What’s the Value in Seminar?
Written by Parson’s Green
In the lead-up to seminar 2025 (which just wrapped up last week), there was lots of hand-wringing about the event. It seems that some consultants weren’t excited about the idea that seminar was being held in Charlotte instead of Dallas, as has been the tradition for decades. (With the Dallas convention center under major renovation, the event had to be held somewhere else.)
More and more consultants and directors in Mary Kay are seeing how costly events like seminar are, and they just can’t justify it when they’re making little to no money in this pretend business.
Korrin Monson Salas wanted to share what was on her heart. The mindset in Mary Kay was always you could only miss an event for two reasons. Death or dilation (childbirth)! Nowadays fewer consultants are attended in person events. Four seminars are being combined into two. More directors hold local recognition.
How do you sell the sizzle of seminar if you can recognize consultants at home?
Amy Bailey McLaren just wishes directors would wait to recognize consultants after seminar to not spoil results. Rachel Marie Nelson says she tried that last year but her team waited until after August to work on their new year’s production goals. She will go back to celebrating early. She needs production any month she can get it.
Sue Cooper Bennett mentions we are still recovering from the COVID lockdown. People don’t want to go to in person events. Lauren Bilodeau Coe used to go live during COVID for her weekly meetings. She once averaged 500 views. She know only gets between 90-130. Could it be that people are simply tired of the Mary Kay flopportunity.
Orenda Raichel Hunniford draws a hard line. If you want your prize, you must pick it up at seminar. If you don’t attend, she’ll announce the results later on Facebook. No mailing and no separate celebration.
Robyn Glass Miller does her recognition early. Consultants can invite their friends and family to the in person event. More chance for recruiting! Her top consultants would be going to seminar anyway.
Gail Smith Scott admits she was spending a lot of money to attend events but would come back with little payoff. She can’t sell the sizzle when she can’t feel it herself. The company has done a poor job of communicating the value of seminar.
Karen Gummo is a Mary Kay lifer who loves the company. She’s been indoctrinated for 33 years and a director for 27. She even planned her wedding around seminar attendance. She does admit you must be open to however someone wants to fit Mary Kay into their life.
Kira McKee says consultants need to afford to be able to go. They should be selling $6000 a year to earn enough to pay for seminar while keeping $100 a month back for the family. Wouldn’t a part time job with benefits pay you more than that?
Shari Huls Schlapman confesses she will not be going. It’s just too expensive. You have to think like business women.
Lynette Brazda Bickley admits the translations that were done last year were hard to see but reminded everyone to keep praying. She also would like Ryan Rogers, the CEO, to ask why attendance is down.
Teresa Pults Franklin has been on the hamster wheel for 30 years and a director for 11. She loves in person events and makes sure to include husbands. She has consultants in multiple states and mails prizes.
Finally Lynette jumps back in to mention she’s also been in for 30 years. She looks to Charlotte as an adventure and will be praying for corporate for the time seminar is there.
Mary Kay is pushing more and more costs back to the directors. If they want production from their units, it’s up to them to motivate the troops. Could Mary Kay be planning to do away with in person events?
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It is 2025. It’s time to stop blaming COVID for attendance numbers. Almost every other industry has bounced back from that. The reason your virtual meetings aren’t seeing the attendance is because people are ready to be back in person. The reason MK’s in person events aren’t seeing the attendance is that COVID showed them that they don’t really need it. It’s an unnecessary expense and there is no value. Aside from dwindling numbers across the board in MK.
You know what is impacting spending this year? inflation. Groceries are up, housing expenses are through the roof, utilities across the country are hiking rates. Discretionary spending goes down when those things go up, especially when families are barely scraping by because MK does NOT lower quotas to accommodate those facts.
That’s aside from the change of venue. One of the big selling points for Seminar has always been the tours of HQ and the manufacturing facilities. Without those things, and now they’re not even serving lunch… Nah, I’ll pass.
Exactly! I remember speaking with a nursing director a couple of years ago while I was at that hospital on contract. The nurses on that unit were some of THE hardest-working people I have ever met, and I am certain they all had Stockholm Syndrome. It was BAD there — heavy patient loads, minimal help, and total chaos. I reminded the director that nursing is not like this everywhere, including the local area. She kept saying covid this and covid that. That is an excuse not a reason, and you’re harming your nurses and staff if that is how you keep thinking. My agency got me out of that contract early because no, I wasn’t going to put my license on the line. Too many companies and people keep trying to use covid as an excuse for things. Apparently, MK and the lemmings in the company are in that same mindset.
Also, Seminar was expensive even before inflation took its toll on things. I cannot imagine what people are spending today on it, even with traveling to Charlotte.
Parson’s Green– I look forward to your posts on the front page and the discussion board! What a gift you are to PT and our readers, writers, and lurkers! Thank you so much for writing and sharing the info!
I was always disappointed with the training I got at Seminar. Over 20+ years faithfully going. All I wanted to know was what to do to succeed. When there was a good idea shared, the full details were not communicated because 1) time limits in classes 2) Director was not available afterward to ask questions 3) we were instructed not to contact the director to get the details because she’s busy working.
How about this…if something is working, financially compensate the director for her time to fully educate everyone. I would think that they money MK would make from sales and recruiting increasing would be would be so much more than the $ they pay the innovative director for a 2-3 hour long training with all the support materials.
Plus it would focus the sales people on one idea instead of them swooning all their time searching for and trying to implement random ideas that are slowing down the entire process of business growth.
Who knows.
The problem is nothing is working. And corporate knows it. What works is lying, cheating, and pressuring your downline to buy more than they can ever sell.
MK is not a viable business, and no amount of training is going to fix that.
Do you know what happened when I took all my great sales training that I got in MK and applied it to a real sales job? I doubled my income the first year (total income, MK+all the other crap I was doing to stay afloat), increased it by another 50% the second year, and have made more than 6 figures the past 2 years. Even better, I have set working hours, never so much as answer a work text on the weekends, and my company pays all my business expenses.
I’m curious…what does ‘digital is biblical’ mean?