The Mary Kay Ladies That Just Don't Get the Hint. (AKA: My I-Story, Part 1)

So, I back in January of 2005, I had my second child, my first was 2 1/2 years old. I was invited to my very first Mary Kay party in April that same year. Right off the bat, the MK lady says that she is moving to NJ and wants to make sure that her contacts are well taken care of with a consultant in town. If anyone is interested, to let her know. So, I'm thinking, "Cool, she's already done some of the leg-work. What an easy way to get started with this business." I was also currently working 50+ hours a week as a Glorified Babysitter Restaurant Manager with Taco Bell.

The idea of staying home with my babies and earning full-time income just working 10 hours a week or less very much appealed to me. And, I figured that it would help pay off some of our quickly mounting debt. (Thanks to predatory lenders and adjustable rate mortgages) So, I went home to my wonderful husband and spoke to him about this terrific opportunity I heard about at the makeup party. He says, "Go for it," and I called the consultant the next day. She invited me to a MK meeting to meet with her director and to fill out the paperwork.

This was about a week after I had called her with my interest. In the meantime, I went on the Internet and did various Google searches including: Mary Kay, I hate Mary Kay, Real Mary Kay, etc. I wanted to know what I should expect before I got involved. I wanted to keep my head and succeed as quickly as possible. I stumbled across several sites, equally positive and negative about MK. I read many times about people feeling taken advantage of for being pressured to order a lot of inventory right when they signed up. Mental note, don't buy a ton of inventory.

I went to the meeting and sat there with some very made-up ladies in very professional attire to be applying makeup to the housewives and roommates and mothers that were brought as guests. I didn't understand alot of what was going on, but they seemed to be having fun. At the end, the director asked people who were interested in the opportunity to stick around, so she could answer their questions. Apparently, I was a "sure thing," because she didn't bother to spend much time at all with me, yet she was very devoted to several of the other women. I barely had a chance to ask her even one of my questions, and she really made me feel rushed. Anyways, later that night, she emails me the agreement link and I signed up.

$114.65 later, I had ordered my Starter Kit plus taxes and shipping. Then I was redirected to the MK consultant website screen and was encouraged to spend another $25 on my own personal, professional website. After all, it was half-off for the first year, who could afford to pass up that opportunity? After I signed up for that, I was redirected to the MKConnections website, where I was encouraged to purchase my Beauty Coat, product reorder stickers, address stamp and Business Cards. After all, what kind of professional doesn't have business cards? And that beauty coat just made sense: Who wants to get makeup all over their nice clothes? So, I spent another $50 or so there. So in less than 2 hours my $100 investment had nearly doubled.

I went to the next unit meeting the following week, wearing black slacks and a nice shirt. The point was made quite clear that MK Independent Beauty Consultants do NOT wear pants to MK functions. So, that weekend, I went out and bought a couple of skirts and a purple and a melon colored blouse, some cute heeled sandals (its hard to find ANYTHING decent in a size 11) and pantyhose. I went to the next meeting in my brand new outfits and the point was made at THAT meeting that MK Independent Beauty Consultants are only supposed to wear black skirts with WHITE shirts and CLOSED-TOED shoes. So that weekend, I went out and bought 2 white blouses and some close-toed heels. All-in-all, that was another $150.

After my first official meeting as a consultant, she had "the talk" with me. Inventory. If I wanted to be successful, I needed to have inventory at my house, ready to go, the minute someone ordered something. She showed me all these showcases ranging in price from $600 to over $4,000 in wholesale inventory. According to her, the quickest way for me to become a work at home Mom was to purchase $3,600 in inventory. She even told me that she would host my business debut, but only if I ordered at least $600 in products.

Now, this was all at the end of the month. And there are certain time-limits on the "bonuses" that you receive on different level orders based on when and how much you order. MK active status - the status that you must be to receive the wholesale prices - is only applicable for up to 3 months after your last $200 order. Now, this could be as many as 92 days or as few as 62 days. How? Because, no matter what day of the month you order on, that month is considered your first month. So, even if you order on April 30, April counts as month 1. May 1 counts as the beginning of month 2. Kind of slimy.

There was also a bonus Color 101 with orders of $600 or more. I spoke with my wonderful husband and he and I decided that the $600 would be the best option for us, but to not order it until the first week of May. Oooohhhh, did she push me hard to get that order in before April 30! And, I wasn't even "allowed" to place my own order - she had to do it for me. Very odd. Then, a few weeks later, I was told that if I wanted to succeed that I HAD to go to Seminar in Dallas. That's another $2,000! Off I went. It was alot of fun, but I certainly didn't need to go more than once.

You see, they are very manipulative people. They figure out your "hot buttons" and just play on your insecurities to make you think that the only way to succeed is to do exactly what they say. After all, who better to learn how to be a director from than an existing director. Problem is, they NEVER, EVER speak about any of any of the problems or issues that they encountered along the way. They are very strict about having absolutely NO negativity associated with anything MK, especially at meetings. We wouldn't want to scare any of the potential recruits away, now would we?

We also ended up filing for bankruptcy that year. The bills were growing too big, too fast and my wonderful husband and I just weren't mature enough and controlled enough with our income. We're both spenders, and it got us into alot of trouble. MK was supposed to be a way to help us get out of debt quickly. After all, there was a promise of full time income with MK, plus both of our regular full-time job income. As a result of all the extra work I did building my MK "career", I was barely around for my #2's first 18 months of life.

They had me convinced, "Short term sacrifice, long term gain." That if I stuck with it for a couple years and really "worked my business", she would never remember and I would have tons of time with her at that point.