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Unfortunately this person is not seeing the whole picture with Mary Kay and making women feel good about themselves and touching women's lives. Each consultant owns her own business and needs to run her business with the best business sense. No one is FORCED into purchasing large quantities of products, it is solely up to them whether or not they choose to buy. Yes there are incentives to purchase and prizes to be won, just like in all other sales jobs. But if a consultant has no desire to sell large quantities of products, then they need not purchase them.

The Mary Kay Career is not for everyone, so do not be so harsh to condemn the company, there are thousands upon thousands of very happy successful consultants and directors, I happen to be one of them. Again, it is up to each woman to choose how she will run her business.

Michelle Foley - 10 Nov 2004 user mkmfoley at domain fmtcs.com

No, no one is FORCED to buy inventory, they are COERCED...(that word, less the F, has the same letters in it that FORCED does, btw. They are coerced to buy inventory by highly trained directors or other individuals who know which personality types will do what. They coerce by deception, telling you that you will be more successful with a 'full wagon', they coerce with diamond jewelry (especially in June or if someone is 'finishing' DIQ), there are many ways they manipulate to get those large inventory orders. Directors have sites on the web with lists of credit suggestions to attain those inventories. So not calling it 'forcing' what would YOU call it knowing all the tactics used?

And, when 'incentives to purchase' are presented without any accountability for actual sales, isn't that further manipulation.....or baiting to order to get this or that recognition? Recognition, is by the way, one of the first tactics they utilize to get you to order and reel you in to the MK way. Women love it and MK knows it and that's what they use.

Regarding 'running her business with the best business sense'.....where do they teach to recruit people who 'have good business sense'? They don't. They teach to recruit 'sharp' women (looks) who have 'credit'. This 'opportunity' is not really talked about or taught about as a 'business' until they talk inventory or until you begin to get discouraged, then you are accused of not working your business. One of my favorite sayings in MK. Yet, who taught you to RUN a business? Do they screen potential recruits to see if they have any 'business sense'? I think not.

The only reason consultants own their own 'business' is that MK corporate doesn't want to pay the usual federal benefits on their sales force. You really don't OWN your business at all. There's a site on here which talks about a director who lost her directorship because she rented or leased a space to hold meetings, etc. I don't think she was even selling out of it, but it was somehow against her agreement, so BOTH her director & consultant agreements were cancelled. Gee, for someone who own's their own business, I wouldn't think anyone could take YOUR business away from you. MK Corp PAYS you commissions, business OWNERS WRITE THEIR OWN CHECKS. MK Corp sends YOU a 1099, business owners do not get 1099's from anyone. Your hands are tied in advertising, marketing and even business attire, so you are not independent of anything. That, to me, is not really a business. IMO, it's a game. Games have rules, you have to play by theirs or you are out of the game.
Laura Ryan  - 16 Nov 2004

HOWEVER, ALL directors that I know of rent out a space to hold their meetings, especially if they are offspring directors and decide to hold meetings together! She MUST (with a capital M) have gotten cancelled for misrepresetning the company in some way, which is really the main way you can get your contract "fired."

You really can sit there on your contract for 6 months and not sell anything, not go to meetings, and still "be" a consutant until you terminate your contract formally. If they cut you off it has to be because they find out you're posting on an anti-MK board (giggle) or because you're making false statements about the products or career opp.

I think there are elements about MK which the average person cannot understand or wants to look at as fishy. It's too good to be true, but some of it, past the (use your head) sugar-coating, is NOT bad. I admit that deception is the sales person meal ticket, and so you find many MK consultants and more so directors will really paint ice castles for you in the sky until you sign, pay $100 to get your kit and learn on your own that you know nothing about running a business or selling.

YET.... where you are most wrong is that you say MK has no business training. they do TRAIN you, through meetings, conference calls, and PLENTY (to the point of annoying)mailings and e-mails to provide you with business information, tried and true MK specific sales routines and so on and so forth. If you do not want to pay the $5 to go to the meeting and learn then, that is a whole other issue, and yes, it is stupid that you have to pay, but that is why your director is renting the space (and not getting fired) so she can train as many consultants and DIQ at one time and in one place. ___
Yvy Barney  - 22 May 2005

I'm going to have to disagree. I think that a lot of the posters on this website are reflecting what's really going on in Mary Kay. There are certain things that you're spouting that aren't correct. I have only been in MK for three weeks, and perhaps I just get bored very easy by all the BS, but this is what I have found so far just through navigating through all the pink propaganda I've been fed:

1. You own your own business...really? Hmmm...then why must sales directors "suggest" that you buy inventory like mine did. It would have been a whole lot easier if she had given me all my options instead of giving me the easiest avenue to pad her commission check.
2. Anybody can do it...now that's just not true. This cosmetics game is personality driven. You need to be a people person. I didn't get that part until this past week.
3. Warm chatting...I really hate this phrase...chatting with complete strangers, searching for some common entre that you have with them so that you can then have MK somehow infiltrate their lives. Just another ploy to get to the customer. Pretty awkward and fake if you ask me.
4. Those "success" unit meetings...more like the queens of the whatever preen, fawn over the sales director, get recognition, try to draw in hapless women into something they have no clue about and make all of us "underachievers" feel bad about ourselves. I went home in tears after one of these things (along with food poisoning). It wasn't a happy experience.
5. No quotas, no areas...c'mon, this has got to be the biggest fraud running. If you don't sell or buy at least $200 in inventory you become inactive. If you don't recruit you don't move up the Mary Kay food chain. Mary Kay has even said don't steal other consultant's customers but I've gotten the impression from my sales director that anything underhanded like taking away someone's customer is perfectly okay.
6. You still work part-time and make money...that is such a lie. You need to put in a lot of work just in the initial phase and forsake everything else, your life, your family, and your other job.
7. Qualifying for seminar...yet another game...don't buy into it because it's nothing but just an overblown version of your unit success nights.
8. Inventory vs. order taking...I was told that if I didn't have inventory I would not be productive. If you're an order taker you're just not on par with those who don't have their own stores.
9. Casting a customer net...calling, contacting all you know, family, friends, acquaintances to attend your shows or buy your product. Once you're done with that, what do you do then? My question was never fully answered.
10. "Training"....or better lack of it...I was not satisfied with what I was hearing on these I story and training cd's I was given in my starter kit. A lot of the dialogues sounded fake and not me...I didn't feel like I was fully prepared while being urged to sell, sell, sell even though I wasn't comfortable with that.
11. Being who you are vs. MK changing you...I felt like I was in a cult and that the whole experience was changing me and not for the better. My husband noticed it and how it was turning me into a stressed out bitch. It was that bad and this was just preparing for a stupid debut.
12. Attracting customers through facial and skin care classes...hmmm, I wasn't even trained in how to do this and it just didn't feel right to me. I went to one of these classes, they wagged the product like carrots in front of me, and I bought a lot that I will use but probably never buy again. My husband was furious and thus became my downward spiral in MK.

I'm sorry if I sound like one of those sour apples, Michelle. However, I have to be honest. I felt like I was in a cult, that I was being lied to, lying to myself and to my husband who I had to talk into supporting me in MK. Do you know how that feels?I'm glad I'm getting out and I'm not looking back. I'm calling to get my repurchase form and all that crap is going back (even if I lose money). I'd rather look in the mirror and like what I see instead of one day waking up and not recognizing who I've turned into because of MK.

Good luck,
Erin B  - 25 May 2005

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