Mary Kay Sales Directors Enriching the Lives of Their Assistants?
A Mary Kay sales director surveyed sister directors to see how much they paid their office assistants. Check out the responses she got…
- $8.50 per hour is what I pay my assistant… she updates my unitnet site, mails “I” status postcards, “T” status letters, and sends birthday/anniversar y emails. Her avg pay is about $30 per month….She makes more if we are doing a “campaign” and need to mail out letters to all consultants in unit…I do this about 3-4 times per year.
- $10/hour. Me and three other Directors share her so she gets close to full-time b/t the three of us.
- DFW, TX: $8/hr & 30% product discount
- $8 per hour plus bonuses
- I just hired a new assistant at $10 per hour, plus 10% of my monthly bonus. I decided several years ago that my assistant should have incentive to make sure I am being successful so that is why I do a % of my bonus. It seems to be enticing.
- I live in Michigan and most of the gals around here pay between $10-15 per hour. I pay $10. and my gal helps to tidy up around the office, kitchen and do office work of all kinds. It will be interesting to see the rates. I know so many women work in the mall and are getting $9 at most and then the hours are not great!
- From CO: I pay $12.00 an hour for mine and she is well worth every cent. Since I can’t provide benefits, I keep a refrigerator stocked with Pepsi for her and every once in a while (usually once a month) I’ll give her my gas credit card and tell her to go fill up on me.
- I pay $10 an hour for an adult, $8 for a teen, OR $12 an hour in product!
- I pay $10.00 an hour. I am in California and min wage is $8.75. She does all of my wifely & motherly duties, not yet cut her loose on MK tasks. But may soon…
- $10/hour plus 25% discount on her personal order
- Washington state $10 pr hr to start
- $11 per hour
- I think $10 hr is minimum w/taxes taken out
- From FL: works at my house for 2-4 hours a week. I will often send her home with work she can do there and bring back when it’s done. I started her at $8 per hour and increased to $9 after a year.
I guess none of these sound too bad, especially considering that in my area, directors only “paid with product.” That’s because they really couldn’t afford to pay anything at all, with what little they were making as MK directors.
I would love to hear some feedback on this from former directors and former office assistants. (Assistant horror stories also welcome and much appreciated!)
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All her wifely and motherly duties??? For $10.00 an hour? I’m getting whiplash from shaking my head ove this one!
I saw that too and had to laugh…wifely duties..um interesting.
Me too! I was thinking “ALL the wifely duties? Hope she’s hot!”
xD xD xD LOL all your comments had me laughing so hard…do wife duties include “hanky panky” with her husband? LOL WOW!
I went “WTF?!” when I saw that too.
Does she rely on the assistant to be a nanny and maid, in addition to office help?
The slogan for MK should be “there isn’t enough make up in the wolrd to cover up crazy”.
Near the end of DIQ, SD/NSD mentioned having an office assistant. I guess in my former Area it’s pretty common to share the assistant that does the Unit mailings, emails, manages UnitSites, etc.
This assistant doesn’t do the odd jobs or housework. She makes $180/month per SD. I’m sure that NSD has some sort of personal connection to her. If the majority of SDs are using her, she makes pretty good money.
I was also told if I wanted help with anything else I would need to find that person on my own. Typical pay is 1/2 in cash and 1/2 product. Also found out from another SD that the 1/2 product was at RETAIL PRICE, until they figured it out!!!
Dang, these ladies will scam anyone!
The assistants make more per hour than the directors
Oh my, so sad but so true!
Wow. I work as an executive assistant (in a corporate office) and I guarantee I have a higher salary than the senior sales directors in MK, let alone their assistants. $10 an hour is an insult.
Lol!
“My wifely and motherly duties?” Is she serious?!
I never had an office assistant as a director since it was fairly easy for me to get my own shizznit done. The only “assistant” that I have ever had and still have today is a housekeeper, and Regina is worth every single penny.
It really is sad that my directors and wannabe NSD’s pretended to be making executive salaries. I knew this was a crock since their husband’s paid for the ordinary houses and bills. My NSD held a retreat where she talked about her many failed attempts at keeping her unit together. I am now horrified that this one lone predator ruined the lives of hundreds of women and families. I am sure the assistants and housekeepers they had were paid for by their husbands.
Is it legal to pay only in product? You usually can’t go below minimum wage, so unless you were getting a combination of $7.25/hour cash and then some product on top, seems a bit hinky to me.
Good question. I don’t believe that it is technically illegal. I’ve seen products (not MK, but other material goods) exchanged for services. My husband has a customer who when she is short on money, will pay him in food or other stuff for fixing her family’s computers.
I believe the only time such a setup might be an issue is if there is some sort of employment agreement in place with regards to wages and benefits. If the assistant is hired under the guise of receiving actual monetary compensation for her labor and then the SD does like a bait-n-switch and pays the assistant in MK product, then there’s trouble to be had
I seriously doubt that anything a SD or NSD does is really legal. I’m sure most of them are not reporting the income the assistant makes to the IRS on a quarterly basis.
Most are the “under-the-table” assistant. And I would bet that the money paid to them is listed as some type of other expense on their taxes.
A SD would be making even LESS if she had to pay 1/2 of her assistant’s Social Security tax.
It might be, but the employer has to report the fair market value of it as “wages” and has to pay social security and withholding taxes on them AS IF it were cash.
http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/hrg.htm
And in TEXAS it’s legal if the employee agrees, in writing (see 3b)
http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/LA/htm/LA.61.htm
Sec. 61.016. FORM OF PAYMENT. (a) An employer shall pay wages to an employee:
(1) in United States currency;
(2) by a written instrument issued by the employer that is negotiable on demand at full face value for United States currency; or
(3) by the electronic transfer of funds.
(b) An employee may agree in writing to receive part or all of the wages in kind or in another form.
(c) Payment by a written instrument that is not negotiable or for which payment is refused for any reason attributable to the employer does not constitute payment of wages for the purposes of this chapter.
How many of you girls are happy you didn’t have to put on a Holiday Open House this year? My family & I were at the lunch table today, and I realized what time of year it was and that I wasn’t giving up a weekend for that. Then, we all went shopping and have a wonderful Saturday. No follow-up calls, no watching out the window to see if people are arriving, no getting up early to set out everything, no fuss. Glad it’s over!
Or wrapping up the 12 Days of Christmas Towers, because they are going to sell like there is no tomorrow!!
Or being conned into buying a ton of limited edition holiday item before they run out.
And then the ultimate feeling of disgust on Dec 26th when you realize that the only sales you made were to your Mom because she felt “obligated”.
Very happy to not be stalking the malls this holiday season!!
Almost forgot about the 12 Days! Remember Lip Lollies? Just having an Open House made me want to quit every year, but I kept going. Spent so much money at dollar stores and craft stores trying to dress up those products. Only item I ever really had sell like crazy was the Lip Lollies, to be honest. But, all the others? Junk. They’ve always done a horrible job launching Holiday products that anyone really ever wanted.
Oh my word it’s so weird how similar everyone is! I just read about the Lip Lollies, and my director was just trying to show me how to package all the holiday items for all the “sales” I was going to have, and that was one of them! It’s crazy how it’s just a record on repeat. And it just repeats from the top tier to the bottom. Year after year!
I think having assistants/hired help is part of the “fake it until you make it.” A senior sales director in my small Ohio town does not have a real job. She sends her youngest to daycare as she claims to work “full time.” She has also hired a house cleaner for her modest nothing-special home. She is a heavy smoker with health problems and no insurance. A go fund me was set up for her to cover medical bills, and she begged people on Facebook for orders. A month later she was in her “free” Cruze. She claims her annual open house (going on now) brings her $7-11,000. She recruited my sister. I do not like this woman.
Ack! Can’t say I blame you. Having been around heavy smokers, I can’t stand being near them for more than a few minutes before I start to feel sick
All her product must smell of tobacco if she is a heavy smoker.
It doesn’t seem many folks would want to purchase holiday gifts wrapped in cigarette smoke.
My thoughts exactly.
“Would you like some Eau de Marlboro with your eyeliner?”
“I can’t provide benefits, so I stock my fridge with pepsi!”. I AM an assistant for a company, and am well paid. If in my interview my employer had said “we can’t do benefits, but what’s your favorite soft drink?” I would have laughed and left.
So much for selling MK in order to stay home with the kids. Outsourcing mother and wife duties? Also, do they realize that their assistants make more per hour than they do? At least some of them were aware of the lack of benefits they were providing. The cognitive dissonance is amazing.