This is one of those sad, sad dreams that Mary Kay directors and recruiters like to build up for you. They tell you how easy it is to “replace your income” with Mary Kay. And it’s nonsense. Because we’ve seen over and over on Pink Truth how almost everyone in MK would be better off working a minimum wage job… they’d make more per hour at minimum wage than they make at MK.

It is next to impossible to build a client base large enough to generate a steady income in Mary Kay. Even women who’ve been in for years and have 100 or 200 customers (impressive sounding, yes?) aren’t doing consistent, significant sales.

The reality is that “good” Mary Kay customers probably buy $50 to $100 of products a year, on average. Sure, you’ll hear a Kaybot talk about the two customers she has that each spend $500 a year. They are the exception to the rule. Many customers spend only $25 a year, but we keep them on our preferred customer list because we think someday they’ll be won over and buy more.

Add to that the fact that once you start building that client base, you’re immediately encouraged to start poaching it for recruits, so you can “move up” and make the “big girl pay.” So even if you can start building a real customer base, before you know it, you’re recruiting some of them.

So how on earth can anyone think this Mary Kay propaganda is possible to achieve for more than about 5 out of 1,000 women? Well, the sad fact is that the recruiters make you believe that women all over the place are doing it. When they know good and well that they’re not aware of anyone who actually did it.

Here’s how they say to do it (my comments in italics):
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HOW TO QUIT YOUR JOB and/or REPLACE YOUR INCOME

Write down your yearly salary $_______
Okay, fair enough starting point.
Subtract out daycare expenses for the year $_____
Stop right there. You mean you won’t even have to pay for babysitters? If you’re trying to replace a full-time income, of course you will have to pay for child care!
Subtract out other expenses that you would not need to pay if you were able to stay at home (dry cleaning, gas driving to and from work, eating out for lunch, etc.) $______

Stop again. You probably will spend more on gas racing around to classes, delivering products, warm stalking women, going to unit meetings and guest events.
This new total is what you would need to make in order to replace your income from your job.
Kaybot Example:
$22,000 salary
-$10,000 daycare
-$520 gas, drycleaning
= $11,480 net salary you need to replace

Pink Truth Reality:
$22,000 salary
-$ 0 daycare (If you’re working Mary Kay full-time, you need childcare. If you’re caring for your kids, you’re not working.)
-$0 gas, drycleaning (In fact, you probably need to add money here to cover all the extra gas you’ll use up.)
= $22,000 net salary you need to replace (And this includes no paid days off and no paid benefits. All those are gone once you quit your job.)

Figure out what your average per face is. Take all your sales from facials and skin care classes and add them up. Then add up how many total faces those sales came from. That will be your average per face. Using a company average of $200 per class divided by 3 women is $66 per face.

$200 per class is inflated. You’re lucky if you sell an average of $50 per woman.

Divide your Net Total Salary by your average per face. This will equal the number faces you would need to see in order to replace your income. $11,480 divided by $66 = 174

And this is where the big difference comes up. Because she started with a low and false salary to replace of $11,480, the numbers are skewed. They should be: $22,000 divided by $50 = 440

Keep in mind that we need to double the amount we just calculated, because you need to reinvest ½ of what you sell to keep your inventory at full inventory. 174 x 2 = 348 faces

440 x 2 = 880 faces
Take your number of faces and divide by 52 weeks. This is how many faces you would need to see per week to replace your income!!! 348 divided by 52 weeks = 6.69 faces per week

880 faces divided by 52 weeks = 16.9 faces per week

In this example you would need to see 7 faces per week in order to replace your take home salary of $11,480. Do you think you could do 7 faces per week and work a total of about 6-8 hours doing so? It really makes you think about how easy it can be to replace your income in a fraction of the hours that you give to your job.

Keep in mind that this formula ONLY takes into consideration new faces. You will also be receiving reorders and recruiting commissions that are not factored in!

If you are worried about your health insurance, I want you to start calling Health Insurance companies and getting quotes for your family. Calculate how many extra faces per month you would need to pay for your insurance! Or better yet, your recruiting commissions could pay for your insurance each month.

I hope this helps you see how easy it can be to replace your income and become a full-time Mary Kay consultant and then Sales Director.
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Talk about false earnings claims! This is total fiction. If you use the realistic numbers I calculated above, you’d have to see 17 faces a week at $50 a face to replace your income. That’s 6 skin care classes a week.

To do 6 skin care classes a week, you’ll have to book about 12 to 18 full classes for each week. To do that, you’ll need to get referrals to about 48- 72 women… women you can talk to and ask to have a class. You hope that about 1 in 4 will actually book a class.

Now to hold 6 classes a week, you’ll have to figure about 3 hours class time for each. That’s 18 hours. Plus you’ll probably spend about 1 to 1.5 hours each for coaching the hostess, packing up stuff, filling orders, and doing all sorts of little administrative stuff… follow-up phone calls etc. You’re now up to about 26 hours per week.

Then on top of that, you’ve got the unit meeting and probably another recruiting event (Muffins and Makeovers, etc). You will also want to factor in time spent warm stalking to get those 60-ish names per week that you need to get. And don’t forget general office work and such. I’m thinking you’re now way beyond a 40 hour week.

So we’ve now gone from the recruiting lie of replacing your full-time income with 6 to 8 hours of work per week. And you’ll be home with your child!!!

…. to the reality of… This is a time commitment of more than 40 hours a week to replace your income. And that’s only if you’re able to find those 60 or more names per week to harass into having classes. I’d challenge anyone to do that for a full year…. 60 names a week every week for a year. (Yeah, right.)

Are you as infuriated as I am at these types of completely false examples that set women up to expect something they cannot achieve???