Anyone Can Succeed in MK
A pro-Mary Kay woman attempted to post the following comment:
What does it matter how many people drive a pink Cadillac or how few people make alot of money? Most people in most businesses fail because of numerous reasons… Mainly they don’t work hard enough. As long as the guidelines are understood, which they are, then its up to the individual to make it happen, regardless of who makes what above them. Selling isn’t for just anyone and most people realize they don’t have what it takes and a few succeed. But if a few can succeed, doesn’t that mean anyone can?
Her conclusion is that “…if a few can succeed” then “anyone can.” This comment is typical of the delusional nature of Mary Kay. I suppose if “someone” broke the world record running 100 meters, then “anyone” can break a world record,” right? If “a few” people got a perfect score on the SAT, then “anyone” can, right?
Wrong. Not “anyone” can be in a pink Cadillac, and it’s simple math which makes this true. The MLM business model requires continual recruiting, and eventually those at the bottom of the pyramid have no one left to recruit.
The point I am making here when demonstrating how little money Cadillac drivers make, and how few of them there are, and how they’re at the TOP of Mary Kay yet still not making a lot… is to prove how impossible this business is for almost everyone.
14,000 Mary Kay sales directors in the United States are working their asses off every day, and most of them are barely making minimum wage. If you can slog through the process of DIQ (i.e. cheat to finish, as everyone does) and eventually make it to sales director, your chances are still slim of making even middle management wages.
No, “anyone” can’t be successful in Mary Kay. In fact, almost no one will even turn a profit. That is the truth behind MLM.
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In real businesses, it is at least possible for everyone involved to make positive money, from the owners to the management all the way down to the line employees. Everyone comes home with positive money. There are examples of this all around us.
MLMs like Mary Kay fall, by definition, into the category of pay-to-play endless-chain recruiting schemes. In these schemes, most participants must lose money for the system to function. The losses cannot be avoided, as they are part of the design, and are a mathematical certainty given how these systems function.
You could clone the highest performing Mary Kay participant, and fill a huge downline with her clones, and the loss rates of that downline would be the nearly the same as the the non-clone downlines. No amount of effort on the part of these clones can change the abysmal aggregate performance of these schemes. The loss rates are built right into the design. An honest look at the true aggregate P&L of any downline will show this to be true…every single time.
While it is possible for someone in a downline to make money, it is a mathematical certainty that every downline will lose money in the aggregate, regardless of effort, with nearly every individual participant losing money.
Get rid of pay-to-play or get rid of endless-chain recruiting, and the calculus changes. It is this combination that guarantees so much loss in every downline that incorporates both.
^^ THIS!! You can insert the name of any MLM company into what DJ wrote, and it will apply. It does not matter what that company shills; the rules are still the same.
Meanwhile, the huns will never look at the man behind the curtain or at the Geppetto moving their strings.
Yes, Data Junkie! All of that!
AND. Even if anyone *could* earn a Cadillac, it is not free as advertised. It costs a lot of money, both on the front end and (usually) in copays because you can’t make production. And, Caddy drivers are not earning the executive pay promised during recruiting speeches and throughout the process of earning one. They’re averaging around $40K/year before expenses.
Don’t believe me? Hear it straight from the mouth of Rachel Ryan, during qualification for her third pink trophy on wheels. Six years in, any other career would be humming along without huge efforts to maintain the same position. Mary Kay? Nope! It’s a castle built on sand, and the tide is coming in.
https://www.pinktruth.com/2024/10/28/rachel-ryan-shows-us-how-to-buy-yourself-a-pink-cadillac/
And that was almost two years ago. AFAIK she’s due for another beg a thon in a month or so.
“What does it matter how many people drive a pink Cadillac or how few people make alot of money?”
Because, when they’re trying to suck you in, they promise that ANYONE can DRIVE FREE and make ALL THE MONEY!!! and the unfortunale
victimrecruit only finds out that she won’t after she’s sunk a bunch of money and time into it.The belief that “anyone can succeed if they just try hard enough” is one of the most damaging things Mary Kay teaches, and yet every KayBot repeats it.
I heard it so many times that I started believing I simply wasn’t trying hard enough…that I wasn’t good enough.
The irony is that I was already successful in my career. I was raising a family, traveling for work, and really just looking for some girlfriend time. My recruiter became my director, and I watched her soar to director, earn a car, then move into the director car. She put her house up for sale, bought a much bigger one, and announced that her mom was moving in. I thought, “Wow…she’s really made it.”
Then reality set in.
She lost the car. She went years without one. She called constantly begging for orders to keep the unit going. My recruits would call me upset because they hadn’t received the prizes they’d earned. Looking back, I suspect she simply couldn’t afford to buy them.
I also wish I had done the math. I looked at our National as the ultimate success story, but when I finally estimated what she was likely making each month, it wasn’t dramatically more than I was making at my J-O-B. The difference? My paycheck was predictable, taxes were already withheld, I had benefits, and I wasn’t paying for a barely used “beauty center,” Seminar, Leadership, inventory, prizes, or all the other expenses that come with maintaining the illusion of success.
As for my director’s “dream house,” hindsight gave me a different perspective. They weren’t moving Mom in with them—they were probably moving in with Mom. When you roll the equity from two homes into one, the picture looks very different than the story being told from the Seminar stage.
Yes, there are the GMBs, Lisa Madsons, Dacia Wiegandts, and a handful of others who make extraordinary incomes. But they are the exception, not the rule.
The average director everyone was told to emulate? I’d bet most people with a steady J-O-B were living a more comfortable financial life. The real damage came when consultants believed they had to look successful—maxed-out credit cards, cramming six women into a hotel room at Seminar while pretending it was a blast, buying the “right” clothes, and keeping up appearances because that’s what “successful businesswomen” were supposed to do.
Hard work was never my problem. Believing the promise was.
A lot of those women showing off expensive homes and cars have them because their husbands work high paying jobs or have own businesses. Hubby the house flipper is paying for their Mary Kay hobby.
Yes, that is true. The directors who have an “elite” lifestyle have either a rich husband or husbands who have a high paying job. Some directors also have a main business from which the earnings are funding their Mary Kay business. Why? For the “sisterhood”, recognition, prizes, travels.
“…GMBs, Lisa Madsons, Dacia Wiegandts, and a handful of others who make extraordinary incomes. But they are the exception, not the rule.”
They were in the right place at the RIGHT TIME. That time has come and gone, and will never be seen again.
Those women were extraordinarily lucky. Nothing more than that.
For most MLM success stories, the “right time” is at the founding, long before the market is saturated. Those MK ladies were able to capitalize on an improperly inflated company reputation in a time before the internet (including sites like this) started pouring cold water on the false hype of the MLM business model. It is much harder to sell snake oil (and to sell others on selling snake oil) these days.
Many of the kingpins in newer MLMs left old MLMs once the market for the old product hit saturation. I’ve personally seen seasoned MLMers move to “coaching”, and sadly, pay good money for certification. Coaching certification is yet another questionable industry, offering an overpriced product that is unlikely to ever pay for itself in value returned to the recipient.
Sounds strikingly similar to MLM, no?
“ gave me a different perspective. They weren’t moving Mom in with them—they were probably moving in with Mom.”
YES!!! Spot on! After a few years of observing them, I come with the same realisation. Appearances are very deceiving. They are so good at using appearance and then leveraging outsiders’ high opinion of them ….. you have Mary Kay success story.
I tested my theory across the “successful” directors and the NSDs and each time, I come to the same conclusion. It’s a tested hypothesis proven true.
GMB’s husband is/was a contractor with a company that did multi-million dollar projects. I think he was funding much of the lifestyle.
What does it matter how many people drive a pink Cadillac or how few people make alot (sic) of money?
Because that’s The Dream you are selling. Anyone can make “executive pay with part-time work”, “work in pockets of your time” or “don’t doom-scroll in the bathroom, make a sale”. Without inspiring, idealised and idolatrized women at the top, there is no dream to pursue.
Math goes out the window for these people.