One of the things that is clear. Many Amway recruits are shown fancy cars and toys, along with luxurious vacations and trappings. This is a way to get prospects excited and interested in signing up for the Amway opportunity. Many sign up, and soon enough, the excitement fades and they quit. Either that or the IBO sees monthly losses and no prospects of improvement and quits. Many do little or nothing. But what many people do no understand or realize is that there is a reason for this. Many do little or nothing, I suspect because the business is much harder to build than advertised.
Because Amway has a stigma in the US (and growing in other locations), finding prospects is a daunting task. Add in the high prices of Amway products and you have major challenges that IBOs simply cannot overcome. Most simply quit and fade away into society. Some, like myself were lied to and abused, with upline leaders (WWDB)who were never held accountable for their actions. Thus I blog so others may share my experiences and can decide if they wish to climb insurmountable challenges for a less than 1% chance of financial success.
What many leaders do is evolve their teachings. They start to teach their IBOs that the Amway opportunity may have made them nicer people, better fathers or husbands and other nice to hear stories because it covers up the fact that these IBOs are not making money. Sometimes I wonder how someone can be a better person by deceiving others about the business opportunity, or how you can be a better father or husband when Amway meetings become a priority over your family and friends. Or how you can be a nicer person and leave threatening messages on forums with those who disagree about Amway being a great business opportunity?
Rather that justifying your involvement or looking are side benefits, IBOs should be looking at their bottom line. If your Amway "Business" is not generating enough money to pay for your voicemail and other expenses and leaving you with a net profit, then what exactly is your upline teaching you that is worth the ongoing expense? If you are like most, you are told that Amway has no overhead and has little risk. Well, that becomes untrue after months pass by and you have spent hundreds if not thousands on support materials that do not deliver you a net profit. Additionally, your upline is making a nice income by selling you those support materials and advising you to buy more.
Are you new or a tenured IBO? Has your teaching from upline evolved away from making money as the bottom line? If so, what do you do next? I would run in the opposite direction.
Joe Cool, you're right about Amway teaching evolving and changing over the years. It was originally all about making extra money through a combination of sales and recruitment of new IBOs.
ReplyDeleteBut now the usual propaganda is that Amway will "save your marriage," or "make you a better person," or "introduce you to wonderful people," or teach you how to succeed in general."
All of which is total bullshit.
When it becomes clear to an IBO that he will never be able to recruit down-line, and that he can only get PV by purchasing huge amounts of Amway stuff that he doesn't need, then the only way to keep him in the business is via these stupid lies.