Why Your Director Places the Orders at the End of the Month
Written by Saw the Light
Did you ever wonder why you can’t place your own order on the last day of the month? Why your Mary Kay sales director must place it? Here’s the answer to all your questions.
One of the earliest indications that a woman is beginning to emerge from the fog of the Mary Kay Cult is her ability to question. She starts to think independently and she wonders openly about nagging thoughts that she was trained either to ignore or to chalk up to having associated with negative people.
There is a rule that slipped into place several years ago, innocuously at first, quietly and without fanfare. It used to amaze me that I heard it questioned so infrequently by Consultants, but with my own emergence from the fog came the understanding that the sales force is brainwashed into believing the company wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t for their “better good.” Therefore they maintain their docile, sheep-like mentality as long as they are under the cult’s control.
Today I am writing specifically about the inference that Consultants don’t know what they need or when they need it. Oh, it isn’t stated as such. Like everything else in Mary Kay it is cloaked in “we know what’s best for you” warm fuzzy wrapping. So I am asking the question out loud and straightforward:
“Why is it that only Directors can order on the last day of the month?”
Since we cannot expect an answer from Mary Kay Cosmetics, especially a truthful one, I am going to provide it for you.
Directors are at their frazzled worst the last couple days of each month. They must see how much production they can coerce by phone, fax and email. Then, that being accomplished, they have to figure how much has to be placed on their own plastic in order to finish (or save) the car, the unit, the contest, the………. (fill in the blank).
Some years ago it became imperative that they have a full day to get the math done and the to-the-penny final order in. Why, it could ruin an entire month of plotting and planning, having it all figured out only to have a rogue order show up, skewing the figures and *gasp* counting for a month where it wasn’t needed.
If a Consultant unwittingly places an order that falls into the magic 24 hour Director-Knows-Best time period, the order is held on InTouch for the Director to peruse, mull over and use at her discretion. Whether or not the Consultant wants it to count for this month or the next, or whether the Consultant is trying to get the free product bonus with her last minute order is of no concern. The Director gets to play God with that order, with the Consultant’s money, and with her trust.
Consultants, please question this control tactic. Think about this article the next time, as an Independent Business Woman, you attempt to take advantage of that bonus product toward the last 24 hours of the month. Corporate and the Nationals successfully conspired to perpetuate the myth that you aren’t capable of making decisions concerning what’s in your best interests until you qualify to wear the Pink Gestapo uniform.
In my humble opinion this is wrong on so many levels. I hope my bringing it to your attention will spark the process of you beginning to think for yourself, of starting to question, and perhaps even to consider rising above the fog, the control, the cult.
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Great info! A fellow consultant, who will be terminating (too) soon, was wondering about this. 🙂
I agree with everything, but just a fact check: they recently extended the Consultant ordering to 9PM EST on the final day of the month.
It is true that consultants may order until 9 pm central on the last day of the month.
See Consultant Order Form page A1 to verify. I am looking at the order form dated June 16-September 15, 2012
I never really thought about this until now…so even if the consultant gets in her order in time (to say…get a bonus, prize etc..that the director bribes her with to get her to order in the first place) the director can then use it the next month if she chooses? Hence the consultant won’t receive that bonus, prize etc…??? That is SOOOO wrong.
The consultant won’t receive that bonus, prize, etc… How true.
[Sarcasm] But won’t she be PROUD the next month when she gets to stand next to “OUR” car and have her picture taken!!! Kinda makes it all worthwhile, doesn’t it? [/Sarcasm]
“Why is it that only Directors can order on the last day of the month?
LOL, I remember when this new, made to look like a privilege for sd, came out.
By the way great article Saw The Light…. you are right, “soooo wrong.”
mkc told the sales force, ibc and above, which are really their customers, that the reason why sd get one more day to order than ibc is because there are sooo many orders coming in from the “sales force” the computers get over loaded and could cause orders to miss the deadline. LOL!! OMG I believed it.
Now this was quite a while back.
Give your orders to your sd and it will help with gettin everyone’s orders in. As STL said, the mkc knows best for the ibc. This would give the sd that wiggle room. If she needed the order in the current month she placed it for the ibc. If she made production for the month, she held it for the following month and told the ibc, “I am so sorry your order didn’t get in on time, for this month.”
mkc arranged this maneuver to manipulate the sd so she could earn a commission check.
mkc knew that they could earn more production, placing those last day orders in the hands of their pawns. sd would do whatever it took to earn a paycheck and save face by keeping her unit.
So wrong.
Another reason for orders to have to go through the director on the last day of the month is so if the consultant places a $50 order the director can catch it and talk her into doing a $200 or more instead. She’ll say it is so the IBC stays active or gets a bonus or whatever but it is so that she has less to put onher own credit card that night.
I see what you are saying, but I don’t view it as jaded or evil. They are simply allowing the order to go into the month that benefits that unit the most. I don’t think that is a bad thing. It’s actually to the benefit of the unit (director) but not the company as a whole, because obviously if the director doesn’t make her sales then she loses her car, which is an expense to the MK corporation. I think that MK seems to go out of its way to help the employees. And of course they track wholesale ordersand not individual sales of consultants. What a nightmare trying to track all that with individual discounts or hostess credits etc etc. I think I just choose to see things optimistically rather than assuming its the big ugly corporation being mean to all of its employees. MK still employess more women in top pay scales than anywhere else. I am impressed by that! Maybe I would like to join that team too!
No, Angie, MK doesn’t “employ more women in top pay scales than anywhere else.” That is a big fat lie that is perpetuated by women recruiting for MK.
They are simply allowing the order to go into the month that benefits that unit the most. I don’t think that is a bad thing. Does everyone in the unit know this can happen, and has everyone agreed that the welfare of the unit is more important then their own family’s welfare?
And what if it is not to the benefit of the woman placing the order? What if the delay in the order means SHE loses out on a prize or bonus? Does having the director say, “Oh Suzy, your sacrifice meant so much to the unit” make up for it?” Will she even know she was ripped off so the director could start the next month with that $600 “qualifying order”? Will the director even come clean, or will the director wave her hands and blame the system … “the computers were just sooooo busy” if asked why the order didn’t go through?
MK still employess more women in top pay scales than anywhere else. Utter hogwash! For starters, none of the IBCs, SDs or NSDs are employees. They are independent contracted resellers whose contracts can be voided in 30 days for any reason at all.
Look at the Applause list of the top 100 SD commissions. Remember that those are the TOP commission checks, and that is before chargebacks and car co-payments, taxes, etc. It is not “take-home” pay. Then tell yourself that the other 13,500 SDs are making LESS than those on the list.
The lowest amount listed in the Commission Circle is about $6,000 … That’s $72,000 gross pay. Let’s be generous and pretend that the SDs get to keep 60% of that after all their unit expenses and chargebacks. That’s like working for a company that pays you enough so you have $43,200 take-home, or $3600 a month.
Offhand, I can think of many, many entities who have at least 13,000 female employees making that much. Army Sergeants with 10 years, Army Lieutenants in their first year, Navy LTJGs in their first year … they all make that much.
But let’s say you don’t want to be shot at.
In “Corporate America” that is so disrespected, derided and dismissed by MLMs … Intel alone has thousands of female employees making more than Mary Kay’s SDs, and many of those are sitting on 401K and stock accounts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for when they retire. They have female engineers making more than almost any of the NSDs with even fatter bonuses, 401K and stock plans.
One SHAMEFUL instance this had on a DIQ….
The DIQ was in her final month of DIQ and had a IBC that sold product and ordered a lot each and every month. The DIRECTOR held an order, the DIQ did not finish and had to start over, the high selling IBC stayed in the Director’s unit instead of the DIQ.
The whole point of DIQ is to a-l-m-o-s-t make it the first time. This enriches your Director (who gets to keep all of your best recruits for herself), and gives you a ” just need a LITTLE MORE effort” reason to try it again.
It’s the classic early stage of an abusive relationship. The victim initially trusts and believes her abuser, then tries a little harder to make things work. She doesn’t see the betrayal until she has been battered several times.
I do believe there was a threatened lawsuit involved between the DIQ and SD. When MK Corp was advised….MK CORP did not back the DIQ and give her her unit.