False earnings claims are at the heart of the Mary Kay con. Because almost no one makes money in MLM, they have to create a false picture of success for potential recruits.

One of the wild exaggerations thrown around is that you can make $10,000 per month in Mary Kay after you’ve been in only 6 months. Many call this a “tried and proven plan,” but I would challenge anyone throwing this plan around to provide the proof of even ONE person who did this. (And I’m not talking about her making $10,000 once in her first year. I’m talking consistent $10k per month income.)

Even if you could find one person who did it, it would be one out of several million who signed up as a MK consultant. So in theory this is possible, in reality, almost no one can actually achieve it. There are lots who are working hard in Mary Kay, yet they can’t achieve this level of earnings that is supposedly simple to do if you just follow the plan.

Even if a plan like this is theoretically possible, everyone needs to know that it’s not even remotely probable. The chances of a consultant being able to pull this off are so slim, yet no one in Mary Kay will tell them that.

Here’s the claim: Hold just 3 skincare classes per week and you will be making $10,000 per month after six months. Under the plan, they say you’re going to be:

• Driving a company car in three months
• Looking lovely in a Director’s Suit in four months
• Fabulous 50’s Elite Director in six months

You think it’ll be easy to hold 3 skincare classes a week if you just try hard. But to do that, you’re going to need to book 6 to 8 classes a week. In order to do that, you’re going to need to talk to 20 to 30 new women a week and ask them to hold a skincare class. Tell me where and how you can consistently find that many new women to approach about having a Mary Kay class???

There’s more fiction to this plan. It supposedly works like this:

• The average skin care class has four guests.
• At twelve classes per month x 4 guests you will see 48 new faces a month!
• One in two ladies will buy a skin care set.
• The national average production for a skin care class is $200.
• Twelve classes per month x $200 in sales = $2400 in retail sales per month.
• One in five will hear about Mary Kay as a career and become a consultant.

They say that if you don’t have 4 guests at each skincare class, your hostess program is wrong. If you don’t recruit 1 out of every 5 women you’re interviewing, then you’re asking the wrong people.

It’s your fault. It’s never the fault of the Mary Kay program they’re promoting. It couldn’t be that women are tired of the MLM game. It’s not possible that women just don’t want to attend in-home parties. It’s not that women don’t want to hold a class for you because it’s easier to get products at Sephora and there are many more choices there without the recruiting hassle.

The fiction continues. You’re supposedly holding 12 classes each month with 4 guests who each spend $50 (48 women total), and you recruit 5 team members and pretend that they each order $1,000 wholesale (which makes them all seminar qualified and you get bonuses). This doesn’t take into consideration all the classes that don’t hold, all the classes at which you sell very little, all the recruits who never order $1,000, but who cares, right?

Month 1 = $960 profit from sales + $650 commission + 100 bonus = $1,710 and 5 recruits

Month 2 = same as month 1 but $150 more bonus = $1,860 and 5 more recruits
Now you go into DIQ (director-in-qualification) for Month 3.

Month 3 = same as month 2 but $156 more commission because month 1 team members order again = $2,016 and 5 more recruits

Here you’ve supposedly finished car, but that’s not correct. She forgot that Month 1 is the month you need to get your recruits to “go on target” and then Month 2 is really your first month of car production. Oops. At this point you’ve got 15 recruits and your team members have recruited 5. Add all that production together because everyone orders, and you’ve got $12,400 done for DIQ production. (Are you laughing yet?)

Month 4 = same as month 3 but $299 more commission because of reorders again = $2,315 and 5 more recruits

Now this is fantastic. Everyone, everywhere is still active. AND your team members have now recruited 10 more people. Your pyramid is well on its way with 35 consultants plus you. Did I mention that everyone is active?

This is where it gets even funnier. You’re a sales director and your production and recruiting are off the charts so you make mega-commissions and mega-bonuses.

Month 5 = $960 profit from sales + $1,495 commission from your recruits + $3,601 unit commission + $300 recruit bonus + $2,100 production bonus = $8,465

See how easy this is? Unless you’re lazy, of course!

Month 6 = $960 profit from sales + $1,820 commission from your recruits + $4,576 unit commission + $300 recruit bonus + $3,100 production bonus = $10,756

The document outlining this “plan” lists keys to success, but truly the only key is recruiting and frontloading. If you can’t frontload, you’ll never be bale to execute.

Now… gosh… If you use Mary Kay Math, you know that these three classes a week take you about 2 minutes total. It’s so quick and easy, isn’t it? But seriously, if this was “all” it took. Just the magic 3 classes a week and all the rest of it falls into place… wouldn’t everyone do it?

What a nice piece of fiction.