Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Where's The Money?

I find it humorous when so many IBOs talk about their anecdotal stories of success, or talk about how their system teaches a foolproof way of succeeding in Amway. Yet I have not seen a single IBO who was willing to describe their business structure or talk about how they progressed from zero PV into a profitable structure. Amway's biggest defender, IBOfightback is a good example of someone who can talk a good game but cannot back it up with evidence of any success in Amway. Back in my IBO days, someone who could talk a good game was a teacher, and not a doer. Many IBOs may have a good theory about how to build a business but evidence clearly shows that it is talk and not action. One specific example is how an IBO is supposed to find 20 customers who each buy 20 PV from an IBO. Amway's own numbers show that an IBO who can actually do this is rare or non existent. Less than 4% of Amway's products, apparently are sold to those who are not IBOs. IBOfightback sits in the quiet confines of his blog where his kool aid induced followers blindly agree with everything he says. Apparently, IBOFightback is all theory and no results. So I say - show us the money someone.

Based on my observations, most IBOs have a small business, unable to sponsor enough downline to move any significant volume. They faithfully self consume 100 PV and do most of the CORE steps, except for being able to consistently show the plan and sponsor downline. Why is this? It is because the Amway reputation is stained and getting people to see the plan is an enormous challenge by itself, not taking into consideration that sponsoring is even harder. If you are reading this blog and you can relate to what you see here, perhaps you need to re-think your business situation and ask your sponsor some tough questions.

Now this leads to another question. Other than flashing a photocopy of someone's diamond bonus or the like, has your sponsor or anyone upline actually showed evidence of a profit in Amway? If you asked, what response did you receive? When I asked my sponsor about profit, I was told it was "none of my business". I believe that someone who is asking you to follow their system, which is not free, should be tasked with providing this information. If your upline teaches submission to upline, even more so you should demand to see results.

If your upline or sponsor refuses to show you evidence of profit, it should send up red flags all over the place. Maybe, just maybe, the critics of Amway are onto something.

40 comments:

Anonymous said...

IBOFightback is a money-grubbing hustler, pure and simple. He's tried to establish a business that does nothing but defend MLMs from any and every attack on the internet.

Maybe he honestly believes that Amway and its various teams are legitimate. But does he honestly believe that every single MLM out there isn't a scam?

IBOFightback is like a Mafia lawyer. He has no problem defending anything his clients pay him to defend.

Anonymous said...

Nobody showing "the Plan" dares to mention the dread word "Amway." It would be the kiss of death.

Telling your prospective recruits that you are working for Amway would be like telling a girl whom you're trying to date that you have herpes, AIDS, and syphilis. You're not gonna get very far.

Joecool said...

Yes, IBOFB has been known to be low on morals and he will defend Amway and MLM to the death, even when faced with insurmountable evidence.

Joecool said...

It's funny watching IBOs spin and turn to avoid mentioning Amway. Then it's funny to watch their canned answer when a prospect asks them about it.

Unknown said...

I have recently had a very interesting discussion with an Ambot on a Kiyosaki youtube channel, because he was trying to give a lot of naysayers a positive perspective on Amway. It turns out the trademark lines when discussing these points with Ambots logically are "Why are you so mad?," and "After I finish my point don't bother responding as I grow bored of this and you will have said nothing of value." This is the sign that they are the ones who are in fact mad, and they have no valuable points to add...not that they had any to start with.

My biggest gripe with all of this BS is that these people can go to sleep knowing that they are morally corrupting people for self gain...so yes I'M MAD. People like you are destroying my friend's that are vulnerable, and I take high offense to that!

Joecool said...

It does seem that people defending Amway get very upset when you point out Amway's deficiencies. What's also odd is how people think Kiyosaki is some financial guru when in fact he is not even a successful Amway IBO and appears to make his money selling books to Amway IBOs.

Unknown said...

Ugh the guy who made me read business in the 21st century talked up Robert kiyosaki as this amazing billionaire business mogul. When I started doing my research it took me less than 1 minute to find pages and pages of dirt on that scum bag. He proves again the ugly truth about how ridiculously profitable the useless tool game is. The most insane thing is these people are paying for full bachelors degrees they could be getting in business with the money they put into tools. No teachers that I have met at the state college level and below are making in the 6 figure range from their trade. So why the hell are people paying this much for any advice let alone awful advice...maybe I should write a book about how to be an amazing violinist since I have the same expertise level at that like kiyosaki does in business.

Anonymous said...

The fact is that Amway defenders are not willing to argue, in the traditional sense of exchanging ideas and examining evidence.

They are interested solely in proselytizing -- which means they are totally fixated on making a display of themselves and their virtue. That's why they won't answer direct questions, and won't deal with inconvenient facts. And they get furious if you put them on the spot.

Kiyosaki? His book is pure Amway drivel. It might better be titled "The Amway Hymn Book."

Joecool said...

You're right. If Amway worked, how hard would it be to come up with a good argument supported by facts. Instead, we get anecdotal stories and photo copies of checks as evidence of Amway success. I don't buy it.

Joecool said...

Kiyosaki's system is a scam. He was challenged to make money with $1000 using his own system and he could not. His making money seminars are scams that only sell you more expensive seminars. I can't even believe people entertain such drivel.

Anonymous said...

Ask some critical questions and you will get the following responses:

1. "None of your business."
2. "Never question upline."

In other words, they have a body language that is hard to explain but simply "evasive mannerism". Your upline will smile and get nervous at you when you ask critical questions.

Anonymous said...

I think the body language you are trying to describe is the same sort of movement you see in a shyster lawyer, a loudmouthed televangelist, a crummy used-car salesman, a carnival pitchman, a middle-management flack, or any snotty government bureaucrat.

It's a kind of glassy-eyed stare combined with a shit-eating grin of fake apology. Amway defenders always seem to have it when you give them some really tough talk about the Amway fraud. They'll come up with canned excuses, silly slogans, and catchwords picked up from the speech of some Diamond at a function. And they'll always be wearing that shit-eating smile of self-satisfaction as they do so.

This body movement and phony kind of speech are the essence of dishonesty and lying. Any experienced cop would tell you, if you showed this kind of movement and language to him, that you were a liar and you had better come up with the truth RIGHT NOW!

But people in Amway are so used to lying that they probably can't change.

Joecool said...

Amway-bots are good at telling half truths and hoping you won't figure it out.

The canned responses are actually quite funny when you are already aware of the Amway scam.

Unknown said...

The money come from selling product. Simple enough? We are equally focus on retail selling and recruiting , not just recruiting. As amway has good product and sells well. Yes, it sales , the number prove it. Yes most of them sell to "IBO" so call, well, most of my downline IBO just customers as I can assume it apply to most IBOs in record they just consumers who share a little bit to friends around. They never intend to make much from it , treat those 3 or 6% "commission" just a cash back or discount. They might attend meeting once a while for whatever reason. Only a tiny percent of them would actually become active IBO, which why we only need 6 to be diamond.

Joecool said...

You can seel some product ad make a little money but the REAL money comes from recruiting downline and selling them tools.

Unknown said...

No , you don't get pay by recruiting downline . We don't sell tools at all. You get pay if only if your downline sell something . Give you a real simple . I am a man have no knowledge of beauty product, my upline is good at it, so I just have bring the customer in, and she done the sell, and we both get paid ( yes, both) , good enough ?

All money comes from selling the product , if you have 1000 IBOs downline , but no one sell anything , you get 0 dollars. Even you have no downline but you can move 10k a month ( not hard, I done that by just selling tea) you get well paid.

Joecool said...

First of all, if you don't get paid for recruiting, why do most IBOs recruit like crazy? They recruit because you can't make serious money without a big downline.

And your line about selling all those profuts is questionable. Why would anyone buy when they can sign up and buy at wholesale?

Unknown said...

people buy because they like the product or they like your services or whatever but the facts is the product sells. The sales data support it and my experience also do so .
I don't understand what you mean "crazy" . Recruiting is important as well as maintaining, but retailing also as play important role . Of course , there is nothing wrong to work hard on both of them.

Anonymous said...

Spot on!! There is no way to move 10k without downlines. you need downlines to "shield" yourself from income loss. The other way is to sell it to normal customers....

Anonymous said...

I think Qiunan Tang may be writing from an Asian nation, where the "Tools Scam" is not yet in operation. If he is indeed making his money from retail sales and commissions, then he is doing what Amway was originally intended to do.

Joecool said...

Quiran did confirm that they run functons so they have a tool scam iike the rest of Amway.

Joecool said...

You can't make real money without recruiting. Bottom line. If people really sign up as IBOs for discounts, then you're not selling much product. However, I believe you're not accurate about this.

Unknown said...

We are also in us for 20 years. And , we have new diamond , edc and triple diamond just last year. Running functions is not a tool scam. First it cost very little to attend and just 2 times a year. It merely cover the cost to host it. Second , attending is optional , although we encourage people come , we don't push them to come. We type and record it for those cant come and give them for free.

How can you blindly call functions as scam ? I attended a lot of function and can easily compare the cost that proves that our function is in really reasonable price.

Unknown said...

Depend on what you mean by real money. To make 2k a month, you don't have to have any downline. I can move that much sell by my own. Is it call real money? We find six people you are diamond. People recruiting like crazy are doing wrong ! I can say so because world number told us don't ask a new guy to join the business at first 5 meeting.
The amway business is simple . First I sold you something , if you like , keep and using it, buy from me, sign up for discount and cash back. If not , return it and get Your money back (you can even return a empty bottle and get full money back in 6 months! ) and pass. Then , if you want to share it to your friends then just do so and get some more cash back. Last , if you feel it is good for you to sell it as I do and make more money, come and join us.

Joecool said...

But Amway stuff is so expensive that mostly sympathetic family and friends buy it from you. The rest are IBOs buying their own product.

Joecool said...

If the functions do not result in more sales, then the functions are ineffective. in fact, unless sales go up much more than $100,000 (the cost IBOs pay to attend the function), then the function was a waste of everyone's time and money.

Unknown said...

No, only like about 10% of sales are come from family or close friends. I have no problem to sell product as their nice, high quality product . Yes all of them are IBOs but as I said in other post , I sign all customer up as IBOs so if in case the refer such good product to their friends they get some reward.

Anonymous said...

Well, Joe, it sounds to me that Qiunan Tang is sincere. He would seem to be working in a foreign country, where a different culture and a different mentality allow for a simple kind of MLM that isn't exploitative and greedy as they tend to be here in the U.S.A.

The idea that "functions" in his country are taped, and then provided for free to those who cannot attend, is profoundly different from what happens in America, where non-attendance at "functions" is considered a form of high treason, and will get you abused and vilified by your up-line. And his business does appear to be heavily weighted towards retail selling, which in the America of Amway is now derided as a waste of time by up-line.

Joecool said...

He may very well be but his logic seems a bit off. He says he tries to retail which is great but why would you sign up downline for wholesale when you could sell it to them at full retail?

Joecool said...

If you sign up your customers as IBOs, how do you make any sales? You have given away your retail profits.

Unknown said...

Because we are looking at long term . With out the retail profit , we can still make up to 24% bv commission and don't worry about they turn to buy From others and more and more .
I work both in USA and China , and our system also doing business in U.S although most English speakers don't know us much but in fact we are doing very well in NA market also. I am in Las Vegas attending our function for second time (in Vegas ). I can't common on other system since I never be with them. But it is a clear fact showing we are growing and we has been the best for last ten years. Holly Chen has been given speech all over the world, and their story can be found in all langue , on the wsj and New York Times also.

Clearly , amway wasn't as success in NA as they are in other market. After reading the information here and some other place , I would say the system you have here play a big role. Amway using the same business model worldwide , 30 years in Taiwan , 20 year in China and 20+ years in Japan , Korea , Thailand or even much smaller market like Malaysia , we all have FC and grow well. We also doing well in EU. So why it become a scram only in U.S? That a good question to ask those U.S amway leader, namely the English speaking lead , because if I remember correctly , last year the only one new FC in us market is from Spanish market .
So why you still just looking the going down system like wwdb but blind to those new system ?

Unknown said...

you have to be in the function to judge if it is helpful.
Quick respond to retail price vs wholesale , I still make 3-20% when we sold at wholesale price .

Joecool said...

I don't need to be there. The numbers tell a story. If you spent money on a function and your sales don't go up, you may have wasted your money.

Joecool said...

So you are confirming what I've been saying. You need to recruit to make money in Amway.

Anonymous said...

Because finding normal consumers is extremely hard and often times impossible.

Consumers can just go to Costco for better deals and Costco even offers a cash back credit card which is the same as the commission earned in any mlm.

Therefore, he needs a lot of downline to "shield" himself from losses by moving those products to downline.

Anonymous said...

Then those IBOs that you sign up becomes your competitor?

Joecool said...

Of course. If you are all operating like Amway franchises, anyone you sign up becomes a competitor in a way. Sure you get a percentage of their sales but they are still a competing business.

Anonymous said...

I remembered that when I read the book written by Kiyosaki, he despised education so much that he even belittled his own father for having an education and ended up being an employee.

Joecool said...

Kiyosaki is a scammer too

Anonymous said...

They become very upset once you tell them the truth that joining mlm is like committing a financial "suicide".