A consultant shares her quitting story. She got as far as DIQ, and then finally decided to call it quits. Does her story look like yours?

One day I woke up and thought to myself, “I can’t do this anymore.” I graduated with a degree in a foreign language. One I could do nothing with. I loved it, but after I graduated I had no idea what to do next.

Along came Mary Kay. One of my best friends held a “class” at her mother-in-law’s home and I attended it. She painted such a pretty picture, and I was feeling so down about my worthless degree that I thought, why not give it a go?

I did pretty well. Three recruits one month. Five recruits the next. Decent enough sales, I suppose, but after all, most of the profit was spent on re-ordering, re-stocking, taxes, shipping, cost of gas to get to and from parties, etc.

I was talked into getting a credit card after a few month. When I first joined I refused to get the credit card. But I was doing SO well, with all my recruits, that I thought, it’s time I’m a star consultant. Notice, I wasn’t doing enough in sales to get me to that point yet, so that’s why I said my sales were only decent. In the poor area I live in, my average class of 4-5 people gave me about $100 in sales. And that was on a really, really good day. I know skin care, and makeup, too by the way. I went to school for esthetics for a while. I’m also a good salesperson. But my director said I was just making excuses when I said that my area is poor.

I live in an area that is notoriously cheap. If I told you where I lived, instantly trailer parks and overalls would come to mind. But onward with my Mary Kay dream!

With that credit I purchased $2,400 wholesale inventory. Shortly after that, for some reason, I could not get people to hold bookings with me. Cancellation after cancellation. I went to career conference, which got me so energized and “ready” to be a director, that I said I would “do whatever it takes” to make it happen. I told myself I would NEVER ask my family members to join my team to get me into DIQ. But after career conference (I’d never been to a conference before), out of my excitement from hearing all the stories, my director convinced me to call up family members and get them all added onto my team and active within the next 7 days (the end of the month). And I did it. FIVE of my family members joined to help me, and placed the $225 minimum to get active.

A new month starts (with me now in DIQ) and I have zero appointments on my book. I started cold calling people from the name games I’d played months previously. No one took the bait. I finally called a girl who had attended a party almost a year previously and she miraculously booked with me. She had 6 guests attend, because my hostess credit was, have 6 guests, get $100 in free product REGARDLESS of sales (another strong suggestion my director said I should do during DIQ).

I arrived at this girl’s house, did the party (her, plus her guests made it 7 people)… not one person purchased ANYTHING. NOTHING. And it was 45 minutes out of my way! And here I am OVER $100 of product gone, when you calculate taxes/shipping. I cried my eyes out that entire 45 minutes back, then went for a long, hard run to run out my anger and bitterness from that day.

Towards the end of the month I knew I wasn’t going to make it through DIQ, and I told my director I REFUSED to buy my way into the next month. My best friend who recruited me had just bought her way into her second month of DIQ, and I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t afford to.

So I failed. I had the worse emotional breakdown I’ve ever had knowing that I got my family members into this to help me and I was going to fail, but thankfully my husband was there to support me and tell me it was okay… He said failure is inevitable in life, and maybe I needed to take a step back from MK and relax for a little bit before entering DIQ again.

I’m so thankful he suggested that. I know on the inside he was thinking, “I wish she would stop with MK altogether,” but he waited patiently for me to come to that conclusion myself. We went on our first vacation in over 6 years, and I deleted my facebook, and turned off my phone for 8 days.

I felt like a human again.

Over the process of that year, getting into DIQ, failing… I neglected my marriage and my family. All my energy and efforts went into “building my business” that just wasn’t working. For almost a year while I was in MK I didn’t go on one date with my husband. How sad is that? I also lost a lot of friends. I used to have so many friends that I would see them all the time, who would call or text every day, and everyone stopped talking to me… probably for fear I’d talk to them about Mary Kay. I never wanted to be this person, yet there I was. It was really, really sad for me.

But then one day I woke up and I said there is no more. No. I can’t do this. I am returning my product and getting that 90% back. I am paying off that credit card, and I will buy my skin care from Wal-Mart for all I care.

I was able to get back to loving life, working a normal 9-5 job. The stability and regularity of a 9-5 job is so much more appealing now that I had this MK experience. And I’m going back to school for something I love. MK may have wasted a year of my life, but I suppose I won’t be deceived by any other direct selling companies ag