Eileen’s Hustle
Written by Parsons Green
Eileen Collins has been spinning her wheels with Mary Kay for fifteen years. She is not a sales director, but loves to share her success tips to a Facebook group.
If you need help, talk to your director. They will help you make money!
Eileen admits she currently needs to have a full time job. But having a job is great, you get more opportunities to go out and meet new customers and recruits! If you want to quit your job, make sure you have enough customers to replace your income.
Take advantage of the Preferred Customer Program. For only 95 cents per customer, Mary Kay will mail a catalog and sample to everyone on your list. Eileen had a $315 order after going through the catalog with a customer over the phone. Eileen doesn’t mention if this is a typical order or how frequently she even gets an order.
Consultants complain that the PCP program doesn’t always work and that customers don’t always receive the catalogs. Problems of a business owner!
Eileen loves recruiting. If selling product to customers is the money maker, why does she want to recruit. It’s because if she doesn’t, someone else might! Eileen will let you know if she thinks you’ll be a good recruit and she will send you a picture of your name on a list to prove it. I wonder what percentage of her customers get such a picture.
If you have a team, schedule meetings with them to get them excited about the product. If they’re not actively using it, how can they be excited to sell it. Based on the picture, it’s not really clear how successful Eileen is at recruiting anyone.
If you’re feeling stuck, make a goal poster or a dream book! This tip is golden because it came from an NSD! Arts and crafts is fun, but how does this help you make money?
Eileen uses a weekly tracker sheet to let her director know how she is doing. Her director has a goal of 13 new contacts a DAY. This is 390 people a month. Is her director meeting this goal herself? Does it ever dawn on Eileen that her director needs Eileen’s work so she can earn commissions on inventory purchases?
Make sure you always wear your name tag. Surely people will see you running your errands and will ask about the products and maybe the opportunity.
And finally the goodie basket. Eileen makes a point to carry this wherever she goes. She aims to make it as big and bright as possible so people will ask her about it. In this video, Eileen gives her tips. She has two approaches. She will go to a coffee shop or Panera and put the basket on the counter or hold a Mary Kay catalog. She knows what she wants to order, but she wastes everyone’s time by pretending she still hasn’t decided. If someone asks about the basket, she then offers them a product from the basket. If they pick a color item, she says she tells the customer it will look great on them. (Even if it won’t.) she then gets a profile card ready so she can get their contact info to hound them later.
Eileen makes it perfectly clear. Mary Kay is not an easy business. You must constantly be on the lookout for any new face (and her credit credit) or you won’t make money. If Eileen is successful, why does she need you?
Visit the
“If girls on your team are inactive…Treat them as customers[!]”
Exactly…because that is what they (and you) are to Mary Kay Corporate!
Eileen is clearly self-deluded, big time. You don’t need a PhD in Psychology to arrive at this conclusion. Several points: There’s no business, no sisterhood, no religion, only re-selling third rate products trying to make a tiny margin. If after 15 years on this hamster wheel, she doesn’t see it for what it is; well, I think the term here is “lifer.”
Pardon me if I don’t think that’s an accurate representation of what her coworkers are saying about her mini work basket (and that must have been an interesting conversation with her boss: “Elaine, you can’t lug a giant pink basket around the office with you. You’re a [job title], not the Easter bunny!”)
“Oh, no, here comes Elaine and her basket again. Listen, you’re new. Never ask Elaine about it or take anything she offers you or you’ll never get a moment’s peace. Don’t even look at the catalog to be nice.”
Unfortunately, MK is full of Elaines, trying every trick in the book and trying to pretend they work. All it does is prove that the MK hoi polloi don’t make any kind of real money, certainly not enough to live on, or else the Elaines wouldn’t need full-time jobs. And that the gimmicks don’t work.
100% that the newbies are quietly told that Elaine will approach them and they should never, ever, ever acknowledge anything about the basket lest they be cornered and recruited.
“Oh, no, here comes Elaine and her basket again.”
When I was a little girl in the 1960s, we had an Avon lady who went door-to-door. My mother referred to her as “that pain in the ass.”
They’re absolutely being warned!
My office has an Arbonne hun and a Bravenly hun, the mail clerk warned me within a week of starting.
If it isn’t a work related discussion, avoid it, and never ask about the trinkets displayed on their shelves.
“Only take advice from people with whom you would trade places.”
Well, Elaine, I don’t want my life to revolve around the biggest, brightest basket of crap that I can lug around. I don’t want to explain to my chiropractor on a weekly basis that I’m out of alignment because I’m toting 50 lbs of lotion into Starbucks.
I don’t want to be 15 years into a career and still be stuck at the bottom of the ladder (erm–pyramid!). I don’t want to constantly be stressed about the state of my hair, nails and makeup. I don’t want to have dollar signs in my eyes every time I look at another person.
I don’t want to hustle. I don’t want to grind. I just want to do my job well, get a regular paycheck, and go home and live my life.
SAME!!!
I remember the day I told my sales director that I was leaving MK to focus on my forensic accounting business. She laughed at me and insulted me. She was very direct about it. Needless to say, I’ve made an honest living (and a very good one at that) for 25+ years while she lost her unit about 10 years ago (after 15 years on the MK hamster wheel) and she’s been working a retail job ever since. I would never laugh at her current career choice, as I believe honest work is inherently valuable and admirable. But man, it’s hard not to think about how ugly she was to me.
I wonder how many times she’s checked out Pink Truth.
She would never look because she doesn’t subject herself to negativity!
You should go say hello to her at whatever retail establishment she works at and innocently ask how her MK business is doing.
Cut out pictures and make a goal book!
No thanks. The last time I cut out pictures for anything was for a history diorama in 8th grade.
What breaks my heart is I bet Eileen would be so inspirational and productivity generating as a manager in any vast number of businesses if she could just shake the pink powder. That she puts inspiring energy into a waste of time, money, heart and soul, while deceiving herself above all others but along with others – that is morally criminal. The devil surely dances with delight as he can see what she COULD be doing in this world instead of serving his minions and fueling family disintegration, moral corruption, and a pointless struggle to meet 100% fake goals and expectations. As we have so sadly seen, many women have pursued this charade till the end of their days, never achieving even the pink caddie till MAYBE someone drives one to their funeral. The lives of these women are not wasted, but their lives are minimized into believing in snake oil salesman made up to the gills who have anything but their best interest at heart. No one deserves to be defrauded of their potential. Rot in hell mary kay
I totally agree!! She sounds like an intelligent, fun lady. She doesn’t deserve to have people avoiding her. It makes me sad that it seems that she works so hard to be successful in MK but even after 15 years, hasn’t seemed to move up the ladder. I hope she comes out if the fog and realizes her true potential.
My aunt has a group of friends and my aunt said a certain friend tries to sell mary kay to the group. My aunt also said she buys just one thing to be nice but that it’s way too expensive. This is a real person’s reaction to one of their friends who sells mary kay.
Just wanted to share.
As an admin assistant to many senior executives and CEO’s in the past, I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen them working on goal posters or dream books. Cringe.
You should suggest it to them. I’m certain that they see it was a good idea! /Sarcasm