Written by JTA

After I left my role as “NSD to be,” I observed some very interesting and disturbing things with my Mary Kay offspring. They were doing fake orders (i.e. ordering products they don’t need and won’t sell) to make production. I’m sure it happened before then, and I either did not notice or chose not to face what was really going on.

I share this in the hopes that if you are a director doing any of these things you will see the futility and STOP.

I had offspring directors place anywhere from $1000-$3500 wholesale orders at the last moment of the last day of the month to get to $4,500. These are orders NOT based on sales, rather their amount is based purely on what number would get them to $4,500 so they would not lose their units.

Here is how I can tell they are “fake” orders:

• The orders are done every other month. MK requires that units do $4,500 a month wholesale. If not, the director will lose the unit. Missing one month is okay, but you MUST do it the next month. At times exceptions are made, but typically struggling directors do what they have to do to make production every other month.
• The orders are placed within an hour or so of the cutoff time. (Presumably to be sure no other consultants were ordering thereby allowing them to order less themselves.)
• The amount of the order put their production at exactly $4,500 or maybe a few dollars over. A real sales-based order would be a random number based on what was actually sold and not be exactly, coincidentally, every other month the exact amount to reach $4,500. Also it would be placed as needed vs. the last day of the 2nd month at the last minute.

In a few of the cases the order names and ship to addresses didn’t match:

• One Director placed a HUGE personal order ($3500 wholesale) but it was shipped to a unit member either in the attempts to hide it from her husband or that unit member actually paid for it for her.
• Another placed a $1800 in the name of a new consultant, did it at the last minute with a ‘declined’ credit card. This is a trick that Directors do to buy more time-you then have til the 2nd of the new month to resolve the order. Then she did a personal order for the remaining $900 wholesale that she needed to get to $4,500. The on hold order sat til the last moment on the last day when it could possibly be resolved. I can only imagine that she was desperately working with that new person to get the financing in place for that $1800 order. In any case, interestingly the order was shipped to the director. Did she pay for it? My guess is YES.

Because these ladies were like family to me, I worried for them when I saw these things happening. It is disturbing to me. I know they struggle with credit issues, family issues, and also personally with being deceitful in their businesses doing this type of thing. THIS IS NOT NORMAL for a healthy business! It is insanity, and it is wrong.

Can you imagine a regular business doing things like this to make numbers? An owner of say a clothing store ordering loads of clothes they don’t need that are soon to go out of style every other month to make a sales goal?

Finally, to really illustrate the futility of this, take a look at the 6 month income for my offspring.

Remember this is for 6 MONTHS TOTAL from April-September and includes personal team commission as well as unit commission. It does not include the car or car money if they got that, and it does not include expenses. It also does not include sales or the cost of their orders. It is strictly commission and bonuses if any.

1. $2,018 minus expenses
2. $2,215 minus expenses
3. $4,608 minus expenses
4. $14,744 plus car, minus expenses
5. $2,426 minus expenses
6. $11,630 plus partial money for car/or minus coop payments, minus expenses

If you extrapolate this out, the top earning director is making $29k annually before expenses. The lowest is at $4k annually before expenses. Keep in mind those with the lower earnings are doing huge personal orders every other month to maintain the ‘status and prestige’ of directorship. (So essentially, they’re spending any commissions they may have earned.)

How can anyone in good conscience pursue the position of National Sales Director when this is happening to their directors? This was not just unique to my offspring. You could look at NSD newsletters and see the production of the directors to know that it is common. The problem is that no one will analyze it because it is NEGATIVE.

The truth is the truth, it is neither positive nor negative. It is simply true.