I was in discussion on another forum and a comment was made about Amway being an iceberg, because you see the shiny clean ice on the top but you do not see the majority of the iceberg. Or in other words, the diamonds show you the fancy suits, jewelry, cars, mansions, jets and what you don't see is the financial carnage that takes place in their downlines at times. My former upline would tell audiences that they could skip meals to buy more standing orders because you might hear the one thing that could make your business explode.
Sure, on standing orders, you won't hear too much of the unethical and "wrong" teaching, because some of this is monitored by Amway, but it's the night owls and smaller group meetings where the real teaching is disseminated. This is where you are told to practically sell your soul to achieve in Amway. This is where the teaching comes in where you should be purchasing excessive amounts of tools in order to succeed. This is where you are told to never miss a function unless it's for your own funeral. A newbie or casual observer won't see these things but if you ever commit to becoming a business builder, this is likely to become your world.
You don't see the backstage at functions and meetings. Former rubies and platinums have made commentary about the diamonds literall laughing about how gullible the downline are. You don't see the where the cash collected at the meetings and functions go. There had been some past comments about literally, suitcases of cash leaving the premises. If your upline has a mansion and a fleet of nice cars, it's likely that your tools money played a significant part in your diamond obtaining it.
It's a simple conclusion. The tools have a higher markup than Amway products and have fewer beneficiaries to split up the bonus. A $7.00 Amway product might cost $3.00 or so to make and the rest will be bonus money split up by the layers of IBOs. Whereas a $7.00 cd might take 50 cents to produce and only platinums and higher receive any compensation from this srouce of income. But rank and file IBOs rarely ever see a true and transparent picture of this business. It is shrouded in secrecy, just like the underside of an iceberg. I challenge IBOs to be real businessmen and women and ask upline the tough questions about where the money is made. Do not accpet rhetoric and anecdotal stories. In real business, schedule C business tax returns are the normal way for verification of business income. If you are going to "invest" your hard earned money into the system to the benfit of upline, you should demand this information.
Would any of you purchase a conventional business from someone without proof that it is profitable? Why would an Amway business be any different?
When i saw the plan, the potential sponsorer stated that working 10 to 15 hours a week can give financial freedom in 2 to 5 years and you can retire. This is not true. Firstly its working 7 days a week and probaly 7 hours a day. Its 10 years to become diamond. Thats for the few how do. The rest quit. This means you can probably retire from your job. But only to work full time at amway. Then you have to maintain diamond level which is almost impossible. To try you need to continue working full time or it will all crumble. So i cant see the interest in the opportunity. You probably will make no money and in fact lose money. If you grow your business, it need full time working for the rest of your life. So its just not worth it. Why give up your free time.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. If you notice, diamonds don't walk away from Amway and retire, They keep working forever. Maybe that's why they say a diamond is forever?
ReplyDeleteSome people made diamond in 5 years, but that's not the point. Diamonds continue to do the business is because they make it as a career. They continue to want to support their emeralds and Platinums. They don't need to work, they choose to continue to help others. And why have little superficial free time and work 9 to 5 or more working for someone else their whole lives.That's
ReplyDeletethe reason. And yes material things can be shallow
but. The business can be done you just have to be humble about it.
If you are to answer to your upline about every decision to be made in your business (not to mention the AMOs who want you to answer to upline about your personal life....relationships, finances, talking to cross-line, what to read and not read, what to believe or not, etc.) are you not working for them? Don't feed us the 'working with them' routine, if it was truly 'with' them, you could tell them what to do with their business and personal life. I get it though, they have more 'experience' (though many will only have but a few months more than you) and why wouldn't you listen to someone who is actually doing it (though they aren't any more successful than you). They are your boss, unless you cut free from answering to your upline and do it yourself, fully, without someone holding your hand. Diamonds are the top boss, platinums are like regional managers and everyone else is like something out of Office Space, "I have three managers".
ReplyDeleteAn upline will be faaar more involved in your life and decision making than a the vilified boss at the job ever would.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I was in a non Amway professional training course that promoted increasing in oneself. The number figure suggested for someone to invest was no more than 3% of your yearly income! I knew people spending 20-25% of their income on personal development.