PinkLighthouse.com » True or False?

True or False: It only costs $100 to join Mary Kay

L J — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:00:38 +0000

TRUE and FALSE.

To become a Mary Kay Consultant, you must sign an agreement and pay $100 for your “starter kit.”

However, in order to stay “active,” you must place a $200 wholesale product order with the company every three months.

Now, it makes sense that you can’t just sign up and never place a product order. That would be silly, since the whole point is to sell the product. And it makes sense that in order to be considered a Consultant that you would have to order certain minimums to be able to represent the products.

What doesn’t make sense is the big presentation on “initial inventory packages” that comes after one has signed the agreement, and the sudden push by your Director to start your Mary Kay venture with hundreds, even thousands, of dollars worth of inventory.

The problem is that in my observation and experience, Directors almost always emphasized the $100 starting figure and never mentioned what came after that: a hard push to buy an “initial inventory package.”

Many women know nothing of the impending “Inventory Interview” they will be subjected to once they join MK and many current consultants feel guilty recruiting women with what they feel is only half of the story.

True or False: Mary Kay Isn’t MLM, It’s Dual Marketing

L J — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:26:35 +0000

FALSE.

Mary Kay Inc. claims that their business structure is based on a concept called “dual marketing.”

They define it as separating corporate management from independent contractors. That definition, however, is the basic definition of independent contractor. An independent contractor is not an employee of the company and doesn’t receive any of the benefits of a hired employee.

The only definition I was able to find for the term “dual marketing” is the partnership between two companies that occurs when they decide to advertise their complimentary products together.

It appears that the term “dual marketing” was implemented by Mary Kay Inc. to attempt to hide the fact that the company is a Multi-Level Marketing company. MLMs elicit a negative response from many people, and aren’t considered to be “real businesses” by some.

However, Mary Kay Consultants earn money not only by sales, but by recruiting other people into the Company. Mary Kay Inc. pays Consultants a commission based on the amount of product that their recruits order from the company. Starting with their fourth recruit, Consultants also earn a bonus amount for each person they bring into the company.

Don’t be fooled: Mary Kay Inc. is a Multi-Level Marketing company that uses a Stair Step Breakaway plan as its compensation model.

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True or False: You earn 50% of everything you sell in Mary Kay

L J — Thu, 15 May 2008 14:20:55 +0000

FALSE

Mary Kay Directors are fond of telling potential recruits that in Mary Kay, you make 50% of everything you sell.

While it’s true that the suggested retail of MK products is double what the Consultant buys the product for from the Company, before you get too excited about that 50% “profit,” you need to be aware of a few things:

Many times you will not be selling the products for the full suggested retail. You will be discounting for various reasons: to get discontinued products off your shelf; to offer incentives to your Hostesses; to rid your inventory of limited-edition items; to encourage customers to purchase more.
If you choose to participate in the Preferred Customer program, which most Consultants do, one benefit of the program is giving your customers a gift with purchase. YOU have to pay for these gifts, and they’ll cost you $4.00 each.
There are many expenses that come out of that 50% profit: shipping charges to get the product to you; meeting costs; samples and business supplies, like catalogs; costs of training, workshops and Seminar. And don’t forget one important expense: TIME.

Some of these expenses can be managed or avoided, but some are just part of the Mary Kay “opportunity.”

True or False: Eighty percent of all women millionaires in the world are in Mary Kay Inc.

L J — Sat, 03 May 2008 16:22:50 +0000

FALSE.

This little falsehood was repeated often by Directors years ago. I don’t know if it is still repeated, but Mary Kay Inc. set the record straight on this one years ago.

If you sell enough Mary Kay, you win a free car!

L J — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:41:53 +0000

FALSE!

First of all, you could sell $200,000 of Mary Kay this year and you wouldn’t earn a car.

Second…notice how I said “earn?”

Those cars aren’t free. And you don’t earn them by selling tons of products.

You earn cars by recruiting others into the company. Then, those recruits of yours need to place a product inventory order. That’s the simplified version.

Once you earn the car, you’ll find you’re in a two-year lease agreement with Mary Kay Inc.

You will be required to make a car lease payment every month, unless the production of your unit is high enough to completely cover your lease payment.

You can find more info on the Mary Kay Car Program on this site and on the Mary Kay InTouch site.

True or False: Pink Cadillacs are awarded to the top sellers of Mary Kay products

L J — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:35:58 +0000

FALSE!

A common misconception of new Consultants, and the public in general, is that Mary Kay Inc. gives out Pink Cadillacs to members of their sales force who sell lots and lots of products.

Wrong!

You don’t earn the use of a car because you have sold thousands of dollars of product to customers. The only way you earn a car, or indeed move up in the company, is to get enough of your new recruits and current team members to place orders for product with the company. Period.

So while those women driving those pink cars are good sales people, it isn’t because they sold a bunch of moisturizer.

It’s because they sold the “vision” of Mary Kay, the company. They persuaded the people they recruited into the company that the only way to be really successful is to have a “full wagon” of products, usually several thousands of dollars worth.

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True or False: Mary Kay is Taught at Harvard

L J — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:16:32 +0000

FALSE!

You may have heard this claim from a Mary Kay director or consultant.

They claim that Mary Kay’s business plan is taught at Harvard business school.

Well, don’t tell Harvard Business School. They are sick of MLM consultants using this line because it isn’t true.

What IS true is that Harvard Business School is the world’s leading supplier of business “cases”. These cases provide background information about a company and examine critical junctures in their development.

Case studies are not opinions of the company or situation.

And Case Studies ARE NOT endorsements of the business or the business model, nor do they “teach” that business. (I’m not really sure what anyone who says that Mary Kay is “taught” means by that anyway.)

The case method is a process of teaching students by using detailed accounts of real-world business situations and has been used with great effectiveness by Harvard Business School since it was developed by its faculty in the 1920s. You can read about the case method on the HBS website.

A quick search on the Harvard Business School website found seven case studies involving Mary Kaydating from 1981 to 2004. AmoYou can find them on the Harvard Business School website. You can view these and order copies by following this link.

If anyone tells you that Mary Kay is taught at Harvard Business School they are either

1. Simply repeating what they’ve been told by an uninformed director;

2. Lying in an attempt to give validation to the Mary Kay “business”; or

3. Are too dumb to make the distinction between studying a subject and endorsing it.