What does the HR department is a company do? Recruit? THat's what I was told when a diamond speaker was trying to downplay the fact that so many Amway IBOs are focused on recruiting. If you've ever been accosted by a zealous and probably new Amway IBO, you'll probably know what I"m talking about. Newly sponsored IBOs often have the motivation and zeal to try to recruit anyone and everyone they know. They are trying to achieve what upline has told them is needed to accomplish their "dreams". Afterall, nobody is going diamond or even platinum without an army of downline right?
BUt upon closer inspection, you can see the real problem. I mean if I as an IBO could simply sell tons of products for a profit, then my focus doesn't have to be on recruiting, but simply on sales. But over the years, I've unsuccessfully challenged IBOs and Amway defenders to name 1 or 2 people who has sizable Amway businesses sustained primarily by sales and not by recruiting an army. Of course, nobody has even been able to give me an answer. AN\nd that's because Amway products are generic in nature but premium in prices. It makes it a tough sell when your friends and family can get far more product and value at a retailers at a a fraction of the cost of Amway products. Try doing an open minded price comparison and you'll easily see what I mean.
For these reasons, upline developed the concept of buy from yourself and get others to do the same. People generally do not like selling things anyway so it makes sense that a concept of buying from your own store makes the Amway business seem more palatable to the masses. Of course the problem with this method is that you end up focusing on recruiting and you've turned Amway into a pyramid scheme. Look at the recent FTC vs. Herbalife. They found that a majority of sales were not made to actual customers but appeared to be made to the distributors themselves. Herbalife is required to tracked these sales now and it's yet to be seen how this FTC injunction will impact Herbalife long term.
But if you're a prospect or an IBO and focused on recruiting, then you are likely doing so because you too, are unable to sell Amway products just like all the critics claim. Oh, I've heard stories of people having hoards of customers but nobody has ever shown evidence of such nobody can answer why the "diamonds" seemingly have large groups of downline "buyin for themselves". Like the mysterious "Amway retireees" that no one can identify, nobody has been able to identify a few successful and sustainable Amway businesses that relies on product sales primarily. It's because the majority of groups are basically focused on recruiting and running pyramid schemes.
Yep, that is the core problem with the Amway opportunity, and that is what the IBO's that rationalise your blog with the "our line is different, I'm sorry about your particular experience with the bad apples" don't get.
ReplyDeleteIf your plan to be successful involves recruiting others who would also be recruiting (wannabe recruiters) if they plan to succeed at all, there is an obvious sustainability constraint which no amount of hard work or eradication of bad apples is going to overcome. That is why it's called a pyramid.
Preventing this is the intended purpose of the never-applied 10 customer rule, which should (apart from actually getting applied) be based on turnover, not customer count.
The "beauty" of an Amway pyramid for the lucky top dogs (Compared to the more obvious airplane games) is that it continuously replaces the bottom to prevent it from going bust. (With "Look, it's still going strong after decades" being a popular Amway anti-pyramid argument).
It can go on forever, but it shares with the airplane game the certainty of producing a majority of losers at any point in time. Not only that, the number of joiners who graduate from the recycling bottom to join the established top dogs is close to zero. The success rate is not only very small, it is actually a far better approximation of the truth to simply say it is zero, than to pretend it is realistically possible.
The recycling bottom in the Amway pyramid is what used to be called "the churn." This meant the great mass of new IBOs who would stay in Amway for a few months, and then be regularly replaced by other new IBOs, in a continuous cycle. The churn is constantly moving, and being replaced -- but the money generated by their momentary enthusiasm continues to flow upwards to those at the top of the pyramid.
ReplyDeleteThe basic policy seems to go like this: Keep 'em in Amway for as long as you can (six months to a year, usually), and then when they lose interest or get wise to the racket replace them with fresh suckers. Keep this "churn" going, and eventually you'll become a Platinum.