Tuesday, October 19, 2010

An Amway Business Or A Joke?

I find it sad that many uplines will ask/demand loyalty from their downline and then lead them to run a joke instead of a business. Many IBOs are young, motivated, hard working and simply wanting more out of life, but some unethical uplines exploit their downline and basically suck the life out of these IBOs while making the IBOs think they are running a business and succeeding. Because many new Amway IBOs have little or zero business experience, they tend to trust upline and will do as they are told because they don't know any better and upline will portray themselves as wealthy and knowledgeable even if it may or may not be true. (Some diamonds had their homes foreclosed and a prominent triple diamond was in bankruptcy proceedings)

One of the things many groups teach their IBOs is to "buy from themselves". Many people do not like or are not good at selling products, thus many groups tell their IBOs to be their b own best customer, and in some cases, the IBO is their only customer. Those who run business this way might be running an illegal business because the only way to generate profits is to continue to recruit downlines who will then allow you to generate more volume, provided that these new IBOs purchase their own goods as you do. Given Amway's generally uncompetitive prices, it's no wonder that most IBOs have trouble maintaining sales to non IBOs, save for some family and friends. Even IBOs who claim they focus on selling do not appear to have more than a handful of non IBO customers. (How many non IBOs would pay nearly $80 for a month's supply of Amway's famous double x vitamins?)

Another thing IBOs are taught is that the business is not about money. It is making friends and becoming a nicer person that is important. Some groups such as WWDB apparently teach that their involvement with WWDB or Amway can save marriages. Oddly, these claims are made even when some of their leaders are divorced themselves. I read on the blog of a WWDB IBO who says that the US has a 60% divorce rate while those in WWDB have a 2% divorce rate. This is completely fabricated information and I heard it as an IBO 12 years ago but it is apparently still taught today. Amway defenders like to claim that critics are outdated but the evidence supports the claim that things are more the same today than not.

Another thing many IBOs may be taught is that all of the support materials they purchase are tax deductible. That is not necessaily true. The materials have to be used to help you to increase your business. If you are attending functions and buying standing orders, the IRS may not see it as a legitimate tax deduction unless it is resulting in increased sales and profits. If not, the IRS may deem that you have an Amway hobby and not a business. I laugh when IBOs talk about how great their business is doing and then talk about the great "tax return" they received because of their Amway business. The joke is on them but they sadly do not know it.

So IBOs, are you tracking your income and expenses? Are you realizing profits as a result of the tools you are purchasing or are the tools the very reason you see losses month after month? Sit down and think objectively about what is written here. Are you running a legitimate business or a joke?

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Listen buddy, the only joke here is this blog. You failed at Amway and you failed at writing a blog. You just harbor bitter feelings and cannot get over the fact that your a quitter and a loser. Your the crab pulling the other crabs back into the bucket because it makes you feel better to pull people down to your level. Your misery will come to an end tho, because this blog and your fake stories have been reported to the authorities.

Anonymous said...

SHUT UP, ANON!!!

Joecool said...

LOL, this anon is from Canada, but not the same anon who said law enforcement will shut down my blog.

Ex UK IBO said...

"this blog and your fake stories have been reported to the authorities"

Anonymous #1, do you really want to open that can of worms?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous from Canada is yet another ignorant and naive Scamway Lemming that not only disregards crystal clear facts that show that the so called IBO is nothing but a commissioned sales person trying to push over priced Amway products or convince other naive people to join what is clearly a cult. The only people that win are the Diamonds and many of them are losing as their downline wake up, hence their tool money is drying up. Diamonds who lied and said they were debt free are facing foreclosure and Bankruptcy

Biz_Freak said...

To analyze the business model at a high-level, 1) the higher costs for many Amway products are inevitable because the IBO's are not really replacing the supply chain except for a fact that IBO's themselves may be considered retailers. So many IBO's to replace one portion of the supply chain i.e Retailer.

2) Product quality and concentration - some homecare products are really good and have better cost per use apart from the quality. Nutrilite is an excellent brand and is really good. Because Amway's strategy primarily focuses on referral marketing as its source of revenue and for the points mentioned in 1), the prices could be slightly higher. There are also many Amway products which are priced higher when compared with a product in the market with similar quality.

3) Business Saturation - With no door to door selling or retail selling like "walmart" or "dollar general", the IBO's are primarily left with the choice of adding "downlines". Who will those downlines sell their products or how will the downlines earn money if there are already enough people in Amway and other Direct selling businesses. Figures to list the number of diamonds/similar ranked from 1980-2000 would be far more than the numbers from 2001 to 2020. Negative reviews spread faster and post 2000, world has been on completely on technology.

4) Motivational organizations -> Organizations like BWW stand by the type of the organization. They are motivational. There are many people who have disciplined themselves better in their personal lives by associating with such organizations. They tend to be productive and energetic. However, the flip side is the all that motivational energy goes only for Amway and trying to shun from outside world. For the points mentioned in 1, 2 and 3, IBO's energy is spent on a business that has more chances of failure.

5) Experience of business:- Amway helps develop people skills and is a step towards personality development. However, it is far from the reach of business skills considering the points on saturating businesses and the rules laid out by motivational organizations.

6) Residual income - This part is pretty simple. You should be doing some business (buying products) to earn those commissions and to keep your business growing. If you're a platinum and if you have a downline inching towards platinumship, then your business won't grow until you find one more person. Else, your gross income minus your downline's platinum could be even less than $200. Money is heavily made in motivational organizations but to reach those stages and to make money, it does take a lot of effort

6) It is too good to be true! - I've heard many "Amway leaders" making comments about scientists and educated guys not able to understand such a simple money making business. Well! it also is interesting to find that many Amway business owners are not able to figure out why so many people are negative about it and why the business is saturating. So many people for 50-60 years have been saying no for some reason.
To conclude, the pro of Amway business would be the personality development (provided you engage with one of the motivational organizations) and con would be someone would be paying a price for it - financially and time wise (unless you are one of the few lucky lottery winners that potentially made money)

Anonymous said...

personality development can happen in church--for free. so, the "pro" is a pretty weak selling point, if we can label it as such...

Anonymous said...

Is anyone here credible at all? I'm looking for creditble information....

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5xu6bIFSeE--yikes! ;)

Jamie said...

shut up you fag

Anonymous said...

+1 :)

Anonymous said...

amway people are creepy and people runaway from them, its a totally brainwash program. amway people are also so selfish but pretend to be so social and concern abt everyone,and they pretend this way bcoz they try to sell everyone something...

amway is the program for loosers.

amway people have lost their mind and always talks abt bill brit. and they praise him like is god and BWW is a religion and every educated or illiterate person in amway follow it blindly...

people if you want to have a good family, some people want their kids to do amway. Imagine who would want their child to go door to door to sell toothpaste and maxi pads...

Amway product is good but the BWW system is the creepiest thing human can ever design or work with....