A Not-So Manly Confession

On Monday morning, I had a Mary Kay consultation. It feels better to get that out in the open. It wasn’t exactly something I had planned, but I’m not complaining that I was temporarily pampered and permanently interested by the business model of one of the world’s largest cosmetics companies.

Brianna and I went on a quick vacation to the lakes region in New Hampshire, and the “facial” was a freebie courtesy of Steele Hill Resorts (where we had stayed the night before). It didn’t turn out to be much more than sampling a few different products, but I learned quite a bit about how the individual salespeople fit within the company and experienced a pretty good pitch too.

Mary Kay seems like the perfect kind of company to use inbound marketing given the variety of the products they offer. There have many different types of creams and make-ups available to people with any type of skin. With so many options, they could easily customize their landing pages, emails, and maybe even social media posts (if they offer different pages for skin types, lotions, make-up, etc.) so customers can only receive the information they want, be more likely to buy and just as importantly, be more likely to become an evangelist of their products or brand.

There’s a lot to like about the Mary Kay Brand, most of which I had no idea about before Monday. The Mary Kay Foundation has raised millions of dollars for abused women and others in trouble. There are special items which have a portion of their proceeds donated to the charitable fund, so there’s another good reason to buy woven right into their line.

I’m not planning on becoming a Mary Kay sales rep anytime soon, but I was able to appreciate the methods our rep Jane used to try to sell. There was no pressure at all to buy. At the end of the appointment, she was as kind and courteous as ever, even though all either of us bought was a 15-dollar make-up remover. (You can guess whose that was.) She was able to make authentic connections with us from the beginning. It was the furthest thing from a stereotypical used-car sales pitch I had ever encountered.

Even though I didn’t make a purchase, Mary Kay has me sold. I might not buy anything for myself, even though they do have a line of men’s skin care, but I still admire what their company is all about. Would I be writing this post otherwise?