One of the things Amway promoters often use to entice prospects into joining is to get them to think about financial dreams and goals that they would like to accomplish. After all, who wouldn't want to be retired at age 29 and walking on the exotic beaches of the world? Or who wouldn't want to live a life of leisure and excitement with unlimited barrels of cash rolling in to finance all of the fun and frivolity?
Of course most people get excited by this.
Sadly, the things that people get excited by, or the things that people join for, often become less accessible because of people's involvement in Amway. Not due to Amway itself, but because of the leach organizations that attach themselves to the Amway business. These organizations will promote their materials as the key to success in Amway, but in reality, these organizations reap handsome profits while basically bankrupting the downline IBOs. What is also sad is that the system does not deliver the success that is touted. Less than one half of one percent even reach the platinum level, which is allegedly the level where you break even or make a small profit.
During my tenure in the business, uplines taught us to buy all the materials. Books, standing order tapes/cds, functions, and other materials. In fact, in addition to standing order, upline wanted IBOs to purchase an additional 5-7 tapes or cds each week. Afterall, you should be listening to new material right? In fact, upline wanted people to "invest" or spend all of their income on these materials. In an open meeting setting, a diamond said that your famioly could skip a meal to get another tape/cd because the information was so valuable that you might hear the one thing that propels you to diamond. Almost as if buying a tape/cd was like some lottery ticket.
And sadly, some IBOs did go "all in". They bought tools like there was no tomorrow. In my crossline, there was a couple who went bankrupt and a couple whose home was foreclosed. Now was this financial difficulty all due to their involvement in Amway? I don't know, but certainly, buying hundreds of dollars of materials on a monthly basis cas certainly contribute to someone's financial problems. And these IBOs did this on upline's advice. Thus upline advised this even when they likely knew that these IBOs were in financial difficulty. If they would tell you to starve your kids, then surely they will not be concerned about your other issues. I also sat in a function where a diamond taught about how long you can put off paying a mortgage before foreclosure would occur. Probably so people could go in hock to attend a major function.
It is a sad thing indeed when uplines will try to sell you dreams. What's worse is when they are actually selling you broken dreams.
They know no shame as to what they will "advise" a downline to do in order to meet some "can't miss" function or buy enough for their PV or more "tools". They counsel them to miss weddings, birthdays, funerals, school plays. They advise them to take out a second mortgage. They advise them to miss meals, to not go on vacations. Basically, to not do ANYTHING that might keep more money from bleeding into the upline's hands. I remember reading once where one upline advised a man to sell his wife's wedding ring (I guess she didn't regularly wear it), telling him "she'll forgive you when you can buy her one with a diamond that is 10 times bigger".
ReplyDeleteMany upline have no conscience whatsoever, which it basically mandatory for anyone who wants to "succeed" at Amway, because for any one person to even have a hope in hell of making any kind of profit, they have to scam and deceive a LOT of people into LOSING money. The only way for someone at the top of a pyramid chain to make money is for a LOT of people below them to be losing money. It's the only way it works.
Good comments. I heard the same thing in 1997. Never miss a function, Skip family events, even weddings. They say you only miss a function if you're attending your own funeral. I heard that families can skip meals to buy a cd/tape because you might hear the one thing that propels you to diamond. I saw some couples lose their homes because upline advised them to skip a few payments so they could attend functions. These upline were ruthless when it came to draining your bank accounts into theirs.
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