Sales Director Catch Phrases

What do Mary Kay sales directors say, and what do they really mean? One of our readers put together this handy list of catch phrases that Mary Kay directors can often be heard spouting.

The directors feed everyone so much nonsense about Mary Kay and how great it is, but every line of every script has an underlying message. Everything a director tells you and/or a potential recruit can be very easily translated into its true meaning within a split second.

Here are some of the most common lines and their actual meanings:

1. You’ve Got to Show Up to Go Up = The more you show, the more money I make.

2. A $3600 wholesale inventory is “profit level” = If you order 3600, I’ll get to keep my car for another month.

3. Mary Kay’s marketing plan is taught at Harvard Business School = I don’t know a darn thing about Harvard’s business curriculum.

4. There are no QUOTAS in Mary Kay = There are quotas within quotas within quotas within quotas everywhere in Mary Kay.

5. Aerodynamically, the bumble bee should not be able to fly, but it does not know that and does so anyway. = Mary Kay Ash never took a biology class.

6. Mary Kay is America’s Best Selling Brand = Mary Kay is America’s number one pyramid scheme and manufacturer of skin irritants.

7. I earned a free car in my short time as a director = They haven’t take the car this month—thank God, now I need you to go out and recruit more women!

8. It’s YOUR BUSINESS, you can do what you want with it. = Mary Kay owns your soul and will police your every move.

9. You make 50% profit on your sales. = Mary Kay Corporation is the only one making a profit in this “business.”

10. The product just flies off the shelf! = I’ve been watching Poltergeist too many times and I’m starting to see things… et tu, pink fog?

11. I need you to do 15 faces in 15 days = RECRUIT like you never recruited before! I am in grave danger of losing my unit, car, suit, and cheap jewelry that came from one of those quarter dispensers!

12. Oh my gosh, I am so excited I think I’m about to burst! = Inside, I’m screaming for my life.

13. I have faith in you = I think you’re gullible enough to fall for this lie.

14. You’ve got to fake it to make it = I’ve been in MK for ten years and all I have to show for it all is enough debt to sink the economy of France.

15. Everyone can hold 2 skin care classes a week! = You need to sacrifice your family, your friends, and yourself so that you can earn me my car and commission checks.

16. Seminar will change your life! = I have NO ONE who is willing to go with me, PLEASE go so I won’t show up alone again and have to face all those stares!

17. Mary Kay is Recession-Proof = Mary Kay is sinking like the Titanic, we need you to sign on to help save the drowning rats!

18. You can start your own business for only $100 = 100 dollars is JUST the beginning of the road to financial ruin…

19. Mary Kay always holds your best interest at heart = Mary Kay always holds the quest of scamming you out of your money at heart.

20. Mary Kay women are very very happy! = We’re all losing big in this scheme and we’re too afraid to show our real feelings of anger and devastation.

What phrases can you add to this list?

18 COMMENTS

  1. Find a way or make a way=do anything possible to help me increase my income at your expense.

    There are more women making over $100K in Mary Kay than any other company=I can’t wait to make 100K.

    Directors are part of the big girls club=big debt club

    10
  2. I will match your effort with my time = I will match your spending with pleas for more spending.

    • And “Your inventory is your ATM” = “Offer discounts constantly to recoup just enough to order more.” (Ahem… Chelsea?)

  3. Can I please pile on?
    – Making money = Gross commissions payments before expenses = losing money for 99.6% of reps
    – Team sales = Team purchases
    – I am an Independent Business Owner = I am a Mary Kay customer
    – I am a CEO = I am a May Kay customer
    – I am a small business owner = I am a customer of a large multinational company
    – We Empower Women = We Exploit Women
    – I buy at wholesale and sell at retail = Mary Kay sells to its reps at prices already well above retail price, making it impossible for reps to sell even without a markup
    – They key to success is building a team! = In a saturated market selling mediocre products at elevated prices, the only way to “sell” is to recruit, since the reps are the only ones buying the product!
    – The products sell themselves! = The closets/basements/garages fill themselves!
    – Mary Kay is a low risk way to start your own business! = Mary Kay corporate sees reps as a customers, not business owners
    – Mary Kay is not a [naked] pyramid scheme! = Mary Kay is a “product-based” pyramid scheme, by definition. Endless-chain recruiting is what naked and product-based pyramid schemes have in common. Both schemes unethically exploit the 99% to benefit the 1%
    – You need to sell more product = you need to buy more product
    – Stale reps need motivation = These are reps who have dried up their pity purchases to F+F and are of no further use to the upline unless they make personal purchases
    – Anyone can do this = 99.6% must lose money so the 0.4% can turn a profit
    – Friends/Tribe/Team = Partners in crime
    – No front-loading required = You will be pressured into front-loading using manipulative tactics
    – Free training = You will be discouraged from learning meaningful business tools such as keeping an accurate ledger
    – You can’t sell from an empty cart = I can’t keep my car if you don’t buy more than you can ever use or sell

    I could go on and on.

    15
  4. Yes to all of the above. I admit that I was guilty of these shenanigans at one point because that is what I was taught. It was when I started asking questions that I saw how much BS was in each and every line.

  5. 8. It’s YOUR BUSINESS, you can do what you want with it. = Mary Kay owns your soul and will police your every move. *****And what mkcorpse misses, YOUR FELLOW DIRECTORS will make sure that your nefarious deeds, like Ebay selling, are brought to the attention of mkcorpse!

    This one just made me LOLOLOL: 6. Mary Kay is America’s Best Selling Brand = Mary Kay is America’s number one pyramid scheme and manufacturer of skin irritants

    This I do not understand. Write WHAT OFF? Your entire investment? All your expenses? Mkcorpse found a sneaky way around the IRS that only kbots know where you can run your very own business without paying a cent because: “You can write it off on your taxes!”

  6. Mary Kay products are on trend.
    God first, family second, career third
    Largest fleet of company vehicles after UPS
    I retired my husband
    This is our Cadillac
    50 % profit
    Katie Toupin runs her own unit.

    12
  7. Our products are very nicely priced = we’re selling drugstore quality makeup at department store prices
    I make time for those who make time for me = endless chain recruiting means that I cannot possibly provide leadership and guidance to every new recruit before she realizes this is a scam and quits

    5
    1
  8. Did anybody listen to Krystal Hunsucker’s million dollar message yesterday? She mentioned that God will always be first regardless of what terminology is used for the sake of inclusion, etc. My question is has corporate gone away from the God first, family second, career third catch phrase?

  9. Hitch your Wagon to a Rising Star — means find someone gullible who wants to do well and believes the Mary Kay lie and will go into debt buying inventory so she can push her director up the ladder. That way the director can keep her stardom by riding the coattails of that rising recruit.

  10. “You can’t follow a parked car”
    =
    Run, run, run, and don’t take time to think about the fact you’re being played.

  11. “Can’t afford seminar, that is exactly why you need to spend another 1300 to go!”

  12. Oh man #8 is SO TRUE! I certainly felt like my every move was watched and I was policed!
    While I was really dedicated to the lie and killing myself to work “my business” ignoring my husband and children (who were very young :() for almost a year straight we planned a trip to 6 flags for one day, we went and then I posted pictures on my FB of our day there.
    The next day my SD “friend” asked me “what was up with the trip to six flags?” She wanted an explanation! Absolutely sick!

  13. #6 hit home. It literally isn’t. Google it. Rodan and Fields is Americas #1 brand. It doesn’t come cheap but that stuff works!!!

    1
    7
    • Do you sell R &F? When I Google, the hits that come up saying R&F is America’s #1 brand read similar infomercials, so I don’t know how accurate that is. Also because R &F is also an MLM, we don’t really know if that’s #1 sales to actual end-user customers or if they are using wholesale amounts to consultants & calling it estimated retail sales, just like MK does.

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