Ignorance, Gossip, and Slander
There are some half-truths and a lot of mistruths and misinformation all rolled into one big convuluted mess on this site. Yes, sales is hard. Contacting your network of people is hard. Investing money you don’t have into a business is hard. Putting time and money into a dream for a better life for years is hard.
Conversely, working a low-paying, dead end job is hard, being broke is hard, being held back in a job due to race, sex, color or age or being let go or not getting a job due to those factors is hard too. Living a life of lack is hard. Staying in bad or dead end marriages or relationships is hard. Living with bad health due to overwhelming, long term stress is hard too.
That’s why women buy into a dream of a better life only to face ignorance, gossip, slander and non support from other women.
God forbid that you purchase products or services from a friend and help them when you can support a wealthy corporation with a CEO with his 20 cars and 7th vacation home.
Bottom line, people should do what they are willing to persist and push through. Push through critics, haters, and short-sighted fools. Keep going and don’t quit. Don’t listen to people who earn less than you. It’s better to try and fail (and get up to try again) than regret that you didn’t try at all due to letting people who quit influence you.
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“Investing money you don’t have into a business is hard. Putting time and money into a dream for a better life for years is hard.”
Sure is, which is why I sincerely respect people who open REAL small businesses. The likelihood of failure is so high, and even if you’re successful, it’ll be years before you’re making reliable money. It takes a level of guts I just haven’t got.
“Conversely, working a low-paying, dead end job is hard, being broke is hard…”
It sure is. Especially when you were promised executive income, a free car, and no quotas. Especially when the cushy part-time sales job you were promised turns out to be a neverending slog of following up leads and burying yourself in debt to meet those quotas you’ve suddenly got.
Oh, wait, you’re in FAVOR of MK. My bad.
“…being held back in a job due to race, sex, color or age or being let go or not getting a job due to those factors is hard too.”
Have you ever noticed that the faces of MK are overwhelmingly middle-aged white women, presumably straight and cis, typically married, upper middle class (or with aspirations to be? Good, it’s not just me, then.
“Living a life of lack is hard.”
Another one for the Cliche Bingo card. And if someone’s financial state is so precarious that the $100 a starter kit costs will wipe them out, then THE FRIGGING LAST THING they need to do with that C-note is spend it on Mary Kay.
“Staying in bad or dead end marriages or relationships is hard. Living with bad health due to overwhelming, long term stress is hard too.”
Leaving a bad relationship is difficult, scary, and possibly dangerous. There are organizations which will help you do so safely. And you can’t tell me thing one about chronic stress wrecking your health. I took care of my mother in her final illness. She died in 2018 and my mental and physical health still aren’t back to normal.
“That’s why women buy into a dream of a better life only to face ignorance, gossip, slander and non support from other women.”
I’m sorry, but are you still on MK’s side here? They lie about their income. They lie about the nature of the job to get recruits. They lie to get their underlings to order more crap they don’t need. Being negative will get you scorned. They’ll support you only as long as you’re helping them meet their production quotas.
“God forbid that you purchase products or services from a friend and help them when you can support a wealthy corporation with a CEO with his 20 cars and 7th vacation home.”
Ryan Rogers, Mary Kay Wagner Rogers Eckman Weaver Louis Miller Hallenbeck Ash’s grandson, IS doing pretty well for himself without needing to accomplish a damn thing on his own, ain’t he? (Are you SURE you’re on MK’s side here?)
And yes, I buy from small businesses, especially woman or minority owned, whenever I can.
“Bottom line, people should do what they are willing to persist and push through.”
As awkwardly worded as this is, it sums up Pink Truth’s mission pretty well. Persist and push through the criticism and the slander and the lies and the bogus lawsuits to help people see the truth of MLM and help people get out of it.
So, anyway, BossBabe, thanks for making our point for us.
When I had a brick-and-mortar, it was hard. Rent, utilities, insurance, taxes, etc…that’s hard. But Kaybots don’t take on ANY of that when they start their Mary Kay “business”. Instead, they’ll freeload at other brick-and-mortars where they find and meet their “network”…the local coffee shop where they meet recruits has to pay rent and utilities and internet while the Kaybot who sits in it uses the location for “business” purposes but pays for nothing; they don’t think anything of using stores like Target as a hunting ground where, again, they don’t pay a single part of the costs incurred in housing and running a huge store.
All I know is, if I owned an actual retail or restaurant location and MLM users tried to basically freeload off of my hard work by using my hard-fought physical location and all the blood, sweat, and tears I invested in it, I’d throw them out head first. Seriously.
And don’t even get me started if that Kaybot was ALSO tricking my staff into paying less for a bigger coffee a la Chelsea Adkins.
Omg the “Investing money you don’t have” literally made my brain do a “ding ding ding ding ding!” sound. OP is the absolute type of person that MK is looking for…no business sense WHATSOEVER. The second she realized that she was expected (and relentlessly encouraged) to invest money she didn’t actually have, BUT still stayed in the Fog, her Red Flag Ship had sailed.
There are some half-truths and a lot of mistruths and misinformation all rolled into one big convuluted (sic) mess on this site.
No, it’s women’s lived experiences or information taken directly from either MK Corp or sales directors and the occasional court record which we high-light. If general you have a problem with our sources, then perhaps you need to re-evaluate what truth is.
Yes, sales is hard.
Sales isn’t hard if you have a product people want at a price they are prepared to pay.
Contacting your network of people is hard.
I wonder why it is hard. Are they tired of you seeing them as walking ATMs? Do you disappear into the restroom for 10 minutes or so every hour when you are out for a girl’s night out? Do you constantly bother other shoppers asking if there is something wrong with your clothes?
Then it’s A You Problem.
Investing money you don’t have into a business is hard.
Wait! What?? My gast is flabbered. You are advocating going into debt even though your own company’s figures shows I am far more likely to lose money or just break even than actually make a profit.
Putting time and money into a dream for a better life for years is hard.
But I’m told that I only need to work part-time for executive wages. That the products fly off the shelves. That I’m not working, I’m playing with make-up at my kitchen table.
Which directors dream is real and which the lie?
Conversely, working a low-paying, dead end job is hard, being broke is hard, being held back in a job due to race, sex, color or age or being let go or not getting a job due to those factors is hard too.
I don’t think any-one here is arguing differently. But Mary Kay Corp can just close down some or all of their markets and leave you with nothing but debt. Just like it did to Australia and New Zealand.
Living a life of lack is hard. Staying in bad or dead end marriages or relationships is hard. Living with bad health due to overwhelming, long term stress is hard too.
Investing time and money into something whose own figure show I’m likely to be one of 98% earning less the $206 per annum gross, ie before expenses doesn’t sound like a winning proposition either. (https://www.marykay.ca/en-ca/pages/earnings-representation).
And I’m fully in favour of women and men leaving bad marriages.
That’s why women buy into a dream of a better life only to face ignorance, gossip, slander and non support from other women.
How is showing what your directors’ endorse be ignorance? How is talking about one’s own experience gossip? How is showing MK’s own figures slander? Why should I support a company in which 98% of it’s staff loses money or barely breaks even?
God forbid that you purchase products or services from a friend and help them when you can support a wealthy corporation with a CEO with his 20 cars and 7th vacation home.
When I go into my local supermarket, I know a lot of the staff by name. One has been a personal friend for nearly 20 years. Many of the student staff for the past 12 years have been friends of one or another of my children.
And I love small businesses. I will support them as much as I can. I love my local farmers market which show-cases the range of produce available in my vicinity. Craft fairs are awesome.
But I’m not going to support some poor soul taken advantage of by a $4billion dollar company peddling the lie that she could be The One who makes it to the top.
I can’t find the net worth of Mr Ryan Rogers, the incoming CEO of Mary Kay. I’m sure he didn’t get the top job simply by being the grand-son of Mary Kay Wagner Rogers Eckman Weaver Louis Miller Hallenbeck Ash.
Bottom line, people should do what they are willing to persist and push through. Push through critics, haters, and short-sighted fools.
I’m sorry but I don’t hate you. I feel sorry for you. I am certainly going to criticize the business model because it doesn’t work for over 98% of the people involved.
Keep going and don’t quit. Don’t listen to people who earn less than you.
Yup, I ain’t listening to people who earn less than $206 per annum before expenses. Which is 98% of consultants in MK per their own figures.
It’s better to try and fail (and get up to try again) than regret that you didn’t try at all due to letting people who quit influence you.
Meanwhile, spend what money you don’t have, bee-lieve in OUR lies and plug your ears to those who are trying to warn you about the scam you have been sold.
“women buy into a dream”, yes they have to BUY and BUY and BUY while they chase that dream.
Great points as usual DA. And I’m stealing this: “My gast is flabbered.” Not sure when/where I can use it but I’m filing it away!
Thank you.
“Don’t listen to people who earn less than you.” Okay, I won’t listen to the poster….
Investing time and money into something whose own figure show I’m likely to be one of 98% earning less the $206 per annum gross, ie before expenses doesn’t sound like a winning proposition either. (https://www.marykay.ca/en-ca/pages/earnings-representation).
I wish to heck that US law required companies to disclose this information, though I can’t imagine that the percentages are much different. And speaking of percentages, as per Mary Kay’s own reporting, 83 PERCENT OF THEIR SALES FORCE IS MAKING ZERO DOLLARS and 15 PERCENT IS MAKING $206 OR >LESS< A YEAR.
Even if you're part of the lucky 1.675% making somewhere between $20,137 (far less than the yearly salary of a regular full time job, and not much more than a steady part time one) this is a RANGE between that figure and $206 and I'd imagine most of that subset are closer to the "peanuts" end than the 20k end.
One half of one percentage point are making any kind of money out of this "dream."
All the wishes and bee-lief and toxic positivity in the world aren't going to make you one of the chosen few. The facts are there in black and white, and those numbers are what all the pink pageantry and cheap jewelry and stage walks are trying so desperately to hide.
Shoot, I meant this to be a reply to Destiny Angel. My brain thinks the long weekend has already started.
Enjoy your long weekend, Popinki.
Those figures are from 2019. I’m guessing it’s similar percentages as well, and $206 Cdn is $152.15 USD at the time of my writing.
These are the figures from 2020 (https://i.redd.it/7p73s2hz0bi81.jpg, https://www.reddit.com/r/antiMLM/comments/sudh3r/mary_kays_income_disclosure_canadian_bc_us_law/)
I haven’t yet found anything from another market but I’m going to switch laptops and see if that works.
Defenders of MK will tell me to take out the number of personal use consultants because they lower that actual financial rewards. Then quote like 50% as being PUC. Except it doesn’t change much. Sure the percentage of people at each level may increase but the number who obtained at level haven’t.
And the 83% “making zero dollars” are NOT “breaking even” at zero…they’re likely LOSING money.
Importantly, this is money made on commissions from their down-line’s purchases not from sales of the products because MK Corps doesn’t track that.
“Conversely, working a low-paying, dead end job is hard, being broke is hard, being held back in a job due to race, sex, color or age or being let go or not getting a job due to those factors is hard too. Living a life of lack is hard. Staying in bad or dead end marriages or relationships is hard. Living with bad health due to overwhelming, long term stress is hard too.”
This sets up a false dichotomy. EITHER you buy into the pink fog OR you work a low-paying, dead-end job, are held back by how you were born, and have a crappy marriage. I’m not in either of those situations. In fact, my job is much better paying, less dead-end, and less dependent on the looks I was born with now that I’ve left Mary Kay.
“Don’t listen to people who earn less than you.”
I’ll share my W2 if you’ll share your Schedule C. Then we can all decide from whom we’d like advice.
You…you do realize Mary Kay is a giant corporation with a rich CEO who has multiple cars…don’t you?
No, it’s three racoons , sorry three ShEOs stood on each other’s shoulders in a trench coat.
Why is it always their MLM with fairy dust and unicorn farts versus a dismal, Dickensian life of grinding poverty? Nothing in between: no successful careers working fir decent bosses and having a life outside work.
Typical cult tactics. I wonder how many people agreed with this observation, but then also practice the same mindset themselves? For example: If you’re in the Christian cult, it’s Heaven; and if not, it’s the fires of Hell. It doesn’t matter what kind of human you are. You simply need to join their organization and proclaim your allegiance. Then like magic….poof…..you’re enriched, and ALL other humans are lacking.
Cults must make their membership feel superior, privileged, and smarter than others. This is how they grow their membership and collect money to keep it alive. Appealing to the human ego is one of the oldest tricks in the book.
Wow, two Ridiculous DownVotes, you really struck a nerve with this remark.
Hard work and diligence are admirable assets to anyone, but if your hard work and diligent efforts are in support of an organized scam, you should expect to hear some criticism.
Our beef isn’t with you, it’s with the organization that runs this scam: Mary Kay. Even the most dead-end of dead-end jobs is better than being ripped off by Mary Kay. If it isn’t happening to you, you’re among the lucky one-in-a hundred or two who are ahead. But I suspect you’re one of the money-losers, and you think by writing a letter to Pink Truth you’re going to turn around your own fortunes and bring wealth to yourself. Life doesn’t work that way, no matter what Tony Robbins and Rhonda Byrne and their ilk say.
My advice: take a vacation from Mary Kay for a month or two. Put the catalogs away, tell your downline they’re on their own for awhile, tell your customers you’re taking a break. Read some of the first-person accounts on this site and others; just search for “why I left Mary Kay.” A good starting point is yesterday’s (29 Dec ’22) letter from a Director. Let the pink fog clear your head, and see if you aren’t thinking differently soon.
“a CEO with his 20 cars…Short-sighted fools”
Cars? More like a yachts and private jets. Yet, you continue to pour money into his pockets while fawning over the Kendra Scott earrings you “earned.” No long-term security, no benefits, no savings plan, no pension waiting at the end of the Pink Road.
You’re the fool.
“Yes, sales is hard”
Wait, wait, wait…I was personally told & I’ve read multiple recruiting scripts that say the products sell themselves. So which is it?
Schrodinger’s Mary Kay.
Ah, so sales is a quantum superposition of both difficult and easy. And the only way to resolve this quantum conundrum is to sign up and place a huge inventory order. That will collapse the waveform and resolve the indeterminacy. Or it won’t. Or both.
Either way, Mary Kay is a scam. You can’t swing a dead Schrodinger’s cat (pardon the expression) without hitting some poor victim who lost money trying to make a go of it.
[Important disclaimer: No cats were harmed in the creation of this analogy.]
According the the late great Sir Pterry Pratchett (GNU), the cat exists in one of three potential states, alive, dead or freaking angry.
Yep, that sounds like Terry.
“Don’t listen to people who earn less than you.”
I’ve been working as a travel nurse. I made a lot of money this past year. In fact, I made more per WEEK than many directors made in a MONTH. By your logic, I shouldn’t listen to hardly anyone out there.
“…being held back in a job due to race, sex, color or age or being let go or not getting a job due to those factors is hard too.”
The last time I checked, this was illegal. The employee can contact the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission and file a complaint. The company/employer can face HUGE fines and potential lawsuits.
Yep, the unicorn farts and fairy dust are strong with this one.
“Don’t listen to people who earn less than you.”
Okay, I’ll play. So to any given potential MK recruit who HAS A JOB, you will almost always be earning more than whichever MK lady is pitching you. The part-timer who does MK “for fun” and who convinced you to attend a “pampering session” (gag)? She’s making waaaay less than you. But that’s understood.
However, her director who swoops in and asks you ridiculous, scripted questions about your interest in the “opportunity”, who appears to be wearing nice clothing, has an expensive hair stylist, drives a nice (and possibly PINK OMG) car, and is overloaded with as much jewelry as she can fit in her body? Yeah, she’s not earning more than you either.
Check the archived posts here that succinctly explain (WITH EVIDENCE WOW) how most directors don’t even make minimum wage. And even if you do make minimum wage, you are still earning benefits if full time like health insurance, so you’re still killing her on the earnings front. She’s not one you should take advice from; you should be doling it out to her.