Doing Mary Kay My Way
I received this email from a relatively new Mary Kay consultant who wanted to share her experience with us.
Hello and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to send you an e-mail. I have been a Mary Kay consultant for over a year now and can honestly say it was a great decision for me and my family and has more than supplemented our income.
I know what you must be thinking…“oh no not another kaybot.” It is not my intent to insult people on here. I believe in letting people see both sides of things, and hopefully my story can assist the people who come to your website to see if MK is right for them.
I researched for 2 months before I decided to try to sell MK. My research involved websites such as yours The Fraud Files. I read the comments and stories and made a very informed decision to sell the product.
I opted to start off with $600 worth of inventory. I work in a hospital and know a lot of women. Before I ordered my inventory I made gift baskets filled with samplers and catalogs and sent them to every department I work at in the hospital. I got many orders that way, and that gave me an idea of what inventory to order. I was able to sell the initial inventory in less than two months.
I also do show parties and sell online. The five parties I have done in my year of selling MK I have seen turnouts between 2-8 women. My online sales haven’t been bad either. I keep my inventory minimum, stocked with only what my customers order. I only have 16 customers I regularly service. My business is small, however that is my choice. That is all Mary Kay is to me, a secondary income.
I do see some faults with MK, however. My sales director is a prime example of these faults. She is very pushy and we have clashed quite a bit. Every time we get together it’s “rah-rah girls Seminar is coming up and I’m soooooo excited to be in the queen of sharing but for us to move up we must have more wholesale items and start moving it off our shelves! We must Sell-Sell-Sell!!!”
I know you all have heard it before. I actually saw her chastise a woman once in our meeting because this woman had missed a month before due to a family emergency and could not “make production.” (Meaning she couldn’t buy more inventory). Now I only go to unit meetings when new products are coming out, which is about every two months.
Mary Kay Ash started an opportunity that allowed women to put God first, Family second, and Career third. It has turned into a business in which too many people are in it for themselves. With all these “incentives” and “bonuses” and “trips” the MK Corp is turning out more of these directors who do not embody what Mary Kay Ash started. They are not enriching anybody’s lives but their own at the expense of their offspring directors, their star consultants, and consultants.
Really, the money is in just being a consultant and servicing a small clientele. My advice to everyone starting or thinking about starting is the following.
- RESEARCH everything. Go to the blogs and websites and read what other women have experienced.
- TRY the product. MK is the only product that works on my overly sensitive face. That is one reason why it is so easy for me to be enthusiastic about selling it. If it works for you, you can market yourself as proof that the product works.
- BELIEVE in the product. If you think it is crap, then obviously you can’t sell crap.
- START SMALL. Don’t buy into the hype of “you must order thousands of inventory!” Think about who you know, where you work at, where you work-out out, where you socialize at. If at all possible, ask your friends if they would honestly try MK.
- EDUCATE yourself on the products. My director, annoyance aside, knows these products, and she spent hours with me once educating me on them.
- BE YOURSELF! Use your own script and words to sell. You don’t have to sound like a troll hyped up on pink kool-aid to sell MK. You don’t have to turn into overdressed make-up caked frenzy because it’s “the standard”. If I’m doing parties I’m wearing something nice, but definitely not a dress!
- Don’t buy into the HYPE OF MOVING UP! Read the stories on this website to see why.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and for starting this website to educate the public and help women make informed decisions. Good Luck and God Bless.
Visit the
Wow. That was refreshing. The most notable? She’s not recruiting! If she can stay an IBC and keep an accurate ledger, this woman can avoid becoming an “MLMer”.
Now about that ledger. She’s still on the hook for $1000/yr to maintain her discount. She never mentions if she is selling at full retail, or how she chooses to flesh out her first $225 order per quarter so her customers dont have to wait.
Since she does not mention any of these things, my guess is her business is operating at a loss without her knowledge. She’s told an $8 margin on a lipstick is a profit. In reality, she does not turn a profit until her aggregate revenues exceed her aggregate costs. That is hard to do in any mlm.
I am just grateful she’s not recruiting. This way she can only hurt herself. Good luck fighting off that SD. The pressure to over-order and to recruit will only get worse over time.
“my guess is her business is operating at a loss without her knowledge.”
She has a MK hobby and doesn’t know it.
Nice to “work at a hospital and know a lot of women.” But they will eventually tire of being approached, or HR will warn her about “working her business” while on the clock. Imagine a workplace — especially a hospital — filled with MLMers running amok.
I was also wondering whether HR knew about this. I can think of two or three possible reasons why a hospital might look askance at an employee conducting a separate personal business on hospital property.
As someone who works in a hospital, I’m also surprised and annoyed by this. Our hospital has policies against doing direct sales at work.
I also wonder what role she has exactly. The tone of her post and the reference to “every department I work in” sounds like leadership/management to me. Which makes me worry how many of her “customers” feel coerced to buy… And even if she’s not in management, there’s still an icky level of people pleasing/wanting to be a supportive coworker that can happen, similar to how friends and family feel obligated to purchase *something*. I don’t have to deal with Target for 40 hours a week, so I can choose to buy or not buy something without worrying about hurting someone’s feelings.
Could be anything. Housekeeping, food service, phebotomy, patient transport, or one of those other jobs that has you scooting from one end of the hospital to the other all shift. Being the lower paying jobs, I can see where someone would want a side hustle and more likely to get the initial batch of pity purchases.
Every hospital I have ever worked in has a strict no-selling/soliciting policy. This includes Girl Scout cookies and other fundraisers. I cannot fathom how this person was able to get samples out to every unit in the hospital and stay under the radar of leadership and HR. If the OP is in a leadership or management role of some sort, she can be terminated with cause for her actions.
She seems to not understand that “not recruiting” is frowned upon in MK. If she’s not “sharing the opportunity” with her paying customers, then anyone else from her director to her fellow IBCs can, and WILL, attempt to recruit them. The whole “you don’t have to recruit, you can just sell” in MK is a lie. There have been posts here showing how actual directors explain the “rules” of such recruitment. The bottom line is, if you do not share the opportunity with your customers, someone else not only can, but is encouraged to do so.
Here’s one:
https://www.pinktruth.com/2022/12/13/not-really-golden-rule-thinking/
“Here is more on recruiting someone else’s customer. It was presented as “golden rule thinking,” but it would be more appropriate to call this “do it before I steal her from you.” These are instructions on how to technically follow Mary Kay’s rules, but be really slimy about it.
It is certainly fine to ask anyone if she has heard about the opportunity. If she has not, then suggest she discuss it with her own consultant. If she will give you the name of the consultant, you can call up the consultant yourself, and say something like this….”Hi Betty! I met one of your customers the other day, and I referred her back to you. I was wondering if you are going to recruit her? Are you building your team? (Wait for her answer)
If she says, “Nah, I am only doing reorders, don’t want to recruit, etc.” then it is okay to say, “Well if you are not going to talk to her about the company and try to recruit her, then I would like to!” That way she will know you are going to be contacting her customer.”
There’s more at the link.
This might be my favorite part from the director. This makes absolutely NO SENSE for any consultant who wants to be a successful “business owner”:
“There are some consultants who NEVER will ask ANY of their customers to consider joining Mary Kay! That is because they are thinking that they want ALL of the 50% for themselves, and do not want any recruits or competition in their areas.”
No duh.
Hypothetical question here. Suppose IBC A has a faithful customer who told her she only wants to buy makeup, but not sell it. IBC A respects this and doesn’t try to recruit her. IBC B meets the customer, tries to get her as a customer, when she learns that the customer buys from IBC A. IBC B calls IBC A and has the conversation described in the post above. The customer then drops MK altogether because her boundaries weren’t respected. A confronts B and tells her that B cost A a faithful customer. How would their NSD or MK Corp respond if A made a complaint against B?
Oh Kelly, you ARE a naughty girl!!! What a mess! I do believe I have the perfect solution, MK Approved and all. “Sweep It Under The Rug”.
What if B offers all products to A’s customer at a standing 50% off? When Customer asks B why she would do such a nice thing, B explains that this helps her make production and qualify for prizes, so she’s happy to do it.
Customer gets wind that A has been complaining about B. Customer tells A she can buy from whomever she wants, and that A does not own her. Customer also calls MKC and complains that A is stirring trouble making her feel uneasy about buying MK products.
Customer is also mad at herself for paying full retail all those years. She now realizes that all she had to do was find a consultant who needed to make production. If B ever changes her mind, she’ll find a C….helsea.
Customer vows to never paying more than “wholesale” again……because why when you don’t have to? If all else fails, she can just sign up as long as she’s a good customer ordering at least $225 a quarter – and bypass all this drama.
I’m sure MKC would be happy to have her as another direct customer.
By golly, it’s a unicorn. Congratulations on resisting the pressure and for doing the research so that you went into this with your eyes wide open.
However: “I actually saw [my director] chastise a woman once in our meeting because this woman had missed a month before due to a family emergency and could not “make production.” (Meaning she couldn’t buy more inventory). ”
Independent beauty consultants are anything but independent. As long as you’re in MK, you’re tied to this director who think nothing of browbeating someone who had a FAMILY EMERGENCY, in public, for not spending enough money. As long as you continue to sell MK, you’re supporting her and promulgating a system that’s exploitative towards women.
I guess what I’m driving at is congratulations on making it work for you, but my focus is going to stay on the countless others who have been hurt by it, and on those who haven’t yet gotten pulled in stay out.
secondary income, with 5 parties she did in a year? Thats likely pocket change.
Thank you for your comments on my grammar on previous posts. Predictive texts help. I totally forgot the OP alleged to be a research journalist. Love this website..
Oh dear, she is who I used to be in Mary Kay. I ran a bare bones business like she is doing and stayed in for 7 or so years. In the end, I got tired of the phone calls, dialing for dollars, the inventory, and just didn’t need the hassle of doing it any more.
I disagree with something she said. “Really, the money is in just being a consultant and servicing a small clientele.”
No, the money is churning out recruits by front-loading them. Running a very small business as she is doing is really personal use. I wonder if she is offering sales and BOGOs. If so, that certainly cuts into her profit.
I did make a small profit doing MK this way for years. But that profit level? Goodness, minimum wage or less. I never profited more than a couple thousand if that per year. I used my MK money to pay for my husband’s used truck. I think I needed $150 per month.
The problem though with this IBC is that she is still supporting an industry that is completely based in a pyramid scheme. Why would she do this? If she truly can’t find another line of skin care for sensitive skin (I bet she can), then she could buy it off of ebay for the wholesale cost. Or…she could be one of Chelsea’s customers.
Pinkiu, your closing paragraph says it all.
Hi OP-😊
I think it’s great that you did research before becoming a consultant. But I must admit that I’m baffled that you did research for 2 months and still decided to become a consultant. The odds are so miniscule of making this a success and so likely to cause you to lose money, I just wondered how you rationalized it, that’s all.
No judgement. I joined. I didn’t research. I lost.