Another Sales Director in Denial
A former consultant emailed her director to tell her why she was quitting Mary Kay. Of course, the director couldn’t let it go. Her response was shared with us, and shows how deep she is into the MK cult.
I am saddened to know that you feel your experience in Mary Kay was not a positive one. My experience has shown me that most who have complaints are people who choose not to work their business. They do not show up for educational opportunities or put forth the effort it requires to run their own business. Being an entrepreneur is not for everyone. It requires discipline, pro-active work, problem solving skills, a positive attitude, and a willingness to generate business by talking to people about our products. This business is not for everyone, and that is truly ok!
Consultants come in for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. It is not a guarantee that you will like everyone that you meet or everything that you try…I’m sure that you have acquaintances or even family members that you don’t like and activities that aren’t for you. But I choose to offer the same support and opportunities to all of my consultants whether they work this business or not. When I have a consultant who chooses not to continue this business for any reason, I don’t shut my door or my heart to them.
My 9 1/2 years of experience with Mary Kay have been completely wonderful. I have built fulfilling long-lasting friendships with wonderful women both in the company and out. These are women who pride themselves on having integrity in both their business dealings and personal relationships. My job as an independent beauty consultant and sales director is honorable, and I am proud of my business and my company!
Our corporate staff exude those same traits and pride themselves on running a company that “thinks out of the box” (as you rarely find from corporate America) commanding integrity in business. In addition, our corporate headquarters does not tolerate independent consultants that do not run their businesses with those same principles. The company has in the past terminated the agreements of consultants who were not ethical in their business practices. These were women on various levels of the career path who were warned one or more times to stop unethical practices. Mary Kay Inc. has chosen to take the “high road”, not the “easy road” which differs from some companies in Corporate America where the only thing that matters is the bottom line, not the integrity of their employees.
As for some discrepencies in your assumptions:
First, Mary Kay is not a multi-level/pyramid company. The two main differences are as follows:
1. Everyone makes 50% commission on their sales (from a brand new consultant to a National Sales Director)
2. Team Building commissions are paid based on how well personal teams and units work their businesses, not on how many people you have in your organization. Our leadership skills help determine, but do not guarantee, how well the consultants/directors do. We do not receive part of the consultants’ sales commission as in other companies.
Second, the woman who created and maintains the negative website you referred to is paid by advertisers and wants to generate as many hits as possible. I have read some of the postings on that site and have found gross inaccuracies. In addition, not ONE of the thousands of positive comments about Mary Kay are EVER posted on that site. Pink Un-Factual Propaganda would be a better name for the site. I am sure you could find a negative site for every major company or product you could name…Cadillac, Macy’s, even Purina Dog Chow. That doesn’t make those sites factual.
Third, women who end up with debt after ending their Mary Kay business do so for two reasons: One, they did not work their business. Two, they embezzled from their business. As you can see, having a corporate sponsered “buy-back guarantee” eliminates that issue.
I am sorry you are so disgruntled and would have been happy to have discussed this with you had you contacted me. I have taken you off my email listing and would have done so sooner had my reports reflected you had returned your product. In the future, I would appreciate that you do not send emails to the consultants in my unit since my distrobution list is not for public use. I have already heard from some that do not appreciate or agree with your email and do not not want to receive further correspondence from you. I’m sure you appreciate that they respect your privacy as well. You are welcome to contact me personally if needed.
I do wish you and your family the very best for the future. I am sure that you are enjoying your son and life as a new mom.
Visit the
I wouldn’t be able to pack up my inventory and return it to corporate quick enough! Let this petty, nasty, lying director enjoy that chargeback!
this director is either complately clueless, or a first class scam artist
If this wasn’t Thursday, I’d swear this was one of the Friday critics…
Wow … she goes straight to the “you were a lazy loser who didn’t work her business and no wonder you failed” and then to the lies about how it works for everyone BUT this lazy loser.
And then she LIES by omission: “Team Building commissions are paid based on how well personal teams and units work their businesses” … WRONG! They are made based on how much ordering you can pry out of your recruits. And she gets a 13% kickback on her own orders.
What a nasty lady!
Man, this director drinks the koolaid by the gallons! How sad that she has to justify her existence with lies. She could easily have taken the high road and simply wished this consultant well instead of getting in some final digs.
Not to mention a polite “sorry it didn’t work out. Best wishes for the future” would have been both quicker and less emotionally fraught to type out. There was no need for any of it except to be mean and hurtful.
If the consultant any lingering doubts about quitting being the right thing to do, a nasty reponse like this would have erased those doubts in a hot second.
Well one line was the key to the whole thing:
“I have taken you off my email listing and would have done so sooner had my reports reflected you had returned your product”
You cost me money I don’t have so I’m going to be nasty to you.
“Being an entrepreneur is not for everyone. It requires discipline, pro-active work, problem solving skills, a positive attitude, and a willingness to generate business by talking to people about our products. This business is not for everyone, and that is truly ok!”
Yes, it’s OK that I’m telling you that you failed because you are undisciplined, can’t solve problems and are negative.
Weird, I thought it was “executive pay for part-time hours” and “Anyone can do what I do. You just smile & squirt.” (Uh, that last line is so gross.)
I have read some of the postings on that site and have found gross inaccuracies.
Can you name one as an example?
In addition, not ONE of the thousands of positive comments about Mary Kay are EVER posted on that site.
Well, Ma’am. Yours is now one of thousands of positive comments posted. shame it isn’t actually positive in anyway, shape or form.
Pink Un-Factual Propaganda would be a better name for the site. I am sure you could find a negative site for every major company or product you could name…Cadillac, Macy’s, even Purina Dog Chow. That doesn’t make those sites factual.
One of my points to the Friday critics is exactly this, sites which portray the negative aspects of working somewhere or the harmful effects of a product exists and have done since the early 1990’s internet. And yes, ma’am, it does make them factual since they are relaying the lived experiences of real people. We also have e-mails like this and screenshots showing the inner workings of director groups and we know those ladies don’t like the light being shone on those aspects of the company.
And yet again, this director had the chance to disprove a single “gross inaccuracy” and couldn’t.
How absolutely disgusting and purely manipulative. Not surprised unfortunately…
How “superior” this director must feel. She didn’t waste valuable time writing her nastygram. It was either borrowed from another or already written and just needed tweaking. I’m sure it’s not the first time someone has quit. Yes, she wishes to have know 1st so she could prevent the return of products. I doubt this consultant will remain on her friend list or will be forgotten until next June. Shameful!!
All that word salad, and still not a single profitable down-line in Mary Kay. OP/SD, how can you be okay with this? Do you really believe it is okay to run a business that “takes” from the bottom to “give” to the top, with no hope of overall profitability?
You can ignore this reality of MLMs like Mary Kay, but you cannot change the underlying truth…it is simply not possible to run a profitable down-line in MLMs like Mary Kay. Playing the shell game with 50% sales margin vs. commission revenue is a diversionary tactic. That 50% margin is an illusion given these overpriced products in a well-saturated market. No one making a meaningful business profit in Mary Kay is doing so with individual retail sales. If they were, they would have no need to recruit.
Profit from commission revenue, on the other hand, depends on exploiting new-comers by getting them to order significantly more product than they have any hope of selling. Without this over-ordering, commission revenue would never be significant enough to generate a true profit for the up-line.
There is no profitability in Mary Kay without wide-spread front-loading in the down-line. This means down-line business losses are required in order to produce an upline profit. This is why no MK down-line can be profitable as a whole, and why it is misleading/dishonest to imply that anyone can make a true, consistent business profit through the retailing of Mary Kay products.
You say you don’t shut the door or your heart to them, but then you tell them not to contact anyone else so which is it?
1. Everyone makes 50% commission on their sales (from a brand new consultant to a National Sales Director)
*** no you buy it at wholesale for 50%. Costs of meetings, events, section 2, parties, samples, credit card interest, discounts/sales, freebies for hostesses, (and for directors prizes, meeting rooms, new products to show the unit , car copay, health insurance , printouts etc) are NOT profit. These things are expenses. And $50 left per week after these expenses is not a good profit.
2. Team Building commissions are paid based on how well personal teams and units work their businesses, not on how many people you have in your organization. Our leadership skills help determine, but do not guarantee, how well the consultants/directors do. We do not receive part of the consultants’ sales commission as in other companies.
***incorrect. Recruiters get commission based on how much the consultant orders. Not based on how well she is doing or how much she sells. And maybe you should ask your director about 4%, 7%, 14% and 26%. With the average consultant quitting within the first 3 years, and only 1/3 working their business the director NEEDS to frontload inventory on a new recruit before she decides not to work or leave.
Ask yourself how often the director gives the recruiting talk and compare it to how often your director discusses budget and profit. (Not cutting 50% of the sales total to cheer at the unit meeting)