Your Name: “Kristin”
Date Joined Mary Kay: Didn’t! (Almost did recently)
When Left Mary Kay or Still Active?: Just a customer
Initial Inventory Purchased: Nothing, thank God!
How were you recruited?: OK, so I’d like to share my story, because I *almost* joined recently.
It all started when I was duped into “winning” a “facial” over a year ago by an MK rep who had staked out my gym. After this disappointing facial “party”, where I sat in a run-down building next to strangers and applied teeny bits of product to my OWN face, I was pressured until I caved in and bought a skin care product. Over the next year, I occasionally got catalogs in the mail.
Then one day, I got a call from a woman who had taken over the other lady’s customers. She invited me to a training session.
Memorable experience you had in Mary Kay:
So I show up to the training thinking that my new MK consultant is going to be there. The director asks me whose guest I am, and I tell her and mention that I’m wondering if the consultant will be there. Of course, the director says she knows her but she fails to inform me that this woman lives clear in another state and never had ANY intention of being there! The director asks me how I met the consultant, and I tell her that she took over for another lady who once sold me a product. Then the director goes, “Well, she must have thought an awful lot of you to invite you here!!!”
…wtf? Do you REALLY think I can’t see through that fake smile of yours? …I shrug it off and sit down.
Suddenly there appears another consultant next to me who doesn’t know that I’m “taken.” If we were in a bar, I’d say she was seriously coming on to me. Suddenly the director interrupts us and informs her that I’m already spoken for.
“That’s OK! No problem! Golden rule!” the woman next to me blurts out awkwardly.
So I sit through the meeting and listen to the director drone on and on about herself the ENTIRE time- how she’s been selling MK since the age of the dinosaurs, how this is her 50th free car, etc.
And then I watch as people compare notes on how much they sold. I see the cheesy pin prizes, and I watch as the director congratulates one of the consultants on her accomplishment of being eligible to… guess what… BUY an ugly red jacket with an MK logo. (No offense to anyone who particularly likes that jacket but seriously, it’s like having to buy a bridesmaids dress that you will never wear again.)
After the meeting they give me one of those facials. That’s right, the one where I actually give MYSELF the facial.
And then all of a sudden, the director is on me like a badger. “So which skincare set are you interested in purchasing?” Umm, didn’t I just say like 50 times that I like the cleanser I already have? Why are you trying so hard to sell me the ONLY thing I specifically DON’T NEED???
“Well, I really don’t need the cleanser,” I protest.
“They are all designed to go together,” she says, smiling.
After about 5 minutes of this, she gives up and starts trying to sell me the new EXTREMELY SPECIAL and RARE $50 kit. Everyone ELSE had to pay $100, you see.
“Well, what’s in it?” I ask.
Silence.
“I mean, you sort of need product up-front in order to sell, right? Is there enough in here so that I can start selling?”
You should have seen their faces! They looked like deer in the headlights. I watched them all look at each other and pause and not know what to say. So instead they just hand me a pamphlet which shows how much MORE I’d get with the $50 kit and why I shouldn’t delay. Of course, it fails to mention that the size of the kit is SMALLER than the $100 kit and isn’t even enough to hold a class.
Meanwhile, I ask, “Does anyone have a kit that I can see, so I know exactly what comes in it?” Of course, nobody does. One woman pulls out a few of those one-time use samples and says how I’d get a bunch of them and how there is enough in them that customers can use them 2 or 3 times each.
In the end, I bought ONE product- the one that I actually NEEDED.
I don’t have any hard feelings for any of the MK girls. I know they’re just doing their job and trying to get by. The director rubbed me the wrong way, but luckily I’m not her customer. I don’t mind paying full price for MK products when I need them. I simply don’t appreciate being badgered- especially when the person is wearing a totally fake smile.
What did you learn from Mary Kay?: I learned not to be afraid to ask the “hard” questions and to always check stuff out on the internet and talk to people if I have a funny feeling. And most importantly- to follow my instincts!
What are you doing now?: At the moment, I’m enjoying a nice glass of wine. 
Additional Comments: Good luck to everyone out there!
Your Name: "Kristin"
Date Joined Mary Kay: Didn't! (Almost did recently)
When Left Mary Kay or Still Active?: Just a customer
Initial Inventory Purchased: Nothing, thank God!
How were you recruited?:
OK, so I'd like to share my story, because I *almost* joined recently.
It all started when I was duped into "winning" a "facial" over a year ago by an MK rep who had staked out my gym. After this disappointing facial "party", where I sat in a run-down building next to strangers and applied teeny bits of product to my OWN face, I was pressured until I caved in and bought a skin care product. Over the next year, I occasionally got catalogs in the mail.
Then one day, I got a call from a woman who had taken over the other lady's customers. She invited me to a training session.
Memorable experience you had in Mary Kay:
So I show up to the training thinking that my new MK consultant is going to be there. The director asks me whose guest I am, and I tell her and mention that I'm wondering if the consultant will be there. Of course, the director says she knows her but she fails to inform me that this woman lives clear in another state and never had ANY intention of being there! The director asks me how I met the consultant, and I tell her that she took over for another lady who once sold me a product. Then the director goes, "Well, she must have thought an awful lot of you to invite you here!!!"
...wtf? Do you REALLY think I can't see through that fake smile of yours? ...I shrug it off and sit down.
Suddenly there appears another consultant next to me who doesn't know that I'm "taken." If we were in a bar, I'd say she was seriously coming on to me. Suddenly the director interrupts us and informs her that I'm already spoken for.
"That's OK! No problem! Golden rule!" the woman next to me blurts out awkwardly.
So I sit through the meeting and listen to the director drone on and on about herself the ENTIRE time- how she's been selling MK since the age of the dinosaurs, how this is her 50th free car, etc.
And then I watch as people compare notes on how much they sold. I see the cheesy pin prizes, and I watch as the director congratulates one of the consultants on her accomplishment of being eligible to... guess what... BUY an ugly red jacket with an MK logo. (No offense to anyone who particularly likes that jacket but seriously, it's like having to buy a bridesmaids dress that you will never wear again.)
After the meeting they give me one of those facials. That's right, the one where I actually give MYSELF the facial.
And then all of a sudden, the director is on me like a badger. "So which skincare set are you interested in purchasing?" Umm, didn't I just say like 50 times that I like the cleanser I already have? Why are you trying so hard to sell me the ONLY thing I specifically DON'T NEED???
"Well, I really don't need the cleanser," I protest.
"They are all designed to go together," she says, smiling.
After about 5 minutes of this, she gives up and starts trying to sell me the new EXTREMELY SPECIAL and RARE $50 kit. Everyone ELSE had to pay $100, you see.
"Well, what's in it?" I ask.
Silence.
"I mean, you sort of need product up-front in order to sell, right? Is there enough in here so that I can start selling?"
You should have seen their faces! They looked like deer in the headlights. I watched them all look at each other and pause and not know what to say. So instead they just hand me a pamphlet which shows how much MORE I'd get with the $50 kit and why I shouldn't delay. Of course, it fails to mention that the size of the kit is SMALLER than the $100 kit and isn't even enough to hold a class.
Meanwhile, I ask, "Does anyone have a kit that I can see, so I know exactly what comes in it?" Of course, nobody does. One woman pulls out a few of those one-time use samples and says how I'd get a bunch of them and how there is enough in them that customers can use them 2 or 3 times each.
In the end, I bought ONE product- the one that I actually NEEDED.
I don't have any hard feelings for any of the MK girls. I know they're just doing their job and trying to get by. The director rubbed me the wrong way, but luckily I'm not her customer. I don't mind paying full price for MK products when I need them. I simply don't appreciate being badgered- especially when the person is wearing a totally fake smile.
What did you learn from Mary Kay?: I learned not to be afraid to ask the "hard" questions and to always check stuff out on the internet and talk to people if I have a funny feeling. And most importantly- to follow my instincts!
What are you doing now?: At the moment, I'm enjoying a nice glass of wine.
Additional Comments: Good luck to everyone out there!
It’s true. And I nearly laughed myself out of my chair when I heard it.
NPR’s Morning Edition on January 27th, 2009, did a story on how, supposedly, companies like AVON and Mary Kay are seeing big increases in sales.
Reporter Gloria Hillard interviewed Mary Kay director Linda Klein. Says Hillard in the story, “Klein says a new rep. working full-time can expect to earn close to $50,000 a year.”
Really? Can I see some numbers somewhere that substantiate this claim, Ms. Klein? Because I don’t know of any AVERAGE Mary Kay rep that earns $50,000 a year.
Even directors, who flash those big checks around, aren’t really making as much as you think. They rarely tell you the expenses involved, including time, required to receive such commissions. And they hardly ever tell you that those commissions aren’t based on the sales of the consultants they recruit but rather the orders for inventory that those consultants place with the company. Lots of that inventory winds up in the basement or at garage sales when the women who join realize that the earnings claims are overstated and the time commitment grossly underestimated.
You can listen to the complete story here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99898912
As is predictable, many Mary Kay consultants have shown up on the NPR site to leave their positive comments about the company.
Just wanted to post this to increase the likelihood that resellers and liquidators will see this. I have posted this on eBay as well.
Mary Kay Inc Files Lawsuits Against Numerous eBay Sellers of Mary Kay Products
Dateline: December 4, 2008
If you sell Mary Kay products on eBay…beware! Mary Kay Inc. may be coming after you.
In the last week, several eBay sellers of Mary Kay products have been served with lawsuits.
You may also be aware of the ongoing lawsuit that Mary Kay Inc. filed against Touch of Pinks Cosmetics, and eBay seller who also runs a separate online store selling Mary Kay products.
The Mary Kay consultants who spend their days policing the listings on eBay and turning Mary Kay sellers in to Mary Kay Inc. are surely gloating and celebrating now. Unfortunately, there’s no evidence that these sellers have done anything wrong. And especially given that Mary Kay Inc. has yet to win any judgment against seller Touch of Pink, these additional lawsuits seems a little premature and aggressive.
If you sell Mary Kay products on eBay, I would urge you to make sure you be careful — whatever that may be, I suppose, at this point. Mary Kay Inc. is out for records from these sellers to see if they are purchasing products from active consultants and directors in the company. They assert that this is interfering in their business.
We will have to wait to see how this all plays out, but either way, it is vitally important to anyone liquidating all those excess Mary Kay products on eBay, and for that matter, other sellers of similar products.
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.
I am currently active in Mary Kay and have been for almost 2 years. While I enjoy looking through your site for the stories of why people have gotten out of Mary Kay and made my job so much easier, I also find it entertaining to see your take on things.
It’s all about perception, not deception. More of, glass half full, half empty really. If you are willing to WORK, if you are really ready to run a BUSINESS, then you’ll probably be ready to succeed. However, if you would rather WORK for someone ELSE, and answer to someone else, and let someone else take responsibility for everything that you do, then you are ready to make someone ELSE successful.
To the consultants that have stopped selling, I say thank you. It makes my job much easier.
Bre Garcia
I received an email one day from a Mary Kay consultant telling me that they made $80,000 selling Mary Kay last year.The educated skeptic in me doubts it highly, but if true, good for her.
However, let’s look at some numbers. In order to make $80,000 in Mary Kay, you would have to sell at least $160,000 retail at full price. And have NO expenses.
Since having no expenses except for inventory is impossible, that means your total retail sold would have to be much higher in order to have a profit of $80,000.
That would be some incredible sales and put this person in some very rare percentage of consultants.
But I have to wonder…
Is she selling that much or making that much?
You see, it’s not uncommon for people in business to have lots of sales and therefore conclude that they are making money. Actually, the opposite is very often the case.
I saw it a lot in eBay sellers when I was a reseller there. Just because they had money rolling in, they thought they were doing great.
But they weren’t sitting down and looking at the whole picture: the time spent, fixed expenses, packaging, fees.
I suspect a lot of times it is the same with consultants and directors.
At weekly Mary Kay “success meetings,” there is usually a point where they recognize the Consultant who sold the most in the past week. In our meetings, which were the combined units of six directors, the majority of consultants sold nothing. Many sold $100 or $200 retail. But a prize went to each consultant who sold $500 for the week. There was usually one or two people who managed to achieve this.
But that’s retail sales. So $500 retail means the most they netted would be $250. In reality, when you figure time and other expenses, it is much less.
My director used to spout off her recent commission check, which was always impressive. But she never said a word about her expenses.
She had two part-time, salaried assistants. She, along with the other Directors, paid monthly rent on a huge, multi-room meeting space to hold weekly “success meetings”. Then there were all the special events like recruiting brunches, retreats, career conference, and Seminar. And what about the cost of the director suit each year? These expenses are just the tip of the iceberg.
Most importantly, what you never hear mentioned as an expense for Mary Kay consultants and directors is one of the most ignored by many people in business: TIME.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you are running a profitable business just because you have lots of sales. But the truth comes when you take the time to account for all your expenses involved in acquiring those sales.
Activity and sales doesn’t equal profit. The only way to know if you are actually turning a profit is to sit down and list all of your gross sales and your expenses. Once you’ve subtracted your expenses from those sales, you must then look at how long it took to make that net profit. What did those sales equate to when broken down to an hourly wage?
Only then will you know if you are making a profit or simply selling…and whether it’s worth it.
Lots of times, we get visitors who have decided that they are going to reject a lot of the Mary Kay hype and hoopla and do Mary Kay “their way.”
Usually, what doing it “their way” means is not giving in to pressure to buy lots of inventory every time new products come out; not trying to recruit everyone they come in contact with; not pressuring people to hold appointments or classes. Read more
An article by guest writer Avital Pilpel
Introduction
Mary Kay is a company that sells beauty products, such as anti-ageing creams, skin moisturizers, lipstick, nail enamel, and so on. Mary Kay offers everybody the opportunity (or is it?) to “own their own business” by becoming a seller of Mary Kay products.
Essentially, like in any other business, one buys product wholesale from Mary Kay, and attempts to sell it at retail to customers. Unlike other businesses, Mary Kay is an MLM—one can not only sell products to others, but to recruit others to sell Mary Kay products as well. Those you recruit—and those that they recruit, etc.—constitute your “downline”. Every time someone in your downline (or your downline’s downline, etc.) sells a product, not only does he receive a commission, but you receive one as well.
Ideally, and if dreams come true, you will make a lot of money by what MLMers called “duplication”: as long as you recruit only a few people and each one of them recruits only a few people, then quickly, due to the math of exponential growth, you will be sitting high on the hog, receiving a commission from hundreds, if not thousands, of your “downline”.
The Company’s Web Site
But does this really work? How much can a Mary Kay distributor can really be expected to make? For this, let us consider Mary Kay’s own web site, which says…
Achievement. Success. The realization of dreams. Mary Kay Inc. was created from one woman’s desire to enrich women’s lives. She began by offering quality products to enhance a woman’s image and a perfect business opportunity to help women earn extra money, enjoy more flexibility and grow as independent business owners. The result is a company that, more than 40 years later, still embodies the core philosophies of its founder: to use the Golden Rule as a business guide and to help women live a balanced life by placing God first, family second and career third.
This is nice. Of course, it doesn’t actually say anything, being mere vague generalities, but it sounds nice. Why is Mary Kay a “perfect business opportunity” for women? Says who? What does “enjoying more flexibility” or “growing as an independent business owner” really mean?
Also highly suspicious is the fact that they tell you that Mary Kay “embodies the core philosophies of its founder” and that those are to “place God first, family second, and career third”. It is no doubt nice that Mary Kay’s founder had this philosophy, but how, exactly, is this relevant to evaluating a business opportunity in terms of risk and reward, possible profit vs. possible loss?
One should be very suspicious of businesses who advertise their commitment to God, family, the American way, or some other “good cause”. Why do they prefer to talk about that than about the business, or the product, itself? Would you buy a suit from a tailor whose main selling point is that he’s a good Christian—or would you try and find a good tailor?
Anyway, reading on…
Mary Kay Inc. is one of the largest direct sellers of quality skin care and color cosmetics in the world.
This, too, is nice but irrelevant. That Mary Kay is making money is no evidence that Mary Kay distributors are making money. The pharaohs of Egypt were immensely rich; this doesn’t mean the slaves who built the pyramids for them were rich. McDonald’s makes tons of money; its workers usually don’t. While it is true that if Mary Kay did not make money its distributors would probably not make money either, the opposite isn’t the case. It’s quite possible for Mary Kay to make money and its distributors to still not make any money.
So, continuing reading along:
Company Facts:
- The Mary Kay Independent Sales Force exceeds 1.6 million Independent Beauty Consultants in more than 30 markets worldwide.
- Mary Kay Inc. has averaged double-digit annual growth since the company’s founding in 1963.
- In 2005, sales of Mary Kay® products exceeded $2.2 billion in wholesale sales.
Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. Finally some facts!
But, first of all, look at the second line. Is the fact that Mary Kay averaged double-digit growth a good sign? Not necessarily. MLMs always grow quickly, because the distributors in the MLMs always are looking for more and more people to recruit into the pyramid. This hardly means anything about the chances of any distributor to make money.
Now, consider the first and third line. First of all, what does wholesale sales mean? It doesn’t mean how much product Mary Kay distributors sold to others. It means how much product Mary Kay sold to its distributors, who get to buy Mary Kay’s products in “wholesale” prices. In other words, it is how much the distributors bought from Mary Kay.
So, on average, 1.6 million distributors bought $2.2 billion of products from Mary Kay, or $1,375 per distributor (in 2005). This tells us nothing about the distributor’s income; only how much inventory they (on average) bought from Mary Kay. To know how much profit a distributor made on average, we need to know (1) what percentage of the $1,375 of product she bought was sold at retail, and (2) what was the retail price.
Selling Mary Kay—Insanely Optimistic Scenario
Let us give Mary Kay the benefit of the doubt. Let us imagine that, for a moment, every single product that a distributor bought from Mary Kay was later sold in retail, just like it’s supposed to work. This is highly unrealistic, but just suppose there are, in fact, magically, a sufficient number of customers willing to buy retail for every distributor’s entire stock—and none of it ends up as unsold in someone’s basement.
So now let us see. What is the relation between the wholesale price the distributor bought the product for, and the retail price they sold it for (if they did)? Looking at Mary Kay’s web site doesn’t help, as all prices are given in “suggested retail” only. In theory, of course, it could be that everything the distributor bought for $1 is then sold at wholesale for $101, in which case the average profit per distributor per year is going to be $137,500, which is nice… but not too realistic.
We need, then, to decide about what the difference between retail and wholesale is here. I am, again, giving Mary Kay the benefit of the doubt. Let us imagine that the wholesale price is not one half, or one third, but one fifth of the retail price. On this very generous assumption, we get that the average distributor sold $6,875 worth of product, making $5,500 a year profit.
What, then, is better: selling Mary Kay, or working at McDonald’s? A minimum-wage job pays $5.15 an hour. For a 40-hour week (160-hour month), this comes out to $9,888 a year. In other words, working in the absolutely lowest paid legal full time job is almost twice as good of an opportunity as being a Mary Kay “business owner”—under insanely generous assumptions about Mary Kay’s profit margin and amount of stuff sold.
Put another way, in order for selling Mary Kay to be comparable with a minimum wage job and make $9,888 profit a year from $1,375 of wholesale product, she has to sell the $1,375 of product for $1,375+$9,888 = $11,263, or a markup of ($11,263/$1,375)*100% = (about) 819%. Does this sound realistic to you?
Selling Mary Kay—More Realistic Scenario
But things are actually worse than that. We assumed ridiculously unrealistic profit margins and amount of wholesale material sold in the Mary Kay business. Far more realistic is to assume that the wholesale price is, about, one half to one third of the retail price; and it is far more realistic to assume that—as we noticed before—there is every reason to believe that finding paying customers is very hard, so that at least 50% or so of the wholesale product is simply not sold and is a loss.
Note that if the wholesale price is half the retail price and half of the product is sold, the Mary Kay business owner can expect to make no profit at all; she sells 50% of what cost her $1,375—or $687.50’s worth of wholesale product—for twice of what she paid, or $1,375. Unfortunately, since she already paid $1,375 for the product, her net profit/loss is $0. If the retail price is three times the wholesale price, we get a yearly profit of ($687.50*3)-$1,375 = $687.50, or about $60 in profit a month—that is, $2 a day.
That is less than what one would make working two days a month in McDonald’s for minimum wage. That is only twice the level of what the UN calls “extreme poverty” ($1 a day)—and we mean here poverty according to the third world’s standards, not the USA’s standards. It is probably less than one could make begging in the streets for a week per month, or emigrating to Indonesia to become a subsistence farmer (average income in Indonesia is ca. $800 or so).
Summary
In sum, even under insanely optimistic scenarios, “doing” Mary Kay is about half as profitable as doing the worst possible (legal) job in the country, a minimum wage job with no extra time or other perks. Under more realistic scenarios, owning a Mary Kay business is somewhere between subsistence farming and begging on street corners in terms of profitability.
It is not surprising Mary Kay teaches you to put God and family before your business. After all, who’s going to bother to put a business whose profit would probably be somewhere between begging and a half-time minimum-wage job first in their lives?
About the Author:
Avital Pilpel holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Columbia University, NY, and a B.S. in Mathematics and Humanities from Hebrew University at Jerusalem, Israel. He is currently a post-doctorate research fellow at the University of Haifa, Israel. Dr. Pilpel states that his research interests are in “philosophy of science, rational choice, and, in particular, critical thinking–or lack thereof. This is what drew me to investigate MLMs, which show a curious mix of “rational” goals (desire to make more money, spend time with family, etc.) with irrational means (if I only buy more of this overpriced stuff, I’ll be RICH!)”
Lipstick on 
Ann on 
Brooke on 
Tam on 
