If you want to get sucked into some good reading, you could do worse than to get acquainted with the various anti-Mary Kay blogs that are out there.
For those outside North America who may not be familiar with Mary Kay, it is basically a multi-level-marketing scheme - aka pyramid scheme - which sells cosmetics and skincare through 'consultants' who are promised seven-figure incomes and pink Cadillacs for hitting their sales targets. The company is named for its founder, the late Mary Kay Ash, pictured at right. As for the products, Paula Begoun writes:
Much of the Mary Kay lineup is a mixed bag of strong and weak points—and the weak points are really weak. The basic Mary Kay skin-care routine is a dated mix of greasy cleansers, irritating toners, and daytime moisturizers with poorly formulated SPFs...Despite Mary Kay's sales force and their fervent belief that the products they sell are undeniably superior, this line still has a lot of catching up to do if it wishes to compete with the best products from Avon, Estee Lauder, Clinique, Neutrogena, and Dove, among others.
There is a Mary Ken for Men line, too, and Paula doesn't think much of that either.
I stumbled upon the amusingly named Mary Kay Sucks this morning, and found both the posts and the comments wonderfully illuminating and downright funny. Apparently one Mary Kay ruse to recruit salesbots is to give away 'free' facials to unsuspecting members of the public; when they arrive for their facial, they have to sit through a sales awards ceremony and a hard sell on becoming Mary Kay 'consultants' themselves. Roxy, a former Mary Kay salesperson, describes in the comments to this post how her director (who was making money from whatever Roxy sold), would hound her about getting people to these sales pitches:
Director: Hi Rox!!!!!!!!! How many guests do you have coming tonight?
Me: None so far, but I’ve made some calls. (knowing these poor gals were trying to think of an excuse not to come with me)
Director: Ok Rox, tonight is going to be so EXCITING!!! You have to bring at least 2 guests tonight. You will be so happy you did. God has laid you on my heart so much lately and I am dedicated to making your dreams come true. (she was actually getting ready to lose her pink Caddy and was in a panic)
Me: Well I’m really trying but women are really busy with their families at night.
Director: I know you can make this happen. I don’t know a woman out there that wouldn’t like a free facial and hear about this exciting opportunity. You have to reach out and share your heart to these women!! In the next 30 minutes call five women. Tell them you have such an exciting evening planned and you want to share it with someone special….tell them anything Rox just get them there tonight!!
Me: I’m sorry I can’t. I’m at work and I can’t do this business at work.
Director: Step out of the office and use your cell phone! I’ll call back in 30 minutes to check your progress.
Like I said, it's easy to get sucked into this stuff. If you want to explore further, check out Exposing Mary Kay, My Mary Kay Truth, and UpYourCadillac.com. As a business geek, this is a great illustration for me of why transparency and honesty in business matter, and why going for the short-term dollar over customer loyalty and evangelism - and long-term success - will always fail. Mary Kay has had a pretty good run of business over the years (though not the amount they claim, as a huge majority of their products are returned unopened to corporate HQ by 'consultants' who can't or won't sell them), and I'm sure the powers-that-be thought that their dirty little secrets would remain fairly uncommunicated to the big, wide world.
They were wrong, as are their business practices; correcting things would mean totally changing their MLM-based business model, which won't happen. If you have an ethical bone in your body, consider spreading the word about the true face of Mary Kay.
