1. The Amway products are too expensive overall to compete with other brands. While IBO's claim high quality, that is subjective and for most consumers, Amway products are not well known and seen as generic in nature with a premium price. Many people consider Amway products "satisfactory" or "average". Some people do enjoy Amway products, but overall in the US market, it clearly indicates that price is a factor and people apparently choose Costco or WalMart to get consumables and cleaning products. Also, person to person advertising is not as effective as national advertising such as Proctor and Gamble. While Amway did some advertising recently, they are too far behind in the game and their spotty reputation precedes them.
2. The Amway compensation plan is very unfair to new IBO's. The new guy does the work but gets only a tiny fraction of the generous bonus Amway pays out. A new IBO who moves 100 PV would get back $10 or so while layers of uplines split up the remaining $90 or so on bonuses generated by the 100 PV. The only way an IBO can increase volume is to sponsor downline and hope that they will also buy into the system and dedicate themselves to moving volume consistently. But this will also fail due to reasons #3 and #4.
3. Amway's reputation is so bad that sponsoring downlline to build a group is nearly impossible. Even getting people to see the plan is a tough sell. It is why building a business without some deception is nearly impossible. It is why many uplines begin to teach that Amway saves marriages, or that you become nicer by building an Amway business, or that the Amway business is about friends and not money. That is a bunch of BS. Business is about making money. If not you have joined a social club. That should be a huge red flag if your upline is teaching you that your Amway business is not about making money. If money wasn't a factor, why do they always show (but not verify) pictures and slide shows depicting untold wealth and luxury? Why do they talk about retiring young? It's all about the money!
4. The uplines push the tools scam on their downline while they make handsome profits from these books, voicemails, standing orders and functions. What's more, these tools do not help an IBO build a business because of the reaons listed above. In fact, I believe that any IBO who actually succeeds, does so in spite of the system and not because of the system. There is zero unbiased evidence to indicate that the system tools have any relationship to IBO success. And most systems are more alike than not, despite what they may claim. Also, any "success" is also not sustainable. The road to Amway riches is littered with former success stories. There are also many former diamonds/ Why would there be any former diamonds if they could collect residual income?
It is for these reasons that I believe Amway is not a good business opportunity for the vast majority of people. When you factor in the system expenses, you nearly assure yourself of a losing proposition. Do the math and do the research. Your conclusion should be clear.
6 comments:
I cannot thank you enough for this blog. I am married to a full fledged Ambot, and it is ruining our marriage. She goes to these bullshit rah rah conferences and buys into all the motivational crap. Yet, in two years, she has not recruited a single drone, not one. Keep posting and enlightening people. I have articulated the very points you have made here, to no avail. My wife is truly brainwashed by WWDB. It's sad, and I am losing my patience with her and her "dreams".
I'm sorry to hear that your wife has bitten hook line and sinker. Her WWDB leaders are probably tells her that she should avoid you because you are "negative" and I wouldn't put it past them to suggest divorce. That's how insidious they can be.
Unfortunately, Amway is like catching a cold. Most times you just need to let it run its course.
Once someone is indoctrinated, you cannot reason with them because they believe and trust their upline more than loved ones. Most people snap out of it quickly when they realize they are bleeding money but some people can get Hooke for years because they show a 2-5 year plan. I truly hope your wife snaps out of it on her own.
Without downline, I assume she is bleeding money and taking losses each month, especially if she is attending all of the functions.
I wish you well.
Dear Anonymous @ 2:50 PM --
Get your wife to read Michael Wong's excellent article "Amway = Wrong Way" at this website address:
www.stardestroyer.net/Mike/rantmode/amway
It is one of the most powerful and trenchant critiques of Amway that I have ever read.
Joecool, thanks so much for your reply and your continued efforts in trying to enlightening people about the fraud WWDB is. I want to say things have gotten better, but they have only gotten worse. I tried to surprise the family with a long weekend to the beach in August, something we desperately need. Nope. Not happening. You want to know why? It conflicts with an Ambot rah rah conference the same weekend, so I had to cancel the reservation. The family loses yet again. Still no recruits. My wife gets all excited just because she "dropped a message" and got a call back. Yippee! Time to retire. Still no one in her downline. What a shocker, right? This is an outright cult, it is simple as that. There may well be good people who drank the Jim Jones purple kool-aid and still trying to live the dream. But the problem is, they have pledged their allegiance to false prophets. I am inching closer to divorce. I dropped a message of my own to my mother-in-law a few months ago, and even dropped one to my wife. She curbed her expenditures and trolling for prey for about a month or two. But after getting our tax returns, she was back in the grasp of the cult. Trip to a rah rah conference in Ft. Lauderdale, and a huge uptick in Ambot expenditures. I will keep you posted, and thanks again for everything you do here.
I'm sorry to hear that no progress has been made. But this Amway indoctrination is powerful as you can see and feel for yourself. Your wife has no downline but likely because the leaders continue to praise her and encourage her, she persists despite no real opportunity to make any money.
The bottom line is if you can't sponsor people on a regular basis, you simply cannot gain enough leverage to many any money unless you have some rare ability to sell ordinary products at premium prices.
What you can try is to ask your wife when she actually plans to make any profit? Even if the plan is 2-5 years, the idea isn't to suffer losses and suddenly there will be profits at the end of the rainbow.
The plan is normally a 6-4-2 plan but if you cannot sponsor a single person, how will you ever sponsor 6? If your wife has no answer, ask her what is going to change to make this business situation better? (She probably won't be able to answer).
To Anonymous at 4:24 PM --
What your wife craves isn't primarily the possible profit she imagines coming from her Amway business, even though she tells herself that.
She craves the psychological high and rush that she gets from being a part of this "rah-rah-let's-go-team" racket. The excitement, the pleasure of anticipation, the bubbling ferment of interaction with others, the sense of being vibrantly alive... this is what keeps a woman in Amway for two damned years without making a dime and without recruiting a single down-line.
This is an emotional and psychological problem, and it won't be fixed by any argument or rational exposition or book. Your wife "has the Faith," as they say about persons who have experienced a religious conversion. The only thing that will change this commitment on her part is some sort of shattering and soul-shaking event.
For most Amway IBOs, it is the realization, sooner or later, that they aren't making money and never will. This usually marks the end of their Amway mania. Your wife doesn't seem to care that she's losing money. But the threat of divorce seems to be something that scares her.
You might have to take some real steps towards divorce to shock her. Hire a lawyer. Start talking about property division. Bring up the issue of child support and custody. Tell your in-laws that a divorce is a distinct possibility, and don't just "hint" about it. You don't have to actually want a divorce -- but you can sure make your wife think that a divorce is a solid possibility. Scare the shit out of her.
Those steps on your part might precipitate a realization in your wife's mind that she is on the verge of losing her family. And that might just be the push she needs to give up this Amway nonsense. After all, without your income and support she can't possibly continue in this insane soap-suds racket.
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