No Translations at Seminar, Please
Written by Parsons Green
The Mary Kay Facebook groups are full of a thriving sisterhood of Mary Kay sales directors sharing their concerns and struggles in a spirit that is focused on the Go Give attitude. (My sarcasm will be clear soon, friends.)
Million dollar director and nsd daughter Kali Brigham reached out for help. (Her mom is retired nsd Kate DeBlander.) Kali wondered whether anyone had a good onboarding process for consultants who don’t want to carry inventory and strictly work their business through My Shop?
Ellen Bowman Cox replied that she needs help. She signed up ten consultants who wanted to focus on My Shop. Only two have ordered a starter kit and some haven’t even set up their My Shop. She’s discouraged. She’s been in Mary Kay for over 20 years. Does she even want to continue in this business?
I then remembered when I first noticed Ellen in a Facebook group three years ago. A sister director shared that she loved seminar, and hopes that everyone would share her feedback with the company. Ellen had complaints. If you were in the front section, it was hard to see the action on the stage. Please raise the monitors higher.
Ellen then barged in to say her problem was with translations. The company should not provide subtitles in other languages. I’ve attached several screenshots from this particular thread. Her words speak for themselves.
After a few days, the moderators of this group deleted the comments. I then made a point to look for more of Ellen’s posts and comments. Here are a few more of her greatest hits. (And to be clear, they don’t make her look so great.
One month, the consistency prize was a wax seal kit that was yours for a $600 wholesale order. Larry Deweese did not want this prize, and he didn’t order inventory that month. But Ellen is thankful that she gets much more joy out of this than Larry does.
Ellen is a moderator in one group, and is frequently irritated by consultants who have questions. Call the company and don’t ask the group!
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Ellen then has the audacity to call out another member for lecturing consultants.
Sadly, Ellen shared that her sales are going down. She’s had a holiday open house for 18 years. She typically has 45 women and $6000 in sales. That year she only had $2100 from 15 shoppers. (She never provided an update for 2024 or 2025).
A director shared that her picture was on the front of the Applause magazine. Ellen immediately jumps to conclusions.
Then in 2024, the tides turned. Ellen needed help. Her consultant needed help putting an order on hold. This now banned practice let a consultant and director put an order on hold so it would count towards that month’s production but didn’t need to be paid for til the following month.
In January 2025, a director offered styling suggestions for the current sales director jacket thinking a replacement would be announced at leadership that year. As we all know, it still hasn’t been announced. Ellen attacks this poor woman repeatedly.
Ellen had a potential new consultant, but her husband talked her out of signing up.
A director posted in March 2025 asking questions about the phaseout and repackaging for the men’s line. Ellen blew a gasket because directors have been telling consultants about this. Consultants do not need to know. They are not business women. If new product is coming they may delay ordering product and that could affect HER production and TITLE.
Ellen commented on a post that was 6 years old that asked for help in finding a low credit card rate to offer new consultants who want to order inventory.
And finally, Ellen needed help motivating her unit to order in December.
Ellen, Ellen, Ellen – with your positive spirit and your devotion to the Mary Kay principles I’m shocked beyond belief that you’re having so much trouble finding recruits to build your future National Area. If you do read this, and I know you will, could you please submit a rebuttal to us for our weekly Friday series? I’d love to hear YOUR Pink Truth.
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Obviously, Mary Kay Corporate is not monitoring these Director chat rooms on FB for derogatory comments. But all the snarkiness and bickering back and forth is pretty entertaining. I thought the thread about speaking English only and the veiled reference to possible “non-citizens” in Mary Kay was very interesting.
Since Ellen failed history, Spanish has been spoken within the borders of what is now the US over 100 years before English arrived and there are Spanish-speaking families and whole communities with 500 years of history here. Spanish didn’t just recently arrive, it has always been here. Also, she obviously has never heard of Puerto Rico.
Also it’s a free country, or it’s supposed to be. People can speak whatever language they damn well please.
Does Ellen yell at Acadians (Maine) and Cajun French and Louisiana Creole for speaking French or a creole? Does she yell at the Amish, the Mennonites, or the Texas Germans for speaking German or a dialect therof? How about the Yiddish speakers?
I once got a county voting card written in English and Chinese. I bet that would make Lizard Brain Ellen blow a gasket.
“Para espanol, marque dos.” If a company decides it’s a good business decision to include Spanish, who is she to tell them no? Isn’t it a free market? Some markets want Spanish.
I had some fun googling her name plus some ugly non-Mary Kay key words. Would you be surprised to know she was in D.C. on a particular date in January? I wasn’t.
Ellen, it’s called a filter. Use it. True professionals learn to master their tongue early on in their careers…especially in leadership and in sales.
Trust me, you don’t want to hear the unfiltered views others have of you.
I sincerely hope this makes it to the first page of search results when prospective consultants google Ms. Ellen. May she always reap what she sows.
Tracy, to that end, can we tag her in this article?
Agree 100% Frosty Rose! As someone who has worked in higher level sales positions and as a headhunter for upper-mid-level to C-Suite executives, I’ve done a LOT of hiring in my time and have reviewed thousands of resumes. Granted, I’ve been out of the game for several years and social media is much more prolific now than it was when I was actively hiring, but I heavily researched any candidate under serious consideration for a well-paying position. If EBC were on my list of potential hires and I found THIS online, she’d go into the “big fat NOPE” bin faster than one can say “loser” in three languages. SHE put all of these comments out there AS A BUSINESS PROFESSIONAL (yeah, I know, but that’s how SHE sees herself). Thus she doesn’t deserve for these posts to remain out of reach for any hiring manager considering her for employment…AKA these aren’t private, personal comments of hers; they were made by “Sales Director” Ellen Bowman Cox not “Soccer Mom” Ellen Bowman Cox.
So yes, a HUGE YES to tagging her any way possible in the hopes that these comments of hers do show up in online searches. Heck, somebody ie Tracy could make a YT video just narrating this post! All I know is, if/when MK crumbles (or her unit does) and she tries to secure an actual JOB, her history should be available for all to see. Maybe she’ll just live off her military retirement and her hubby…not a bad idea, as those might be her only options.
Now I can sit back and wait for my Ridiculous Downvote(tm)
Hi Ellen!
Yes, Ellen, puh-LEASE write a rebuttal! Although I hope Tracy would run it on a Tuesday, because “See You Next Tuesday” suits her so well.
Not that there’s not plenty to address in PG’s excellent as always post. It will be nice to be able to speak my mind without hurting anyone’s feelings, since according to Ellen herself feelings can’t be hurt. I’m sure she wasn’t just referring to the feelings of others while her own are more fragile than cheap 1-ply toilet paper. Not our Ellen!
Imagine that – people have other things on their minds at the end of December than pimping Mary Kay. Who knew? I’d have thought the Ellens of the world would be aggressive “war on Christmas/ put Christ back in CHRISTmas” types who like to pretend they spend Advent in prayerful contemplation even as they try to out-National Lampoon their neighbors’ decorations and organize cookie swaps like they’re Napoleon trying to conquer Russia (which was one of the Great Epic Fails of History).
And how dare other directors address the elephant in the room and threaten ELLEN’s title?!?!?!? She’s a Navy supply officer; isn’t a title earned through honorable (I hope?) service to one’s country good enough for a “God, Guns, and Speak Amurrican, ya forners” patriot? I mean, given that she was trying to help her underling game the system in the name of keeping her precious MLM title, I have my doubts about the “honest” part.
I’d bet money that the consultant whose husband had to tell her “no” tried every excuse in the book to get rid of Ellen by herself and got her husband involved out of desperation, because this company that claims to empower women nevertheless kowtows to nards.
I wonder how much use King Nicole has gotten out of her sealing wax in the meantime, especially since envelopes with wax seals have to be hand-canceled and probably need extra postage because of the weight. Sounds like a PITA to me.
Anyway, it was nice to be able to speak my mind without hurting anyone’s feelings, since according to Ellen herself feelings can’t be hurt. I’m sure she wasn’t just referring to the feelings of others while her own are more fragile than cheap 1-ply toilet paper. Not our Ellen!
For some-one who calls others “the easily offended crowd”, Ellen is the epitome of “the easily offended”.
What a bitch!
A real life Peggy Hill!
Nah, she’s not Peggy Hill. Peggy had some redeeming qualities.
EBC is such a heifer.
And she is a disgrace to the uniform that she wears (because you know, she tells EVERYONE that she’s a Naval Reserve officer in the Supply Corps).
I think you mean “heffer”.
She absolutely is a disgrace to the uniform, for this and other reasons. She deserves a dishonorable discharge just for starters.
And she’s a filthy traitor.
“Feelings can’t be hurt. It’s not like you break an arm.”
Ellen, admitting you’re a sociopath is not the flex you think it is. You don’t know how feelings work because, like serial killers and others who take pleasure in hurting others, all you have are are undeveloped anti-social lizard brain emotions. Eres una desalmada perra.
Ellen Bowman Cox I never said I mastered them.
And yet she expects other people to do just that in English. I know learning a second language to any degree of fluency is hard. I know people who have lived in Quebec all their lives and are still learning new words and phrases in their second language.
I hope that there is always a Lego on Ellyn’s floor for her to step upon. I hope that every time she washes her hands, a little water splashes and leaves her sleeves aggressively damp. May her sock always slide down into her shoe, and may the outdated hosiery she likely still wears always have a run.
What an absolutely horrible human.
Ah, the lovely Ellen Bowman Cox…the gift that keeps on giving. Not unlike herpes.
Also, EBC exhibits some pretty textbook narcissistic behaviors, especially in her way of invalidating how others feel about what she says to them. The one lady said EBC was being “rude”, and EBC just says “no I wasn’t”. It’s fine to assert that you weren’t “being rude”, but most of us will at least acknowledge regret or concern that someone else THINKS we were being rude while still holding our ground and saying that we didn’t mean to be, or don’t believe we were, rude. But the most telling one imo is when the lady claimed that EBC hurt her feelings and EBC flat out denied to even acknowledge that because “no, feelings cannot be hurt”. I guarantee that EBC has, in her life, accused someone else of hurting her little feelings. In this instance, rather than at least acknowledge the person’s feelings were hurt (but then deny that she meant to do so or whatever) EBC flat out told her that such an opinion isn’t even possible.
EBC is the type of garden variety narcissist who probably never issues a true apology, either…like, replying with “I’m sorry you feel that way” instead of “I’m sorry that I MADE YOU feel that way”. I’ve said before on this site, and this post confirms it, that she must be a miserable person to have to deal with. I can’t believe she’s managed to keep a unit together (though I’d gamble whatever unit she does have is below average at best) because the churn for such an insufferable person must outpace the already intense turnover for even the loveliest of directors.
Sorry for the rant guys, I just REALLY REALLY don’t care for this basic hun and her incredibly inflated level of self importance.
From personal experience miss EBC has no problem complaining about someone hurting her feelings~she is perfectly fine to raise holy heck if she is wounded … I knew her offspring director and trust me the lines of right and wrong business practices were blurred many many times
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say this woman has no problem with MK signing up recruits who may have a tenuous relationship with English and who may not fully understand what they are signing up for. As long as the money gets collected I doubt she cares.
BINGO!
I had been wanting to do a post about EBC for a long time. What struck me this time is that Kali Brigham is a multi year million dollar director. She did the Million Dollar message for 15 years for FREE and even know she is asking for help trying to make My Shop work. KB is at the top of the chain, with a mom who was an NSD, and even she is struggling!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What hope is there for New Recruit to make any kind of money.
“KB is at the top of the chain, with a mom who was an NSD, and even she is struggling!!”
She has a website where she offers “Mastermind” coaching and mentoring sessions, courses on “time mastery”, how to achieve success, yadda yadda…
Prime nominee for MK Go Give spirit award!!! Hope all of her downline were native English speakers :0
Oh my gosh, my jaw is on the ground. The blatant racism, the pure pettiness, and the derogatory remarks to her “sister” sales directors should lead to her being stripped of her director status. But MK isn’t a serious enough business to actually reprimand her for how atrocious she is acting.