It may not be scientific research, but this survey of 130 women by PinkRealityBites is very telling.

She chose to speak to a wide variety of women, including professionals, soccer moms and retired women. Her methodology was simple. She used the “sharp woman” and “face model” approaches.

After doing the official warm chatter, she told the women than she was using a standard spiel that was meant to get them to hold a Mary Kay skin care class or facial or accompany her to weekly meeting with a facial and a hard-sell recruiting talk. PinkRealityBites then explained that she was doing a research paper for school and she selected this topic because she was an independent beauty consultant having a hard time with many of the suggested sales and recruiting tactics.

Of the 130 women:

• 63 had been approached previously in a public place by a Mary Kay consultant (warm chatter)
• 0 women “fell for” the warm chatter tactic
• 7 women had sold Mary Kay at some point in their lives
• 118 thought the warm chatter approach was insincere, and they wouldn’t be interested in a facial or the opportunity after hearing it
• 41 of the women have had (or still have) and Mary Kay consultant
• 33 of them used Mary Kay products but didn’t have a consultant and didn’t want one
• 15 of the women who received a compliment from PinkRealityBites (in the process of warm chatting) wanted to know if she meant wheat she said about them
• 102 women said Mary Kay ladies are way too pushy
• 4 of the 130 women that PinkRealityBites spoke to wanted to book a class with her. When she followed up with them, they all changed their minds.

Wow! Thanks PinkRealityBites for doing all that work and sharing it with us! I don’t think that any of us are terribly surprised at these statistics, but it is awsome to see them in print!