Amway - Buy From Yourself?

One of the apparently common practices among major IBO groups is still the concept of "buy from yourself". I believe IBO leaders teach this because most people are not familiar or not comfortable selling goods and services. Therefore, to teach buy from yourself makes the business an easier sell. In reality, an Amway IBO is simply a comissioned salesperson with no benefits. But presenting the opportunity that way is unlikely to yield results either, thus the buy from yourself has become a common practice.

Buying from youself makes you a customer and not a business owner. Buying from yourself doesn't generate your business a profit. Would you open a car dealership to buy a car? Now I am not suggesting that supporting your own business is a bad idea. What I am suggesting is if you are the primary or exclusive customer of your Amway business, then you aren't really running a business. You are simply a glorified customer.

What an IBO is really doing is paying his upline's bonuses. Amway overcharges more than 30% of the cost of their product. They have to do this in order to be able to pay IBO bonuses. Since most IBOs are at 100 PV or less, the lion's share of the bonuses earned are channeled upline when a purchase is made. It is not a level playing field as some IBO leaders might suggest.

What compounds the situation and makes it worse is when an IBO pays for standing order or attends functions where some of these IBO leaders may teach this bad business practice. You as an IBO already pverpay for products for which upline gets most of the bonus, but then the problem is compounded by IBOs paying to receive this bad advice. When I was an IBO, I heard speakers talk about skipping rent or mortgage payments to attend more functions, or having your family skip a meal so you can buy standing orders. Buying from yourself is just another example of bad advice given fro upline to downline. What makes it worse is that some uplines profit by giving bad advice.

Are you buying from yourself almost exclusively? Can you think of any truly successful business where the owner is the main or possibly the only customer? I can't think of any.

Amway - The Facade Of A Diamond Lifestyle?

Have you ever been to the set of a movie? You may see a mansion for example, but often, in movies, it will be only the front of the mansion. When you see the full picture, you would note that there is no mansion, but simply the facade or the front camera shot of a mansion. I believe this is what many diamonds are doing.

Going diamond. While certainly it is not the goal of all IBOs, it certainly is what many IBOs are hoping for. Diamonds are often portrayed as having no job, waking up at noon every day and basically living a lifestyle full of luxury and leisure. At least that's what is being portrayed. I certainly though so when I was an IBO. But now I can easily see through the illusion.

The illusion is set up, I believe as a recruiting tool. Afterall, living a middle class lifestyle with a modest income wouldn't be all that attracive would it? A young couple might think $4000 or $5000 a month is a great income, but the reality is that you won't be traveling the world a sipping Martinis all day long, even with an above average diamond income.

Certainly there may be some tenured crown ambassador types who might make over a million dollars a year from Amway, but I do believe this is the exception and not the rule. I would suspect that most diamonds live average middle class lifestyles but simply provide the illusion of great wealth at functions or at recruitment meetings.

When you simply do the math, the diamond lifestyle doesn't add up. Think about taxes, medical insurance, private school for kids and other expenses. How much do you think you would need to earn to pay for these expenses and still be able to save some money? We are currently seeing bits and pieces of evidence that my claim may indeed be true. Diamonds with homes foreclosing, diamonds selling off homes, a significant diamond filing for bankruptcy.

The writing is on the wall. Most IBOs simply choose not to see it.

Amway - IBOs Living in Denial?

So many IBOs are hard working and dedicated to their business. However, I believe they are simply living in denial. Most of them, even the hardest working IBOs are more than likely losing money, due to the system expenses. The system generally consists of voicemail, standing order, book of the month, meetings and functions.

When I was an IBO, I was losing money or braking even at best, but I always spoke about my "gross" income and did not mention the mounting costs of the system. I did as my upline taught, you see. I just figured I was helping others who would eventually copy me and we would all progress towards financial freedom and walking the beaches of the world. However, in retrospect, I see that I was just fooling myself and living in denial.

I believe there are still many IBOs out there showing the plans and working the system only to end up month after month with a net loss. I am writing this article hoping that some IBO will see it and be able to relate to what I experienced. I jut wish someone had spoken some sense into me sooner. It's easy to get sucked into the system because you are normally sponsored by someone know know and trust. But your sponsor is more than likely "NOT" trying to rip you off, but simply teaching what upline teaches. It's upline, in my opinion whose greed has ruined the business opportunity with their self serving advice. I hope this article helps some IBOs.

Amway - The Real Cost of Tools?

To my knowledge, there is no unbiased evidence that the tools used by IBOs actually work. Sure, Amway apologists will argue that everyone who "succeeds" uses the tools, but these same apologists will disregard the tens or hundreds of thousands who also use the tools but do not succeed. But what many do not notice is the hidden costs of the tools. I'm not talking strictly money. The tools costs an IBO valuable time as well.

Attending seminars, meetings, listening to standing orders, checking voicemail all takes up valuable time from an IBO's life. Factor in the cost and most IBOs who use tools end up with less time and money. Ironically, many IBOs may have joined Amway to gain more time and money. That time and money is supposed to come in the form of "passive income", something that very very few IBOs enjoy. I suspect that even big tenured diamonds may not have all the time and money as they like to portray. If they did, wouldn't more of them have walked away from the business to go and enjoy life?

I challenge IBOs to sit down and analyze the financial cost as well as the time commitments they sacrifice to build the business and ask yourselves if it is truly worth the cost? If you are perfectly honest with yourselves, I think you may find that your time and money is not well spent. But you as a business owner must look at the big picture and come up with your own conclusion. It is my opinion that nearly all IBOs will find that the real cost of the tools far exceeds what little benefits you may enjoy from the tools.

Amway - IBOs Lose Money Because Of The Tools

What are tools? Tools in reference to the Amway business usually consists of Books, CDs, Voicemail, Wesbite Hosting, and Functions. While the prices of these individual items may not seem exorbitant, the collective cost for these tools can run up to several hundred dollars a month. For extremely hard core IBOs, these tools can cost more than $400 a month on average, and perhaps for a casual partaker of functions, etc., perhaps they can get by for less than $100 a montt on average.

But in any case, when most (business building) IBOs are at 100 PV or so, which results in a $10 bonus, it is easy to see how most IBOs will lose money because of the tools. Even at 1000 PV, it is likely that a dedicated IBO will have a net loss in their Amway business. It is simple math, add up the tool expenses for any group and then add up the bonuses. In nearly every group, there will be a net loss.

Of course, someone upline is profitng from tools, thus the success you see on a stage is likely coming directly from the pockets of their downline. Sadly, most of these downline will never earn a net profit but will be told to never quit and encouraged to continue to invest into a black hole that will never pay them back and will nearly assure business failure in the long run. It is also sad that so many downline will be told these lies about future success by people who they consider trusted friends and mentors.

I would strongly encourage IBOs to look critically at their business and add up the cost of your expenses and compare that with your income. If the income is not growing steadily, then you may want to reconsider additional expenditures for tools. That is real business. If upline encourages you to buy more tools when you are losing money, maybe you should wonder whose best interest is at heart in teh advice you are receiving.

Joecool will be on vacation in Europe and Japan over the next two weeks. I would like my audience to note that my J-O-B is paying for this wonderful vacation. If I end up in Sweden, maybe I will pay IBOfightback a visit. LOL I'll return to my blogging duties later im November. I wish everyone well.

Amway - Why Do IBOs Justify Their Lack Of Success?

Other than Amway, I cannot think of any business where sales people or IBOs feel a need to justify their lack of success. I hear all kinds of crazy things such as how Amway saved a marriage or how an IBO has become a better person as a result of the Amway business. Now if your involvement in Amway did indeed save your marriage or made you a better person, that is a great side benefit. But the Amway opportunity is supposed to be a business and a business exists to make a profit. This is something that IBOs seem to overlook when they are involved.

I believe these "side benefits" are mentioned by upline as a diversion away from the fact that these IBOs aren't making any money. My upline used to say you get in for money but you stay in for friendships. They may also use the line that the Amway opportunity is not get rich quick. I believe that is because the upline wants you to stay in and expect you to purchase tools for a while.

But a very important question is why IBOs need to constantly justify their lack of success? Is it a good idea to be involved in an opportunity where you aren't turning a profit and need to justify the lack of success? Many IBOs blame themselves despite the fact that your upline may have asked for your trust and blind loyalty. You do what you are told but the upline leaders never take responsibility for an IBO's failure. It like playing a game of heads I win and tails you lose.

If you are new in the business, nobody expects you to be making a fortune overnite, but certainly a business that promote low or no overhead and a low start up cost, why shouldn't you be able to turn a profit within a few months?

Why do IBOs have to resort to rationalizing themselves with claims of concentration and/or quality? Apparently the general public doesn't agree, based on the lost sales to non IBOs. Seems the only ones who see a benefit in regular consumption of Amway goods are IBOs, who are hoping to reap financial rewards for doing so. Either your business is growing or it's not. No amount of justifying or rationalizing will change your bottom line. I just hope more IBOs and prospects will see this before it is too late.

Amway - What Level Playing Field?

One of the things my upline always seemed to be talking about was how Amway was a level playing field and that was because everyone starts at zero. While on the surface, that may sound reasonable, but when you dig deeper, you may find that it is not a level playing field and that the deck is stacked greatly in favor of your upline.

One of the points in the Amway plan was to eliminate the middle man in the distribution of products thus allowing an IBO to gain a bigger piece of the profits. While this may sound reasonable, what actually happens is an IBO is a prt of a system with even more middlemen taking a cut out of an IBO's efforts. If an IBO were to simply buy and re-sell a product, that IBO would get all of the profit. In Amway, the corporation pays about 31-33% back to the IBO force in commissions and bonuses. But a new IBO would get only a 3% commission (100 PV) and his sponsor and uplines would enjoy 28 - 30% of the commissions. The new IBO did the work, but got only a tiny percentage of the bonus. What's fair about that?

An IBO can eventually get a bigger piece of the commission by sponsoring downline and moving more volume. However, the newly sponsored IBOs end up in the same unfair position that the sponsoring IBO was previously in. Also, until you are at the 2500 or 4000 level, you probably won't even generate enough income to cover your business and system expenses. Also, because of Amway's reputation, especially in the US and Canada, it is very difficult to sponsor others. Most IBOs never sponsor a downline.

The playing field is not level. Upline may want you to think it is, but a closer looks reveals that it is heavily stacked in favor of the tenured uplines.