What Mary Kay doesn't tell you
As you can see from my clients in 2016, I did a LOT of weddings. When I first started doing hair and makeup, it was more for photo shoots, editorial gigs, and an occasional wedding. But last year was full force of "I do's" and I loved every minute of it. But if you know anything about weddings, low season is November through February. Luckily I still have a 9-to-5 desk job so that was supplementing my creative income, but I do want to eventually get rid of it so I can focus 100% of my efforts into hair and makeup. But when wedding season isn't strong, I feel insecure with my monies. So I decided to become a Mary Kay independent sales consultant.
Mary Kay has the best benefits compared with LimeLight (Alcone), Younique, and similar companies. They give a 50% commission with every sale you make, where as with the other companies, at most would be 40%. That's HUGE, right? The other benefits include free jewelry, money bags, check book covers, other free goodies (skin care or makeup), and the big one.... FREE CARS!!
They also make things super easy for your sales by providing a starter kit with makeup and skin care products and scripts in case you're not as natural in front of a group for your pampering sessions so you know exactly what to say. They advise on what market to target during these sales and parties as well.
But here's what they do not tell you when you sign up.
1. Your sales director gets a commission straight from Mary Kay corporate depending on what size inventory you purchase when you first sign up as your own consultant.
2. Your freebies come from signing up other consultants as a part of your team, NOT from selling product.
3. You have to continually buy product to stay a consultant or you lose it all. You can continue to sell your product already on hand, but you can't buy any more product with your consultant discount. Mary Kay's drop out period is after 3 months of inactivity. This is the main problem with consultants going into major debt. My husband's co-worker's mom is a MK consultant and she has $70-something THOUSAND in debt. How on earth did it get like that??
4. If you decide to sell back your inventory, you don't get it back 100%. You only get back 90% of what you paid.
The thing I had trouble with as a Mary Kay consultant was booking parties. There's no obligation to schedule one and no obligation to buy anything either, but unless you're over 25, married, stable income and some other key factors, you most likely won't buy. And with me still feeling young, I don't know that I want to be a Mary Kay consultant to my friends' moms, ya know?
Here are the PROS of being a consultant.
1. You can make your own schedule and be in charge of your own hustle-mode. If you want to sell, sell, sell, you can! Or if you'd rather enjoy a discount on product and not be that person going from party to party, you can do that too. Aside from three month rule, you can do whatever the hell you want with it.
2. The skin care line is AMAZING and very affordable. Mary Kay has a very reliable skin care regimen and I can definitely stand behind it. But their makeup hasn't always been on par.
Wow. I think those are my only two pros. I feel a little bad now. Anywho, consider these things if you're wanting to become a consultant with any company, not just Mary Kay, but LimeLight or Younique or even LipSense. YOU NEED TEAM MEMBERS TO SUCCEED.
Now that I'm wanting to sell back my inventory to Mary Kay, my sales director has been calling me (obviously reading a script) telling me the benefits of staying, but what she isn't telling me is that she has to pay Mary Kay back. Remember me saying earlier that she got a commission from corporate due to the amount of inventory I purchased? If I'm calculating correctly, she'll owe over $600 and my direct sales partner that recruited me will owe back over $250. So that's why they're both panicking.
Another options is for me to try and sell my product to clients as a "liquidation sale" where they purchase at my wholesale discount. Then I'd get 100% of it back so I'll probably try doing that and see what kind of response I get.
So if you're looking to become a sales consultant with any of these types of companies, please do your research and see if it'll be a right fit for you. I thought it would be for me. I was ready to HUSTLE, but it didn't turn out how I'd like. I got caught up in the rewards and didn't think it would be this difficult to succeed. Lesson learned and hopefully you guys learned something here too!
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