Why You Can't Win?

 In Amway, there are recruitment meetings going on all the time.  These meetings could be small 1 on 1 types of meetings in coffee shops, or they could be house meetings with someone showing the plan to a handful of prospects or a large meeting in a hotel ball room or a convention center.  Last I heard, these Amway meeting venues have gotten smaller.  I know covid was a factor in the shrinking meeting sizes, but I don't know if things have recovered or not.  In the end it doesn't matter because Amway as a business opportunity is a lose money proposition for most, especially if you factor in the IBOs who are gung-ho attending meetings and functions and participating in the tools system such as WWDB, BWW or Network 21.   

The speaker will talk about big dreams, and possibly how he was in a struggle or rut, discovered Amway, had a big adventure building his/her Amway empire, but now live in luxury with cash rolling in while they sleep until noon and have no jobs.  This approach is very appealing to many young people, who are often in entry level jobs, or even perhaps professionals who think they can somehow gain a shortcut to untold wealth and riches if they can only overcome the name Amway and get serious about building a huge business.  In my experience, there were doctors and lawyers involved in the business, although they didn't seem to last very long, save for my physician sponsor who stayed in for more than 25 years.  I have no idea if he's still involved, but IMO, he stayed in long enough to basically ruin his life.  

The reason why so many people quit Amway is for various reasons.  Some people are lazy and never do a thing once signing up.  Or, they sign up and try really hard, but soon realize that the system will never work for them and after seeing nothing going on, they wind up quitting.  Some people, like my former sponsor, get bitten hard and stay hard core dedicated for a long time.  I recall my former sponsor telling me you can never ever quit if you have sponsored an active downline.  It's a sad result but so very common in the big picture of things.  I've been out of Amway for more than 25 years and I can barely see any changes or differences in how things are run, except for the online ordering aspect.  It eliminates the need for the ancient product call in and pickup like the old days where you literally had to call upline and order stuff and pick it up in person every week.  If your sponsor had a lot of downline, then this process could take up a lot of time.

But in the end, you simply can't win in Amway.   If you analyze the plan that is shown at meetings, the plan shows 1 in many achieve the "platinum" level or if you sponsor 6 big groups then you might be a diamond.  However, there is still only 1 diamond with perhaps 500-1000 downline or more.  That never changes.  Add in the fact that something like more than 50% of IBOs never last a single year and more than 90+% never make it more than 5 years.  You can't "win" and have large residual checks rolling in if people quit faster than you can sponsor them, right?

You can't win unless you get to share in the profits from tools and functions.  But rank and file IBOs only share in the PV/BV bonuses paid by Amway, and even at that, the upline gets the lion's share of the bonus unless you are a platinum or close to it.  The tools are where the real money is because they have a greater profit margin than Amway products, and only a certain level or higher has access to these bonuses.  Typically, the diamond gets the biggest share with the emeralds and platinums basically getting a pittance for all their efforts.  

While the IBOs "think" they can outearn their sponsor or even their diamond, it's all a facade.  Your upline diamond will always have power over you.  You think you suddenly arrive and you're "all that" but the reality is that your upline will always be your upline no matter what, unless you quit.  For this reason, it is highly unlikely that you can ever win in this kind of system.  

If you do your own research, you can easily find diamonds suing diamonds over tool money, or diamonds quitting or resigning from Amway (what happened to willable residual income?).  You can also find diamonds in bankruptcy or in foreclosure and even diamonds divorcing.  Oh yeah, they put on a good show and make the whole thing look appealing, but if you look with a critical eye without bias, you'll see that you really can't win.