I’m Surprised At All the Negativity
This man sells real estate and has a wife who is almost a DIQ. We are lucky to have him to tell us how misguided we are and how simple it is to make money in Mary Kay. The subject line of his email was “Seriously now?”
Seriously, is MK all that bad? I stumbled across your website and am surprised at all the negativity. I am a firm believer in being in business for yourself and avoiding working at a J.O.B. (Just Over Broke).
Its hard to believe that MK is evil. By all means bad people do bad things but would being a Beauty Consultant really be a bad thing. I am in a business that is challenged everyday ethically, morally and legally. Some people decide to do the wrong thing but convincing a woman to clean her face with MK as opposed to Clinique, is that bad?
Some people are to scared to do what is necessary to succeed in a business that is constantly forcing them out of their comfort zones. MK is a business and needs to be treated as one. Manage your time, money and inventory. Work it like a job and be intentional.
Reviewing how much in commission you make by recruiting other people into MK does not convince me that it is better to recruit than it is to sell. True MLM or pyramid schemes typically make it better to recruit than to sell. In MK you make more by selling than by recruiting. And the love checks are nice but don’t start rolling in until your recruits start selling. So I don’t see a scheme here.
Nothing in life comes easy especially when it comes to convining people you have just met to book an appointment to have some one try and sell you cleansers and make up you didn’t know you needed. I feel that some women go into it with their eyes closed and with unrealistic expectations. I think women need to study a little about business in general before going into one with MK. “Everyone should go into the grocery business first before doing anything else, because if you don’t sell what you have the stinking rotten inventory reminds you very quickly that you bought too much.” I don’t know who said that quote but it is a favorite of mine.
The number one mistake with small business is that they over buy their inventory when they first get started. This is true with Mary Kay. That is the only bad thing I have ever seen from MK is convincing new people to buy upwards of $3000 of inventory to start with. Start small and grow your business as it needs to.
Back to the negativity, I believe negative people tend to attract negative people and positive people attract other positive people. Your blog sure has its negative attractant on. Be positive and positive things happen. I am sure there are horror stories about every door-to-door sales company, work at home business, franchise and network marketing company out there, but I know there are also positive ones. Business is business, the market takes it toll everyday on those who don’t work their businesses. 9 out of 10 small businesses fail, so why do people think that their first one will be a success. Plan to start 10 then the odds will favor you.
Just so you know two of my sister-in-laws and my sister have joined MK one bought $800 in start up inventory and has been selling $100-$200 a month in product. The other bought close to $5000 in start up inventory and with in 3 months called it quits. My sister only got the starter kit. None of them really should have joined because they are not business minded people but that was their choice. My wife recruited all of them into MK.
My wife is planning to go into DIQ this month. I am not biased either way on Mary Kay, I am a business man and can see opportunity in most things. Mary Kay works when the consultants work and like wise it fails when they don’t. That’s business. I hope you can use your website to help people get over being a MK consultant and get back to working for someone else. Everybody needs to find their role in life and for some its working for others. Its not a bad thing, its just who they are.
Visit the
Seriously, is MK all that bad?
YES!
I stumbled across your website and am surprised at all the negativity.
Moves barriers back into place, adds more caution tape. Sir, if indeed you are a man, you didn’t stumble, you were actively looking or were shown this site.
I am a firm believer in being in business for yourself and avoiding working at a J.O.B. (Just Over Broke).
Got all that MLM lingo down quite nicely.
Its hard to believe that MK is evil.
Only when you’ve been fed a pack of lies. People with clear eyes can see and bee-LIE-ve the facts behind Mary Kay Wagner Rogers Eckman Weaver Louis Miller Hallenbeck Ash’s company.
By all means bad people do bad things but would being a Beauty Consultant really be a bad thing.
Only when you are using being “a Beauty CONsultant” to lie and manipulate other people.
I am in a business that is challenged everyday ethically, morally and legally.
Sounds like YOU need to change your job if you find it that difficult to act in a ethical, moral or legal way.
Some people decide to do the wrong thing but convincing a woman to clean her face with MK as opposed to Clinique, is that bad?
It’s not about the products, though there are concerns about the price points, it’s about the methods of recruiting and enabling of directors who do not have the good of the new or old consultomer at heart.
Some people are to scared to do what is necessary to succeed in a business that is constantly forcing them out of their comfort zones.
One of my comfort zones is not to trying to extract as much money as possible out of other people via lying and over-hyping.
MK is a business and needs to be treated as one. Manage your time, money and inventory. Work it like a job and be intentional.
And cue the Victim Blaming..
Reviewing how much in commission you make by recruiting other people into MK does not convince me that it is better to recruit than it is to sell.
Then no-one’s shown you this, Canadian Income Disclosure 2024.
https://imgur.com/a/mary-kay-canadian-income-disclosure-2024-hPNN90o
True MLM or pyramid schemes typically make it better to recruit than to sell.
true,
In MK you make more by selling than by recruiting.
Proof please! If this was true, Mary Kay Corporation would be encouraging tracking Sales not Orders! Since they don’t , then I know about recruiting not sales.
And the love checks are nice but don’t start rolling in until your recruits start selling. So I don’t see a scheme here.
Describes accurately an MLM, denies their partner, if she exists, is in one.
Nothing in life comes easy especially when it comes to (sic)people you have just met to book an appointment to have some one try and sell you cleansers and make up you didn’t know you needed.
Like the vast majority of women, I know exactly how much make-up and skin care I need. I don’t need “convining ” to book an appointment to buy anymore when I can walk into my local pharmacy or Sephora and get what I need now.
I feel that some women go into it with their eyes closed and with unrealistic expectations.
Mary Kay Corporation, because let’s face it, it’s not Your Small Business tm, have spent sixty years polishing and refining the scripts to encourage unrealistic expectations and even more scripts on whom the blame lays, the humble hun herself.
I think women need to study a little about business in general before going into one with MK.
And the start of our next round of victim blaming!
“Everyone should go into the grocery business first before doing anything else, because if you don’t sell what you have the stinking rotten inventory reminds you very quickly that you bought too much.” I don’t know who said that quote but it is a favorite of mine.
Probably Zig Zagler or some-one equally odious.
The number one mistake with small business is that they over buy their inventory when they first get started.
This is because people directly benefit from this via commissions on products ordered, not sold.
This is true with Mary Kay.
This is the grease which oils the wheels of Mary Kay Wagner Rogers Eckman Weaver Louis Miller Hallenbeck Ash’s company, excess ordering.
That is the only bad thing I have ever seen from MK is convincing new people to buy upwards of $3000 of inventory to start with.
Sorry but your NSD, SSD, ISD, DIQ all need (general) you to fork over that $3000 inventory now if they re going to
1) make money this month
2) keep their car this month
3) keep their rank this month
it’s not about what the new consultomer wants, it’s the fact their needs surpass everything else.
Start small and grow your business as it needs to.
That’s not going to happen when too many people depend on getting that first lucrative order placed and paid for.
Back to the negativity, I believe negative people tend to attract negative people and positive people attract other positive people.
Once you have your pretty pink blinders on, then you only see what Mary Kay wants you to see.
Your blog sure has its negative attractant on.
That’s because you have been told this website is negative, not that it is.
Be positive and positive things happen.
Oh, please, let’s have some more platitudes!
I am sure there are horror stories about every door-to-door sales company, work at home business, franchise and network marketing company out there, but I know there are also positive ones.
Interesting that you never mention conventical jobs like nursing, teaching, office or shop works, manufacturing or farming employment. Just run of the mill “own businesses” or nothing.
Business is business, the market takes it toll everyday on those who don’t work their businesses.
No-one is disagreeing especially if one is exploiting a niche business opportunity. One of the things I have seen and read about this Con year is the rapid expansion of 3D printed figures to the extent that many cons are losing talented artisans to the rows of identical dragons and other minifigs mass produced in garages and spare rooms around the States and Canada.
9 out of 10 small businesses fail, so why do people think that their first one will be a success.
Sounds like a serial MLM hopper to me.
Plan to start 10 then the odds will favor you.
Or realise that you are not meant to be a “Small Business Owner” and get a real job with pay and benefits rather than work yourself and your bank balance to nothing.
Just so you know two of my sister-in-laws and my sister have joined MK
Wonderful, family obligations meant your wife, if she exists and is not you, exploited both her family and yours. Aren’t you proud of that???
one bought $800 in start up inventory and has been selling $100-$200 a month in product.
If she bought $800 in inventory and is selling $200 per month, her gross profit is around $100 per month if she sells at full price each time. After all the expenses associated with her business, her net profit is possibly $40-50, how many hours did she have to work to earn that compared to the average minimum wage job?
The other bought close to $5000 in start up inventory and with in 3 months called it quits.
Here’s how she can get her 90% money back guarantee, don’t let her get drawn into the whole “sell it for wholesale” malarky just so her up-line doesn’t lose their easily earned commissions on it.
https://www.pinktruth.com/returning-mary-kay-inventory/faq-about-quitting-mk/
My sister only got the starter kit. None of them really should have joined because they are not business minded people but that was their choice.
If you knew or suspected they weren’t “business minded people”, why didn’t you try to dissuade them??
My wife recruited all of them into MK.
Buried the lede here, didn’t you. Your wife’s need for warm bodies and other people’s money or credit card debt trumped their time, energy and money. She exploited her and your families for a red jacket.
My wife is planning to go into DIQ this month.
Then get used to her exploiting both your families and friends, neighbours, church acquaintances, people at the table next to you at brunch, random shoppers, anyone really.
I am not biased either way on Mary Kay,
You are because you are repeating the “same old, same old” excuses and “facts” put out by generations of would-be but never-be NSDs and DIQs.
I am a business man and can see opportunity in most things.
You can’t be that good if you accept things at face value and write off any hint of criticism.
Mary Kay works when the consultants work and like wise it fails when they don’t.
Blah, blah, Mary Kay-isms as thought terminating cliches.
That’s business.
Mary Kay isn’t a business.
I hope you can use your website to help people get over being a MK consultant and get back to working for someone else.
I can feel the condescending drivel writhe across my nerves.
Everybody needs to find their role in life and for some its working for others.
If you are working for Mary Kay, then you are working for some-one else; the pyramid above you of SDs and the pyramid of Mary Kay Corporate on top of them. Welcome to Corporate America!
Its not a bad thing, its just who they are.
Today’s PTC brought to you by the letters WTAF and the number of small balls this guy has.
“The love checks are nice but don’t start rolling in until your recruits start selling.”
Correction: “Love checks” start rolling in when your recruits start ORDERING.
Mary Kay would be a perfectly fine opportunity if Corporate made one change–tracking retail sales to customers, not just wholesale orders by consultants. Well, that and transparency in those numbers. If the name of the game is selling to end users, you’re all good. If you’re not lying to consultants about infinite income potential, and can present new prospective recruits with hard numbers about retail sales, it’s not a pyramid scheme.
But Corporate knows, and apparently this guy does, too, though he’s not ready to admit the scope of the problem, that most inventory does not get sold to end users. It molders in garages and basements with thousands of dollars of consultant debt. If it does get sold, it’s usually steeply discounted, because the quality doesn’t match the price point, and because of the first law of economics–supply and demand. Too much supply, not enough demand, price plummets.
Mary Kay herself trained that she could have chosen any product on which to base her company. The product is the VEHICLE. The business opportunity is the real sale. And that’s why it’s a pyramid scheme!
OP, you are ignoring the underlying realities of MLM which animate so many of us to speak up. Just a few:
– It is mathematically impossible to build a profitable downline in MLMs like Mary Kay
– Qualifying minimums force the over-ordering that you claim is voluntary and foolish
– Only a fraction of product ordered in MLMs like MK ever makes it into the hands of paying (outside) customers
– MKC views its own sales force not as business owners, but as customers
– It is mathematically impossible for even 1% of MLM participants to turn a profit
– If you filled the MK sales ranks with clones of the most successful MK participant, the loss rates would be the same
If you could convince MK to eliminate upline commissions and qualifying minimums (while reducing the wholesale cost accordingly to make it price competitive for the quality) you’d have a traditional sales business worth considering.
Why hasn’t MK already done these things? Because MKC sees the sales force is their target customer!
The MK sales model can be summarized as:
“Fool your customers into believing they are business owners so they order way more product than they can ever hope to sell or use personally, then convince them to recruit others under them to do the same, ad infinitum.”
This is why I speak out.
I’ve seen this email several times. Does this person not have a life?
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
OP, you have added nothing new to the conversation on why MK is a “good” opportunity. You and other Friday critics continue to prove how horrible this company is.
This is not a sustainable business, and it’s certainly not one that you or your wife owns. If it were, you would be able to sell it after your wife fails repeatedly at DIQ and realizes what a scam this “opportunity” is.
Mr. Real Estate- Let’s see how much it costs your wife vs how much is she selling at pure profit vs how much she gives away/sells at reduced costs.
How much is she really making? Is the product really ‘flying off the shelf”? or does she had to BEG strangers to buy from her? Or is her focus on ‘recruiting”? Think about that for a moment, why does she need to recruit to make money? Can’t she sell from her shelf to customers? .
Your wife must not NEED the money as some others do. She likes the status it brings her, but paying bills? No, I bet not. She has your salary for that.
Golly aren’t we so lucky to have a man explain all this to us
As a businessman, you surely understand the importance of tracking the numbers. Has your wife’s revenue consistently exceeded her expenses? What about the value of her time? When you total up the amount of time she spends (which includes the time to order & organize inventory, do paperwork, and plan and prep), is she even earning minimum wage?
In all my time reading this blog, I’ve [b] never[/b] seen a Mary Kay defender share actual numbers. If people were really making money in Mary Kay, wouldn’t they lead with the numbers?