Wednesday, January 1, 2020

"CORE" Guarantees Failure?

A breakdown of what Amway leaders call "CORE" and why it doesn’t work. Here are the CORE steps. Some groups may have variations of CORE, but this is generally what many groups use. Some things may have changed but the general premise is likely the same:

1 - Show the Plan (10-15 per month)

2 - Retail the Products (10 customers @10 PV each)

3 – CDs/Audios

4 - Books (Read 15 minutes or more daily)

5 - Functions (attend all)

6 - Accountability

7 - Counsel with Upline (Be teachable!)

8 - Buy 100% of your own products

9 – Communikate



Many upline will tell you that your success is nearly 100% guaranteed if you follow these steps for 2-5 years. Some Amway enthusiasts will tell you that 6 months of this activity will nearly assure you of a platinum level business. Certain steps are within the IBO’s control, such as reading every day and listening to cds, and attending functions. It is also easy enough to be accountable, counsel with upline, buy your own products, and use KATE (voicemail).

Here’s where an Amway IBO’s efforts will break down. Showing the plan and retailing products. And remember, if you cannot do these steps then you are not considered “CORE” and your upline will likely tell you that it is your own fault and that you simply haven’t been CORE, therefore you did not achieve success. There is some truth in this but let me expose the system in a different angle.

Amway has a spotty reputation in the US. I don’t think anyone can dispute this fact. Therefore, for the vast majority of people, being able to show the plan 10-15 times per month is a nearly impossible task. If you are able to do this, you are a really good salesman or a good liar. In this scenario, the IBO is already successful, but not because of CORE, but simply because the IBO has the gift of being able to convince people into seeing the plan. But for many IBOs, they may contact hundreds of people and not be able to get anyone to see the plan. Even IBOs who follow upline advice on how to contact will probably not be able to show 10-15 plans per month. Thus this IBO, who is doing the work, will not be able to succeed. The system will blame the IBO, but the reality is that the IBO has too big of a disadvantage to overcome.

Secondly, with high prices (on average) and with a spotty reputation, most IBOs are unable to retail products. Amway itself has admitted that less than 4% of Amway products are sold to customers (non IBOs). Thus most IBOs are unable to sell products, therefore they are not CORE, therefore upline will blame the IBO for failure..

What if an IBO contacts 1000 people and cannot get 10 people to see the plan? Upline will claim that IBO is not CORE and therefore it is personal failure of the IBO. IMO, the only reason why upline can claim that CORE works is because in order to do the CORE steps consistently, you have to already be at a certain level of success. The vast majority of IBOs cannot and will never be able to reach that level.

That is the myth and the deception that many uplines will use to attract recruits. That each IBO can do the CORE steps. When only a fraction of 1% ever reach the level of platinum or higher, the numbers strongly support what is written here. Apologists are welcome to try and prove me wrong, but they can't. :D

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are correct about it not really being possible to show the Amway plan 10 or 15 times a month to different persons. That would be about three times a week, and you would have to hook that number of people to agree to come and listen to the plan. With Amway's rotten reputation today, that's very unlikely.

The proof of this is the growth of small websites that aren't connected with Amway or any of the various AMOs, but which offer to teach you HOW TO GENERATE LEADS on-line. They do this not just in regard to Amway, but for any MLM scheme. For a fee, these small websites will supposed;y tell you the secrets of how to get leads to come to you, rather than you trying to find them.

Mostly it's done by showing you how to set up an attractive website, what sort of wording to use, what sort of pictures and videos to include, all of which is usually aimed at a particular demographic niche of the population. According to the websites, if you follow their directions the right type of persons will come to you and ask about joining up in your MLM. This gives you a better chance to recruit them.

Does it help? I don't know -- it probably gives the Amway recruiter a slight edge over someone who just tries to chat up strangers at Starbucks. But the larger point is this: the growth of these small on-line helping sites for MLM recruitment proves that number 1) on your list of "CORE" requirements is where most of the failures in Amway happen. Those sites make money because of the desperation of Amway IBOs who can't get anyone to be in their down-line.

Anonymous said...

Part of the problem of the endless recruiting is that even if people start out with a good network, they soon become known as an Amway leper and are shunned by the non-infected.
That means that trying to find techniques to identify new prospects becomes the biggest hardship and with the miserable conversion rate it is a dead loss from the start in most cases.

Anonymous said...

Yes, you are correct. The bad rep that Amway has is the biggest obstacle to recruitment of new IBOs. And the "solution" that Amway AMOs offer ("Don't mention the name Amway until the very end of the recruitment pitch") is really stupid and self-defeating. People become enraged if they have been told that the proposed business opportunity "isn't Amway," but then find out after two tiresome hours that it really is Amway.

I have had individuals tell me that they repeatedly asked the person who was inviting them to a business meeting if it was Amway, and the guy swore up and down that it wasn't. And after they got there, they saw that he had lied to them. They walked out in a rage, and told the guy never to speak to them again. The capacity of Amway assholes to lie and dissemble is really remarkable. Don't they know that people hate being lied to?

The on-line places where persons offer to show you how to generate leads without going out and bothering strangers and unwilling friends are an attempt to avoid this problem. If you can get strangers to come to you and ask you about your "business opportunity," you won't antagonize them. But still, at some point you're going to have to tell them that it's Amway.

Anonymous said...

Amway operates on the utterly false theoretical notion (it's never directly stated, just implied and believed) that once you get someone into your down-line, he'll stay there permanently, and the same will be true for those whom he manages to recruit into his down-line.

But anyone who has actually been in Amway knows that this is simply not true. You will have a devil of a time just keeping your immediate new recruits from quitting. Most persons drop out of Amway within a year of joining up. The Amway "Plan" is so completely skewed against success, with its overpriced products, crappy compensation, and endless fees for useless activities and tools, that there is no immediate incentive to continue.

This is why Amway has lasted since 1959. Mathematically speaking, if every person who was recruited into the scheme had stayed and recruited a 6-4-2 down-line, and everyone in that down-line did the same, the entire population of this planet would have been signed up in Amway by 1961.

Amway survives BECAUSE of the failure of most of its IBOs, and through the endless repetition of lies and propagandsitic bullshit to attract new suckers who can also fail.