When Mary Kay’s legal department starts investigating you, it’s time to sit up and take notice. Since Mary Kay Inc. only has the best interests of the consultants and directors at heart, we should take these investigations seriously. Unless you are national sales directors Kristin Sharpe and Brittani Jenks. Then maybe you just do whatever you want and you tell corporate to mind their own business.

A friend of Pink Truth has told me that Kristin and Brittani are both currently under investigation by the MK legal department because of the paid events they have been hosting. When an investigation of an nsd is opened like this, it puts the nsd “not in good standing” with the company.

Here’s what I’ve been told about the situation. Of course, I have no way of verifying this unless Kristin, Brittani, or Ryan Rogers want to talk to me about it. I’d LOVE to talk to any of them, so a phone call would be welcome. It is always my goal to publish factual information. But consider this carefully because I cannot verify the truth and accuracy of it.

Allegedly… Kristin and Brittani have been having events for directors and consultants. These are paid events. Spring Fling and Giftology were very successful. Giftology was only a $12 or $15 “contribution,” which isn’t much, but the money is made on getting huge volumes of women to sign up. They literally had thousands of women sign up, and while they were telling people that they had $20k of prizes, it was more like a few thousand dollars, and the difference was profit.

The most recent event was a “Power Up” day before Leadership Conference. The official story was that 300 women registered, but the materials bought for the event suggested the number was higher.

These paid events are a sticky topic for Mary Kay. Part of the job of an nsd and what she’s being paid commissions for is working with the sales force. So if an nsd having events for consultants and directors and charging them money for it, she’s possibly double dipping. Mary Kay does allow fees to be charged for events if the fees are only enough to cover the costs, and not line the pockets of the national sales director.

But here’s the problem for Kristin and Brittani. According to an old version of the nsd contract that we have:

As the commission compensation payable and other rights granted hereunder to NSD are based upon NSD’s agreement to use NSD’s best efforts to promote the sale of Company’s products, NSD agrees not to promote, distribute or sell to other members of the Mary Kay sales organization, without Company’s prior written approval, any products or services which are not produced, sold or endorsed in writing by the Company.

Now you’re wondering how some nsds get to have their paid events or sell their special notebooks or training materials. That’s because they get permission ahead of time to do so. I don’t know what criteria the company uses when evaluating these things and deciding who gets to do it and who does not.

But allegedly, Kristin and Brittani went rogue. They put on these paid events, and when Mary Kay called them out, there became a mad dash to spend all the money from the events to prove to MK that there were “no profits.” This became a little complicated because they were said to be profiting $20k and up per event, if one does the math on the ticket prices and number of attendees.

Then Mary Kay asks to see receipts for what the money was spent on, because they’re not supposed to turn a profit from the events, and now there’s a real problem. Registration fees were sent to Kristin, so who knows how much Brittani knew about the money that was being collected.

Kristin and Brittany supposedly defended themselves by telling the company that other national sales directors are having paid events and making a lot more money than them. So there!

There have been a few nsds who were terminated for things like this in the past, so the situation is serious. Word on the street is that Kristin is not having this! Do you know who she is? And who her mother is? And what they’ve done for this company? In Kristin’s directors meeting next week, she’s going to tell everyone that Mary Kay Inc. is harassing her for no reason and that everyone should call the company and advocate for her.

I don’t know exactly what “not in good standing” means for a national sales director in Mary Kay, but this is allegedly the status that has been assigned to Kristin and Brittani.

Buckle up, kids. Between the not-so-subtle move toward an affiliate model of business, the high number of nsds retiring, and financial distress at the corporate level…. things are not running smoothly for Mary Kay.