They say, "You can please some of the people all the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all the people all the time".
I am not sure who said that, and I don't have time to find out, so if someone would like to earn extra bonus points*, find out who said it, and post it in a comment!
The reason I bring this quote up is that many of the complaints that I have heard about Mary Kay can certainly fall into this category.
I was recently reading a message board about a police academy. All I got was a snapshot of the "controversy", but it basically involved how difficult training for a police force should be. Apparently, some people had complained about how difficult the training was. Too much physical requirement, too much shouting, too stressful, etc. Rumor on the message board had it that the academy had instituted a red card policy. Basically, if you become stressed out, you pull out your red card and no one can bother you for 15 minutes. This alleged policy was brought up amidst discussion of the VERY intense training that takes place.
Whether or not this policy is in fact a new part of the training, the conversation got quite heated at this point. Many current police officers commented that they would love to have a red card they could pull out if a gang member stressed them out, or they got tired while chasing a perpetrator. It really was quite intense.
If I were being trained for a position like that (Police, Fire, Military or even EMT), I would want to be trained, re-trained, and over trained. I want to know 100% that I am completely prepared for a roll like that. So (although I did not participate in this conversation... as I said it was just a snapshot) I would definitely be on the side of keeping that training intense. I mean, if I were in a car accident and needed a cop to pull me out of the burning wreckage that used to be my car, I don't want him/her to pull out a little red card and say, "sorry buddy, you are going to have to wait 15 minutes until I am ready". But I guarantee you there are people in the academy RIGHT NOW that really want to "get the job" that wish the process were easier.
What does this have to do with Mary Kay? Well similarly, with the folks on certain anti-Mary Kay sites, it seems like Mary Kay can't win.
Consider the issue of minimum mandatory inventory purchases and minimum number of recruits before being eligible for DIQ. Apparently Mary Kay recently lowered some of these requirements to make it easier for people to achieve their goals. The intentions of the company have been called into question. The question of whether it is a good idea or not is certainly up for debate. On the one hand, it gives people a shot where they may not have had one, but at what price? If you need 30 recruits to REALLY earn production and you only have 8 (starting DIQ), it seems like your long term outlook is, to say the least, challenging!
I pointed out that this topic is certainly up for debate. I know already where some of you stand, but let's air it out here! Is Mary Kay enriching women's lives by lowering the barrier (bar) to success, or are they setting them up for failure?
Thoughts?
*Keep in mind that bonus points are not worth anything
Posts
I agree that not everyone will be pleased with this business. And that's fine. No one expects to be totally happy with a business.
ReplyDeleteIt's the deception that I have a problem with. Why withhold some of the facts? (I have heard more than one IBC say that her recruiter never told her that she had a year to return product. A year from purchasing the product, not signing up. My director told me I had a year from my sign up date.) If this business is such a life enriching endeavor why not put all of the cards on the table? (Like the success rate in this business. And explain what #1 Selling means.) Stop misleading. (The "Harvard teaches this business model" is not at all accurate. I was lead to believe that Harvard thought this business was so wonderful they actually taught their business students this.)
MKC is in this to make money, not make your life better. Only you can make your life better. If you are thinking about starting a MK career, talk to people who are successful at it. Talk to people who were not successful at it. Talk to someone other than your recuiter. Talk to someone who has nothing to lose or gain by your signing up.
GOOD MORNING!! I don't think that they are setting up women for failure because that would mean that they would fail. I think that maybe they were trying to make it easier for women to achieve the goal.
ReplyDeleteWith recruiting I don't want to recruit women that want this for personal use and I told my director that. If you recruit for just personal use you are going to make 4% once a year. I would much rather have the 50% once every two or three months.
I read on some blog I don't remember where that one director holds interviews with recruits. She does it like job interviews and if she doesn't think that they really don't want to work then she doesn't recruit them. That is how I am. I want a team that is a working team. I want to lay all the cards on the table and tell the truth and yes it will take longer to do it this way however doing it this way will make it better for everyone.
MKA alway preached the GOLDEN RULE, and if we did that we would look at things a little differently. I believe that you can help women in this business and you can reach your goals. It takes hard work and patience. I think that you will have to work more that 10 hours a week you will have to work this like a business. I do think it affords you flexiablity. Say you have kids you can work it around that schedule. I have daughters in sports and a husband that works out of the country, if you want it to work you have to find ways that you can make it work. It also takes disclipine something that our whole country lacks. We want stuff now and we don't want to wait til later. Anything worth having is worth working for.
So that is my opinion on this. I believe with all my heart that if we work this above the board that it can and will work. You are not going to be making $1 million over night. Just my thought.
Abraham Lincoln made that quote. ;)
ReplyDeleteI think it does pertain to the "Great MK Debate." Most of the complaints are things that will please some and not others. MKC has to think about their sales force, our customers, and its own staff when making business decisions. Honestly, I think they are doing an excellent job.
As far as deception, there were times early on that I was asking my SD questions that I think she clearly did not want to answer. Other times, I think she just didn't have time to get back to me right away. In either case, I found the answers on InTouch. I read it daily when I first signed up.
ReplyDeleteIf you're asking questions of your SD and she's not answering; go to InTouch or call MKC! They will answer your questions. I've been using this method for nearly 5 years now.
The Harvard claim has been addressed by MKC, also. It is a case study. I don't know all the details off the top of my head, but I believe it is listed on fact vs. fiction or Just the FAQ's on InTouch.
As far as PT goes, MK will never do the right thing. They will hate everything MK does, even when they (PTers) contradict themselves.
ReplyDelete"The ordering requirements should be lower to allow for more personal use consultants."
"The ordering minumum should be higher to discourage personal use consultants."
Aaaargh!
I agree - you can't please everyone all of the time, but MK as a company has done an awful lot to make it possible for someone to be a very-part-time consultant (Someone trying to fit MK around a FT job and with little free time). I think it's a great improvement!
I have 4 kids and I am homeschooling. My youngest is 3. On top of that, I blog way too much and I will be releasing 3 books this year. I am busy! But MK can still work for me. :D
However, when the kids get older and my parenting duties decrease, then I plan on devoting more time to MK.
I think the flexibility is great, and I think MK does the best job it can to appeal to a broader spectrum of IBC's.
JMHO
Of course everyone will not agree about a lot of things, but in the case of whether MKC would be helping anyone by lowering DIQ requirements, I think it's pretty clear. No way is this offering an opportunity to someone who might not otherwise get it. If a person can't get more than 8 recruits on her team, how is there even the slightest chance that she's good enough at recruiting and maintaining a unit to be successful as a sales director? If she has what it what it takes to sucess as an SD, then she could meet the old DIQ requirements.
ReplyDeleteAnd the thing is, the current requirements are not all that new. They've been in place for more than 5 years. There are lots of people out there who have seen the impact of that change, and it hasn't been good. People go on sprees where they put in super-intense levels of effort at recruiting and selling inventory, and then they don't make it. This is good for their SD, and good for MKC, but not so good for the person who tried DIQ. Or, they manage to make it, partly by doing things they shouldn't, like signing personal use recruits, and maybe putting in orders in these people's names. This is still good for the SD and MKC (they get the orders), but really really bad for the person who just barely made SD.
rsuddeth says:
ReplyDeleteThis is still good for the SD and MKC (they get the orders), but really really bad for the person who just barely made SD.
I diagree with that totally. Even though it may be good for a short term increase in production, it is bad in the long run. If a consultant ends up in too much debt and with too much product, she will quit and sell product back to the Company and the recruiter/director will get the chargeback. And... the Company could be loosing a great consultant and the consultant could be loosing something that may have worked for her if it hadn't been done incorrectly.
If by chance she does actually get to sales director doing it unethically, I have yet to figure out how anyone expects to hold it together. Just because you make it, doesn't mean that all of a sudden personal use consutlants and "fake" consultants are all of a sudden going to start placing orders. Anyone cheating the system, also cheats themselves. And wathching someone miss diq many times or loose a unit is also very discouraging for all watching.
It is not good for anyone. Build a strong customer base, build a strong team, then look at going forward.
If it is done right, it works. I, too wish they hadn't made the requirements eaiser. Weak units don't last.
I feel it was also a big mistake back when the Company put the Cadillac's on "sale" they lowered the requirements for a short period of time to earn the Cadillac, the problem, imo, is that under the lower production levels the directors weren't ready to maintain it at the higher production levels. The logic, I assume, was that the directors would build the momentum while qualifying and then maintain the higher production. What I saw happening was directors ended up with the Cadillac and then didn't increase production and the coop payments began. Once again, this is not good for anyone. The Company really doesn't want anyone making coop payments. They are not in the car leasing business.
Since I am a new-ish at this all I know are the current requirements, not the old ones. But since the only thing I've ever even considered doing is MAYBE build enough of a team to get a car, I know that for that you have to go from 5 to 12, right? Wouldn't it make sense to do that first, before you try to do DIQ and have to jump from 8 to 30? Maybe that's just me, but it seems to me that if you do the car first, and build that 12 person team strong and solid, THEN you'd be in a good place to start DIQ...or at least a better place.
ReplyDeleteI like Mk4me's explanation of how the new system is bad for everyone...even MKC as a company because of units falling apart, product returns, etc. I guess it all goes back to Steven Covey's "think win/win." It can't be a case where MKC wins and the consultants/directors lose, because that really results in everyone losing in the end.