One of the reasons why upline and Amway presentations still manage to get people into the business is because the Amway opportunity is made to sound easy. Sure, the presenter of the plan might mention that it takes work, but prospects walking out of the meetings will get the impression that all they need is six, or that the task of going diamond is very manageable. It isn't until a prospect signs up and gets to work that he or she will find out how difficult it is to build an Amway business. In fact, the business in itself is not mind boggling, but overcoming the reputation issues that Amway has will doom most of the eager new IBOs.
Even seasoned IBOs who have been trained to counter attack people's objections about Amway will struggle when presented with the simple facts that Amway products are not necessarily the greatest and are not necessarily the best value. If this were true, Amway could move much more product simply by marketing these great products and selling them in stores. But since IBOs move and market Amway products for no salary and at their own expense, it's a great deal for Amway. I wonder what Amway sales would be if they did not count sales to IBOs for self consumption? Seems many of these IBOs will loyally buy Amway products while they are building the Amway business but that loyalty seems to fade once the dreams of early retirement and going diamond fades away.
One glaring problem that IBOs seems to ignore is how often platinums and high level IBOs like diamonds fall out of qualification. Yes, Amway has many new platinums, etc, but what about the people who worked their tails off just to end up falling out of qualification a year later? The income stops when your volume stops. There are countless stories of diamonds quitting or leaving Amway. IBOs should do some research and look for answers as to why this is. I think they would not like the answers. They will find that some diamonds are broke, in debt and struggling. In other words, diamonds are like the rest of the world, but have been elevated as special in the Amway world. Do you really think you can live a jetset lifestyle on 100K per year? Many people think $100K is great because they might earn far less, but $100K or $200K is really just a middle class lifestyle, and maybe less if the diamond is in debt because they show off a diamond lifestyle. Behind the smoke and mirrors of the diamond illusion, I think prospects would be shocked at how diamonds really live.
Amway may sound easy but the reality paints a very different picture. Go find out for yourself.
16 comments:
Thanks, Joe! I always find your style-of-writing informative & easy to follow! My husband was just saying yesterday how the MLM Plan wasn't easy at all - so, I will copy/paste your insightful/realistic/appreciated info to him shortly! Cheers; Lady G.
As a former platinum i can give some input to the above. You can get to big pin levels in amway if you have exceptional persuasive skills and work 7 days a week for up to 10 years.factually you need to be showing the plan to 50 people every week. Not many will do so or be able to get that many people to show the plan to. You dont need to retail products. Nobody will buy them so why bother. Only 4 % of amway sales are retail. Sales come from ibo self usage which is normally high for the short period they stay in. Thats why its important to recruit at a fast paste. I reckon if you get to a high pin you can earn 150 k annually. This is not jet set living. You can probably make additional income from tools being at a high pin. So if you have a group of 5 to 10 thousand people each paying say 100 dollars monthly on tools it quickly adds up. But remember to get to that level and group size is such an effort that its almost impossible. Even if you get there the payback on effort is just not worthwhile. And finally as soon as you slow down it all starts crumbling. So instead of freedom , in fact you are trapped.
Thank you, Anonymous, for sharing your experience & advice - which is much appreciated! Cheers; L.G.
I have a great Amway story. I was in Amway for 7 years- mainly during college. I married young and was approached by a friend in college that had just started the business. I was in love with the idea- I was encouraged to drop out of college when we started bringing in around $1,000 a month. I loved the positive thinking books and training programs. I did follow advice and dropped out of school, I supported a man and a business for a few years. I busted my ass for the company and gave my husband credit for the success. In the end- I ended up broke, divorced with two children, and my upline took the business when I filed for divorce (spreading negative mindset). I had to file for bankruptcy shortly after because money was spent on products, learning materials, and conventions instead of medical bills and real life things. It has now been 5 years and the life I never thought I could sell enough for I have. I make a six figure income- with a job...because I went back to school and finished my degree...my car is paid off and I have no debt, great credit, and do buy most things with cash. It is funny that they really sell "freedom", but I am more free now than I ever was in Amway. I lived this and recovered from Amway- I did learn how to sell though- I am now a recruiter for a University... life sure is funny...You will learn how to recruit and they do have some awesome products. There are reasons why the midwest has the most IBO's....Always think twice before selling your soul to a company...
There is also a subtle aspect in the plan. It is presented as if you might be missing something if you dont sign up. So why not sign up. The basic business evaluation questions are not asked. Who is making money .how much. How much effort. How many are not making money. I went to platinium in a short period. I asked my sponsor how can the group sell such high priced products. His response was this business is not about products. I didnt bother to ask the follow up question. I renewed my golf membership and got back to a normal life.
A friend showed me the plan a few weeks ago. I spent some time reading whats on the net. If i understand right Yager is a good example of success. But he started 40 years ago and has over a million in his group. I guess he has a nice income. But probably there are several thousands quiting his group every week and the same number being inactive . So he has to continually find more to replace them. So at 70 he still has to work the business (helped by his downlines of course)or it tumbles eventually. Might take a while for him but it has to happen. Realistically you are not going to build anything a fraction of his size so you will tumble much faster if you stop. I guess you lose half of your recruits every year So when do you retire. I cant see it happening. Can somebody explain this. 15 years ago we had over 20 diamonds in the _uk. Now we have one. All the rest tumbled. Im sure its the same all over.
Lady G. Its certainly not easy. It is in fact so difficult that that you are giving up your life for nothing in the end (even if you get to a high pin).
The only cicumstances it would be easy is if you hit it lucky. The only crown 200 pin (ie over 200 diamonds in his group) is a korean who was using the products for 15 years while living in the usa until he eventually asked his supplier where the products came from. He then went back to korea and build the business. I guess that made it easy for his sponsors.
Its hard to know how you can control your group in this business. Your upline can probably change certain things, in fact everything, in their organisation without you agreeing and your group members can be impacted. If you have a big pin in your downline he can i presume form his own organisation and take his team with him.like the crowes leaving bill britts group. So really i dont see how much control you have. Is that not why there are now so many groups and networks.
Cheers, Anonymous, for your kind reply! Yes, I agree with you with MLM taking over our/ones life & I wish my hubby would "enjoy (his word!)" doing something else which was more productive! ~ G.
I was an Amway IBO a year ago and quit 8 months into it. I was one of the few who taught selling product and training people on how to actually market the product.
I always had one product sales demo for retail a week. It is VERY hard to sell the product, good as they are, at the retail price Amway is asking for. It's simply not economically possible for IBO's to retail product for the simple fact the markup is TOO huge to overcome. Most people would rather pay less, especially now in this hard economic times. As as IBO you can use the product on your own but then shipping is very, very expensive. The IBO cost is what retail is in the supermarket, but you still have to pay shipping as opposed to tax in the supermarket (Tax at the supermarket is actually cheaper than shipping from Amway). So you still come out losing because of shipping. You can play the system and have customers order the stuff at IBO cost, ship it to their house, qualify for free shipping, and just pay the money back. This way you "sell" retail, don't pay shipping, and play Amway's system against itself. But then you are spending hours a day managing all this, you are owing friends/family money, and you are NEVER going to be able to teach this loophole to your IBO's. So even when manipulating the system it becomes too unmanageable and sustainable so you lose there too.
As you can see, the Amway system is designed to force IBO's and not sell retail b/c the markup is way too high, force customers to completely overpaid for products they can get elsewhere cheaper and faster in order to sell retail, or play the Amway system against itself to the point that is unsustainable.
This was my personal experience at Amway and I managed to play Amway against itself b/c I saw through the smoke and mirrors. However, it became so unmanageable and almost impossible to do the right thing the right way I had to leave. It caused me such undo stress worrying about meeting the bare minimum just to get a commission check and overcome all these hurdles to sell retail b/c I wasn't going to bleed my own cash dry to support a failing business.
So you can either do the right thing and go retail and get completely stressed out along the way, consume the products yourself to avoid the mental anguish of doing retail, or not be bothered with Amway. Notice I didn't mention anything about plan showing. Why... managing my own business to go retail while balancing personal consumption so I don't go broke, training my downline, and fitting in Artistry demoes, was so time consuming I never had time to show the plan. So all this work I was putting in was NEVER going to pay off b/c not enough people were duplicating me.
"Its hard to know how you can control your group in this business."
You can't. The only person with control is the MLM owner-that's the only business onwer in an MLM setup. Everybody else has a membership which operates the mercy/wish of the owner. But of course the owners do a good job of obfuscating this truth by brain washing everyone that they own their own businesses.
It is common sense that the really big pins Dexter Yaeger, Bill Britt wield a measure of unwritten reverse-control over the owners to a certain extent. It's not in the best interest of the owners if these big pins were to quit and take their teams with them to a rival MLM. Thus, they capitulate to the big pins demands and/or get ignored. Such is the case with tools income which DeVos deplored but history shows him as helpless in implementing any measure of control over the same.
That renders everyone one else who cannot wield this power as expendable to the MLM owners. ScAmway has terminated many diamonds and above.
This reality is well known the higher up the pins level you go. The actions to hang on to groups/numbers are usually in the best interest of the upline with control over the group.
I am sorry I couldn't follow what you were doing, maybe it was working for you. It's just sounded too complicated for me. Perhaps it's because my hindsight is 20/20 just as well. All I know is MLM field is completely lopsided towards the owners and the heavy recruiters, so called big pins. Everyone else is guaranteed to loose, in fact must loose, if there's gonna be a person to be displayed as winning. Their winnings come from the pockets of those loosing and no where else. It's soundly established there's negligible retail sales to outsiders.
I admire your BS antennae and it should be duplicated to the masses.
If anyone is aware of a diamond who has retired, needs not work and lives on the beaches of the world please share their name.
Fact is they all work, have to work. Else their groups will tumble not to mention the speaking circuit is a very lucrative income source, part of the system income, now known to be several times more than ScAmway incomes. Fact is, these diamonds just feign they are working the groups because they love these ambots oh so much; that they don't need to be there but for this love that spills out of their hearts. Well well well butter my [b u t t] and call me a biscuit.
that is my point exactly. This is what I had to do to do things the right way and overcome the enormous odds which are stacked against IBO's off the bat. It got way too confusing and time consuming that it ended up not being worth the effort or headache.
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