I heard a great comment from a commentator on a related Amway blog. Basically, he said if IBOs were so successful, people would just naturally be attracted. And that's true! Where I live, the local electric company is an attractive place to work with a good salary and benefits package. When there's a handful of openings, you might get as many as 10,000 people applying for these positions. When the federal government hires for the local post office, you get thousands of applicants for a handful of jobs as well. People are naturally attracted to these positions because they know they will be paid well and receive a nice benefits package.
But Amway IBOs have to justify their positions. The common ones are how Amway products are concentrated, or they have magical ingredients in their vitamins. It is my position that if these products were so good and the opportunity actually produced successful IBOs, there would be no need to be deceptive about the products or opportunity. The products could easily be marketed. In fact, customers would be seeking IBOs to find the products, and there would be lines of people waiting to see the opportunity. But that isn't the case. Clearly, Amway IBOs use some degree of deception usually called the curiosity approach or outright lies. People are not inclined to see the Amway opportunity because of its great reputation for success.Instead, IBOs themselves are the primary consumers of Amway products. Many IBOs are deceptive when inviting people to see the Amway plan. Some prospects are outright lied to when recruited for the Amway opportunity. The curiosity approach is still used by many, because mentioning "Amway" is more likely to get you funny looks than interest. If what I am writing is not true, why do IBOs need to deceive people? Why don't some IBOs open their books and display the financial success they claim to have? Why so secretive? Why aren't there hundreds of new diamonds and emeralds each month? Instead, you mainly hear of the Amway growth in foreign countries. Most likely because the Amway name and reputation has not yet been soiled as it has in the US and Canada. New diamonds are not common and in fact, many old diamonds are no longer around.
In the US, I see primarily the same old diamonds who were in control of the functions and systems from more than 20 years ago. In fact, factoring in diamonds who quit or dropped out, I believe there are fewer diamonds now than when I was an IBO in the 1990s. Some of these diamonds also had some apparent financial difficulties. The opportunity is far from how it's promoted. Success speaks louder than words, and where North American Amway success is concerned, the silence is deafening!
One of the basic principles of advertising is that you can sell anything, even if it a piece of junk, as long as you have the right approach in publicizing it.
ReplyDeleteThis is only partially true, and even professional ad men will tell you that a lousy product will eventually not get any buyers once the truth about its bad quality spreads.
The problem in Amway is that the persons who run it are convinced that they can sell mediocre or generic products at a very high price, as long as they back the stuff up with hype and hoopla and a lot of excitement. They believe that the advertising of Amway products will overwhelm any doubts in the minds of buyers.
This is pure fantasy, for two reasons. First, the only real advertising that Amway does is advertising for becoming a part of "the Plan" -- that is, joining up and becoming an IBO. The advertising is nothing more than advertising directed at the IBO himself, telling him that Amway is a great idea, and that Amway products are wonderful. It's a form of self-hypnosis. It convinces the IBO, but it doesn't convince any buyers in the general public. Second, there's nothing wrong in trying to sell mediocre or generic products, but it makes no business sense at all to try selling them at absurdly high and uncompetitive prices.
Everyone who is familiar with Amway knows that a peculiar trait of almost every IBO is his fanatical refusal to see these two facts. What did Dexter Yager say? "IF THE DREAM IS BIG ENOUGH, THE FACTS DON'T MATTER!" This is the key to what is wrong about the Amway fake business: the people in it have convinced themselves that the Plan is great, the products are great, and everything in Amway is great. But they have a lot of trouble convincing anyone else of this.
It's the principle of advertising being directed at yourself, and not at potential customers.