We regularly talk about the false earnings claims made by Mary Kay sales directors. It’s an important issue because the MONEY is what gets so many women to sign up as beauty consultants. They’re led to believe they can make a decent income, so they spend their money on a starter kit and an inventory stash. Little do they know, the claims are completely false.

I mentioned Mary Kay sales director Carrie Zuberer in this post last year. She parroted a bunch of “facts” about Mary Kay:

• The average income of a Mary Kay Director is $5,000-$25,000 a MONTH. (The truth is that the vast majority of sales directors make about $1,000 per month)
• The average National Sales Director earns $300,000 to over a Million a year. (Actually, half of the NSDs make less than $120,000 per year.)

In her Instagram stories, Carrie promoted the following untruths about “full time” Mary Kay work as a sales director:

No, sales directors don’t work “max 30 hours a week.” You must eat and breathe MK if you want to stay on the hamster wheel. 50 hours per week is more realistic.

You’re not going to earn a “more than livable income for your family.” More than half of the sales directors in the U.S. make less than $16,800 per year. About a third of sales directors make between $17k and $40k per year. The rest make more than $40k per year. (And these figures are gross commissions, before factoring in any business expenses.) As a sales director, odds are that you’ll make less than $17,000 per year. Where is the livable income for more than half of all sales directors???

But what about part time?

They call it 2 to 10 hours a week. But that’s stretching it. They’re saying if you have one skin care class a week, you’ll work 2 hours. Not so. You’ll spend plenty of hours trying to find people to have classes, coach them leading up to the class, get to the class, do the class, follow up after the class. And of course, there is all the time you spend finding and pursuing women who never hold a class at all.

When you’re “part time,” there is never a “solid bonus.” You might get $20-$40 in commission from your team. Maybe more in an unusual month. But there is very little to be made from recruiting if you’re not a sales director.

The biggest lie is the average profit of $1,000 per month for part time work. Most people lose money in MLM, for starters. But even for those who do make money, $1,000 per month profit is rare. You’d have to be selling $600 to $700 per week to profit $1,000 per month, and this is unusual. You’d have to sell over $30,000 per year to profit this much. Ask yourself how many people in your unit actually sell this much? Almost no one.

Why do Mary Kay directors and recruiters insist on promoting these lies? If the “opportunity” was so wonderful, they wouldn’t have to lie. They could just tell the truth and still be successful recruiters.