Written by Frosty Rose

One of the most common rebuttals offered by our Friday Critics when confronted with the abysmal earning reports for Mary Kay consultants is that those disclosures only show commissions on team building. Not everyone chooses to build a team, and those lazy losers pull down the average earnings for the hard-working directors who are doing things the right way.

Many other women, they claim, earn most or all of their income in MK from product sales, not team building. And at a 50% profit margin, of course you can make money selling the products!

Except you can’t.

Let’s give MK the benefit of the doubt and use their own training materials and percentages to break down actual potential earnings for selling products.

Mary Kay training says that your ordering breakdown from each sale should be as follows:

• 50%–replenishing your inventory
• 10%–sales aids, training, postage, shipping, office supplies, assistant, etc. (please, keep the giggles to a minimum! We’ll address this point at the end of the demonstration.)
• 40%–profit

If you’re going to make this business really work, you should aim for three parties per week. Your training will tell you that, on average, you’ll sell $200-$250/party. Let’s be super generous and say you average $250/party.

Okay, that’s not bad. $750 per week! That’s $300 in pure profit, girlfriend. Can you get excited about that?

No?? That $15,000/year isn’t the executive income you were promised??

Well, what about reorders? You’re building such an amazing customer base with all those parties. Surely, you’re rolling in reorders! Well, of course you are, dear friend!

Let’s say you add two customers per week. I know, it’s ambitious, but you’re seeing 12 women per week! Never mind the overlap in guest lists. Think big enough and you’ll find those customers! Women love pampering themselves with top-of-the-line products, and that’s exactly what you’re offering (cough!)

Mary Kay training says each committed customer will order $400 every year in Mary Kay products. So, if you have 100 customers, you’ll sell $40,000 in reorders. Wow! That’s a lot!! That’s a whole… $16,000 in profit, according to Mary Kay math. Oh. Wait. We’re only up to $31,000 in income for the year? I thought this was executive income!!

The truth is that no one is selling this volume of product. They will tell you that lots of women are selling Mary Kay products and items are “flying right off the shelf.” They’ll say that the concept of 3 parties per week and the re-orders from that is really the minimum you should do. Those who are really committed are doing even more and it’s easy for them to book these appointments. (But you may want to go down memory lane and see the math of how many women you have to talk to in order to book and hold three parties. TLDR: You need to have a conversation with 30 women per week to hold these 3 parties.)

Queen’s Court of Sales is the highest honor recognizing retail sales (read: consultant orders) of products and it kicks in at $40,000 retail per year. At the most, a few hundred women per year earn that accolade. With the idealistic numbers quoted above which still result in paltry profits, Suzy Consultant would be selling $77,500/year and would undoubtedly be crowned queen every year. But she’s not. Because she doesn’t exist.

The Queen’s Court of Sales is populated by a bunch of phonies who bought those “real diamonds” with their credit cards and are hiding the evidence of their over purchasing in basements and garages across the country. Don’t believe me? Ask a director if you can see her inventory. Note how much of it is still in the original shipping boxes.

The other sticky part of Mary Kay math is that pesky 10% for expenses. If Suzy Consultant from the example above is really selling $77,500 in products per year, that leaves her with $7,750 every year to cover all her expenses. Hmm. That should be enough, right? Hah!

Seminar alone will cost at least $1,500, if you’re being conservative, time your flight purchase just right, and bunk with three of your besties in the luxurious accommodations recommended by the company. Add in Career Conference, Fall Retreat, January Jumpstart, weekly meetings, quarterly hostess recognition, etc. and you’re out at least another $1,500.

Hostess gifts are a big expense, estimate at least $40 your cost per party. Gosh, that’s $6,000 since you held 150 parties…

Wait, are we already at $9,000 in expenses? Before we pay for postage, shipping, catalogs, party supplies, samples, office help, or anything else?? Guess that budget is blown! And your purported $31,000 is slipping even further below the poverty level.

In short, even with Mary Kay’s own advertised, overblown numbers, you can’t make a living selling Mary Kay products. You can’t even make poverty wages selling Mary Kay products. Less than 1% of distributors at any level of the organization can make decent money by recruiting.

The TRUE numbers are dizzying, and that’s eactly what this scam relies on. Most women aren’t going to do the math to see that what they claim (i.e. make lots of money just by holding 3 parties a week) can’t possibly be true. That’s how they perpetuate the scam.

Skip the heartache, guilt and financial pain and walk away. You’ll thank yourself for that small act of bravery.