Amway - IBOs Help People? Not!

When I was still an IBO, we were taught that the business was really about "helping people". Thus many in the group believed we were helping people by showing them the business. That the world will collapse if only good people didn't do anything. Thus sharing the dream and sharing the business was indeed "helping people". It was after I left the business that it truly started to sink in that the AMO teaching was 100% wrong and we were never helping anyone.

The reason why showing someone the business is no help is because if the prospect joins, then that prospect has a fraction of a 1% chance of making any money, and if on the system, that same person has more than a 99% chance of losing money. Is that helping someone?

If someone declined to join or buy Amway products, chances are an IBO never saw or spoke to that person again. This same person, seen as "sharp" before the plan, is now seen as negative, or a loser because they did not see the business as their savior.

What I also realized is all the time I wasted in prospecting people, showing the plan, and attending meetings and functions, could have been better served in actually helping people. For example, when I was sitting in a weekend function, I could have been doing outreach with my church to feed the homeless. The Amway business, while it is promoted as part time, perhaps 8-10 hours a week, it is much more involving than that. If you are a business builder, chances are you spend nearly every waking moment trying to meet new prospects, or trying to show the plan to someone.

So how exactly do IBOs help others?