Who Is Selling Mary Kay Products? Not Krystal Shada’s Unit!
Krystal Shada is a wanna-be national sales director in Mary Kay Cosmetics. And she provides us the opportunity to check out who is selling Mary Kay products. When I point out that Mary Kay has lots of characteristics of pyramid schemes, I am often told that WOMEN ARE SELLING THE PRODUCTS AND PROFITING!!!
Occasionally, I like to check out this claim of retail sales. Because I know from my experience in Mary Kay and from the experience of thousands of others who have participated at Pink Truth that actual retail sales are very small. Almost no one is able to make a living from product sales.
If Krystal Shada is a Mary Kay superstar and is at almost the highest level in the pyramid, you’d think her consultants know how to sell the products. But they don’t. (It’s not just her unit, it’s every unit.) Below you see the Unit Wholesale for May 2013, with a total of $20,424 wholesale ordered by consultants. That is $40,848 retail value of products ordered by the unit members.
And this is the fun part. Below you see the actual retail sales of consultants in the Shada unit. The total is a whopping $845 retail value. You can see that exactly THREE consultants reported selling products, with sales figures very minimal. In contrast, 58 consultants placed orders during the same month.
Yes, ladies, you are reading that right. Of the $40,848 retail products ordered by women in the Shada unit, $845 was reported as sold. That is 2% of what was ordered.
I know the typical Kaybot excuse for this: “Not everyone turns in their weekly accomplishment sheet! Lots of people sell things and never report it to the sales director!” The other excuse is something like: “Some of these consultants are personal use consultants so they never report sales!”
Let’s suppose that’s true. Let’s suppose only one tenth of the total sales are being reported to Krystal Shada. That would mean that the unit actually sold $8,480 of retail products, or about 20% of the total ordered. That means that 80% of the products, or over $32,000 retail ($16,000 wholesale) is left unsold and sitting on the shelves of consultants.
We’ve done this kind of exercise before… looking at sales of Mary Kay Cosmetics in various ways, making assumptions that are very generous to the consultants…. and STILL we end up seeing that very little is being sold and almost no one is making a living from selling the products.
This is just a friendly reminder that real sales to actual third party customers are almost non-existent in multi-level marketing.
Visit the
So that’s the REAL 2%!
Not the 2% who make it to director, but the 2% that actually gets sold.
I love it when the directors say not everyone turns in their weekly accomplishment sheet…I did the same thing only when our numbers as a unit didnt add up because I knew we were only adding to the inventory and not selling. With that said, consultants that were making money especially that much would be turning in their sheets.
As a former director, I said the same thing when the numbers didnt add up. If someone was working the business that much for those figures consultants would be handing in their weekly accomplishment sheets. Thats an awful huge amount to be accounted for that isnt showing.
As a director I remember saying not all the accomplishment sheets were handed in when the numbers didn’t match up. With that huge amount, that would mean there should be alot of people “working” their business and if that was so they would be handing their sheets in. That is an awful lot of money unaccounted for. Seems to me that wouldnt fly in a real business. I think that might land in fraud 😉
Why would Shady Shada even report the retail numbers when they’re so bad!? LOL And so many of the items purchased by consultants are unloaded as prizes, give-aways and bribes, or are heavily discounted just so they finally “move.”
Plus within this structure, you can see the “breakdown” of the Unit reality.
A few women are suckered in to “the dream” and are either very new or working the career path…power players and up…while the vast majority are the $200 orderers, which means they joined, tried, worked it, got discouraged but like the product at wholesale pricing.
The “base” does the 200’s and occasional 400’s…and the “production” comes from new recruits and on target/diq/director wannabee’s. Until of course THEY turn into “base unit” members…and NEW production bee’s get recruited. Churn churn churn, baby. Its one big pink production toilet, as the Upper Sales Directors skim their commissions off those swirling down the sewer. And for those with eyes to see, all the proof you need is in your monthly newsletter!
This shows several things:
1. How many consultants are ordering the minimum to keep active
2. Charlotte Lang must still be going through her warm market, because she showed up twice for selling, which only makes two team members who are actually moving product
3. I honestly cannot believe any consultant who is “working their business” wouldn’t turn in their accomplishment sheets on time, I mean, it’s all for the glory of showing up in the newsletter, right?
It’s disturbing to see that the two women listed as top sellers (Charlotte Lang and Jenean Hammer-Huber) are NOT the ones who ordered the highest amounts of product (Nichole Crabtree and Jillyan Flynn). So much for that whole lying line of Mary Kay garbage that goes:
“Say you invest $3600…it is proven that when you have products on your shelf, you will sell 57% more! The more product you have, the more product you will sell and the more profitable you will be.”
(Taken from Director Kim McClure’s New Consultant Companion, which is basically NSD Rena Tarbet’s New Consultant Companion, as it contains the same manipulative information, frontloading tactics, and flaming LIE of “Your attitude MUST always be positive! One of the reasons you can be terminated as a Consultant is for NEGATIVISM.”)
Way to pass on that Go-Give Mary Kay “legacy” there, Rena. While your cancer stories are inspiring, telling consultants to be positive or else they’re going to be fired from a business that’s supposedly theirs is NOT.
What I find disgusting is how miss leading her website is….she is NOT a NSD. On her FB page as late as July 2nd, she states “supershada future national area”
I saw this a lot in the Pink Studio I belonged too. My ex director Winnie is well not going to be a sales director any more her unit is completely falling apart. I still talk to friends I had in Mary Kay. But I will never ever sell those products again. I think its crazy how blinded a lot of these people are.
Checked out Shada’s website; good grief, she’s got an objection-covering document over there that’s pretty doggone negative.
Objection: I already have a job.
Shada’s negative response: “…wouldn’t it be nice to have an other option on the back burner, just in case your company downsizes? You never know what is around the corner, do you?”
Objection: I don’t think it would be for me.
Shada’s negative response: “Wouldn’t it give you peace of mind to know that you have this option available to you just in case you become a victim of down-sizing like so many others?”
Objection: Not interested because I’m moving soon.
Shada’s negative response: “Wouldn’t it give you peace of mind
to know that you have a career opportunity, even if it’s on the back burner, just in case you get discouraged with job hunting in your new home town?”
Way to smear your fearmongering across the minds of the women you seek to “enrich”, Krystal Shada. I guess negativity is perfectly okay in the Mary Kay world if you’re using it to attempt to FRIGHTEN WOMEN INTO JOINING THE RACKET.
You are looking at it negatively. I know someone whos husband lost his job and was the main income and she had also lost her job. this job as a mk consultant has help her and her husband be able to keep there house and have money to survive. Now there are lot of people who work at there job but hate it and this is you being your own boss to make money for yourself and be able to depend on yourself and not others. we dont force you we just help women and even men that if they want a change but cant find the one they want try mk we dont force it or say bad about other jobs.
ok some doenst think its for them but doesnt mean we ask now and not give it you when down the roadyou realize its want to try out
i new a women she was moving but she could transfer her job. so she had to move with no job and try find a job before she is in debt and have no place to live. This job can move with the person and they can still be fainacialy supported.
These things are to show women that this job is always ther to help them in any situation. Now you can tell me what job would do that. I would never give this job up and i will show women that there is an oppurtunity with company and if they dont want to thats there decision but from being homeless while pregnant and have no where to turn i could have used this job to just so i could have a meal for my unborn child.
I’ve been reading these posts for about 2 years, and finally Krystal Shada is mentioned. I was until last year part of her down line. Jenean has been a consultant for over 10 years. Bernadette was a director with a totally different upline. Everyone else is newer than 2 years. Front-loading, high pressure sales & recruitment, along with some husband bashing was part of the drill. I was taught that I was always to be “dressed for success” we had to wear a skirt and heels even when traveling out of state for a MK function. Every thing that you members have said was done in this NSD hopeful team which she then she teaches it to her downline.
MK corp. is the only money making entity. They brag about sales…….they mean the sales THEY make to their consultants and directors……NOT to actual customers!!!
Wish I had a penny for every shelf in every basement and closet and garage in America that is FULL of old, dusty, UNSOLD MK product!!!
I could retire today……….instead of working well into my 60’s to pay off the debt incurred in my 30’s thanks to MK and the lies I believed!!!
I actualy was so naive………I ran around breaking my neck trying to teach my consultants how to sell and market their products! Feel sooo foolish for thinking I could get ahead by selling……….. Now, someone who recruited at the same time as me is becoming a NSD……NOT by selling, that’s for sure………….
The fact here is that this unit is a “Buying Club” !! The downline exist for personal use only, and friends. No actual third-party sales are done, because the units members are buying for personal, family, and friends and are charging wholesale in order to inflate numbers.
This is the kind of info I asked to see when I was blindsided at a meeting that I’d been asked to attend as a “face model”. I was too naive to realize I was actually being recruited. I asked for numbers and it got very awkward. I got a dvd on women’s empowerment. I could never get the down low on what exactly was empowering about not being told the facts before signing a contract, so I never signed. I won’t buy the products any longer after learning the facts. It’s a disservice to my friend who’s wasted too many years trying to make this business work for her.