Mary Kay

In My Humble Opinion
1

My wife has been looking for a way to earn an income from home, so that she can be a stay at home mom.

She is considering selling Mary Kay. Let me tell you, she would be perfect for it. ANYTIME we go out, she runs into several people she knows, and knows them by name, their kids’ name, she knows important things about their families (jobs, illnesses, school info, life issues etc) and people genuinely seek her out and like her. She is also attractive in a non-flashy way.

Is being a Mary Kay consultant a wise choice? Can she really earn a decent income? How much of her time will it demand? What are the downsides? What are the upsides? Educate this ignorant man about the world of May Kay!!

2

I know people who have made a good amount of money selling Mary Kay. They were just like your wife - outgoing, interested in people, very social.

There is a significant time commitment if you want to really earn money. The women I’ve known who have done it have really enjoyed it. I know two who were unsuccessful at it, but they didn’t really like the social aspects, and didn’t put in much time.

FWIW, I don’t like the products. I think the demographics of your area may really impact her success. If women in your area are used to purchasing Clarins, Lancome, Mac, etc., they probably won’t be as open to purchasing Mary Kay. If more women buy drugstore brands (Max Factor, Maybelline, etc.) she may have a better market.

3

My sister sold it for a while and as I recall, didn’t do too well. It is pretty near a full time job if you want to make money. Personally, I hate those parties. It’s just not my style.

4

This may be because she isn’t trying to sell them anything.
The bad thing with products like Mary Kay, Tupperware, pampered chef, etc is that you have to (at least at first) count on your friends to make your sales.

YMMV, but your first sales are sales made because they are friends.
I had a friend who started to sell Pampered chef and after a while her party invitations got really old. As a friend, you feel pressured (in a way) to buy something, anything, at a party.

What happened in my friend’s case is that a) people suddenly had things to do on her party nights or b) they started to invite her to their parties where she felt obligied to return the favour.

Unless one is really good at sales and better yet, selling to strangers, IMO, these sort of businesses are a great way to ruin friendships.

You also should assess how much of a business person your wife is. Another friend of mine sold Avon. She ultimatley was forced to quit because she was losing money at it.

Your wife may be a great social person, but as they say, money changes everything.

5

I totally agree with Bad News Baboon - I’m friendly with people until they try to sell me something - then I will avoid them like the plague. Yuck. If I were her, I’d do something relatively anonymous like selling products on Ebay. There are a lot of great opportunities there.

6

I agree 100% with Bad News Baboon. She speaks wisely. :slight_smile:

7

Note: IANAMKC. I have personally known 3 in my life: one is a Pink Cadillac lady, one is what I’d call a “medium” consultant (she has another job so it’s not a full time job for her) and the other one hardly does anything with it. I have looked into it for myself but being in school full-time, it’s just not possible.

Is being a Mary Kay consultant a wise choice?

I think so, yes.

Can she really earn a decent income?

She can earn as much or as little as she wants to. It all depends on how hard she wants to work. IIRC (from reading) Mary Kay has produced more female millionaires than any other company in the world. The sky is pretty much the limit.

How much of her time will it demand?

As much as she wants it to. If she wants to do 3 parties a day, she can. If she wants to do 1 a week, she can do that too. If she just wants to take people’s orders as they need stuff and not even bother with parties, she can do that.

What are the downsides?

One thing I’ve noticed about the MKC’s I’ve known is that they always, always have full makeup on. Always. That could be considered a downside, I suppose, having to put it on EVERY time you go out in public (and being nicely dressed as well). I have never seen the 2 MKC’s I mentioned above (the first two) in the grocery store with sweats and a t-shirt on.

Depending on how old your kid is and how well behaved he/she is, another downside might be having to take the kid to the parties with her, if they’re hosted in other people’s houses.

If she hosts most of her parties in your home, there’s always the stress of cleaning up/preparing munchies, etc.
What are the upsides?

One upside I noticed in a friend (going through a bad divorce) is the increase in self-esteem she’s getting from doing MK. She’s making good money and she’s doing it ON HER OWN (she had a dickhead who told her she was useless, etc.). Another upside I hear is that “the products sell themselves.” Seriously, where’s the hard sell? They come to the party on their own. They try the stuff. They buy, or don’t buy. Big whoop. I’ve never personally seen a MKC pressure anyone into buying anything. (I’m not saying that none of them ever pressure, I’m just saying I haven’t personally seen it.)

If she dedicates a room of your home to keeping her inventory, there’s always that beautiful tax write-off.

Plus another big upside is, IIRC, you bomb at the MK thing, they’ll buy your inventory back at like, 90% of what you paid for it. If Mrs. Newcrasher decides it’s not for her, she won’t be out much cash.

8

Oddly enough, I just went to a MK party last week - me, who hasn’t worn makeup in at least 20 years.

No hard sell - there didn’t need to be. What they sell are products women want. There was a wide variety of stuff, so the hostess said something like “who does their nails? OK, here are the nail polishes. Who need moisturizers? OK, they’re over here. Eye makeup? It’s here.” Then we all looked over what we were interested in, order forms were passed out, and we ordered (or didn’t) what we wanted. No one was looking over anyone’s shoulder or begging for sales or whatever.

(I was looking for the hand creams - my hands take a beating and I’m always looking for hand lotions that don’t give me a rash)

If a woman uses make up well, she likes people, and she’s willing to put the necessary effort in she can do very well in this business. MK does provide training and support for new saleswomen (and men - they do have some male reps) which is a big help to someone starting out, if they take advantage of it.

One advantage over Tupperware is that what is sold is consumable - it gets used and people want more. As opposed to Tupperware - my mother owns Tupperware older than I am.

Upsides - you can set your own hours, work as much or as little as you want, be your own boss, and the company has generated plenty of women with 6 figure and higher incomes. Running a business is a huge confidence-booster (when successful). Downsides - you’ll need a sitter for when your wife is selling, and it IS work, even if she winds up enjoying it.

9

I am in Mary Kay and while I don’t sell a lot (can’t commit the time), it’s worth it to me to get my makeup, perfume, etc. at cost. My girlfriend is my director and she made $4,000 last month. She’s never complained that it’s hard work or that she felt pressured into anything by her director.

I would suggest your wife attend a couple of meetings to see what she thinks of it. I found the ladies to be really friendly and helpful and it really was a no pressure situation. Like another poster said, she can sell as much or as little as she wants.

10

I need to perhaps clarify.

I am not saying that my friend pressured me into buying stuff. On the contrary, she didn’t pressure me at all.

It’s just my experience that when you go to a friend’s party, you buy something simply because she is your friend. This happens once, if they don’t like the stuff.

Maybe your friends will like the stuff, I don’t know. I personally do not like to involve friends and business, YMMV of course.

I have honestly never had experience with MK other than a hand cream my mom got at a party. No one I know uses MK.
Here’s some questions for you that have sold MK:

what are the prices comprable to?
Do you get the product right away?
What is my incentive, as a customer, to buy MK when I can get Estee Lauder now (and my weakness, gift with purchase!).

I think these are questions the OP’s wife might want to know, too.

One last question for the OP:
Do you think your wife will have a hard time declining overs to go to other people’s parties?

As I mentioned with my friend, she started to get a lot of invites. It seemed to me that it became a “you buy mine and I’ll buy yours sort of deal”.

Products sold at parties (and again I state that I have no MK experience) tend to be way over priced. Candle lite…buy a candle for $20! (that sort of thing).

I’m not saying MK isn’t a good thing. I have seen too many pinks caddies for it not to be. I think it all depends on your wife.

11

I haven’t sold but I can answer these:

What are the prices comprable to?

Seems like MK is cheaper than the higher-end brands (Clinique, Estee Lauder, Lancome, etc.) — where I live, anyway.

Do you get the product right away?

It depends on the MKC. Some MKCs keep oodles of stuff in stock
and you can get your stuff right then. Most, I’ve found, keep at least some inventory but usually have to end up ordering stuff. This is my only gripe about the MKC I use … because of a mixup it took her a MONTH to get my stuff in. However, she threw in some free stuff and gave me a good discount to make up for it.

What is my incentive, as a customer, to buy MK when I can get Estee Lauder now?

MK is cheaper AFAIK. Plus Estee Lauder is never gonna give you a discount if you give them a big order (okay maybe sometimes they have special deals). Your MKC may go “you know, you’ve ordered $150 worth of stuff. I’m gonna knock off 10% and lemme see what goodies I have that I can give you.” Your MKC can let you have the stuff at cost if she wants to … the discounts are up to them.

12

When you are MK Consultant, you have access to MK Products at 50% of retail. So when you sell a $50 product, you make $25.

An MKC can either buy a lot of product and have it on hand, if you can afford to do that, and people can get what they want right away, or you can place orders and they can get it within a week.

My wife is looking at buying around $2500 worth of product to have to start.

The “you buy mine and I’ll buy yours” plan would be useless, as would going to other MK parties, except as support to the MKC giving the party.

13

Newcrasher from what I understand MK gives new consultants really kickass discounts at the beginning to encourage building up an inventory. Mrs. NC will probably be amazed at how far the $2500 goes :slight_smile:

14

You can also find TONS of NIB (new in box) MK stuff on eBay - usually from someone getting out of it. Not a bad way to bulk up your stock cheaply.

15

I always try and support my friends when they start businesses like this, at the least I’ll have a large party for them so they can hopefully get started on a couple of ‘party chains.’ I usually wind up going back again and again to the pals who’s products I use, it’s good to know a Tupperware lady or a Partylite Candles chick.

That said, the only MK product I’ve ever bought was a single mascara. It was used once and discarded, I purchased it solely to alleviate my friend duty.

I had a demonstration for a friend in MK at my home, over a dozen people came, and sales were still dismally low. I volunteered for the full facial demo and wound up feeling as if there was a cake baked upon my face, nothing delightful about randomly touching your cheek and coming away with a fingernail full of goop. Even though she didn’t make nearly anything for her time, I felt somewhat better that she was able to start her ‘before/after’ picture book with my face. Seems no one else in her circle was willing to be the first to sacrifice.

I wear makeup, I use face products, so do my friends. For various reasons, none of us were interested in MK’s stuff. I tried, I really did. The friend in question stuck with it for about a year, then wound up quitting. She later told me her only income came from finding current customers who were already faithful to the product line and seducing them away from their regular suppliers, she had next to no luck converting anyone to the MK line.

I hope your wife has much better luck.

16

Maybe I didn’t clarify myself.
What I meant was this type of scenario:

Your wife invites Betty to a party. Betty buys a few things.
Then, Betty decides she is going to sell Pampered Chef stuff.
She invites your wife. While of course, your wife can decide to not buy anything, it’s not considered ‘very nice’ at least with the people I know who do this sort of thing. It seems to be an unwritten law or something.

In the case of my friend, she started to get a lot of invites to different product parties from people that had previously purchased from her.

To me (for what its worth!), these sort of businesses count on people like Queen Tonya and myself to buy because we are friends. I think she said it best : “I purchased it solely to alleviate my friend duty”.

17

Is MK a multi-level type business? In that you make more money if you “recruit” salespeople to work under you, thereby getting a percentage of what they sell?

18

BAD NEWS BABOON-
My wife knows a LOT of people. While she will use people she knows to initiate parties, this is no plan for long term success. What she needs to do is meet people she doesnt know already at these first parties, and have them have parties of their own. Then at these parties there should be few if any people she already knows, and so the network grows. If she plans on selling to her friends, she knows she will fail after a short honeymoon period. This is not her plan.

PEEDIN-
You do get a percentage of the sales from people you recruit into MK. This is where you can become an MK millionair, after a time and success.

19

A couple of things that are worth looking into -

Many Mary Kay (and Avon and everything else) salesladies use websites (Mary Kay hosts) and eBay and office building lobbies for their sales.

Many, many derms recommend Mary Kay products for two reasons: A) they’re cheap, which means fewer fancy and “new” ingredients which may be irritants or allergens and B) the overall volume is low enough that Mary Kay makes small batches, which mean a pure, fresh product.* Anyway, she could check with some derms to find out if she could leave her card in their office.

(Actually, that last was true as of a couple of years ago. Since then, Mary Kay may have switched to buying their makeup from that company in New Jersey that makes most of the makeup sold in America. And now that so many derms have their own skin care lines, they may be backing off the Mary Kay bandwagon.)

20

Lotta good points here, just want to add that your wife sounds as if she would be successful in any sales or public contact position.