Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Great Question About Mary Kay

Judi, one of the original readers here and long time commenter asked a question a day or two ago.

While I was only able to briefly respond, many of you lent some interesting perspective to the question.

I have been informed that this blog is a little difficult to navigate, and I concur. I will be working towards fixing that (temporarily and long term) this weekend. I have tomorrow and Friday off work so, for me, today is Friday!!!! *big sigh of relief*!

That said, Judi asks:



The reason I talk about quitting jobs and doing MK full time is because pro MKers all have such positive things to say about MK. They say how wonderful their business is going. They only have inventory that they actually sell. Not much is sitting on the shelves. If it is so wonderful, why hasn't it replaced the other job? If you weren't working at that job couldn't you put more time to MK and make more money? Then you wouldn't have to have 2 jobs. This is what I don't understand. If you are truly making money that is worth the time you put in, wouldn't you be better off devoting more time to that endeavor.

And as for my Director and her finances, I got to her house one day - the house keeper let me in - and my director did not know I was there. I over heard her fighting with her husband over the co pays she had been making on her car and the fact that her business was losing money. That's how I know about her finances. Believe me, she would have never told me that.

And if you can make money by selling only, not having to recuit, then you dont' have to be a director. You can just sell. I don't think being a director is wonderful. I never aspired to that. I wanted to make my $300 per week after business expenses and taxes. I never did it for more 3 weeks in a row. It was not consistant. And I know there are other jobs that the income is not consistant. But I was lead to believe that MK would be. Even after questioning it and saying the if it's too good to be true it probably is. My director said oh, no it's not. That's the beauty of MK.

To recap, if MK is so good and you CAN make money with it, why keep your other job? Why not do it full time? Devote more time to the money making job and quit the other. Especially if you have kids. Wouldn't it be better to only have 1 job? I am not being ugly. I truly want to understand.

In essence, "If Mary Kay is such a solid money earner, why not quit you current job and work Mary Kay full time?"

I think this is a very good question and well worth the exploration it requires.

My immediate response to her question was;

I don't have much time, so I will try to make this brief. Hopefully I can write a full post about it soon because it is a very good question.

Simply put; most sales situations require a building process. You will not be hugely successful overnight. That is why you should always avoid "get rich quick" schemes. They almost inevitably will destroy you.

Mary Kay was never meant to be a get rich quick scheme. Some people (your director from the sounds of it) have *tried* to twist it into that. If you look closely at some on PT, you will see that many of them either tried to do that themselves, or were led to believe that was the case.

Do not be confused by people that tried to "get rich quick" for many years! The fact they were doing the wrong thing over and over again, expecting different results, does not mean that they were not trying to "get rich quick".

While some people CAN start with no job, or quit their current job, it is generally not recommended. The ideal way to build a client base is one customer at a time, and very patiently. You have to demonstrate yourself to be consistent to your clients so that they know they can rely on you when they need you.

There are plenty of stories of women that encountered circumstances in life that necessitated them making an "instant" income to survive. If you look at the hours they put in to survive, you and I would probably pass out from exhaustion just thinking about it! That is not a typical persons ideal!

Most people would prefer to add a little here and a little there until they have something much bigger.

AND

If you can build this way, why drop the other income?

Month 1 - $4,000 from job, $100 from MK

Month 12 - $4,000 from job, $600 from MK

Month 48 - $4,000 from job, $3,000 from MK

I am not saying this WILL happen or that getting to $3,000 will not require more effort than getting $100, but if that was what you were finding, why would you quit the $4,000/month job?

When you come to the place that you are making the same amount monthly that you make at your job, would you rather (in this illustration) make $4,000/month OR $8,000/month?

I would choose the bigger number. Especially if it was not requiring a lot of effort!

More on that later, got to get to work.


Not very brief, I know, but when have you ever known me to be brief?

Anyway, if you have not followed this particular conversation you can pick it up here as there are several other responses there. If you have a response there that you feel is worth repeating here, that is more than OK!

So here is your place to explain how you view YOUR Mary Kay business.

If you only work it part time, why?

If you work it full time and are making enough money to live off, how?

Did you have to build up to where you are? How long did it take? What are you doing to "get to the next level"?


I guess it boils down to, "How do you run your business and why?"

3 comments:

  1. David and Judi,

    Here it goes. I have been in MK for about 2 years and I make about $800 a month after expenses. I have held 2 facial classes in that two years. The reason is that I own a hair salon and I work there a lot. However, I am going to start putting more into my MK and hold classes.

    Judi I know that you are going to say that this isn't much and if I was working only MK it wouldn't be much. However, and I am not kidding I probably work my MK about 5 hours a week. The customers I have and I guess it is because I have my hair salon and I wear my pin all the time and people ask me about and then they say OH you sell MK I can't find my consultant. Every year I do a health fair in our town it being the County Seat and this happens in November and I have picked up customers there.

    The table at the health fair cost me NOTHING and they buy my lunch to boot. Anyway I have the ladies fill out little papers that ask them skin questions and it also ask them if they have a consultant and if they do then I look up that consultant and tell them that their customer has filled out this paper and they want a skin care class or they want a glamour class or whatever they want.

    I enjoy MK and I acutally got into for personal use and like I have said before I had to have surgery and was laid up for like 6 weeks and having nothing to do I started reading the information and thought I can sell this. So I started wearing the pin. I did make my list of 100 people and I maybe called I don't know 5 of them. Then I just started wearing that pin.

    I also made a deal with my sister. She needed some makeup and had no money so I gave her some books and told her that I would give her her makeup if she would tell people that I was selling and she is like a silent hostess and she gets orders for me.

    I have a website and I have had people that I don't know order off of there and now they are my customers. If I had time to do scc I would be making more, I have twin daughters also that are in sports and that eats up a lot of my time too.

    So, I know that one day I will only work my MK however right now I am not going too. The hair salon that I own we do a lot of the little ladies in town and I don't want to stop because then they would have no place to go to get their hair done. And right now I just don't want to do that. I love those little ladies. I love
    to brighten their day and we do that.

    So David and Judi, I may not be making a ton of money in MK however the potential for making a living is there.

    One more thing do I listen to my director sometimes and then sometimes not. If I am not comfortable with what she tells me then I tell her you work your business the way that you want to and I will work mine the way that I want too. Simple as that.

    Judi let me add I am sorry that your director has lied to you however we are not all like that. And you know I was just telling a friend of mine that is one thing I can't stand is when people lie to me. If I am lied too I will distance myself from that person. So again Judi I wish that you would have had a better experience because from what I read from you I think that you know how this business works and I think that you really could be good at this if you just had the right person telling you how to do it without giving you a bunch of poop.

    I hope that everyone has a GREAT DAY

    ReplyDelete
  2. Here are my comments from before:

    Comment #1:

    Well, all I can do in response to your questions, Judi, is repeat what I said before: not everyone wants to become a director and not everyone wants to hold 2-3 appointments every week. Some people don't love sales. Sales is an inconsistant profession. Some people may like it on the side because it affords them a few extra hundred dollars each month, but don't want to pursue it as a full time job. Every individual person has his/her own reason for doing what they do and that is there prerogative. They don't have to justify it to anyone.
    And Judi, I would love to have one job that pays all of my bills, but like I said, the economy really sucks and I need my full time job and my extra MK sales. Even if I become a director in this coming year (and I plan to up my activity in January), I probably won't quit the full time job until I exceed the income with MK. Everyone is different. You can't possibly lump everyone into the category "I want to quit my day job."
    If I could consistently sell $1000+/week and profit $500+ every week, you bet I'd quit my job! But until I hone that skill, I will stay put. ;) The extra $200-$300/month is nice.

    Comment #2:

    Why MK and not another job? I have lots of reasons:

    1. MK vs. Retail: MK allows me to work when I feel like it. A second job in retail means I have to answer to them. Since I work 8-5 and live 30 miles away from my day job, it would be very difficult to fit a second job in retail into my schedule. I'd rarely be home at all and my husband would miss me. With MK I can work whenever and wherever I want to. I get orders when I'm not always expecting it--pleasant surprise! I can sit at home and send and email or make a phone call and get a sale.

    2. MK vs. Another Direct Sales Company: MK is pretty low maintenance compared to say, Longaberger or Home and Garden Party or Partylite. Have you ever been to one of those parties? Have you ever noticed the large apparatus those reps have to truck with them to each appointment? NO THANKS! :) My friend tried to sign me up for Partylite. When she was telling me all this "free" starter kit stuff I could get, I frankly didn't want most of it. And where would I put it? My house is small. My MK stuff fits easily into a closet. It's small stuff and easy to store. Also, a couple totes is a lot easier to travel with than candle stands--some of which look kind of heavy. I'll buy Partylite candles, but someone else can sell it. ;)

    3. MK is unconventional: Selling MK and making money takes skill. It doesn't take much skill to sit and run a register. Nor does it take much skill to answer phone calls. Conventional jobs are mundane to me. Someone else might love working retail or running register, but it's not for me.

    4. MK has a friendly atmosphere: I love being around my director and my MK friends. It is refreshing to get away from the same ol' same ol'. I'm usually uplifted when I attend my weekly meetings--especially after a bad day at work.

    5. MK vs. Waitressing: PUH-LEAZZZE! I vowed long ago I'd never work in the food industry. 'Nuff said!

    That's the tip of the iceberg. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks PB and Shades,

    Shades, sorry you had to post those thoughts twice, thanks for doing the copy/paste for us!

    Pink Bren,

    Sounds like you have a very solid plan. I really need a haircut, so I wish you lived closer, I would stop by!

    ReplyDelete

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This Week On Pink Truth - Click Here
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First Post - Why I Started This Blog
The Article I Wrote For ScamTypes.com (here) (there)
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