One of the things Amway IBOs "think" they possess, but in reality they are far from it, is "Business Mentality". It is not necessarily the fault of the IBOs. Many are sponsored into Amway by trusted friends or family lacking business experience. They will "submit" to upline as they are advised and will try to learn about the Amway business. The problem is that many upline leaders teach self serving business practices such as hard core dedication to their tools system, from which they often handsomely profit. They may also downplay the vital importance of actually selling products to actual customers. Let's examine some of the questionable practices.
"Buy from yourself". If you have a business owner mentality, you only buy from yourself if it's beneficial to your business. Many IBOs talk about ridiculous things like a McDonald's owner would never eat at Burger King. That's totally false. Just because I own a McDonald's doesn't mean I am eating Big Macs the rest of my life. You cannot spend yourself to prosperity. If I sold pens for $1.00 and my cost was .50, and my competitor had a special on the same pens at 3 for $1.00, I'm buying them from my competition. Also, buying from yourself makes you a customer, not a business owner. Many new IBOs and prospects fail to see the flaws in this kind of teaching. If you buy from yourself, anything you make comes out of your own pocket. That's not even a profit if you transfer money from your left pocket to your right pocket.
"Ignore facts if you have a dream". This is probably the biggest heap of bull crap taught by some upline. I have seen this spouted in particular by IBOs downline from WWDB and BWW leaders. A business owner studies the facts, not ignores them. Any REAL business owner wants to know how much he is bringing in and how much is going out. That's how you detect the heartbeat of your business. A site visitor named Gina on this site, posted a profit/loss statement from her real business. Naturally, IBOs were at a loss to discuss it because it was foreign material to them. If you are spending more on tools, functions and training than you are taking in, you are operating at a net loss and unless your sales goes up, you will continue to bleed money until you lower your expenditures. The purpose of the training is supposed to help you generate more sales volume. If that isn't happening, how much more training do you really need?
"Submit to upline". Another load of hogwash. Why should someone submit to upline simply because they "sponsored me" or whatever? Why should someone have authority over you and your business simply because they signed up before you? A real business owner would think independently and make business decisions based on facts and numbers, not on the advice of someone upline who hasn't taken the time to assess each IBO on a personal level to be able to give advice on an IBO's "Independent Business", or worse, advice on their personal lives".
"Dedication to the system". Silly advice as well. What dedication does the system have for an IBO? If an IBO succeeds (which is very rare), the system takes credit, but for the more than 99% of people who never make a significant income, it is their own fault if they don't make it. Amway apologists will defend this by saying that many may not have signed up wanting a significant income. While that may be partially true, tell me where people show "plans" designed for the guy who wants an extra $100 a month? The plans shown are always (AFAIK) to go platinum or diamond. There is no unbiased evidence that the systems help anyone succeed in Amway.
IBOs and information seekers, does any of this sound familiar? Is this a part of your experience? If so, I encourage you to ask questions and get more information before proceeding with any more "business" activity.
Joe Cool, this is a great post.
ReplyDeleteAnd guess what? No Amway asshole will dare to come here and answer the points you have made. Why? Because THEY CAN'T.
There is no "business mentality" in Amway. You can't "buy from yourself" and make a profit from that. To "ignore the facts" is a recipe for disaster. And always "submitting to up-line" is just another way of saying "Heil Hitler, mein Fuhrer."
Let's see if some Amway buffoon has the balls to come here and argue the case. Come on, Ambots -- we're just waiting to wipe the floor with you.
Could not agree more, JoeCool. My husband and I were involved nearly four years, and were completely brainwashed by the cult BWW. We went into major debt because we were doing all 9 core steps everyday. if you were serious about building a business, this is what you did. Of course we were serious. We are both really hard workers and believed what we were being told. "If the dream is big enough, the facts don't count." We had all our dreams posted all over our house, and yet became broker by the day, attending EVERY function, buying so many cds each month, standing order, bmp, traveling everyday and spending hours everyday to go meet people to sponsor into the business. We were good little ambots. I won't go into detail about what caused me to open my eyes, because I can imagine an upline might read this and know who it is. We have been out nearly a year now and our upline still texts and calls my husband. Our upline "Platinum"(who knows if this is true, because once qualified you always hold your title irregardless if you've fallen down to 100pv) had a diamond call my husband. He told him how one time while building his business he went through rough patches and his wife got sick, but he continued building the business and told my husband to not be ashamed that he isn't doing anything in our business right now and to keep the dream in front of him. Hmmm, let me think about that. Health challenges for a year, over $60,000 in debt, and worrying for my marriage. Give me a break! They are life suckers and thieves. I now know why God wasn't blessing us in this so called greatest opportunity...it's because it's all a lie and the only way to move up is by many other people losing lots of time, energy, money, respect, dignity, honor,etc,etc. I apologize to anyone that lost money because we shared this with them. It breaks my heart. Also, I'd like to mention,of all the hours upon hours spent meeting people, sponsoring, buying products, creating customers, going to every function, listening to every cd multiple times, etc over a FOUR year consistant period, we never made it past 1000pv. Please whatever you do, DO NOT JOIN!!! I wish I would have read at least one blog or article(but told the internet is like a bathroom wall..anyone can write anything, doesn't make what you read the truth), then maybe I wouldn't have wasted so much money, energy, and time. I gave up on my real dream to pursue amway/bww pie in the sky scheme. My husband and I finally have our relationship back and we do fun things as a family and actually save money now instead of giving it to those vultures. Thank you for what you do JoeCool. You are making a difference!!!!
ReplyDeleteyou and many others' stories helped open my eyes even more once I started questioning things. God bless you and your family!.
Thank you for your kind comments. It's because I can occasionally help someone by sharing my experiences and my opinions is the reason why I have been updating this blog regulary for nearly ten years now and will continue to do so while I am able to.
ReplyDeleteGood luck to you and I'm glad that your life has been restored to normalcy.