the make or break month in the MK seminar year and all of the stops are pulled out. The nsd’s may even hit the road for the special “Guest Events” that you will have to pay for, but your guests will be free, and your director will also pay and bring a beautifully wrapped gift (current products only please.)  You will at the very least receive really perky email missives from your director urging to “stretch” this month. 

Stretch means ordering even if you don’t need to, but it’s all for the unit!  Don’t you want to see your unit become a cadillac unit, or a top director trip unit, or a circle of achievement unit?  Seriously, it is so way cool and your director will blow kisses to you from the seminar stage and mouth “ I love you!  You are just the most awesome unit!” and golly, what a thrill that is for YOU!  If your director is allowed to speak, she will thank God for these last minute miracles, although, last time you checked, it was YOUR credit card with the new charge on it.

You do know of course, everything you do for the unit only helps your director and nsd don’t you?  It’s all about production and recruits.  You are a cog in a wheel that you can’t control and receive no benefit.  I mean, what was the view for the people rowing under the deck?   That’s you.  You are the fuel.  When you are burned up, more fuel is obtained from another source.  You are dispensable.  Really.  You matter so long as you order and recruit.  Stop that, and you are no longer useful.

We recently discussed packaging changes that Mary Kay is doing. The company pretends that things like this are for the benefit of consultants, so the products can be "on trend" and more hip and happening.The real truth is that each time the company changes a formula or a package, it generates a wave of orders from consultants who are convinced they need the latest and greatest on their shelves.

Here are the details of the next change:

This is a plan for increasing your Mary Kay income to $7,500 a month within the next six months. I don't think I even have to tell you how silly some of these assumptions are.

This email is circulating with another unachievable plan for over 99% of women in Mary Kay: 

Dear Directors,

Director xxx xxxxxx wants to have income of $7500 per month by 6 months from now, so that her husband can have the option of changing his job and having more family time. I offered to figure a plan, and here's what I came up with:

This email is currently circulating among Mary Kay directors. The concept: We can't meet our goal for the seminar, so let's ask Mary Kay if we can cheat... i.e. Give us "double credit" so that all consultant orders to the company will count twice and we will get to the goal!

I just got off the phone with soon to be NIQ, Vivian Diaz and we were talking about whether or not the Company might give us DOUBLE CREDIT this month, so we got right on the phone and talked to Darrell Overcash's Assistant.  Her answer was "only one Director has requested it, so we haven't made plans for it."  That means, that if you want Double Credit, we can send an e-mail to Darrell Overcash's office and ask for it!  YEA!  Pass this on so more Directors know about it. 

Someone once said that there is a little bit of “BS” is in every sales presentation, and they weren’t talking about better service. Perhaps some time ago, Mary Kay’s sales environment and recruiting system might have been pure as the driven snow, but something has gone terribly awry in the last few decades of “enriching women’s lives”. 

The symptoms of it are easy to see, the “why” of it, more difficult. In many ways, what has happened to our economy as a whole is reflected by Mary Kay in microcosm. In the simplest words possible, Mary Kay opted for quick and easy profit by any means possible, instead of by thorough training and laborious development of personnel in time honored professionalism.

Profit quick is as easy as large start up inventories secured with the click of a mouse, as opposed to building sales people in the field taking commission profit from on going sales success. Field results take too long, are hard to come by and sporadic due to unreliable hostesses and exhausted leads.

I wanted to examine the income of a Premier Club sales director. There are about 13,000 sales directors in the United States, and a rather small percentage of those are Premier Club or Cadillac drivers. When you make it to those levels, you are assumed to be doing well, as not many sales directors get there.

I did a sample calculation based upon the estimated income and expenses of Gail, an actual Premier Club Mary Kay sales director. She said that her Mary Kay business contributed a “significant portion” to her family’s income. That suggested to me that she must be approaching or at that “executive” level income. I was wrong!

A recent post, “Another Mary Kay Sales Director in Denial” certainly got people talking, and it got me thinking.  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.

So, in looking at what Mary Kay director after director says in response to someone leaving or telling the truth to the unit, I just have the following statement: Cite your source.

There appears to be a common denominator, in my opinion, with women who suffer the most from their Mary Kay career. I am talking about those who fell for it hard.

I think I might be on to something regarding why the whole recruitment scam, and subsequent huge financial loses, occur. Just being a part of Mary Kay for many long years, and watching those who stay far too long sucked in by “the dream”, as well as those who come here to recover, there appears to be a female characteristic that is being exploited.

It isn’t recognition, significance, or needing cash so much as a tendency by women to accept less than the best regarding their own lives. It is a learned behavior, born out of sacrifice, expectation and servanthood, that traps women into this financially predatorial scheme. It is a willingness to accept the crumbs from the table, the lower wage, the leftovers, rather than draw the boundaries of what is personally acceptable and what is not.

In other words, the typical woman exploited in MLM schemes like Mary Kay, is used to being happy just getting a positive morsel and will wait at the table rationalizing until she gets another.

"Mary Kay-isms" abound in every Unit, everywhere, USA. The problem is, since they are repeated without analysis or corroboration, these little gems are the backbone of the fraud that keeps recruits coming in and "kaybots" from getting out. Sooner or later, you find out just how conned you were, but by then, you usually HAVE to make it to Director to pay down your credit card debt. How many of these were you told?