Often times, upline would give you advice, such as "there's no PV for watching TV". It makes sense when you hear it but when you critically analyze the advice carefully, you can easily see that it's BS. The idea was that "broke people" with no direction in life waste their lives away watching TV and doing other activities that do not affect their financial futures while Amway IBOs are out trying to better themselves. On the surface, this sounds like completely sound advice and it makes perfect sense if you're an IBO. Why spend time on your couch when you could be out trying to build your Amway business? Right? Broke people watch TV after all.
But wait a secon, let's turn this around. There's no PV in attending a function. There's not PV in reading some self help book or a Kiyosaki book. There's no PV in subscribing to standing orders or to communiKATE. There's no PV for attending any meetings and there's no PV most of the CORE steps. Technically, IBOs would be better served by concentrating on personal use and by actually selling products tto customers. Only by increasing your PV does your volume get larger. Now sponsoring also has the possibility of increasing volume but most IBOs never sponsor a single downline, ever. So if you follow upline ad vice not to do things that don't get you PV, remind them that those activities include Amway related activities.
To compound the problem, the Amway activities such as standing orders and functions cost money and takes away resources from the IBO into products and activities that the upline profits from. Therefore, the upline is dishing out advice that is self serving: "attend all functions and listen to audios every day". When you really think about it, what direct benefit was there for your business by doing the Amway related activities? Unless you move more volume, your activities are for nothing. It doesn't increase your business and your PV/volume. All you are doing is making your upline wealthy with loyal purchases of tools and functions. That is the Amway business. IBOs think they will be getting rich from Amway while the upline diamonds get rich by selling tools to their downline. To coin a phrase, "you live with the classes when you sell to the masses". That's what the diamonds are doing. Capitalizing on a captive audience whose loyal purchases makes nice profits.
This week, Joecool will not be posting anymore blog posts. I'm flying to the mainland to see an NFL game. I'm accomplishing things that I wanted to do, but now I have the time and resources to do, from saving and investing. Without Amway, I might add. It's been a great life, sans Amway. :)
Joe Cool, you have put your finger on a very severe problem in the entire Amway mindset.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just TV that they don't want you enjoying. You can't listen to music. You can't go to the movies. You can't visit a museum or an art gallery. You can read a book that isn't written by one of their brainless Kiyosaki types. You can't take a day off to walk in the park, or pick flowers, or have a leisurely lunch with your friend in a nice restaurant.
All the things mentioned above are despised and denigrated by Amway types, because they "waste time" and "don't make money for you." In other words, to be an ideal Amway person you have to be fanatically and exclusively dedicated to the Amway business every second of your waking life. You have to be a crazy, driven, money-hungry nutcase, and a pain in the butt to all your family and friends. You have "no time" for any of the cultured amenities of life. You're just a stupid commissioned salesman, running around recruiting people like mad, as if you had a rocket up your ass.
Is this what human life is supposed to be about? What kind of limited, blinkered, shallow view of the world do these Amway freaks have?
Outstanding comment.
ReplyDeleteEntirely my experience of Ambots as well. Such a sad way to live life.
Self-delusional, idiots with cognitive dissonance.
Sad. Sad. Sad.
The pox on Amway.
stop bullshitting and you even realize you wasting ur time to critize Amway?
ReplyDeleteor are you being paid to do this?
So what is bullshit? Bullshit is the lie told by Amway leaders that you can "build a business" in 2-5 years and not have to work for the rest of their lives.
ReplyDeleteI don't get paid. I consider my blog a public service.
Can you name a single person who built an Amway empire in 2-5 years then sat back and collected significant income for the rest of their lives? If you can, you'd be he first. LOL
To Anonymous at 9:37 AM --
ReplyDeleteYou're the bullshitter. You don't have a single thing to say in defense of the Amway fraud, but you come here shooting your mouth off, and attacking others.
You're a stupid Amway asshole.
I am still scratching my head that their big move to recruit me into their business was an 8 hour meeting on a Saturday from 2 pm - 10:30 pm. Wouldn't Saturday be prime time for recruiting? Especially for people that work 40 hours during the week.
ReplyDeleteJeff, was it an 8 hour meeting or some kind of function/seminar that you attended?
ReplyDeleteI met them at my kitchen table for two hours on Saturday. They invited me to something on Monday which didn't work with my schedule. They switched gears to inviting me to something the next Saturday then texted me this: "MINNEAPOLIS
DeleteNovember 10, 2018
2:00 PM to 10:30 PM
MINNEAPOLIS MARRIOTT NORTHWEST (NORTHLAND BALLROOM)
7025 NORTHLAND DRIVE NORTH
BROOKLYN PARK, MN 55428
Speaker - BAKER, TREVOR & ALEXIS"
As was the case with most of our conversation, the details were vague. I politely declined.
Wise decision
DeleteJeff, most likely it's some kind of function/seminar that they invited you to attend. I don't think you would have gotten much out of it except for a wasted Saturday evening.
ReplyDeleteI have noticed that when Amway types talk to you, they are deliberately vague and unclear on hard details. They won't answer questions, but just dance around them, or reply with some irrelevant question to you. They won't tell you what a function is about, but they'll say it's "important," and you need to come to it.
ReplyDeleteAll of this evasion is easy to explain. The main concern of these Amway types is to GET YOU TO THE MEETING OR FUNCTION. Once there, you can subjected to hype and razzle-dazzle and propaganda -- all of which is directed towards your emotions rather than your mind.
Amway is not rational in any genuine sense. It is EMOTIONAL. For this reason its proponents don't want to answer your questions in a rational and direct manner. They just want you to show up at a meeting, and be hit with intense emotional manipulation. That's the only way recruitment into the racket happens.
My thing was That the guy just preached how simple the business was and that he could easily teach an 8th grader to be successful in the business. The next move is to invite me to an 8 hour meeting? Wouldn't we be better served using a Saturday to recruit and get my business opportunity off the ground? Well... just come to the meeting was the response. We want to make sure you are the right fit for us. Sure thing, guys.
DeleteMore than likely, the meeting is a "function". A function is a meeting/seminar where Amway IBOs pay for admission. Thus it is far more important for the upline to hold the meeting than to have you start recruiting to get your business off the ground. Much of what IBOs do is profitable to the upline and not the IBOs.
ReplyDeleteThey want to make sure you are the right fit? LOL, they'll sponsor anyone with a pulse and enough cash for the sign up fees.
What the heck do they do for 8 1/2 hours? I guess I understand going away for a day or two for an annual meeting. This 'function' they were inviting me to seemed like just another meeting. Fascinating that people believe this is building a business. Beyond recruiting and artificially pumping up a newbie I don't know what more they could discuss. The presentation skills and closing the deal would be best learned in the field. I am assuming there isn't much along the lines of actual skills training at the function, just testimonies and motivation? Still, 8 1/2 hours? Dang.
DeleteThe functions are for motivation and indoctrination. When I was an IBO, there was little to nothing about increasing sales and profits, except for signing up new recruits or purchasing more PV yourself.
ReplyDeleteAlso, keeping IBOs captive for long periods of time isolates you from the world, your family and friends included. This reduces your ability to discuss what you saw, and if you become tired, your critical thinking skills are diminished. This is the part that many people call cult like in the Amway experience.
I am fascinated by the time commitment and what could possibly occur for an entire Saturday. Other MLMs I was involved had the weekly meetings for an hour, sometimes wrapped with phone calls or skills training. This seems on another level to devote an entire Saturday afternoon and evening. Joecool, could you post an imaginary agenda of what this 8 1/2 function would look like?
DeleteThe 8 and 1/2 hours are primarily to weaken one's resistance, and to cloud one's rationality. It's like sleep-deprivation and third-degree questioning when you are trying to get information out of a prisoner.
ReplyDeleteThe people who join Amway are already dim bulbs; long hours of hype and indoctrination are useful in shutting down their resistance completely.
The only local functions I recall on a Saturday was broken up into two sessions. Of course you had to pay admission to attend both sessions. The afternoon portion was teaching about how to recruit and some other technical garbage about how to expand your business. Of course it rarely had anything about how to actually make money by selling stuff.
ReplyDeleteYou had like a 2 hour break and then the evening portion would begin. That's when they would have a lot of rah rah stuff and some diamond or higher up would give their testimony of how they were broke and seeking something and they didn't know what it was until Amway fell in their laps and now they are rich beyond belief and you can do the same if you will only follow their teaching. That's it in a nutshell.
They have to pay to get into the function? What a racket. It sounds stupid and a waste of time. How can people trick themselves into thinking this is building a business?
DeleteThe local functions sound awful. How can they charge admission with a straight face? How do IBOs convince themselves this is building a business?
ReplyDelete