Complaining About Mary Kay Events
Not everything is rainbows and sunshine with Mary Kay! This is an interesting thread from Facebook that was posted right after seminar in August. Some people were so happy to be back in person, even if the event was smaller. Others (like our old friend Gail Scott… a Pink Truth critic back in the very beginning!) saying that the content at seminar was not good and would not help her business.
It’s been that way forever, Gail! The event is about HYPE and nothing else. But it’s also interesting that she says there are half as many million dollar directors as before. And that hard-working directors are down 1/3… assuming she means their units are smaller and their production is down 1/3 of what it usually is.
And I love Tonya Vice commenting that Mary Kay is BEHIND other companies with their products. Haven’t we been saying that for years?
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If only these ladies could see the financials for Seminar. I am pretty sure Mary Kay does not spend a penny. All the funds come from attendee fees. The speakers no doubt get a hefty check, and some high performers attend for free. With lower attendence, they still pay the speakers (the same or more than prev years), so something else must suffer. Food is likely the first to take a hit.
Seminar is a money maker for those who put it on. Just multiply the attendee fee by the attendee count to see the budget. Call the venue to see what the rental fee is. Call the caterer to find the per person price for the food they serve. What remains goes into speaking fees, entertainment, A/V, decorations, gift bags etc..
Don’t expect Mary Kay to “give back”. Everything in Mary Kay is paid for by the consultants…including Seminar! Unlike real companies where cash flow comes from outside customers, Mary Kay’s cash flow comes entirely from the consutlants! There simply is no other revenue source.
Seminar food has always been dreadful. In the years I attended (2007ish-2017ish), it got progressively worse. They stopped offering breakfast. Dinner was never included. Lunch felt like pushing cattle through a chute. There are many things I don’t miss about MK. Seminar is in the top 10 and Seminar food is in the top 3.
Oh, Seminar food! My director told me there would be a Gourmet meal at our National Area awards night. And something about an AMAZING breakfast. It was…. not. Cold chicken & cold vegetables at the award night. I was pregnant at the time & a gourmet dinner & being pampered sounded so good & was the tipping point for me to go. I was SO disappointed. I wanted to ask the waitress to re-heat my chicken, but I thought it wasn’t very “Go-Give” of me. Back then, I thought Go-Give encompassed kindness & helpfulness & humility. hahaha. Now I know it’s ALL about recruiting. I remember the lunch MK corp served was a sandwich on the stalest bread I’ve ever had.
The following year, The director tried to “romance” the awards night again. But, nope, 1 Seminar w/cold chicken was enough for me.
Also, we paid a fee to attend the National’s award night. So it wasn’t like the cold chicken was free.
Ugh…I went to my very last seminar this year. Our awards night dinner was also chicken with vegetables and mashed potatoes. It also cost $65! My then-director gave us an option on how we could earn the meal at a discount of even for free…5 days before we knew we had to pay that much. I was so burned out I just forked over the money and said forget it, hoping it would be steak or something worth that much.
You would have thought we had been given filet mignon the way some of those women gushed over if. Thankfully, a few of them had the guts to complain about wait staff never refilling our drinks and whisking our plates always if we weren’t watching closely.
“Earning” the dinner would have cost you more than $65.
I agree. Seminar, at best, breaks even for MKC. But some of my research (based on job opening listings at MKC, very enlightening, such as an “internship” for college kids to set up Seminar for no wages…,marketed as a desirable internship in “direct sales”) is correct, breaking even isn’t their goal. MKC does everything it can to wring the last little bit of profit out of their “sales force”. It’s so shady.
You don’t need to be cutting-edge with products when your buyers are buying because of the “opportunity”.
Mary Kay knows the majority of people ordering Mary Kay products are more interested in the business owner aspect of building a team to become financially independent. MLM is about opportunity selling, and the products need to be just good enough to pull off the ruse. The products are merely vehicles to transport money in the opportunity selling scam.
The company spending extra money on product innovation would be silly when product viability on the open market isn’t critical to their business operations.
“the majority of people ordering Mary Kay products are more interested in the business owner aspect” REMINDER that Mary Kay and her husband, George Hallenbeck, worked out the business plan FIRST and the product was an afterthought. The goal was a company with HER on top, all else was second.
This is typical for MLM founders, but I think many would be surprised. They think someone discovers this magical formula, and then uses MLM to distribute it and include participants in on their fortune. In reality, the founder decides to dupe people using the MLM scam system, and then they find a product to help them pull off the con.
I was a downvote, not because I disagree with you, but how despicable is that, to decide to con people with an MLM & then choose a product? I wanted to downvote to show my displeasure at the people who start MLMs. I shouldn’t be surprised, but, I’m just disappointed in certain humans.
And the fact that it’s all A-Ok by the FTC. Ugh.
No worries, and it’s even worse. There’s also a ring of scammers that get together to start these things, especially on the international circuit. When one collapses, the group starts up another. These are often the hybrids which can suck thousands of dollars out of people in a short period of time. They also target the very poor and will take what little savings they have. They.are.disgusting.
I always say that the key to understanding MLM is to know it’s not a company; it’s a system. The hybrid MLM/Ponzi seems different to the product based pyramid schemes like Mary Kay, but they’re not when it comes to utilizing endless-chain recruiting for a commission. They are identical there.
In fact, I was going to make a post that MK products sitting in your closet might as well have been virtual. MK could carry on as usual using virtual products, as long as real money is used to buy them. *I’ll make a longer post about this analogy later.
When I was in Mary Kay, I had started watching beauty videos on YouTube and quickly realized how behind Mary Kay was. They run about a year (or way more) behind new trends and technologies. I would want to go out and buy some of the products, but I felt almost dirty going into Ulta or Sephora, like what if someone from Mary Kay saw me??? Of course now I don’t give a flying F about anyone’s opinion, makeup brings me joy and there is so much out there to play with.
When MK came out with their micellar water all the reps were gushing about double cleansing and what a wonder it was. I was like bish I’ve been double cleansing for YEARS. MK has ya’ll brainwashed to think they are the only place you can get information from. There is a whole world of knowledge out there for you to explore outside the pink bubble.
Gail and Tonya need to quit their stinkin’ thinkin’! They are the CEO’s of their own destiny. They should WORK on IPAs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So Gail has been in 27 years. Here she is… revealing her true feelings… and it’s on Pink Truth’s front page.
What will her team think?
Tracy, you should tag both Gail and Tonya as well!
Honey y’all might as well be buying empty boxes.
Empty boxes would be so much more earth friendly!!!
ohhh the coveted downvote!!! Guess someone is carrying $70,000 of expired inventory….