Fifteen Former Mary Kay Friends
Written by Raisinberry
I guess I did a bad thing. I dug up an email from late in 2007 and compared it to one from now. The 2007 email contained the list of all the Directors in my former National area from less than two years ago, and the new one contained the list from now. As you would expect, I looked for names I knew. What a surprise. Ten were new. But something very important was on the page. Fifteen were gone. FIFTEEN WERE GONE.
Gone was the “solid” veteran sales director, who had done a tour with Mary Kay twice before-as a Director! Both Times! Gone was the perennial Queens Court of Sales winner. Gone was the bubbly former sales rep for the competition. Gone was the loyal, help-everyone-across-the-country-get-orders- and agreements-through at month end, Director.
Gone was the one month wonder, gone was the struggling director who worked full time at a hospital. Gone was the mother of 4 who was told she could do Directorship and be home with 4 kids. Gone was the decades old consistent achiever who taught at retreats. Gone was the career professional that made choosing MK look like an executive’s decision. Gone were two newbie Directors who didn’t stand a chance. Gone was the student who believed with wide eyed innocence, that Directorship was better than a degree.
All gone.
How does an NSD “lose” 15 women and keep marching on? What kind of rationalization would you have to employ to tell yourself that these women didn’t follow the plan, didn’t work the biz, and didn’t have the proper deserve level?
An NSD doesn’t get too close to the underlings. Mainly for this reason. She knows she will face a similar attrition at the Director level that Directors face at the consultant level. She will tell herself that they just didn’t work it hard enough, with the same kind of dispassionate justification she has for the thousands of area consultants who ordered their star and then ordered for car, and then ordered for courts and then ordered for ribbons and charms and rings and luncheons.
These former Directors have the same hoops to jump through and more. To keep their Units they have to top off the shortfall in production, which they are happy to do on the advice of their NSD, waiting for that superstar to show up. They pay, and pay and pay again in an every other month game to hold on, while their NSD encourages them to never give up. So noble. So righteous. Without ever saying more than you can do it, and I believe in you, and what’s on your books and who do you know…the NSD watches these former “Achievers” hit the wall and crash and burn.
Oh well. No matter. Mary Kay wasn’t for them. Fifteen former friends. Fifteen believers and achievers who got into the 2% club, and were flushed out after charging their unit production for many, many months in an effort to “bring about what they think about”. These were Seminar teachers, Grand Prix and Caddy drivers, one month wonders, Queens Court repeaters, all flushed and shunned and never to be spoken of again.
Whatever they contributed to Mary Kay Corp., their national areas, their training talents and inspirational I- stories are null and void. They are left to dig out of the holes they are in, alone, because they “bee-lieved”. And Miss NSD will never mention them again. By pretending they never were, she can also pretend that Mary Kay “works” when you do…without ever facing the reality of the 2%er’s biggest flaw…which is, they believed her.
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Funny, you never hear of NSD’s falling off the radar…
Myra – Yes, they do. If they don’t make at least $10,000 a month in commissions, Mary Kay Corporation no longer prints their name and income in Applause.
It was getting embarrassing to have NSDs with lower paychecks than a Walmart assistant manager.
Well, that would be bad. I did MK from 1993 to about 2005, but mostly personal use, only servicing family-customers. I made minimum orders when they were about to cut me off. With 3 small kids those last few years and one was special needs, I had to quit work and MK. I found this site and say in retrospect it was a pyramid, only life kept me from majorly investing a lot of money in products, thank God.
I’m so glad you got out Myra.
Most of us incurred plenty of debt before we realized what was happening.
Now that NSDs have to stay on the gerbil wheel to keep their position instead of sitting back on their throne and puffling pink smoke out of the bong, we may yet see some fall off the radar.
Lord knows we’ve been seeing NSDs leave “The greatest opportunity for women on the planet” for “greener” pastures (read: other MLMs) such as Allison Lamarr and Amy Dunlap.
Fresh, I did do an initial star order way back when. Luckily, I never could justify making another purchase so large. Some may have been 600 w/s maybe once a year, but it was heavy on skin care and customer favorites, plus my favorites, so alot of it went. When I finally hung it up, I did still have some from way back, the old square pink shapes. I donated some, ebayed some and kept what I wanted. I feel for you guys and had considered rejoining, but didn’t.
MKC used to have a BOOK of all the NSD’s and their ‘I-stories’.
I think it was called “VIEW FROM THE TOP”.
I wonder how many NSDs are gone now?
I know some retired.
Surely some were demoted/terminated due to the new NSD qualifications?
I have that book and have read it from cover to cover. Circa 1999, it’s called “Room at the Top.” Some of the I-Stories reveal basic truths about the MK world, such as:
ORDERING: “I heard you could win prizes when you ordered product, so I ordered product and stacked it around the bedroom until there was only a path to the bed.” (NSD Asenath Brock)
BEING REWARDED FOR ORDERING, NOT SELLING: “About 10 months later, I received a terminaton letter that said I hadn’t ordered in five months. I got mad enough to place a Star Consultant order and 10 weeks later, I was a Sales Director-in-Qualification!” (NSD Carol Anton)
STALKING: “For three months [the consultant] invited me to every Mary Kay event in the area. Finally she wore me down and I went to a meeting.” (NSD Janis Moon)
STALKING + HUSBAND DISRESPECT: “A very dear friend had invited me to a class, and I used every excuse in the book not to go. Since my friend refused to accept any of my excuses, I found myself at the class purchasing everything in sight. When I returned home, I told my husband, Robbie, that I had won the door prize.” (NSD Ann Robinette)
RELIGIOUS MANIPULATION: “I have often described this Company as one of God’s finishing schools.” (NSD Martha Langford)
These practices have always been present on some level within MK culture. Order, recruit, and nag people into doing both while disrespecting husbands and using religion as a manipulator, and paint the whole thing as some sort of benevolent entity that supposedly “enriches women’s lives.”