Written by Frosty Rose

We all know that Mary Kay math is complete hooey. From false earnings claims, executive income for part time work, and a complete lack of understanding of how profit works, we could fill an entire blog just with their mathematical shenanigans. While not the most egregious example, I have one of the funniest stories of how this plays out on a weekly basis all across the country.

As many of you know, most sales directors hold weekly training meetings. They may be called “Success Meetings” or “Girls Night Out” or “Monday Night Live” or anything else that obscures the fact that they’re glorified recruiting events on a very small scale. Directors recognize queens of sales and recruiting, demo products to guests, and may get around to training on the same old tired scripts that Mary Kay herself wrote in 1963, as though they’re still relevant.

When I moved to a new town, I was looking for a more local weekly meeting and found the only director in town. Her meeting worked with my schedule, so I gave her a call and let her know I’d be joining the following week. “Great!” she said, predictably.

Importantly, I was a full-time consultant by this point. I had a part time job (you know, the one that actually paid the bills), but I was working Mary Kay a lot! And I was moving a lot of product. I was used to always being queen of sales (meaning I consistently sold more than an eyeshadow per week), and I saw no reason I wouldn’t be sporting that plastic tiara in the new space as well.

What I didn’t anticipate? This director, perhaps recognizing that $90 in sales per week from her tippy top consultant wasn’t going to convince anyone that this was a viable business, recognized the “queen of hourly income.” (Whaaaaaaaaaat?)

This chick actually had a whiteboard at the front of her room where she calculated everyone’s “hourly income.” Now, if you don’t know how that works, or how a director could run a full P&L on a whiteboard for 8-10 consultants and still get any training and recruiting done, well, allow me to enlighten you. You see, “sales income” really has nothing to do with how much money you deposit in your checking account. And it has very little to do with how much it costs you to run your business. No! The formula is ridiculously simple!

Your sales are always the retail amount of product you moved off your shelf and into the hands of a customer. Ran a sale for 20% off? Doesn’t matter, just use the full retail value to calculate your income. Gave a bunch of stuff away to bribe your hostesses? That’s fine, it still counts as sales. Absurd? Obviously! Effective at bloating your income claims? Yep!

Then you divide that retail number in half (wholesale cost), and that’s your income! Divide that by the hours you worked (only counting those hours you were face-to-face with customers, of course! Office time and phone time don’t count!)

The week before, I had held a couple of parties and a facial or two, so my sales were really high, but so were my hours worked. The years have faded the details, but let’s say I sold $800 and worked 8 hours (again, that doesn’t count the time I spent calling hostesses, packing for parties, washing mirrors, mailing orders, going to the bank, etc, etc, etc).

“Great, Frosty Rose! So, that’s $800 in sales, divided by two gives us $400. If we divide that by the eight hours you worked last week, you earned $50/hour. Not too shabby. Who else had sales last week?”

“I did!” chirped Amber Suede from across the room. “One of my customers reordered some products. I sold $100!”

“Great!” responded the director, reflexively. “And how long did that take you?”

“Oh, only about 15 minutes,” answered Amber.

“Wow! Ok, so that’s $100 divided by two, gives us $50 in profit. And only fifteen minutes, you say? So, $50 times 4 gives us $200/hour in profit! Ladies, can you believe that?? Guests, how much are you earning per hour at your full-time job? What choices would you be able to make if you were earning $8,000 per week?” crowed the director. (Notice how quickly that $50 “profit” became a steady 40-hour paycheck!) Cue much gushing from the consultants and guests alike.

“Now, Frosty Rose,” continued our dear director, “wouldn’t you rather earn $200/hour than $50? What would you need to do increase your earnings?”

I’ll admit, my tongue got ahead of my pink-fogged brain at that moment. “Thanks,” I replied, “but I’d rather be able to pay my bills from sales than rely on such inconsistent orders.”

And that, folks, is how Frosty Rose got banned from the only local “Success Meeting” in her new town!

But seriously. I was never going to earn enough from sales to pay my bills. My actual earnings that week, even seeing more new clients than normal, were still only about $200 after discounts and giveaways. And I promise you, eight hours was not at all representative of the time I was investing in my business.

So, how should you respond to these income claims? Ask questions!

• How much did you give away or discount?
• What was your actual deposit into your checking account last week?
• How many hours did you spend away from classes and parties? Calling, booking, coaching, administrative tasks? (Hint, they’re going to tell you to hire an assistant for admin tasks. How much does that cost?)
• In the past month, how many weeks have you sold this much?
• What other costs did you incur? Shipping, samples, catalogs, mileage, gas, postage, unrecovered sales tax?
• How much did you deposit into your personal account from your business earnings last month?

What other questions should we ask as we try to get to the reality behind Mary Kay math?