Over on my public awareness site Pink Truth, we’re often asked about whether someone can make money with Mary Kay Cosmetics. After all, they’ve got a product that you can retail, and you don’t really have to recruit, do you?
In theory, you can make money with Mary Kay. In reality, most women (upwards of 99%) actually put more money into MK than they ever get out of it. There is a tiny fraction of women (something like five one-hundredths of one percent) who make an executive income with Mary Kay. There’s another fraction of one percent that make a little money…. typically in the neighborhood of $20,000 to $25,000 a year.
Most everyone else is spending more money stocking up on inventory that they have little hope of ever selling.
But what about that retail product? Aren’t women buying it? Not in significant enough numbers to generate a real income. The recruiters push big inventory packages, telling you to “think like a retailer.” Except you’re not like a real retailer. You’re one person with tons of restrictions on how and where you can market and sell the products. You have no foot traffic like a real store. You don’t have any window shoppers who can be drawn in.
It’s extremely difficult to build a client base to a size that will offer you a somewhat stable, livable income. “But I’m willing to work hard!” You might be willing to work hard, but you should know that there have been millions of women who came before you who were willing to work hard and couldn’t build that base.
It’s not just hard, it’s next to impossible, for a variety of reasons:
- The common opinion of women outside of Mary Kay is that the products are overpriced for their quality. The products are okay, but they’re about equal to drugstore brands. The quality is not up to the level of department store brands, although the reps want you to think they are.
- Many women are wise to the Mary Kay game. They know if they buy from you, they’re going to have to put up with you asking them to hold skin care classes with their friends, as well as trying to recruit them into MK. They’d simply rather not deal with it. If they need make-up, they’ll pick some up at Sephora, where the employees won’t try to recruit them.
- The home party business model is out-of-date and a turn-off to most professional women. They don’t want to waste time on your sales pitch. If they need girlfriend time, they’d much rather do something fun with their friends instead of getting your hard-sell about “giving their opinion” on the “business opportunity.”
- To generate a real income, you’d have to sell in excess of $1,000 a week every week. That just doesn’t happen in Mary Kay. Oh, they pretend it does. Unfortunately, that one $1,000 week the director had five years ago doesn’t count. I dare you to find anyone in Mary Kay who is selling more than $1,000 a week every week and is willing to provide proof.
- Everyone knows the real money is in recruiting. The product is just the front for the recruiting scheme. Recruiting and frontloading inventory is the name of the game. Get you in, convince you that you need thousands of dollars of inventory, and hope you don’t send it back to the company for a refund. But in reality, most of the women who have recruited aren’t making a whole lot either. Most of them are creating credit card debt for themselves, hoping that “next month will be the month” in which they break out into the “big” income and can pay off the debt they’ve accumulated.
- If you get to the point where you’re making that $20,000 to $25,000 a year that I mentioned above, you should know that you’ll easily be spending 50 to 60 hours a week to do that. That’s less than $10 an hour. Not an executive level income, if you ask me.
The bottom line is that if you want to make a little extra money… say a hundred bucks a month, you could do it by selling Mary Kay. If you want to make a real income, run the other way. Find a real job, with a real salary, and real benefits. With Mary Kay, you’ll be lucky if you even get to that $20k or $25k level. And even then, you’ve got self-employment taxes and no benefits, which make that income look even worse.
09 Jul 08 at 11:55 am
We owned a salon as a side business for a while, and I know that selling makeup is difficult – even with a great retail location and a neverending stream of perfect prospects. We didn’t carry Mary Kay, but a Salon Professional Brand. I couldn’t imagine ever making a lot of money from it selling it out of my car or house.
22 Feb 09 at 12:22 pm
You are an idiot! I am very successful in this business! Write something that you know about, you moron!
06 Mar 09 at 9:58 pm
Sir, I’ve been in this business for 32 years, I started when I was 19!
This business allowed me to stay and home with my children…got me through 10 years of single parenting and now allows me to work around my husband’s teaching schedule.
What you are saying is very misleading.
You never mention the 90% buy back policy that Mary Kay provides to EVERY consultant! That is unheard of in business! If you opened a storefront and decided it wasn’t for you, you wouldn’t get to change your mind in a year and get 90% of your investment back!
The women that decide to become consultants love this product! That 10% they don’t get back would be recouped by what they used personally that year should they decide to get out of business!
And I have never and will never PUSH women to order. Everyone starts differently…we give them the options and they choose. Inventory is NOT required and never has been. As a matter of fact, my brand new consultant is 20 years old (she needs to make extra income)…her husband wanted her to “prove” herself before he’d let her order any product to sell. She has such an awesome attitude…she sold over $200.00 at her first one on one appointment. Her profit was $100.00 for that 1 hour of work. If she wants to continue to run her business that way, it’s her choice!
My customers love our product and have reordered from me for years! They love the personal touch and the fact that I help them with all their cosmetic and skin care needs…like choosing a lipstick for that special outfit, delivering to their front door and our 100% money back guarantee. They love that we work with them until they are loving their skin! And for some, they love the fact they can get their products free my being a hostess.
Unlike many other direct sales, we do not need to do “parties” to make money in our business! The majority of my sales are one on one because that is what I choose to do! Women love the fact that I sit down with them one and one and help them with their needs. Many professional women are my customers.
I am my own little store and I love the fact I don’t have to sit and wait for people to show up at my store!!!! I meet women everyday and offer them my free service to check out my product. And they love the fact that what they want they can have that day! Isn’t that what you like when you go to the store to buy something?
I am so sorry that you had a bad experience. I have found that the women who have quit and complain about their experience are those who just didn’t have what it takes to be their own boss. They let little obstacles get in their way. They didn’t show up for the free education and didn’t apply what they did learn.
This business works when we do…just like anything else in life.
08 Mar 09 at 11:40 am
Nice Diane, very business like. You sure showed me the caliber of woman that’s involved in Mary Kay.
25 Mar 09 at 3:40 pm
I was skimming your profile, I was impressed by your credentials. As a fellow academian, however, I must say that I am appalled by this article. You site specific numerical statistics, but you never site any sources. I have not read your other articles, and I hope this is an oversight. As for MLM’s, they are truly not for everyone, but I hardly see them as a scam. Especially the larger companies like Mary Kay, Shaklee, and the like. Some of these companies have been around for years, and don’t you think if they were acting fraudulently, they would have been shut down? Okay, perhaps a very small percentage of people actually get to the “executive level” income, but again that doesn’t mean they’re scams. I have no allegiance to any of these companies, but I “get it” when it comes to how to run these businesses. In my opinion, your one sided article is riddled with logical fallacies and the same half-truths that you accuse these companies of.
Doug
25 Mar 09 at 4:37 pm
Doug – As I’ve told everyone else, you can find the source of my statistics on this page. (And that’s “cite”, my “fellow academian”.) I invite you to read the page before launching more ad hominem attacks.