Manipulative Mary Kay Predators vs. DSA’s Code of Ethics
One of the principle reasons F.A.C.E.S. was established a few months ago as a website was to show, not only the public at-large, but the victims of Mary Kay’s predatory sales force actual evidence of unethical, predatory and cult-like behavior practiced within Mary Kay Cosmetics.
This is the reason that, where practical, actual documents (or videos) are embedded within posts.
With regard to the predatory and deceptive tacktics used by so many in its sales force, Mary Kay Cosmetics (like other multi-level marketing companies) is a member of the Direct Selling Association–a lobbying and trade group for pyramid-structured, multi-level marketing companies.
As a member of the DSA, Mary Kay Cosmetics has a page with the DSA’s ‘Code of Ethics,’ which can be found, in very small print, at the bottom of MaryKay.com.
Additionally, as a member company of the Direct Selling Association and, according to the DSA, has a responsibility to ensure that its sales force conducts its business responsibly, ethically and honestly.
Yet, time and time again, based on the experiences of many former Mary Kay salespeople and their families, we see that conducting business ethically is not the case in much of the Mary Kay world–as evidenced by the testimonials and a few of the many documents available.
Bearing in mind that many of the deceptive tactics used by Mary Kay’s predatory sales force are actually taught by the National Sales Directors, like a cancer that starts at the top, it metastasizes itself throughout much of the body.
To begin, the following are just a couple examples of the paragraphs contained within the DSA’s Code of Ethics as posted on Mary Kay Cosmetics home page.
Is lying or encouraging women to lie ethical?
[1a] No member company of the Association or independent salesperson for a member company shall engage in any deceptive, false, unethical or unlawful consumer or recruiting practice. Member companies shall ensure that no statements, promises or testimonials are made that are likely to mislead consumers or prospective salespeople.
If, by ‘false’ and ‘deceptive,’ Mary Kay and the DSA mean that outright lying to customers in order to recruit is against their Code of Ethics, then they may want to look one of Dacia Wiegandt’s training techniques here:
If, by ‘deceptive,’ ‘false,’ and ‘unethical,’ Mary Kay and the DSA mean that training women with scripts to encourage customers to deceive their husbands about their Mary Kay purchases, they may want to look into the Husband Unawareness Plan that is taught nationwide.
Mary Kay Predators Targeting Their Prey
Mary Kay predatory sales force has a litany of scripts using pshycological manipulation on their prey.
Many of these scripts seem to be in direct conflict with the DSA’s Code of Ethics, particularly this paragraph:
[1h] Independent salespeople shall respect any lack of commercial experience of consumers. Independent salespeople shall not abuse the trust of individual consumers, or exploit a consumer’s age, illness, handicap, lack of understanding or unfamiliarity with a language.
In addition, both the DSA and Mary Kay appear to be dimissing the rampant use of ‘Overcoming Objections‘ when they claim that “Independent salespeople shall respect any lack of commercial experience of consumers.”
Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
There will be more to come, as we dive into the DSA’s Code of Ethics and Mary Kay’s inventory schemes, as well as other manipulative sales and recruiting tactics.
In the meantime, if you’re a Mary Kay victim, feel free to read through the DSA’s Code of Ethics on Mary Kay’s website yourself and see if you can see if your experience with Mary Kay matches the DSA’s Code of Ethics.
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