Wednesday, March 7, 2012

The Sad Amway Reality?

One of the things that attracts many IBOs to the Amway opportunity is the idea that they can work part time, 2-5 years and gain a "shortcut" to ongoing and voluminous wealth. Many of the prospects don't have the kind of income or resources that they would like, so the possibility of a shortcut to these trappings sounds like a good idea. They sign up and get started, and then the realities of the business sets in. Upline might be able to justify or deflect the concerns for a while, but eventually, the sad reality will set in.

100 PV, is the defacto minimum quota for business building IBOs. It costs about $300 to purchase 100 PV worth of products. How many young and single people or couples for that matter, use and/or need $300 worth of household products each month? How many of these same people can actually afford to expend that much cash on household products? The pitch is to change where you shop but how many people were buying these kinds of goods prior to Amway? My guess is none. I know I purchased many items, including vitamins, that I didn't need or use before Amway. But my desire to be teachable and to be an example to my downline kept me buying the goods, and trying to pawn off some stuff on friends and relatives to lessen my PV burden. Basically, the 100 PV was just a business expense for me.

I also found that getting people to see the plan was no easy task. While my business was growing, it took more and more effort to recruit downline and I can see where many IBOs would reach the saturation point where there simply aren't anymore viable recruits and they might need to resort to cold contacting in order to generate potential prospects. This is probably why there are stories of IBOs stalking people in bookstores, malls and supermarkets. Even when people saw the plan, there wasn't a high percentage of new people signing up. It is why building and maintaining a business is a nearly impossible task, and it is why I believe there aren't people who retire, walk away from their Amway businesses and enjoy six figure residual incomes for life. This is why maintaining an Amway business is a monumental task.

The more likely scenario is an IBO signing up, buying and using the products and tools and slowly but surely build up debt. There are countless stories of ex IBOs who got fired up, started building the business and found that in a relatively short period of time, put themselves in thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in debt. All the while upline was encouraging them to buy more tools and attend more function, even when they were not profitable. In my opinion, this is confirmation that uplines care more about their tools profits that they do about downline success. I sat in functions where upline would teach about reducing debt, but in the same breath, say it was okay to go deeper in debt if it was to purchase more tools. Self serving advice.

It is why I believe this opportunity, along with the tools system, will nearly guarantee IBO failure. It is sad, but it is also a reality.

7 comments:

ConnieF said...

The Amway "Opportunity" in 3 sentences:

*Go into debt buying stuff you don't need
*Teach others to do the same
*You and your recruits go broke in the process while spending valuable time and money plus alienating friends and family, all for no real returns?

Wow,where do I sign up????

jack7909 said...

You're an idiot

jack7909 said...

You're an idiot. You know nothing about what you're talking about.

jack7909 said...

Not everyone can be successful. Sorry you gave up on yourself.

Anonymous said...

My guess is that Jack wouldn't want us to see his tax statement showing his small Amway income. Being that less than a fraction of 1% are successful at the Amway scam, those are good odds that he wouldn't. Folks who leave Amway (once they shake off the brainwashing) aren't giving up on themselves, they're giving up on a flawed pyramid scheme of self-consuming, finding suckers to do the same and buying endless "tools" that only perpetuate the brainwashing while enriching the folks at the tippy top of the pyramid. They leave Amway hopefully before they lose everything. But, hey, keep on "dreaming". :)

~Dave

Anonymous said...

aww shucks! phooey! someone got some sanity in their life, and it looks like it ain't you! hahahaha =P

Anonymous said...

This tools thing is a shambles. ItS not needed and makes the business running costs too high to be sustainable. Any mlm activity only needs a handfull of customers and the mental resolve to keep showing the plan which will mean cold contacting fairly quickly. But giveen the number of people continuing to sign up, it seems not that difficult to find them eventually. If you find a few diamond types they will drive your business hard. By the way i define a diamond type as one who is totally self interesed and determined to succeed no matter what it takes. Most people joining are not like this so quit quickly. Even if the recruiting is not a success and it all falls down abstaining from tools will probably avoid having losses. Does anyone know how many people lose say 10 grand at this.