Million Dollar Director’s GoFundMe

It’s sad when you get to the very top of a multi-level marketing company like Mary Kay, but you’re not making enough money and you have to set up a GoFundMe to solicit donations.

You see, this year there were 32 “million dollar directors” in Mary Kay, out of a total of 9,000 sales directors in the U.S. So basically, almost no one gets to million dollar director. (In fact, most of the sales directors make minimum wage.) But if you’re lucky enough to get there, how much will you make? About $120,000 in gross commissions per year.

That’s right. You know how they talk about the executive income? And they show you “highest check” numbers? And you’re led to believe that sales directors in general are making BIG MONEY?

The very tippy top of the director chain is making $120,000 per year before business expenses.

Today’s story is about Elizabeth K. Toupin, better known as Katie Toupin. She’s the daughter of retired nsd Linda Toupin, a horrible, horrible human being who made millions from swindling women via Mary Kay. There’s one big benefit to being the daughter of an nsd: When a director in the area fails, the nsd gets to place those unit members wherever she wants in the area. Not-so-coincidentally, those orphan consultants always get placed in the daughter’s unit. Thus, the daughter always has a large Cadillac unit.

Katie Toupin is a repeat “million dollar director,” meaning her unit ordered about $450,000 of products during the year, and the company pretended that all of those products were sold at full suggested retail (they weren’t sold, much less at full retail), and MK also added some “contest credit” to it…. and voila! Suddenly it’s a “million dollar unit” and people tell the lie of “my unit sold a million dollars of products!”

Here’s what Katie’s commissions looked like for calendar year 2020. The pretend retail production was about $984k, and her commissions were $118k. At $1 million of pretend retail, the commissions would have been about $120k.

I’ll suggest that’s not actually executive income, but it is six figure income which will impress some. (It shouldn’t impress you because it’s based on lying to new recruits, and because almost no one in MK makes this much so it’s a unicorn.)

So Katie (known officially in MK by her legal name Elizabeth Toupin) makes about $120k a year, and yet she’s currently fundraising on GoFundMe. Katie wants to make an album, and she wants people to donate the $20,000 it’s going to cost to make it.

Now I understand that it costs money to make albums. But you’d think since Katie is one of the very top sales directors in Mary Kay, and they like to brag about the executive level income, she’d at least have a little pride and not beg for money. Rather, she should be able to afford her own $20,000 vanity album.

It’s also curious to me that you’d never know this artist Katie Toupin is a bigtime Mary Kay person unless you knew what to look for. Not a peep about MK in her music stuff, and you wouldn’t know that you have to search for Elizabeth Toupin. Is it because she knows the real world would laugh at it?

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26 COMMENTS

  1. Do they never cease asking other people to finance their goals? I thought Go Fund Me was usually for cancer patients and other legitimate causes.

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    • Chelsea and Jamie were asking her IG followers to Venmo them money for her bachelorette weekend. I feel this is all an abuse of their position/contacts and should be banned by MK. It seems they have lost control of the “leaders”.

      14
    • There was a Go Fund Me for Michelle Summach’s cancer treatment trip to Mexico, and they physically passed the hat for cash at Brenda’s area awards event. Between a top-3 NSD and Michelle & Mandee both driving Cadillacs, they still felt it was ok to ask for donations.

  2. I don’t think she’s getting the checks. I think Linda is and that she’s also still running the unit while “retired”. Completely unfair advantage!

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    • I totally agree. Linda is double-dipping as the silent partner/shadow management of Katie’s unit. My guess is that Katie said, “OK Mom, do whatever you want with it, while I focus on my music.” I would be interested in hearing from someone in Katie’s unit as to whether Katie ever holds “training meetings” or rah-rah events like her mother did (and still does), or if it’s more like being in the Go-Give area where you don’t have anyone above you really pushing things along.

    • Can’t decide what’s more pitiful… the fact that this woman is asking for $ 20,000 to fund something that is not a charitable cause or the fact that people have actually given $ 5075 to it so far. Reminds me when celebrity Tila Tequila who supposedly is a millionaire raised money on GoFundMe to help her buy a new home – and people actually gave to it. So pitiful.

      There’s a better way to raise money for something like this, known as crowdfunding. Nothing new here, I’m sure most people have heard of it. A lot of would-be musicians raise money to help fund the production of a new album. Instead of being an outright “donation” all of the crowdfunders receive something in return, such as a copy of the album when it gets made, or VIP invitations to the album release party, something like that. Of course, I can’t imagine her album would be all that desireable.

  3. Let’s face it: it’s not a big step from

    “Please support my (pretend) business”
    to
    “Please support my vanity project”.

    In MLM they learn panhandling early.

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  4. I am convinced that what she’s doing by establishing a Go Fund Me page is tantamount to scamming people & it should be shut down forthwith. Go Fund Me has done this in the past when someone has asked for donations under false pretenses, & they’ll continue to do so. It’s obvious to me that that’s the reason why she’s gone to incredible lengths to keep MK out of her music career. And $20,000 to record an album is dirt cheap! It doesn’t include the cost of putting it on CDs or promoting it, & those expenses are paid by the artist!

      • All she has to do record a cover of someone’s song is to give credit to the songwriter &/or original recording artist on the label of her CD.

        • That’s incorrect. Arrangements must be made with the copyright holder and royalties have to be paid (usually a fixed amount per unit sold). You can’t just sell a recording of you performing someone else’s work and not pay them. That’s theft of intellectual property.

        • To record a song for release to the public, a performer must obtain permission from the music publisher of the song and pay a fee, called a mechanical royalty. A mechanical royalty must be paid when songs are reproduced, for example on compact discs or records.

          https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/question-when-mechanical-royalty-due-28002.html

          OR

          A compulsory license may be used, and the preset statutory mechanical royalty rate paid directly to the music publisher—the easiest, least stressful method.

          Under the compulsory license procedures, you need not ask the music publisher’s permission to make the recording or negotiate a license fee. Instead, you merely inform the publisher of the recording and pay a license fee set by law.

      • You tell the “owner” of the songs you are making a cover and pay royalties …

        Under the compulsory license procedures, you need not ask the music publisher’s permission to make the recording or negotiate a license fee. Instead, you merely inform the publisher of the recording and pay a license fee set by law.

  5. https://www.musicinminnesota.com/katie-toupin-the-entry/?fbclid=IwAR3GXyhtYz7zylgnr1Q2RBN-XxEBEJeta9ozST3JTW4cHBZdIguNfPzV1oc

    Million Dollar Director.

    Understanding the daily pace of a tour helps to understand the need for nice couches. Toupin woke up at an Airbnb in Milwaukee, drove 5 hours to load into the venue, sound check by 6pm, then a small break before their show at 10pm. She then heads back to sell merch personally until about midnight, then drive another hour to an Airbnb because it’s more affordable getting one outside of the larger cities. By 2am she’s ready to sleep and do it all over again the next day.

  6. Just been a googling and found this answer on Quora by John Zozzaro re profits from an album.

    Total costs for recording and printing the album = $34,000
    This includes
    Hiring 14 musicians to play on the album
    3 different recording studios amounting to 8 days total
    Album art work
    5,000 albums pressed
    Travel expenses
    Produce Kickstarter video campaign. It’s actually still up ha! Check it out HERE :).
    This doesn’t include sunken costs
    5 band members and all of our time
    Charts for studio musicians
    Marketing the album
    Pretty much all ownership costs you would address in any startup…
    SO, let’s do the math now..

    Total investment in the album = $34,000
    Sold album for = $15
    To recoup investment cost we had to sell = 2,267 albums
    That’s 2,733 albums left = $40,995 in profit
    In this case, if we were to equate the total investment against all 5,000 album sales we made 55% = $8.25 per album.

    • In this particular case, the musicians did a Kickstarter rather than a GoFundMe campaign, real crowdfunding rather than virtual panhandling, and contributors actually got something in return for giving. With this woman, you get nothing in return other than maybe a thank you. I don’t get it.

    • I guess when one grows up in MK, they become used to asking for donations/pity purchases to achieve any goal. I mean, to MK directors, that’s a huge part of the game: beg/plead for everyone to spend money to help them achieve their goal. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that Little Toupin here wants to generate money to reach her album goal by begging others to donate towards it…as in, it’s not only HER goal, it’s OUR goal, and we can ALL be a part of this monumentous accomplishment by donating towards its completion.

      She’s just practicing the only way she knows how to meet a personal goal: by selling it as “our” goal (not just hers) and how if we support her endeavours then that support includes financial support, not just emotional. And once HER album is completed, we should all feel like it is OUR album that is completed

      Something about falling apples and trees, methinks.

  7. False. This is not Elizabeth “Katie” Toupins unit. Some NSD’s never retire. They add the consultants under their daughters name & continue to work the business and still make the commissions PLUS take their payout. . Katie doesn’t have a million dollar unit, Linda does, using Katie and her name. I would love to see a post about all the retired NSD’s doing this. Linda never retired and Katie doesn’t have a thing to do with Mary Kay.

  8. I have no dog in this fight. I googled Katie Toupin. She is an indie Americana or blues singer…I’m not sure what genre of music she is actually in! Her Facebook shows her to have a podcast, and she shills for CBD! No mention of MK or cosmetics.

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