Written by Parsons Green

Glenda  Bohannon is a Mary Kay sales director who has been in the company for 31 long years. In a lengthy post on Facebook, she explains why she won’t be using the My Shop feature when it rolls out on December 17th.  (entire post here, my TLDR notes below)

• She estimates she would have $500 less a month in sales through My Shop, because she is able to upsell on orders placed directly with her
• She had two customers order the wrong product. Since she fulfills the orders from her inventory she was able to correct the orders
• She delivers purchases in person, which gives her another opportunity to upsell
• Website orders take away her ability to have a face to face interaction with a customer
• Glenda offers new customers $15 off their first $40 order. She cannot offer this discount on My Shop. (My Shop will allow consultants to offer free shipping on orders over $50 or a % discount but not both)
• Mary Kay is focusing more on profit and loss and not people and love.
• As an independent contractor, she should be able to control how her customers order product from the company

Sara Moore disagrees. Consultants in Germany have been using this June and have been seeing a 10% increase in sales and recruiting. Jeanie Navrkal has been with Mary Kay 41 years. She trusts that Mary Kay will always get it right. She wowed her neighbors at book club with her Mary Kay Mascara and she had 6 orders placed online! For some reason, they were scared to place the orders directly through her and even though they all live within 2 blocks, she will use CDS to fill the orders because she can write off the shipping as a business expense.She has learned to not complain about anything in Mary Kay.

Chrys Zinnecker will let her customers know that if they want to participate in her VIP program they must contact her directly. Mary Kay is making this change because too many consultants were leaving their online orders unresolved – which reflects badly on the company.

Martha Klein has been selling for 31 years. She has the mindset that she will now have two businesses. She will continue to service her current customers but hopes that My Shop will attract newer customers who prefer to shop online. Jana Strunk says Glenda should just train her customers to contact her directly. Glenda unfortunately was burned by guest check out. An order was placed by a scammer and Glenda had to eat the cost.

Susie Stojanovski thinks everyone should stop complaining. Everyone will find a way that works for them.

Glenda just wishes she had a choice. Just give her 24 hours to fulfill the order herself. She needs to be able to upsell.

Teresa Souther puts down her Mary Kay koolaid to share that everyone should just trust the process.  Maureen O’Brien Hooker feels that Mary Kay wants to only have an online presence with ZERO sales force. My Shop is not the Mary Kay way. Jenean Hammer-Huber reminds Maureen that Ryan mentioned at Seminar that consultants were the most important part of Mary Kay.

Joni Koontz and Roxanne Dube have been in Mary Kay for 29 and 44 years. They both are dubious about the future of the consultants in Mary Kay.

As Glenda mentions, all consultants are independent contractors. They are not employees or business owners. Mary Kay is making changes that are troubling to the sales force. I wonder what the sales force will look like this time next Christmas?