No Lunches at Seminar
Written by Parsons Green
The 2025 Mary Kay Seminar will be held in Charlotte NC this year due to the demolition of the Dallas Convention Center. The company is consolidating four seminars into two. The cost for consultants is $250, which is in line with costs for previous seminars.
Someone in the Director’s Tip’s Group on Facebook asked about this year’s costs and it here are some of the comments. Tonya Vice is upset that there will be no complimentary boxed lunches. She has taken time away from her business to call and email corporate about this. The company is pricing themselves out of events.
Brittany Wirt reminds us that everyone from corporate now has to travel this year, which is an added cost. Kimberly Duncan would pay even more than $250!
Danna Meier Haines says that the company is not recouping their costs from the registration fees.
Rachel Marie Nelson shares that the company admitted this at leadership – they lose money on it but feel it’s needed to keep Mary Kay’s legacy alive.
Danielle Sadler says other conferences are more expensive. And Joy Rentz is now thinking of leaving the group because it’s too negative! Donna Scott think it’s negative too!
Patricia Picard has an idea. Offer to buy lunch for your consultants if they meet their goals! If they sign up five great start consultants (This requires a $600 wholesale order in the first or second month after signing their agreement). The second day lunch is earned if their wholesale order increased 10% over the previous year.
Tonia Wells admits that Mary Kay is changing in ways that has lost her consultants and customers. She does not feel she’s receiving value for the cost she’s paying to Mary Kay.
Finally Tania offers a suggestion that the Directors Oath be posted in the group.
Directors taking this oath promise to honor Mary Kay’s legacy and to act with integrity. Is that possible in Mary Kay?
Visit the
“Danna Meier Haines says that the company is not recouping their costs from the registration fees.”
Ahem…if they are now losing money on these conferences, it means they used to “make” money on them. Think about that for a second.
Real companies “invest” in sales conferences…it is a cost of doing business, and is funded by revenue from sales to outside customers, not the pockets of the sales force. In MLMs like Mary Kay, the sales force pays for everything. Think about it. What other revenue stream does Mary Kay Corp have?
Even if Mary Kay Corporate paid for the conference, it would be using revenue from purchases made by…you guessed it…the MK sales force!
Not to mention the corporate staff who will be flying first class from TX to NC (while the consultomers are crammed into economy like overdressed sardines) and staying in luxury suites (while the consultomers are sharing beds and bathrooms with their closest strangers) will be doing so on the consultomers’ dime.
They’re paying for themselves to be treated like garbage and herded like cattle and calling it an honor.
Please take care of your jackets, ladies. You’d hate to be like Careless Casie and leave yours behind and have NO events in 30 days that you needed to wear your bejewelled trophy coat.
Do the restaurant owners in Charlotte have ANY idea what’s coming? Because if they don’t, they’re just going to have enough supplies on hand for a normal weekend (because that’s what real businesses do) because, you know, normal businesses feed their own employees during their ding-dang conventions. I’d hate for them to be harrangued by hangry hordes of huns in a hurry, neverending lines, running out of stuff, blaming the restaurants and their employees for a real life Hunger Games that’s not their fault.
[sarcasm mode ON] Anyway, it’s all the huns’ fault that this multibillion dollar, super-philanthropic corporation can’t even pop for one slice of stringy ham between two slices of stale white bread and a tepid bottle of Costco water. If they’d sold more, the Company would have more money to actually pay for stuff. [sarcasm mode OFF for now].
Unlikely that Charlotte knows what’s coming. I went to Career Conference in Cincinnati one year with approximately 3k attendees. They were not aware we were coming. Karens out left right and center, but of course, with sickly sweet grimaces to pretend they were being positive about the whole debacle.
Pity the full service restaurant owners and their waitstaff that will deal with a bunch of women taking up tables, sitting there as long as possible, ordering hardly anything and leaving minimal tips. If it goes on in Dallas this nonsense will happen in Charlotte as there are a good number of full service sit-down restaurants near the city convention center. On the flip side though, the takeout restaurants where you don’t usually tip and with little or no seating as well as those in the Monarch Market where there’s seating all over the place will probably do pretty well.
You know, any box lunch, however crappy it might be, is worth buying the attendees because they stay onsite for that much longer and it makes it easier to keep brainwashing them. Eliminating these box lunches with the conference might not have been the smartest move on corporate’s part.
Oh, yes, and let’s cap it off with the Apostles’ Creed… I mean Director’s Oath… because some of you are coming dangerously close to… Unpink Thoughtcrime.
Donna and Joy might say they’re leaving the group because of the negativity, but they will be back. They’ll lurk and watch for the gossip and newest affronts.
I have warned my friends in the Charlotte area about Seminar and the expected pink locust invasion.
Good grief, this is like a “Where’s Waldo?” of cringe.
Nancy Polish: “How many prizes did your husband win at that conference for doing a great job?”
:headwall:
None, because real jobs give out raises, bonuses, and industry awards to employees who do great jobs, and use their own revenue stream to do it. And they’re not a bunch of overgrown kindergardeners playing Career. FFS.
I will bet that Seminar attendance will be way down this year. It will be especially expensive for West coast consultants and Directors. A flight from West to East coast during the peek vacation month will be in my best estimate close to $600 round trip. Add that to $250 registration and your hotel room, you’re pushing $1000+ before meals. Unless you bring your cheese and crackers like Mary Kay did you’ll be out another $50+ a day for breakfast, lunch and dinner and fighting 100’s of women for a table! I also heard that Awards “night” will be held in the afternoon, so walk, taxi or Uber ( another cost) in your ball gown at 3:00pm in the dead of summer sounds horrible to me. I’ll be curious to hear the actual attendance count.
Nancy Polish How many prizes did your husband earn at that conference for doing a great job?
Apart from a steady paycheque 52/26/12 times per annum? This shows how few people are actually earning a decent paycheque.
https://imgur.com/a/mary-kay-income-disclosure-2023-LFdntKd
And we know that the prizes aren’t worth what they are valued at by Mary Kay.
https://www.pinktruth.com/2024/07/25/i-won-a-court-of-sales-ring/
“Just say Five Hail Mary’s” to absolve all ills.
But seriously: “Ryan is committed to keeping our cost down.” Could anything be further from the truth?
That Director’s Oath is going to turn it all around!
There are certainly other venues in Texas or the Midwest that MK could have chosen for Seminar.
Aren’t the majority of consultants concentrated in the Southeast/East Coast? I’m guessing that’s why Charlotte was selected.
It has always been my professional rule of thumb that I do not attend events far away that I have to pay for out of pocket unless my food is covered. Period.
Corporate had to have known for a long time (years) the convention center in Dallas was undergoing a reno.
I wonder why they chose NC instead of some other convention facility in Texas or another central location where it would be easier to accommodate people flying in from the west coast.
Was every center in the midwest already booked up?
I love thinking of all the things I’d MUCH rather spend $250 on instead of Seminar.