Recruiting is a Privilege!
This was written by a woman who has been in Mary Kay for over 23 years. At the time she wrote it, she was a Future Executive Senior Sales Director. Now she’s a lowly consultant who works very part time, and she has a real job with real benefits.
She suggests it is a privilege to be recruited into Mary Kay, and by treating it as such, you will have better success getting women to sign up. I wonder how that worked out for her?
Recruiting is a privilege. It is a form of flattery. When you realize that you are offering an awesome opportunity to someone with whom you’d like to grow and you help her realize that she should feel honored that you would CHOOSE her over so many others, then you will accept recruiting for what Mary Kay Ash meant it to be: an awesome opportunity.
Recruiting is not a burden. Don’t apologize to me, to yourself, to those you interview. Don’t have a burdensome feeling or an apologetic feeling in your heart or it will come out in your voice and body language and mannerisms.
You can even say to her, “You bet your bottom dollar we want to recruit you because we LIKE you. We want to work with you. You are the kind of person we WANT to spend time with. You know you are exactly the kind of person I am looking for. I really do believe we have something to offer you and you have something to offer us. I’d like to lay everything out on the table for you, so you can see what we have to offer you and tell me what you have to offer us. Allow me to share information with you so you can make an informed decision.”
Offer it in a professional way, with a professional attitude, and your potential recruit will “rise to the occasion” and listen with an “intelligent mind!” When she joins your team, she will be an asset to your team and the company, in word and action, because you entrusted her with information you are not sharing with just any woman who passes by.
Visit the
“You bet your bottom dollar we want to recruit you because we LIKE you. We want to work with you. You are the kind of person we WANT to spend time with. You know you are exactly the kind of person I am looking for. I really do believe we have something to offer you and you have something to offer us. I’d like to lay everything out on the table for you, so you can see what we have to offer you and tell me what you have to offer us. Allow me to share information with you so you can make an informed decision.”
Lady, you walked up to me out of nowhere. We’ve never seen each other before in our lives. You know zilch about my employment, my financial status, my personality, my likes and dislikes. Likewise, I know nothing about you other than you’re annoying me right now. Flattery is not going to get me to sign up for anything, especially with a total stranger.
There’s nothing professional about any of that. Corporate headhunters don’t go up to just anyone and start gushing about how awesome they say they think you are, come work for me even though we design cars and you’re an event planner. Professional salespeople don’t call random companies and say “Baby, you’re the greatest. Let’s do business, even though you’re a steel mill and we sell lingerie fabrics. I’ll write up a sales contract right now!” Anyone listening with an “intelligent mind” (why the scare quotes?) is going to run away as fast as they can.
“When she joins your team, she will be an asset to your team and the company, in word and action, because you entrusted her with information you are not sharing with just any woman who passes by.”
Ow. Something in my brain just went SPROING!
“ You know zilch about my employment, my financial status, my personality, my likes and dislikes.”
…do you like Pina coladas? Getting caught in the rain?
😉
Hopefully I’m not too graphic in sharing a fun memory with you guys…so earlier today I talked to an old friend of mine and we reminisced about her bachelorette party many years ago. We went to a dueling piano bar and the pianists played the Pina Colada song for her but with “revised” lyrics: “she likes penis-a lot-a”
Good times. And we didn’t even have to beg for our colleagues to buy us shots (hi Chelsea!!)
Recruiting is a privilege.
no it isn’t. It’s how MKbots make their feeble paycheques.
It is a form of flattery.
Or desperation.
When you realize that you are offering an awesome opportunity to someone with whom you’d like to grow and you help her realize that she should feel honored that you would CHOOSE her over so many others, then you will accept recruiting for what Mary Kay Ash meant it to be: an awesome opportunity.
Ok, you found some-one who might be gullible enough to fall for Mary Kay Wagner Rogers Eckman Weaver Louis Miller Hallenbeck Ash’s faux opportunity.
Recruiting is not a burden.
No, it’s an absolute essential to all of the huns in order for them to make an extra few bucks.
Don’t apologize to me, to yourself, to those you interview.
Apologise instead for those who laughed at you, asked those questions you couldn’t answer without lying and hold your skunk for bringing those points up at this weeks meeting.
Don’t have a burdensome feeling or an apologetic feeling in your heart or it will come out in your voice and body language and mannerisms.
Ignore the crowds of people waving their scarlet flags.
You can even say to her, “You bet your bottom dollar we want to recruit you because we LIKE you. We want to work with you. You are the kind of person we WANT to spend time with. You know you are exactly the kind of person I am looking for. I really do believe we have something to offer you and you have something to offer us. I’d like to lay everything out on the table for you, so you can see what we have to offer you and tell me what you have to offer us. Allow me to share information with you so you can make an informed decision.”
Start the brainwashing early and give them just enough mis-information to be plausible.
Offer it in a professional way, with a professional attitude, and your potential recruit will “rise to the occasion” and listen with an “intelligent mind!”
So, lies and evasions. got it! Never had a convo , spoken or written with an MLM hun where getting the relevant information wasn’t a struggle. this includes getting the company name and product range.
When she joins your team, she will be an asset to your team and the company, in word and action, because you entrusted her with information you are not sharing with just any woman who passes by.
Look, honey. In reality you are NOT sharing any real information about the company because if you did, any woman with an ounce of sense is running in the opposite direction.
Ya know, I might actually believe this if the criteria for recruiting wasn’t anyone with a pulse. When you’re recruiting every single person you come in contact with, regardless of qualifications, it’s not flattery. It’s not an honor. It’s not professional. It IS a burden, both to the recruiter and the person being recruited.
It’s actually anyone with a face. If they could figure out how to recruit dead people they would.
…so my warm chatting at the cemetery won’t work? 🙁
that you would CHOOSE her over so many others
Lololololololololololololololololol
Can somebody help me up from the floor?
They CHOOSE anyone and everyone with a face!
I can summarize OPs message this way: “Ignore your intuition. Ignore those voices in our head telling you these tips qualify as social faux pas. Ignore those social red flags. Just plow ahead with confidence and you will be successful!”
Spoiler alert: Those uneasy feelings coming from your core are telling you something is not right. Listen to your gut! Just think of someone, anyone, you know doing these same things. Does it make you cringe? Does it make them look pushy, fake, amateurish, insincere and lacking manners?
Sorry, but that’s how you will come across too.
This is spot on. I didn’t “listen to my director” often because what she recommended did all of those things listed in your first paragraph. (And I was sceptical her suggestions would get results.) I just didn’t quite have the words to describe it, besides pushy. What you described is exactly the problem.
They do “interviewing” as part of MK recruiting? What kinds of questions do they ask – how much extra money do you have to spend on inventory and how big is your home for the skin care classes?
I gotta hand it to Mary Kay, Amway and any other long-standing MLM that hasn’t fizzled out and gotten shut down – it is truly amazing that they can have an entire salesforce that works entirely on commission, covers just about all of its own costs AND will recruit and more or less train its own replacements, at very little or no cost to any of the company! Well, Mary Kay does provide the starter kit, so that’s something but it couldn’t cost them that much. They have engineering a business model and eliminated certain costs that most companies couldn’t even dream of. Just mindblowing when you think about it.
Now, before anyone out there says they had to help recruit and train their own replacements at a regular W-2 job (could be for any number of reasons, positive or negative), at least you are still getting a regular paycheck when that is happening.
“Mary Kay does provide the starter kit”
The starter kit is not free.
Nope. New consultants pay about $100 for a full Starter Kit (last I was aware). Plus tax and shipping. Corporate starts making their profit immediately.
My mistake. I should have known.
The starter kit is small potatoes compared to the qualifying minimums. In order to get the “discount” and be eligible for down-line commissions, IBCs must commit to ~$1000/yr in product purchases, whether or not anything is ever sold. If an IBC has a customer looking for a single lipstick they don’t have in stock, the IBC needs to make sure they have rolled up $225 wholesale that quarter, or they will have to pay full retail for every purchase.
There is simply not enough demand in this world to allow the millions (yes, Mary Kay has millions of consultants world-wide) of consultants to have a prayer of selling their minimum purchases. This is the magic of MLM. Create false demand by tying purchases to an elusive “opportunity”, and fool customers into thinking they are business owners. This allows MK Corp to fill the homes of the sales force with product that will never sell.
This is great for MKC. But not so good for the IBCs (or the landfill).
I can’t help but cringe that I fell for this stuff at one point in my life. The writing was all over the wall, but I saw what I wanted to see. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch” comes to mind. I wanted SO badly to think that lunch could be free. I needed it to be free. That’s why the critics that come here get so angry. They read about what they already know but are trying to forget.
🙁 if I could, I would buy you a lunch Kristen! If you’re anywhere near northern West Virginia, I will! Hugs!!
“A form of flattery.” 😂😂😂 Ma’am you will recruit anyone with a pulse.
If you believe in me and want me on your team, how bout you gift me a starter kit?
Cue the crickets
Remember that the OP is also a recruit of someone. In her mind, she was describing herself.
Such a privileged group of people, not. But they need to be made to think that because that’s how cults stay in business.
Will listen with an “intelligent mind”
Smh
“… she (the recruit) should feel honored that you would CHOOSE her over so many others…”
Oh man, I would LOVE for a Kaybot to come at me with this type of reasoning. I would relish the opportunity to tell her that I just don’t feel worthy of such an honor and how she should expend her energy on someone more fitting of such a highly regarded and selective (!) title!
Oh, and:
“we want to recruit you because we LIKE you”
*cue me trying even harder than normal to make somebody NOT like me*
Like, me carrying a three-page brochure in my purse of all the reasons she shouldn’t like me and shoving it in her hands while doing things to make myself less likeable