One thing my sponsor often told the group was that many of us were "playing" Amway. What he meant was that many people can listen to a tape or CD every day, read a success book 15-30 minutes each day, attend all the functions, use and/or sell 100 PV or more each month, but never make progress in the business. Basically what he was saying was unless you are showing the plan and sponsoring downline, you are just playing Amway. And while I agree, I honestly believe that most IBOs simply "play" Amway.
They can do most of the CORE steps such as listening to standing orders or cds each day. They can read every day and attend all the functions. They can even use and sell Amway products. But because of previous IBO behavior, many people cannot get anyone to see the plan, let alone sponsor others. Seems like everyone (at least in the US and Canada) know of someone who was lied to, or tricked into attending an Amway meeting. This alone has given Amway a shady reputation and just the mention of the name Amway can send people running. I was tricked into a meeting once, and as an IBO, I saw people get up, cuss and leave the meeting because they were lied to or tricked into attending a meeting based on the curiosity approach.
I do not believe that IBOs in general are dishonest or deceitful. I believe that most of them are probably motivated, wanting more in life, and hard working. But they are taught to duplicate or copy their uplines. I believe it is some of the tenured leaders who teach bad business practices that are duplicated and spreads a bad reputation like an infectious disease. I believe that because of this, Amway's North American sales tanked and now they don't even report the North American sales seperately from Global sales.
When you stop and take a deep breath, you see the signs of weakness and the chinks in the armor of the once untouchable and "divine" diamonds. We see diamonds suing other diamonds and Amway. We see diamonds losing their homes to foreclosure (so much for paying cash). A triple diamond was in chapter 7 bankruptcy and hoards of diamonds leaving their LOS along with their "awesome" mentors and lifelong friends to form their own LOS. Why is this happening? I believe it is because of greed. Why else would you leave a "mentor" and "lifelong friend" to start your own LOS? It's all about the money.
Sadly, while all of this goes on, most IBOs come and go, lose money and "play Amway" along the way. It truly saddens me that this has gone on for so long, and it looks like (in my opinion), that my former LOS, WWDB, seems to have been the worst of the bunch with no apparent improvement in the last 15 years or so.
You can "play Amway" hard, but you most likely won't make enough net profit to buy a value meal a McDonald's. Of course you are welcome to prove me wrong.
3 comments:
From what that man said to you, it's clear that the real business of Amway is not the sale of products, but recruitment of new IBOs.
In what sense is that a legitimate "business"? A business provides either goods or services. Customers pay for such good and services, and the business thereby profits.
But the entire impetus behind Amway and all MLMs is something totally different and corrupt. It's about selling nothing real, but something insubstantial. MLMs give you enthusiasm, hope, dreams, and a counterfeit self-confidence.
Are such things good? Sure, in some respects they are. But they cannot substitute, in the real world, for actual goods and services! You can't legitimately offer someone "a business opportunity that is about a business opportunity," as an Amway idiot described it here once.
This is why so many of us in the anti-MLM blogs get violently frustrated with those Amway freaks and MLM partisans who show up to defend their fake "business." Talking to them is like talking to sleepwalkers or hallucinating psychotics. They simply DO NOT SEE that they are depending on their feelings and emotions to be the source of imagined future wealth. How many of them talk about "believing" the great Amway dream?
Well, success isn't about hoping or dreaming or believing. Success is about doing something that is profitable! The entire MLM fraud is based on the crackpot notion of "mind over matter" -- i.e. the strange occult idea that you can think and imagine something into existence.
Your comments are spot on!
The "mind over matter" idea is the core of a lot of MLM fantasizing. Just look at the titles of two of the movement's favorites books: "Think and Grow Rich," and "The Power of Positive Thinking."
All of this nonsense is based on delusion, fantasy, superstition, and a belief in magic.
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