One of the battle cries I heard as an Amway IBO was how one day, we would all be financially free and walking the beaches of the world. Being free and not having to own an alarm clock and not reporting to a boss. I mean it sounded like a cool deal. All you had to do was work the system 2-5 years and follow the proven system of success. At the time, I thought honestly that I was going to do just that. But as time passed, I started to notice things said and taught by the upline leaders that just did not make sense.
For example, why would we constantly be told to get out of debt and live below our means but it was okay to go deeper in debt to attend a function or to buy more standing orders? If debt is bad, then debt is bad. There wasn't much talk about using your business to generate profits to reduce debt. Just more recruiting and sponsoring. I suspect it's because it's just not feasible to generate enough sales to make any serious income from selling generic barnd products for top premium prices.
Of course now I know about how upline's apparent greed was what led to this type of advice. Or we were taught that God was our top priority, followed by our spouse, family, job and then the Amway business. But when anything conflicted with am Amway function or a meeting, the Amway function was ALWAYS to be the priority. "Never miss a meeting, period" was the advice we got from upline. Attend "all" functions. All means all. So much for prioritizing God, family and our jobs before Amway. It was just talk without any action.
Which leads me to ask prospects and IBOs. What progress are you making? When will you be walking the beaches of the world? Why aren't any of your upline leaders retired from Amway, collecting mountains of cash and walking the beaches of the world? Why doesn't Amway advertise residual income as a benefit of the business if it were true? Can you even name one or two people who built an Amway business and actually walked away from their business and collects income? Surely a 50+ year old business with this benefit must have hoards of people realizing this wonderful benefit? Why can't people name a single diamond who built the business, walked away and enjoyed this benefit that's used as a selling point for Amway?
What many people, including IBOs don't know is that you can never go inactive in Amway. Amway, as far as I know, will only pay bonuses on an active business, thus if you ever walk away, someone will have to run your business. You will also need to move a certain amount of volume in order to qualify for some of these bonuses, and you will have to hope that none of your downline ever quits or stop ordering products, or else your bonuses will dwindle down to little or nothing very quickly. For the higher up diamonds, if you stop, not only will your Amway business fall apart, but you will not receive tool money because you aren't participating. Thus diamonds work until they are physically incapable or until they pass away. That is not freedom.
The big shot who recruited me talked of being able to will an Amway business to children or even sell it. That was difficult to believe. MLMs are hamster wheels with no chance of exit or escape if you want to keep making money let alone residual income.
ReplyDeleteBack in 1970, De Vos and Van Andel actually sent out a message (in their Amway newsletter) about exactly what you point out in your last paragraph. They complained that some people in the business were lying about how one could "retire" from Amway after a short period and live on residual income.
ReplyDeleteBoth of them said that this was untrue or at best misleading, and should not be said to prospects. I recall the wording of the newsletter: "Some persons are saying that those who are high up in the Amway business have retired, when in actual fact they are still quite active and involved in it."
In other words, you can't retire from Amway at all. If you cease to push the Plan, and you stop developing new legs in your down-line, and if you no longer attend meetings and functions, you are not going to see any money. Amway is a non-stop operation.
Of course, everybody ignored this truth. The lying scum in the various AMO systems continued to tell new recruits that they would be millionaires by the age of thirty.
Think about this. If you wanted to sell your Amway business, you would have to offer it to all your upline first. But who would want to buy your business? If I'm upline, I can let you quit and inherit your downline business anyway. And what is an Amway business worth anyway? You have no real assets and you don't own your downline. You basically own a spot on the pyramid.
ReplyDeleteHello Joe,
ReplyDeleteI have found this documentary on youtube about pyramid schemes, which almost destroyed Albania 20 years ago. Authors also point out to Trump, De Vos, moreless openly stating they are just conmen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMUtU0tOmNE