Having been involved in many Amway discussions for some time now, I recognize the many warning signs of a bad upline or a bad LOS. While not all uplines are the same, I do not believe that any LOS (Line of Sponsorship such as WWDB or BWW) is free of bad teaching, regardless of what you hear. Some of these points are simply clues that you could be in a bad LOS, you still need to think as an independent business owner and watch out for your own best interest because these folks will say they have your best interest at heart but they really have their own best interest at heart.
When you were prospected or recruited, was your sponsor upfront about the Amway opportunity or were you told about some new e-commerce opportunity or the like? Were you told that selling products was important or were you told that buying from yourself is the way to succeed? Did you know that some some uplines make most of their income from selling business support materials and not from Amway? Were you told that functions and other tools were vital to your success? Were you told that the system was "optional, but so is success"?
Were you told that a college education was not important to your success in Amway? Were you told that buying from yourself can result in a profit? Did someone say that the Amway opportunity helps save marriages or makes you a better person? Was the Amway opportunity used to preach religion or politics to you? Did anyone tell you to ignore facts if you have a dream? Were you told to submit to upline? Or were you told to check your ego at the door? Did you get the impression that your upline was a divine being? Did you give the speaker a standing ovation when they entered a meeting or function? Did you ever wonder why?
Were you told that you save money on Amway products only to realize that they are not generally cheaper than other retailers? Were you told that you have joined the best or the fastest growing LOS? Were you shown fancy cars or other luxuries and told that you can also achieve these lifestyles if you follow the system? Did your upline or sponsor tell you and verify how they are performing in the Amway opportunity or were you simply shown a photocopy of some check from an upline? Did you hear that you should always avoid "negative", or that people who are not in Amway are broke or losers?
These are some warning signs that you could be in a questionable LOS. In many cases, an LOS's priority is simply to sell you tools. Tools that are supposed to help you succeed in Amway, but more often than not, they help the person selling the tools to profit, regardless of whether you make a cent in Amway or not. It is important to look at facts, to track your progress and to keep track of expenses. If you are not progressing as the plan was shown, you may want to take a look and make sure that you are not overspending on tools that aren't helping you. Or if you are unable to sponsor downline, you may have to ask if this business is for you.
The business has warning signs. It is up to you to see them or to ignore them.
Wednesday, April 7, 2021
Warning Signs?
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3 comments:
The Amway subsystems (called "Lines of Support" or AMOs) have only one purpose. And that purpose is to sell you tools, CDs, books, function tickets, and CommuniKate, as well as charging you fees for all sorts of endless and useless meetings.
The AMOs DON'T GIVE A SHIT about how well or how badly you are doing in your individual Amway business. All they care about is keeping you hooked to "the Plan" and "the Dream." Your up-line in the AMOs has one job -- to keep you charged up with enthusiasm for Amway, and to get you to recruit others for the same thing. As long as you are shelling out cash every month, the AMO is happy.
The strategy of "Buy from yourself and get others to do the same. Not need to have a thing for sales" is by definition bad.
The Amway corporation does not say these things, they know better, because that would be an admission that they encourage a pyramid model for selling their products. But Amway itself does not mind if individuals arms length's removed from them say these things. Your upline is not employed by Amway and can say what he or she likes. That's the "beauty" of it, from Amway's point of view. The uplines, often organized in Line of Service groups, do the dirty work and say the incriminating stuff. Because every upline insists that he or she is independent and his or her own boss, it is impossible to bring a class action.
If they say it's all about buy from yourself and get others to do the same, the bad upline designation would the case, however warm, friendly, caring and supportive they are. However much they don't force their downline to do things or buy things that other uplines pressure their downlines to do. However patient they are. However good friends they become.
Unless they encourage their downline to actually sell products, lot's of products, most of the sales, to people who have absolutely no interest in the business opportunity, but who would buy simply for a cost to value sake, unless they do that, they are bad uplines. You are unlikely to find a group focused on real sales, because the products are not competitive, the commission structure is high (which makes products expensive), shared upwards (which makes recruitment of lucrative), and as such it encourages exactly what is happening in practice.
The test for a pyramid does not hinge on whether there is product or not. You can't say "oh, there's product, therefore it can't be a pyramid" or whether the product supplier has been in business for 50 or 500 years, or is friends with the ex president. The question is where is the money generated. If it is generated from equally hopeful participants who see it as an income opportunity, it is a pyramid.
An upline who helps to build the pyramid may not inherently be a bad person, but in that role, is a bad upline.
It's very true that the AMO subsystems emphasize recruitment above all else. They know that Amway products are too expensive to be competitive with big brand names, and they know that most people aren't good salespersons. So they say "Buy only for yourself, and get others to do the same!"
The problem is, it doesn't work -- not unless you have developed a truly huge down-line in great depth. But it is impossible to do this if your basic attitude is that the Amway products can't be sold in quantity to non Amway-members, and therefore everyone in your down-line will be doing nothing but self-consumption. In fact, the whole idea is insane. It's like running a hot-dog stand where you only sell hot dogs to yourself and your family, and to those few persons who have signed a special contract to buy hot dogs from you.
In such a situation, the only persons to make a real profit from the Amway racket are those very high up the food chain, who make money from the sheer volume of required monthly sales from the many IBOs below them, or (the real secret!) from the endless fees they rake in from supposedly "training" you to be in Amway.
The AMOs exist for no other purpose than to create a big downline, and to get rich by compelling these IBOs to buy a fixed PV of Amway products every month, and to pay for an unending series of meetings, functions, and CDs.
Since this situation is highly profitable to the Amway Corporation, the creeps in Ada, Michigan don't really care what's going on in the AMOs. And it's why they don't dare try to regulate what the AMOs tell their down-line slaves.
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