MLM Warning at Starbucks
Starbucks is a popular place for Mary Kay ladies to troll for new victims. There are two ways to go about it. One method is to go there for a drink and sit at a table looking for potential customers or recruits to make small talk with, and then offer them the “free facial” and do that routine. The other way is to find a potential victim elsewhere, and then set up a meeting at Starbucks to try to twist their arm into signing up for MK or something like that.
A MK director in the Director Tips Group on Facebook, Gina Shannon, was bothered because a wise Starbucks customer passed a note to the recruit Gina was meeting with. The note is pure gold, giving the FACTS about multi-level marketing and providing resources for research. Who could have a problem with providing facts to victims?
All the Mary Kay ladies, of course. Check out the responses. It is interesting to me that the truth and the facts are referred to as ignorant and the devil. I’m particularly amused at Pam Lancaster saying that if we put as much effort into our “businesses” as we do into “warning others,” we might have been successful. Pam must not have heard about my real business that has been successfully operating for the last 24 years…
Visit the
How nice to see Ellen Bowman Cox and her usual up-lifting and kind words. She really shows the true spirit of a Mary KayBot.
I’m reminded of the brief Scots prayer: “From ghoulies and ghosties and MLM besties, Good Laird, deliver us.”
Dear Lynnette Brazda Bickley: I’ve READ Mary Kay’s books, where she brags about using the jackets and scarves and tawdry trinkets to keep the sales force competing against one another, glosses over several marriages, encourages an IBC to lie about being in a contest, and LIES about her childhood to gain sympathy and make her “I-Story” more compelling.
http://lazygardens.blogspot.com/2015/04/mary-kay-ash-and-missing-marriages.html
Oh, come on, Gina Shannon. If it truly didn’t bother you, you’d have just tossed that note in the garbage and not thought twice about it. You wouldn’t have run to your directors’ group for “SHE’S really the one who’s wrong… right???” assurances.
And thanks, Ellen Bowman Cox, for your fine example of internalized misogyny and fat-shaming by calling the note writer a “heifer” (note spelling). You’re a fan-damn-tastic role model and the perfect embodiment of the “People and Love” which is the very cornerstone of Mary Kay Cosmetics /s
Gina: Meeting new team member.
Sarah: One of my team members
Tamika: you and your team member
Rebecca: team building appointment
Tori: team member of mine
Also
Ruby: Also since MK Doesn’t require team building like other companies this is invalid, lady.😀
To the lady who said “we need more people to go DALLAS, tour the factory, etc…”
I’ve done most of those things you mentioned & it wasn’t as life-changing as you except. If anything, it was a little embarrassing to be surrounded by people taking pictures of a dead woman’s desk/ phone, and people fawning over the factory. I didn’t get it…. We saw boxes of products moving on a conveyor belt tended to by a very bored-looking woman wearing a hairnet & lab coat. I don’t understand the hero worship of Mary Kay Ash, except that every cult (and MLM) needs a hero figure; but in the end, she was just a founder & CEO of a company. Big deal. It’s laughable that this is spouted as the solution to get people more invested in Mary Kay.
I did also read the autobiography. That wasn’t as inspiring as promised, either. If anything, it painted the picture of a workaholic who wanted all of her consultants to be workaholics too while claiming to put God first & family second.
By far the cringiest experience of my life was DIT week. When I was doing Director Training, the company had started doing regional events, so mine was in Chicago–more accessible to me than Dallas. They had shipped in the stupid pink bathtub, set it up in the conference space, and we were all expected to get in it and have our pictures taken. I’m sorry, what?!? Testimony to the power of manipulation and peer pressure–I did it and didn’t complain.
Yes, the bathtub! I think I remember seeing photos of fully clothed women in that bathtub, but maybe I saw it IRL at Seminar? I can’t remember which. Is the pink, heart-shaped bathtub at the corporate office? That’s super weird & cringy to have a bathtub at Corporate. But, Corporate has shown us again & again they’re not above doing weird & cringy things. 🙂 Bizarre that they flew it to Chicago! It also could be peon consultants like me weren’t allowed to see the bathtub; that was only for directors & above.
The power of peer pressure is very strong, even for adults.