Thursday, August 8, 2024

The Money Pit?

 I've been blogging about Amway for a number of years now and I've learned quite a bit about Amway and how the system works. It is my absolute conclusion that the vast majority of IBOs lose money because the system consisting of standing order, book of the month, voicemail and functions are a money pit. The system can never be satisfied. It must constantly drain money out of IBO's pockets in order to sustain itself along with the lavish lifestyles that some diamonds and upline leaders like to portray. Sadly, the system is promoted as the key to IBO success, but the reality is that the system is the very reason why so many IBOs suffer net losses. IBOs often do not realize that they are systematically being drained of their money because it is done one standing order or one function at a time. What some uplines do to disguise this is to start teaching that the Amway business is about investing in your business, lifelong friendships, or making an IBO a nicer person, etc.

Let's look at some system components. Voicemail is absolutely unnecessary. With email, text messages, twitter (now X), or even Facebook to transmit messages for free, it is ridiculous for IBOs to pay for a technologically outdated means of communication. The functions are also a waste of money. With telecommunications, there is no need for so many meetings and functions. These functions, especially the ones where air travel and accommodations are needed set back many IBOs financially and they never recover. While I agree in general that open meetings are more effective in person, these are generally regional and not cost prohibitive as out of town functions. Standing orders are generally recorded at functions so when that happens, IBOs are paying twice to hear the same information. Book of the month I don’t have too much objection except that some of the books may be basically propaganda promoting the AMOs and the systems. The ones that talk about success principles are generally okay. But overall, I believe the return on investment is poor and, in many cases, a group of IBOs will actually spend more on tools than the number of bonuses generated from Amway.

Uplines avoid the discussion of scam by talking about the opportunity being hard work. Thus, IBOs don’t get the idea that it is too good to be true. Meanwhile they are often strongly encouraged to be on the system. Some IBOs are shunned if they don’t purchase tools, which might be against Amway rules. However, the shunned IBO might be better off because the ones who do invest in tools often find that the system is simply a money pit where money goes in and nothing comes out. As far as I know, there is zero unbiased evidence that the system produces any tangible results. If you in the US, you might be hard pressed to find newly emerging diamonds. Sure, there are some new platinums, but there is evidence that system platinums make very little or lose money, and many of them are not able to maintain that level of volume. The system is basically sucking money from the IBOs and channeling them to certain uplines, probably the ones who show off their new sports cars and fancy suits. Does this appeal to you?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The few persons who make money in Amway do so at the expense of the vast number of down-line IBOs who are bleeding cash month after month for Standing Order, required PV purchases, obsolete voicemail systems, endless fees, and the utterly worthless 'functions." As Amway publications admit, the one percent of those who succeed are essentially living off the losses of the 99% below them. Amway is a completely immoral operation, unless you believe that theft is an acceptable way to make a living.

The out-of-town "functions" are the biggest form of theft, and even Amway has distanced itself from the functions, saying that they are purely the responsibility of the AMO subsystems that promote them. Why are the functions kept? The answer is simple -- they make huge sums of money for the big pins who run them, and they serve to fire up enthusiasm among IBOs who aren't making a dime. They are like political rallies that give you a chance to shout and cheer for your candidate, and they are even more like the old revivalist meetings held by evangelist Bible-thumpers.

Anonymous said...

Not to mention the parking, hotels, travel costs and baby sitting for all those functions.