Tips For Growing Your Unit
This is a piece that is supposed to teach new directors how to really “work” Mary Kay and grow their numbers fast. Unknowingly, she gives a glimpse into the truth about MK: that the numbers work against the director. After that initial order, so few will continue to order or be able to sell their products. So the director desperately needs new unit members who make large inventory orders.
The whole reality of these numbers is sad.
Unit Size Matters!
One Third of your Unit will order and the average order is $200 so if you have a unit of 40 then expect 13 to order and that will be $2600 base production. How to increase the average? Teach them to sell. How to increase your base production? Increase your unit size. Simple Math!
10% of your Unit will work…the other 90% will be Hobby Consultants. Love them but don’t devote your time to them. With a unit of 40, you will have 4 working Consultants and one of them is YOU.
How to Manage your Time!
Be a Director one hour a day for every 50 Unit Members and the rest of the time you should be holding appts, selling products and primarily recruiting to increase your Unit Size…see above!
Maintenance should get only 20% of your time or delegate to your Assistant. Good average is hire an assistant 1 hour a week for every 20 unit members.
Create Systems in your office with tasks that are done every month or every week.
How to Manage your Money!
My recommendation is to put your Directors Check directly into your family account and all your sales into your MK account. Pay for all your MK from your MK account so that the profit on your sales pays for your expenses…trips and everything. If your MK account is low, then sell more.
If your sales profit is going into your household account then you will start to value your sales as more important than your Director’s Check and this can be dangerous because you start to value selling more than recruiting. If your Director’s Check pays for your business then you will lose your mo-jo for being in the suit.
Working with your Working Consultants!
Accountability is vital…showing up at meetings with weekly accomplishments and contacting you through out the week.
Be a VISION CASTER NOT A TASK MASTER. Fine line between accountability and over tasking them. A woman will do what she needs to do if she knows the pay off is big enough and worth while! Help her to visualize why she wants the Red Jacket, the Car, the suit.
Be willing to travel to see them. She will be believe that you believe in her if you are willing to spend your time and money to see her…talk can be too cheap.
Visit the
“If your sales profit is going into your household account then you will start to value your sales as more important than your Director’s Check and this can be dangerous because you start to value selling more than recruiting.”
Um…didn’t the FTC warn that MLMers who promote recruiting over selling are engaging in illegal pyramid activity?
https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/multi-level-marketing-businesses-pyramid-schemes
Hhm. So consultants are encouraged (pressured) to order inventory each month/quarter but the emphasis should be on recruiting and not selling. Only in the pink fog does this make good business sense.
I remember studying info sheets such as this one. I would map out my week, get organized, do my very best… and I still couldn’t pay my bills. I felt like a failure. I was the perfect sucker for this company. I carried on the nonsense for a long while.
But remember to keep God first throughout…
“…because you start to value selling more than recruiting.”
No matter where you were on the pyramid, you STILL had to sell! You were STILL a consultomer, despite the suit and everything that supposedly came with it.
After becoming a director, I continued to work like I was in DiQ for almost a year. I held appointments (gave away more than I sold, but hey — it’s an appointment), filled reorders (I had a good customer base who reordered regularly each month), and recruited. I HAD to keep recruiting to keep my unit going. I didn’t hire an assistant; I paid my tween kiddo to place labels and pack things for me. I was frugal and worked well over 60 hours a week. The income was sort of there, but heaven forbid I took a week off for vacation! Time off meant no money.
The income was sort of there, but heaven forbid I took a week off for vacation! Time off meant no money.
And yet , they peddle the idea of “Time Freedom” and not having to ask “Your Boss” for time off or fear losing your pay for the time taken.
If your MK account is low, then sell more.
It’s just that easy, ladies! /S
“When you have inventory, you have an ATM right on your shelf!”
But people get weary of pity purchasing every time you have a bill come due.