Failed Director Tells Us How to Be Successful at Mary Kay
Failed former Mary Kay sales director Renee Pirtz decided to put in her two cents on one of our threads. You see, it’s easy to sell Mary Kay products. All you have to do is try. As she says “Yes that is called working.” Mary Kay is for business owners, not personal use consultants!
It’s interesting that Renee thinks she has something to offer us. After all, she got “14+” cars from Mary Kay. I’m not sure what the plus is for, since I don’t think you can get part of a car. Was it 14, or was it more?
We’re supposed to be impressed with those 14+ cars. One was even a Cadillac! And yet, Renee was a failure. Why didn’t she just work a little harder to get into Cadillacs over and over? Better yet, why didn’t she just work a little harder and get to nsd? After all, anyone can promote themselves whenever they want. “Yes that is called working.”
Instead, she is 65 years old and “retired” from Mary Kay with no retirement to speak of. She could have promoted herself to nsd and then would have been eligible for a retirement package from MK. But instead, she is struggling to get by on her small social security check. And still, she sings the praises of MK, both the company and the woman… predators.
Per Renee:
If you are working your business your are easily selling (& more) 600.00 wholesale). The question is what is working? That would be connecting with clients and sharing the products with education of each product that would be specifically designed for her personal needs. What does that take? Know your products. Get educated, and make intelligent recommendations. That takes work & concentrated time, as would being a good salesperson in any profession! #1 KNOW YOUR PRODUCT #2 CARE ENOUGH TO TAKE THE TIME & “TEACH” YOUR CLIENTS. #3 FOLLOWUP.& never stop.
With a new skin care customer, go through her routine again in two weeks. Yes that is called working. This allows you to adjust any products she is on and introduce her to a personalized color look customized to her life style. Make sure she is happy with everything. Mary Kay is 100% guaranteed! Mary Kay (the lady) expected her consultants to do a follow up with purchasing customers in two to three weeks, and continue checking on them every couple months. This leaves the consultant time to build her customer base and take care of a growing reorder business! Along the way you will find women who are looking for a homebased business. Mary Kay did not believe in team building for “personal use” .. no PU consultants sought after!!! We looked business owners.
Those ladies will be happier as happy customers! And so will the “business” owner. This does not forbid a consultant who has life circumstances and chooses to PU for awhile or maybe forever. But for the love of good business don’t start out your people like that. Honestly, that is a set up for failure even for the customers. And as a leader when you are out taking care of clients and training business women to work it works. Bottom line BUILD YOUR CUSTOMER BASE. & quit treating Mary Kay like a multilevel. It is a duel marketing. Learn it, practice it.
PU was not how this business was set up! Mary Kay (the lady) and her company set women up to be “business owners” and successful. As with any “business owner” you will burn some midnight oil and grow(work) past your comfort zones
As a single young woman with 3 children and deserted by her husband (and 0 child support) Mary Kay was a God – send. Did I mention I was insanely shy. This business helped me grow personally, many happy life long customers and teams of business women. I never had to stress about a good running car, I earned 14+
A lot of red grand ams! But every two years it was fresh, new, and no break downs with a car full of kids.. My boys learned to drive in a pink Cadillac. More importantly they saw their mom fail and get back up again, with the support of the best company and genuine supportive people. They learned ethics from watching me working with an ethical company.
God bless this company and the women that are learning & teaching other to work it successfully the Mary Kay way.
Visit the
Let’s check back in with her sons to see how that philosophy of “no means needs more information” worked out. Heaven help the young women they’ve encountered on their journey out of the Pink Fog.
“But for the love of good business don’t start out your people [as PU consultants]. Honestly, that is a set up for failure even for the customers.”
So, you admit that if you are not recruiting recruiters, you are setting up your downline for failure? No need for actual customers, just recruiters recruiting recruiters? Got it.
No pyramid scheming activity to see here. Move along…
Gosh, that baker’s dozen or so of Grand Ams must have been a long time ago, huh.
“#1 KNOW YOUR PRODUCT #2 CARE ENOUGH TO TAKE THE TIME & “TEACH” YOUR CLIENTS. #3 FOLLOWUP.& never stop.
With a new skin care customer, go through her routine again in two weeks. [snip] Mary Kay (the lady [in a Lucrezia Borgia kind of way, I guess]) expected her consultants to do a follow up with purchasing customers in two to three weeks, and continue checking on them every couple months.”
Translation: once you’ve got a customer, you’re going to bug the evelasting bleep out of her, especially when it’s time to place those every other month orders that allow you to keep your director status. And complain on Facebook about people ghosting you.
If you are working your business your are easily selling (& more) 600.00 wholesale).
On what time frame?
🎵🎶PITTI-SING.
A day, a week, a month, a year—
YUM.
Or far or near, or far or near,
POOH.
Life’s eventime comes much too soon,
PITTI-SING.
You’ll live at least a honeymoon!🎵🎶
Stuffs schoolgirl Destiny back in her memory box.
If I get a Gilbert & Sullivan-flavored earworm out of this, I’m coming after you >:(
And as a leader when you are out taking care of clients and training business women to work it works. Bottom line BUILD YOUR CUSTOMER BASE. & quit treating Mary Kay like a multilevel. It is a duel marketing. Learn it, practice it.
Your first recruit is what turns your “duel marketing” into a multi-level marketing system. Learn that but don’t practice it!
This is gonna be long, as if that’s unusual for me 😉
“As a single young woman with 3 children and deserted by her husband (and 0 child support) Mary Kay was a God – send. Did I mention I was insanely shy. This business helped me grow personally, many happy life long customers and teams of business women. I never had to stress about a good running car, I earned 14+”
As much as I slag on my own mother here, there, and elsewhere (decades of emotional and psychological abuse tend to color your thoughts just a touch) there was a lot to admire about her. She had been a school teacher, as women of her generation often were. She was married at 21 to her high school sweetheart, my father.
She was widowed at 41 with 6 children ranging in ages from 19 to 6 (me). My father had no life insurance and no assests except for a lockbox with his (admittedly quite impressive) poker winnings in it. She hadn’t worked full-time since my oldest sister was born, never learned to drive, never had her own money since her college days because my father was an old-school alpha male who regarded the family finances as man stuff. Shame about the 4 heart attacks, including the literal widowmaker.
She too was hella shy, and grieving, and desperate. We lived off Dad’s poker winnings while she applied for every job that she could walk to or take the bus to. Most turned her down because she was overeducated. All she could get was work at a Hallmark store. The pay wasn’t great so she worked a lot of hours, She had to learn to budget and balance a checkbook. She managed to shelter and feed us as she saved up for a car; my teenage brothers taught HER to drive in the junky Jeep Wagoneer our father had bought from a guy who knew a guy. That was one car. It was big and easy to count.
She finally was able to get her own car because one of my brothers needed the Jeep for school and work (the other was driving a string of lemons he bought with his own earnings). Her first car was a 1986 Ford Escort which was probably the cheapest car on the market at the time. It didn’t have air conditioning or a tape player, but it was hers. She had scrimped and saved and worked extra hours to afford it because THIS IS WHAT WE CALL WORKING.
That makes two cars. The Escort was way smaller than the Jeep, but still quite tangible.
We ate a lot of generic packaged food (back when it still came in the white cans with black lettering) and never had the nice toilet paper or real butter. I was basically a latchkey kid from age 9 because my siblings were so much older and had their own jobs, friends, lives. But by golly whenever one of us had a school event or something else important, she was there. She got us to doctors when we were sick, made Halloween costumes, shopped for prom gowns, hosted birthday and graduation parties.
The owner of the store she worked at was impressed by how hard she worked and how willing she was to put extra time in, because THAT IS WHAT WE CALL WORKING and promoted her to manager of a second store that he owned. That meant a better salary for fewer hours; we were allowed to use the air conditioner a little more and move up to brand-name vegetables. She turned the first Escort in on lease and got a second in 1988, which had AC and a tape deck. Living, baby.
That makes three cars, two of which she picked out and paid for herself by working her ass off. At some point in the 80s the Jeep just kind of fell apart and my brother took it to the junkyard, and we all went out to a restaurant on the money he got for it.
After a couple years she managed to land an office job, where she had bitchy coworkers who made her come home crying but she stuck it out because she was finally making a livng wage. She outlasted them and became a prop and mainstay of that workplace because THIS IS WHAT WE CALL WORKING. She paid off the mortgage and the second Escort and we finally had actual butter and nice toilet paper.
All done by her hard work and patience, with zero harrassment of strangers, recruitment into pyramid schemes, or trinkets.
“A lot of red grand ams!”
Four cars. The fourth was a 2000 Dodge Neon she bought out of desperation because the second Escort was totalled in an accident and they weren’t made any more, and the Neon was the cheapest small car on the market. Old habits die hard. It was the car I learned to drive on.
“But every two years it was fresh, new, and no break downs with a car full of kids.. My boys learned to drive in a pink Cadillac.”
Every teenage boy’s dream (rolleyes). Who cares about a Mustang or pickup truck. Ain’t no babe magnet like a Grandma car with a Mary Kay license plate (and a boyfriend’s mom who’ll try to make you over and sell you stuff because you’re too young to recruit).
“More importantly they saw their mom fail and get back up again,”
Pfft, they could have learned that from Chumbawumba.
“with the support of the best company and genuine supportive people. They learned ethics from watching me working with an ethical company.”
Ethics how? As Frosty points out, “never accept a no” isn’t ethical. It’s annoying when you’re trying to force makeup on someone and life-threateningly dangerous when it comes to refusing sex, or drugs, or getting in a car with someone drunk off their ass…
Was their mother at their basketball games? Did she take pictures on prom night and gush over how beautiful their dates were? Did she teach them how to budget money, balance a checkbook, clean, do laundry, sew buttons, sacrifice what you want in favor of what you need? Can they cook basic meals, do handyman stuff? Do they have fond memories of her, or was she just some nebulous source of things who was always on the phone or at a meeting?
We only had four cars – the Jeep, two Escorts (one was maroon and the other navy blue), and the Neon. 1+2+1=4. But in spite of the mental scars we all have happy memories of her and each other and we all learned the same work ethic and how to adult so we were ready to face the world in all the way she wasn’t, because she cared enough about us not to want us to flail around as she had to when my father died.
Oh, and in 2017 I bought a Crosstrek because the Neon was starting to fall apart. I went to the dealership, picked out the one I wanted, financed it with my fabulous credit, made 5 years worth of payments out of my savings that I got through WHAT WE CALL WORKING, and it became mine. It’s not owned by some greedy corporation who can take it back if I don’t live up to some arbitrary standard, I can keep it, trade it in, donate it, sell it, or let it sit in my driveway and rot, but no one can take it away from me… unless I let the insurance lapse or something… which I wouldn’t because thanks to my mother I know to pay my bills before I spend money on luxury… like makeup.
One. One Crosstrek. Her name is Christine and I have a steering wheel cover with carrots on it.
Ten points for the “Tubthumping” reference!
My mom was also a single parent for many years. I’m the oldest of three girls, and I’m still in awe to this day how she managed to pull everything off. She started in the civil service (federal employee program) as a GS-3 in the secretarial pool at the local Air Force base. She even tried MK at one point in there, believing that she could make extra money to help all of us. She made some, but it wasn’t for her. Fast forward many years, different jobs (including working on the B-2 program), finishing her bachelor’s and master’s degrees (which they paid for), and moving into a manager position — she retired a few years ago as a GS-14 with a nice pension and retirement. She made it to orchestra concerts, soccer and softball games, drama club productions, Girl Scout events, and cheerleading practices and games. She would go to the grocery store at night after we were all in bed — there were very few people, and it was easier to shop without us. (I was 14, so leaving me there with my younger sisters wasn’t an issue.)
When she retired, she bought herself a Subaru Forrester and loves it. Her name is Candy (since it’s candy apple red). She did all of this withOUT MK being a part of her life. She worked her butt off for us and has been enjoying the fruits of her labors for almost two decades now.
OMG! ❤️❤️❤️
And ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
I’m going to take this as a Freudian slip and run with it. This will be the first time I agree that Mary Kay is “duel marketing”. You are in a duel with predators and corporate greed. If you sign up you get into a duel with your morals and your integrity. The battle never stops. It comes full circle. When you get out you then duel with Mary Kay once again as you help spread awareness and help others who have or want to get out as well. The battle stops when MLM’s close their doors for good.
Yeah…Mary Kay does not fit the definition of “dual marketing” (although “duel” marketing could be entertaining LOL). In real dual marketing, the product flows two different directions: wholesale to other business and retail to customers. In Mary Kay the product flows ONE direction. From corporate to consultants and then MAYBE customers, but probably a closet or garage or basement.
Sorry, but Mary Kay is an MLM. 🤷♀️
Her boys learned to drive in a pink cadillac. I would love to hear the internal dialogue of the children who were so blessed to see mom fail enough to be noticed by her kids. I say internal dialogue cause I sure don’t believe this delusional prima dona and I expect her children find her ego too fragile to be able to speak truth to her, even if in great humour from being a teenage boy driving a pink cadillac.
From the start of the “essay”, COGNITIVE DISSONANCE has just been screaming at me….
In the Pink Fog it is so shameful discuss “failure.” The fact that 99% of people in these companies don’t actually make money is something that could never be comfortably discussed. If you were to say something like that, or ask questions around it, you were met with “being negative” or “what you think about you bring about,” so basically if you think like that you’ll fail, so you caused your own failure by thinking like that.
I was so brainwashed by this!! It makes me so angry. I had a lot of rage at myself about it — how could I have been so dense to just keep playing along with the charade??
I didn’t want to rock the pink boat. After all, I was “friends” with a Million Dollar Sales Director. We lived in the same town and I had front row seats to her life & her lifestyle.
Anyway, I spent nearly 21 years of my life in MK. I only wish that I had more maturity and asked better questions, or not been so susceptible to the brainwashing, or something. I’m still working out the details.
If you can sell it or will it to your family, it’s not your own business.
Sorry, I can’t get past the face! What in the Halloween happened???? I’d sue my plastic surgeon!!! There is no concentrated time. Time is time. “a good salesman in any profession” another meaningless word salad. You are either a salesman or not. There are not various professions. Whether I sell cars, recruit people, am a pharmaceutical rep, etc. I’m still a salesperson. A professional salesperson can sell any product. Anyway, I’ll quit nitpicking another horribly written, adnauseum letter. Does she even know people have retirement checks with medical and dental benefits? Does she even realize she missed the boat financially?
Eh, I’ll take a real human face any day over the horror that is Somer Fortenberry’s photoshopped alien botox face, or the overfiltered noseless wonders, or Carrie Zuberer’s Bride of Pennywise look.
I would become ill as a hornet if someone kept “checking up” on (*coughpestering*) me every two months.
When I was a little girl in the early 1960s, we had an Avon lady who would show up at our house unannounced. My mother referred to her as “that pain in the ass.”