We have discussed Mary Kay a pyramid scheme, and the process of becoming a Mary Kay consultant
We are now turning our attention to another important topic,
I don’t know about you, I’m always excited to talk about business investment.
We are going to look at Mary Kay’s financial data. Specifically, to determine if Mary Kay consultant business is profitable?
Let begin with our Mary Kay Consultant Review.
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Mary Kay Consultant Review
This review is part of our Mary Kay Coffee Talk series… if you miss the other discussions, just follow the links,
or let me give you a quick review,
- We, somewhat, agree Mary Kay is not a pyramid. BUT, it’s not easy to make money with this opportunity.
- You have to be a super talented salesperson to achieve success as a Mary Kay consultant.
- The costs to become a Mary Kay consultant is more than $100, like over $1,000…
- Mary Kay does have a sales volume requirement… about $225 every two months… Even though, they said no inventory purchased required to join.
- We also discussed the long work hours, no weekend off, and low earnings.
This Coffee Talk is all about Mary Kay financial data… let discuss Mary Kay compensation plan… the Mary Kay Consultants average earnings… the consultant salary and benefits… and finally,
Can we make money as a Mary Kay consultant? We will use the financial information to answer this question.
I know some of you, Mary Kay fans, screaming ‘YES’, people making money with Mary Kay… BUT, I am talking about profits! Just because you receive a check from Mary Kay doesn’t mean you make money…
Business profit is determined by ‘Revenue’, with Mary Kay consultant is commissions, less ‘Expenses’… This is how we are going to conduct our Mary Kay Consultant Review, Fair and simple!
OK, we start our Coffee Talk with,
Mary Kay Compensation Plan
Understand Mary Kay compensation plan is important to us, BECAUSE, this is how consultants make money.
Your business revenue is 100% determined by the Mary Kay compensation plan…
If you fail to meet any requirements in this compensation plan, your business earning is ZERO… Nothing… You work for free!
We have discussed some of these requirements, one of them is sales volume requirement,
if you fail to meet the $225 quotas, Mary Kay doesn’t pay you any commission, NOT even the 50% product privilege discount offered to Mary Kay consultant.
Some of you might be thinking, “Why am I paying $100 to become a consultant when I can even get the 50% discount?”
Well, the $100 is the cost for Mary Kay business starter kit, nothing more…
This part of our Mary Kay consultant review discussion is boring and dull, but we cannot avoid talking about it…
Don’t you want to know how your Mary Kay business makes money? I bet you do! Right?
I am very curious to know this information too… so, let begin,
Mary Kay Consultant Salary
I have to tell you something before we start,
I’ll only give you an overview of the Mary Kay compensation plan,
enough for us to discuss and determine the Mary Kay consultant salary.
If you want a full detail, follow the link above.
Since Mary Kay operates under an mlm business model, we can safely say there are two main options for Mary Kay consultants to make money,
Commissions from the sale of products, and commissions from team sales, the downline performance.
I want to put the bonuses and rewards aside for now, because these payments cannot be considered as regular business revenue…
You have to achieve or meet certain performance levels to receive bonuses.
When you’re just starting out, breaking even is already a major achievement… bonuses and rewards are just dreams and goals at this stage… they are not the main salaries for the new Mary Kay consultants.
So, let put them aside for now…
I want us to talk about commissions from direct personal sales first because this will be the new consultants’ main income until they can recruit someone…
Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultant Commissions
All new Mary Kay consultants start out at this level after paying the $100.
An “Active” independent consultant will receive a 50% discount on all product orders… this means a consultant receive 50% commission on every sale.
But, before I continue, I just want to remind everyone that, a consultant needs to meet the $225 minimum wholesale order to be considered “Active”… There’s no 50% discount if any consultant fails to meet this quota…
Mary Kay will tell you that there is no quota for their consulting business, but I have a PDF copy of the Mary Kay compensation plan, which you can look for yourself…
Now, the next earning is not included in the Mary Kay compensation plan,
I was told by a few current Mary Kay consultants that,
when you step in to conduct a beauty class for another consultant, you can earn 15% commissions on all product sales from the class, or
another way to look at this, if you are a new consultant and unable to hold your own beauty class, you will lose 15% in commissions if a sponsor is doing the class for you!
OK, you’re doing well and get promoted to the next level,
Mary Kay Senior Beauty Consultant
You achieve this level when you have at least 1 active independent consultant under you… remember the word “Active”!
Now, you have the second avenue for income, Personal Team Commissions, and it works like this:
- With 1 – 4 active team members… you receive 4% commissions on team sales.
- With 5 or more active team members… you receive 9% commissions on team sales.
- You can earn up to 13% if you order $600 worth of products and 5 people in your team order $225 worth of product in the same month.
Let stops for a second and do some calculations:
If 5 people in your team place a $225 order… the total is $1,125 in team sales.
You earn 13% from $1,125… which equal to $146.25.
Do you see the problem?
You have to personally order $600… this means you spend $600 in exchange for $146.25 in commissions… Is this a good investment?
Ok, we move on to the next consultant level,
Mary Kay Team Builder
There are two positions for this level,
- Star Team Builder is a consultant with 3 – 4 active team members, and
- Team Leader is a consultant with 5 -7 active team members.
You have three avenues to make money… personal sales, team sales, and team-building bonus.
The first two we have talked about.
The new earning is “team-building bonus”
A consultant in this level could potentially receive $50 bonus payment for each qualified team member.
Did you see I use the phrase “could potentially?” Well, because to get paid $50, your team member must be “Qualified!”
A “qualified team member” is an active consultant in your team that places a $600 or more of products ordered in the first month that person became a Mary Kay consultant.
Do you see this?
Do you see how Mary Kay put pressure on the sponsor to push new recruits to buy more inventories?
The team leaders will not get paid if the recruits do not order product.
The next promotion for a consultant is,
Mary Kay Directorship
This level has 2 positions… Sale Director and National Sale Director.
The directors earn all the commissions above, plus 9% or 13% unit commission… these are orders from all downline units.
A director could potentially earn $100 recruiting bonus for each qualified team member.
I think you have a clear understanding of the Mary Kay compensation plan at this point.
If you need to read it in detail, download the PDF version to study it.
When you look at the Mary Kay compensation plan, it looks and sounds exciting and impressive for a consultant to make a living…
But when we put it to the calculator, it doesn’t add up!
Now, comes the big question,
Can you make money with Mary Kay?
Before we can answer this question, we need to look at one more number, I know.. I know… more numbers,
This number is “Mary Kay consultant average earnings,”
it’s the earnings representation that Mary Kay provides to new recruits… Remember to ask for your if you’re applying to become a consultant.
Below is a Mary Kay earnings representation for 2018.
Mary Kay does not release their US earnings disclosure… but use the Canadian earnings representation instead.
I believe the Canadian Mary Kay consultants are doing better than the US consultants.
The US consultant average earnings must be looking very bad, that’s why Mary Kay is not releasing it.
That’s OK, we can use the earnings statement above in our Mary Kay consultant review discussion… let give Mary Kay the benefit… using their best earnings number.
Looking at this earnings statement, you can see, again, the $225 quota requirement in the last sentence of the first paragraph… you’re probably getting tired of hearing me saying this over and over again…
Now, these are the numbers from the earnings statement that we will be using in this Mary Kay consultant review discussion:
The total number of consultants 29,500,
But only 3,701 were considered active in 2018… this mean 25,799 (or over 87%) consultants failed to make money with Mary Kay after paying $100…
Now, what’s interesting is out of 3,701 only 224 consultants earned income with average earnings of $20,378…
you probably wonder how I get the 224 consultants… simple, according to the earnings statement, in 2018 Mary Kay had 447 independent sales directors, but only 50% earned $20k or more… so, 50% of 447 consultants is 224.
Are we all on the same page? OK, let’s continue…
Now, this tells us, out of 29,500 consultants, only 224 consultants (or 0.76%) earned a minimum wage in 2018… this is less than 1% of Mary Kay consultant make money in 2018!
This is terrible… even with the best earnings numbers, only a small group of Mary Kay consultants make money with this business opportunity.
Final Thoughts
I think we can conclude our Mary Kay Consultant Review discussion and say… your chance of making money with Mary Kay is very low, less than 1%.
I don’t know about you, but after looking at the numbers, I’ll never invest in this business!
Would you invest your time and money in a business opportunity where your chance of making $20K per year is less than 1%?… I’ll let you decide for yourself.
What I want to say is this… there are a lot of home-based business opportunities that are much better to make money from home!
To those lucky Mary Kay consultants that have achieved the top 1%, I want to say congratulation to you…
But for those inspired entrepreneurs looking to join the Mary Kay consultant business… success with this opportunity is not easy… the numbers don’t lie… You must reach the Mary Kay directorship position to make the minimum wage… this is an uphill battle… and I wish you good luck!
Many people become a Mary Kay consultant because they love the products… I call this “investment with our heart”… But, be careful, this can ruin our financial life.
When I started my online business, now I’m not saying this business is easy, I had to look at the financial numbers over and over and over until I was comfortable that my chance of achieving financial success is above 50%… that’s my minimum return on investment.
I am so grateful that my online writing business has generated the income level beyond my expectation… considering I am only working 4 – 5 hours each day…
I invite you to take a look at this online business opportunity… you don’t have to stop being a Mary Kay consultant, or quitting your job, to become a writer… You can do this part-time!
Join me and write your own Money-Making Website.
Until next time…
Do you agree with our Mary Kay consultant review?
