Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Exploit Your Family And Friends?

Happy Thanksgiving from Joecool's Blog!   I hope you all receive an extra portion of blessing this year.  In the meantime, I posted this article about IBOs trying to exploit family and friends:

Many prospects see the Amway plan, and get unrealistic dreams of attaining incredible material wealth and retiring in a few years. I find it strange that nobody has been able to point out anyone who actually got in, worked a few years and then walked away from the business and is now enjoying buckets of cash rolling in while they spend their days on exotic beaches sipping mai tais. The more likely scenario will be debt, higher credit card bills, and boxes of unused cds and other various products. The alleged wealthy people in Amway are often spoken about but have you ever heard of or known someone who was retired and living a luxurious lifestyle because they made so much money in Amway? I know Amway IBOs hear about it, but they believe it without any kind of actual evidence. I could say I am retired because I make millions by blogging, but is that believable? In the same train of thought, do you believe that people join and work hard for 2-5 years and then enjoy life with financial freedom and live happily ever after?

So why would someone joining the business become annoying? It's because to the average person, it becomes clear that to achieve this, you need to find "six" people. Thus, to find six people, you need to make contacts to show the plan. Cold contacts of people on the street would be unlikely, even for the boldest of people, so new IBOs start looking at people they know. They start with people they are familiar with, or family and friends. They may also think their family and friends will want to get rich with them. So, the IBOs start making phone calls and contacts. Pretty soon all your family and friends know about your involvement in Amway, and most will not be interested. Where do you recruit now? That's when the cold contacts begin, which makes it nearly impossible to succeed in Amway.

Sadly, for most new and enthusiastic IBOs, they will find that they are shunned by family and friends. Over the years, IBOs have done too much damage to Amway's reputation and overcoming this challenge is too much for the rank and file IBOs. They will hear stories about failures and opinions that Amway is a pyramid and/or a scam. Of course, IBOs will have "canned" answers to respond to from their upline. One of the humorous ones is that Amway is praised by the BBB or the FTC and is the shining example of an MLM. To those familiar with this line of reasoning, it can become side splitting humorous.

At first, the family and friends may humor the new IBO, but relentless persistence can eventually turn ugly. This is where uplines will teach the new IBOs to avoid "negative" and to shun these family and friends. This is why some people charge the Amway leaders with being cult - like. It's at about this point where IBOs might realize that Amway products are costly and try to sell off some of them to reduce their own costs. Often times, sympathetic family and friends might make a token purchase to show support. but that can get old in a hurry also. Most IBOs will eventually quit and make amends with family and friends, but some lose friendships for good.

To information seekers and new IBOs, hopefully this message is food for thought......

7 comments:

Ali said...

My childhood friend has been sucked in to this Amway crap. She went to school to be an RN and quit her job to sell amway on her quest to "financial freedom". She slipped once and said that her business is in debt but then quickly changed the topic. Her poor husband works his butt off to support the family. She berates me constantly for having the dreaded J.O.B. and not spending time at home with the kids as she claims she does. How her schedule is SO free with time to do whatever she wants. However she is spending her precious time and money driving to meetings and conferences all over the place. Its unbelievable. I went to a meeting with her once to humour her (she wasnt forthcoming at first that it was amway) and it was all crazy talk. People on stage talking about how they are retired and buying yaghts and how everyone can be millionaires if they follow the plan. How can people believe this shit. OR how you can make 6 figures in just a few years. Its so hard seeing someone sucked in so deep.

Joecool said...

That is a really sad sad story. RN's make really good money. Think about the lost income and the family's future over the bad decision to quit school.

Funny as the IBOs don't seem to see that they neglect their families in order to play the game called Amway.

Ali said...

It is so sad. I had thought in the first couple months of her opening her "business" that she would see it for what it really was but now she is so deep in it and I am sure she will bankrupt her family. I thought about sending her links to this blog and others like it but then I am sure she would just say I am negative. Do you have any tips for helping family / friends see the light? or is it a lost cause?

Joecool said...

If you are seen as "negative", she will avoid you. You can ask questions like how much profit are you turning for all your investment? But most times, like catching a cold, you can only let it run its course and hope the damage isn't too bad. Most people snap out of it in less than a year but some get hooked for a long time. My former upline was involved in 1993 and he's still chasing the end of the rainbow.

I hope your friend snaps out of it soon and hopefully, before too much financial damage is done to her family.

Unknown said...

I did not meet one is retired but I meet 5 diamonds in last two month face to face , including 2 new diamonds came up his year, for N.A market. I hear their stories and fully trust their telling the true base on things can be easily verify (just see the house and check the sales record, see the pins from amway , talk around with people) .

Is it a achievable ? Yes , seeing one from 0-300,000 in 5 years , you must agree it is possible. But it is not easy and not for everyone. However , you can do it as part time and make reason am money if you follow our plan. If you work hard and right , you could success with MLM ( not just amway)

Joecool said...

Hearing stories, seeing houses and sales records are not an indication of anyone's income. Stories are just stories. Houses can have big mortgages or can be rented and sales mean nothing when you don't know how much business expenses went into it.

Unknown said...

well, it is good to question , but just question won't make you success. I remember Holly told the store that she spend two months income just come to New York to see if there really a double crown years back. So the easy way is come and check it out.

We know how much expense went into business . I can do number petty well as I am educated to do so. I can research a business find out the expense range , it won't be so far away from true. A diamond cost a little more but it won't have to spend more than 5k a year, still making 20K net with other benefits.