Nsd Never to Be, Taylor McKnight
Written by Parsons Green
Recently Jamie Taylor wished a happy birthday to her offspring sales director Taylor McKnight. She believes that this year will finally be the year Taylor becomes a Mary Kay national sales director!
Taylor has been chasing after this pipe dream for years and is nowhere close. (Over six years ago she shared why this title is so important to her.)
To be appointed as an Nsd, Taylor must meet the following requirements:
- Have a personal unit with at least 24 unit members.
- Have a total of 20 offspring sales directors having one of the following configurations:
- (12/3/8) 12 first-line offspring sales directors, three of whom are senior sales directors and a total of eight second-line offspring sales directors; or
- (11/3/9) 11 first-line offspring sales directors, three of whom are senior sales directors and a total of nine second-line offspring Sales Directors; or
- (10/3/10) 10 first-line offspring sales directors, three of whom are senior sales directors and a total of 10 second-line offspring sales directors.
- Each of the 20 qualifying units (12/8, 11/9 or 10/10) must have at least 24 unit members (or the minimum unit members based on their home country requirements, in the case of international offspring units)
- Of those 20 offspring units, there must be at least seven Premier Club or Cadillac qualifiers; at least five of those Career Car qualifiers must live in the U.S.;
- The Nsd candidate’s personal unit must be a Cadillac Career Car qualifier.
Taylor posted a sales director lineup on her Facebook group page in July. She had six first line directors and four DIQs between her first and second line. Only four of her directors were in a company car, none of which were Cadillac.
She updated the lineup again at the beginning of October. The good news is that one of her DIQs became a director again. Melanie Stratton is yet another director who has moved in and out of directorship multiple times. The bad news is that all four of her car driving directors lost their cars.
The bathtub is draining faster than it can be filled up. Women are not signing up for Mary Kay. Those who do aren’t ordering enough to earn their recruiters a car or a director title. This is a dream that will never come true.
Taylor is no closer to the national sales director dream than she was in 2019. She had 7 directors under her then.
The closest we’ve ever seen Taylor come is 8 directors in 2024, but that’s still a far cry from where she needs to be.
But nsd Brittani Jenks believes in Taylor – she sent her nsd letters to hang on the wall to help keep her eye on the prize.
At the end of September, Taylor begged that she just needed 8 more women to meet her goal of seeing 30 faces in 30 days. Not surprisingly, she never updated us on this goal.
Oh, Taylor. Don’t you know that you’re on a sinking ship? What have those commission checks been looking like? And how is it that you’ve been working on this dream for at least 6 years and you’re still no closer to achieving it?
What will Taylor’s director line up look like by the end of the year?
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Given that MKC are going affiliate likely by the end of the year I predict that Taylor’s area will be nonexistent. NSDs saw the writing on the wall and got out while the going was good-ish. We can see what’s happening but the befogged cannot and stand to lose everything.
Every former director who manages to grind her way through DIQ again is just being rescued from the Titanic by the SS Poseidon, and without Gene Hackman to lead you to the bottom. All the inspirational letters and cheap pins can’t hide the fact that this horribly mismanaged company with its outdated sales model is out to deny success to almost everyone.
Also, quit buying cheap rags from Shein and find something that fits properly and flatters your figure. And some decent foundations, which can really make an outfit.
Who would get their colour/season analysis done by someone who can’t decide if she’s a warm or a cool? Several unflattering hair colours, that Big Bird dress, and every lip shade in MK’s palette tell me that she knows nothing about choosing for herself let alone everyone else.
There is a consistent lack of color training in MK. The reason being that product sales are irrelevant to the pyramid. Real cosmetic stores have very lengthy and in depth training for all products – not “here just stick this goo on your face, it contains nickelcinnamonbuns or something. Here’s passionate puce lip gloss, what’s an undertone who knows?” Color theory is a thing y’know.
And real training goes into depth for medical concerns – for instance I have to be careful with BHA as it can cause problems with the NSAID Naproxen I am on as both are NSAIDs (BHA is basically aspirin) although absorption isn’t much of a problem as cleanser is just washed off and there’s little chance of absorption through the dermal layers but something I have to consider. Vitamin A lip balm is a no-no as I am on folic acid and can fry my liver as Vitamin A is absorbed through the mucosal membranes. And if you have rosacea, eczema or sensitive skin STAY THE HECK AWAY FROM TIMEWISE unless you want a painful face that looks like lovechild of the surface of the moon and angry tomato. Clearproof is nothing special to justify the price – BHA and antibacterial benzoyl peroxide. The same things in Garnier at a tenth of the price.
MK’s eyeshadows aren’t current – the current trend is the naked barefaced no makeup makeup look with mattes. But none of the matte shimmer sticks are in relevant colors and the only Chromafusion that would work is matte biscotti.
MK UK finally have the new 3D Timewise foundation and the K-Beauty snail snot. Off-topic but harvesting snail slime is cruel. Snails are put into acid or base baths and irritated, the secretions are because they are getting chemical burns. So that’ll be a bestseller given the latest trend is vegan cruelty free clean beauty.
The foundation’s lightest shade is ivory 3 which is warm, so if you are a pale neutral or cool (like me) you’ll look like a minion in renal failure. £30 for 30 mls (1oz) is outrageous for the quality. A similar tube (Rimmel) is £6.99 in my local pharmacy (I browsed the makeup waiting for my prescription to be filled to see what goodies I can get my GF, despite it being a small town and a tiny pharmacy practically everything was sold out as they do a huge amount of sales). Ironically the pharmacy does gift baskets at Christmas and they actually sell out fast. And although it’s a tiny pharmacy with 2 sales clerks and 1 pharmacist on duty they actually know about makeup. When I had an acne flareup last year they recommended niacinamide gel which worked – all for the low cost of £4.99.
Compare a real retail business with MK – they sell a lot of cosmetics daily and often sell out and the gift baskets do not languish on the shelves. By the end of November they are all gone. The Yankee Candles shelf is decimated unlike Scentsy shelves. I can live with spending £9.99 on a huge candle. A similar one from Scentsy is around £50.
The pharmacy also does charity drives for mental health charities and suicide prevention and has a charity bookstore and is popular. £1 a book. Compare to Usbourne, who ironically sell on Amazon and in grocery stores at a lower price than from the reps making it impossible for them to sell. Don’t sell enough and hit your targets and you are on the hook for £150-£300 worth of books they sent you.
Compare to open houses with no attendees, or if people do come they come for the coffee and cookies and not 5-year-old Satin Hands that’s been there since the pandemic and is destined for the landfill.
TL;DR MK isn’t a real cosmetic business. Comparisons with a tiny pharmacy in a tiny Scottish town that has 2 members of staff on duty doesn’t look good for USA-ian MLM consultomers in product knowledge, volume or income from sales. It’s a losing proposition.
But she has successfully used AI to give herself a new face and body!
It’s sad to watch a young, attractive woman continuing to chase the meaningless NSD title…and continuing to fail.
And it’s all public.
Every time I come to this site, I think of how much potential these ladies have and how successful they could have been in other industries. Who knows what ACTUAL talents that they might have under the surface that they are not honing that could be actually beneficial to their lives? It’s truly so sad. Letting their credentials and educations go to waste to pursue a pyramid scheme disguised as “sisterhood” and “family” is not a flex.