One of the things IBOs "think" they posssess, 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 and 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. 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 bull crap. 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.
"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, recently 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.
"Submit to upline" Another load of hogwash. Why should someone submit to upline simply because they "sponsored me" or whatever? 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 "Indepdendent 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.
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 here and get more information before proceeding with any more "business" activity.
"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 bull crap. 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.
"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, recently 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.
"Submit to upline" Another load of hogwash. Why should someone submit to upline simply because they "sponsored me" or whatever? 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 "Indepdendent 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.
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 here and get more information before proceeding with any more "business" activity.
7 comments:
Because Amway depends on recruitment primarily, and not selling, it is not a real business in any genuine sense of the word. It is a game of make-believe for not very intelligent people who have a fantasy about being "businessmen."
Criticise the opportunity and the defences I hear are all about the Amway corporation: That it has been around since 1959, that it is a billion dollar company, that it strikes large deals with well known multi dollar corporations, that it does business in dozens of countries. These are intended to make the critic look ridiculous for criticising such a solid multinational corporation. But that misses the point, which is relevant is not how solid the Amway corporation is (unless shares are on offer), but whether the business opportunity makes sense. Tobacco companies can have wonderful financials, pay a lot of taxes, have big partnerships and a long legit history. It still does not mean it's a good idea to take up smoking.
No authentic business defends it's earning prospects or legitimacy mostly by showering praises on it's supplier. That is characteristic of a complete lack of confusion between their supposed business, and the business of their supplier, whom any objective person hearing the language used, would naturally assume is their employer. There is no evidence of business mentality when those are confused.
There is a deep irony here. An IBO is apparently not supposed to know or even ask about his upline's financials because that is said to be none if his business, and apparently it has no bearing on what he could achieve. Yet they keenly follow and boast about whatever good numbers get published of the Amway corporation, their supplier. It should be the other round, the health of the business you are trying to emulate is in reality very much your business to know all about, while the numbers of your supplier (however much money the Amway corporation is making) may be interesting, but is largely irrelevant.
Real business mentality revolves around bottom line (of the business at hand!) from the very beginning. Not brushed away because no business profits in the first few years (reality check: that is false for a work from home, no staff to machines business, and even businesses that by nature have a long path to profit think about bottom line from the very beginning, and project breakeven points).
A good example of the lack of business mentality is the continual pumping of resources (cash and effort) into the generally losing but so called business opportunity that Amway or its systems are touted as.
Avoiding the Sunk Cost Fallacy is a fundamental in sound business decision making.
Amway obsessives remain vested in bad decisions to avoid regrets or as an attempt to convince themselves they are not wasteful and/or made a sound original decision to undertake it in the first place.
This is despite the obvious fact that any subsequent same decision will likely create a losing outcome as did the prior.
Besides illustrating poor business teaching and understanding, it also shows us how the Amway racket preys on and takes advantage of human frailties.
Such as, encouraging people to focus on their dreams rather than realities.
They may dream of being an eagle, but throwing themselves off a tall building would cause them to plummet to earth like a human (does).
This would occur almost certainly regardless of any mental determination to fly.
Joe, the answer you will get from Amway defenders goes something like this: "Amway is a different type of business. It doesn't work according to the old rules of profit-and-loss statements, or ascertainable facts about the supply-and-demand environment."
In other words, Amway is a fantasy, not really different from Disney World or the Star Wars movies.
That's actually what these guys are saying, believe it or not! They literally think that dreams and hopes are stronger than profit-and-loss statements, or economic realities. And once an IBO buys into that insanity, it's fairly easy to get him to swallow the rest of the crap like "Buy from yourself" or "Submit to up-line" or "Be dedicated to the system." Throw in some bullshit jargon words like "pro-suming" and "leadership," and you'll bamboozle the guy.
And once he swallows that, it's a cinch to get him to purchase tickets for useless functions like Dream Night or Family Reunion or Free Enterprise Day, or to attend stupid night-owls at 2 AM, or to buy truckloads of shit that he doesn't need and can't sell.
If he's dumb enough to stick with Amway for three years, that's when he's hooked forever. He won't be able to admit to himself that he's been conned and lied to. The admission would be too painful for him to bear. He'll be a lifer, and that's what his up-line wants: a perpetual cash-cow who refuses to admit he's being bled dry.
Anonymous @ December 22, 2019,
What you say is 100% what I have heard from Amway (N21) zealots as well.
That this opportunity is a magical thing that the established rules of commerce, industry, corporate finance and accounting does not apply to in any way whatsoever.
That incurring ongoing losses is some kind of investment strategy, even though it cannot be capitalized and is highly unlikely to be able to be linked to any future earning if it was to happen.
Rather in a structured accounting sense it would be COGS, but Scamway zealots do not look at these measures at all. They are in fact, encouraged (by N21 I can say definitely) to NOT consider these measures and to specifically ignore them.
I have heard it said more than once, that you cannot look at things like P&L, cashflow, revenue growth as indicators of success because it may just turn up one day as you say, like fantasy (and this turning up is increased in likelihood in proportion to the more money and effort you pump into following the system and submitting to upline.
It really is designed to hook, those gullible and desperate simpletons that lack confidence in themselves and then lock them in through make believe and increasing sunk losses to stay indebted to the system, praying for that magical day of success.
Yes, that is the real evil of Amway and all of its subsystems like N21 and LTD and BWW and WWDB and all the rest.
They take inexperienced, naive, young, and maybe not-so-bright persons, and they suck them into a fake "business" that systematically bleeds them dry of money. And they encourage them (and even order them) not to pay attention to any of the normal signs of failure. So these unfortunate persons are taught to ignore what are the usual red flags of a business in trouble: bad P&L statements, negative cashflow, overstocking of products, and many other symptoms of a lousy operation.
Amway is just a sophisticated form or larceny, directed against vulnerable people.
@Anon 27Dec, and Anon 22Dec.. Excellent description of N21, and I presume other LoS’s in Amway.
I work for myself, and have done so for years when approached by N21 zealots on more than one occasion. Yet they (without exception had their “business” paid for by their jobs) still fancied themselves as being suitable to coach me about business.
When I asked about this job dependency (I don’t bash employment, unlike them, I simply asked why they still needed their jobs after running a business for so long), the defence was that business don’t turn profit unless it’s preceeded by a long period of investment, dedication and hard work. One person work from home business? I think no.
It was amazing that after learning that I had a business on which I depended for all my income, they would still lectured me with their fake business wisdom.
Both of the last two lecturers would have had much better returns if they invested half of the energy that has gone to N21/Amway into bettering themselves at their day jobs.
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