Did You Ever See Your Director Hold a Class?
L J
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When I joined Mary Kay, new consultants were encouraged to go to one of the classes that their director had booked so they could watch and take notes on how things were supposed to be done.
Funny thing though. My director never did classes. She was too busy doing interviews with consultants’ prospective recruits, organizing and running the weekly meetings, and attending special Mary Kay functions.
In fact, none of the directors I knew did many if any classes or facials or selling appointments. Once they recruited enough to make directorship, they focused on recruiting and getting large initial orders out of these new recruits so they could keep their units.
Instead, directors held mock classes at the weekly meetings to show consultants what to do, with other consultants and directors playing the role of customers. This mock class demonstration was repeated at several “Career Conferences” I attended as well.
I never saw my director in action with real customers. What about you?
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NO, never in fact my recruiter came to one a organized with my family members and she show up late and with a long silver cocktail dress.
I meant I organized
Nope. Was pretty much what you said – she had consultants bring guests and then she’d do it. But this was one area where she was sort of “honest” (not exactly, but you’ll see…). She flat out told us she hated classes and hated doing them, so she didn’t. And if we didn’t like doing them either, then we needed to recruit and become directors and we’d never have to do classes again.
The part where she hated doing classes and therefore didn’t do them was the truth. The rest was her standard B.S. to get women to become directors.
Nope! I was actually told that the goal was to get to directorship so you didn’t have to hold classes anymore.
Nope!
OK, so you guys have heard my bitter rants about my former SD. You know I wouldn’t lie to defend her at all. She did hold classes. She held them in her home office, and she’d have them at out meeting site as well, inviting me and any other consultants to bring our guests and let her “do the selling” for us (although we’d of course remain our guest’s consultant and get the sales). There are 2 things I observed about this: The first was that she was an Executive Sr. Director, and she was still going so fast and hard she was like a chicken w/ its’ head cut off. Meaning she was running all over the place at light speed in order to make it work (or at least make it look like that to the rest of us, you know, fake it till you make it). She worked her business like it was TWO full-time jobs. I saw her put more of herself into it than I ever wanted to put into MK. One of MK’s selling points (in the recruiting interview) is that you get to make your own hours, have family time, yet the sky is the limit. My former SD lost her pink caddy since I left MK, and I just saw her big ‘ol house up for sale. Sounds like it’s not so recession proof, not in this area anyhow.
The other thing I observed about this was that her classes, whether they consisted only of her own guests or if it was a group class done with unit members and their guests, was that it was all a means to another end. That end was recruiting. She really laid it on thick. She had to keep the new ones rolling in to keep her commission and car. After the sparkle wears off and you realize that sometimes a “full wagon” isn’t always better, your orders become more reasonable and she needs a new source of commissions and bonuses. She had us all turn in lists of our “dream teams” (aka potential recruits), complete with contact info and our reasons for thinking they’d be great in MK. I contacted all those people and warned them about her on my way out of MK, and apologized for giving her their info. I shudder to think what happens to other people’s lists as they quit or become inactive/terminated. Those people become “free game”. Anyhow, her classes were all about everything, not just sales or just recruiting: Suck the most you possibly can out of everyone you come in contact with, that was the philosophy in a nutshell. Get them to buy, buy, buy, and then get them to book so their friends can buy, buy, buy. Then sign them up so they can order, order order! Ugh, it’s fosters such greed and selfishness. She didn’t even try to hide hers, it was right there unashamedly upfront, and it was quite unnerving. In the words of my hairstylist, “HER? SHE was your director? Oh, you poor thing, she’s such a pushy broad.” LOL
Whoops, sorry for the spelling & grammatical errors, it’s late!
My Director actually did hold classes of her own. Seemed like she was holding a class all the time. I don’t know when she had time for her family of several young children. She would also hold classes at our training site… we would invite guests and she would give the class… with us being the actual consultant for our guests. In the end though, it was always about recruiting. She was always saying things like, “Oh, YOU would be SO good at this!” She always used a VERY dramatic and excited tone of voice when she was giving a class, recruiting, training… for everything MK. It got old pretty quick. You could always tell when it was getting toward car qualification time as we held LOTS of classes with her giving the class and us bringing guests in and the recruiting spiel was hot and heavy. When there was a new recruit she pushed inventory as a ‘must’. No one was ever told of the MK dress code until AFTER they signed on the dotted line and had their inventory ordered… and mentioning it was always given as an after thought (’… oh, and be sure to wear a skirt, hose and closed-toe heels…”). I believe I had recruited four women for my ‘team’… really, she recruited the first one for me… that girl ordered an $1800 inventory and held one class and never did anything again. When I got my first recruit on my own I told her about the whole dress code thing up front… she had no extra money, so I actually got a skirt for her! My SD was hot on my tail to hold classes and recruit… and I did. She had me pegged for Directorship and I was sucked in by the big dream of having my own team! I ordered more product, held 3 classes a week, made tons of phone calls, met with potential recruits… I wore myself ragged and piled far too many miles on the family car, got myself deeper in MK debt and had my shelves piled with product that no one wanted! I could never get the four girls on my team to all be active at the same time though, so I never even got my coveted Red Jacket. I finally was bonked over the head by a co-consultant… she was questioning the whole God/Christian thing with MK and was having issues with it. She helped me to see that the whole MK deal was really impossible. Finally I could take no more and left MK… stopped going to the weekly rah-rah event for our area’s units and/or our unit’s weekly ‘training’… stopped holding classes… just stopped it all. It was a HUGE relief. I didn’t miss it one iota. Three months after I left the unit my SD lost her car. I did feel bad for her as she had worked her tail off, but then other things changed in her life… another baby for one. I still see her on occasion. I know she’s still in MK, but she is not an SD. My guess is she is just maintaining her business by servicing her current customers. In ‘real life’ she does not talk with her loud, excited MK voice… instead she sounds tired and worn out.
My SD did hold classes and still does…but she is soooooo busy that she doesn’t have time for her grandchildren, which she claims that MK gives her all of this wonderful flexibility to spend time with her grandchildren. Every time the grandchildren were with her, her husband was taking care of them so she could go do a one person facial and make her masses of money! She continues to be extemely busy with the MK thing, classes, recruiting, rah-rah, blah, blah, blah. She calls me every so often to just see how I’m doing. She still sends me emails and I’m trying to figure this thing out because she is on my blocked senders list and yet, I still get her stupid rah-rah emails! Someone please explain how she does this!!!! She didn’t sound as excited when she called me this last time like she used to. Maybe she’s seeing that she’s not going to get the caddy that she’s “bound” for in September because everyone is seeing through the MK crap! Ya think? I’ve not seen any new pink caddies in our area and it’s a small area…it would be quite obvious. Seems it’s just not all the fun that she told us it would be.
I always heard that the big incentive for becoming a director in the first place was so you wouldn’t have to do classes anymore.
Yes, I did see her hold a class. Good LORD was she slick. She could sell ice to the Inuit. She was so slick, I nicknamed her “Valvoline.” However, her methods stuck in my craw a bit. I felt that she used very manipulative phrasing to get people to buy stuff they didn’t need and couldn’t afford and would probably never use.
Gothchiq, those sales made by manipulative directors or consultants usually result in returns. I heard story after story from women when I was a consultant.
Many tried to return product but the really crappy directors in our area would either talk them out of it or make it difficult.
I have no doubt! Half of the stuff I sold without manipulation resulted in returns, usually due to skin reactions or eye burning.