Pink Cadillac Drivers and Executive Income

The most clever marketing ploy ever instituted by Mary Kay is the PINK CADILLAC! It screams success. The general public sees a woman in a pink Cadillac, and assumes she is very successful and earning the big bucks in Mary Kay.

The sad reality is that most of the Cadillac drivers are making about $30,000 to $40,000 per year. That’s not executive income! And these women are in the very upper ranks of Mary Kay.

Below is a snippet of an interview I did on HuffPost Live a few years ago, talking about pink Cadillac drivers. At the time I calculated that about 200 women in Mary Kay in U.S. were making six figures after business expenses. It could be up to 300 women in the U.S. But when you compare that to the approximately 600,000 women who are now consultants in the U.S., the numbers are dismal.



  1. BestDecision

    It’s simple math. Just look at the bar pin earned this year by a Director. Anything less than $400,000 isn’t Cadillac production and isn’t GROSSING more than $46,000/year.

    The math:
    $400,000 Circle of Achievement
    = approx $200,000 wholesale
    *Note: New consultant product bonuses, monthly product bonuses, PCP GWPs, etc. add up the retail but DO NOT earn a Director more in commissions

    $200,000 wholesale divided by 12 months
    = $16,666 wholesale average/month
    X 23% commission
    = $3,833 commission a month
    x 12 months
    = $46,000/year gross profit

    This is WITHOUT dedecucting her costs such as her suit, prizes, conference registrations, newsletter publishing, postage, etc. that ALL Directors incur.

    So, next time a Director tells you she’s making Cadillac production and all this money, ask her what bar pin she picked up last summer. If the $400,000 bar pin on her shoulder is years old and she’s not picking up a new one this coming summer, she’s either maintaining or is going backwards.

    And that’s the truth.

      1. TRACY

        No it’s $16k a month production for the unit, times 23% average commission = $3,833 commission check per month.

        What she’s figuring is the 13% sales director commission plus the 10% bonus.

  2. Formykids

    My ex wife “earned” a Pink Caddy for two years. During her entire tenure in MK her net taxable income on her schedule C has never gone above $19,000, and that’s for approx 60 hrs per week. For most of the two years she drove the caddy she was making a copay, as much as $900 per month for the last 6 months. Her Senior SD, drove the caddy for, I believe 4 years, then showed up at my house one day driving the Chevy Cruze, two steps down. From what I can tell most Pink Caddy drivers popped and dropped, earning the caddy, then almost immediately falling below caddy production, meaning that most Caddy drivers are well below the 30-40k you suggest above. I would be willing to bet that over 70% of MK drivers have copays, and have current production below their car qualification number.

  3. Bethany

    I feel like there is another very clever aspect of this ploy that targets the actual drivers. There is SO much hype and pressure to get there, and adoration and praise when you do, that when you inevitable fall below the level necessary to maintain it, you do everything you can to maintain the appearance that you are at that prestigious level of success. MK wins financially with your co-pays, topping off orders and the driver loses. You lose financially, and keep living a lie with even more pressure.

    It is such an obvious marker of what level you are at, so I can see why they frantically try to claw their way up to staying at that level. It would be humiliating to have others know that you lost your caddy.

    They build it up so much, that when you get there, you do everything you can to maintain that Cadillac image because it is the most effective PROP in your own charade to sell that image and lifestyle to sucker others in to continue to prop up your own castle in the sand.

    Very smart of MK corp!

    Now, Jamie Taylor, I automatically want to exclude from these calculations because her social media is THAT compelling and I want to believe that she has zero credit card debit and makes 6 figures like she claims.

    1. Pinkfreesince2015

      We honestly cannot exclude Jamie Taylor from this. I would like to know the honest truth about this. Has she been in the top 100 in unit production the last 6 months? That would provide a strong glimpse into how she is truly performing.

      We all saw her NSD post on Instagram. Let’s not forget she has missed trip the past two years. Is she as “popular” as she once was? No. I have seen more posts about Kimberly Copeland’s daughter who became a director in October. Who by the way, apparently already “earned” her Cadillac. This who facade is a complete joke and beyond laughable.

      1. BestDecision

        The December Appaluse shows her unit didn’t do more than $17K wholesale in August. Her social media shows she submitted for NIQ this month but needs a TON of DIQS to finish AND at least 3 of her Directors to make it into Premier Club…by March 31.

        What I see is a weak unit that’s been shooting off Directors but won’t be able to maintain the NSD requirements. Just going across the NSD finish line isn’t a smart business decision. It’s staying there AND making more money. At this rate, she’ll never be in the scoreboard for NSD commissions over $10K.

        1. Ijustquit

          I know Jamie. She has created alot of directors. I forget the exact number. But I’m gonna say probably 16. Majority of the time, her commissions are 10k. But that’s from the offsprings. Her personal unit usually does 20k in production but sometimes it doesn’t do well at all. She has not had a strong unit for quite a while, because of debuting so many offsprings. It’s great while they are in diq (she has had 3, 4 diqs debut at once) but then they become directors and her personal unit shrinks back down. I would say 3 times a year her check is under 5k.

    2. BestDecision

      I think she’s building a career out of sand, according to what Applause says and what she admits she needs to finish NIQ. Not even doing $17K wholesale and going into NIQ? Not a good idea.

      1. TRACY

        I think she’s trying to do what Dacia and Allison did. You build super fast so that you get to the goal before anyone has a chance to drop off. (You see she fell into that ugly cycle already where people are dropping off and you lose numbers quickly.) If you can complete your qualification period super fast before anyone has a chance to fall off, VOILA you’re done, you’ve made it. Then when people start dropping off, it *sort of* doesn’t matter because you’re already there.

        Now OF COURSE, that’s a big lie. It DOES matter because your income plummets and you have to replace these people somehow. But theoretically it’s easier to replace these people because you have momentum and now you have the title of NSD and some people will sign up simply because they’re dazzled by your title.

        What we saw is that sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn’t. In Dacia’s case it worked. She was able to keep the churn churning, and she’s still an NSD.

        Allison wasn’t able to keep the churn churning, and she ended up flaming out badly. So badly that she quit MK, went to to another MLM, burned out there. Went to another and failed there. Found her only way to “win” was to marry the owner of an MLM but to do that she had to change her name and take on a new persona and make a whole new pretend life for herself. So I guess that worked out?

      2. Ijustquit

        Niq doesn’t exist anymore. Once you get the amount of directors you need with the correct metrics for the car level, you are an NSD. If your area drops below then you get 2 years to fix it. She’s pushing for it for a couple reasons. First she wanted to beat Dacia as youngest nsd. Well her bday is next month so that’s not happening and she’s given up on that. But she wants to have kids now and wants to be an nsd before getting pregnant. My honest opinion is her area is not ready and she’s not ready either. She has one very strong director but the rest, not really. There’s a few that are doing good but they are new. The director that is very strong, works her tail off and would make a great nsd imo. She actually sees faces every day. Jamie is a flake and doesn’t stick to anything. Sorry. But it’s true

        1. TRACY

          Yes, we know NIQ doesn’t technically exist anymore. They don’t call it NIQ, but it’s essentially the same thing. You submit a “letter of intent” and that’s your NIQ period started, without actually calling it NIQ.

          1. Ijustquit

            Well she said niq, so I was letting her know. There isn’t a deadline like with diq or niq really. I think the way they do it now is much better. Of course, I never submitted for niq or submitted a letter of intent for nsd, but that’s my thought nevertheless.

              1. Ijustquit

                You just resubmit your letter of intent if you don’t have the 20 directors/in caddy yourself/the right number of others in premier. It’s not like diq where a real countdown is on. And not like niq or diq where the production requirement is xx,xxx. They are pulling production requirements in a different way, by requiring some to be premier drivers and you to be in caddy. I have no clue if the new diq requirements that are “limited time” will continue or if they are truly limited time. But they should have done that years ago. Time will tell

                1. BestDecision

                  See below where I posted my income as a Cadillac driver.

                  These “new” qualifications still are that: qualifications. Different name than NIQ, but it’s the same as it has been for years. A sad but eye-opening point to them now, though, is that the new ones require the NIQ to be in a Cadillac herself. They changed that around 2010. Why would that be so? BECAUSE TOO MANY SENIOR DIRECTORS DON’T HAVE CADILLACS.

                  I’ve always felt it shameful that MK doesn’t allow a Senior to get credit towards her car based on what her offspring is producing. Instead, when we debut someone from our unit, we lostthat 23% and got 4-5% with no car credit.

                  MK starves their people and perpetuates the dream, yet the writing is on the wall as the number of NSDs drops, more take early retirement, and fewer units show the growth that once was 15 years ago.

                  1. TRACY

                    BUT BUT BUT….. Isn’t she supposed to be working her own personal unit? Doesn’t she have time to be getting her own personal recruits? Doesn’t she know how this game works? She’s supposed to be working to replace all these women and she has plenty of time to run right out and get product on these faces so that she can replace what she’s losing and she will be just fine.

                    Of course I’m being sarcastic because it’s not nearly as easy as they make it seem.

  4. enorth

    A certain SSD lost her Cadillac, but kept her FB profile pic of herself standing next to it. So, I assumed she was still driving it.

    The only way I found out she had lost it was she recently held beg-a-thons on social media to “help me get back into the Pink Cadillac.” And, she did. Until she loses it again.

  5. Shay

    I remember reading an article of MK’ s son boasting despite recession MK did 2 billion in sales and he said, “lots of our starter kits sold” notice not products- starter kits.

  6. enorth

    As my mother used to say to me, “Remember, you won’t always be young and thin!” Boy, was she right! She was also right about, “Save your money for a rainy day. You don’t know what’s ahead.”

    It’s tragic that so many women are throwing away good jobs, throwing away college degrees (GOOD degrees from GOOD schools) to pursue this nonsense. Spending more money on their “career” than they’re making at it.

    These ladies are giving up so much, but they don’t realize it. Yet.

    They’re forfeiting good things now AND in the future (a savings nest-egg, home ownership, benefits, pension) for a few fleeting moments of gowns and crowns….rhinestone baubles…scattered applause from strangers…dollar-store sashes.

    Life is short. (Mom was right about that, too.)

    Don’t be foolish.

  7. ShatteredPinkCaddyDreams

    I remember when a certain now retired SNSD and her daughter out of Cleveland Ohio were literally pressuring their “future” area which included me as the only consistent seller in the metro DC area to push because we were already bigger than most national areas with 210 consultants.
    The former SNSD before she became that was upset that she was a career EESSD. When she came to push me my family members pushed back and said that they were not going to push me since I at the time was working, a single mom and stable but just barely and they didn’t help which is why I failed DIQ twice for lack of recruits which was prior to maintaining star status. I’m truly thankful for that failure and I dodged the bullet of debt.

  8. BestDecision

    Found my expenses and commissions for my last full year while in a Cadillac.
    $35K in commissions
    $10K in sales
    $23K in expenses.

    I gave away almost $2,000 in Section 1 as gifts and prizes and used over $1,000 for personal use.

    My net income for an entire year and as a Cadillac Director with offspring was a whopping $15K.

    Not exactly “executive income”, was it?

  9. Cindylu

    Thank you to all you wonderful ladies for telling it like it is. Thank you for caring about other women and their families enough to warn of the pitfalls of this company. Years ago I felt the warning signs as I signed up. My SD and then my NSD were creepy cold. Then the company itself changed many of the products just as my first order arrived. Then I started hearing vague rumors about MK being a cult, pyramid scheme or mlm. The worry back then was to avoid Amway. MK herself tippy-toed around the notion of dual marketing so we’d relax and not worry that this was actually an mlm. Then there were those silly line ups of directors bragging about their highest checks from years ago. My narcissistic director bragged about her pink cadillac but we rarely got near it. I couldn’t understand why after many years she (No one including our local NSD) could teach glamor properly. The Faith, family Career hooked me till it became evident that family mostly wasn’t a priority. Then when I became ill faith certainly wasn’t evident in my Unit. My Director, the company and supposed MK friends never called, visited or helped in any way. So much for the sister hood or MK caring/Go Give spirit. Back then there was no PT. Now those recent IBC can research and become aware by the many real testimonies of PT that: Products don’t fly off shelves, you aren’t really independent as the company still follows a format from the 1970’s and highly restricts where the IBC advertises, decades later with hundreds quitting MK, there are few women who will buy MK products (especially not at full price) or stay in very long. So the jig is up thanks to the wonderful ladies on PT who allow others to see past the OZ curtain, the real cost of those Cadillacs, the mostly non-existent executive pay and that many directors sadly are in debt and broke within MK.

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