Life as a Mary Kay Top Director
Written by Kate
I wanted to give everyone at Pink Truth the perspective of a “higher up” director. At my peak, I had over 1,000 in my downline, and 9 offspring directors. I was high up on the “food chain” for a while, but never felt good about my position.
I am one of those people who have honestly made over $100,000 in a year, and I could show you my 1099s to prove it. However, I was torn as a director, because I watched my own directors struggle, and watched my consultants go into debt. I never once ever asked my team to order for me. I always said don’t order unless you need products, and don’t order limited edition items. I let them know in advance when things were changing, and truly cared about my team.
However, I cheated myself. I signed up friends and family to get them qualified to meet requirements, and I never felt right about any of it. Everyone has done things that are less than honest to move up – even the ones who seem to be so successful and so squeaky clean.
When I brought this up with my upline, I was given the “everyone does this” or “make it happen” routine. I sold my soul, and looking back, my spiritual life suffered greatly. I needed the money to provide for my family, I was good at what I did.
Because I was good at it, it made it harder to see clearly. I wanted desperately to stay home with my kids, and this was my drive to succeed – being able to attend their field trips and be home for them when they were sick. I didn’t care about the cars, the fancy outfits, or the jewelry. I just wanted to be a Mom.
Yes, I was one of those “evil” directors lurking at every corner trying to get you to order… but not really. I was a director who was running 90 miles an hour just to keep the balls in the air. Please know, no one was honest with me, and when I tried to get my questions answered… I was considered negative.
I was so confused through this process, and was working so hard, I never had time to think. I was raising a busy family, taking care of over 900 consultants, doing parties, my own marketing, my own bookwork and taxes, keeping women happy (which by the way is impossible), and trying to keep corporate and my upline happy, and traveling the world with my MLM smile on… recruiting and selling. I never had time to think it through as I was exhausted. Everyone was patting me on the back and telling me how amazing I was, and it was hard to slow down to see clearly.
Directors are human. Directors only have 24 hours a day. Directors are told what to do and they do it hoping to reach the dream, and at the end of the day, they put their head to the pillow, and they never did enough. Directors have women mad at them all of the time because they never did it all “right.” Didn’t decorate correctly for the unit meeting, didn’t say the right thing to the new consultant, didn’t dress accordingly, didn’t properly deal with unit personality problems, didn’t stay in touch with me when I quit.
You suddenly realize there is not enough time in the day to stay connected with your working team, do your own classes, coach your hostesses, present the marketing plan, love your family and the people who quit as well… it would be impossible. There is only one of you to go around.
I can’t tell you how many times people were mad at me because I was not a “true” friend, and didn’t stay in touch after they quit. Let me tell you, I stayed friends with many women who left Mary Kay, and I respected their decision because I truly cared. However, it’s just impossible to stay in touch with hundreds who come in and out yearly. Impossible.
When people quit other jobs, I wonder if they expect the boss to stay in touch with them and be buddies? I guess I see it as a business, and “schmoozing” is part of sales. Am I wrong? Just a thought. So, if you are a consultant who has been “dumped” and you are mad at your director? If you were in my unit, I apologize from my heart. I just couldn’t keep up.
I have learned so much, and I am sorry if I learned it at your expense. It was never my intention. I just didn’t understand the web I was getting into when I started, and the “executive income for part time hours” seemed so wonderful. I wanted to believe it was true. In the end, I didn’t lose money, but lost other valuable things along the way.
Thanks Pink Truth for being my therapy. You have saved me thousands of dollars not having to go to therapy, and I appreciate all of the women on this site. The truth will always set you free and I am truly free today.
To all of the directors out there… Take time away from the MLM literature, self help books, and phone calls and e-mails, and take some time for quiet talks with God. You will find your truth when it is your time.
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Kate, I do want to thank you tremendously for your post here. Hearing from a true “tippy top” member is rare and fascinating. However, I just can’t agree with letting you, a person of great influence in Marykay, be off the hook because you recognize the illness that is MLM at long last.
You victimized over 1,000 women. You don’t get to cover that truth with “Yes, I was one of those “evil” directors lurking at every corner trying to get you to order… but not really.”.. You really were one of the evil directors. If you were earning over $100,000 on a 1099 per year – you were that evil director, and you victimized hundreds of women. When I have been in addiction recovery, we don’t get a pass on who we victimized because it’s not truly “us”.
You benefited immensely from victimizing hundreds of women for the benefit of yourself and your wants and needs, and money is as addicting as anything else. Our wants and needs are the basis of all addictions, and I guess it’s for that reason I can’t just be glad you are speaking out. You do need further spiritual and emotional therapy more than likely because you have been a victim yourself of addiction to the cult of mary kay, and the 12 Steps can be worked without the necessity of “GOD” for those who prefer otherwise, and the item we are powerless over is whatever it is that leads us to selfish and self-centered behavior that disregards the lives of ourselves and others.
I don’t know if this post will remain, it’s hard for me to write it but keeping silent and hiding the truth that is staring me in the face is absolutely what has led me to tragic behavior, especially when no one would tell me. Truth is all we have. I wish you all the very best, Kate, thank you so much for speaking up.
I guess anyone who was in Mary Kay victimized others if that is the case.
If they recruited, then yes.
Great post, Juliet. Agree 100%, both that Kate got out, and that she seems (willfully?) blind to her role in the thing.
I don’t consider directors “evil” because that’s a loaded term that implies a desire to do harm. Kate just wanted to make money and raise her family, just like the 99.4% of MK participants who will never be as successful as her.
However, you don’t make director without recruitment. You don’t stay director without continuous recruitment, and you don’t make money without commissions, and you don’t get commissions unless your downline is ordering. You might have told them they didn’t need to order, but they were and your paycheck is the proof.
I wish Kate well in her detox but I have to hope she’ll be able to see her role in all this with clarity someday.
OK so why is it OK for others who comment here get a pass who recruited? I’m not a troll I comment here all the time I just don’t see the reason behind the hypocrisy? Her story sounds like everyone else’s including regular contributors to this great website who write articles.
Honestly, to me, it reeks of self-pity, validation searching and a touch of “not like other girls” energy.
Yes, I was one of those “evil” directors lurking at every corner trying to get you to order… but not really.
I was one of them but also “not like other directors”.
So you also victimized people?
I mean if you go back and read everybody else’s story it sounds just the same.
The others who post here own what they did and don’t try to sugarcoat it. I really don’t think she’s being honest either with us or herself. She couldn’t have been making that kind of money unless her downline was ordering a ton of stuff but she’s trying to make herself look innocent.
I think the further an individual can get from it, and the more healing/research she can do, the more the reality sets in. It’s like a dimmer light switch. It glows up a little at a time, and not at the same pace for each person. Sometimes it doesn’t come on at all. I think it’s part of the process of detoxing from the cult mentality. Or leaving an abusive relationship. It takes (on average) seven attempts to leave an abusive relationship before the victim will actually not go back. It’s hard to see the truth.
Not making excuses for her, however.
“When people quit other jobs, I wonder if they expect the boss to stay in touch with them and be buddies?”
They don’t. People take and leave jobs all the time for all kinds of reasons. I’m sure most want to leave on a high note, in case they need a reference and so nasty rumors don’t get started or something. In fact, the usual advice is not to pursue a close relationship when there’s a power imbalance, whether it’s boss/employee, doctor/patient, etc.
That’s yet another example of how MLM has warped business norms. By encouraging this smothering level of closeness and and sistahhood, it’s impossible to make everyday business decisions without hurt feelings.
Nor are the bosses responsible for the ex-employee’s feelings or career afterwards.
While I’m at it, it’s ridiculous to expect one person to have to ride herd on 1000 people. This is why actual business that size have teams, multiple layers of management, and dedicated human resources people. No one is good at everything.
Oh, yeah, and get outta here with the “women are never happy” mule muffins. Malcontentedness is hardly a state unique to the female of the species. 26 years dealing with the public is my proof.
I agree with you here normal jobs don’t promote the idea of a sisterhood so that is why some ex MK consultants are upset when they learned the reality after they quit
1000 in her downline and she was only making $100,000 a year before expenses and taxes doesn’t sound like a lot of money to me.
Assuming best case, 13% commission, she would have to sell $770 in wholesale, on average, every year to each of her 1000 member downline to gross $100K, so this does seem workable. To stay qualified, a consultant must spend at least $900/year. But most don’t stay qualified and need to be replaced…the replacements must spend at least $770 before they give up. She will lose at least half of her consultants every year, meaning the need to recruit heavily never ends. The remaining question is how many of her consultants manage to actually stay “active”?
Without knowing the specifics, it is my guess that the majority her downline sales come from brand new consultants and from the portion of those who try to stay active. The rest just become a drag on her time…and get labelled “stale”. But we know how much churn there is, which is good for the up-line, as getting $600 or more from a new consultant is much easier than keeping an existing consultant “active”, especially once they figure out that no one from the outside is buying these products.
Meanwhile, the world appears to have more consultants (and former consultants) than real customers, making it nearly impossible to sell these products to anyone outside the down-line. Hence the corporate incentives to order and recruit, with no corporate incentives to actually sell.
Seeing the first two comments here got me thinking about what you, Kate, were blind to. The most likely would be the churn. So many consultants make a big initial order, but then wash out. These types are the lifeblood of up-line cash flow in Mary Kay. It would be nearly impossible not to see this happening at the bottom of one’s own downline. It is hard to imagine you did not know this was going on.
Kate, it may be too hard to see now what you would not allow yourself to see back then, but the damage was real. Mary Kay is built on, and can’t function without, huge losses in every downline…including yours. It may be hard to understand how much loss was required to provide your income, but the only source of up-line income (commissions and bonuses) in Mary Kay is commensurate downline losses. There is simply no other revenue source…think about it.
It will be freeing for you to finally face what was happening in your downline, and why there was so much unhappiness. At the end of the day, there are only two ways to be happy in MLM: Believe the lies, or gleefully exploit others.
Kate acknowledges the churn hundreds who come in and out yearly, I just don’t think she sees it as a problem affecting her.
“I am one of those people who have honestly made over $100,000 in a year, and I could show you my 1099s to prove it.” Finally – a volunteer! Since the implication is that this was through MK – Please put your money where your mouth is, and let’s see it. We’ve been waiting with baited breath for years… Heather can sanitize it before posting.
The 1099 is not sufficient. We need to see the Sched C as well. Profit is very different from gross business revenue. Directors spend a lot of money to maintain that status, and these costs will be reflected in the Sched C to show true net taxable business profit, which in my estimation is well short of six figures. I could be wrong, but that Sched C will prove it one way or the other. I know it is “possible” to net six figures in MLM, but is a 1000-strong downline really large enough?
Let’s find out.
I can’t tell you how many times people were mad at me because I was not a “true” friend, and didn’t stay in touch after they quit. Let me tell you, I stayed friends with many women who left Mary Kay, and I respected their decision because I truly cared. However, it’s just impossible to stay in touch with hundreds who come in and out yearly. Impossible.
Exhibit A, ladies and gentlemen. hundreds who come in and out yearly
When people quit other jobs, I wonder if they expect the boss to stay in touch with them and be buddies? I guess I see it as a business, and “schmoozing” is part of sales. Am I wrong? Just a thought.
Buddies, probably not unless for some reason we had been close during our time working together. I would expect to keep a professional relationship especially if we were both staying in the same industry.
So, if you are a consultant who has been “dumped” and you are mad at your director? If you were in my unit, I apologize from my heart. I just couldn’t keep up.
The problem with Mary Kay, along with all the other MLMs, direct sales, network marketing or community marketing, is that forced friendliness is encouraged; “lock arms together”, “found my tribe”, “pour into each other”. It is encouraged to make people uneasy about leaving because they will be letting their new found friends down.
Directors have women mad at them all of the time because they never did it all “right.”
This is why good old Mary Kay has scripts for everything. All you need to do is “book, sell, recruit”, simple enough eh! Did the director offer to “match her time with their energy”?
I can’t think of how many times on r/antiMLM, we’ve seen C&P emails that start “Hey [insert name here]”.
It’s scripts and C&P emails all the way down.
To some degree I can understand and relate. I was in mk for 10 years, 5 of those as a director and most of the first 5 as a red jacket or more.
I remember my mindset, and when new consultants ordered inventory, I specifically recommended it based on the inventory worksheet based on their goals. When they didn’t sell it I bought the lie hook , line, and sinker that they were either not willing to work their goals or lied about their goals to me. I didn’t feel guilt about it because I believed it at the time.
Either directors are so caught up in the cult belief, or they are awful people. But one can only remain naive to it for so long. It takes more time because logically, if I believed I was taking advantage of them, I would have to face the idea that I too was being taken advantage of. And that would be completely life altering given how much pink kool aid of hopes I had ingested. That is the realization I made when I quit.
The minute I started to question things and read pt, was when I realized what I was doing to all of those women. When I quit, I wrote a letter explaining all of my reasons for leaving to my unit and to my sister directors. Their reaction was my confirmation. Blocked and the receiver of angry emails.
When I went through all of the Mary Kay crap I had accumulated, I cried and mourned the loss of my dreams as I threw it all away.
Recognizing that everyone around me was “faking it till they make it” and simultaneously “not being negative” in reality comes together as one big lie. A lie every director participated in knowingly or not. But it’s important to call it what it was, a lie, and we perpetuated the dreams for new consultants and sent them into months, years, or longer of false hope or debt. (Just like our senior directors did to us).
Wait.
How do you sign up people and even your dog if you don’t have their social security number?
They make it up. Mary Kay doesn’t check them.
“was working so hard, I never had time to think.” … this is their strategy. Keep you SO BUSY with the promotions and training and conferences and social media and dream posters that you don’t have the time it takes to reflect on what is going on.
I feel that Kate should be given credit for admitting, albeit sugar-coating her admission of guilt. After all PT is about bringing awareness to the dangers of MLM, MK in particular and therefore we should encourage more Kates. I hope more directors who have had the fog lifted be as daring to open up without fear of backlash.