One of the things I take issue with is how Amway uplines will create an us versus them mentality in the business. Thus friends and family who care about you suddenly become "negative" and association with them should be limited or cut off completely. In some cases, people are discouraged from excellence in their jobs or professions because it takes the focus off of their Amway business. What I was told was to do my job, but my radar should always be on for new prospects. Some cross line IBOs turned down promotions at work because they did not want to have to work longer hours or take the focus off of their Amway businesses.
In some cases, the speaker at open meetings or functions will put down people's jobs. A commonly used acronym was J-O-B = "Just Over Broke". Some leaders also would say that my job was a pyramid because you will never earn more than the boss. A completely ridiculous comparison because someone's job has no relationship with how people view the Amway business (i.e. an Amway pyramid) and in a job, every employee gets paid and has a net gain at the end of the month. Not true in Amway. If IBOs only use KATE for example, an IBO at 100 PV or less will already be at a loss, and that is not considering any other expenses that IBO may have. And while a job may have a hierarchy, or chain of command, the business owner and CEO or manager earns their salary from customers, not directly from the pockets of their employees.Some uplines will laugh about people's jobs, stating that they wake up at the "crack of noon". What these same uplines may not tell you is that they wake up at noon because they are up at 3:00 in the morning doing nite owls for their groups and looking for recruits. These same uplines possibly can't do much with their downlines since their downlines mostly tend to have 9-5 jobs. An Amway diamond still has a job, but they work the graveyard shift because the mainstream world works during the day. The part about waking up at the crack of noon is because your upline diamond has to sleep in since he's working the overnight shift.
So if you are of the opinion that nobody should criticize the Amway opportunity or IBO behavior, maybe uplines and IBOs should not criticize family and friends who disagree with or are not interested in the Amway opportunity. And maybe the same uplines and IBOs should not criticize people who choose to work jobs. Don't most IBOs rely on their jobs? More than likely their Amway income is not sufficient to even pay for their Amway business related expenses, let alone anything else. It is most often someone's job that winds up supporting their Amway business, which is truly ironic.
5 comments:
The difference comes down to this:
A pyramid is a hierarchy where you need people under you to get what you signed up for. If you can get what you signed up for without having people under you, it is not a pyramid. If you need people under you who sign up for the same reason, it is a pyramid. We should judge any organisation we think of joining like that.
In Amway, let's face it, nobody really joins to market "high quality" but expensive soap, dish washing liquid, energy bars and detergent to customers. The people who tried to recruit me would have agreed, as they were at pains to stress it was not a sales position, in response to my objection that sales wasn't my thing.
Therefore, though Amway's contract may talk about two ways to earn an income, in reality you need people under you to buy their part to succeed. Therefore it is a pyramid. A pyramid is a problem because most people who join are mathematically condemned to fail, and because every success NEEDS dozens of failures. That is the direct mathematical implication of requiring x number of downline to succeed.
Contrast that with employment, even at the very bottom of a hierarchical corporation. Before I started my business, I was employed for years with nobody reporting to me, yet I got what I signed up for, actually a bit more. I travelled the world, met interesting people, learned a lot, and got great bonuses when the company did well, even without anybody reporting to me. Some people are less than ecstatic in their jobs, but the majority who take up jobs aren't mathematically condemned to fail. Even people who are unhappy are likely so due to being disillusioned by the type of work, or lack of growth, not salary not being paid as expected.
Amway defenders who say a job is a pyramid are trivializing what a big problem pyramid schemes can be. In pyramids, the majority of members signed up for a reason that will, for most, never materialize.
A pyramid is not defined by being hierarchy. A pyramid is not a system where each level gets more than the level below. If in Amway you can theoretically out earn your upline, that does not make it not a pyramid. Having existed (with members coming in and dropping out) since 1959 does not make it not a pyramid. The fact that the wealthy owners are not in jail does not make it not a pyramid. I know recruiters are taught to use these arguments, which brings me to the next point.
People in Amway groups spend a lot of time preparing how to argue not being a pyramid. If there was a pathway, a realistic pathway given the starting commissions, and competitiveness of the products, for those without a single downline to succeed, then there would have been no need to have to argue this.
Great comments! It should also be noted that you cannot attain the higher levels in Amway such as Emerald or diamond, and achieving financial freedom without sponsoring a bunch of people. That's why Amway newbies are desperately trying to recruit potential downlines.
Without a down-line, you can't get anywhere in the Amway racket. Up-line is well aware of this fact, which is why they are fiercely angry at any IBO who quits, and why they browbeat IBOs who fail to bring potential recruits to meetings.
If up-line actually spent the same amount of energy encouraging their down-line to sell Amway products to retail customers, then you could call Amway a real business. But up-line doesn't do that. In fact, many up-line people make fun of the entire idea of trying to sell Amway products to the general public.
This is why Amway is a barely legal pyramid scheme.
Has anyone noticed that Amway assholes aren't showing up here anymore, to defend the corrupt racket? I guess we've kicked their asses so hard that they're afraid to appear here.
I remember when I was in URA and we had a couple from WWDB from the Sacramento area come out East to talk to us during one of our major conferences. I forget their names but they were pretty young. This was about three or four years ago.
I remember that they were Diamonds and in their video, they showed some of their downline who were over at their new house for a visit. They were giving a tour of their new place. Nice enough, right? Show wealth, dreams, whatever.
So one thing that will always stick out to me is that while showing either the bathroom or the kitchen, they showed Amway soap on the counter. The guy chuckled and said something like, "...and look at this guys...personal use." And you could hear the others in the background laughing and echoing, "yeah...personal use." It was subtle, and I doubt many people caught this, but I did.
So that shows the "business" is just a big joke. It's not about sales. It's about suckering enough people to be in one's downline in order to grow your own pin level enough to reap "system money."
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