There is a book called "Amway Motivational Organization - Behind the Smoke and Mirrors", written by Ruth Carter in 1999. Ruth Carter was an IBO and also worked as an employee of a diamond. Her close and personal insight into the life and finances of a diamond is quite horrifying when you see the details. Based on my observations and years of blogging experience, I believe that this diamond as described in this book, is more typical than not. I believe this because this diamond had a nice income. but also was living in debt. Basically the diamond in the book (not identified) lived a lifestyle to portray wealth, but behind the illusion of wealth was a pile of debt.
This diamond operated in the mid 1990's, the heyday of the AMO abuse. While Amway pundits will make claims such as the story is a bit dated, I still say the story is quite valid because not much has changed in the business. Yes, online shipping replaced the call in and pick up method of delivering goods, and for some groups, the voicemail system changed, but the diamonds in the business still portray wealth. My old LOS, WWDB, still has a function called Dream Night, where the diamonds parade around and show off mansions, sports cars, jet skis and other luxuries. The diamonds still make claims of buying bit ticket items in cash, and they apparently still have the nerve to teach that the Amway opportunity can save your marriage.The diamond in the book had a nice home, a couple of fancy cars and a nice income. The diamond in the book had a gross income of just over 3 million dollars. But after business expenses, this diamond had a net income of $323,000, with only $96,000 of the income coming from Amway. For the Amway defenders who like to cite religion and call Amway a God pleasing business, I will note that this diamond only had $10,000 of their income given to charity. This diamond had the fancy suits, a couple of nice cars and a nice home. This diamond also had a mortgage and a home with little equity. The diamond had not paid their income taxes for several years and this diamond also had credit card debts in the hundreds of thousands. Diamonds pay cash for everything? LOL
How can someone who has achieved the Amway pinnacle of success be in debt? Simple, by portraying a illusion of wealth that cannot be sustained on the income generated by Amway volume and tools sales. An income of $323,000 is certainly nice, and more than most people will ever achieve. But the lifestyle they live might require a million dollar a year income or more. Amway reports that the average diamond earns about $150,000 a year. I might add that a diamond's monthly income may not be that great as much of the income of a diamond comes from annual bonuses.
So why do diamonds live a lifestyle that they cannot sustain? It is my guess that diamonds need to keep recruiting new IBOs in order to maintain what they have. Thus they portray an easy lifestyle with no job and tons of luxuries. Some diamonds show off more than others. But in order to entice prospects, you need to show things that most people cannot attain with a job. I believe it is why there have been other signs of financial trouble in diamond land. Other diamonds have had homes foreclosed. A prominent triple diamond was in bankruptcy (chapter 7) proceedings, and a host of diamonds were selling off mansions in a bad real estate market. The signs are there. You can believe your own eyes of continue to deny what appears to be the norm in this business.
Amway Motivational Organizations and their diamonds are creating illusions of wealth, behind the smoke and mirrors, I suspect many of them are in financial difficulty, living month to month and bordering on massive debts. The evidence is there. The question is whether or not you believe it.
2 comments:
In order to understand fully why the Diamonds act the way they do, you have to consider the type of person they are trying to entice into the Amway plan. Every business (even a corrupt one like the typical MLM) has to consider its potential customer base.
Just what sort of person is attracted to the Amway business? He's generally young (say 18 to 35), not well educated, working at a low-paid or dead-end job, probably from a small town, and naive and inexperienced.
He's also hungry for friends, anxious to be part of some supportive group, and worried about his financial future (which he can see is pretty bleak). There are a lot of material things in life that he wants, but that he knows are very likely beyond his reach.
The lifestyle that the typical Amway Diamond portrays to this person is precisely the lifestyle that the IBO dreams about. It is one where all his difficulties are taken care of, and where all his desires are fulfilled. He has plenty of money, lots of friends, and scads of respect from those underneath him. Naturally he is going to be dazzled by the Diamonds that he sees parading on stage at a function.
And because the young IBO is naive, he fails to see that the Diamond on stage is just a middle-class type without a jet-set lifestyle. He also fails to analyze the claims and promises that these Amway Diamonds make to him. He doesn't recognize that he's not making enough sales of products to counter the huge losses that membership in an Amway AMO are costing him, and that he's never going to recruit enough down-line to guarantee a significant income.
The really evil part of it all is this: Amway and the AMO subsystem that he is in will work carefully to make sure that he remains ignorant and deceived. And they will bleed the poor guy of all his money for years and years, if he remains in the dark.
Good insight. Thanks for sharing that!
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