More Speculation on Mary Kay Circling the Drain
Written by Parsons Green
Seminar is quickly approaching. Mary Kay just announced that both the Corporate Office and the manufacturing plant would be closed to visitors. Mary Kay attributes this to the need for corporate employees to travel to Fort Worth for seminar. They just won’t have the staffing to handle guests.
The Mary Kay ladies are upset! Even though seminar is in Fort Worth, it’s still close enough for consultants to drive to Dallas to visit these facilities. Jacqueline Kerris was going to have her son was going visit too.
Natalia Travilina laments that golden era of Mary Kay is over. New consultants will never know how great it used to be. 
Karen Saphos reminds Jacqueline that Fort Worth is an hour away. Please give the company grace. Jacqueline shares that she’s been a director for almost 25 years. They’ve always had seminar – why now does corporate need this group of employees to work at seminar? Karen adds that she’s been a director for 37 years. Mary Kay can’t control this. Jacqueline says the company doesn’t have to provide shuttles. Consultants can find their own way to get to these buildings.
Hillary Briggs has a BOLD thought. She feels the company is saving money with all these changes and will soon give directors higher bonuses and commissions! Pat Ringnalda is a realist and isn’t sure why Hillary thinks this. She’s seen a decrease in sales because her customers don’t want to use My Shop! Sylvia Barritt is scared that there will never be another seminar in the Dallas convention center. She has heard that the company is reducing staff because of the focus on My Shop.
Stacy Steele wants everyone to focus on sharing the opportunity with more women. It’s the company’s responsibility to save money. Tami Kring reminds everyone that corporate visits have always been scheduled when the career conference is in Fort Worth.
Why do you think corporate has nixed these visits? Could there be something they don’t want consultants to see? Or has the financial situation become so dire that they can’t spare the employee expense to make these tours happen?
Visit the
The corporate building is for sale. They might be packing things up and closing things down.
“From what I understand, they have a very slim staff because we are moving into a digital direction.”
Is MyShop is just an offering to give the appearance that MKC does not expect the sales team to front-load? If the incentive structure does not change, and downlines decide to hide MyShop from their customers and front-load anyway, any harm they do to themselves is on them. MKC can simply say, “Look, we provided a simple mechanism to allow you to run your business without front-loading. Your choice to order more than you can use or sell is on you, not us.”
Secretly, MKC will hope most downlines will hide MyShop from their end-customers and continue to over-order, and continue MLMing without any direct pressure from MKC. The uplines will keep the front-loading pressure on…their commissions depend on it! If the FTC comes calling, MKC will not hesitate to throw xSDs under the bus, even though their incentive structure rewards this exact behavior.
I just don’t see how MKC can survive without front-loading. But they are clearly afraid of FTC action. Ryan is in quite a pickle.
They’re not hiring. I wonder if there have been layoffs, or if they’re counting on regular attrition rates to thin out the workforce at HQ. In the new agreement they’re telling people not to overbuy inventory. Sales are down overall.
My wild guess is that the Big Announcement coming this fall will coincide with them moving manufacturing overseas. Probably SE Asia and/or China, where labor is cheap and the laws are different. I also have a hunch that Ryan will become some sort of honorary figurehead
so that he won’t have to try and think or interact with the huns any moreto carry on Granny’s legacy but the actual running of the company will be by a board of directors straight out of Dilbert.Oh, and the Consultomer Complaints department will also be outsourced overseas, to which the huns will react predictably.
And we get to watch!
Shoot, I meant to reply to Data Junkie.
I have my popcorn at the ready!
They already have a manufacturing presence in China, ostensibly so they can comply with China’s requirement to animal test without allowing those products into the US market where they pride themselves on not testing on animals. But, as with all things, there’s very little visibility on what goes where. Just another set of magic tricks played on unsuspecting customers, ahem, consultants.
It sounds like Mary Kay is running the company on bare bones staff. Are there any statistics on lay-offs in manufacturing or corporate? If the corporate headquarters building is for sale, where are they relocating to? Are they thinking of sending manufacturing out of the country? JAFRA a company that started in Malibu, CA moved their manufacturing to Mexico. That company is 70 years strong mostly due to the Hispanic market. Their annual conference includes a company night ( closed to the public) at Universal Studios! Mary Kay doesn’t even have enough staff to allow for museum and manufacturing tours at the consultant’s expense to get there from Fort Worth. It will be interesting to hear what other announcements Mary Kay has in store for Seminar attendees. Stay tuned!
Companies have to report if they are experiencing a “mass layoff” or plant closing under the WARN act. Layers upon layers of legal gibberish that basically boil down to reporting if (a) a company is closing a facility; or (b) if a company is laying off 1/3 of their workforce or at least 500 employees. My understanding is that most companies are required to report layoffs of 50 or more.
Mary Kay has not issued a WARN Notice, so they’re not planning on closing the manufacturing facility in the next 60 days. And it doesn’t seem like they’ve laid off a whole bunch of people. That doesn’t account for not replacing people who quit, and it doesn’t mean they’re not pulling other corporate shenanigans to avoid issuing a WARN notice. Likely, with the army of lawyers at their command, they’re laying people off in a way that doesn’t trigger the notice.
The casinos in Vegas have been laying off people in waves just under the threshold number each time to avoid mandatory reporting.
I bet corporate is moving to another state, one that doesn’t have the 90% buyback rule and other corporate-friendly perks. They’re already making sure the consultants can’t class-action sue them.
Everything to wrap up in a neat little bow to sell to private equity.
It does seem like Ryan is in the throes of an exit plan, doesn’t it? He’s not smart enough or business savvy enough to come up with this on his own. Thank God he’s got some sort of advisors in his corner. His best move is the one he’s making: Do some big changes to make it sellable, and get at least SOMETHING out of it before the whole thing collapses.
I like to check the MKC career portal. Currently there are a total of 30 listed openings. That is not very many for such a global powerhouse imo. I find it interesting to see what they’re hiring for and what they’re not.
https://marykay.referrals.selectminds.com/jobs/search/1102608
Under each opportunity to work for Mary Kay, they list these benefits. I wonder if the consultants, who always refer to MK as “my company”, ever feel left out? 😏🤭
What We Offer
Generous Paid Time Off
401K & Profit Sharing
Medical, Dental & Vision Coverage
Free On-site Fitness Center & Health Clinic
Tuition Reimbursement
Employee Product Discounts
So I’ve seen that they currently have 1700 employees in a roughly 550,000 sf space. That’s twice what they need. And honestly if they are in any kind of hybrid model, it’s probably even less than that.
DAMN. The HQ of my employer (Fortune 100 company) is 283k SF for 1500 onsite employees. Half a million SQ is insane.
Great sleuthing & writing as always, Parsons!
Every front page lately becomes my new favourite thing to read. Each day brings us closer to the pink bubble’s final burst.
Isn’t it so fun and exciting?
Don’t you mean, “Can we get excited about that?”
Answer: YES
Costs:
– Registration fee $250
– Airfare
– Hotel
– Food
– Miscellaneous
You get:
– No tours/visits
– Just two-and-a-half days of actual events
It isn’t worth the money and hassle.
LOVE IT! Like Christmas in July (continued through Aug, Sept, Oct, etc. until it’s all gone!)
It was my 50th birthday this year, so I decided I was going to celebrate all year long because you’re only 50 once.
So I’m really tickled that all this is happening this year XD Best birthday present ever.
So which NSDs will lose her shit the most when the NSD positions are eliminated? I’m hoping for Jamie Taylor and Linda Toupin.
Pam Shaw and Kimberly Copeland have to be up on the list.
The Dallas convention center is on a phased renovation schedule so they can stay open for events. Mary Kay didn’t move because of the reno, they moved because they can’t or don’t want to afford Dallas.
I’m guessing MK Corp cannot afford Dallas.
The renovation is moving slowly because they are a shit show. They have barely got a plan and they are already at least $6M over budget.
Oh, Hillary. Honey. 🙄
Maybe the staff is simply tired of having the consultants show up and bother them. I bet Ryan doesn’t want to force a grin and accept another ridiculous goal setting banner with their signatures on it that he’ll toss in the trash as soon as they leave.
The car dealers hate it when a Mary Kay consultant picks up a car because they always turn it into such an embarrassing spectacle; imagine how they behave at Headquarters. I wouldn’t be surprised if the skeleton crew at Headquarters decided no more.
The huns being a nuisance is entirely plausable to me. They’ve got to be a compliance nightmare. All that caked-on makeup and hair flying around just waiting to contaminate something, very unsafe shoes, bare legs, jewelry, and a sense of entitlement. Not to mention their knockoff conspicuous hydration vessels and “designer” bags.
Do these boss babes know it’s an hours drive from Ft. Worth to MK headquarters?
Not exactly close.