Since I retired from the workforce last year, I live pretty comfortably although covid 19 has brought some disruptions to my life such as restrictions on being able to travel and a bit of restrictions on lifestyle as we deal with the pandemic. But eventually it will pass and hopefully things will resume to normal life activities. One of the things I occasionally do is hang out with other retirees. There are retired fire fighters, police, electricians, office workers, sales people and on and on.
What I don’t or haven’t run across is any Amway retirees who built their business right and decided to walk into the sunset to enjoy a quiet but bountiful retirement funded by Amway residual income. You’d think after more than 60 years in business, there would be some of these people floating around enjoying life. This is the Amway nirvana that is pitched to prospects and IBOS constantly. Go diamond and quit the J O B right? Heard it many times myself and my friend’s kid is in Amway and that’s what she is hoping for.
So why don’t any current diamonds walk away to enjoy a peaceful but luxurious retirement. You know, like the stuff they pitch at functions? It can’t be that all of these diamonds love running to functions and meetings when they could be walking the beaches of the world right? In the last 10 years or so I’ve seen a handful of crown ambassadors pass away but none of them walked away to enjoy. A quiet peaceful lifestyle. Maybe they all enjoyed working? Maybe but that seems implausible since they are the ones pitching the residual income and early retirement.
But let me offer a contrarian thought. A diamond lifestyle is not cheap. Flying first class and staying at 5 star hotels can be very expensive, especially for a family. Amway’s own numbers show that a Q12 diamond earns around 600k annually but a non Q12 earns less than 200k. A Q12 diamond is a rare exception thus most diamonds earn less than 200k annually not including the income from selling tools and functions. So let’s say a diamond earns an additional 100k gross income from tools and functions for a gross income of about 300k. A nice income but after taxes, business expenses and health insurance and other misc expenses, you aren’t buying mansions in cash, nor are you able to live a jet set lifestyle unless you are living beyond your means.
And maybe, just maybe that’s why we don’t see Amway retirees. The diamonds can’t afford not to work. If they stopped, their tool and function income would stop and their Amway business is likely to fall apart once they stop recruiting new members. And this is why a diamond seemingly works forever. They can’t afford not to. Over the years in my blogging experience, I’ve challenged Amway apologists and IBOs to provide a few names with some supporting evidence of Amway retirees living on residual income. Never mind several examples, I’ve not seen or heard of a single one to date.
Many years ago, DeVos and Van Andel put out a statement in one of their circulars that complained about exactly this misunderstanding. They said some recruiters were telling prospects that after you had gotten a big down-line, you could retire and just live off residual income. This was simply not true, and DeVos and Van Andel said it was a lie to tell prospects that "persons who had established a thriving Amway business were not actively and regularly involved in maintaining its viability."
ReplyDeleteIn other words, you CAN'T live off the illusion of "residual income" in Amway. You CAN'T retire and be inactive, just collecting checks. You have to stay in the business and keep working it endlessly.
This was an amazing and honest admission coming from the mouths of DeVos and Van Andel. Today, none of the bigshots in Ada, Michigan want to repeat it or remember it. They've probably scrubbed it from the record.