No One Has to Buy Inventory
Apparently we give women a bad name by telling the truth about Mary Kay…
Mary Kay is one of the most respected brands of all time. I’m disappointed in people like you. It is apparent that you must have tried being a Beauty Consultant at one time, and didn’t do very well on your own. You cannot “sell” unless you sell! If you don’t do a thing, how do you expect to get business? Business does NOT come knocking on your. You have to make it happen.
If you have ever spent time with any Independent Beauty Consultant, you would actually find out the TRUTH – which is that no one HAS to buy any inventory unless they WANT to. I conducted my business for almost a year with NO INVENTORY – ZERO – NADA. I only ordered what the customers wanted each time, then delivered it. It is OPTIONAL. You most certainly “assumed” that you had to have an inventory! Either that, or you were misinformed.
You say that it’s “truth”? I say that you act like a “disgruntled employee”, who didn’t do her job! You are so mistaken with a lot of real truth about Mary Kay. You have slandered the truth and I’m surprised you haven’t been sued!
Typical woman giving other women a bad name…..hiss hiss kitty.
You are such a “disgruntled person”. Typical “woman” – Reow, hiss hiss. Obviously you do not know what you’re talking about. Maybe you attempted Mary Kay before and you didn’t work the business, so you failed. That’s not Corporate’s fault, it’s yours. You sound very uneducated and “bitter”. You obviously need a job or something to do other than spend your days trying to slander Mary Kay consultants and Corporate. Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?
It’s pathetic that you spend all day doing nothing but writing bad things about Mary Kay Cosmetics. I feel sorry for you that you don’t have much of a life, but I truly hope you get sued for slander.
You give women a bad name – hiss hiss hiss!
Visit the
LMFAO, kitty kitty!
Attention Humans:
Our human slave left this window open when she went to work. We have read it and are appalled by the anti-cat bias displayed here. We the undersigned wash our rear ends in the writer’s general direction. We also command our human slave to return home at once to pet us and give us those delicious morsels she keeps on a high shelf in a cupboard we can’t reach.
Signed,
Miss Cleo, Albert, Stanley, and King
Angel (we didn’t name her but it fits) agrees!
My cats want everyone to know that they are disgusted with the anti-cat bias of this letter and it in no way reflects the opinions of actual cats. They told me to make sure and post this, otherwise they’re going to get into my knitting bag and turn the house into one giant knot again.
Reow!
So you want catty, do you? ::cracks knuckles:: It’s on like Donkey Kong, BossBabe.
My comments are in the curly braces. For the letter writer, that means these things: {}
Mary Kay is one of the most respected brands of all time. {Oh, yes, I hear it mentioned every day along with Apple, Nike, Verizon, and Budweiser.} I’m disappointed in people like you. {Bummer. We’ll plod along somehow.} It is apparent that you must have tried being a Beauty Consultant at one time, {never did} and didn’t do very well on your own. {Almost 15 years in the same job here. Obviously my bosses think I do all right.} You cannot “sell” unless you sell! {Meaningless tautology. You can google those words to find out what they mean, BB.} If you don’t do a thing, how do you expect to get business? Business does NOT come knocking on your. You have to make it happen. {3 thought-cancelling cliches in a row – that’s gotta be some kind of record!}
If you have ever spent time with any Independent Beauty Consultant, {Schnookums, some of these women here drove Cadillacs. You know, those trophies on wheels all IBCs are encouraged to strive for?} you would actually find out the TRUTH – which is that no one HAS to buy any inventory unless they WANT to. {And their DIRECTORS nag the BLEEP out of them, effectively GASLIGHTING them into WANTING to (random capitalization is fun.)} I conducted my business for almost a year with NO INVENTORY – ZERO – NADA. {Golly, a whole year. That’s you women who only spent a decade or more on the career track put in your place!} I only ordered what the customers wanted each time, then delivered it. It is OPTIONAL. You most certainly “assumed” that you had to have an inventory! Either that, or you were misinformed. {So if they were misinformed, and they were definitely misinformed, is that their fault, or their recruiter’s fault for lying? Take all the time to need to think about that one.}
You say that it’s “truth”? I say that you act like a “disgruntled employee”, who didn’t do her job! {I say you’re a cotton-headed ninnymuggins and your feet smell.} You are so mistaken with a lot of real truth about Mary Kay. {Shut ‘er down, Tracy. You’ve been wrong for the past almost 17 years and Miss Thing here has all the answers.} You have slandered the truth and I’m surprised you haven’t been sued! {You can only slander people, Marilyn Vos Savant. Not to mention courts want stuff like “evidence of harm” and stuff. You can technically sue someone for hurting your widdle fee-fees, but the judge is going to toss the case and think you’re a dork.}
Typical woman giving other women a bad name…..hiss hiss kitty. {I know you are, but what am I? Gosh, I haven’t traded schoolyard insults in 40 years.}
You are such a “disgruntled person”. Typical “woman” – Reow, hiss hiss. {Yep, behold the internalized misogyny of this “woman empowering” company.} Obviously you do not know what you’re talking about. Maybe you attempted Mary Kay before and you didn’t work the business, so you failed. {So you can all take your MK cars, Crowns of Sharing, diamond rings, and director suits and cram ’em. You didn’t Mary Kay right according to Boo-Boo Kitty here.} That’s not Corporate’s fault, it’s yours. You sound very uneducated and “bitter”. You obviously need a job or something to do other than spend your days trying to slander Mary Kay consultants and Corporate. Don’t you have anything better to do with your time? {Ahh, yes, here comes the victim blaming. And I hate to say it, but forensic accounting, nursing, audiology, corporate sales, and professional landscaping (just to name the jobs I’ve gleaned from comments made here) don’t count as real jobs. Sorry. The Queen hath spokeneth, or something.}
It’s pathetic that you spend all day doing nothing but writing bad things about Mary Kay Cosmetics. I feel sorry for you that you don’t have much of a life, but I truly hope you get sued for slander. {Well, bless your heart. Meant in the full, passive-aggressive Southern sense, of course.}
You give women a bad name – hiss hiss hiss! {You’re talking to a mirror, dimbledoink.}
I’m aiming for 7 Ridiculous Downvotes ™ this week. Ad astra per aspera!
Pop.. you are absolutely hilarious!! Love your comments- they speak more truth than miss Hello Kitty. Keep up the great work!
“It’s on like Donkey Kong.”
She had me at that sentence. 👍👍👍😉
“If you have ever spent time with any independent Beauty Consultant, you would actually find out the TRUTH – which is that no one HAS to buy any inventory unless they WANT to.”
While technically true, in practice this is a lie. Until her cumulative orders for the quarter reach $225 wholesale, she does not qualify for the discount. If she is telling the truth, she either holds the orders until she has at least $225 wholesale, or she pays full retail and gets no profit on the first $225 ordered each quarter.
It is much more likely she is frontloading at least $225 in orders every quarter and lying about it.
^THIS
DJ, you always work out the maths in an effort to possibly get through to some MK Huns, and I applaud you for it. Unfortunately, those who most need to see your posts don’t. Just know that you do good work, and that hopefully it leads to decreased losses for those sucked into an MLM. We can only hope.
Mary Kay is one of the most respected brands of all time.
According to whom? My late 50’s self doesn’t respect it nor do the women I know. The younger generation of my family, ranging from late 30’s down to late teens find it doesn’t hold a candle to the products they buy in Sephora. In fact they find the idea of MK and other MLMs laughable.
I’m disappointed in people like you. It is apparent that you must have tried being a Beauty Consultant at one time, and didn’t do very well on your own.
What is apparent is that you, Ms. IBC have never read many of the posts here. If you had, you would realise that most of the writers and commentators were successful in terms of Mary Kay Wagner Rogers Eckman Weaver Louis Miller Hallenbeck Ash’s measure of success.
You cannot “sell” unless you sell! If you don’t do a thing, how do you expect to get business? Business does NOT come knocking on your (sic). You have to make it happen.
You can’t sell if nobody wants the product. A viable business does not rely on a few pity purchases.
If you have ever spent time with any Independent Beauty Consultant, you would actually find out the TRUTH – which is that no one HAS to buy any inventory unless they WANT to.
And yet, we see scripts handed down from NSD to director showing how to bully the poor IBCs into stretching their purchasing power, get a consistency award, we are on track for a career car, etc.
I conducted my business for almost a year with NO INVENTORY – ZERO – NADA. I only ordered what the customers wanted each time, then delivered it. It is OPTIONAL.
Good for you, I guess. Shame you never told Chelsea who is having another of her sales to get rid of her surplus stock.
You most certainly “assumed” that you had to have an inventory! Either that, or you were misinformed.
I wouldn’t call it ‘misinformed”, I’d call it lying. And no, no-one assumed that they had to buy an inventory, they were told out-right that they “needed to have the products on hand”, “couldn’t sell from an empty basket”, the alleged reason that an IBC needs to have an inventory are many.
You say that it’s “truth”? I say that you act like a “disgruntled employee”, who didn’t do her job!
And the victim-blaming starts! Ms. IBC wants to discount anybody’s experience that she doesn’t agree with.
You are so mistaken with a lot of real truth about Mary Kay. You have slandered the truth and I’m surprised you haven’t been sued!
Please tell us the real truth. And no, we haven’t “slandered” Mary Kay Wagner Rogers Eckman Weaver Louis Miller Hallenbeck Ash’s company since it is both fact and opinion and written opinion at that.
Mark Kay Wagner Rogers Eckman Weaver Louis Miller Hallenbeck Ash corporation would have to prove that what is written here is in fact defamatory which would involve opening up their business practices to public scrutiny.
Typical woman giving other women a bad name…..hiss hiss kitty.
Very mature.🙄
You are such a “disgruntled person”. Typical “woman” – Reow, hiss hiss.
Sighs.🙄
Obviously you do not know what you’re talking about.
And again, it’s obvious that our gentle reader has not read any of the “I stories” by our esteemed authors who haven’t sugar-coated what they did and how outwardly successful they were in MK.
Maybe you attempted Mary Kay before and you didn’t work the business, so you failed. That’s not Corporate’s fault, it’s yours.
A corporation which is set up so that 98% of it’s victims.. sorry salesforce loses money makes it inevitable that 98% of people who join will lose money. It’s not the fault of the person who is tempted by the promises of executive pay for for part-time work.
You sound very uneducated and “bitter”.
No, no we are not uneducated, that is a very telling statement on your behalf, gentle reader. And stop trying to control other people’s emotions. Women have a right to show negative emotions, “keeping sweet” never helped any-one in the long term.
You obviously need a job or something to do other than spend your days trying to slander Mary Kay consultants and Corporate.
it’s not slander when it’s written, And it’s not slander when it’s the truth. It doesn’t stop being the truth because you personally don’t like what we have written.
Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?
Moving snow but it’s cold.
It’s pathetic that you spend all day doing nothing but writing bad things about Mary Kay Cosmetics.
The “bad things” are coming straight from Mary Kay Wagner Rogers Eckman Weaver Louis Miller Hallenbeck Ash’s own company and representatives. Maybe its them you should be complaining about.
I feel sorry for you that you don’t have much of a life, but I truly hope you get sued for slander.
Again, written is NOT slander nor is it slander when it is the Truth. And my life is very good, excepting snow and cold.
You give women a bad name
🎵 Shot through the heart and you’re to blame🎶
Just re-living my hair-metal days.
– hiss hiss hiss!
🙀🙀🐍🐍
Ten points for Gryffindor for the Bon Jovi reference!
🎵 You make pink…a bad shade (bad shade)🎶
Oooh, a BonJovi attempt? You Give Love a Bad name? Props for that!
So, OP has a whopping 1 year of experience in Mary Kay, but knows all there is to know. As always, it’s all our fault for being abject failures, blah blah blah.
Just for funsies, should we add up all the years experience us “lazy loosers” in the comment section have? 14 here, 2 as a director.
Thirteen years with seven as a director.
10 years with. 5 as a director
“Mary Kay is one of the most respected brands of all time”
First of all respect,recognition, and actual sales are all very different metrics.
Just because a brand has longevity it doesn’t mean anything. Look at the brand Revlon its a classic brand been around since 1932 and was the first major cosmetic company to have a WOC -Naomi Simms in a national advertising campaign. And they just filed for bankruptcy.
Also you can only sue me for slander if you hear me actually speak in my voice anything that is proven to be untruthful about MK… Not my opinion, not My personal experience not anything I can back up with actual math and documents released by MK corp.
Revlon is not going under … they did a “Chapter 11”.
https://www.retaildive.com/news/revlon-set-exit-bankruptcy-by-april/639433/
https://www.ft.com/content/3ab49585-e0c3-458f-9d1e-9fddd123174d
20 years exposing the MLM scam system. (For the OP, that’s the one that Mary Kay uses.) We’re up to 47 years with just three comments.
*I’d wager money the OP doesn’t even know that Mary Kay is an MLM company – or denies it.
“You give women a bad name – hiss hiss hiss!”
Are you 12? Is that really the best you’ve got?
How much inventory do you have now?
MMM. Yeah. Stretched to help the team, right?
This is too funny. Hun, your internalized misogyny is showing~
Well, Groundhog day again, as each Friday is. We didn’t try, work hard enough, are bitter, stupid or gullible.
True. Mary Kay does not work for everyone. It does not work for someone. It does not work for anyone.
Come on back after you’ve done some field research about how well it works for you. No shame. Mary Kay is a powerful organization with decades of experience in how to manipulate and brainwash women. They have probably told you all the things you have told us in your post. Those women are bitter. They didn’t try. This will, in turn, make you feel as if you are always positive and work your butt off, you will succeed. Sadly, the system doesn’t work and the company is always able to say it’s your fault. You didn’t try or you didn’t have the right attitude.
“I’m surprised you haven’t been sued.”
Consider this: Perhaps MK has looked into suing. And perhaps there were no grounds. Now what does that say about the things we discuss here? Hm. Food for thought.
I know this is America and we can do what we want but, surprise surprise, you can’t just sue anyone for anything because it makes you mad. There are rules about that.
Sometimes I feel kind of sorry for writers like this one, a naive waif with pink stars in her eyes. But it’s hard to have a lot of sympathy for someone who puts so little effort into finding out what this site is about before spewing criticism over it.
Let me see if I can offer a Readers’ Digest version of this site’s specifics:
1. It was founded in 2006 (and still run) by former Red-Jacket affiliate Tracy, who dropped out of Mary Kay (circa 1998) once she realized its business model was abusive to 99% of those who join.
2. Several of the regular contributors here made it to pretty high levels (like driving the pink Caddy for a dozen years), and still made little or no money. They stay here not to complain about the past, but to warn others away.
3. Quite a few contributors and commenters (including me) were never in Mary Kay and have no personal axe to grind. We just want to get the truth out about this predatory company to warn people away. We’re not here to end Mary Kay; we just want to stop with all the lying.
4. You say one does not HAVE to buy inventory. That’s true, and it’s the advice Tracy has given many, many times in articles she has written. So why are Mary Kay Directors so pushy about inventory purchases. Why do they call everyone on their team at the end of every month encouraging them to s-t-r-e-t-c-h to reach some ethereal “goal”? (Maybe you’ve never been on the receiving end of such a call, but believe me, that puts you in the 0.001% of IBCs. Ask around, if you don’t believe me.) They want you to buy inventory because that’s how they earn commission. Whether or not you ever sell it is immaterial. That’s built into the business model: commission comes from ordering, not selling. That’s a fundamental flaw in the system, because it encourages massive debt among the sales force.
5. Read this carefully: You cannot earn a living selling Mary Kay. Can. Not. The margin (50%, if you can get it) is not high enough. It’s higher than others, like Younique and Avon, but it’s still not enough. With overhead and expenses, 50% is about the break-even point. The only way to make money in Mary Kay is by recruiting others who buy inventory, and those you recruit will be looking at the same thing you’re looking at now: working for free or losing money. That’s the reality of the economic model. Start keeping track of your expenses and income on a spreadsheet. It’s easy enough to do, and it will be eye-opening for you. Come back in 6 months or so and let us know your numbers. We’re genuinely interested.
I could go on, but I have my real job to get back to. I do hope for your sake you read the numbers on the spreadsheet and get out before you lose more money.
I would just love to know how this consultant is doing now: still a consultant & plugging along? A director (unlikely)? Washed out as part of the the churn & is no longer a consultant?
I’m pretty sure this post is a rerun, which is fine. It’s very memorable. I often wonder if the writers of these kinds of emails ever cringe at what they wrote after they find the truth & realize they were dead wrong? Or if they’re all still in the fog. If we have have any former Pink Truth critics reading, please share your story!
To add to the total years in MK: I don’t really remember, but I think it was at least 4 years. Glad I’m out!
Canada’s Mary Kay Commissions Disclosure for 2020.
https://i.redd.it/7p73s2hz0bi81.jpg
$151K for a Canadian NSD?? Not sure of the conversion rate, but that seems PALTRY and nowhere near executive income. For the record, I made close to that as a travel nurse for 2022, and I only worked 9 1/2 months of the year.
“It is apparent that you must have tried being a Beauty Consultant at one time”
– Nope. My only MK experience was when (in the late 90s) I was approached AT MY PLACE OF WORK, a retail store, and offered a spa facial. I thought I was wise to schemes…I was wrong. I was invited to bring a friend and I did (Mel, I am SO sorry lol) and I did so. A group of us sat around her dining room table and were told to apply a few substances to our faces. And then we were given the spiel. This was NOT a “spa facial”. And this experience is not unusual; it’s the norm. MK “facials” are a decades-long FARCE. But I worked a very long career in retail/wholesale sales and management, and the MK “business” model is so offensive to me as a true sales professional that I MUST come here.
“If you have ever spent time with any Independent Beauty Consultant” well that’s a huge part of the problem. The consultants should NOT be considered the best source for information that could prove Pink Truth to be wrong nor even a vaguely trustworthy source.
Tell us how much time you’ve spent with DIRECTORS. And I don’t mean the few instances where you’ve briefly interacted with a director, or received a direct text or email or social media nod from a director. Your experience with MK is based solely on your very limited interactions. Get to DIQ, commiserate with other DIQs, and THEN come here.
“I conducted my business”…okay, so you own a business. What’s your EIN? If you’re not willing to share that, at least provide your corporate name as it appears on your tax forms; we can use that simply and quietly to confirm that you do actually own a business. IF YOU HAVE NO EIN OR OTHER LEGAL FILINGS THAT ARE REQUIRED OF A BUSINESS IN THE US, you are not a CEO, not a #bossbabe, not a small business owner. You are nothing but a dense, business-challenged individual that should avoid MLMs at all costs.
“You have slandered the truth and I’m surprised you haven’t been sued!” Bless your heart, you must not know much about the legalities of slander, libel, etc.
AND you definitely don’t know the enthusiasm with which MKC likes to file legal suits. They file them all the time. So why would they NOT file suit against this Pink Truth web of LIARS and slanderers? Because what’s posted here is the truth, and they have no legal way to deny it. Any attempt to do so would force “discovery”. Look that up since you’re not performing any sales-producing activities currently.
I feel kind of guilty spending so much time on this sad Kaybot; I could have been petting my cat and snuggling up with my guy. But it’s so hard to hold your tongue amidst such idiocy in this post!
They keep using the same types of psycological techniques over and over again, some type of bait and switch/ ad hominem. Ignore the point you are trying to make, which is that the business model is designed for the majority to fail and you are not supposed to ever discuss actual problems and almost everyone is faking it until they make it but never actually make it. The point of the behavior is to make you emotional and defensive and that the point you are trying to make gets lost. Just don’t take the bait.
To the OP,
You are an “idiot”
See what I did there?
Not nice to insult.
If MK was so profitable then why only 1% make money? Why does 99% in any MLM lose money? If you’re gonna say it’s a dual company; MK sells to you – then you make our point: tbe products don’t sell because they are over priced and most of it ends up in basements or land fills.
The misogynistic “hiss hiss” reminds me of the lovely Cynthia Ruccia. I googled her to see what level she currently is in MK, if she’s still in at all, and I didn’t find much but for a (most likely old) pdf flier she put together, linked below:
https://www.actionohio.org/MaryKayFlyerSpring2016.pdf
She promised to donate 25% of her MK sales to an anti-domestic violence organization.