Monday, August 18, 2014

Amway Is Great!

Over the years I have been debating with Amway supporters, I cannot see what is so great about the Amway opportunity. Are some of these Amway defenders that stupid or dense that they truly believe that a business where one out of a few hundred people might make a profit and most of the remaining IBOs will lose money is a good opportunity? I'm not talking about people who sign up and "do nothing". Many IBOs sign up and put in a great deal of time, effort and money, only to find out that the system simply does not work (especially in the US) and they make a business decision to quit and/or to do something else.

Of course there are some people who make money in Amway. If nobody made money, then the opportunity would cease to exist. But it is basically exploitation of the downline that accounts for upline success. Amway's admission that sales to non IBOs are low, confirms this. Thus certain upline make their income from their downline's PV volume, and on tool purchases. I mean even a lottery has winners. Even ponzi schemes and other questionable opportunties have some winners. This is not to suggest that Amway in not legal. Amway is perfectly legal, but the way the opportunity is set up, those who profit, primarily do so at the expense of their trusted downline.

There are no groups that I know of where all the IBOs can win and earn a profit. I would guess that there might be a few rogue groups who only focus on retail sales, and while these groups can be profitable as a group, they are few and far between. This is because most IBOs fall under an LOS such as WWDB, BWW, LTD or N21, and these groups all seemingly focus on recruiting of new IBOs. Yes, they may sprinkle in some suggeestions about selling goods, but generally speaking, their "training" materials consist of motivation speeches, feel good stories (whether true or not), and the theme of never quitting while continuing to purchase more tools.

Some upline have the nerve to start teaching downline that their Amway business is not about making money, but to save your marriage, make you a nicer person, or some other diversion to make you forget that you are losing money month after month after month. Some groups even mix in religion and politics into their functions and meetings. As far as I can see, the typical business buildiing IBO signs up, gets some of the tools and attends a few functions, and finds that the products are hard to sell because they are not priced competetively with other retailers, and that a damaged reputation is nearly impossible to overcome. These IBOs realize they are not going anywhere, and they walk away, chalking up the losses as a life lesson. But apparently, many uplines who lied and deceived in the past are continuing to do so today, often just revising history for their benefit (i.e. lying about making any profit on tools).

Many IBOs, prospects, information seekers and critics read this blog. My question is very simple. What is so great about the Amway opportunity? For most, it is just a bad use of time and money. While some may exist, I don't know of a single person who "did the work once" and sat back collecting barrels of Amway money while sipping Mai Tais on the beaches of Jamaica. I see crown ambassadors working as hard today as they did many years ago. Diamonds losing homes to forclosures, a prominent diamond in bankruptcy proceedings, and a hoard of WWDB diamonds apparently selling off mansions that they allegedly paid for in cash. (It os quite possible that their lifestyles are simply not sustainable).

Where is the benefit in the business for the typical IBO? Just as there are some diamonds, there are lottery winners. Displaying a lottery winner doesn't make it prudent to spend your money on lottery tickets. Displaying a diamond's lifestyle doesn't make Amway a good opportunity. While Amway is a business and not a game of chance, the results of either, sadly are eerily similar - that is a few winners and millions of non winners.

What is so great about the Amway opportunity? I don't see it.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Knew some Ibo's from dean kosage downline. After they quit they talked about how sad Amway is. Stuff about him being forced out because of the stuff critics wrote. Something about pressure probably from wwdb management. So residual income for life doesn't really happen. I hear brad Duncan talk about loving marriages and I see so many divorces in wwdb. Then u see Greg's bankruptcy and other stuff. The stuff online made it nearly impossible to build in north america

Joecool said...

The WWDB diamonds loved the adulation and being worshipped. But as time wore on, we saw lies exposed such as the divorces, the home foreclosures, the Duncan bankruptcy. I wonder if the functions have smaller numbers? I have heard but cannot confirm that the venues for functions are getting smaller. I have heard of IBO's being encouraged to attend multiple functions. If that is true, the diamonds may eventually kill their own golden goose.

Anonymous said...

What I'm noticing is more smaller events involving just a platinum speaker at hotels. This is a huge diff than the 80s or early 90s. Matter of time before they think of a new scheme to milk money for even more than the usual function or tool

Joecool said...

Smaller functions means less money for the diamonds. It would explain why some diamonds exploit their downline and tell them to attend multiple functions. Killing the golden goose eventually.

Anonymous said...

Was listening to a diamond in wwdb talk about being given permission to retire from work by his upline. How is this even freedom? You constantly have to ask upline for permission. Gotta ask for permission for marriage,children,purchases,travel,and every dam thing u can think of.

Joecool said...

Yeah, they want you to submit to upline. I was told that in the 90's and it seems that it still goes on. They used to say why not ask, it couldn't hurt anything. You don't own any business. Amway and your uplines own your business. If you don't believe me, try doing things your own way and let your upline know about it and see how that goes.