One of the things taught to our group by upline was to recruit "sharp" people. And in general, I agree that many/most IBOs were sharp people. Most of them nice, motivated and wanting more in life. Certain Amway defenders wrongly claim that I am against Amway and IBOs to a degree where I am maniacal against them. I am not. I recall that most of my group and my cross line were mostly educated and had decent jobs. We all hoped to achieve the dream of walking away from our jobs and living in luxury. We got the idea that was very reasonable and achievable if only we did as upline advised and immersed ourselves in the "system", which in my case, was WWDB. We were told that WWDB had much fruit on its tree and at the time I was an IBO, that appeared to be true.
However, we did not know that some WWDB leaders made significant income from selling us tools. You see, we were lied to and speakers at major functions told the audience that nobody made a cent from tools and that upline makes pennies only after you earn dollars. We now know that this is not true and that these speakers were lying. What's more, these leaders were never made accountable for their lies. They just revised history and acted like nothing happened. Sadly, many downline IBOs simply accepted the explanation and continued to buy tools. Currently, the WWDB tree is getting barren, with little "fruit". There are very few new diamonds from WWDB in the US, and some of their more apparently dynamic leaders have left WWDB to start their own systems. Thus, it looks like WWDB is left with the same old tired speakers today, as the ones who were around prior to my involvement with Amway.But what's puzzling, or maybe not, is why aren't there more successes if many, possibly most IBOs are "sharp" people? Surely large groups of smart and motivated people can accomplish much, but for whatever reason, they are unable to accomplish much in Amway and WWDB. In fact, many of these sharp people cannot sponsor a single downline and have difficulty in selling Amway products. After many years of blogging and analyzing the Amway opportunity, my conclusion is that Amway products are priced too highly and cannot compete with similar products on the open market. Sure, Amway defenders will cite quality or concentration as reasons why Amway is competitive, and in some cases, Amway is competitive, but the general public doesn't care, they just want cheap stuff and Walmart fulfills that need better than Amway. It leaves the majority of Amway sales being made to active business building IBOs. Apparently, the artificial need to buy Amway goods disappears when the diamond dream disappears.
Also, the crazy and sometimes deceptive behavior of past and some present IBOs gives the Amway name a bad reputation, making it difficult to get anyone to see the plan, and sponsoring becomes nearly impossible. It is for this reason, I believe Amway is growing in foreign countries and not in North America, where saturation has occurred. When you factor in all of these variables, it is easy to conclude that large groups of sharp people fail is not because they are not capable. It is because the Amway opportunity comes with so many handicaps that even sharp people cannot overcome them. It is why so many former IBOs, including myself, have done quite well for themselves after leaving Amway. Did I learn some things about business while in Amway? yes, I did learn some things of value, but I also learned that I was lied to and deceived by WWDB leaders and for that reason, my blog continues......
2 comments:
When you are young and vigorous, you may indeed be "sharp" (intelligent, quick-witted, and perceptive), but it doesn't mean that you are mature enough to resist the allurements of a fully cult-like ideology such as Amway.
Cult ideology is insidious and psychologically contagious. It gets into people's heads and poisons their entire outlook on life and relationships. And once that happens, all their youthful energy and sharpness are then directed to an insane and self-destructive fake business.
Amway freaks today generally try to recruit persons under 30, since these young people usually don't have a lot of experience in business, and are also sometimes naive about the way the world works. They tend to be trusting and even somewhat innocent. Older persons are usually more aware of the possibility of scams and frauds, and are harder to bamboozle with rah-rah rhetoric.
In the past it was different. Amway recruiters would try to sign up middle-aged couples who were already financially stable, because these persons would be more likely to shell out cash for various fees and products without too much pain. And since (back then) Amway deliberately promoted an image of small-town folksiness and Bible-belt rectitude, the white-picket-fence and churchgoing couple from a Midwestern hick town seemed the perfect picture of the Amway ideal.
Things changed in the 1980s. The sixties revolutions and the Baby Boomers were taking over, and Amway became tougher and harsher and more focused on profits alone. Amway became a cutthroat operation, with the vicious AMO subsystems leading the way. The only things that mattered to the AMOs were fees, functions, and the sale of tools. They didn't give a shit about product sales, and were perfectly OK with telling IBOs that as long as they self-consumed what they were required to purchase to establish PV, they didn't need to sell anything. All they had to do was recruit others to do the same thing.
That's how Amway became a de facto Ponzi scheme. The AMOs were only concerned with collecting monthly fees, while Amway in Ada, Michigan was only concerned with moving products down-line to the IBOs, and getting paid for it. They didn't really care if any Amway products were being sold at retail to the general public.
This is why the focus in Amway recruitment changed. The older people were still governed by an old-fashioned work ethic, and they would expend sweat and energy to build a business. The younger persons were not, and they just wanted to get rich without working too hard. The AMOs convinced them it was easy, if you just built up a huge down-line that did nothing but pay fees, buy tools, attend functions, and self-consume their monthly PV purchases.
That's why up-line now encourages their down-line IBOs to concentrate recruitment efforts on the young, and to disregard anyone over 30 or 35. It's easier to tell some guy in his teens or early twenties that he's "sharp," and looks like a "go-getter." It's patently ridiculous to say that kind of thing to a guy who is 45.
Besides this, the tendency in Amway advertising for the last 25 years has been on youth, and the idea of how "cool" and "hip" it is to be in the business. You never see any of those pictures of stodgy middle-aged couples from Kansas anymore. That's no longer a part of the Amway image.
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