Anyone Can Succeed in MK
A pro-Mary Kay woman attempted to post the following comment:
What does it matter how many people drive a pink Cadillac or how few people make alot of money? Most people in most businesses fail because of numerous reasons… Mainly they don’t work hard enough. As long as the guidelines are understood, which they are, then its up to the individual to make it happen, regardless of who makes what above them. Selling isn’t for just anyone and most people realize they don’t have what it takes and a few succeed. But if a few can succeed, doesn’t that mean anyone can?
Her conclusion is that “…if a few can succeed” then “anyone can.” This comment is typical of the delusional nature of Mary Kay. I suppose if “someone” broke the world record running 100 meters, then “anyone” can break a world record,” right? If “a few” people got a perfect score on the SAT, then “anyone” can, right?
Wrong. Not “anyone” can be in a pink Cadillac, and it’s simple math which makes this true. The MLM business model requires continual recruiting, and eventually those at the bottom of the pyramid have no one left to recruit.
The point I am making here when demonstrating how little money Cadillac drivers make, and how few of them there are, and how they’re at the TOP of Mary Kay yet still not making a lot… is to prove how impossible this business is for almost everyone.
14,000 Mary Kay sales directors in the United States are working their asses off every day, and most of them are barely making minimum wage. If you can slog through the process of DIQ (i.e. cheat to finish, as everyone does) and eventually make it to sales director, your chances are still slim of making even middle management wages.
No, “anyone” can’t be successful in Mary Kay. In fact, almost no one will even turn a profit. That is the truth behind MLM.
Visit the
It took me only a few minutes working through a thought experiment to convince myself there no “right way” to do MLM. The very essence of the MLM business model is exploitation of the many to benefit the few.
Sure, almost no one gets a perfect SAT score or sets track records, but at least the playing field is level. MLM is not a level playing field; it’s a rigged game. It’s rigged because unlimited recruiting inevitably results in way more sales people than the market can support, which sets the average annual sales in the low 4-figures per person. The average person in MLM is set up to fail.
Sure, some will do OK; that’s part of the con. The other part of the con is how many pretend to do OK to rope people in. Tracy has demonstrated with hard numbers how little most of the so-called elite in Mary Kay really (air quotes) earn.
It’s a rigged game people. Just say “no”.
“No, “anyone” can’t be successful in Mary Kay.”
Put another way, 99% MUST LOSE MONEY in Mary Kay to provide the meager profits for the 1%.
In nearly all stable, traditional busineses, 100% of those in the company make positive money. This is possible because in traditional businesses the cash flow comes from outside customers.
In Mary Kay, a stable company, the revenue that drives everything comes out of the pockets of the sales force. Very little comes from sales to outside customers.
No level of work effort in Mary Kay can ever change the rate of loss. And no amount of effort can change the reality that it is impossible for any Mary Kay downline to be profitable as a whole.
Being “on top” of a money losing down-line is nothing to be proud of. And 100% of Mary Kay down-lines are money losers, by design.
Stop looking up to these NSD and SDs who are responsible for such financial carnage below them. They take pride in something they should be ashamed of.
“Very little comes from sales to outside customers.”
I agree, Data Junkie, that very little of consultants’ profits come from outside customers, especially as you start climbing the ladder. Once you get to NSD, virtually none of their income is from sales.
NONE of Mary Kay corporate’s profits come from customer sales–100% comes from “wholesale” orders from consultants, event registrations, and sales of promotional products (again, to consultants).
This is simply untrue of any traditional retail establishment. Where, outside an MLM, do you have to pay for the privilege of employment?
What does it matter how many people drive a pink Cadillac or how few people make alot of money?… But if a few can succeed, doesn’t that mean anyone can?
Well I’ve never been in MK, but I think I know this all pretty well now so I’m going to call this what it is: A nonsensical argument. Which leads to so many people telling themselves “well surely I can do it” as they slog through DIQ putting more and more of their own money in to qualify until they no longer can. And then your broke self is made to think. “well I didn’t make it, I must be a lazy looser — oh wait, no I’m not, I’ll just try it again– anyone can succeed!!” how many people have we seen who have been in DIQ over and over again? When do you realize that Mary Kay has drained all your finances?
This: “Most people in most businesses fail because of numerous reasons… Mainly they don’t work hard enough” is baloney and purely part of the mental poison MLMs use to shift the blame for failure onto their victims instead of taking it on themselves.
I know a woman (hair stylist) and her then husband (CPA) who went in with his brother on a local pizza place when it was up for sale because the brothers had always wanted to do it. I can confirm that they worked their behinds off on top of their full time jobs and it still tanked. Why? They worked hard, after all. Plus she owns the salon, her ex could do the books, and the brother had worked in restaurants before.
However, none of them had any management experience, especially in restaurant management. They didn’t hire the right kind of people, so things like employees not turning up for shifts and theft were rampant. Every corner around here has a pizza bar on it, plus we also have the chain places like Domino’s and Pizza Hut, so the market is saturated and customers have their loyalties. They bought the place from a guy who’d owned the place forever and was retiring and they lost the customers who’d been more loyal to him than to the food. They didn’t offer delivery, and the place is not in a great location. There’s no offstreet parking. Finally, it’s in a dry town, which means they could serve alcohol to be consumed on-premises but you couldn’t pick up a pizza and six pack to take home.
Thing is, even though they lost money and failed, they still had a brick-and-mortar asset they were able to sell to recoup some of it. She still has her salon, her ex still has his accounting job, and the brother is employed though I don’t know what he does.
In an MLM you only make money if those below you order enough product to get you a commission. At some point you run out of people to recruit and your former recruits either burn out or wise up, and there’s no one left to make money for you. The system is designed to fail and all their catchphrases and sloganeering are just a coat of fresh paint on a rotten shack.
Well, in fairness, shilling for an MLM is not a business. 🙂
True dat. It’s just the simplistic “your business failed because you didn’t work hard enough” annoys me more than the rest of the MLM rhetoric. Real businesses fail for all kinds of reasons, but MLMs are designed to fail from the get go.
Even if you make it to the very top it’s impossible to make money in older MLMs even there. Nobody wants to buy your outdated stuff, nobody wants to join as downline and the company is trying to squeeze as much out of the huns as they can. They have to buy the stupid pink Cadillac, go to events, use their own money to hit the impossible targets…..
“Selling isn’t for just anyone and most people realize they don’t have what it takes and a few succeed. But if a few can succeed, doesn’t that mean anyone can?”
I quoted her last two sentences. She just says that sales isn’t for just anyone and most people don’t have what it takes, then in the next sentence says anyone can succeed. So which is it? My guess is when they are trying to recruit people, then it is ‘anybody can succeed’. When a consultant is discouraged and realizes it is a scam, then it is put back on her because ‘she didn’t have what it takes’.
If she contradicts herself like this, who can believe anything she says.
“ when they are trying to recruit people, then it is ‘anybody can succeed’. When a consultant is discouraged and realizes it is a scam, then it is put back on her”
EXACTLY!
Great point.
ONE person drives the Pink Cadillac earned on the backs of many beneath her.
What do the underlings get? Nothing! What do they get for being IN a Pink Cadillac Unit? Nothing!
So wrong. And such a disgrace.
You are so right! The biggest con is asking the “team” to step up for the unit car. Stttrettch. Order just a little more to get the unit there. And then, poof! The Director is driving the car, not you!
Yes! That reminds me, My director used to say “You girls DESERVE to be in a Cadillac unit” & “The Cadillac is for the unit” & talked about how prestigious it is, and I was sitting there thinking “Ummm, I don’t see how the type of car my director drives is of value to me?” (For context: she didn’t even have a MK car so a Cadillac was a big stretch.)
What I’d like to know is what the copay is now days. I purchased a fully loaded CTX 5, 3 years old for $400 a month. I suppose the copay is the same no matter how old your caddy Is? I suppose they are putting in an order over $400 a month to keep car? Newsflash to pink kool aid drinkers, I bet you can own your own caddy for less than you are putting in orders for….so its not milk a magnesia pink….thats ok! BTW I am not impressed by my Caddy at all. My Saturn’s were built better and of better quality. How does a radiator get a hole in it and the fan go out at only 3 years, 35K? Never a problem with my Saturn. We won’t discuss the $$$ for regular maintained or repairs. All that glitters is not gold.
But the MK Caddy drivers (and those who want to be Caddy drivers) all believe that they have to spend lots of their own money (and their husbands’) to get the Caddy. These are not people who will work hard for a legit paycheck to be able to make a decent downpayment for a Caddy, and likewise probably couldn’t afford the $400 a month because again, MK sucks them dry. The whole “pay to play” thing seems ridiculous to we who are not in an MLM, but those who are in believe it completely.
“ if a few can succeed” then “anyone can.”
No, not “anyone can”, because to succeed requires either buying customers or recruiting consultants, and the planet will run out of population to where the last several people can neither recruit nor sell because there’s nobody left.
I know critics just brush this off or laugh at it, but it’s true. The business model requires an infinite number of people for “anyone” to be successful at it. What happens in real life (AKA before we get to the last of the human population) is that various smaller areas pretty much reach this level of “running out of people” currently. Too many reps are trying to sell to the same people, and too many recruiters are going after the same people as well. It can happen physically and on social media as well. Lots of MK reps are experiencing this already and have been for a while now.
Notice how ”anyone can be successful” but ”it’s not for everone” at the same time (?). The truth is it is built on recruitment and the most important lesson you can learn from things like this in my opinion is that you don’t really need validation from others. Nobody can force you to do anything but they can manipulate you and if you no longer search for validation from others it becomes a lot harder to do that.