Be Accountable?

 One of the things that upline taught as important to the Amway business was to be accountable.  Or if you said something, you should do it.   In a sense it makes sense for people to be accountable in business.  Be good for your word.  I think it’s a common sense aspect of business.  

Except that upline diamonds have an unwritten rule of “rules for thee, but not for me”.   Has any diamond taken responsibility for the boards of people who join Amway, invest time and money and put in an honest effort only to lose money and fail.  Upline always has sone excuse as to why the IBO failed such as they didn’t work hard enough or they didn’t follow the upline advice just right.

Seems like upline always has a convenient excuse for down line failures which always excludes blaming the bad advice they offered to down line.  It’s not like everyone who joins was lazy or didn’t follow the advice.  Many do precisely what upline advises but they give themselves losing money month after month because they system is flawed.  The system has never churned our regular success.   Success is more of an aberration than something that can be counted. 

Of course, upline is quick to credit themselves and the system whenever there is any success to speak of.  It’s almost humorous.  But when you think of how much cash is raked in at functions, the amount of success is extremely insignificant.  You seriously would have just as good a chance buying a lottery ticket but a lottery ticket doesn’t take any effort.   Yes, Amway is not a game of chance but when the results of a business resembles a game of chance, what does that say about the business?  

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Be Teachable?

 One of the things upline taught and emphasized was for people to be teachable.   Being teachable would mean that you were open minded, willing to learn and willing to take advice from the wise and tenured upline and higher up diamonds and others.  I find this ironic because the same upline leaders and diamonds are quick to blame the IBO when they ultimately fail. 

They’ll say that the IBO didn’t try hard enough or they simply didn’t do things just the way it’s supposed to be done. So you’re taught to be teachable but when you are, it’s still your fault if you fail.  Like upline is flipping a coin saying heads I win and tails you lose.  

I know for a fact that many people who joined Amway gave it a real try and put forth real effort to do what they were advised to do but they were still unable to generate a net profit in Amway.   I myself had a sizable group that ran 4000 PV in volume.  I also had the correct parameters based on the WWDB eagle program.   But somehow despite that, my business still did not generate a net profit.  

In the end, if you think objectively, your Amway business is not designed to make you money.  It is designed to systematically transfer money to your upline diamonds.  Even if you somehow manage to make a little money (highly unlikely), your upline will very likely advise you to invest it into the tools system.  And being teachable means you are likely to do just that.  

The entire business, including the 100 PV defacto quota for IBOs, is also just to ensure that your uplines can keep qualifying for their higher up levels.  When that happens, you get 3% and layers of upline get the rest of the near 30% in bonuses that Amway pays out.  Who says do the work and get paid?  

2-5 Years To Riches?

 The Amway diamonds are careful to avoid saying that Amway is a get rich quick scheme.  I heard the saying that Amway is get rich slow.  I suppose the diamonds don’t want prospects to think that it’s too good to be true.   But on a real level, isn’t 2-5 years to early retirement and lifelong income a get rich quick scheme? 

Sone very important points need to be made for information seekers and Amway prospects to know.  That most IBOs quit in less than a year, and most IBOs never sponsor anyone and less than half of IBOs ever lift a finger to do anything, according to Amway.   So based on these bits of information, how can anyone build a financial empire that pays you for life?   I believe the answer is quite obvious.  

Some groups have modified their plans to make it seem more achievable or reasonable, but the results aren’t different.  IBOs fail and drop out of Amway like flies but upline still wants you to dream that you can build a residual income empire with a majority of down line who can’t sponsor anyone and is likely to quit before they do anything.  

I can only imagine that upline has been suffering because of covid and is doing what they can to suck every penny that they can out of down line.   Amway revenues for last year should be out next month.   Online sales have gone thru the roof.  Did Amway sales go thru the roof or stay stagnant as it’s been for some years now?   I have my suspicions but I’ll wait until I see the numbers before I comment.    🤡

E-commerce?

 Back nearly 20 years ago or so, Amway tried to launch themselves as an e-commerce company which included a name change to Quixtar.   IBOs came up with all kinds of new recruiting tactics using the buzzword “e-commerce”.  It became humorous at times because IBOs started to deny that Quixtar was in any way related to Amway.  

It was funny because Quixtar IBOs signed an agreement with Amway, sold Amway products, used the Amway compensation plan, and received bonuses from the Amway corporation.  Thus watching IBOs deny the relationship was pure humor to those who watched Amway with a critical eye. 

Based on the success of Amazon, you’d think Quixtar would have been more successful.  Shop online and have the goods drop shipped to your door.  One would also think that this concept would be wildly successful in the days of covid 19.  Right?  Contactless shopping with home delivery.  It’s for that reason that take out pizza and food delivery services were booming with covid 19 raging.  

So why did Quixtar, which later changed back to Amway, not capitalize with e-commerce and online shopping?   In my point of view, it’s because there is a low demand for Amway goods outside of the self consumption demand of IBOs themselves.  I don’t know or a formal study but it appears that Amway goods are primarily used by IBOs along with sympathetic friends and family members of IBOs.  

Amway products are generic in nature but carry a premium price and that is not conducive to good sales when I can easily buy similar or better products at a cheaper price on Amazon or even Walmart.com.   IBOs have denied this but it looks like Amway took a successful business model, online shopping and got marginal results.  What if IBOs didn’t buy from themselves and resorted only to attempting to sell to customers?  I wonder what Amway sales would look like under those conditions?  

Amway And Taxes?

 Some people pitch Amway as a tax break or claim that Amway tools and functions pay for themselves because of tax breaks.  Both claims are total bull shit.   If you know anything about taxes, you know what I’ve said is true.  

You can only benefit tax wise if you lose money in Amway because if you made money, you’d be paying more taxes overall.   Functions don’t pay for themselves tax wise because  $1000 worth of functions will only offset whatever percentage of the tax bracket you’re in.   For example if you’re in the 10% tax bracket, the $1000 in function expenses will only get you a $100 credit.  In other words, you still lost money.  

If you take the time to google Amway IBOs and taxes, you’ll find that the IRS usually takes Amway IBOs to the cleaners.  And that’s because you can’t just use Amway as a tax shelter. You actually need to running a business and trying to make a profit.  The IRS allows legitimate tax deductions for expenses that will help you to make your business profitable such as a grill that is used in a restaurant.  

But what tangible benefit is there in standing orders and functions?   The vast majority of IBOs do not increase sales or sponsorship of down line because of tools and functions because these tools and functions, in my opinion is just a scam by the diamonds to make their dreams come true.  You don’t see and endless stream of new diamonds because the system works.  

I challenge anyone to explain why I’m wrong.   I’ve also outlasted all of the dedicated Amway defenders because I’m no quitter.   Where are all those belly aching Amway defenders?  They all quit while Joecool is going strong.  

The Amway Function Cycle?

 Well, covid 19 has been around for nearly a full year.  Various states had different versions of restrictions and ridiculous rules to deal with covid.  Where I live in Hawaii, we were told that parties from 4th of July likely caused a spike in cases, so our mayor shut down beaches, parks, golf courses and a lot of small businesses.  What was ironic was the mayors office was responsible for a cluster of covid cases due to an apparent retirement party. 

But my point in this is that we are upon the season for a function called Dream Night, which used to be a sit down dinner, rah rah speeches by diamonds and slide shows of luxury and cool toys like jet skis or yachts.  Of course nobody necessarily knows if the diamonds actually owned these things or just implied they did.   I heard stories of diamonds renting props at times.  

The cost of Dream Night was around $75 and I hear that the cost is the same except that you don’t get the sit down dinner and most likely the function is virtual, thus more profit for the diamonds who run the function.  If you attended Dream Night last year and are attending again, ask yourself what progress have you made?   If you have any profit, is that a net profit?  Most likely not.  Did upline teach anything tangible that made your business more profitable of did they tell you not to quit and keep attending functions?  

I bring up these thought provoking points because soon after Dream night the diamonds will be advising you to attend another large function , possibly called spring conference where new and emerging leaders do the speaking.  If you don’t see new leaders you should take it as a red flag.  If you haven’t progressed in the last year you should also take that as a red flag. 

Every quarter there is a new important function that diamonds will be pushing  Dream night is the start of the cycle of functions for the year.  If you’ve been around for a while, you may see the same old diamonds but very likely won’t see a bunch of new diamonds although there might be folk lore about hoards of diamonds elsewhere. 

The main thing is to be honest with yourself about your progress or complete lack of progress in Amway.  If you’re not progressing, what is it you’re hoping to accomplish?  After all, the longer you hang around means your losses will add up.  Be honest and do a self assessment.  Giving up on a business that is causing you a financial loss does not mean that you can’t achieve your goals and dreams, you just need a better way to get there.  Maybe Amway isn’t the way?

Sucked Into Amway?

 So many people unknowingly get sucked into Amway.  Many uplines tell their faithful to answer a question with a question and ask what does sucked in mean?  It means they get a prospect curious and then use some pitch to close the deal.   They claim to have the secret to early retirement and untold wealth.  

For many young people or people who are far from retirement, they absolutely want to believe that there is a magic shortcut to retirement and financial freedom.  Upline leaders however, are wise to say Amway is not get rich quick.  Some even say Amway is get rich slow.  That’s to fool the rank and file and remove skepticism that it’s too good to be true. It sounds good.  

But 2-5 years, build it right and build it once is what some diamonds preach.   It sounds simple and easy enough.  Just find 6 is the saying.   Then upline says they have the secret which you can have access to if you’ll just subscribe to their standing orders and attend all functions.  Easy right? 

Well no.  This is where they suck you in.  You want to believe that someone holds the secret to retiring in 2-5 years with money to burn for the rest of your life.  What IBOs and prospects don’t see is tough questions asking the diamonds to prove their claims.  Diamonds seemingly never retire although they claim they basically are.   

If building Amway and walking away to collect untold wealth for life, why haven’t I been able to identity a single person who did it.  Why can’t IBOs identify anyone who’s done it?  Surely someone will have achieved the dream and will have wanted to retire in privacy with great wealth?   But IBOs and diamonds can’t identify any of these diamonds, most likely because they don’t exist. Feel free to prove me wrong.  

Tips For Amway IBOs?

 I’ve watched a show called undercover billionaire where Glenn Stearns got dropped off in Pennsylvania with $100 and an old truck and in 90 days, had to create a million dollar business.   He fell short having created Underdog BBQ so he invested his own million into the business.  But the business principles he displayed and thought process can be applied to other businesses.  

IBOs could seriously learn more from this show than from taking advice from diamonds.  One valuable piece is advice was to “find your buyer first” before trying to sell something. Glenn managed to buy and sell goods and even sold a discarded tractor tire for good money. He managed to even flip a house in his final push to open Underdog BBQ.  

He found and made key contacts along the way and put together a team that made the business plan work.  Although jus business was evaluated to be worth $750,000, keep in mind that he did this in less than 3 months.  The business is running strong today and the team that he put together were given stake in ownership  

Discovery channel is airing another version of undercover billionaire with 3 new participants and only one episode has aired thus far.   I believe that IBOs can be better served by the success principles and business strategies employed by these successful entrepreneurs than by any standing order or function and this advice is free. It can in my opinion be applied to Amway and other businesses.  Just their perspective in how they see potential is amazing.   We see a run down building and sone one else sees an investment into creating rentals or condos to make millions  

Remember that these participants only have a hundred bucks a day cell phone to start.  They use an alias name do their real success and influence can’t be used in their business adventure.  I believe this is valuable advice to Amway IBOs and other entrepreneurs.

Defending Amway?

 When I first got involved in the Amway debates, it was in the early 2000’s.   It used to get contentious at times but for the most part is remained civil.  It was actually the pro Amway group that started with the veiled threats of revealing people’s identity outside of an Internet forum.   It was also the pro Amway crowd that used to have melt downs on the forum.  

It was apparent that Amway was a subject that brought out passionate responses from people.  The humorous thing was how various facts and bits of information that was obtained from Amway itself led to numerous debates.  For example, Amway reported that an average diamond earned about $150k annually.  Amway now puts a different spin on it and reports the average income of a Q12 diamond.  A Q12 diamond however, is a rare exception and not the norm.  

There were numerous debates about the average income of IBOs which was about $100 a month.  Now Amway spins it as “active” IBOs.    The average income of active IBOs is around $200 a month.  Inactive IBOs are about half of all IBOs so the average income of all IBOs is about $100 a month.  It’s all how you spin the numbers.  And that average income includes the big shot diamonds and higher ups, although it dies not include bonuses, which can be substantial.  

The debates have scaled down as there aren’t too many Amway related forums and bold around anymore, although the majority of existing sites appear to be exposing the truth and personal experiences about Amway, which doesn’t seem to help Amway’s cause.  There are also sone pro Amway sites, with the majority being run by Amway.  

But with the popularity of the internet and availability of easily accessible information, Amway diamonds can no longer hide the obvious.  That significant income is made by selling tools and functions and that being a diamond may not be the lavish life that they want you to believe.   I keep sharing my experiences so that prospects and information seekers can avoid the pitfalls of Amway that I experienced as an IBO myself at a point in my life.   I’ve been out of Amway more than 20 years now and they’ve been the most prosperous of my life.  

2021?

 Happy new year to all the readers of this blog and to all the Amway prospects and IBOs.  No doubt that 2020 was a tough year for many, including the diamonds.  Nobody could have seen the damage that was caused by covid 19.  It surely changed the way that you lived your life and ran your Amway business.  

From what I read, it seemed that Amway IBOs struggled with the pandemic and business was curtailed.  I would have thought that Amway would have flourished. I mean businesses like Amazon, Walmart and Target had huge sales and their stock price increased significantly because they were deemed essential and were open when covid restrictions closed many other kinds of businesses. 

Amway should have been booming because they carry essential products that were in demand such as cleaning products and toilet paper.  Where I live, these products were hard to get back in the summer months.  I don’t see why Amway goods wouldn’t be just as in demand but based on my observations, that didn’t seem to be the case.  

Is it possible that Amway didn’t flourish because they are not really about movement of products but more about the recruitment of more and more IBOs?    I received messages that diamonds were desperately putting together virtual functions which made little sense when the cities restricted people from being out and about.   Why would you need to pay full price for a function when you can’t even go out for a meal in your city?  

Why weren’t IBOs inundated with orders for commodities like toilet paper and sanitizing products?  What exactly were the diamonds teaching?   Recruiting via social media?   These are strange times we are living in but I know this.  People may need things in a covid 19 world but apparently, Amway goods and the Amway business don’t seemingly rank high on the priority list for many people.  I wonder why?