Let’s Talk About Chelsea’s Lies
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If Mary Kay is such a wonderful opportunity for women, why do you have to lie about it?
The recruiting process is full of lies, half-truths, and omissions. Let’s face it, if you told a potential recruit that 99% of people in MLMs lose money, no one would ever sign up. Instead, the recruiters talk about the handful of people (relatively speaking) who are making money. They inflate the amount of money made. They don’t talk about the failure rate or that most sales directors (top 2% of the company!) make around minimum wage.
This past weekend at virtual Seminar 2020, Chelsea Adkins (fka Chelsea Claytor) won Queen of Sharing for the Diamond seminar division. We even had a troll come here and gloat about it, as if Chelsea being “crowned queen” changes our Pink Truth mission in some way.
Let’s talk about Chelsea and her most recent Mary Kay lies. We’ve talked about her lies and failures before. It’s time to update with the latest.
In June 2019, Chelsea bought her way into a pink Cadillac. She wasn’t going to fail again! So she “succeeded” by discounting all products wildly (so her huge product sales resulted in almost no profit) and putting the remainder of the production on her own credit card. She missed Cadillac production every month of the most recent seminar year until April. (Cadillac production is $17,000 wholesale per month; in January her unit did $6,000 wholesale.)
A big month in April with $80,120 (fake) retail put Chelsea in her first unit club. Of course, this announcement included the lie that “… my team of ladies that I lead has sold over $300,000 worth of products.” No. They had ordered about $130,000 of products. Double that to $260,000 for fake retail. Add $40,000 to that for the double credit promotion. That’s best case scenario. They might have ordered less, as there were multiple double credit promotions throughout the year.
Assuming they ordered $130,000, the most they could have sold was $260,000…. and that’s only if nothing is given away free and nothing is ever discounted. And that’s also only if the unit sold EVERYTHING they ordered, which we know is never the case.
And then they did it all over again in May. Chelsea’s unit added 75 new members in May and had $143,798 “retail” on the books, which was greatly celebrated. But her people didn’t sell $143,798. They ordered probably around $60,000 of products, and then contests/promotions magically made the number $144k “retail.”
We all know that unit production comes mainly from new recruits $60,000 divided by 75 is $800. You can see the $600 order to make recruits “seminar qualified” was very important.
All of this shows you that you can never trust the numbers in Mary Kay. Sure, Chelsea got her little bar pin for doing the $550,000 “unit club.” But it was done with double credit. You never know in MK how much the unit REALLY ordered because promotions inflate the numbers, and you can never be sure how much they are inflated.
And of course, Chelsea lies when she says they had $590,000 retail sales. She KNOWS they didn’t sell that much. She KNOWS they couldn’t have sold that much even if they wanted to because the $590k is a fake figure that is inflated with “contest credit.”
The one thing you will ALWAYS know is that the amount sold by consultants was a FRACTION of what they said it was. “$590,000 retail sales” is probably something more like $125,000 retail sales. Yes, I said it.
Then there is the issue of Chelsea’s personal sales. She says she “sold over $80k in 1 year.” No she did not. Chelsea said she had sold $40,000 through March, and that was a lie too.
For the year, she ordered about $30,000 to $35,000 wholesale. She did massive sales and discounts throughout the year. She likely sold about $45,000. Maybe $50,000. Even with sales of $50,000, her profits were $10,000 to $15,000 on those sales. (Remember that they always lie about how much their profit is.)
And the big whopper of a lie. What is the Queen of Sharing? Chelsea took the time to tell us all about her 42 recruits. She didn’t tell the truth which is: Each recruit ordered at least $600 wholesale from Mary Kay. That made them “qualified” recruits, and made them count toward the court of recruiting.
But Chelsea tells the huge lie that the women she recruited HAD TO ACTUALLY MAKE MONEY. No, they did not. They didn’t have to sell one product. All they had to do was place an order with MK Inc. End of story. Court of Sharing has nothing to do with making people successful. It has nothing to do with developing them into leaders or teaching them how to make money.
Shame on you, Chelsea Claytor Adkins for your lies.
Visit the 
Free product bonuses and PCP GWPs are added to YTD retail totals, too. Critical thinking would do a lot of people some good. Wake up, people!
I just wanna know why she’s wearing a sequined hospital gown…
“Queen of Sharing.”
It sounds so much better than “we really encourage recruiting over retail sales,” but that’s all it means. 42 exploited women in one year, and that’s cause celebre. Disgusting.
42 per year is 3.5 per month. If every new recruit matched that rate, the entire planet would be roped in in 18 months. At just one per month it would still only take about 3 years.
MLM hawker Zig Zigler dismisses mathematical reality and claims, “Market saturation is impossible because more people are born every day.” Nonsense. Saturation doesn’t mean there are no more buyers; it means the market has too many sellers. That’s been the case for Mary Kay for decades. In endless-chain recruiting, saturation is not only possible; it’s inevitable.
But, hey, “Queen of Sharing.” It’s a wonderful thing, right? Let’s celebrate with silly bling and a sequined hospital gown, everyone!
“42 per year is 3.5 per month. If every new recruit matched that rate, the entire planet would be roped in in 18 months. At just one per month it would still only take about 3 years.”
This. Char especially (and greatfully) is regularly trying to make Kaybots understand that the math just doesn’t work. Endless chain recruiting cannot work on a planet with a finite number of inhabitants. I guess what MK strives for is that recruits won’t question the math and/or will assume that they will be “the one” who is special and who achieves the success before the population runs out.
Because she’s about to be committed! She should be, at least.
“OH HAIIIIII Crown Unit”
Is she actually referencing “The Room”?
“The Room” was a 2003 movie made by — and starring — Tommy Wiseau. Its utter awfulness eventually made it a cult hit, and has since had fans imitating Wiseau’s strange accent. In the film, Wiseau’s character, Johnny, greeted his friend with “Oh, hi, Mark!” (with “hi” sounding like “hai”) over and over again. The actor who played Mark, Greg Sestero, later wrote a memoir of his experiences on and off the set, which was itself made into another movie, “The Disaster Artist,” starring James Franco as Wiseau.
All of this is to say that it’s startlingly unprofessional to use a “The Room” reference in a business announcement like that. The use of 5 extra I’s just makes it worse.
Hai has been used by us weebs since forever. I used it on AOL in 1997 lol
I bet she only paid $10 for each “i” she used and sold all five for $100.
I never thought I’d ever seen a reference to my favorite movie on Pink Truth of all places, but it is 2020 lol
Why does that photo show them running their own little mini Awards Night? Have people been having meetings? Perhaps the backlash for fhese kinds of photos will help slow the spread of Mary Kay.
With the whole making the women she recruited successful, I think she’s referring to the fact that after 24 recruits Queen of Sharing is based on commissions earned on the qualified recruits’ orders in their first year. I personally knew and spent time with a 3rd runner up who recruited 24 (no double credit), and she told me that. She was 2nd runner up last year the same way.
If I’m not mistaken, the queen is determined based on the number of recruits (most wins)… But if there is a tie in number of recruits, then the tiebreaker is the commissions. Can anyone back me up on this?
You’re probably right. The last time we talked was 18 months ago, so I’ve likely forgotten the details.
Yes, you can actually have fewer qualifiers but higher commissions and win.
There were a HUGE amount of viewing parties for Seminar. Shows how unintelligent those people are.
“slow the spread of mary kay” ?
“The recruiting process is full of lies, half-truths, and omissions. Let’s face it, if you told a potential recruit that 99% of people in MLMs lose money, no one would ever sign up.” –
But wait, there’s more! It’s bad enough that 99% lose money, but people need to ask “how” do the 1% make their money.
Our innocent brain assumes, wrongly, that 99% fail because they aren’t stars and didn’t work hard enough. However, we must identify what that “work” actually is. Here’s where I redirect you back to the 99% losing money. Follow me:
The top 1% work hard at lying to the 99% who lose, so they, the 1%, can profit. Again if they told the truth, no one would sign up; and this is where the money is. If you are a successful MLMer, you have merely lied to enough recruits and gotten the them to order FROM THE COMPANY – not you.
*It is necessary to lie about the fake retail sales because endless-chain recruiting the opportunity to sell the opportunity is illegal. Mary Kay Inc. exists today because they make up retail sales numbers and have never had to prove the actual amount of non-affiliate purchases to authorities. Ask yourself, is a thief that never gets caught innocent? Does the amount of years that pass matter?
Ok this retail wholesale business is meant to feed the cognitive dissonance. Think If a person from let’s say ulta, sephora, and any other retailer had to read and keep track of this post today regarding money.
Any way you slice it for the awards, the consultant or anyone in MK purchasing is the customer. Now the second thing is to try to unload it, while doing the third thing- come on to join and/or buy more from corporate. They are masters at disguising the purchase.
If all I want is a makeup purchase for me, it is easy. Not this riga moro. Clinque has 10 dollar starter kits and you do not have to join the circus.
Last week I saw an SD post on IG that boasted of reaching a monthly score of 100,000 (points, not money). Considering the latest promotions that MK Brasil has been doing, such as “Power Box”, “Rose Circle” or “double credit”, we know that this score is based on tons of products with double scores, which were ordered by IBC’s for maintain your “Star Consultant” status. This is not real sales or anything that can be reproduced by any Unit, anywhere in the country. It is impressive the lack of connection in posts like the one I mentioned. I am just illustrating one among so many lies that are disseminated to the unwary.
We’ve seen that too. Several “double sales credit” and other promotions, which count for the titles that cost nothing, but not for the expensive things like cars and trips.
It is for the bragging and lies to make themselves seem more profitable.
To be fair, it kind of is how successful your recruits are (well, how successful YOU are by getting them to order).
24 active gets you qualified to get the bee. The queen is determined by who has the highest commissions out of those 24. If Chelsea has 42, then her highest 24 rankings counted as towards the queen. And those recruits count all year long.
If all of your recruits were $600, then it wouldn’t get you far. You need them to have the initial $600 within the first few months, but also keep them in star status all year long. Sales directors are taught to keep new recruits in their back pocket for their first year because bonuses and bees are earned by them.
So Chelsea probably had a few ‘successful’ orderers throughout the year. It’s a half truth.
Chelsea had people order lots of product. REAL success would be having people who sold lots of that product at full retail price.
WOW, I stumbled across this site and it’s full of negativity and disappointment. So many of these blog posts dissect a social media post word by word. Unless you are the individual that made the post you don’t know the facts unless you have done the research. For example – how do you know that Chelsea had people order lots of product and not sell the product? Did you interview all of her individual recruits and ask if they sold the product ordered? Probably not. It is not fair or accurate to make a statement based on anyone’s achievements when you didn’t do the work yourself or research the facts.
So many of these posts make me think of that saying “Hurt people hurt people.” That reminds me of another quote “People that criticize other people are just unhappy about something in their lives and they make the most pathetic measures to make themselves feel better.” There are plenty of critics in this world – be kind – be positive – be an encourager. There are bad apples in ANY group (MLM, corporations, small local business, organized religion, families, politics, etc) but, there is danger when you put that generalization on the whole group. Just curious – if you owned a business (local or corporate) and if you had a rude or dishonest employee would you want someone making a generalization of YOUR business based on the actions of one person? Me personally, no. In a world full of hate can we be kind?
Telling the truth about a bogus “business opportunity” is not unkind. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I feel an obligation to let people know the truth about Mary Kay. THis isn’t about “one bad apple.” The lies are rampant in MK. ALmost everyone is recruited with lies, be it direct untruths that are told or lies of omission.
We know that Chelsea’s people ordered more products than they sold. Therefore, saying “they sold” all of it is easily identifiable as a lie.
It’s also easy to identify the lie that they “had to make money” for Chelsea to win queen of sharing. No they did not. All that mattered was how much they ordered.
It is 100% fair to comment on these lies when they are so obviously lies. Chelsea counts on ignorance of consumers. They don’t know she’s lying. Therefore, I take pride in exposing those lies.
Thank you for giving me an opportunity to restate what a shitty person Chelsea is for telling these lies. 🙂
I was a Director. And drove pink Cadillacs. Please don’t tell me I don’t know what’s still going on in MK because I lived it.
Have you??
Today’s Teasers:
#1 – “There are bad apples in ANY group (MLM, corporations, small local business, organized religion, families, politics, etc) but, there is danger when you put that generalization on the whole group.“
Question: How many bad apples does it take to make a gang of thieves?
Answer: All of them
Why: The act of stealing is fraudulent regardless of who does it.
Analysis: Multi-level marketing itself is a scam. The method to acquire money in MLM requires lying to others and convincing people to hand over money using deception.
#2 – “how do you know that Chelsea had people order lots of product and not sell the product?“
Question: How do we know Chelsea’s upline didn’t sell lots of product?
Answer: Because they recruited Chelsea who also recruited others instead of retailing to Chelsea and all her contacts.
Why: Mary Kay is an MLM company, and endless-chain recruiting is the name of the game. This is what keeps Corporate debt-free and it’s employees with health insurance.
#3 – “ In a world full of hate can we be kind?”
Question: Should we be kind to people who commit fraud and cause harm to others?
Answer: Isn’t it kinder to warn people of those fraudsters and protect them? Free of charge too.
Why: Silly people like the poster are confused and will be victimized. They need help.
“ For example – how do you know that Chelsea had people order lots of product and not sell the product? “
Oh, I dunno… the photo of the obviously fake sales slips and the other photo of a stack of her own credit cards sitting on her desk while she was ordering – not selling – stuff to meet a goal was kind of a giveaway.
I’ve griped about this before here, and I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, but if repeatedly stating the obvious is what needs to be done to expose the MK lies then that’s what we need to do.
Most of my adult career has been working in retail/wholesale and I can attest that MK has created their own definition of “retail sales” that is completely made-up, is not reflected in reality, and is so far removed from actual “retail sales” that it should be completely disregarded outside of the MK world.
*You cannot take “wholesale” numbers and assume the true retails sales totals from those wholesale numbers by ASSUMING A PROFIT MARGIN and not verifying that profit margin!*
I’ve worked on actual P/L analysis studies for many “independent businesses” in my industries and one CANNOT calculate actual retail sales figures without verifying that they actually happened! Yes, your business pays $50 for a product but do you actually SELL IT for $100? That can only be verified by using the retail sales receipts.
Whether you’re a lurker IBC or a diehard Director Kaybot, you MUST realize that “retail” does NOT equal “wholesale” x two without verifying that you indeed are selling every bit of that wholesale at double its cost.
I’d really like to see (as would everyone here at PT, but we never will) an MK person (of any level) provide sales receipts that show actual “double” retail sales for their wholesale purchases for any significant period of time. Like, for example, Chelsea buys $10,000 in “wholesale” in a period of time and can show $20,000 in retail receipts in the same period of time. (Most PT folks know why I keep putting “wholesale” in quotes.)
MK “retail” is =/= “retail” in any other industry. The fact that they’re so quick to believe the MK definition of retail and not treat it like ANY OTHER BUSINESS does shows just how brainwashed they are and how far removed MK is from the real world of sales.
*aaaahhhhh* I feel much better getting that out of my system. Apologies for the soapbox…but when you devote a few decades of your life working in, studying, and analyzing “retail” sales, you get ticked off when you see the likes of Chelsea just making up numbers (and worse, using these made up numbers to entice less experienced women to spend money in a futile attempt to achieve such numbers).
I love this SO much!
I love it. And this is the reason why “business” is often put in quotes when referring to MK consultants.
If “sales” were actually product sold, our 1099s would’ve counted retail value of product ordered, not wholesale. Product bonuses in any other world do not count as income or are added to fiscal sales.
So stupid.
I’d also like to add that while stating a “retail” sales figure as function of cost multiplied by margin (ie I buy product for $100 and sell it for $200) is an actual retail sales figure, there are always costs incurred beyond the wholesale price of the product.
Businesses in general don’t always proclaim or advertise their net profits; they can properly present their gross sales numbers. But non-wholesale costs *have* to be factored in when calculating the true profit that the business nets. Any business can buy their product for $50 and sell it at retail for $100 and still fail to achieve profit; it happens every day.
Tracy has gone to great lengths to stress the other costs that folks in MK incur while achieving their retail sales, and perhaps the most impactful examples of this are the former directors who have unselfishly described their discoveries, upon examination of their “business”, that they indeed barely made minimum wage or worse, lost money during their years devoted to their MK “business”.
I think my point is that, if any of you current MK lurkers don’t know what a P/L statement is, yet claim to “own a business”, you really have no idea of what owning a business is about, at least not successfully.
“Tracy”, the woman behind the blog? I can tell by your language and sarcasm (along with others) y’all are hurt and bitter. I learned in my persuasive writing and speech class in college that when defending an idea (or persuading) it’s best to not be in your face about the issue – an individual should calmly state their opinion (without profanity, sarcasm, accusations, etc). When an individual comes out swinging it does nothing but turn others away and it falls on deaf ears. Have a great evening! ?
I am neither hurt nor bitter. I just don’t like Mary Kay ladies scamming so many women. I happen to be a fraud investigator, and MK is a fraud of epic proportions. Don’t mistake my zeal for the truth for anger or hurt or any other emotion you want to assign to me.
“Tracy”
It scams the customers too. I remember growing up absolutely dirt poor but my mom would buy Mary Kay products instead of food, toiletries, or anything useful. I got to to your site because I was trying to find out what their prices were in the late 80s. I’m honestly still mad about this. I can understand having a couple of high end make up products but Mary Kay wasn’t even the best quality. They suckered my mom in like crazy.
P.S. Pink Truth has been around for over 14 years, and we have plenty of women who have listened to us and are listening to us. So we’re good. 🙂
Why not address the actual issues we’ve raised here, such as how can Chelsea claim a “retail” total that includes double credit products? We don’t need to know what she or her recruits actually sold to know that double credit cannot possibly be sold at retail because you can’t sell the same product twice. So why not educate us on how those “retail” numbers can possibly be true?
Why do you assume we’re all hurt and bitter? I was never in Mary Kay. None of my friends or family members were directly harmed by Mary Kay. I’m only here because I’m motivated to speak out against an evil enterprise that exploits women for corporate profits. I see no reason I should be kind to them.
You took a persuasive speech class in college? Did they not warn you about using trite cliches like “Hurt people hurt people”? Were you absent the day they taught about how resorting to ad hominem attacks weakens your case? Because this:
“People that criticize other people are just unhappy about something in their lives and they make the most pathetic measures to make themselves feel better.”
qualifies as an ad hominem attack, projecting nefarious motivations upon your audience with no evidence.
But hey, don’t listen to me. I’m just hurt and bitter.
“Chelsea tells the huge lie that the women she recruited HAD TO ACTUALLY MAKE MONEY.”
No, they did not. They didn’t have to sell one product. All they had to do was place an order with MK Inc. End of story (to Tracy…thanks for all you do to keep this site around).
This, MK folks. This. What you ordered does NOT equal your retail sales as in being your ordered number times two, UNLESS you actually sell all of your product at double, EVERY SINGLE TIME. And you know that NEVER happens, at least not consistently. Truth is, you’re ordering x amount of product and selling much less than what you’re ordering. GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN.
Such as, if you buy $100,00k you CANNOT claim that you racked up $200,000 in sales UNLES you can prove that via actual paperwork. Thus, if you can’t PROVE it, you can’t CLAIM it.
Ugh.
This is one of the reasons I say to myself that run-of-the-mill Kaybots should NOT be all9ed to comment anywhere online (unless they have a good solution).
Then I realize that I’m wrong and that a new generation of Kaybots are here to “represent” MK.
MK tracks how much the distributors buy, and how many people they recruit, not how much they sell. That’s all I need to know that MK is a pyramid scheme.
if it was a pyramid scheme, they would be in business. This company has been around for decades! they would have been shut down by now lol some of yall are so miserable and it shows.
would not be*
If only that were true, Kelly. If Madoff was a fraud, he wouldn’t have been in business for decades. If Enron was a fraud, they wouldn’t have been in business decades. Oh wait, both of those were frauds.
Tell me again how miserable I am with my legitimate business and clients I don’t have to lie to or try to recruit?