Your First 30 Days in Mary Kay

Written by SuzyQ

Oh, your first 30 days in Mary Kay Cosmetics. Such an exciting time! So much to learn! So much to do! 30 faces in your first 30 days! But here’s the reality of what goes on those first 30 days….

There is no inventory requirement, but your recruiter (generally a director) will still hand you an inventory sheet and discuss it with you. No matter what your “goals” may be, you will learn that you will need inventory on hand so you can deliver your customers orders to them on the spot.

No one likes to wait, and “you can’t sell from an empty wagon” as Mary Kay, the Icon, was fond of saying. Not only that, but you will also receive a 90% buy back guarantee from the company for any unsold product if you decide Mary Kay is not for you.

And you will be told the training is free! It is like a university education! Except it is not free, you will pay a room fee for meetings (I mean good grief, MK Corporate is charging for virtual events) and there is nothing remotely college level taught in any of the “trainings.”

Ah, unit meetings. The weekly dose of Mary Kay that is needed to keep you close and engaged in “your business.” The meetings are designed for consultants to bring “models” or “guests” for facials to try new looks and new makeup, but the real purpose is to recruit new unit members. Most new consultants don’t get this, and some new directors don’t know this either.

The meetings offer an opportunity for “love bombing” new consultants and those who place large initial inventory orders. Much praise and a lot of trinkets are given. Standing ovations are not uncommon. Tears and hugs are nearly mandatory.

And high sales weeks? Wowzers, those women are brought to the front of the room, and their sales at a party/class are divided by 2, so someone who sold $100 dollars made a $50 profit! The question is asked of the models/guests, do YOU make $50 per hour? We do! Of course, these women are interested. Much free product is given away and many promises are made, and interviews are secured.

At the new consultant’s home, “love bombing” continues by postcards, phone calls, emails, text messages weekly to new consultants by directors. It is known that after the newbie burns through her warm market, she gets reservations about her decision to join MK and her decision to buy inventory. The weekly postcards et al come at exactly the right time and offer supportive messages.

The experiences of all consultants with classes not holding, people not answering the phone or responding to text messages, no one new to call, are normalized with the phrase, “It’s ok, no means next.” It turns into a contest, how many “no’s “can you get? First one to 50 gets a prize.

The consultant is pleased with the attention and learns that what she is feeling is normal. After all, by this time, her director has told her about the time she drove 35 miles to a class during a storm that didn’t hold, and by the way, the consultant’s nsd? … Have you heard about one of her classes? Oh my gosh, let me tell you! We are all in this together and all you have to do is keep going! The only people who don’t make it in MK are those who quit!

Meanwhile, the new consultant is reeling. She continues ordering product because it changes, she has trouble selling what she has ordered, her family is concerned, and she is told to ignore the negative people in her life because they don’t understand. She is advised to keep only positive people in her life, her sisters in MK. Everybody else is trying to “Ick on her wow” (Stacy James) or “Pay no attention to the balcony people” ( Marlys Skillings).

She is also told that her husband (if she has one) is only interested in 2 things, money, and giggle giggle, so show him the money after a successful class. (Stacy James) All the way home, consultants will talk about how they will become directors and directors talk about how they will become nationals.

So you see there is the story about what will happen in your first 30 days, and there is the reality. Everything is geared toward getting you to order more products and starting to recruit. All because this is what lines the pockets of your upline. They make it seem like it’s about you, but it’s really about the and their commission checks.

9 COMMENTS

  1. I was in Mk for about 8 years and didn’t k ow that bringing a guest or model was about recruiting. It wasn’t until I came here to Pink Truth that I discovered that truth.

    Being told to bring all of those “models” to build my “portfolio” was part of the scam. I remember being so proud of all of the before and after faces I had in my album that I toted EVERYWHERE!

    I guess directors only tell people the real reason if that IBC will be a futur DIQ. If they told everyone, people wouldn’t bring their family and friends knowing they are really recruitment bait.

  2. Oh, all the things I didn’t know. I feel like such a fool sometimes. I didn’t know most of the trickery that Mary Kay was up to. So many lies. So many half truths or lies of omission. At least I can claim that the internet was barely around at the time, so I didn’t have access to any facts. Who would guess that everyone was taught to just lie (fake it til you make it)? It seems so obvious to me now, but some of the directors were very convincing. I think I might have been more “successful” in Mary Kay if I’ d known that all I had to do was just tell everyone whatever I needed to in order to get what I wanted. I didn’t realize that I could just tell everyone I made a lot of money (I didn’t), that the products were easy to sell (when they weren’t), that it was a great opportunity (it wasn’t), that women attended skin care classes and bought products (they didn’t). But women would join up if I just lied! Of course, I’d have to live with myself and I don’t think that would have worked out too great. I sold too much product to a single struggling mom once and I felt bad enough about that. So these NSD’s must be complete sociopaths.

    11
    • Same here! Had this site been up, I would’ve never signed up. Had I been in, I would’ve gotten out quickly. It was such a relief to read others’ stories while sitting at my desk and staring at reports that weren’t getting any better.

      Lesson learned!

  3. Ah the first 30 days in Mary Kay, when consultants either throw themselves completely into the pink fog or say “holy crap this isn’t what I thought I was signing up for I’m out!”

    • Major attrition after Power Start window. Most never recovered from it and disappeared.

      • Is that the term Mary Kay uses, “Power Start Window”? I was wondering if they had something like that. Most MLMs have some sort of “fast-start bonus” where they pay more commission for the first order, or something. They all seem to be well aware that the first order is quite likely to be the last order, once the victims come to their senses and quit.

        • No, new Consultants aren’t paid if they do a Power Start. They get a $2 pin from their Director.

  4. How embarrassing to set up these 30 faces by begging those you know to show up. I even invited a neighbor I barely knew at the last minute. MK sure sets women up to be resented, avoided and annoying. The 3 foot rule. The stalking women at the mall. The fake facials. No woman wants to apply their own beauty products. MK is designed to extract as much cash from each recruit as possible. They constantly change the products, offer useless fake training, have women pay for their own advertising and samples. MK has constant meetings or conferences designed to coerce women into buying more products. I am just happy that the neighbor still speaks with me. I am not proud to remember the struggling woman my SD recruited. That poor woman used her grocery money to buy that stupid useless pink make up kit. All that money spent on MK lipstick, foundation, concealer etc. That poor woman was embarrassed and heart broken. Yuck. Many MK Directors, SD’s and NSD’s are indeed uncaring, narcissistic, deplorable sociopaths.

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