Same Old, Same Old?

A close friend of mine and former downline (when I was an IBO) told me that his daughter recently joined Amway and WWDB. Despite his informed warnings and objections, she joined anyway, and insists that things are different in Amway today. That gave me some food for thought. What is different between Amway of today and the Amway I was in? The products are basically the same, perhaps with some new packaging. The concepts are the same. Buy your own stuff and try to get others to do the same. And recruit like crazy.  That part of the business hasn't changed at all.

But what also hasn't changed is the same old Amway reputation that greatly hinders the ability to sell products and/or to recruit others and to show the plan. Seems as if people joining and quitting without doing much is still the same. There is still a strong emphasis on the consumption of tools and functions by the rank and file IBOs, and why not? The diamonds make nice profits from the sale of business support materials and unlike the Amway compensation plan, the rank and file IBOs get no compensation for the tools.  This is a no brainer for spline and the source of the reason for IBO failures, in most cases of IBOs who dedicate themselves to the "system".

It sure seems as if the same old - old diamonds are around. The Duncans, Puryear, Leslie Wolgamott (Divorced from Brad - WWDB saves marriages?). Harimoto, Tsuruda, Danzik. Where are the new diamonds?   There might be a new diamond here and there but I left Amway in the 1990s and I don't know of many new diamonds except one named Mandy Yamamoto.   (There might be a few others) It might also be significant to note that Amway revenues have declined significantly from 11.8 billion in 2013 to 8.6 billion in 2017, with further declines after that.   I believe Amway had a slight uptick in 2019 but then Covid 19 came and that couldn't have helped.  And that is while the US economy had been doing very well. Perhaps perhaps people are seeing Amway for what it is? A poor business opportunity where your chance of failure is nearly 100%. And it's not because of a lack of effort or motivation. The Amway system is just set up for failure.  

A quick look at the common 6-4-2 plan is 79 IBOs. One platinum and a whole bunch who aren't. And this plan doesn't factor in that many people join and quit without doing much of anything. Thus there can only mathematically be a small fraction of 1% who make anything with a whole bunch of wannabes who never make it. And that is what Amway is. The same old sorry ass Amway opportunity where the diamonds sell you false hopes and dreams while their dreams come true from your tools and function purchases.