When I was in college, I was broke. I lived off of my $7 an hour income from a local department store and student loans. So when I first heard about the Mary Kay opportunity, I was excited. I signed up without much thought…and that was a huge mistake.
I attended a Mary Kay party sometime in my second year of college. The Beauty Consultant who was running the show pulled me aside later and talked to me about the Mary Kay opportunity. She shared with me her success and set up a time to meet with me and further discuss the possibilities for making an income with Mary Kay. I agreed to meet with her without even bothering to question her motives.
When I did meet with the Beauty Consultant, who I will call Jane for the purposes of this story only, she showed me all of the great things that Mary Kay had given her, like a car, jewelry, income, and time to spend at home with her children. These things all sounded great to me, so I said I would do it. I wanted all of those things, too. Who wouldn’t? We signed some paperwork, talked for a little while about starting the business opportunity, and then Jane asked me how I would be paying for the thousands of dollars worth of inventory. Wait. What? I’m a full-time student and I work in retail. I don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on makeup. I thought that was the entire point of signing up to sell Mary Kay.
This could have been the end of the conversation, and my dealings in Mary Kay. But Jane was an expert, she had already seen my objections coming and she dealt with them very smoothly. Jane assured me that to make an income from Mary Kay, there was some I initial investment required. But once I did that I would soon be making tons of money and working only part-time, and plus if I had a credit card I could even put it on there. Problem solved, right? Sure. So I gave her my credit card information and charged this inventory and started what I thought was my own “business.
There are a few problems with the Mary Kay opportunity that Jane didn’t share with me. What’s worse, there are a few outright misrepresentations I feel that she made, and I believe she was less than upfront with me partly because I was 19 years old and I didn’t have a clue what I was really doing. The truth is that all Mary Kay ever got was a bunch of credit card debt that I couldn’t pay off. Before you even consider a “career” with Mary Kay, there are a few truths that you should know.
• To earn a full-time income with Mary Kay, there is an investment required. Don’t let anyone tell you there isn’t. One of the big things that sold me on the opportunity was that I could own my own business without coming up with a large investment. It is true that the investment for your initial inventory is low compared to many other businesses. However, I was 19 when I became a Beauty Consultant, and I didn’t truly have one cent that I could invest into a business. To solve that problem, my recruiter suggested I actually sell my possessions to raise money or get a loan. When I explained that I didn’t have the income to qualify for a loan, she suggested I ask my parents or a family member for a loan. When I explained that I couldn’t do that, she actually suggested I put the inventory on a credit card. Now that I am much older, it disgusts me that this woman actually suggested this to a 19 year-old college student. Interest rates on credit cards are outrageous, and it is never a good idea to charge large purchases (like thousands of dollars in business inventory) on a high-interest credit card. This woman really didn’t care about that as long as she got another recruit. I lived with the interest on this debt for much longer than I actually sold Mary Kay.
• You will not earn a full-time income working part-time hours.The claim that you will is a lie. Another one of the big selling points I heard from my recruiter with Mary Kay was that I could work just a few hours a week and earn a full-time income. She was only counting the hours where I would physically be at a sales party. There are endless hours which go into marketing and arranging sales parties. If you really want to make a full-time income by selling Mary Kay, your friends and family will only be a source of income for a short time. After that, in order to book parties and thus sales, you will need to go out in public and market your business. This takes a substantial amount of time and effort. There are also a number of training classes and events each week that take additional time. I never made full-time income with Mary Kay in just a few hours each week. Common sense alone would tell you that this doesn’t make sense, and it’s unfortunate that Mary Kay’s consultants try to say that this is true, because it isn’t.
• Mary Kay Consultants will tell you there are no “sales goals” associated with being a Beauty Consultant. Although there are no “sales goals,” you have to move a certain amount of product in order to get the discount allowing you to make money from selling Mary Kay. Wait. Doesn’t that work out to be a sales goal? The way Mary Kay worked when I was a Consultant was that each quarter, you had to purchase a minimum amount of product in order to qualify for your discount. You would then have to resell this merchandise at the retail markup to make your profit. If you did not have a need to order this much product, you could still order, but it would be at the retail price, and you would not make a profit on anything you sold. So although there is nothing that Mary Kay technically calls a “sales goal,” you are expected to sell a certain amount of product within a given time period in order to qualify to make a profit. This works exactly like a sales goal, so shouldn’t Consultants be honest and admit that it is a sales goal?
• Mary Kay Consultants sell the opportunity largely on the relationships and networking opportunities they have had access to in the business. These opportunities exist in any job. It is true that there are some nice women who sell Mary Kay. It is also true that you could meet these women while you’re selling Mary Kay and that you could become good friends with them. However, this is true at basically any job. I have always met at least one really nice and amazing person at any job where I have worked. There are networking possibilities at any job you have, even if you are a janitor or a fast-food worker. This is not something that is unique to Mary Kay. It is part of being around other people, which you can do it just about any setting.
• Mary Kay is now sold on websites like eBay and Amazon, making it even more difficult to sell at parties. Mary Kay expressly prohibits reselling your product on websites like eBay or Amazon, but go to eBay and type in the search term “Mary Kay.” There are literally thousands of Mary Kay products being sold on eBay at any given moment, and they are often sold at or below cost. People aren’t stupid; they know that they can get a brand new product online for much cheaper than they could from a Beauty Consultant. Mary Kay was once a challenge to sell, as almost anything is. Now it is nearly impossible to sell a lot of the product because it is available for less money elsewhere, and it is more convenient to have it shipped to your door than to track down a Consultant and then figure out how you can get the product.
• Mary Kay offers a buy back policy, so if you decide to, you can return your inventory at 90% of cost. However, this doesn’t account for other costs associated with the inventory. I ultimately ended up returning my product to Mary Kay and did get a percentage of my money back. However, you don’t get 90% back of everything you put into Mary Kay, you get 90% of what you paid for product that is able to be resold. After returning my Mary Kay product, I still had to pay for all the interest that had accumulated on my credit card during the time I had sold Mary Kay. You will also not be refunded any money spent on gas to meetings, events, and parties. You will be out any o f the money you spent for marketing materials, gifts, sales aids, and demonstration kits. These costs can add up to be a substantial amount over time. Don’t expect to get 90% of your entire investment back, because you won’t.
If I had known the things that I know now about Mary Kay, I never would have signed up to become a Beauty Consultant. Don’t let a Mary Kay Consultant fool you into thinking the opportunity is something it’s not. If you want to be a Beauty Consultant, go for it, but realize what the true costs and conditions of the deal will be before doing it.
