Mary Kay: Roses Among the Weeds
Peggy is a pastor’s wife and a die-hard Mary Kay lady. She is apparently unaware of the 99% of people who lose money in MLM. There is so much good in MK!!!!
I wish people would learn how to deal with negative things and people that wouldn’t put everyone in same category. No one escapes having such in their life. From our own families, companies, schools, government, workplace, there has always been and always will be those who taint it with their behavior or language.
Do we disown family (though some do), quit our jobs because the manager or boss has questionable work ethics? I dare say no.
MK, like any big company has its weeds. I’ve met some, they do all they can to advance themselves, and sadly at the cost of others.
Mary Kay herself would be heartbroken. It’s not how she meant it to be but they’re here.
I continue doing this in complete honesty to all I speak with, never inflating the reality of what it takes to build it and grow a team. The mature and responsible way for us to handle such situations is not to blame the company itself. MK has guidelines and reality is not all follow the rules.
I have nothing but great experiences in MK. It’s not a lie, this company offers an opportunity to be so successful many others don’t. All things done ethically and truthfully in life bring great results. ALWAYS. Can’t throw out the baby with the bath water. Too many roses among the few weeds.
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Oh, I do love a good metaphor. Thanks for teeing this one up for me, Tracy. The rest of you who don’t want to watch me milk this for all its worth, look away now.
A dandelion’s only purpose is to propagate itself, and it does a dang good job of it! Personally, I find beauty in all those seeds blowing in the spring wind. We roses, though… Don’t mess with us! We look pretty, but lean too close and we’ll bloody you with hidden thorns. Give me a dandelion any day who knows what her purpose is and doesn’t try to hide it, or even a rose who knows where her thorns are and how to use them, over a pretentious “romantic” beauty who stabs you the minute your back is turned.
I wish people would learn how to deal with negative things and people that wouldn’t put everyone in same category.
I deal with negative things and people by removing them from my life, when I can.
No one escapes having such in their life. From our own families, companies, schools, government, workplace, there has always been and always will be those who taint it with their behavior or language.
Which is why we, general we, need to stand up and say no more. We shouldn’t have to put up with negativity or being told some people don’t deserve to live.
Do we disown family (though some do), quit our jobs because the manager or boss has questionable work ethics? I dare say no.
Yes, yes and yes. Life is too short to be worried if my boss is going to stiff me like they do to their suppliers or other staff members. Reddit is full of sub-reddits where people are encouraged to cut down the amount of time spent with family members who are emotional leeches.
If (general) you want to lay down with dogs, then be prepared to stand up with fleas.
MK, like any big company has its weeds. I’ve met some, they do all they can to advance themselves, and sadly at the cost of others.
At last, a glimmer of truth. MK is riddled with self-seekers.
Mary Kay herself would be heartbroken. It’s not how she meant it to be but they’re here.
Sure, Jan. MK didn’t care about who was run over in the way to profits. She’s no better than Gates, Bezos, Jobs, Musk etc.
I continue doing this in complete honesty to all I speak with, never inflating the reality of what it takes to build it and grow a team.
Yet, I doubt that. Telling the complete and unvarnished truth wouldn’t get you very far.
The mature and responsible way for us to handle such situations is not to blame the company itself. MK has guidelines and reality is not all follow the rules.
And yet , the company is set up so that as many people as possible fail. Even when you follow the guidelines, over 95% of people who join MK fail. Or rather don’t succeed in any meaningful manner.
I have nothing but great experiences in MK.
I don’t know you personally so I can’t judge your validity here. Just send all your tax documents to Tracy and she can run the numbers.
It’s not a lie, this company offers an opportunity to be so successful many others don’t.
Not a lie???? MK’s own income disclosure disagrees with you here.
All things done ethically and truthfully in life bring great results. ALWAYS.
Since MK fails on both ethics and honesty, I’m guessing no great results.
Can’t throw out the baby with the bath water. Too many roses among the few weeds.
They might look like roses but in reality they are just different sorts of weeds.
“All things done ethically and truthfully in life bring great results. ALWAYS.”
That statement is unethical and untruthful with respect to MLMs like Mary Kay. She is either lying or naive. It is a mathematical certainty that 99% must lose money in Mary Kay, regardless of effort. Losses for most particjpants are the nature of all pay-to-play endless-chain recruiting schemes.
My first experience with roses was as a little girl in the backyard. I loved to pick flowers for Mommy and she was a good sport about the dandelions, clover, wood sorrel, bouncing Bet, and other flowering weeds I found for her. How happy she’d be if I gave her one of those beautiful big flowers that smelled so good!
All it got me was a handful of puncture wounds and a lecture about Leaving the Garden Flowers Alone. As I got older I helped in the garden and now I own the house and some of those rose bushes are still blooming. However, I don’t mess with them without heavy leather gloves and a sharp pair of snippers, and I still think dandelions and dayflowers and knotweed are beautiful flowers.
Weeds thrive wherever they are. They persist because they’ve found a life strategy that works. Dry soil, too much rain, insects, disease – nothing hurts them. Garden roses, on the other hand, are fragile things, always needing protection from aphids and Japanese beetles and black spot and mildew and won’t do well without the right sort of nutrients and the right amount of water. They need pruning and deadheading.
I’m going to hyperextend the garden metaphor even more than Frosty Rose did because I can 😉 The roses are the NSDs, the showpieces of the garden, protected by their armor of thorns. The weeds, who in this garden are the consultants, spring up in great numbers only to be torn up and thrown away. A few get missed and manage to thrive and some are as stubborn as bindweed, where no matter how many times you rip it out it manages to bounce back from the hidden roots, but most (99% maybe?) get purged from the garden. Meanwhile, the other flowers, the daisies, the iris, the snapdragons, the campanula (you know, DISC) are carefully selected to complement the roses and keep weeds from springing up and choking them.
It seems that the roses and their carefuly chosen companions, the NSDs and the Queen’s Court and the Whatever-Dollar-Units can do no wrong, protected from grasping hands by corporate’s thorns unless they pull a Monique Anthony and get dug up roots and all with the soil smoothed over to make it look like they were never there, soon replaced by another in all her haughty, thorny glory.
And I know there are thornless roses. I tried planting Zepherine Drouin two years in a row and both times they got nibbled down to the ground by rabbits. But now I’m talking gardening and not MK so I’ll quit while I’m ahead.
Sure it offers an opportunity to be successful. For 1% of participants, at the expense of thousands of other women losing money. So Godly and rose-like. 🙄
Woo hoo got a downvote! Hi OP! How you doin’!
Oh but it’s not just ANY downvote…it’s a fabled “Ridiculous Downvote” ™
“It’s not how she meant it to be” … yes it is. She designed the status indicators to encourage striving, taught reps to use the fake “I’m in a contest” sales gimmick, and many other bad business practices.
I continue doing this in complete honesty to all I speak with, never inflating the reality of what it takes to build it and grow a team .
Ah, so you’ve built a “team,” have you? And how many of your team members over the years have joined up, lost money, and quit? How many in your current team are getting ready to quit? A third? (That’s the norm, after all.) Are you willing to face the “negative” reality that the majority of those you’ve recruited over the years are worse off for having followed your exhortations and advice?
The problem is the MLM system, and you’re part of the problem if you don’t see it for what it is. That’s not negativity; it’s reality.