Tips For Enjoying Seminar
Written by The Scribbler
Listen; can you hear it? The pumping beat of a hot mix tape designed to motivate, energize, and get you hopping around on your high heels like a stork trying to do the Lindy Hop.
“Rock you Like A Hurricane?” Uh-uh…no WAY! That song was my prom theme – me being here must be a divine act! In fact, paying off the $1,000 + charges I’m going to accumulate from this event is going to TAKE a divine act. Excuse me, waiter? I’ll have what that director on the floor over there is having.
Seminar is on the horizon! Are you ready? Whatever your answer is, you aren’t TRULY ready until you take a gander at these handy Seminar tips courtesy of NSD Pamela Shaw. She’s absolutely got YOUR needs in mind, young padawan learners; so purge thyself of all uncleanliness and come sit at her feet! Hey, you in the back – remove your close-toed shoes; the place on which you stand is holy ground! Now let’s get it ON!
1. “Stay in company hotels. If the EVENT IS IN YOUR CITY, STILL stay in a Company hotel. Driving back and forth from your home keeps you ½ in the Conference and ½ in your home life and responsibility. There is NO WAY you can have an effective ‘thought shift’ or FULL Experience that way.”
You’re kidding, right? Let’s see here…choices, choices…
– Sleep under a foreign, crowded, and overpriced roof in a sagging hotel bed that everyone from the local Mafia boss to Cinnamon the stripper has done business in.
– Sleep under a familiar, cozy, and best of all, FREE roof in my own comfy bed, where – chances are – any business it has witnessed doesn’t fall under headings listed in the Dallas police blotter.
(Although my director said I needed to throw my husband a bone once in a while to make him LOVE my business…)
2. Attend ALL classes, ALL General Sessions, Individual Education Classes. ALL. You’d be hard pressed to find a Million $ Director or NSD who skipped—ever. Certainly not after she made the decision to grow and advance her organization.
I love how Pam whips out the guilt whammy right off of the bat; the tone reminds me of Ms. Almira Gulch from the “Wizard of Oz”:
“Tsk! Now Sally, you’d best be at every class at Seminar! I’ve never heard of ANY NSD who’s ever skipped – well, certainly not one who’s made the choice to grow her business! (clears throat, sniffles) Now get back outside and bang those erasers together or it’ll be the Dunce cap for you again tomorrow.”
Look, if I paid over $1,000 to get to Seminar, you can darn well bet I am going to spend that time as I please and you should, too! As my momma used to say, “Honey, if she ain’t payin’ your rent, she can howl all she wants – it don’t mean a thing to you.”
So, (ahem) is Pam Shaw paying YOUR way to Seminar? No? Then go see Dallas, for crying out loud! Six Flags is the bomb, the Dallas Museum of Art is relaxing, and come on, does Mary Kay really care whether or not you go to her museum? I guarantee your business and how you run it is the LAST thing on her mind right now!
Part two of this comment involves a bit of medical terminology, so if you were on target to become a medical professional before Mary Kay ripped that dream from your arms and replaced it with the Dream of NSD-dom, you’ll love this. Why, it might even inspire you to pursue that dream once again!
“Headache, tiredness, sore feet, interview, shopping, first time in a great city—never an excuse. If Mary Kay herself attended Seminar with Shingles, I can press through my personal discomfort.”
Okay, add this one to the “Now I Officially Know Too Much” file. Shingles is very contagious and can be passed to anyone who hasn’t had chickenpox, and the open sores one has with shingles makes passing it on pretty easy. NO event on the planet is worth killing yourself over.
Any company that insists that you attend one of their events while disregarding your personal condition and/or needs does NOT have your best interests in mind! For the sake of your roommates and the women who will be seated around you, if you are SICK, you have no business being at Seminar! Stay HOME and do it without a twinge of guilt!!
Visit the
Best advice I got from my time in Mary Kay: “Only take advice from those with whom you would trade places.”
No, thanks, Pam. I don’t want to trade places with someone so foolish that she traveled right up to her due date and had to give birth to her only child 14 hours away from home. I don’t want to trade places with someone so wrapped up in a cult that she thought it was cool to accept an award from her hospital bed. I don’t want to trade places with someone who looks down on others for not being directly in their downline. I don’t want to trade places with someone who is so wrapped up in her job that she can’t retire when it’s time to do so, and, instead, insists that her adult child take over so she can continue working.
If this sounds appealing to you, then, by all means, take Pam’s advice. Otherwise, find a different mentor.
How “Faith first, Family Second, Career third” of her. LOL.
None of these tips for enjoying Seminar sound like any fun at all. Complete mental shift from being out of my element? Being bossed around? Tiredness, sore feet, headaches, being overwhelmed? Freaking communicable diseases??
No. I’d much rather hang with the mob boss and Cinnamon. At least he’ll have an in at some really great restaurants and clubs and Cinnamon must have loads of stories to tell. And probably better makeup tips than the huns.
Don’t forget the feigning excitement! I wish I had a dollar for everytime someone at Seminar said “I’m so excited!” I could retire at 45. 🤣
Pam talking about staying at a company hotel even if you live in the same city:
“There is NO WAY you can have an effective ‘thought shift’ or FULL Experience that way.”
In other words, we can’t fully indoctrinate you into our cult if you are not around us 24/7 for the next 3 days.
Anyone who has been to a real sales conference can quickly see that Seminar is completely different. Seminar has crappy food, crappy accommodations and the attendees learn nothing new at the worthless events. These attendees should be wined and dined by the event sponsors, but alas, the sponsors offer only empty hype.
This event is ultimately not for the attendees. This event is for MK and the upline. The attendees flip the bill for all of it. It is completely backward…just like the rest of MLM, where they fool their customers into believing they are business owners so they purchase way more product than they can ever hope to sell or use personally. At the end of the day, MLMs like MK see their own sales force as customers.
There is nothing of value to be gained from Seminar. The emperor has no clothes. Don’t fall for it!
With all of the cutbacks, you can cross crappy food off the list! Au revoir, box lunches and mashed potato bar!
But don’t worry! NSDs will still envy bait their downline with photos of their special backstage area. So thoughtful to cast the vision!
One of the medical offices I worked for had drug reps that would come in every week and bribe us with food. The owners would just smile politely at their presentations while the rest of us stuffed our bellies. It was good food! Top tier deli and catered stuff. I thought the whole drug rep thing was slimy, but they kept us very well fed.
It was nice to a post by the Scribbler again! I haven’t seen that name around in ages. (I’m sure this post was old, but it’s still a goodie.)
In the real world most of us have our heads at home, work, with worries about aging parents, children, the economy, etc, etc. at any given moment. Why do these pink puffs get a hard pass?
PT tips for enjoying seminar:
-turn your phone to DND.
-locate a book, craft project, card game, movie, and/or good company.
-set up a supply of iced tea, wine, margaritas or other beverage od your choice. Don’t forget the snacks.
-select a good beach chair or air-conditioned room.
-avoid MLMs at all costs.
-Wear comfy clothes. No need to put on an ugly, smelly director jacket in 105 degree heat.
Will they still be styling those ugly pink jackets this year?