Look, I don’t know if this is your intention or not, but there’s no reason to ‘yell’ or get snippy.
You asked for our opinions and I am giving you mine.
I don’t wish your wife ill in her endevours at all. I hope she does well.
It sounds like she has a plan going, so I am not sure why this thread is needed, especially if you don’t want to hear (potentially negative) opinions.
NO I AM NOT YELLING AT YOU!!
Really I wasnt…sorry of it seemed I was… Sometimes I am just too lazy to add bold and italics and use CAPS as a catchall. I know that means yelling, but I was hoping my limited use would be interpreted as emphasis instead.
Sorry, just checking in with the fact that I read this as “I Am Not A Mary Kay Commando”.
-lv
Funny this thread popped up, b/c I’ve been meaning to find a Mary Kay lady forever b/c I love their home manicure kit; it’s the only one I’ve ever found that will actually make a manicure last as long as a professional manicure. I don’t know what’s in those little bottles but it works!
So if there are any local Mary Kay ladies on the board, I’d love to get a new kit. 
[sub]I should add that I met a Mary Kay lady while bartending a few months ago…she lived in North Dakota or something…and she actually emailed me forever, trying to get me to order stuff from her. She didn’t tell me she was a Mary Kay lady when she started her “I’m just a friendly person” speil, so I was hoodwinked into giving her my email address, and that’s when she moved in for the kill. Why would I order Mary Kay stuff from North Dakota? She was a crappy freakin’ tipper, for God’s sake! Did she really think I was gonna go to all that trouble when she couldn’t even part with a dollar over my bar? And didn’t tell me the only reason she was being friendly was to make a sale? Get real![/sub]
I think someone said this earlier, but it bears repeating: MK buyers don’t just buy once or twice a year. If you use MK products, you are **regularly[/r] needing things like cleanser, moisturizers, lipsticks, etc. (I buy something at least once a month!) With Pampered Chef or Tupperware people usually don’t have a “need” for the product, so those are a tougher sell.
Even if she is planning on selling to people she already knows, the most actual “selling” she will have to do is let them know, “Oh, by the way I’m an MKC now; let me know if you need anything”, hand them her card and if they use MK they will call her if they don’t already have a consultant. Then she can concentrate on building a new clientele of people she is not acquainted with already.
oh, sorry about the lovely coding there…I am also watching the baseball game so am not completely focused (Royals are beating the Twins 13-3!!!)
I use to sell Avon ages ago, but I have to wonder how Avon and Mary Kay reps can compete with Ebay these days. There’s an Avon product that sells for $60, that I buy on Ebay for $15. How are these people making a profit?
I am an avid eBayer, as it seems, are you. I think eBay is so much fun! I buy and sell.
While eBay does have millions of users, there are many more who do not and would not ever use eBay. I am going to try to move some of my wife’s MK stuff on eBay once she gets started.
This is the part that I don’t get: Why would anyone hold a party? Yeah, I know that the party holder gets some freebies, but so what? Why would you ask your friends to give up valuable free time so they can do you a favor and subject themselves to a sales pitch so that someone else can make money so you could get a free lipstick?
It seems like it would be a room full of people who were just there out of some sense of obligation, buying things out of some sense of obligation, and trying to pretend otherwise.
And if I found out that an acquaintance of mine was selling Mary Kay, I’d start to suspect that any friendliness from her was with the intent of cultivating me as a customer. And to a large extent, I’d be right. If I ran into her at the drug store, she’d surely be really nice to me because she’s hoping to make me a customer. And I’d know it and she’d know it, and then we’d no longer be friends, but business acquaintances.
It’s just not done among my friends and family. Frankly, it’s unthinkably tacky.
Besides, buying through these a private representative makes no sense to me as a consumer. Buying through these representatives seems awfully time-consuming. There is a Tupperware kiosk at every mall that I can visit at MY convenience, and with no obligation to buy, real or imagined. I don’t have to go to any fake parties or keep any appointments or play phone tag with anyone.
Buying Mary Kay makes no sense to me either (unless there was a specific unique product that I wanted, like Audrey described.) Mary Kay might be a bit cheaper than the Clinique stuff I usually buy–but it seems a false economy. I can visit the Clinique counter any time I want, and be helped by a sales person who really does know what they’re doing. I can get a makeover or some training in how to apply makeup–often by a makeup artist brought in for the occasion. On one hand, I do feel more obligated to buy after that kind of service, but on the other, it’s not anyone’s PERSONAL time I’m taking up, so I don’t feel bad if I don’t buy much. (Well, the only time I’ve availed myself of those services is when I was intending to buy anyway, and those services helped me make my decision.) And I know that any discounts or freebies won’t be coming out of my salesperson’s pocket.
The fact that the Mary Kay salesperson sets the price/discount is NOT an incentive to use their services. I’d feel bad knowing that my discount comes directly out of their pocket. And if they didn’t give me a substantial discount, I’d feel like I was being ripped off. It’s sort of a catch-22.
Way back when, the Avon lady really did provide a service–many housewives didn’t have cars, and appreciated a) the cosmetics counter being brought to them, and b) the company. Same with the Fuller Brush man. It was an efficient way of doing business. But now–well, whenever this subject comes up, people start talking about feeling obligated and pressured and how they hate having their time wasted…
I guess what I’m trying to say, newcrasher, is that your wife’s wide network of friends might just evaporate once she stops seeing them as friends and starts seeing them as wallets.
So I am guessing you don’t want to host a party to get it started huh? Would you consider coming to one at least? There are MK men’s product too! …please?
While I understand your concern, lots of people DO buy MK, lots of people DO host parties and lots of women DO earn a good living at it. So it works, wether you find it unpalatable or not…(I think “unthinkably tacky” is an overstatement).
I’m a female.
“Unthinkably tacky” is hardly an overstatement. It’s an understatement, actually. Sorry if you don’t want to hear any negatives about it, but at least among people I know, it would be beyond unthinkably tacky to sell Mary Kay. Or anything like that.
Some of them aren’t looking to make a profit.
MKC’s get discounts for their own stuff. Become a MKC, get your own products for half off. Can’t beat that.
The catch, though, is to stay “active” (and thus get the discount) you have to sell X dollars worth of product in a certain amount of time. It’s low, but I can’t remember specifically what it is so I won’t try to guess.
So let’s say you’re in it for your own discount. Hop on ebay, move some product from time to time, stay active, keep your discount. The ebayer is happy, you’re happy, and Mary Kay is happy because you’re moving product and they’re making a little bit of money in the process. (Even though, say, a lipstick is $6 “at cost” you know it doesn’t cost Mary Kay $6 to make that lipstick. Thus they’re making a profit.)
My mom has been selling Mary Kay since I was around 7 years old and has been a director since I was 11. The free cars are great, although getting picked up from school in a pink Cadillac does have its downsides. My mom has worked very hard at it and makes great money. I have a younger brother and two older sisters and we are all 2 years apart. My mom always had time for school functions, field trips, PTA, etc… As we got older and demanded less time from her she devoted more time to her work and became very succesful. She gets to be her own boss and make her own hours. She has meetings with her consultants a few nights a week and works just about everyday. The important thing is that she has been doing it for over 15 years and still loves it. I remember going to the parties when I was younger during the summer or when I stayed home from school sick. It was not that big of a deal because the people at the parties usually had their kids with them also. So we would play together and I made some good friends that way. My mom is about a 10 on the social scale and has excellent people skills, this was very crucial to her success. Speaking as a son of a full-time Mary Kay Sales Director I say go for it.
Why would somebody host a party? Oh, I don’t know, same reason people go to the mall together or host sex toy parties? Because it’s a fun way to spend an afternoon, hanging out with your friends and trying on makeup and such. If you don’t enjoy that sort of thing, don’t come to the party. If you find you don’t care for the products, don’t buy anything. It’s no skin (or foundation) off anyone’s ass unless you come and act like the proverbial wet blanket.
As for the convenience factor, I personally find it pretty damn convenient to be able to pick something up even when most stores are closed. Shoot, a lot of reps will drop stuff off for you if they’re going to be near your home or workplace. Do the ladies at the Clinique counter deliver?
Frankly, Green Bean, the fact that you automatically assume someone in sales is only being nice to gain a customer says far more about you than it does the people who sell this stuff. When you run into an acquaintance who works at, say, The Gap, do you assume they’re only being nice to get you to start shopping at their store? How about if someone’s a waiter? Do you assume they’re trying to suck you into coming into their restaurant?
Oh, wait, it’s their own business, so it must be different. Of course. Salespeople at the mall never work on commision, and you never get bonuses at the Gap for selling certain amounts of stuff per month.
Personally, I find the fact that you assume a saleswoman would start seeing her friends as wallets rather than as friends to unspeakably tacky. MHO, of course.
Do the ladies at the Clinique counter deliver?
If they’ll talk to you at all, ya mean?
Sorry. Had some bad experiences …
Agreed. I think the friends she has that would help her get started by hosting/attending a party would realize hey were doing just that, helping a friend…
and my wife will be nice to her friends and strangers wether they buy from her or not. To assume otherwise is, well, tacky…
I am interested in hearing the negative side of the business, just not the negative side of people…
As a middle-class, middle-aged, make-up-wearing female, I view Mary Kay products as heavy and “dated”.
Still, I’ve been to a few MK parties in my lifetime. Had the MK make-over several years ago. Like Queen Tonya, I smiled politely while wearing a thick, doughy cake of goo on my face. Also bought the “obligatory mascara” out of courtesy.
Several months ago, an acquaintance announced that she had become a MK rep. She invited me to two parties via e-mail. I declined, and try to avoid running into her now.
Just my two cents.
Well, gosh, let’s see… my friend held an MK party to launch her business, making it clear that it was a one-time event.
I went to support my friend in her new endeavor.
Also, I don’t socialize much with other women (my hobbies tend towards pursuits considered “masculine”) So there was also a social aspect. A night “out with the girls” is a rare thing for me, and for a couple other of the women in attendence.
So there might be more than one motivation.
A BIG problem for me is allergies - I have very sensitive skin and many frangrances are irritating. When I was younger Clinique was the ONLY make-up I could use - but in order to obtain it I had to wade through clouds of miasma (a.k.a. “perfume”) that irritated me no end and run a gaunlet of other salepeople pushing other brands I couldn’t use.
So dealing with a “lone rep” away from over-scented, irritating products, someone who is willing to allow me to test a product on my skin prior to buying without giving me a hard time, is much more likely to get my business than anyone else.
The MKC I know sells during her lunch hour at work - how convenient. I don’t have to fight the crowds in the Chicago Loop to get what I want. Same concept, different location.
If that is, indeed, how she sees them - but not everyone is like that.
And it can work the reverse way - for my husband and I, our landlord, our accountant, one of his employees, and several close friends are all former or current customers of his business.
Interesting article about Mary Kay from Salon.com.
Twiddle
[hijack]
I have a strange personal experience with MK, the Mary Kay, about 15 years, that I would like to relate. I can’t say how relevant it is to the OP, especially given its datedness, but WTF.
In the late 80’s the Smithsonian Institution offered a lecture series called Entrepreneurship. Each week a successful entrepreneur spoke about how they started and succeeded with their businesses. I attended the whole series (8 or 12, I’m not sure any more) as the supporting media technician.
Among the lecturers was Mary Kay. Her lecture was unlike any of the others, because the audience had been stacked with Mary Kay representatives. All the other lectures had been attended by 50-75 people; Mary Kay had at least 200. It had something of the flavor of a religious revival meeting, mixed in with a dash of political convention, and annual corporate meeting.
She was very good, and used an interactive style to draw the audience into a conversation. But what kind of creeped me out (and I found later also creeped out the Smithsonian program coordinator) was that she almost always called on people she knew, by name. They would then offer some extravagent praise, and begin applauding and invite others to join in the applause, more than once without even asking a question. Mary Kay absolutely basked in it, and I thought it was like nothing so much as a cult of personalty.
It was such a strange evening it’s stuck with me all these years. Of course, Mary Kay is dead now, so perhaps any elements of cultism have disappeared. But if you go into any Mary Kay facility, keep an eye out for altars with MKs likeness, that would be a bad sign. 
[/hijack]