Makeover Contest and a New Company Strategy
Written by Parsons Green
Mary Kay is holding yet another Makeover Contest! It’s running between July 15 and August 31, and will award 5 customers and their consultants each with a $5,000 Visa gift card and $500 retail value of MK products. Customers have to upload an image of themselves, tell MK the Makeup Artist Look they re-created, and how they feel more confident. MK will choose 20 finalists and there will be public voting for a week, leading to 10 final finalists who will then be voted on by judges.
To be a part of this contest, you have to do one of these six Makeup Artist Looks. Each look requires six separate products with a retail cost of $78. The wholesale cost is $39.
- Two Eyeshadows $16 Retail
- Eyeliner $14 Retail
- Blush $14 Retail
- Lip Liner $14 Retail
- Lipstick $20 Retail
Mary Kay no longer offers samples for purchase. Directors took to Facebook to vent.
Dana Marie posted that she always uses full size product for her testers. Customers want to be able to hold the product in their hand, so they can use it correctly and feel confident. They’ll love the product and want to take it home that day!
Julie Alger ponders that someone is making decisions that has never worked as a consultant. They no longer have the tools needed to work their business properly.
Cheryl Dougan Jennewine shares that the company once had to discard $1 million in samples for discontinued products. If Mary Kay made a profit selling samples to consultants. They’d still be selling them.
Lisa Speranza Baker wonders why no one consulted the NSD’s about this contest. They would have spoken about the lack of samples. However, she sold the contest products at COST to get them in the hands of customers. Mary Kay didn’t discount the product for Lisa when she ordered!
Leah Cates works with makeup artists. They always use full size retail products and sanitize them between uses. I wonder what brands those artists work with and how often they use Mary Kay?
Ellen Knight admonishes the ladies that they should not be offering the e start option. You need to train your consultants to order inventory! You need products, samples, mirrors. You are running a business. Do not blame Mary Kay for this.
Pamela Gard Castellana admits that the medical reimbursement policy does not apply to products used as testers, only if the product is sold directly to the customer. She’s been disappointed in Mary Kay for the last 5 years. She used to feel like family.
Sue Melvin then posted about how to present this contest to consultants when the retail cost is already high, especially if you want them to offer all six looks.
Michelle Lecates and Jessica Dudley are being strategic. They are offering their teams challenges to earn free product! Again, this money comes from Michelle and Jessica (and whatever profit they earned if any) and not Mary Kay.
Paige Ferris-Humphrey and Veronica Ten Eyck are using the Mirror Me App. The customer can upload a picture and apply filters that simulate the specific products. The customers can then order products based on what looks best. However, some consultants think that they can use this selfie to enter the contest, but based on how I read the rules, they can NOT.
Helen Rich thanks the company for thinking of a way they can move product before the Chromafusion line changes in September!
Miss Go Give Ellen Bowman Cox states the company is trying to move product. However, once the product is opened, consultants will be stuck with full sized, used product.
Jessica Dudley then tells Ellen she needs to think like a business owner! Jessica again talks about getting products to her team to use as testers because if someone can’t test a product, they’ll go somewhere they can. Ellen claps back at Jessica in her usual angry, dismissive and rude way, even thought what she is saying makes sense. Consultants join the company to make money, and frequently don’t have the funds to even order any type of product. The company wants them to order full size products that could be obsolete in two months. Responsible sales directors should not recommend this to consultants. Ellen then again reminds the world she has been in the US Navy Reserves for over 20 years. I’m sure she is “Ready Now, Anytime, Anywhere” to sell you Mary Kay! Wouldn’t you love to join her team?
Ellen’s second comment was deleted a few hours later, but this screenshot is forever.
And finally, several directors mentioned that these products were being phased out in September. I found this company video from Dr. Lucy Gildea discussing the plan.
Mary Kay currently offers 1,600 individual products across all the global Mary Kay markets. It’s no longer feasible to have products specific to one region. They need to streamline the product line. Mary Kay can’t and won’t be everything to everyone. It’s not possible to be a one stop beauty shop. Consumers do not buy their beauty or household products from one source. Mary Kay wants to focus on the value you get from purchasing from a consultant. They will have a smaller but robust product line, and will continually evaluate products to make sure they meet customer demand. Those that don’t will be phased out.
The first global change will happen to the Chromafusion line. They are reformulating the eyeshadow and blush. Any product you have under the old formula will be outdated. However, they will have a core color line for basic every day looks but they will continue to offer limited editions to offer additional pops of color. How do you sell this old product when the company is offering something newer and better?
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Wowzers…. major cluster here. Thanks PG! Always lovely to see Ellen weigh in with her measured rational, and helpful responses. Plus she is singlehandedly keeping the USN moving forward with her ordering skills. Bless her heart!
The internet in its current form has been around for at least 30 years and some ::coughEllencough:: people still haven’t learned that nothing you post online is ever truly private, or ever truly gone.
So Ellen is new to me since me being a regular here. I hope she finds her way to pink truth so she can read her own posts. Girl is messyyyyyyy. She is laughably rude. Like.. the shock factor is real. Not enough popcorn in the world for that trainwreck.
Sanitizing lip and eye liners.. are you kidding? That’s disgusting.
Corp is showing us how they have these women on a ball and chain. They’re all rightfully bothered here yet they’re still going along with it. The company is setting them up to go broke buying retail size samples because they know none of these women will leave.
Honestly shocked that Pam Castellana is still in MK. She was unhappy when I was still in the group. I always enjoyed her posts because she’d go at anyone for anything and at the end of the day, she always had a valid point.
What’s the final straw for these women? Hey girl.. it’s ok to leave.
When I worked for Dior, we had the pencil sharpener liners and used that between customers. For mechanical, we spritzed them with sanitizing spray just after each use and let dry. For liquid, we had throw-away brushes. But MK doesn’t provide them. You can’t sanitize liquid liner. We sanitized our brushes after each customer as well.
Right. I just have Missy’s face in my head and knowwwwww she’s not sanitizing.
Wait. I mean Misty. But too many of these new MK gals don’t look clean enough to me. Wouldn’t trust them for nuthin. And corp is asking for trouble by leaving this responsibility to them.
Pamela Gard CastellanaNow I feel like a well compensated employee.
Oh, honey, you are neither well-compensated nor an employee.
I googled “makeup sample manufacturers usa” and got a kazillion hits. Their claims of only one factory able to make the samples is a flat-out lie.
If they had to destroy a million dollars worth of expired samples, that’s the fault of this allegedly multibillion dollar company for making poor purchasing decisions. Please note that they blame that on “consultants not ordering them,” not “we ordered way too many”. Because the blame for failure will always fall on the consultant. Teh Company is infallible.
Regular viewers will notice that Teh Company is hurting. Seminar is shrinking and doesn’t even feed the inmates. They are no longer providing free Look Books. Applause magazine is going digital only. They’re scaling way back on their refund policy. Teh Suit went from a… suit to jacket only, and now there’s rumors that they’re going to do away with them. Hell, PANTS are allowed at Seminar now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The company needs money. The only reliable source of money they’ve got are the crazy-loyal hardcore members of the “sales” force, the ones who have been in for decades and have been keeping Teh Company afloat through their ordering and frontloading of new recruits.
So, by coming up with some bullcrap excuses as to why samples aren’t available any more, their latest scheme is to mulct their consultants out of their $$$ is forcing them to buy full-size products to use as testers.
Because no matter what happens at the corporate level, the ones that will suffer are the ones at the bottom of the pyramid – the consultants and directors barely clinging to their titles who haven’t got a snowball’s chance of making NSD.
Ladies, quit paying for corporate’s bad decisions.
Poor MK Corp employee Jackie Basevi had no idea her responses would be plastered all over the internet.
The winning consultants will have spent a bundle ordering the requisite makeover items, and then pay income tax on the gift cards and MK product-prizes. Lucky them.
“Enriching women’s lives.”
I can see this being a rigged contest. I’ve known too many people that won ‘Real Estate Agent of the year” “Best Insurance Agent of the year” by having their friends and their friends to vote for them. Yes–it goes on!
Asking for votes so they can win.
Such emplowerment!!