One of the things that many Amway defenders will cite is that the people who don't succeed didn't work hard enough or didn't put in enough effort. While I agree that one must work hard to succeed in many endeavors, I will also state my informed opinion that working hard and success in Amway may not be related. I say this because I have seen so many testimonies of people who worked the Amway business hard and achieved little or no results.
Part of the problem is that many uplines emphasize recruiting as their focus, even though there is no direct compensation for doing so. In fact, recruiting downline often comes with a bunch of business expenses such as gas, babysitters, and the false belief that an IBO needs standing orders and seminars to learn this. Also, Amway has a spotty reputation in the US, thus making recruiting potential downline a very difficult task.An important part of any business is to find customers to buy your goods. Because IBOs already spend much of their time recruiting and not selling, they are already at a disadvantage over many other businesses. Add in the seemingly uncompetitive prices of Amway and Amway partner store products and you give IBOs yet another disadvantage over most other businesses. If there were better value in these goods and services, then IBOs who sell instead of recruit would be much more common. Also, the Amway compensation plan often rewards uplines rather than the IBOs who actually do the work of moving the volume.
I also believe that the Amway business is so outdated and inefficient. While you may have a website to sell your goods, you have restrictions that severely limit the ability of an IBO to drive traffic to their website. The person to person touch may sound nice and flowery, but it is the most inefficient way to make sales. It is why people pay millions to advertise during the Superbowl, because you may have a hundred million people watching the advertisement and can drive up your name recognition and sales.
While working hard is definitely important to succeeding in any venture, I don't believe there is any bonafide correlation that working hard equates success in the Amway business for the reasons I have outlined in this post.
2 comments:
Working hard is elevated in Amway speak to a factor it is not. Just like not quitting. As if these two factors are the main factors that determine business success.
But they aren't really. There are loads of info when one does a bit of research. I know hard work sounds virtuous and good, and don't get me wrong, they are. But of all the reasons often cited on why businesses sometimes fail, not working hard enough does not feature in the top 10. People tend to work harder out of their own accord if they sense something could work. But working hard does not come with credits that would make success more likely.
It is a convenient scapegoat for defending a lousy business plan, because it is easy to flaw anybody on not working hard enough. something along the lines of "You complain the plan is not working, but what did you do last Sunday? Hmmm, thought so.".
The same with not quitting. "You've been working 18 months and are not raking in money. What did you expect, there is no get rich quick scheme. Do you know how long it took Amazon to become profitable".
Both are rooted in laughable misunderstanding of business. Many business fail because too much energy is wasted on non income generating activities. And because of poor financial management. Working too hard without looking at the books to match results to effort of whether that particular task even helps, is a much bigger problem than not working hard enough.
As for not quitting. Many small one person run from home businesses that don't require sophisticated investment in machinery should generate income from the start if it's ever going to work. If that wasn't the case few would ever start a business. No results after a few weeks is a very legitimate concern. Not letting go (quitting) a line of business that is not yielding results, often for some reason of emotional attachment, is a reason for business failure, far more than a determinant for success. Just like hard work, people working too hard at the wrong stuff, people can fail at business because they don't quit when they should.
Amway defenders use "not working hard enough" and "quitting too soon" as factors for poor outcomes, and then they often love to say "just like any business".
They are not. There are a few very important factors cited if we research determinants of business success in general, that Amway groups ignore completely. These are financial management, finding un uncrowded niche. Instead they abuse wholesome life mottos, like don't be lazy and don't give up easily on your dreams, to mean something completely different and make people blame themselves to keep them in a "business" activity that is often almost completely devoid of results.
Well said about hard work & effort, not actually getting you all the way to success = Emerald or above or whatever the names are now. The biggest problem in making it all work out is, the products are not overwhelmingly better, many times inferior, yet cost the same as or higher than the biggest name brands out there. There is no way to sell high enough volume, people don't want it, so no matter how hard you work, it's a loser. So internal buying by distributors is the only way it is even still alive, sadly, still alive.
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