You hang out with friends, generally people you like and have similar interests. You have good and bad times, but your true friends are there for you when you need them. You move residences, your friends are there to help you move. They may play a round of golf with you, or watch some sporting events, dinners, backyard barbeques, etc. These are folks you will likely end up retiring with and enjoying your golden years.
But suddenly, you get enticed to join Amway. You see the "chance" to get rich, with a shortcut (not get rich quick, but a "shortcut"). You sign up and your sponsor is your new "best" friend. Most of the people you enjoyed being with think Amway is a questionable venture to get involved in. Suddenly, because of what you have been told or taught, you view these same nice people as "broke" or "losers", simply because they do not share the same ambition of untold wealth working 12-15 hours a weeek. Suddenly, you friends become prospects, or people you want to sponsor so you start recruiting them. Some may join, but most won't. Suddenly you are immersed in recruitment meetings, functions, and avoiding "negative", which is people and events that do not support your Amway business.
Now you are missing birthday parties, barbeques, and other social events. Your social events are now recruitment meetings, seminars and Amway business related events. You are taught that these events can be put off and your gratification delayed. You can do whatever you want when you go diamond. (Even though there me be only one (1) diamond out of every ten or twenty thousand IBOs) Your dedication will pay off right? Sadly, for most people, even very dedicated people, all they will see is losses on their yearly tax returns, mainly due to the purchase of cds, books, voicemail and function tickets. But these are your "friends" right?
Here's my take on it. Try missing a few meetings or functions. Stop buying cds and see how many "friends" remain from the business. It is likely that your upline will claim that you walked away from the friendship by slowing down on the "system". If that happens, then you have conditional friends, or fairweather friends. They are your "friends" while you are pursuing the same cause. They are your friends when you are attending functions. Are they there for you in bad times?
A short while after I attended my last function (I was still an IBO, just not a business builder), my dad passed away. Not a single one of my IBO "friends" bothered to attend the memorial service. Not a single one of my IBO friends called or dropped by the home to pay their respects. All of my "real" friends, who saw through the AMO smoke and mirrors called to talk to me and/or attended the memorial service.
Are your IBO friends conditional friends? Mine were.
4 comments:
I was an IBO a few years ago and I remember people telling me how much they cared about me and that we were friends for life. When I started to lose my excitement about the business and missed a few meetings, I started to feel like an outsider on our team and nobody gave a rat's ass about me after I stopped building the business.
I felt like these uplines had a split personality or lived a double life. On one side they kept telling how much they cared about us and always talked about honesty and integirty and living by biblical principles and on the other side took advantage of the trust and friendship they had developed with us and made us buy 1000-1500pv of extra products for 6 months of their emerald qualification. Now, if this is what is called friendship, i woul rather not have these upline friends.
maybe you were involved with the wrong organization. Just because your experience were negative do not mean that Amway is a bad company. Amway is just that a "company", people who build the business without good the right vision are the ones who give the business a bad rep. In the end producing people like you who feel as if they are owed something just becasue they did not succeed. Who ever sponsored you, if follow the steps should've told you that your success rate is the same as your failure rate. You do the work you will succeed and NO Amway is not a get quick rich scheme if you follow the system correctly you should be a better person than what you were not the other way around. Hope you stop degrading the company and talk about the people who did not have your best intentions in mind. You might wonder why am even leaving a comment, Amway have saved my life, without the company and the group am involved with I might have been a nobody. So whenever someone talkes bad about Amway, you can bet I take it personally. This business is more than just making money its about giving back to those who are in need. Hope you post this comment.
Anonymous, you are more than welcome to post opposing views on this blog.
You see, the problem is that people who run their Amway business properly are in the minority. I was in WWDB. The things I heard were taught to audiences in the tens of thousands at times and there were functions going on all the time. So it's quite possible that millions of people over the years got the same bad advice that I received. What's more, there are apparently more groups like mine than there are of yours.
Also, many of the same leaders today are the same ones who were in charge when I was in the audience.
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