Why a Top Director Quits Mary Kay
This is the story of a former top director in Mary Kay who was nearing NSD status. See why she gave it all up.
I was in Mary Kay for 12 years and a top director for 10 of those 12 years. We finished $450,000 unit club our first year as a unit and never did less. Our highest year was almost $900,000. Always in a Pink Cadillac, never missed production, never made a car payment. We recruited about 20 a month to have the numbers.
I did debuts for all new consultants and sold on average of about $600 and booked their Power Starts at the debut plus recruited at least 1 or 2 at the debuts. I worked REALLY, REALLY hard. I was careful to work my business ethically and enjoyed the 6 figure income.
So why did I quit?????
About 2 years before I quit, I started to look at my life and felt conflicted over the time and energy I was giving to my business… I started to realize that MK had become my whole life. I thought about it on vacation, in church, in bed etc. I thought about the next recruit, the debuts, the guest events. The month always consisted of having so much in and so many in by the 15th to wrap up $25,000 to $30,000 by month end. Month after month, year after year. I guess you can say I got burned out. I got tired of looking at everyone as a prospect or a business opportunity.
My best friend and I always talked about our business and worked together for years. We were always careful not to be negative to each other. Then one day we both were finding ourselves in the same place at the same time…. Our units were doing great, we only had a little to go to finish National areas, but we just couldn’t do it.
I met with my pastor and sought Godly advice. He told me that God was simply re-directing me and that was okay.
The transition was hard, but as MK has always taught us that the pain of regret is harder than the pain of change. I didn’t want to look back on my life and regret not being there for my family.
I thank the Lord for re-directing me when he did, and not 20 years later. I quickly started a new career and began enjoying life without MK. I feel like everyone on Pink Truth is a friend and I just wanted to finally say hello and God bless Tracy for having the courage to do this.
Visit the
“I was careful to work my business ethically and enjoyed the 6 figure income.” So she’s saying you can legitimately make a 6 figure income in a MLM…
Sounds like it. BUT not without a lot of sacrifice and then quickly burning out. She learned about all the time it took away from her family and constantly working the “business”. How exhausting!
“So she’s saying you can legitimately make a 6 figure income in a MLM…”
Not exactly. She admitted they burned through 20 consultants per month. That’s 240 consultants per year. That’s nearly 3000 women churned through her unit in those 12 years.
If her unit did $600K wholesale, on average, per year, that comes to ~$2,500 per consultant. While I am grateful OP got out, and that she has found a more upright way to make a living, I question the ethics of pilfering $2500 out of 20 new consultants every single month, month after month, year after year.
Sadly, this is exactly how Mary Kay works, even if the xSDs don’t realize the damage they are doing. No xSD is turning a consistent profit without substantial churn (and associated losses) in her own down-line.
I was being sarcastic…
I think she likes to think she did. Hey at least she is out of the fog.
I find interesting she was only to be sell $600 a month.
I honestly think that God is redirecting a lot of people away from the Mary Kay business if they will just listen to him and not the people around them in Mary Kay. These are just a few of the things that I’ve noticed.
1. Mary Kay is NOT a Christian company but so many Christian and woman of faith are at the forefront pushing this company because it seems like a Christian organization but it is not. Case in point in 2022 Mary Kay debut a male NSD and he was escorted across the stage by his HUSBAND. A true slap in the face to the thousands of Mary Kay consultants that do not support same sex marriage. I get it he earned that position and had the right to walk across the stage escorted by his spouse just like everyone else but guess who made up his WHOLE national area. WOMEN lots of them not other gay men like him no straight women with husbands. Somehow this man was accepted and made to feel comfortable and totally supported by women because he as a gay man made it to the hardest position to make it to in Mary Kay.
2. Mary Kay is NOT a woman owned organization, it is owned and primarily ran by men business men at that, the very type of men that took advantage of women in the 60s when Mary Kay started her business and they are doing the exact same thing that was happening then. The top three people in Mary Kay corporate are men
1. EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN -RICHARD R. ROGERS
2. CHAIRMAN- DAVID HOLL
3. CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER -RYAN ROGERS
I really noticed that after men really began running the company things really changed and was not as consultant friendly anymore.
3. The “free car” is no longer free car it’s earning the use of a car, because by the time you’ve “earned” the use of a car you have practically purchased the car, if you miss production you have to make a car payment so how is this a “free” car? it’s not. Most of those cars no one even know are Mary Kay cars because they look like normal cars, the car program has become a scam.
4. Those prizes you win for being consistent are trash, that jewelry that they give you throughout the year looks like your skin will break out just by looking at it, Mary Kay prided herself on giving out quality prizes that people would actually want, who wants to wear plastic costume jewelry, what woman of class and elegance wants to walk around in fake costume jewelry that would cost you .50 at the dollar store. The supposed colored diamonds that they give you at seminar are not diamonds and it says that but because they used to give out colored diamonds people think that they still do, they don’t. That is something that men would come up with not real women who value other women.
5. My biggest slap in the face is when I was reading a magazine article and a top executive at Mary Kay was asked are you really the number one skin care company they said we’re unsure because our customer is the consultant so we really don’t know how many consumers actually use the product because we don’t track that number we only track what consultants buy, so I was like woah the consultants are the freaking customer and to say this is a billion dollar company that says a lot.
6. They say that you are a CEO and it’s your business but this billion dollar corporation with very expensive lawyers behind them will sue the pants off of you for violating their rules and practices so in my book that is a form of scare tactics to keep you in line, sounds like something controlling men would do.
6. They put women in competition against other women and we all know just how competitive women can be. Some will do anything to be at the top and win and get all of the recognition, it’s like a drug.
7. You as the “business owner” have to come out of pocket for “EVERYTHING” your own products, your own supplies, your own training i.e seminar and conferences it really remind me of the girl scout organization which is another scam that I’ll save for another time and place but the model of how they treat the people selling their products is the same.
So in conclusion I think that God is waking up his people to this organization and telling them that it’s time to get off of this ship before he sinks it.
“The “free car” is no longer free car ” – it was NEVER a “free car”. It was always tied to having enough recruits ordering enough product to get a car for as long as you kept up production.
“They put women in competition against other women ” Mary Kay Ash was the one who started that. In one of her books she points out that the jackets, blouses, scarves and the other trappings were to make women compete to be at a higher level. The rot was there from Day ONE.