Friday, May 27, 2016

The Amway WWDB Family Reunion Function?

Very soon, many IBOs, particularly in WWDB, will be gearing up for a major function called "family reunion". In some cases, it's called "Summer Conference". I still recall attending this function as an IBO. It was held in the Rose Garden in Portland Oregon. The Rose garden seats between 15 to 20 thousand people. Although the area behind the stage is closed off, the court area is full of seats so it could possibly hold up to 20,000 IBOs or more. Amway apologists like to denounce the experience of critics but they conveniently overlook the fact that many critics sat in crowds in tens of thousands of IBOs. My sponsor, in the years before I joined, spoke of an FED function at the (then) Seattle Kingdome where there were about 50,000 IBOs in attendance.

For me, family reunion was the most expensive function I had attended. The ticket itself was $250 and being in Hawaii, a round trip airfare ticket was quite expensive as July is peak travel. We also had to dish out for hotels, rental cars and meals. I believe my total expenditure for this function was more than $1200 when it was said and done. Now I know that not all IBOs live in Hawaii but even if you live in California, you likely had to fly or drive some serious miles to get to this function. I'm not sure where the function is held now as my understanding is that there aren't nearly as many IBOs attending anymore.

The function was about hype and excitement. The speakers told tales of struggles that was overcome by perserverence and the never quit attitude. That you will make it one day if only you will sitck it out and never quit. Of course what goes on unnoticed by many is that in a crowd of 15 to 20 thousand IBOs, only a handful of diamonds can be supported by a group of that size. At the time, I didn't stop to do the math myself or I would have seen through the line that anyone can go diamond.

The Saturday evening portion of the function was about some diamonds flaunting their alleged wealth. We saw displays of jewelry, fabulous vacaations, mansions and sports cars. Of course, the diamonds never said they actually owned these goodies. Makes me wonder if some of them rented fancy cars to bring to the function as some of the diamonds probably could not afford it. After the function ended for the night, our upline expected the group to go without sleep trying to "associate" with the diamonds and other pins. We were told that their success would somehow transfer to us if we spent enough time with them.

Of course everyone went home all fired up but within a week or two, it was business as usual with no noticeable growth in anyone's group.

My question to IBOs or information seekers. Did you get what was sold with these functions? Did your PV go up in a sustainable manner? Did you start getting a flow of new downline? Was the money spent on this function ever made up by increased business? If you cannot answer yes to these questions, then what was the purpose of attending? Looking back, I'd have to say that in a business sense, the function was a waste of time and money, which is ironically what most people join the business for, but end up with less of when they get involved.

11 comments:

Paul said...

Joe, if I were you, I would have endlessly hounded and harassed the guy who had sponsored me until he saw the light and left the scam, especially since he's been in for over 10 years with no financial freedom in sight. Did you ever stop trying to save him, and why?

Joecool said...

Paul, the guy who sponsored me was a good friend from my childhood. I did try to get him to see the light and I even mailed some material to him that exposed the tools scam and other problems with Amway but he must have deemed me as "negative" and disregarded it.

Last I heard, he was still active in Amway, now over 23 years, although I'm not sure if he is still "hard core" like he was at one time.

I'm certain he has wasted the better years of his life and missed a lot of his kid's growing up days.

Some people really get hooked good.

Paul said...

Thanks, Joe. Sad story. Wow, 23 years. You never had the urge to reopen the subject with him after all these years to try to save him? Maybe he's more ready to listen to you now.

URASucker said...

JoeCool, you and I both know that these IBO's never got any growth but they're gonna tell you that they have. "Fake it till you make it."

Joecool said...

Yes, they say they have the fastest growing organization, or the most profitable, or some other BS. All of them are unsubstantiated claims of course.

Joecool said...

Truth is I hardly see him and honestly, someone who was hookedn into stayinf 23 years is not going to quit because some negative broke loser from the past calls him up to try and explain it to him.

It's sort of ironic because my friend is a physician. He's working like crazy plus Amway. I am the same age as him but I'll be retiring at the age of 55 and I'll be living quite comfortably.

What sone people don't know is when I was just out of college, I was working 2 jobs (prior to Amway) and I had invested some money in computers (microsoft), a fruit company (apple) and Marvel (spiderman, etc.) While I didn't invest enough to be a multi millionaire, I made a small fortune so that plus my 401K and pension plus a rental property I own (in Kailua, Hi), I will be living comfortably in retirement, able to travel frequently and not have any worries.

Paul said...

Thanks, Joecool, for your response. Again, proof that financial freedom is an attainable goal, through saving and smart investing. Scamway just uses the financial freedom goal to scam people into uselessly wasting both their time and money with nothing to show for it in the end. I wish you continued success, Joe.

Anonymous said...

Guys, I'm thinking of scouting out local Ambots in my area using google maps, calling them, and meeting up with them as a potential prospect, to try to save them from the scam by showing them Amway's own stats, countering Amway's brainwashing, and rebutting all their Amspeak. Do you guys think that would be a dumb thing for me to try to do?

Joecool said...

You could save them or reinforce that they're doing the right thing.

Anonymous said...

Do you have any idea how much your friend is making from his Amway business? I can only think that he would keep at it for 23 years because it is significantly adding to his income, even if it may not be enough to make him super rich. Physicians tend to have some decent brains and logic, so I doubt he would still be doing it if he kept losing money. Maybe he's fine with moderate effort and making an extra chunk of change every year, but not reaching the Diamond level...?

Joecool said...

I'm certain my friend is losing money. At 4000 PV I made nothing because upline advice was to reinvest all the profit into more training, which will eventually pay off. Also, we are from Hawaii so 3-4 functions each year are in Oregon or the west coast, which requires air travel during peak travel periods.

Last I heard, my former sponsor was at 2500 so there's no way he's making a net profit. Also, a physician who closes his office an extra few days a month to attend functions is also losing a ton of additional income.