You Didn’t Work Hard Enough
Have any of you “thoroughly investigated” MLMs? Did you work hard (enough) while you were in Mary Kay? Are you just a loser in general who couldn’t make it in any business setting like this guy suggests?
Hello Pink Truth:
I stumbled on your site by accident. I read on just to see if you had uncovered some things about MLM businesses that might be new and different and, of course, accurate. To my disappointment, I found many generalized short statements not supported by sufficient detail to help any objective person to learn anything about the businesses.
The IRS does make a distinction between a pyramid and a multilevel marketing business. Your web sit confuses and jumbles the two.
People who are successful in all kinds of businesses have habits and leadership capabilities that account for their success. They work very hard! They could produce excellent results in a sole proprietorship, partnership or a corporation. You will always find some people trying to cheat every system possible. They victimize others because they are not willing to pay the price of success. If you ask the real questions you could perform a valuable service. For example, “What amount of activities did you do in the business?” “What amount was recommended to be successful?”
“What kind of due diligence did you do before entering the business?”
To condemn a whole class of businesses without thoroughly studying it seems a little irresponsible to me!
Visit the
“To condemn a whole class of businesses without thoroughly studying it seems a little irresponsible to me!”
I’m sure that, say, narcotics trafficking is a complex and nuanced world with rich rewards available to the motivated person who’s willing to go the extra mile, or the craftsman who takes pride in their work and puts in overtime to make a fine product, but I feel pretty comfortable condemning it as a Bad Thing sight unseen.
Just ask all the innocent bystanders who lived in Colombia when the Medellin cartel and Pablo Escobar were in their most prosperous times. Yeah, I am sure that narcotics trafficking is pretty bad, but I haven’t studied much about the business itself.
While nobody gets shot with Mary Kay, people seem to wind up with empty bank accounts and a garage full of useless product.
I stumbled on your site by accident.😂🤣
Sir, you are more likely to stumble onto a porn sight by accident.
Site
More stumbling. Do these clumsy fools ever actually READ the history of many of the participants and the founder of Pink Truth? If so, they would learn that these ladies attained high levels in MK, were MK car drivers and have the personal history to back up their statements.
Hello Pink Truth:
Hello.
I stumbled on your site by accident.
Sure Jan(gif)
I read on just to see if you had uncovered some things about MLM businesses that might be new and different and, of course, accurate.
https://imgur.com/a/mary-kay-income-disclosure-2023-LFdntKd
What isn’t accurate about MK corps own figures? The words directly from the fingers of directors? People’s own lived experiences?
To my disappointment, I found many generalized short statements not supported by sufficient detail to help any objective person to learn anything about the businesses.
I’ve provided you with a link with sufficient details from the source to help you, if you are in fact an objective person.
The IRS does make a distinction between a pyramid and a multilevel marketing business. Your web sit (sic) confuses and jumbles the two.
Yes, it does and no, we don’t. I feel it’s your own reading comprehension that does the jumbling and confusing.
People who are successful in all kinds of businesses have habits and leadership capabilities that account for their success.
Like being born to wealthy parents(Musk, Trump) or whose parents know some-one in a position to help(Gates).There are plenty of A-List celebrities whose careers were set in motion due to whose children they are as much as their talents.
They work very hard!
Or bought successful businesses with their un-earned wealth.
They could produce excellent results in a sole proprietorship, partnership or a corporation.
And yet, I don’t see any of those in Elizabeth (Katie) Toupin.
You will always find some people trying to cheat every system possible.
That’s human nature for you.
They victimize others because they are not willing to pay the price of success.
Fortunately, in Mary Kay Wagner Rogers Eckman Weaver Louis Miller Hallenbeck Ash’s company it’s the
downlinesrecruits who pay the price of success.If you ask the real questions you could perform a valuable service. For example, “What amount of activities did you do in the business?” “What amount was recommended to be successful?”
I’d suggest you actually read the site properly, because we have the screenshots of directors talking about all of these and more. Hint…there is no amount for 249 out of 250 participants to be successful.
“What kind of due diligence did you do before entering the business?”
Which is actively discouraged by senior directors. They don’t want their possible
downlinerecruits getting discouraged by that nonsense!To condemn a whole class of businesses without thoroughly studying it seems a little irresponsible to me!
It sounds to me like you, sir, are the one who hasn’t thoroughly studied either the business model or the company or any truly successful downline where every-one can document that they are consistently producing a net profit.
I feel like the IRS could not care less if it was a pyramid scheme or MLM as long as they get the tax dollars.
FTC tho…
So clumsy with all this stumbling! 😂
They don’t have tax to collect 99% of the time, as the MLM participants aren’t making any money. Also if you continue to lose money at your MLM business after three years, the IRS regards it as a hobby loss and you can’t write the loss of against your other income. Hopefully the IRS collects taxes from the 1% at the top who are making the serious dollars but who knows.
PTC, it would help everyone if we could agree on terms. Outside of MLM, I don’t know anyone who would describe a money-losing operation as “successful”. In a traditional business, it is possible for everyone to see positive income…from the suppliers to the sales force and everyone in-between…all paid from the proceeds of sales to outside customers.
In MLM, the high loss rates are not simply because so many are not “doing it right”, as you suggest. Rather, the loss rates are built into the model, and losses are required in order to produce the cash flow that covers the cost of the product and the high distribution cost associated with MLM. If you took the most successful people in any MLM and cloned them, and filled the ranks of the sales force with those clones, the loss rates would not change. No amount of “effort” on the part of these clones could overcome the loss rates built into the MLM model.
If you wish to prove otherwise, you simply need to identify a Mary Kay downline that is profitable as a whole. This means for this down-line, in aggregate, the amount of money paid by Mary Kay to the down-line reps exceeds the amount paid by the down-line reps to Mary Kay. Of course you won’t be able to find such a down-line, because the Mary Kay model cannot produce such a down-line. The cash flow in MLMs like Mary Kay comes from the sales force…by design. There cannot be profits for MKC or bonuses in the upline without commensurate down-line losses.
The other term misused in MLM is “customer”. In MLMs like Mary Kay, the actual target customer is the sales rep, but the MK folks pretend there is a sizable outside market for MK products. However, Mary Kay does not track outside sales, because such sales are immaterial to MK’s business model. Meanwhile, in traditional business, the outside customer has no role in the company other than purchasing the product. It is actually possible in non-MLM companies to make positive income without ever personally purchasing any of the products the company is selling. According to research for the FTC, roughly 249 folks need to lose money in MLM for one person to turn a profit. Meanwhile, it is mathematically impossible for the “average” number of direct down-line reps per rep in any MLM to reach even one. In other words, the one MLM winner requires 249 MLM losers, on average.
Such a money-losing operation cannot, and should not, be considered successful, just because one in 250 is able to make a buck off the other 249. Saying such a system produces “success” is dishonest at best. MLM has similar odds of success to games of chance…would you consider gambling a strategy for success?
“People who are successful in all kinds of businesses have habits and leadership capabilities that account for their success. They work very hard! They could produce excellent results in a sole proprietorship, partnership or a corporation.”
True. But you know what else is true? There are also hard workers with good habits and great abilities who fail. You know it happens. Remember the lockdowns? Lots of hardworking small-business owners went under due to no fault of their own. No matter how good a worker you are, or how smart, success is never a guarantee, because there are so many economic, regulatory, and other factors that are beyond your control. Any business comes with risk.
The problem with MLMs is not that they also carry a risk of failure, but that failure is built into the MLM model. Failure in Mary Kay and other MLMs is a feature, not a bug.
If you ask the real questions you could perform a valuable service. For example, “What amount of activities did you do in the business?” “What amount was recommended to be successful?”
These questions indicate that you haven’t actually done much reading here, in spite of your claims to the contrary. If you had, you’d have found a number of articles that break down exactly what the problem is with MLMs, with the math to back it up. You’d have read testimony after testimony detailing exactly what was recommended, how much hard effort the consultants put into their Mary Kay “businesses,” and how following the formula just put them deeper and deeper into debt.
I urge you to spend some time studying this site. Or, if you’ve actually succeeded as an MLM reseller, come back and give us the hard numbers: average monthly expenditure (seminars, samples, and brochures as well as products), average monthly revenue from sales and commissions, and average number of hours worked per month, including all activities (not just time spent selling) relating to your business. I hope you’re tracking all three of those numbers, because if you aren’t, that means you really don’t understand the first thing about running a business.
To condemn a whole class of businesses without thoroughly studying it seems a little irresponsible to me!
Yes, and you could say the same thing about criticizing a website that you haven’t thoroughly studied.
“You will always find some people trying to cheat every system possible”.
Mary Kay hidden definition of “some” = overwhelming majority.
Dear PTC,
https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/multi-level-marketing-businesses-pyramid-schemes
Have a nice day.