Building an Amway business. That's what many Amway IBOs set out to do, except they don't know how to build a business. Based on IBO behavior and the things they say and do, it makes me wonder what their upline actually knows about building a business. A typical business owner will get started, and needs people to know that their business is there. Seems that advertising of some sort is important, but so many IBOs end up giving people a bad impression in doing this because they are clumsy and may repeat ill advised practices taught by upline.
When you open a store or a restaurant, you may not make a lot of money intitially because not enough customers know about your store and you have not yet built a reputation. New customers who have a good experience are likely to return for more, and they are also likely to tell others about your store. Over time, you create a customer base and your weekly sales become consistent and somewhat predictable. Conversely, if customers have a bad experience, they are likely to tell others as well.
In the Amway business, many IBOs have no idea about building a business. They are shown great (apparent but unverified) wealth by upline, and then they are told that their business activity consists of showing the plan, listening to standing order and attending functions. Most of an IBO's activity (as prescribed by upline) costs money instead of generating sales. Some uplines do teach IBOs to sell items, but more often than not, it is not taught as a priority and because of uncompetitive prices, sales becomes more and more difficult as you run out of sympathetic friends and family who make purchases.
What's more, as I said, a new business will get repeat customers when a customer has a good experience. What do you suppose happens when IBOs lie or trick people into attending Amway meetings, or deceive people about their business, or make up wild stories about perfect water? What happens when you embellish the truth about success and then cannot provide an answer when a recruit asks and IBO how they are doing in the Amway business? What happens when an IBO tells a potential recruit that he or she is a loser or stupid for not joining Amway? Would you return to a store if they called you stupid as you were leaving? What if you were called a loser?
These are the reasons why IBOs in general cannot get enough customers to sustain a consistent and predictable amount of sales, and why over the years, Amway has at best a spotty reputation. Just the mention of the name Amway and you may get funny looks from people. It is why certain internet zealots promoting or defending Amway do more harm than good.
Because of the Amway obsession with "always being positive," IBOs are forced to lie and say "My business is doing great!" all the time. Being honest and saying that you haven't seen any profit yet is absolutely taboo. You MUST always fake success in the eyes of others. Amway up-line won't let you do otherwise.
ReplyDeleteNaturally this backfires. You can't hide the truth permanently, and sooner or later it comes out that you are making nothing or very little at your Amway "business." This is the real reason why Amway has such a rotten reputation, and why people run when they hear the name.
Lying about profit and loss is the quickest way to convince outsiders that your business is a fraud.