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rowenajane

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rrmoderator
rowenajane:

I don't receive complaints about Mary Kaye. The organization seems to be benign though they may express certain "family values."

But Mary Kaye doesn't fit the criteria used to identify a destructive cult.

See [www.culteducation.com]

They may not fit all the criteria for a destructive cult, but I do think MK has had a destructive affect on many womens' finances; that is, women who have become involved with the organization. I think a lot of people who get involved in Mary Kay don't understand basic financial concepts. One of the most important being that, one have to put money into this business, and wait for a return over and above your initial investment, before you can actually start realizing any profit. The women I've known who got involved with MK and similar orgs, did not have any concept or grasp of basic financial principles.

I am still a consultant by definition, but for personal use (I have the ability to order from MK at discount, but I do not attend meetings, and I do not sell for profit, if I sell any product at all).

I agree that MK is not destructive, but I believe it has some basic characteristics of a cult. They do surround you with postive attitudes (albeit I think some are forced) and words of encouragement (which are rehearsed propaganda, there are 5 booklets, plus CDs for success in a consultant starter kit, and they are verbatim dialogues of any meeting or seminar you attend and any Applause magazine you read). There is a lot of energy at meetings, and it easy to get caught up in it, and it does look good and give you a sense of empowerment. Initially, it does not feel like religion is a driving influence, but the more you delve into MK, the more you see it has roots of strong Christianity. The supplies you purchase for your "classes" and "parties" contain more talk of faith and God than you can even find in state legislature, and you are actually supposed to have a faith based personal story to tell your future clients at classes. I found this makes many uncomfortable, and there are some people who just will not purchase the products because they feel religion is being pushed onto them. When you do become a consultant, you are essentially stripped of individuality (it is not approved to do your own thing). There are dress codes for meetings (not to mention suits/uniforms if you do proceed to a higher level of management), conduct of behavior becoming of a consultant, and you are instructed to run your "business" a certain way if you wish to be successful. If you do not conform to what your recruiter and sales director 'suggest', you can end up feeling like a failure, unwanted, and women in general are very good at turning on each other at the drop of a hat. There is no positive energy for those who deviate from the MK success plan, and they eventually fade away and come to forums such as this one. As for the wealthy sales directors, they earn most of the income based on commissions from recruits of recruits of recruits. I have not yet seen a lower level consultant with few to no recruits who makes a reasonable profit on her sales alone, I do not think it is possible. I also see that most of the successful directors (and I stress MOST, there are exceptions as this is sales) are housewives who had the time and financial resources to pursue this type of business. Sales is sales, business is business, you do have to invest before you get a return, no matter what you sell. But in essence, the requirements for being succesful in this clique, behaviors associated with being a MK consultant and generalized feel-good propaganda are cult-like in my opinion.

Mary Kay is like a cult in all ways but one:
The salesforce is so huge now that they cannot keep tight control over every consultant--which is why the abuse is MUCH worse the higher up you go (on the ladder).

1. The company leadership is revered & obeyed, and Mary Kay herself is worshipped like a god. (the weekly MK meetings have her picture usually on a little shrine somewhere in the room.)

2. For women who finally decide to get out of Mary kay, it is a gut-wrenching decision that is wrought with overwhelming fear: fear of your upline, fear of retribution from your director, fear of being labeled a failure (or worse). Friendships are taken away if you leave the company, and your upline will no longer talk to you. (You are shunned.)

3. Women are so scared of being discovered on the Mary kay Survivors chat room, that they will just read and not post.

4. The uplines in MK (the people at the top of the pyramid) use threats to keep their downlines under their control. The most common threat involves Mary Kay Legal.

I myself have already been threatened by Directors who have come to my blog (see my signature line below) and warned me that they are "printing off" all of my material on my site, and they are "turning me over" to the Mary Kay Legal Department!
These threats are baseless, but this kind of scare tactic WORKS very well on the women who are still trapped in the brainwashing!

Wow, I have heard of entire groups of women up and leaving their recruiter and such, but I haven't heard of threats. My sales director is just annoying, calls to 'encourage' me to get my 'business' going again, but even that is fading. I still do it my own way and use my ability to order from the compnay at a discount until I choose not to any more, or until my consultant status is revoked for whatever reason.

I feel badly that many women feel threatened by the use of the Legal Department though. There are so many things that go on that the Legal Dept doesn't get involved in (such as the selling of items on Ebay, there has not been a crackdown on that yet, and it is specifically stated when you sign you can not sell products at public venues such as fairs or tradeshows-you can only 'sell' your services of facials. As far as internet is concerned Ebay or other internet sales is prohibited as well), and posting opinions on a forum such as this IS completely legal, as governed by the bill of rights. To anyone who feels threatened, you have the right to speak out. As long as you do not divulge company secrets (like any lower level sales person has such knowledge to begin with) and you do not use particular names of people in a slanderous way, you have the right to say you are unhappy with MK and your experience, and anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong, and threats are illegal.

I do not recall signing a secrecy agreement as a consultant, and as a note, [u:bceb43f685]anything in a contract that is conflicting with your personal rights and freedoms of a citizen, or asks you to do something illegal, is not legally binding.[/u:bceb43f685] If your contract does have any parts or sections that are not legal, you are not bound by that section. Illegal contracts occur all the time (especially rental agreements for apartments and houses-even big companies have illegal contracts, not just single unit landlords of personal rental properties. Contracts between individuals for business and money matters and personal loans can also have itmes within them that are not legally binding) and go unnoticed and unattested unless legal action is formally taken, in which case parts of a contract that are not legally binding are not considered in court. In some cases, the entire contract becomes null and void.

But to anyone who reads, does not post, and still feels threatened by upper levels of management... YOU DID NOTHING WRONG. You have the right to not be in MK, you have the right to change your mind and choose your path, and you are not bound to silence. You are not alone.

And if it gets too bad and your directors still hound you... Take legal action yourself, get a restraining order! Lodge a formal complaint with the phone company, block threatening calls. You have rights.

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p1nkcadillac
Mary Kay is like a cult in all ways but one:
The salesforce is so huge now that they cannot keep tight control over every consultant--which is why the abuse is MUCH worse the higher up you go (on the ladder).

1. The company leadership is revered & obeyed, and Mary Kay herself is worshipped like a god. (the weekly MK meetings have her picture usually on a little shrine somewhere in the room.)

2. For women who finally decide to get out of Mary kay, it is a gut-wrenching decision that is wrought with overwhelming fear: fear of your upline, fear of retribution from your director, fear of being labeled a failure (or worse). Friendships are taken away if you leave the company, and your upline will no longer talk to you. (You are shunned.)

3. Women are so scared of being discovered on the Mary kay Survivors chat room, that they will just read and not post.

4. The uplines in MK (the people at the top of the pyramid) use threats to keep their downlines under their control. The most common threat involves Mary Kay Legal.

I myself have already been threatened by Directors who have come to my blog (see my signature line below) and warned me that they are "printing off" all of my material on my site, and they are "turning me over" to the Mary Kay Legal Department!
These threats are baseless, but this kind of scare tactic WORKS very well on the women who are still trapped in the brainwashing!

Hi guys,

Found your thread in Google - and yes I did join just for this post although I've got others I know want to look at :)

Here's a complaint rrmoderator :D - not particularly impressed by strong arm tactics of Mary Kay corporate with respect to Australian Consultants when you don't toe the party line..blatant threatening with inappropriate application of copyright law (in my opinion) to attempt to close down my wife's website.

But that wasn't what was most disturbing it was the inappropriate cult like behaviour of consultants and directors who behaved quite badly because we disagreed with the party line!

RE: the discussion by p1nkcadilac:

Quote

I myself have already been threatened by Directors who have come to my blog (see my signature line below) and warned me that they are "printing off" all of my material on my site, and they are "turning me over" to the Mary Kay Legal Department!
These threats are baseless, but this kind of scare tactic WORKS very well on the women who are still trapped in the brainwashing!

(there's no signature line by the way)

We not only received threats from directors/consultants we actually got email from Mary Kay corporate.

The gist of it is that they've accused us of breaching copyright law by having a website that contains the use of the word Mary Kay. I'd appreciate some free advice guys if you can spare the time.. To me this does seem spurious but can I get some specific advice. Interesting that they didn't talk about trade mark use which give more protection than copyright I thought?

Thanks mookamobile - following your advice I took the name and email address off the website where I published the company's email - am I within my rights to publish the email (and yes I know you can't provide legal advice :) but can you give me a reference either way)

(The author didn't put a copyright or ownership signature block on it)

The site address with more info is in my email address in my profile if that's okay Mr Moderator... othewise the address is mary kay australia .com (my attempt to be search engine unfriendly if that's an issue RR :)

P1nkCadilac I'd appreciate an email since your blog link wasn't in the post..

Looks like I might be setting up an Australian Mary Kay survivors website at this stage the way things are going... got any links with further info I can checkout please guys?

regards,

H

i don't know what happened to my signature line Harry, sorry.
my blog is called "Exposing Mary Kay"
[pinkcadillac.typepad.com]

i read about your problem with MK on your site. If i were you i would just get your wife away from MK. If she insists on joining an MLM, just do Avon.

Hi H.

You're right, I cannot provide any legal advice as I am not a lawyer (I just learned some things along the road of life). I also do not know your whole situation, and can only give my opinion based on your posts on the forum.

In my opinion though, I think you have the right to share the email. It was not copyrighted or trademarked, and as long as there is no confidentiality notice within the email, or you are prevented from sharing due to having a secrecy agreement, you should be allowed to post it.

I am guessing the threats for legal action and copyright infringement were because your wife used the Mary Kay somewhere on the site (obviously if the site was against Mary Kay the company, the directors would be very upset). If your wife were still selling and in good terms with the company, and had purchased the company approved website for her to sell products online, no one would threaten her with copyright if she was promoting her own personal sales website.

Again, this is opinion, but as far as I am aware of, as long as you are not using the Mary Kay trademark on a product you are selling or in a business context, you are not violating a copyright law. Just using the phrase 'Mary Kay' in regular context as in speaking and writing opinions is not illegal in my eyes. I do not think a name or phrase can be copyrighted to prevent any negative opinions from being expressed. For example, that would be like McDonald's corporation for saying I used the name illegaly because I said 'I do not like the food, and I would also never work there because I refuse to have a teenage supervisor.'


Again, it is my opinion, and was also something my mother told me growing up... If you don't want something shared, you don't speak it, and your surele do not write it down and attach your name to it.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. If you are in doubt on legal, I suggest you do consult a lawyer, or search for codes and laws on the internet. You'd be amazed at the 'free' legal advice that is out there. Of course, you have to interpret yourself what the laws mean yourself (I always joked that laywers merely serve to interpret legalese in contracts) which does mean you can be incorrect at times. But mostly, it has worked for me when I needed advice on legal contracts I have signed. Other than that, I consult a lawyer.

Have a good day!!

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harry
Hi guys,

Found your thread in Google - and yes I did join just for this post although I've got others I know want to look at :)

Here's a complaint rrmoderator :D - not particularly impressed by strong arm tactics of Mary Kay corporate with respect to Australian Consultants when you don't toe the party line..blatant threatening with inappropriate application of copyright law (in my opinion) to attempt to close down my wife's website.

But that wasn't what was most disturbing it was the inappropriate cult like behaviour of consultants and directors who behaved quite badly because we disagreed with the party line!

RE: the discussion by p1nkcadilac:

Quote

I myself have already been threatened by Directors who have come to my blog (see my signature line below) and warned me that they are "printing off" all of my material on my site, and they are "turning me over" to the Mary Kay Legal Department!
These threats are baseless, but this kind of scare tactic WORKS very well on the women who are still trapped in the brainwashing!

(there's no signature line by the way)

We not only received threats from directors/consultants we actually got email from Mary Kay corporate.

The gist of it is that they've accused us of breaching copyright law by having a website that contains the use of the word Mary Kay. I'd appreciate some free advice guys if you can spare the time.. To me this does seem spurious but can I get some specific advice. Interesting that they didn't talk about trade mark use which give more protection than copyright I thought?

Thanks mookamobile - following your advice I took the name and email address off the website where I published the company's email - am I within my rights to publish the email (and yes I know you can't provide legal advice :) but can you give me a reference either way)

(The author didn't put a copyright or ownership signature block on it)

The site address with more info is in my email address in my profile if that's okay Mr Moderator... othewise the address is mary kay australia .com (my attempt to be search engine unfriendly if that's an issue RR :)

P1nkCadilac I'd appreciate an email since your blog link wasn't in the post..

Looks like I might be setting up an Australian Mary Kay survivors website at this stage the way things are going... got any links with further info I can checkout please guys?

regards,

H

Hi there Harry -

Laura Ryan here, owner of The Pinking Shears website about Mary Kay. Thanks for linking to us on your website, we've been talking about you all over ours!

We're working hard to get Mary kay out from under the radar and it'd be cool to get a worldwide network!

Talk to you soon!

Laura

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PinkAndProud
There's one more thing that's awesome about Mary Kay... it's called the "Go-Give" Spirit... if you aren't happy with the director you have, you can find another one that will be happy to support you... without any compensation whatsoever. Show me a MLM that works like that.

Well, don't be so fast to applaud MK for that program. The "Go-give" spirit is mostly on the surface for too many when they really treat adoptees like crap since they DO NOT get compensated. Some women treat them alright, but too many are felt left out of the loop because their production counts towards another directors' and not the adoptee director.

"Go-Give" in MK is practiced, in too many circles, as long as someone is on the "I-GET" end of it.

Hello all. Just found this site and thread. I am an MK consultant, although brand new and already very disillusioned. Just attended my first sales meeting last night, and am HIGHLY peeved by several things that went on. Still, I can't and won't call the company or its products or philosophies all bad, because they're not. I have used the products for years and have been and continue to be happy with the results. I have been in sales for years, and I know that there are some things that just go with the territory, and certainly many elements of MK qualify. I know many women whose self-worth has been dramatically repaired because of their involvement with the organization, and although I think it's more placebo than anything else, I think that the net result is what matters. I am CRAZY about my director, whom I know from synagogue, but our national sales director, not so much. Also, I'm not so keen on the many lies by omission that I've been subject to since signing on the dotted line. I'll try to explain in chronological order.

I was "facialed" (btw NOT a word except in MK parlance) by my friend in mid-June, and and she invited me during that appointment to attend a "customer appreciation breakfast." I accepted, thinking I'd have fun with my friend and get a good snootful of MK. It never even occurred to me that I'd be getting the big recruitment pitch, but that's what happened.

Even though I was a bit put off by the recruitment event under the guise of customer appreciation, I signed up because I like the products and figured that I could write off my make-up and skin care stuff (I'm a real estate agent by day, so already in business for myself and have been for years) at the very least. I had (and still don't) no intention of doing any recruiting, but thought I might sell a bit here or there to any friends or relatives who expressed interest. I thought of it as "pink gravy." Certainly not anything I wanted to do as a job, but if something fell in my lap, I wouldn't refuse it.

After I signed and paid my $100 fee, which I was told repeatedly was the ONLY investment I'd need to make to get my business rolling, I was handed a CD recording of the national sales director's (NSD) pitch, only this time she preached the necessity of INVENTORY!!! All of the sudden, it was imperative that I run to the nearest computer and place a $3K order so I'd have enough stock onhand to service all of my customers, lest they order and have to wait 7-14 days for their products. And yet, my own starter kit, which was ordered from, packed in, and shipped from the same warehouse, came in just two days.... odd how that works. I told my director that there was simply no way I could just plunk three grand down on make-up. Sorry, I'm not independently wealthy just yet, and if I were, I'd not have been concerned with a measly tax write-off in the first place!!! So, she hurriedly dials the NSD, who grills me about my credit history (uh, not her business), whether or not I have any relatives who would lend me the money(again, not her business) and so on and so on.... finally I just told her it was simply not going to happen and I'd just have to manage without inventory. She said something like, "Well, don't you DARE give up, I'm here for you every step of the way, and I'll help you MAKE this work because I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!! And I MEAN that from the BOTTOM OF MY HEART!!!" Scary as it is, that's pretty close to a direct quote.

Inventory problem solved, next comes my first "event." It was held at the Marriott, and my director paid some fee or another at the door... I assumed it was a meal fee, but after three hours, we'd not been fed, so I finally figured out it was something akin to a cover charge. There was the whole singing, dancing, ecstatic enthusiasm thing happening, and I felt like a great big glowing sore thumb, and kind of wished I could disappear under a chair, but no such luck. Then, my cell phone buzzed, and my frantic hubby informed me that my son had been hurt and needed me NOW, so off I went. My wee one was fine after we applied some basic first aid, and I got out of there. WHEW!!!

So last night was my first sales meeting as an independent consultant. The first big turn-off was the opening prayer. Gushy as it sounds, every MK thing starts with everyone holding hands and praying together for success and abundance. Until this point, I'd been fine with the prayers, as they had always been very generic, "Lord, Father, etc." with no mention of a specific naming of a deity or any deiified offspring. But then last night, one of our up-and-comers led, and closed with a big Jesus thing. And I say to you, how is it that she didn't realize that there were at least 3 jews in the room, one of whom is an EXTREMELY OUTSPOKEN AND IMPOSSIBLE TO MISS director (that would be my friend)? Minor thing, I know, and I am a minority among throngs of Christians in a predominantly Christian country, so I should be used to it by now, but I'm not. I feel like I have blasphemed when I am "tricked" into praying to or in the name of someone who is not G-d as I have been taught to call him. Had that been the whole thing, I could easily have let it go, but it was literally just the beginning.

It bears mentioning here that as a self-employed independent contractor for the LARGEST Real Estate company in the WORLD, I have occasion to attend a number of training events at the Marriott, in the same room that we used last night. In fact, I spent at least six hours in that very room last week alone. And never in those six hours, whilst I sat absorbing the latest technological advances in dreamselling, nibbling the continental breakfast fare and fresh coffee that was provided us, was I asked to PAY to be there. I guess that my broker, being extremely wealthy and owning an enormous franchise of an even more enormous company and recognizing that WE make HER money and are therefore worth the paltry expense of renting the room, sees fit to call the rental of said room a business expense and leave it at that. Apparently, not so with our NSD, as each of us were required to pay a $5 entry fee before being allowed into the sales meeting. Excuse me? I take no issue with the $5, but the very notion is offensive!!! I paid ALREADY, remember? When I signed up and bought my intro package? So why should I now pay to attend something so unremarkable as a weekly sales meeting? She picks up her 7th pink caddy in December, for crying out loud, why make a piddly profit on the room? Oh, but "it's not about money" for her. I know this because she said so, just about halfway through her recruitment pitch last night. "It's about changing lives." Riiiiight. And when I close a big deal and make a lot of money, it changes lives too: mine, my children's, and my husband's. It's important to take care of ourselves and our families, don't get me wrong, but I so hate it when people try to disguise their motives that way. Ugh.

I show houses and rub elbows all day with attorneys and the like, so I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of the concept of "professional attire." I spend two-thirds of my life in it. Or so I thought. My director called me before the meeting to make sure I was going, and also to remind me that I should dress "professionally." I assured her I had it covered, as I was leaving a closing and going straight to the meeting, but she hesitated and said, "Do you have on a black suit with a skirt and a white blouse?" A bit baffled, I said I did not, but that I was pretty sure no one would be offended by my tailored dress pants and blouse. She sighed and said that the NSD would probably "say something." I figured I'd take my chances, thinking she was perhaps being a bit overprotective. I was wrong.

Just before we wrapped up last night, our NSD paused, gave her assistant the cue to put on the slow music (I'm swear I'm not kidding, she does EVERYTHING with a soundtrack, usually peppered with "Can't touch this," "Good vibration," a host of syrupy stuff by Richard Marks, and the like) and started in on the dress code. She reminded us that, it wasn't really even our fault, but it WAS our director's fault for not having insisted that we dress appropriately, but that MK functions and appointments required a certain level of professionalism and that meant a certain kind of dress. We were to wear, not a grey suit, not a purple blouse, not a pants suit, but a BLACK SKIRT SUIT WITH A WHITE BLOUSE. To do otherwise, she said to us, with feigned sincerity and tears in her big brown hypermascaraed eyes, was a bad reflection on her. That was all I could stomach. I left, and emailed my director to let her know that I would be absent at all future events, but asked that she please not take it personally. I explained my reasons, and also that I know our NSD has made a lot of money doing things her way, and I respect that she has a system that works for her. It's just that I didn't go into the business of being a Dependent Beauty Consultant. I did not leave the corporate world six years ago and go to work for myself so that someone else could tell me what COLORS I am allowed to wear. That doesn't work for me. I still love my lipstick. I won't lie to anyone about that, and I'll recommend it to anyone who inquires about it. But NEVER will I invite anyone to one of those functions. YUCK!!!

To anyone who has been kind and patient enough to read this, thank you. I feel better for having put it all down without worrying about hurting my friend/director's feelings.

To anyone who thinks they might want to "do" MaryKay, check it all out first. I am terribly intolerant of the above kind of bs, but if you can let that kind of thing roll off you, you might well be able to be VERY successful. Either way, good luck to you!

MK as a company probably has enabled more women to make upper level incomes than any other company I know of. In the 80's, I sold MK. Just wasn't my thing. They did buy back my complete inventory. No questions asked. However, if they do buy back your products, you can never again sell MK. The sales training I received helped me to enter the sales force of a large company. This was a 9-5 job. This was better suited for me, and I was very successful.

Many of the sales seminars our company sent us to (and at a very top dollar of cost for the company), we exactly the same stuff I had received in MK for free.

Some directors are by nature aggressive and pushy women. That is the women, not the company.

I consider their products fairly good, and middle of the road prices. I am now a licensed skin care specialist. The products I sell are not over the counter, and way more expensive than MK.

In a company as large as MK, of course, there will be people with bad experiences. You are not locked up in a room for the weekend and forced to seel for this company.

Most women join because they see the success stories, and want to be one of those success stories. In all reality, not everyone is well suited for sales. That is not the fault of MK, just the way it is. I am sure MK is not perfect, nothing is. There was once an article I read in a magazine about MK. It stated MK had enabled more women to be in the top 10% income bracket than any company in the world. That to me is pretty impressive.

I promise you I am not a troll. I post here about another organization that is very cult like, and very destructive. Just wanted to put in my .02 worth of this subject.