Some Questions for NSDs
Written by Robin
After spending a few years in Mary Kay, I quit. After $41,000 invested in this “business” and seeing what I saw, I just couldn’t do it anymore. I was tired of all the deception. These women don’t live in reality. They think they are running a business, but they know the consultants aren’t making any money. How can that be a business? I’ve come up with a list of questions I wish a Mary Kay NSD could answer for me.
- I’ve been told the most common reason people quit Mary Kay is that they don’t have enough inventory and they get frustrated that they are unable to service their customers. Has anyone done a survey to ASK them? I imagine a MUCH more common reason for quitting than that would be that most people don’t make a profit! In your ACTUAL experience, what is the most common reason you’ve personally seen for quitting? Do you know what percentage of the Mary Kay consultants in your national area go into debt versus those who make a profit? Knowing that the percentage of people who “quit” a Mary Kay business is so high, doesn’t it ever bother you when you go to do different recruiting events around the United States… has it ever crossed your mind that MOST of the people who end up signing up due to your influence will most likely fail in (or quit) their business?
- Do you really believe that Mary Kay Cosmetics is a “dual-marketing” plan? I’ve heard it explained that because we buy our products for a dollar and sell them to our customers for two, that we have two exchanges taking place, in essence, a “dual-marketing” plan. HOWEVER, that explanation LEAVES out how our recruiting works! Have you ever taken the time to LEARN about what a “multi-level marketing” plan is or how a Mary Kay business may fit the criteria for a multi-level marketing plan?
- How often do consultants drop off as “inactive” or quit which forces you have to look for new recruits to place orders in order to meet production? It seems to be quite a challenge for many directors to keep up that minimum production quota! (By the way, why can’t we call it a “quota?”) There must be a tremendous turnover
- Do you REALLY think it’s ethical “business practice” to ask someone to place an order NOT because they need products to sell, but because YOU needed to meet production!?
- Is Mary Kay really America’s best-selling brand of cosmetics?
- Is the Mary Kay marketing plan really taught at Harvard Business School?
- Since 1963 (or even as far back as you remember) has the size of the product line grown? I imagine back in 1963 that it did not cost $4,200 to buy a “full store” of inventory. My suspicion is that Mary Kay Cosmetics (corporate) got greedy and started adding more and more products to the line to make it more profitable for them… and in theory, to offer something to “everyone.” Do you see how this could be a potential problem?
- Can you show me a working business model where a person can actually make a profit just selling the products (not by recruiting)?
- What will you do to correct these problems that I have pointed out to you?
- What will you do to ensure that others are not deceived at Mary Kay meetings?
- What will you DO to make sure that your future team members and unit members have more HELP with making sure their businesses are profitable?
- What efforts will you make to keep new Independent Beauty Consultants from going into debt?
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I think any NSD would probably just give the party line to each question. They’ve lied so many times they don’t even know the truth. If you give them a question that stumps them, they just ignore you and move on to someone who is more “positive”.
What Kristin says. A pat answer popped into my head for every question. They’ve been part of the script forever.
“They think they are running a business, but they know the consultants aren’t making any money. How can that be a business?”—
The confusion lies with what people are told is the business vs. the actual business. It’s simple. NSDs are in the business of recruiting consultants to place orders, aka spend money. This is their goal and how they make commission. And this is also how MK makes money – from consultant ORDERS. Robin shopped and bought 41k from MK, and they are thrilled.
With that in mind, questions 1-12 are easily dismissed or answered, especially 12. Of course they don’t care about credit card debt; this is the NSD’s commission check.
The questions are trying to solve problems for a fairytale that was purposely created to get you to buy/order from the company. Ugh, complete with titles, crowns, gowns, and sashes. Cringe.
*Robin, they’re great questions, and they absolutely help expose the lies. My post addresses working off the false premise driving those questions. A false premise willfully planted, manipulated, and perpetuated, to make people believe the illusion that being a MK consultant is owning a product resale business. In fact, it’s an endless-chain recruiting scheme using cosmetic products to transfer money into the con game.
I have just one question for NSDs:
Where exactly are the funds for your commission checks sourced?
Well said Char. To add…the corporate business model in every MLM is finely tuned to get the reps to *buy* and *recruit*. There is no real incentive to actually *sell* the product outside the down-line. Besides, the high distribution cost in MLM makes retail selling virtually impossible at those prices.
The company does not view their own MLM reps as business owners or as distributors or franchisees. It views them as customers. The corporation and the kingpins (NSDs in Mary Kay parlance) make their money whether or not any product is ever sold to an outside customer. Retail selling is simply not part of the MLM business plan. They don’t track retail sales because they do not know or care if anything is ever retailed or even consumed by an end-customer. To them, a sale to a rep *is* a retail sale.
If only the reps could see how their own MLM sees them.
I went into debt and ended up overdrafts my accounts and filing a bankruptcy. It took me years to recover from Mary Kay. I had to get my credit back on track, as well as the rest of my life. What a disaster it was.
Thank you for posting the investment amount. Take a look at that number.
41 Thousand dollars. NSD gets to the level they are by having people invest much much more, they have no reason to answer any questions, while this is going on.
Except now that volume is getting all the bit tougher to pull so NSDs quit. Would like to see the data. 1990 = no NSD quit. 2022 = getting to be the norm.
Cosmetics dumping is all it is….
59,000+ listing results for mary kay on Ebay today for top level search
These questions remind me of when Pink Truth was on 20/20 (that’s the show, right?). The Kaybots they interviewed (still in Mary Kay) had no answers to legitimate questions. Just a shrug and a smile. They are counting on people NOT asking questions. Questions are kryptonite. Want to become invisible in a Mary Kay meeting? Start asking thought-provoking questions.
OH yes, I remember that so well!
How much did you make last year???
*shrugs and giggles* A lot!
“It varies,” I think was another one. And 20/20 let them all get away with non-answers. They really softballed it.
A newish magazine called ‘Millie’ had an article about MLMs. I expected it to be the usual line of, ‘well, there are some people who make money and others who don’t work it’ BUT to my surprise, one woman quoted (by name) told of her negative experience with Mary Kay (also mentioned by name!) and why she quit. I thought ‘yay’. (One other woman quoted spoke of her negative experience with a ‘beauty product’ MLM but declined to give the name of the company.)
Excellent and on point!!!!