Staying at Your Nsd’s Hotel for Seminar
It’s almost Seminar time in Mary Kay, and there is a push to stay at your national sales director’s hotel. They’ll tell you it’s all about the camaraderie and being together and being close to the convention center. As with everything in Mary Kay, there is a REAL reason why.
It’s the perks your nsd gets if she “sells” enough rooms to her area. It’s not enough that she’s making tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars off the backs of her consultants. She needs more. What is on the line is her suite at the hotel. She’ll get that free with enough consultants booking rooms. She’ll also get the use of a ballroom space for your area awards at no cost.
One nsd tried to sell it this way:
The experience of staying in our very nice hotel permits the consultants to get a feel of prosperity. We are selling success, and you need to see what it is like to stay in a first class hotel. You don’t need to feel less than other Consultants and Directors by staying at a cheap hotel up the street or across the tracks. You need to feel as entitled as the others who are staying at our hotel. Directors who stay at the National Hotel have a vision of prosperity for their people.
Also, Mary Kay Cosmetics chooses these hotels. If Mary Kay Ash wanted our people to choose from the least expensive hotels in Dallas, we would be using them and be running bus service to them. But that is not Mary Kay’s choice. She wanted our people to experience something quite nice. She knew what she was doing.
And don’t you know that staying at the area hotel shows loyalty?
By supporting your NSD in this way, by action and not words, you are “paying it forward,” and teaching YOUR people how to support their leader: YOU!! You will enjoy loyalty, a willingness to stick with you as your area grows, and a faster trip to NSD.
An NSD is keen to help the ones who help her by supporting the Area by their ACTIONS.
Yet another example of how being in Mary Kay warps your thinking. Use an expensive hotel and cram them in the rooms like cattle so they can feel what it’s like to live the good life. News flash: Tripping over three other women for 3 days doesn’t make me feel good!
Visit the
This, I didn’t know!
😱 😱 😱
And when I thought I can’t get any more repulsed, there is yet another.
I was just thinking of this yesterday while I was alone in my hotel room on vacation.
No matter how fancy the hotel, staying in a hotel room with 3 other adult women and all their junk, dresses, uniforms, gifts for their consultants, Seminar winnings, etc, is not fun…it’s chaos. Add to it, the lack of sleep, any drama (read alcohol) they might enjoy adding to the stay and it makes the entire event complete trash. (I have so many stories of Directors getting way past drunk and doing horrible things…that usually happened at Leadership when no consultants were around)
Linda Toulon used to say she would always room alone so she could have peace and that sounded so nice. “Eagles fly alone” she said. Hold a few extra parties🤦🏼♀️ I was in debt already holding as many parties as I could figure out how to hold. Do you know how much a hotel room in a fancy hotel in DALLAS costs for 5 days?!
After a while, I just came back to the room during the day when I knew no one would be there just to have some peace. I knew they wouldn’t be teaching anything new in those silly classes.
So much wasted time on this stupidity. 🙄🤪
I did it once and it was so awful. 3 adult women, sharing beds with each other, and inevitably someone is impolite and disruptive. Never again!
get a feel of prosperity. Because you aren’t going to actually prosper, but you can go further into debt to feel it for a day. We are selling success Not product.
Most conventions that reserve room blocks use the free rooms for guests of honor and hospitality suites.
I remember staying at the Anatole with my NSD area. My recruit decided last minute to bring her husband so as a single they stuck me in a room with a total stranger who wasn’t even in my area or unit. Very uncomfortable and very expensive but I suffered through it. Then I was indoctrinated enough to go the following year and brought my husband. That was the seminar where I quit because I saw seminar through my husband’s eyes instead of pink foggy glasses.
I wised up and quit staying at the same hotel as my NSD and began staying at a nicer boutique hotel around the corner. It was half the cost, and I had my own mini suite that I didn’t have to share. Plus the hotel had a free shuttle that would drive us to and from the NSD’s hotel. At my last two Seminars, I quit buying the $65 dinner ticket and started showing up as dinner was wrapping up. The meal, while nice, was not worth the $65 per plate cost.
As it turned out, several from our NSD area and other areas (including Go-Give) stayed there. They all had the same reason: cost.
“Earn” an invitation to the NSD’s special “Pizza & PJs” party in her suite! Of course, you’ll be expected to chip in to help defray costs. Post lots of embarrassing PJ pics to show the folks back home what they’re missing.
Let’s see: do I wanna “earn” the opportunity to eat pizza w a self-important, superficial, career grifter and her flock of delusional, devoted minions who aspire to BE her, complete w photos of the whole sordid event shared w the world?
That sounds more like cruel and unusual punishment. Hard pass.
Now, if there’s a contest where the grand prize is NOT having to do that, where do I sign up?
Years and years ago, my then-MIL, a serial MLMer, dragged me to a weekly Arbonne “success” meeting. I’ll never forget the Arbonne equivalent of NSD as she stood at the podium and announced the start of a “sales” (ordering) contest, in which the grand prize was an invitation to come over and see her house, a chance for her devotees to “sample a taste of what could just as easily be theirs if they worked their ‘businesses’ hard enough.”
My then-MIL’s eyes widened and lit up in anticipation as she turned to me, clasping her hands together. “Oooohh!” she cooed at me. “How exciting!”
I threw up in my mouth a little. “Well…” I replied awkwardly, unsure how to tactfully put it…
No…no, it wouldn’t.
The arrogance and blatant condescension of the whole thing, coupled with the chorus of excited gasps and “ooohs” and “ahhhs” from the roomful of star-struck admirers both turned my stomach and left me genuinely perplexed, looking around at the apparently oblivious, obviously brainwashed crowd, wondering how no one seemed to recognize this for what it was. I wanted to stand up and scream, “What is WRONG with you people?!”
I have FOMO as much as the next person, but I’ll never understand how a “reward” like that motivates ANYBODY.
I remember a decade back everyone started to get the same haircut. It was SPOOOOKKKY. The bumpit and then the flip in the back. All morphing into the same person. Yikes
Thinking about seminar leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I was going to go into detail about some of my experiences, but I think I already have in a post long ago.
Plus I am on a roll with cleaning and cooking– annual Tastee sandwich fest here. (family and their friends. neighbors, and my 2 friends. Stop by and eat, and then move along to your other festivities. You are all invited! Happy TasteeDay to those who celebrate)
Tastee Sandwich Fest, you say… that’s a celebration I can get behind 😋 🥪
Tastee sandwiches are delicious!
I have no idea what Tastee sandwiches are but that sounds like my idea of a weekend with the fam.
DA — they’re slow-roasted beef sandwiches on rolls with pickles and condiments. SO SO good!
Grab a stack of napkins. You’ll need them.
Pickles make EVERYTHING better.
Meh..I’m not that keen on pickles or excess condiments but for a one-time experience I’d be up for it.
Actually, they are loose meat sandwiches that are served on cheap hamburger buns. They are scooped out with a slotted spoon and piled on the bottom bun with a pickle (or 2) with mustard and the top of the bun smashed down a little. Much like sloppy joes, but with a totally different ingredient list and taste. “Made-rights” (sp?) in Iowa attempted to replicate but failed miserably.
I have a long family story but everybody gets bored when I tell it…
“… and you need to see what it is like to stay in a first class hotel.”
What a condescending itchbay! Ma’am, I HAVE stayed in a “first class” hotel or two in my life and I didn’t have to share MY suite w a gaggle of pink strangers in atrocious jackets…just my hubs and kiddos, whom I actually love and ENJOY being around.
Besides, when I’m traveling, I’m generally not gonna spend enough time in my hotel room for it to even matter. Just give me my $50-60/night room at a decent Super 8 or LaQuinta or whatever other discounted room deal I snagged online, perhaps w a pool or a little workout room w a single treadmill.
“You need to feel as entitled as the others who are staying at our hotel.”
Actually, I don’t. Entitlement is off-putting and gross. That’s you, not me.
If I wanted the hostel experience I’d stay at a hostel.
I’d rather have a room to myself at a roach motel than have to stay in a “luxury” hotel with three other people. I don’t want the lack of privacy, the clutter, or the SNORING..
There’s nothing luxury about sharing a room.
My first and only Mary Kay Seminar. I ended up rooming with a complete stranger who snored light a freight train. No offense to freight trains.
She also insisted on setting the thermostat at 55 freaking degrees (Farenheight). I was freezing! Especially coming in from 98 degree temps outside to 55 inside. I remember basically staying in bed under the covers as much as possible whenever I was in the room. Which blessedly wasn’t much. I also remember sitting in the hallway reading at the hotel just to escape the freezing room.
I was newly pregnant and tired from not sleeping, either freezing or hot, and my feet were swollen from walking in dress shoes, and constantly hungry.
My director promised me gourmet meals at the NSD banquet & at seminar itself. Ha! Such disappointing food. Sandwiches with stale dry bread at Seminar, and my meal at the NSD banquet was cold. And just “meh”. Definitely not gourmet & not worth whatever I paid for it.
My roomie said something so interesting though. She was from another unit & said: “I can’t believe I’m queen of Sales, but I’m not selling that much. If I’m queen of sales, my director can’t be making much money at all.”
I was in Avon from around 1973 until the mid eighties. I did very well. One of my favorite moments was when I received my first red jacket, in 1980 I think, even though many of us as a team thing wore red jackets at seminar before that. I did well but it was different back then. Most women didn’t know much about skin care and so many classes were at women’s homes on week days.. After my customers starting buying from me I would throw a party for Tupperware or Home Interiors. And they would do the same for me. A lot of bored housewives loved the parties and classes and most of the women I signed up asked me to sign up. It was easy money and it was fun. But times have changed. Women work, are empowered and don’t
get excited about little junky trinkets. Nobody throws parties at home while their husbands are at work while the kids all play, unsupervised, in the basement. It’s all different and it has become an easy way to go broke quickly. I would suspect that some women have been in the business for 40 or 50 years and really believe you could be easily successful because their starts were so easy.
When I was a consultant I stayed at the hotel one year. Never again. I live in suburbs with nearby light rail right to the convention center.
This year it’s in FW so the cattle reference is even funnier to me.
Does the NSD get kickbacks if people pay extra to upgrade to single rooms?
If enough rooms in the nsd block are sold, the nsd gets her room or suite for free.