One of the disturbing things I have noticed about Amway IBOs and IBO leaders is how they wlll tell downline to trust them. To trust them as they have already blazed a trail. No need to re-invent the wheel. Just ride the coattails of your upline to success. The system is proven. Many IBOs take this to heart and put forth tremendous effort. Then when they fail, upline will shun them and tell them that the failure is their own. That they are personally responsible for failure. Why should IBOs trust in their upline and then be held accountable for failure even if they did everything they were asked to do?
Now I am not talking about IBOs who sign up and do nothing, or never place an order. I do believe that the fact that many IBOs sign up and do nothing brings concerns about how these IBOs were recruited, but I do not recall ever seeing an IBO do nothing and then complain that Amway was a scam or anything like that. But many IBOs who put forth real effort should see success if they do as they are advised. But still, this doesn't seem to be the case when you analyze Amway in depth.
I have found, however, that many people who are critical of Amway and the systems, put forth much effort, did everything they were told, and did not find the success that upline promoted, or in some cases, guaranteed. My former sponsor was still active last I heard and has been in Amway for over 20 years. I do not believe he has ever gone beyond platinum, and I know that he was never a Q12 platinum. Some Amway apologists might see being a platinum as a bonus, but when you are hard core sold out to the systems, platinum is a break even or make a small profit business at best. . Factor in that time spent by husband and wife and these folks are breaking even or making a fraction of minumum wage or even taking losses, depending on you level of commitment.. Is this the dream that will allow you to buy mansions with a cash payment? A couple working for break even money is wasting their time. Their kids lose valuable time with parents and the net result is negligible. How many people will actually look back at their time in Amway and say the time was well spent?
What is also disturbing is how people will tout the system as responsible for any success, but hide the vast majority that the system doesn't help. Sure, some will succeed in Amway, but for every success, there are hundreds if not thousands who fail. And if you consider diamond as the benchmark of success, the failures could be in the millions. As I said, some succeed, but very very few in relation to the number who try. Going diamond is probably less common in the US than winning the powerball lottery. I've heard of more big lottery winners than new diamonds emerging in Amway North America.
Succeed and the systems and upline take credit, but fail or quit and it is your own responsibility even if you did the work. Are these the kinds of leaders or mentors you want advice from?
7 comments:
The blame the victim scam. No matter what the IBO does or how they do it, they'll be told them are doing it wrong because "it's foolproof, so if you did it right you'd be rolling in money, wouldn't you?'
It's like you sell someone a "magic rock". You tell them "all you have to do is rub it and all your wishes will come true". The next day they come back and say "I rubbed it and rubbed it and rubbed it until my hand was raw, but my wishes didn't come true." The scammer will tell them "Well, obviously you didn't rub it the right way. I can sell you a DVD that shows you just how to do it right". So they buy it and come back the next day saying "I rubbed the rock exactly how they did it on the DVD, yet still my wishes didn't come true". The scammer will frown at them and say "well, millions of people have rubbed the magic rock and all their dreams came true, so it HAS to be you doing it wrong. Let me sell you books written by those who rubbed the rock right. They will guide you on how to do it properly."
And so on and so forth. It's how the game is played. The truth is there is no "right way". It's a scam. Just like Amway. The whole system is flawed, from the overpriced products no one will buy other than the IBO to the difficulty in recruiting enough people into the scam to even break even. Mathematically a downline would have to be in the thousands to make anywhere close to the kind of money they claim that will allow the beaches of the world to be walked by them. As most discover, recruiting even one or two is a monumental task. Most people can smell a pyramid scam.
The real money is made selling the Magic Rock Rubbing DVDs and books.
@Joecool - I just read the comment from the guy who reported in about how he "met" a "friend" who "seems" pretty nice and genuine. Sounds like a public cold sale to me. Fortunately he has the sense to look before he leaps headlong into Amway, which is exactly what this "friend" and his upline will undoubtably commence to try to convince him to do. I hope for his sake that he hasn't told anybody in Amway that he is actually doing some research on them because I can just imagine how they would act if they find out. He would draw the attention of others in the group and they would either scorn him for his "negativity" and/or they would love bomb him to draw him closer in. I've seen first hand how this thing works. Everybody warms up to you and you can't help but feel good about yourself and the others in the group around you. Of course the whole thing is designed and polished to blur your critical thinking and to make matters worse, most of them in the group actually do seem sincere because they believe in it themselves. If that commenter is reading this I just want him to hear it from me that Amway is an outright scam. Making a one time purchase is one thing but actively pushing it and then breaking free of it means admitting to your friends and family you were scammed after you tried to recruit them into it too. That is so painful that many keep wasting their time, money and life in Amway for years in a desperate but ultimately futile attempt to make it work and prove them wrong. And then Amway makes you feel like a failure if you cut your losses and quit. To quote Amway blogger Anna Banana: "They really kick you in the nuts." This business has a failure rate of over 99% despite everything they tell you. Please please continue to research this thing. Suggested research: go to "Mike's Ramblings" and click "Amway = Wrong Way". Mike went to an Amway meeting himself and then did his own research and he breaks it down very clearly the reason why Amway doesn't work in any practical sense but for a very selected few. So good luck to the commenter and congratulations for the good sense to not go in blindly.
Back to Joecool - I was thinking the same thing about the lottery. Fifty states have often multiple lottery winners almost every week. Lottery winners far outweigh the Amway Diamonds, no doubt about it. And another thing, isn't marketing, after all, supposed to be a means of product distribution? If so, then Amway is an abysmal failure. Over fifty years into the game and nobody in the public uses Amway product except for Amway distributors themselves and a few of their family and friends who feel compelled to make pity purchases. So how about it Amway, fifty some years talking about how great your stuff is and how come nobody uses it except the people you trick into buying a garage full of it?
Yep, people should be wary when the Amway folks are telling prospects not to research Amway. If it was such a good deal, they would encourage people to do all the research they want and they wouldn't worry about what a prospect might find. Instead, the uplines want to keep everything a dark secret. For that reason, Amway draws cult comparisons at times.
Good comparison. The upline claims to have some magic secret to Amway if you will buy their DVDs and attend their seminars. Then if you don't make it, they will say you obviously didn't do it right so it's your own fault.
Thanks for the advise man, I won't be bothered and actually glad if they scorned me, as it would prove me right and save my time not contributing in this scam. Moreover, since I have my own social group, I do not seek any affiliation or bonding with them, we have different culture anyways (Indians/ Chinese). I can always exit their group and block all of their contacts. I am not desperate with money. I am just wondering if I can earn some minor profit during my free time. I do find a concept I'm interested in called affiliate marketing through this. They invited me to a seminar tmr, tell me if I should go or not. If the starting kit is refundable, I do not mind wasting their gas money and energy just to provide you guys more updated information. cough cough undercover mission!
I provided more information from the previous post not sure if you are interested
Affiliate marketing is easier. There's basically no cost and you can use a free blog like this one to make money. I haven't made money from my Amazon links but I know someone whose blog makes him about a hundred bucks a month from Amazon.
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