I remember seeing the plan as a prospect back over twenty five years ago. I remember the speaker talking about how you can capitalize on distribution efficiencies to make money. We as IBOs would simply cut out the middleman and that savings would be passed onto us as IBOs. In its simplest form, it made sense and misconception passed onto the audience that you will actually save money by purchasing Amway products. I even remember the speakers saying that even if the whole world signed up for Amway, even the last guy getting would have the benefit of saving money. Looking back now, much of it was deception and lies. And to think, people now and back then paid good money for training on how to become, in my opinion, the least efficient manner in which to move products.
We saw the Superbowl about 5 months ago. And as you know, super bowl commercials can cost millions of dollars. But do you know why? It's because hundreds of millions of people across the world are tuned into the super bowl. Companies probably have their best staff working on developing these commercials because they want to leave a lasting impression on their viewers. And it apparently works because people today are still willing to shell out serious coin for these commercials.Amway IBOs advertise person to person, one person at a time.
What are the chances of an IBO ever moving a significant amount of products or being able to reach out to potential new downline when they prospect person to person, face to face, one at a time? To me, that is the most inefficient manner of expanding business. And let's face it, Amway's rules don't help when you are not supposed to advertise online without special permissions and you are not supposed to sell product on Ebay or Craigslist. In today's technological society, it seems almost crippling to be so inefficient.
And even your beloved uplines, at your expense, run the most inefficient manner of doing business. Who needs voicemail when we have facebook, email, twitter (now X) or text messaging? Not to mention the added expense IBOs face by these outdated technologies. Also, with video conferencing, skype, zoom or webcams, why do people need to travel long distances for meetings and functions? The answer is simple, your upline might not want your success, they simply might just want your money. All of the training and motivation is a profit center for upline and modernizing would simply reduce their tool profits.
Try asking that of your upline. Why do we keep using the most expensive and inefficient means of doing business and communicating? I'd be curious to hear that answer.
The plain fact is this: Amway is a business dinosaur that should have gone extinct decades ago. Selling products on an individual basis, by going door to door or by telemarketing, is like driving a Model-T Ford with an engine crank-shaft in the front. You have to be insane or profoundly naive to think that you will ever get rich selling in that manner.
ReplyDeleteThis was one of the key causes of disputes in that infamous 1983 meeting between the Amway bigshots and the leaders of the various AMO subsystems. The AMO leaders made it quite clear -- Nobody was ever going to get rich in Amway by selling products to the general public, or to family and friends. The procedure was tedious, it was difficult, it was alienating, and it was obsolete in a world of mass advertising and department stores. Hell, the only persons doing that kind of selling back in the early 1960s were the Fuller Brush Man, the Avon Lady, a few jewelry salesmen, and the Girl Scouts.
That's why the AMO leaders said that recruitment of down-line and the selling of tools and function tickets was the only way that anyone was going to make a fortune in Amway. That's why the Amway bigshots surrendered. Amway in Michigan only gets money when it sells products. And the only people moving products were the AMO down-lines, where IBOs were being forced to buy a fixed amount of product every month, whether they could sell it or not.