You Don’t Know My Director
I get really tired of reading that directors are all dishonest or only care about orders. Maybe SOME are like that, but mine isn’t. When my husband lost his job she called me every week just to check on us. She brought us dinner twice. She prayed with me when my mom was sick. She never once told me to order inventory I couldn’t afford. In fact, she told me to take care of my family first.
So when I read all these stories about evil directors, I honestly wonder how much of it is exaggerated. I know there are bad leaders in every company. That doesn’t mean the whole company is bad and I have yet to see or hear about a bad director from someone with firsthad experience with it.
It feels like Pink Truth takes the worst stories it can find and acts like that’s everyone’s experience. That’s not fair. I’ve been in Mary Kay almost six years and my experience has been completely different. Like I don’t even know what planet youre on when you say these things. Maybe instead of assuming every director is out to get her consultants, you should admit there are a lot of good women too.
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OP, you can’t “wish” your way into changing the nature of MLMs like Mary Kay. No MLM downline can be profitable as a whole. Upline profits necessarily come from downline losses…there is no way around this. Even the nicest SDs exploit their downlines, whether knowlingly or not, because it is not possible to operate an MLM enterprise any other way. Pay-to-play endless-chain recruiting schemes (including MLMs) have it their very nature to take from the bottom to give to the top. This exploitation is built right in.
So while PT does expose blatant exploitation on the part of specific individuals, don’t be fooled. The nice ones are exloiting their downlines too, even if they don’t realize it (yet). It simply comes with the territory, and there is no way around it.
Why do you come to this website if you feel the stories are exaggerated and too focused on the negative aspects of Mary Kay?
Instead of visiting a page you don’t trust, why don’t you compose a true profit and loss statement to truly see how much money you have lost over the last 6 years.
Most directors are not bad people. Most directors are equal victims in the mlm scheme. They’re doing their best, they genuinely love their people, and they believe they’re doing the right thing by their unit members by teaching them to order more inventory and harass more women to get them to buy products and join their teams.
They’re doing their best.
And they are deluded. The entire system is rotten to its core and, as Data Junkie explains above, relies on losses at the bottom of the pyramid to pay the top of the pyramid.
Your director, nice as she may be, is not your friend. If you don’t believe me, quit. She’ll drop you like a hot potato. Because she has to. Her own survival depends on having enough unit members ordering enough product to pay her mortgage. And her upline is teaching her to only spend time with those committed to “investing in themselves.” If you quit, you become a pariah, and you’re dead to all those still inside the pink bubble.
People stuck in dysfunctional situations adopt dysfunctional behaviors, because it’s the brain trying to protect you from harm the only way it knows how. The nail that sticks out gets hammered down, so you find ways to cope and fit in. You see it in abusive relationships, in toxic workplaces, in natural disasters, war zones, famines, cults.
In this case, and with other MLMs, the trap is the fear of failure and the shame that comes with it, plus the toxic positivity that keeps you from talking about problems so you can solve them in a healthy way. Former directors posting here have talked about how slow and insidious the change in your values and morals is, and how that’s the hardest part to come to grips with once you’re out.
Your director may well be a nice and kind lady who started out with the best of intentions, but the longer she stays in the toxic waste dump of the MLM system the more it’s going to influence her behavior. Yes, bringing you food and praying for your mother were nice, but they didn’t cost her much and A) kept you allied to her because B) she needs you and your purchases to keep her directorship. She might not consciously have thought that, but there’s that sneaky brain again. She doesn’t want to lose her position, so what resources does she have to hang onto it? You, and the rest of her unit. If she keeps you happy, you’ll be loyal to her and want to help her in turn.
Is she still friendly with former consultants of hers who have left MK? Does she come after you to make production in subtle ways, like a contest or “we’re so close to our best month ever!!! If everyone just orders $50…” emails? Is her family life harmonious?
Using people doesn’t normally happen in big, dramatic ways, because those are so far out of the norm that people catch on and get away quickly. Successful manipulators do it quietly and slowly and you really need to look below the surface to see it in action.
If your director is truly a kind person and invested in the People & Love version of MK, then she’s also a victim and broke. Is she in the top commission group in Applause? That answer tells you a lot.
Most directors are losing money. Of the ones turning a true profit, most are making a pittance. Consider this: If 2% make it to director, and only 0.4% of total participants turn a true profit, that means 4 out of 5 directors are losing money!
And of those making money, an even smaller number is making any real money…most of them less than minimum wage.
Assuming roughly 500,000 MK participants, this means ~2,000 are not losing money. Two percent, or 10,000 are directors. Let’s do a back of the napkin estimate of the number of directors at each level, in net taxable income. For simplicity, assume, very roughly, as you jump $25K, you halve the number of directors:
– Losing money: ~8000
– $0-25K: ~1000
– $25-50K: ~500
– $50-75K: ~250
– $75-100K: ~150
– Making $100K or more: ~100
Note: This contrasts with the income disclosures from MK because those show gross income, not net taxable income after expenses.
Not excusing the directors,NSDs, etc. Watched a national pit her directors constantly together to pull her production. It worked very well in the 1990’s, then core directors starting quitting after realizing the dirty pool. Height of it; one hotel located central denver meetings were held two days a week with all directors there. NSD would roam the halls after her chickens. Was one of the peeps and 250 to 300 consultants attended each session. Layer the brunches, boy did I spend the bucks on attendance. Good analysis!
Like others have mentioned, your director might actually be a nice person who does care about you.
However, remember that this friendship and care comes with a price. You are valuable to her as a “friend” only when you are ordering products and making her money. Stop ordering and go to a T status and see how long that friendship lasts.
Two things can be true at the same time. Your SD didn’t ask YOU to place an order when your husband lost his job because she knew not to ask YOU. But, chances are she put that pressure on someone else in her unit so that she could meet her quotas. And yes, MK has quotas for directors. If she doesn’t meet her quota, she loses her car, her position as SD, and the so-called perks that go along with it. She knew not to push you for an order and so she didn’t bother. You mentioned she didn’t ask you to order inventory she KNEW you couldn’t afford. This tells me that she coerced you to order inventory when she knew you could afford to.
This is so true! In one of my sales directors calls to me she said “I never ask my unit to buy more product than they can sell” and something about “Don’t buy your star”.
At the time I thought that was VERY weird. Who would buy more product than they can sell or “buy their star”? Um, nearly everyone.
She said it because she KNOWS lots of other directors push their team to do this.
But my director DID encourage us to buy more than we can sell in more subtle ways- telling us to “get the new products on your shelves; you’ll sell what’s on your shelves!” Encouraging us to have a sale nearly every single month. (Which eats into OUR profits, but, hey, we order more) And the biggie when I was a brand new consultant I wanted to place an $1800 order, mostly so I could get a lot of color cosmetics. At that time MK only had 3 new mineral eyeshadows & 2 mineral blushes available, but more were coming soon, but she didn’t tell me that! She ordered me SO much skincare and Satin hands and very little color. I should have returned every piece of inventory the day I received it. But, I was dumb and kept trying to make MK work for a while.
There you go. That director can tell herself she’s ethical because she uttered some words about not buying a star, but ultimately she was doing all the things directors do to encourage extra ordering.
I”t feels like Pink Truth takes the worst stories it can find and acts like that’s everyone’s experience. That’s not fair. I’ve been in Mary Kay almost six years and my experience has been completely different. Like I don’t even know what planet youre on when you say these things.”
The converse is true too. You take your story and act like it’s everyone’s experience. You have been in Mary Kay for almost 6 years. You haven’t met every director or NSD. Your experience, if truly your director has no hidden agenda, is not the norm.
“I’ve been in Mary Kay almost six years and my experience has been completely different.”
How much money have you made or lost?
Just add up all the money from product sales and subtract what you have paid for product (including interest on credit card orders), meetings, gas, entertaining potential recruits, ProPay or whatever has replaced it … is your cash flow positive or negative?
If you are running your “business” like a real business, you should be able to do this in a few minutes.
There’s a downvote for this statement. Why did someone downvote keeping track of revenue, expenses, and net profit/loss? Keeping an accurate ledger is the most basic lesson of Business 101. You can’t run an honest real business without honest accounting.
Hi Ubi and welcome! I’m so glad you are here.
That’s how I felt when I came to Pink Truth (it was a differerent name then). I knew I hadn’t made much profit over the 7 or 8 years (I forget) that I was in MK. But, I blamed myself and not MK. But the more I read, the more I realized that I was in a business cult. I saw my own story played out in front of me by others! Lots of others!! How could that happen? I didn’t recuit on purpose and I thought I could make a buck. But I found that my tax returns spoke the truth. I wasn’t making a REAL profit. And when my taxes indicated I was actually making a profit, I realized it was a couple of dollars per hour. That’s not even minimum wage. I could work at McDonald’s (anywhere than employs teens) and make more per hour than the time and money I put into MK. That’s when the reality of this “opportunity” hit me. It’s a scam. Only my recruiter/SD benefited from my orders. It certainly wasn’t me.
Oooh! The anonymous down-voter is making her rounds. Tsk, tsk. Trolling on PT is not an income-producing activity. Go gather names from your draw boxes or glue some googly eyes on a hand cream for your open house, Down Voter.
Hi Pinkiu!
Thanks! I am glad you got out. Pink Truth does help people see the truth. That’s why I am committed to contribute in ways that help its cause even from across the globe. Too many lives have been ruined and oddly the victims, until now, can’t see through the fog. There’s something about the psychology of MLM especially Mary Kay that makes the victims defend their abuser. I hope Pink Truth would be a start for the lurkers to step back and have a good look at what’s happening and like you, rationalize and get out.
You’re literally on a site full of them.
That doesn’t mean every director is cruel, dishonest, or incapable of genuine kindness. My director was my BFF. She was there for me constantly, and I absolutely believed the friendship was real.
Then I stopped producing.
And suddenly? Crickets.
That’s the part people keep missing. A director can pray with you, bring you dinner, care about your family, and still participate in a system where your production affects her income, recognition, and status.
The issue isn’t that every director is a cartoon villain. The issue is that women keep describing the same pattern over and over again — intense support while they’re active and producing, followed by distance when they’re no longer useful to the business.
So no, I don’t think the stories are automatically “exaggerated” just because your six years have looked different.
Mine looked different too.
Until they didn’t.
The director is always BFFs with the unit members who are ordering the most. Always. And when she stops ordering, they’re no longer BFFs. None of them are different. Same playbook and it’s gross.
Mary Kay Ash herself said it: “I didn’t have any friends who hadn’t already hosted several beauty shows. If they hadn’t hosted a show, then they were probably no longer friends.” ( from the 1984 book, “On People Management”, by Mary Kay Ash)