Copy Your Upline?

One of the things I heard as as IBO was that you can basically copy your upline and ride their coat tails to success.  The diamonds would say that it was like in school, you could copy someone and become successful.  Easy enough right.  Anyone can copy or duplicate their upline and it’s simple and anyone can do it right?   It certainly sounds like any Joe off the street can do it and be successful. That is a selling point for the Amway opportunity.

But can you really copy your way to success?   I mean you don’t have a diamond pin, you don’t get income from the tools and functions.  You don’t have the kind of credibility to be able to speak as confidently as someone who’s recognized as a diamond.  You aren’t involved in top level meetings with higher ups.  It’s like a rank and file employee trying to rub noses with the company CEO.  Yeah you might get a smile and a greeting now and then but you aren’t going to become CEO.  Yeah, there are some rags to riches stories but they are the exception and not the rule.

I have a proven track record on my side.  How many new diamonds have emerged from the US in recent years?   Oh there are a few.  I won’t deny that but over the last 12 years or so, how many new diamonds have qualified?    I can think of one female diamond who came from Hawaii and 1 or 2 new ones on the mainland US but you must know that likely hundreds of thousands of IBOS have cone and gone in the Amway business during that same time frame.  To be honest, the lottery has had a lot more big winners than new diamonds in Amway.

Does that mean that nobody can succeed in Amway?  Of course not but if the likelihood of success is less that winning a lottery, I’d say it’s not a viable business opportunity.  I know Amway defenders love to cite the hundreds or thousands of new platinums, but being that Amway’s sales have either declined to fell flat for most of the last handful of years, I can only conclude that there are just as many former platinums as there are new ones.  Also, if platinums fall out of qualification, then certainly some diamonds likely fell out too.

Bottom line is you can’t copy your way to business success anymore that I can copy LeBron James and become a great basketball player.   But your upline certainly wants you to think you can.  Their income depends on myths like this.