Get Rich Quick?

 One of the things my upline used to say was that Amway is not "get rich quick". I suppose they say this because most people would more likely think scam if they promoted it that way. But when you stop and think about it, 2-5 years, build it right and you have will-able, residual income for life while walking the beaches of the world? That's not get rich quick? Or is it more of a disclaimer so that the opportunity doesn't sound "too good to be true"? One thing is for sure, even if uplines tell you that it's not get rich quick, it's obvious that IBOs think they will eventually get rich, even if it's not "quick". Sadly, they are wrong.

What most IBOs don't figure out quickly enough, is that they are unlikely to even make a profit, let alone getting rich in Amway. How many of these people exist? Where are all of these retired Amway IBOs who built a business in 2-5 years and then walked away from their business and will be collecting a significant residual income for many years to come afterwards? I don't know of a single person who has done this and none of the Amway defenders and zealots I have encountered over the years have been unable to supply this information either. It's like some kind of myth or urban legend that people have actually retired from Amway on residual income. We also know that due to attrition, it is virtually impossible to maintain a profitable Amway business. People quit the business daily, thus even what looks like a solid business can be gone in a very short amount of time. I compare retired Amway diamonds with residual income walking the beaches is like legend of bigfoot/sasquatch. Everyone has heard about them, but nobody has ever produced tangible evidence that they exist.

I can acknowledge that Amway is a business opportunity and will definitely take some work to be able to achieve something. But thinking realistically, what business could you actually be able to walk away in 5 years and not work again? More than likely that business doesn't exist, whether it's Amway or not. Say you opened a conventional business. There wouldn't be many scenarios where you could walk away after a number of years. The business would still require work and maintenance. But for some reason, people are misled to believe that you can do this in Amway where there is a high attrition rate and where your business can only expand by person to person.

Sadly, many of the people who are attracted to the Amway opportunity are often young people looking to get more out of life. They are often ambitious but may lack a means to gain wealth, thus the appeal of the opportunity is there. Unfortunately, these nice young people are more likely to end up channeling their hard earned dollars into standing orders and functions which will almost guarantee that they end up with a net loss. The bottom line is that not only is Amway not get rich quick. The more likely scenario is that your involvement with Amway will very likely be not getting rich at all. A net loss is the most likely result. I challenge anyone to try and prove me wrong on this point.

Residual Income?

 Do the work once and reap the rewards for life. Lifelong willable passive/residual income. These are some of the things that attracted me to the Amway opportunity. That I could do the work, and have the option of sitting back, enjoying a fabulous lifestyle of riches and never have to work again. I could wake up at noon if I chose to, and/or I could stay out late hanging out with my "free" Amway buddies.

It sounds great on the surface, however, when you analyze an Amway diamond's income and look at things carefully, you can see where this lifestyle is just not possible. Even if a diamond earned $250,000 a year from Amway and the tools income, after considering taxes, business expenses and other necessities such as medical insurance and retirement savings, you don't have enough left to live what is often portrayed as a "diamond" lifestyle. Also, keep in mind that a lot of a diamond's income is received in the form of an annual bonus so a diamond's monthly income might be relatively small.

One could also wonder why there aren't any diamonds (that I know of) who have actually walked away from their businesses and continue to collect any significant income from Amway. With more than half of all IBOs not staying in business for a year and about 95% of the rest of the IBOs being gone several years later, it would be an insurmountable task to keep your income rolling in with that poor retention rate. As far as I know, an IBO also need to have a minimal amount of side volume in order to qualify for certain significant payments/bonuses. That is a lot of volume to move when IBOs are quitting the business daily, and these days, it seems as though there are fewer IBOs getting involved, at least in the US and Canada.

It is for that reason, I believe these crown ambassadors and higher level pins are still working. Once you stop, it is very likely that there is no tool income, and once your downline starts to suffer attrition, then you Amway income and bonuses will eventually dry up as well. I believe there is no true residual income in Amway. Sure, build a big business and walk away. You may continue to receive some income for a while, but eventually, it will disappear. It is like building a sandcastle on the beach. The bigger you build it, the longer it will last, but it is for certain that the tide will eventually wash the sand away, just as time and attrition will eat away your Amway business. If you are popular and charismatic enough to attract a large downline, once you leave, so will your downline.

As far as I am concerned, I believe the residual income claims from Amway is just a long running myth used to attract recruits. I don't know of anyone who built a large Amway business and then walked away, and is still collecting a significant income. Do you?

Joecool's Challenge?

 I often hear stories and testimonies about how some people (usually Amway newbies) have this incredible belief in Amway, their sponsors and their LOS, such as WWDB or Network 21. Being that many, possibly most IBOs are sponsored by a friend or family member, means that there is an inherent trust in the sponsor or upline. If that were not true, then we would likely see many more complaints about Amway and/or the uplines and lines of sponsorship.

But an important facet of being an IBO (as taught my upline "mentors") is to have a dream. Don't let "naysayers" steal your dream, is what many IBOs are told. But what is that dream?  Is a dream (a long-term attainable goal) or a wish such as winning the Powerball lottery? Many prospects and IBOs want to succeed. They are willing to work hard, and are very dedicated, I would say that these folks usually will end up failing, not for lack of effort, but for a flawed MLM/Amway system that cannot possibly reward more than a few. The famed 6-4-2, 6-4-3 or some other variation of the plan will illustrate that only 1 in 100 or so can be "platinum". And that's with nobody quitting. Factor in attrition and "do nothings" and it might be 1 in 200 who can reach platinum. Even if the whole world signed up for Amway, that fact doesn't change.

Do you really believe in Amway and your line of sponsorship such as WWDB or Network 21? If you truly believe in Amway and your mentors, I challenge you to do one of these things. If you can't or won't, then I question your level of commitment. I question your belief. I'm not here to steal your dream. I am just challenging you.

Take your 6-4-2 or 9-4-2 or 6-4-3 plan to a loan officer at a bank and show them the plan. (Hey, it will help you be CORE and show the plan)  Ask the loan officer for their opinion of the plan and see if you can get a business loan based on the Amway plan. If not that, try seeking the advice of a real millionaire (Someone who has a net worth of a million bucks) and see if they think the 6-4-2 or other Amway (version) plans can work and whether they think Amway is a good idea. Heck, try asking your church Pastor. My church Pastor said Amway had too many false hopes and promises to be considered a viable business option.

How strong is your belief in Amway? Strong enough to take my challenge? Or will you ignore this and go on fooling yourself?

Vertical Alignment?

 Check out this blog, written by a WWDB IBO named Shaun. Shaun seems like a nice guy and all, but I think his way of thinking may have been negatively affected by upline teaching. He is saying the superbowl isn't that important and that he will be spending time with family. And I agree! In the big picture of things, the superbowl is just a game. Sure, one of the biggest events of the year, but when it's said and done, it still is just a game. I mean if you had to choose between an important family matter and a game, there's not much choice.

See "Shaun's" post: http://expeditionoftruths.com/2011/02/06/super-bowl-what/

An excerpt: Sports are there for our enjoyment and there is nothing wrong with that, but when it comes between spending quality time with my wife or soon to be kid, that’s where I’ll draw a line. I think if people cared more about their family life instead of the damn football maybe there would be less divorce, maybe there would be less fighting, maybe less family pain? Who knows, I don’t have the answers but I can tell you it would be a start that’s for sure

The interesting aspect of this blog post you see, is that Shaun's upline leaders were the same ones I had as an IBO. We were told things like never miss a function, unless it was for a funeral - your funeral. Or we should attend ALL meetings and functions. All means all, what don't you understand about that? Some folks ended up missing or cancelling important family events to be able to attend Amway functions. IBOs skip church and important church events for Amway meetings.

I wonder what will happen if Shaun's anniverssary falls on the same weekend as a major function? What about a child's birthday? Or your's kid's hockey games? I have a strange feeling that it's perfectly okay to reschedule or miss something like that if it's for an Amway function or meeting. I wonder what Shaun will tell his upline or downline when they have family events conflicting with an Amway/WWDB function? If you truly value your family as he is saying, then you would miss the Amway WWDB function if there is a conflict with family matters. Not reschedule them. I have heard many IBOs justify missing church or cancelling or rescheduling family outings because of business meetings. Where's the vertical alignment then?

So what really matters? Your family or that next Amway/WWDB function?

Same Old Amway?

 A close friend of mine and former downline (when I was an IBO) told me that his daughter recently joined Amway and WWDB. Despite his informed warnings and objections, she joined anyway, and insists that things are different in Amway today. That gave me some food for thought. What is different between Amway of today and the Amway I was in? The products are basically the same, perhaps with some new packaging. The concepts are the same. Buy your own stuff and try to get others to do the same. And recruit like crazy.  That part of the business hasn't changed at all.

But what also hasn't changed is the same old Amway reputation that greatly hinders the ability to sell products and/or to recruit others and to show the plan. Seems as if people joining and quitting without doing much is still the same. There is still a strong emphasis on the consumption of tools and functions by the rank and file IBOs, and why not? The diamonds make nice profits from the sale of business support materials and unlike the Amway compensation plan, the rank and file IBOs get no compensation for the tools.  This is a no brainer for spline and the source of the reason for IBO failures, in most cases of IBOs who dedicate themselves to the "system".

It sure seems as if the same old - old diamonds are around. The Duncans, Puryear, Leslie Wolgamott (Divorced from Brad - WWDB saves marriages?). Harimoto, Tsuruda, Danzik. Where are the new diamonds?   There might be a new diamond here and there but I left Amway in the 1990s and I don't know of many new diamonds except one named Mandy Yamamoto.   (There might be a few others) It might also be significant to note that Amway revenues have declined significantly from 11.8 billion in 2013 to 8.6 billion in 2017, with further declines after that.   I believe Amway had a slight uptick in 2019 but then Covid 19 came and that couldn't have helped.  And that is while the US economy had been doing very well. Perhaps people are seeing Amway for what it is? A poor business opportunity where your chance of failure is nearly 100%. And it's not because of a lack of effort or motivation. The Amway system as run by the AMOs is just set up for failure.  

A quick look at the common 6-4-2 plan is 79 IBOs. One platinum and a whole bunch who aren't. And this plan doesn't factor in that many people join and quit without doing much of anything. Thus there can only mathematically be a small fraction of 1% who make anything with a whole bunch of wannabes who never make it. And that is what Amway is. The same old sorry ass Amway opportunity where the diamonds sell you false hopes and dreams while their dreams come true from your tools and function purchases.

Some Amway Observations?

 Observation #1: In general, IBOs are less successful in life than others. That is why they are more open to the business and why they can be convinced that there is a shortcut to retirement and perpetual wealth. When I was an IBO, I was not where I wanted to be financially, as I was younger and at the earlier stages of my career. I would not be open to “options” right now, however, many people looking for more in life or a shortcut to retirement may be more susceptible to looking at options. It's just that the Amway opportunity, in my opinion, ir a poor option.

Observation #2: The biggest zealots/supporters appear to have the smallest businesses. They talk the talk - but no evidence of walk the walk. Also, any discussion about their personal success with the business is limited and shrouded in secrecy or they will make vague references about their level of success. They will say that their incomes are not relevant to the discussion or will point out a copy of someone's check or show a picture of a diamond's mansion, but will never disclose real financials like a REAL business owner would.

Observation #3: The business has a bad reputation and cannot be marketed to the general public without some degree of deception. It’s why there are so many testimonials of people tricked into attending meetings (including myself). Being straight forward with information will likely get you a resounding “No thanks”.

Observation #4: It would appear that much upline teaching is not focused on actually running a profitable business, but dedication to the system. It’s why so many IBOs don’t seem to know what a profit loss statement is, and don’t bother keeping one themselves. It’s also why the content of many BSMs is to purchase more BSMs. At functions, they will tell you to attend more functions and buy more standing orders, and on standing orders, they will tell you to never quit and to attend more functions.

Observation #5: IBOs in general don’t seem to have planned out their retirement. They are convinced that the Amway opportunity will provide for them when they reach their retirement years. They put down people who are working jobs and investing for their futures. They feel that purchasing function tickets is their investment for retirement. While a fraction of 1% might make some significant money in Quixtar, the vast majority do not. The fact that the majority may not have put forth a Herculean effort is irrelevant in my opinion. The bottom line is that the vast majority will not make an income from this opportunity. To ignore this fact is burying your head in the sand.

Ignore Facts At Your Own Peril?

I can't be sure, but this article might illustrate why the FTC came down on Amway and WWG (WWDB) and LTD: 

One of the crazy things that our Amway upline taught the group was that the facts don't matter when you have a dream. There is evidence that this is still taught today and in particular, I have heard that from IBOs who claim to associate with WWDB. IBOs are taught to ignore facts because the facts make their Amway businesses look like a joke. Spend $300 a month on products to gain a $10 rebate when you could have bought the same or similar products at WalMart for a fraction of the cost. Then many IBOs spend another $200 or more so they can be taught to ignore facts or that this is somehow a great deal.

Any real business owner would never ignore facts. A real business owner makes business decisions based on facts. IBOs are being duped into making business decisions based on emotions and hype. The Amway opportunity already is already saturated with handicaps and challenges, particularly in the US and Canada, where the reputations and previous antics of fellow IBOs has so stained Amway's name that it appears to be negatively affecting sales and preventing any meaningful growth. Despite what Amway apologists claim, Amway revenues are shrinking (about 25% decline from 2013 to 2017) and will continue to do so unless improvements and corrections are made, in my opinion. It's also possible that it is too late to right the ship at this point.

It is also why many IBOs talk about how Amway saves marriages, or Amway made them nicer people. Uplines will teach this because it takes a business owner's focus away from their bottom line, the profit or loss. Or IBOs are taught that a loss just means they are investing in their business, despite being told upfront that there is little or no investment needed and that a profit can be turned quickly in Amway. These uplines have gone on for years with no accountability placed upon them by either Amway or their downlines. Any "incidents" are simply ignored or history revised by uplines.

There is one blog on the internet, where a WWDB IBO is writing about buying homes in cash, and Amway IBOs having a 2% divorce rate compared to more than 50% in the rest of the world, yet you have Amway defenders claiming this isn't being taught, when clearly it is. Cover it up all you want, the evidence is right there but these folks aren't interested in the facts. I urge great caution to people who are ignoring facts to pursue an Amway dream.

Buy From Yourself?

Reporting this story with a caveat:  The new FTC ruling against Amway and WWG (WWDB) and LTD will prevent this kind of teaching, if the FTC actually enforces their ruling.  In the past the Amway defenders would cite the 1979 FTC ruling on Amway is if it were some kind of validation that Amway was legitimate as is.  The ruling by the FTC last month is a stark contrast to what we heard in the past:

Buy From Yourself:

As an IBO, our group was often told that selling products were not that important. Just buy from yourself and get others to do the same. When prospecting, you ask if someone likes selling and if they say no, you say "great, this business is perfect for you". Or if someone says they like selling, you say: "great, this business is perfect for your". Keep in mind that a business exists to sell a product or service for a profit. I believe Amway folks forget about this fact.

People naturally do not like selling stuff to people, thus the adaptation to being your own best customer or buying from your own store. While it's fine to support your own business, it is not true that a McDonald's owner would never eat at a Burger King or other sill claims. Do you believe that a McDonald's owner would only eat food sold at his own restaurant? I guarantee you that isn't true. I know someone who owns a very popular pizza franchise, and she says she never eats at her own restaurant because she's sick of eating pizza. You make money selling pizza so you can have otherl options.

Another thing that Amway IBOs are probably not aware of is that buying from yourself and getting others to do the same without real sales to actual customers is running a illegal pyramid scheme. Another MLM company Herbalife, was investigated by the FTC and while they were not shut down, they were fined and had to change their operations because the FTC found that they lacked sales to legitimate customers. Herbalife is now forced to track retail sales with a compliance monitor watching their moves. There are stories of Herbalifers trying to fudge sales and Herbalife higher ups encouraging people to sign up as preferred customers instead of business builders. That suggests to me that Herbalife is basically admitting they are a sham. If they had legitimate demand, they would run a campaign to recruit more business builders who would in turn, sell products to customers who want their products.

So, Amway IBOs, are a majority of your PV sales to yourself or to customers? Are your customers your family and friends who are somewhat reluctantly buying products from you, if at all? If you are just buying and using your own products, you are actually not entitled to an Amway performance bonus. On the bright side, it seems that Amway just ignores this requirement and pays bonuses anyway. But without legitimate demand, sales and revenues dry up when the markets begin to get saturated. Amway's sales hit a peak at 11.8 billion in 2014 and has gone into a downward spiral since. In 2016, Amway sales dropped 7% to 8.8 billion which was preceded by a dounble digit drop in 2015.

With sales and revenues down, that can only mean there are less sales and volume, therefore there are less Platinums and diamonds that can be supported. But Amway prospects will never know because once you earn diamond recognition, Amway never updates it. Once a diamond, always a diamond, if you will. Thus the leaders that are Bing worshipped on stage might not even be diamonds anymore.

In the end, I write this post to give you food for thought. Too many prospects and IBOs are not aware of these issues but they certainly should be,

Amway Leaders?

 Over the many years of Amway's existence, their reputation in the US and Canada has tanked. And it's not all due to Amway the corporation, but rather Amway IBO leaders who teach and condone unethical behavior. Of course, I don't know of any significant measures that Amway has taken to discipline some of their wayward IBOs, but that's another story. However, it's apparent to me that some Amway leaders really are just not good people. They will do and say anything, even lie to recruits to make a buck off them. They will sell false hopes and dreams to make their living.

During my blogging career, I've seen young people who were discouraged from attending college so they could build an Amway business. I've personally seen people go bankrupt and lose their homes because they followed the advice of their all-knowing uplines. Sure, people have some responsibility for their actions but I feel as if some of these kinds of actions by some IBOs and IBO leaders is predatory and focuses on people who can least afford to funnel money into the business and the leech teaching systems such as WWDB or Network 21. Downlines are taught to trust in their upline and to follow their advice, and to make it worse, the uplines then blame the IBOs for any failures.

I've seen ridiculous product claims such as people claiming that bottled water could cure ills and make you athletically superior. Of course, this water costs about $50 a case when you could buy 10 cases of water at Walmart for the same price. They claim superiority in their vitamins without unbiased scientific evidence to support their claims. Perhaps that is why the Amway vitamins seemingly are consumed nearly exclusively by IBOs themselves. Nobody except IBOs buy the stories and the prices of Amway diamonds.

Despite claims by Amway supporters and IBOs that things are changing in Amway for the better, there is plenty of evidence that nothing has changed. Outrageous income claims. I thought the Dateline show exposed some crazy stuff with an IBO leader claiming that people could earn $250K per year with a part time effort, but then my friend Rocket finds this gem with an IBOAI member and crown ambassador in WWDB/Amway claiming you can make hundreds of thousands of dollars a month: http://rocketsrants.blogspot.com/2011/09/amway-guys-they-sure-say-stuff.html

I wonder if Brad Duncan himself even makes that kind of money. Ironically, his triple diamond brother (Greg) wasn't even close to that when his bankruptcy papers were exposed a few years ago.

So to Amway prospects and apologists, the Amway corporation itself may be perfectly legal and clean, but the root of many evils comes from Amway uplines and AMO leaders. It is for this very reason that many get turned off just at the mention of the Amway name. Amway can stop them, but will they?

More Testimony?

 A blog visitor sent me this email. It might he helpful to some people so I'll post it.

We were part of what im coming to find out as a smaller more unknown team in our region. I’ve run into many Amroids since I first joined until now, and they’ve always seemed to be part of N21 or BWW or WWDB but im not sure if our group was any of those? We were part of something called the UR Association. I believe through some unspoken issues years ago in upline, our group was adopted either to Dexter Yagers organization or from his organization. Its never been fully or properly explained to us. Anyway, my upline always had CDs from multiple organizations teaching systems, and we purchased them all. This was because we partly refused to sign up with URA and partly because we just didn’t have to money for that type of monthly fee. We weren’t on Kate either because of this. When my significant other (SO) and I first joined almost 4 years ago, we were typical for this business; broke, unemployed, and young. We went through the paces or coming out to the meetings as guests for free, attending some product expos, etc, until one day it started costing us as guests (we were still evaluating at the time) to attend the regular open meetings. Foolishly, we figured “well we might as well sign up then!”



Looking back now, all the signs were there for us to see since the start. After we got in, our uplines group slowly fell apart. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen his group grow or be on the rise since I joined. I was told of the glory days just months before of how there were over 100 people in his group attending functions, all the pin levels on his team, the recognitions they’ve received, etc. When we joined and he was on the decline, we thought nothing of it, as it was played off as normal and that “Some Will, Some Wont, So What, Some Where, Six Will, so Stop Whining, and Start Working”. We also attended a major Family Reunion shortly after officially signing up and again, the signs were always there, but we just never noticed. That function that we went to was the largest our upline Diamonds organization was we’d ever see. Our open meetings slowly began getting smaller, and we had to increase ticket costs to “pay for the room”. It went from an open meeting every 2 weeks at $5 to an open meeting once a month at $10. Over the years it started switching locations as well, from one hotel conference room to another, and now it is currently held at a Condo, in the main floors’ lobby room (I believe there is still a cost incurred)



One of the CDs that we were always so “keen” to listen to was one by a young diamond from the US, who built a good portion of his organization in Hawaii and in the western states. He’s young, funny, relatable, and therefore an obvious hit with our young group. Anyway, on his CD he mentions that the only “negative thing that can be found online about Amway is that we allegedly make all our money off books and CDs”. Im loosely paraphrasing, but basically he went on saying “…like that’s a bad thing. Think about it, whats the first thing you do when you are successful at something? Golfing, any sport, a business? Don’t you write a book, cut a CD and go on public speaking events?!” Which of course when twisted around it does seem to make sense, so we never really questioned it. We thought Wow these are totally honest about it! Theres not really much else to write about at this point, like I said earlier, a lot of your blogs were 100% correct about what still goes on. The mind games, what uplines say, whats said at opens, all of it. My SO and I reached a max of I believe 300/400 PV and 200PV respectively. SO had a slightly larger group (we were building it separately at the time) with maybe 5-6 downline at its peak, and I had maximum 2. We’ve been in it for 4 years and have seen no results. Despite having no money for monthly subscriptions to books and CDs, we were core. We tried our best to get the proper 50/150, we always used all the products and promoted it like crazy. We tried contacting all the time, and showed plans whenever we could. We listened, read, attended all functions, were accountable, honest, and the only thing we didn’t have was Kate. But the results were never there. Even with the amount of downline each of us had at our maximum, we still never broke more then 300-400PV. It just wasn’t happening. Since we’ve stopped, I have purchased a new(er) car, 2010 top trim, and with a 1 year delayed gratification goal, we saved enough money for a destination vacation paid for in cash. We spared no expense while we were there and bought all sorts of gifts for our friends and ourselves. We are also planning more trips in this coming year.


There are little details here and there im sure i could mention about the really crazy BS we've been through, but perhaps another time :) we're in a phase right now of not thinking about it or dealing with it.

Thanks for reading!

"Anon"

Paid Consultants?

 Over the years, I have encountered many Amway IBOs, and they often have a common theme. They trust their upline to a fault and in some cases, consider them mentors. Now in a business venture, it might be good to have a mentor or someone to guide you, but in the Amway opportunity, most of the upline mentors make money off those who they mentor. That is a major conflict of interest but IBOs simply fail to see it. Just about any "help" you receive results in compensation for someone upline. Upline should actually be paid consultants with no accountability.

When an IBO sees the plan in a big meeting or function, the speaker will often be built up as a financial guru, and possibly as an expert on how to succeed in Amway. An IBO may hear something about the trail was already blazed by upline and you just need to follow the trail. Don't re-invent the wheel, just copy what upline did. But as I have said many times before, duplication sounds easy and looks good on paper, but in real life, the vast majority of IBOs run into problems that they simply cannot overcome, such as the bad reputation that the Amway name has in the US. Uncompetitive prices for products do not help the cause either. If you don't believe that, go and do an honest price comparison.

What is troubling however, is that IBOs are taught to trust upline and do as they say (defacto requirement), but they are also taught that failure is due to their own shortcomings, even when they do exactly what upline told/advised them. It is also troubling that many uplines will tell their faithful followers that they need to purchase more and more tools (voicemail, cds, seminar tickets). In some cases, an upline may advise their downline to sacrifice basic family needs to buy these tools. I saw some IBOs who were advised to skip meals to buy a cd, or skip paying the mortgage to be able to attend the next big function. One diamond even taught about the foreclosure procedures so people could skip a payment. That same diamond talked about how long you can hold off the electric company before being shut down. The results o this bad advice are devastating for some. I saw some fellow IBOs go bankrupt and/or lose their homes following this advice.

I might also add that as a newer IBO or prospect, you may have heard that "everyone starts at zero", or that it's a level playing field. It is not. As a new IBO, you will likely be in the 100 PV bracket. Since Amway pays out about 31% in bonuses, your upline(s) will split up about 28% in bonuses off your efforts while you get a 3%bonus. That doesn't sound very level to me. In addition, you as an IBO are paying for this privilege when you buy tools.

So each IBO should look at things objectively and see if your upline is actually helping you or simply helping himself by giving you advice that ends up in profit for himself with little or nothing for you.

Winners And Losers?

 One of the things that my Amway upline taught, and I believe is still taught today in various groups is that winners join Amway and losers do not. Or that you were a winner because you were doing something to better your financial future and those who didn't were losers. or broke minded. Of course the upline who said this had no knowledge about those who were not in Amway. Some of them may already have been financially sound or may have been doing something to better their financial future. I'm not sure why these uplines, who promote "positive", had to resort to calling people losers simply because they did not agree that Amway was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

In many games or sporting events, there will be someone or a team that wins the game and someone or a team that loses the game. Losing a game doesn't make you a loser and certainly, a team that wins the game would not say the losing team were losers. Can you imagine a sports team's coach taking the podium after a game and saying his team won because the other team was a bunch or broke minded gutless losers? That would never happen, yet we see that frequently in the Amway/IBO world. The owner of Amway, Rich DeVos had once said in a recorded message that just because people do not agree with you (paraphrased) about Amway, does not make them losers and that IBOs should not call people losers.

In all of this, people's jobs are also criticized. That a job stand for "just over broke" or "jackass of the boss" and other blurbs. Many IBO's goals and dreams consist of ditching their job so they can sleep all day and live a life of luxury. Ironically, it is most IBO's jobs that continue to produce income so they can pay their bills and feed their family. It is also an IBO's job that funds their Amway and training expenses such as product purchases and functions and voicemail, etc. Without having a job, most people could not even join Amway or pay for any tools. Sadly, most IBOs won't make any money in Amway either, and will have to continue to work at their jobs. I do not believe that someone earning an honest living working a job is a loser. Ironically, the folks calling people losers are often not even netting a profit from their Amway business!

Yes, in this business or the sports world, there will be winners and there will be losers. The question is whether you are the one who is allowed to be the judge of who is and who isn't. I would also suggest that IBOs are completely shutting down potential future business by their behavior. What if I went to a store to purchase something but the item was not available on that particular day, so I don't purchase anything and leave. As I leave, the store owner says I am a loser for not buying something there. Will I go back? Very unlikely. If an IBO truly sees themselves as a store owner, all prospects should be seen as potential business, whether future or present. If your upline tells you that people not interested are losers, you should ask him how much cash he's netting from Amway. You might be surprised at the answer!

The Scam?

 Before I signed up to join Amway, I was invited to see "the plan" at an open meeting. The speaker seemed to make sense about running a business to make money and how you and make money and save money by being involved with Amway. Except that he misrepresented the Amway experience. The speaker said you save 30% on goods by shopping with Amway, which is a lie. You can save 30% shopping with Amway if you pay the distributor price instead of suggested retail, except that the distributor price is much more expensive (on average_ than paying for the same or similar products at a retailer like Costco to Walmart. Anyone who does an honest price comparison can easily see that this is true. Walmart buys from the manufacturer and adds their markup and sells to you. Amway does the same, but they "generously" pay a 30+ % bonus to IBOs and that bonus is included in the prices thus Amway has to charge much more than a Walmart or Costco to cover the bonuses.

Then the "scam" comes in. The diamonds and bigshots in Amway say "anyone" can go diamond, get rich and walk the beaches of the world while getting wealthy beyond belief. And all you need to do it subscribe to their teaching system consisting of voicemail, books, CDs and seminars/functions. Join and subscribe and do what you're advised, and you're nearly assured of success. It's a lie. There is ZERO evidence that the system helps anyone succeed. Upline will say everyone who succeed is on the system. While that might be true, there are millions of people on the same system who fail. It's like saying everyone who wins the lottery has a ticket while disregarding the millions of people who get on the system and fail. People fail because the Amway compensation plan is designed that way. The multi-level compensation plan assures a majority of failures.

So, the Amway business has people joining in the hopes of riches, but they are basically chasing the end of a rainbow. You can see it and chase it, but you will never get it. Looks at the diamonds in the US. Some of them died while still working and some got divorced. But the vast majority of Amway diamonds are the same old diamonds from the 1990's and there are very few new diamonds. If the system actually worked, new diamonds would be churning out regularly, but they aren't. And they can't right now because Amway sales from 2014 to now is down about 25%. Amway went from 11.8 billion to 8.8 billion last Amway fiscal year. Without new virgin ground to exploit, Amway is saturating and shrinking.

Overall Amway is a scam in my opinion. They sell false hopes and false dreams under the guise of running a low overhead business and then the diamond turns around and sells useless tools that only help the diamonds. The success is not there. The "fruit on the tree" that some diamonds used to talk about is not there. In my opinion, Amway is just a big scam run by diamonds so they can make their fortunes selling tools. I welcome and dare anyone to prove me wrong.

Amway's Mentors?

 Over the years, I have received various emails from Amway IBOs and prospective Amway IBOs asking for my opinion and advice on whether to join Amway or what I thought about Amway. I never tell anyone directly that they should not join or join, but I offer them my thoughts and experiences and allow them to at least make an informed decision about Amway and the Amway systems such as WWDB, BWW, LTD, Network 21 etal. Many people are not familiar with these systems, and the system leaders are typically diamonds and above and although they do not present actual current credentials, most people assume they are wealthy beyond belief and should be worshipped and given the utmost respect.

However, I have seen chinks in the Armor. I saw a triple diamond file chapter 7 bankruptcy some years ago and lose homes to foreclosure. Another "lesser" diamond in WWDB also lost a home to foreclosure. A very valid question I have is how they can lose homes to foreclosure when they cry out on stage that diamonds pay cash for everything? What is also stunning is that the triple diamond only made $40,000 a month. Now that's a great income but is that what you would think a triple diamond would make from Amway? How can you afford mansions and jets and a fleet of sports cars, paid for in cash, when you earn about the equivalent of minimum wage in the national football league? The answer is you make additional money by selling your downline voicemail, CDs, books and seminar tickets, along with charging them for meetings and other events. More on that to come.

Amway leaders often present themselves as "mentors" but mentors in a pure sense don't make money from the people they mentor. For example, my grandfather teaching me to have character or to be a good man would be mentoring. Someone charging me for voicemail or books and CDs and making money even if I lose my shirt can hardly be considered a mentor. I would say that person is a paid consultant who has no accountability for my results in Amway. As far as I know, no Amway upline has refunded money because you lost your shirt following their advice. I hear stories at times about people losing a lot of money and while they can return seem Amway products, I don't hear many stories about refunds from the "tools scam".

And that's the worst part about the Amway "mentors". They have never been held accountable for the massive numbers of people who have spent money in WWDB, BWW, LTD or Network 21 and didn't make money despite doing everything their "mentors" or upline leaders advised. Also, there is no documented evidence that the system of books and CDs and seminars do anything to help IBOs make money, unless you're selling these materials. My advice to Amway prospects and potential IBOs - Beware of Amway "mentors".  

As a plus, the new FTC ruling against Amway, WWG (WWDB) and LTD will prevent the sale of tools and functions to new IBOs.  This Amway story is going to get interesting going forward.

Negative Cashflow?

 One of the things I am hearing from some Amway supporters is the concept that Amway pays you to shop there. The problem with this statement is that many IBOs see this rebate but do not calculate the fact that you can still have a better bottom line simply by purchasing a product elsewhere. For example, if Walmart started some kind of cash rebate program, would you quit Amway and shop at Walmart?

Then when an Amway supporter is cornered with this information, they will switch gears and start to defend quality versus price. It's all very predictable.  Honest question for IBOs. Why do you use KATE instead of the Amway voicemail system? Amway pays you to shop there, your upline profits from and does not pay you to use KATE. (It's because upline diamonds created their own voicemail system because it's more profitable than the Amway system.  So much for product loyalty and shopping at your own store?)

One of the biggest problems with especially new IBOs is they ignore negative cashflow. And I cannot really blame them. They are usually sponsored by someone they trust, and they are often taught to ignore facts or taught that they are investing in their business, just like a real business, even though when recruited, they are told little or ZERO risk. Thus, an IBO who intends to make a profit will generally get set up with a website and some other materials. While the cost may not be exorbitant, these few materials already exceed a new IBO's income unless they actually go out and sell some goods or are able to sponsor downline who sell and buy products. And the more dedicated an IBO is, the greater the chance is that the IBO's negative cashflow will be larger. When you start to add in standing order and functions, the cashflow gets more and more negative and there are many testimonies of massive debts built up by IBOs in a few years or less.

What's ironic is that many IBOs incur these debts at the advice of their upline, or if you will, "mentors". Many uplines will teach IBOs to "never quit". It is my guess that uplines will make blanket statements like never quit without knowing an IBOs circumstance. Just as a statement like you "need" to attend a certain function, or you need standing order. No assessment of an IBO's business or personal circumstances. It appears that uplines are simply interested in making a sale for their BSM business. You may ask why a diamond should assess a downline's business before issuing these statements. I ask why downline should call them "mentors". In the meantime, these downlines suffer negative cashflow from their Amway business. Ironically, some upline teaches that "insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results". Attending functions and listening to standing orders while losing money each month is that same insanity.

Upline Teaching?

 Below is an excerpt from an apparently newbie IBO in Britt Worldwide (BWW). Note how they are taught that they must ask upline before doing their work. This IBO also talks about not having to use his brain, just follow your upline’s advice. Submit to the leaders. Follow the system and success is guaranteed. Right, and Amway apologists have the nerve to deny that this stuff still goes on? I suspect it is more common than Amway defenders will admit.

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http://greatdealmway.blogspot.com/2009/08/bww-system-and-get-success.html

*3 Cardinal rules

A. never pass negative advises or rumors to your down lines.

B. you must ask to your up lines before going on your first work.

C. never ever go bad with anyone’s self motive, money and family members.

*4 powers

1. Unity: unity is most powerful aspect. Do work in unity.

2. Power of submission to your work, up lines and customers: you must understand that you do not need to use your brain in this business. Just follow your leaders and submit yourself to them.

3. Power of spoken words: try out this simple but effective formula to gain success in your life. Speak out regularly about what you want in your life. It should be for this business, for family, for country or anything you want. This will reduce the negative energy and will create positive energy around you.

Do best and follow this system. Success is guaranteed!

CORE - The Upline Teaching?

I'm reposting this article about CORE because if you see the steps of CORE, the alleged recipe for Amway success taught by many groups, you'll see that many of the steps taught by upline are now going to be prohibited by the very recent FTC ruling against Amway, WWDB and LTD.  No more CDs/audios, books, functions, communikate (voicemail) and possible the buy 100% of your own products, depending on what they are.  Amway will be monitoring sales, and I believe the FTC ruling says sales with be audited by an independent monitor.   This will be very interesting times.  

Amway leaders often refer to CORE as their steps to ensure that an IBO will succeed. But in my informed opinion, CORE will guarantee failure. Here's a breakdown of CORE and why it doesn’t work. Here are the CORE steps. Some groups may have variations of CORE, but this is generally what many groups use:

1 - Show the Plan (10-15 per month)
2 - Retail the Products (10 customers @10 PV each)
3 – Tapes/cds
4 - Books
5 - Functions (attend all)
6 - Accountability
7 - Counsel with Upline (Be teachable!)
8 - Buy 100% of your own products
9 – Communikate

Many upline will tell you that your success is nearly 100% guaranteed if you follow these steps for 2-5 years. Some Amway enthusiasts will tell you that 6 months of this activity will nearly assure you of a platinum level business. Certain steps are within the IBO’s control, such as reading every day and listening to cds, and attending functions. It is also easy enough to be accountable, counsel with upline, buy your own products, and use KATE (voicemail).

Here’s where an IBO’s efforts will break down. Showing the plan and retailing products. And remember, if you cannot do these steps then you are not considered “CORE” and your upline will likely tell you that it is your own fault and that you simply haven’t been CORE, therefore you did not achieve success. There is some truth in this but let me expose the system in a different angle.

Amway has a spotty reputation in the US. I don’t think anyone can dispute this fact. Therefore, for the vast majority of people, being able to show the plan 10-15 times per month is a nearly impossible task. If you are able to do this, you are a really good salesman or a good liar. In this scenario, the IBO is already successful, but not because of CORE, but simply because the IBO has the gift of being able to convince people into seeing the plan. But for many IBOs, they may contact hundreds of people and not be able to get anyone to see the plan. Even IBOs who follow upline advice on how to contact will probably not be able to show 10-15 plans per month. Thus, this IBO, who is doing the work, will not be able to succeed. The system will blame the IBO, but the reality is that the IBO has too big of a disadvantage to overcome.

Secondly, with high prices (on average) and with a spotty reputation, most IBOs are unable to retail products. Thus, most IBOs are unable to sell products, therefore they are not CORE, therefore upline will blame the IBO for failure.

What if an IBO contacts 1000 people and cannot get 10 people to see the plan? Upline will claim that IBO is not CORE and therefore it is personal failure of the IBO. IMO, the only reason why upline can claim that CORE works is because in order to do the CORE steps consistently, you have to already be at a certain level of success. The vast majority of IBOs cannot and will never be able to reach that level.

That is the myth and the deception that many uplines will use to attract recruits. That each IBO can do the CORE steps. When only a fraction of 1% ever reach the level of platinum or higher, the numbers strongly support what is written here. Apologists are welcome to try and prove me wrong, but they can't.

The Fallout From The 2026 FTC Action Against Amway And WWDB/LTD?

 In case anyone's been sleeping the last few days and missed the FTC announcement, it's posted on this very blog a few days ago.  Basically, Amway, WWG (WWDB) and LTD were fined $225 million dollars for deceptive and misleading business practices.  More guidance will be forthcoming from the FTC, according to their announcement.  I'm curious but will be trying to follow up on the FTC guidance.  But IMO, some of the details from the FTC ruling will be devastating to the AMOs.   I say this because the FTC ruling restricts the diamonds/AMOs from selling tools and functions to new IBOs for the first year.

Not being able to sell tools to newbie IBOs is likely to choke out the diamond's tool business.  I say this because Amway's own disclosures suggest that a significant number of IBOs don't last a full year before they quit.  And in my own experience, the diamond's and platinums are always rushing to get new IBOs on standing orders and functions.  More than likely because the diamonds livelihoods depend on new IBOs signing up, regardless of whether they stay in the business or not.  It seems as if new IBOs are expendable, so there's a push upfront to sell standing orders and function tickets to new IBOs and prospects while they might still be excited about Amway.

By restricting sales of tools and functions for the first year, the diamond's income from tools and functions will be almost non-existent.  It's possible that there will be no more functions at sports arenas or convention centers.  I had heard that Amway venues were already shrinking over the years since I left Amway, and I can only imagine things will get worse.  So how will the diamonds cope with a significant decline in the tools business?  In a previous post, I theorized that the diamonds could try to get IBOs who have been in business for more than a year to foot the bill for their groups.  But if say a 1000 PV IBO or 2500 PV IBO isn't even making a net profit, having them pay for their downline to attend functions would just put these folks out of business as well, especially if they were already starting to doubt the foolproof business.  

I suppose the diamonds could try to move their groups entirely to another MLM, but that could be risky because the diamonds have already sold Amway as the financial savior for their downlines, and a new MLM could easily collapse if not enough sales are generated.  Some diamonds had done this in the past.  I recall some groups moving to an MLM called "Xango" at one time in the 1990's or so but Xango didn't last.   So what to do?   While the diamonds might still be assuring downline that everything is ok, I'm pretty sure that they are hitting the panic button behind closed doors.  

There will be more fallout and other things I haven't thought of, but I believe the FTC ruling could spell the end for at least some of the diamonds, especially the ones who have a diamond pin but aren't actually qualified anymore.   

The Golden Ticket?

 In light of the very recent FTC action against Amway and WWG (WWDB) and LTD, a $225 million dollar fine was levied apparently for deceptive and misleading business practices.   IMO, that action vindicates this blog and many others.  It confirms what has been said for decades now.  And this action by the FTC is sort of like the kid in Willie Wonka having the golden ticket taken away from him.

The diamonds used to say, "Tools are optional but so is success".  "We only make pennies when you make dollars".  "A carpenter needs tools".  "Nobody has ever succeeded without tools, but you can try to be the first".  "Nobody makes any profit on tools".  This what I heard as an IBO.  I also recall that as a prospect, my sponsor kept pushing the tools hard.  At first, I didn't think much of it, but later when I started to figure out the deal, I realized that the tools were the diamond's real business.   Just like musicians make a fortune by selling out arenas for concerts, etc.  And the diamonds don't even pay for ushers and other menial tasks because the platinums are like the slaves of the system.  I even read that some venues give nice discount on the arena or convention center if the event will fill up the local hotels and restaurants so diamonds likely make possibly more than a million dollars gross from large major functions that the diamonds split up amongst themselves.

But the diamond's golden ticket will be torn up, provided the FTC actually enforces their order.  It will be meaningless if the diamonds work around this somehow.  Prior to this ruling, I believe Amway's own rules said a sponsor is supposed to provide training to their downline free of charge but that wasn't happening.  Instead, prospects and newbies were funneled to functions and other tools s if it was vital to their success.  I can also see a way for diamonds to usurp the ruling.  That would be to simply have their downline who have been around for a year or more, foot the bill for newer IBOs who are not supposed to pay for their own training.   But that could backfire as well, because say a 1000 PV IBO who's making nothing or losing money, is going to be expected to shell out cash so his/her downline can attend functions and listen to standing orders?  I don't see that as sustainable long term.  Conversely, if a function really made everyone successful, why would diamonds not want all IBOs to get that information?   (That's a rhetorical question) Now the FTC is supposed to issue more guidance about these issues before the end of this year, so we'll see how that pans out.  If you find any news about this before you see it posted, leave a link in the comments and I'll go check it out and write a summary, if possible.  

If anyone has done research or knows how the diamond's bonuses work out, you can see the math and realize that diamond income might not be all that it's promoted to be. For example, someone can have a diamond pin but not actually be a qualified diamond.  In that case, this person receives no diamond bonus and tools and functions are likely their livelihood.  Or the person might be a non Q12 diamond (A Q12 diamond = qualifying diamond all 12 months in Amway's fiscal year, I believe, unless that has changed.  And a Q12 diamond is the rare exception).    The vast majority of diamonds are non Q12 and these folks have an average income of perhaps $150K or so, gross income.  And if I may add, much of a diamond's income comes in the form of an annual bonus, thus, a diamond's monthly income might be quite small.  Small meaning less than $10K per month.  

So the Amway business going forward, will be interesting.  I'm almost interested in infiltrating a recruitment meeting to see what they pitch going forward.    I am of the opinion that this ruling will also be damaging to Amway's revenues because indoctrinated IBOs who are new and "gung ho" at the time, likely makes up a lot of the Amway sales.   I can't say for sure how the FTC ruling will play out, but it will be interesting to observe.  

FTC Fines Amway, WWDB and LTD?

 See Joecool's blogpost dated 9/25/26.  The link to the FTC website is there.  I also summarized the important points.  But today, I want to set up some of Joecool's commentary about what I believe is going to hurt Amway and the Diamonds where it hurt the most:  In their pickets.  When you think about it, Amway critics have been right all along about the deceptive practices of WWDB and other AMOs and diamonds.  The defenders always used sleight of hand to defend or justify the actions of the diamonds.

But the FTC finally took decisive action that I believe is long overdue.   Think about this.  The AMOs like WWDB and LTD use deceptive practices to get IBOs to sign up.  They diamonds teach product loyalty (100 PV minimum) which is beneficial to Amway.  Then the diamonds teach IBOs and prospects that their tools and functions are vital to their success and that they "need" to sign up for standing orders, book of the month, functions and other support materials.  The diamonds make a nice income from the sale of these materials as they are cheap to produce and have higher profit margins that Amway products.  IMO, Amway then "looks the other way" at IBO abuse and you have a symbiotic relationship.  The diamonds get to use deceptive practices to drain the resources from their downline and Amway benefits from the product loyalty teaching, plus the defacto PV "quotas".   Of course, the diamonds are smart enough to avoid saying anything is "required".  I was told that so and so diamond who is a multi-millionaire believes that tools are vital, but you can try to succeed without them.  A new IBO is stuck when confronted with that statement.  

But IMO, the most damaging part of the FTC settlement, is that new IBOs cannot be sold tools and functions in their first year in the business.  The diamonds used to practically salivate at the thought that a roomful of new IBOs would be on standing order and attending functions.  I am not sure now, but Amway rules used to state that IBOs are supposed to receive "free" training from their sponsor.  Instead, the diamonds were exploiting new IBOs from the get go.  I was one of them.  And if I understood Amway's numbers previously, roughly 90% or more of new IBOs never lasted a full year before quitting.

Thus, not being able to sell tools and functions to new IBOs will destroy the diamond's "tool" business.  And if I may, some or possibly many diamonds are not currently qualified as diamonds.  That means they have a diamond pin on their suit, but they are not qualified, therefore, they aren't receiving diamond bonuses and free trips, etc.   That means the tools and functions is their real business.  Amway's rule is once a diamond, always a diamond.  But that's only the diamond pin.  You don't get diamond bonuses if you're no longer qualified.  

So the rule that bans the sale of tools and functions effectively kills the lucrative "tools" business for the diamonds, unless they cheat and try to usurp the rule somehow.  Now I'm not suggesting that they do this or are going to do this, but it's certainly possible they may try it since the tools business is likely a significant portion of a diamond's livelihood.  I hope that FTC has safeguards in place or plans to follow up to make sure that their settlement is honored.  I have reached out to other bloggers who are still active and sent them the link to the FTC settlement.  I am hoping the word gets out so it will be hard for the diamonds to pretend this FTC order didn't exist and go back to exploiting IBOs.  

I feel somewhat vindicated by the new FTC ruling and I hope that the terms of the new rules are adhered to.   IMO, in the past, that's been the issue.  A lack of enforcement of the rules.  But let's see how this goes.  :)

FTC Fines Amway And WWDB (WWG) + LTD $225,000,000?

 FTC Takes Historic Action Against Multilevel Marketing Operator Amway for Unfair and Deceptive Business Practices | Federal Trade Commission

Breaking News 9/25/26!

Amway and two (2) of their affiliates, WWDB and LTD, will fork over what appears to be a historic $225 million dollars.  The fine is for deceptive and unfair recruitment practices.  Where are the Amway defenders to try and spin this?   I wonder if IBOFB peed in his pants after seeing this, or is he pretending to be an AI expert now on that discussion?   :)

The complaint also addressed deceptive and unfair practices about potential earnings, to incentivize and pressure IBOs into buying products they don't want/need and often end up being difficult to sell.  The allegations also include IBOs falsely reporting sales of products to apparently create the air of legitimacy about the actual sale of products rather than recruiting IBOs who purchase Amway products.  

Apparently, WWG (WWDB) and LTD recruit IBOs and encourage them to buy a set amount of products whether or not the IBO needs them and may have difficulty selling them.  "As a result, according to the complaint, Amway, together with WWG and LTD, set up an unfair and unlawful system to pressure IBOs to purchase Amway products for reasons other than a genuine demand for them".

***Looks like Joecool's blog was correct and justified all along???  Vindication baby!

Other highlights: 

IBOs and prospects falsely told they are likely to earn substantial income that can replace their job ($40K and up).  and lead to early retirement.

Falsely telling IBOs they are likely to be able to recruit other IBOs into the system when most in fact are unable to successfully recruit potential downline.  

Falsely telling IBOs they are joining an exclusive opportunity in which they will be able to get access to special mentoring from highly successful leaders when in fact, anyone can be sponsored.  And, those who work with mentors are typically not highly successful.

 The FTC will be releasing details of their redress program later this year.  

This is an important new note:  Amway MUST require approved providers such as WWG (WWDB) and LTD, to not charge new IBOs for any training or services in their first year.   (Joe's commentary:  I can only imagine that the diamonds will not be showing off sports cars and trappings because without the ability to sell tools and functions, especially to new IBOs, where will they make their "real" income?  A triple diamond chapter 7 bankruptcy from 2009 revealed that this diamond made at least half of his income from tools and functions).   In other words, the cash cow is being put out to pasture.  

:)    :)    :)

More to come as information is available.

Debating Amway?

 I once had a debate with an Amway supporter, and I sometimes wonder how some Amway supporters can continue to defend some of the claims they make even when they have no facts to back them up. For example, the supporter insists that Amway has created more millionaires than any other company. So I asked where he found that information because as far as I know, Amway has never made that claim and if it were true, there would be no reason for Amway to hide it.  The most valuable company in the world right now is NVDA.   I'd say most of their employees and a lot of their investors have become millionaires since NVDA was founded.  The company valuation exceeds 5 trillion dollars.  Meanwhile Amway has less than 10 billion in revenue, last I heard.  Do the math.

The Amway supporter also insisted that he is proof that Amway works because he is successful. He never spoke about the financial condition of his downline, nor revealed anything about his level or structure. Instead, challenged Joecool to talk about my former business and why I wasn't profitable. As I explained in a previous post, my Amway business didn't prosper because I followed upline advice to reinvest my profits into tools. And I am certain that I am not alone in having been given this advice. I do not claim they don't exist, but it is my guess that a group where even half of the IBOs make a net profit would be very rare, especially when some groups teach their downlines to primarily "buy from themselves".

When discussing the miserable average income of an IBO, supporters like to cite that some IBOs do little or nothing but fail to mention that when calculating the average income, Amway disregarded the IBOs who were not considered active. And because we know that you need to move at least 100 PV pv to earn a bonus, then we can conclude that IBOs as a whole, earn very little, with a few big pins bringing up the average. I believe if we looked at the median income for IBOs, it would be far less than $115 a month.

So the question is how can an IBO actually prove that they are successful? Maybe the first step is to be willing to talk about your business. Most IBOs are anonymous commentor on this blog, yet outright refuse to disclose any details about their business, and downplay the expenses associated with the business, even when upline will promote "low overhead" as an incentive to join Amway. While $150 or $200a month might be low overhead, it is very high if your monthly income is $10 a month. Somehow, upline will convince IBOs that taking losses is a sign of success. Or that an IBO is successful as long as they remain on standing order and continue to attend functions.

Honesty and transparency is how an IBO can prove his or her success. Making a nice living on the backs of your downline is not success, that is exploitation of your downline.

The Millionaire Next Door?

 I keep hearing from some IBOs that they belive that Amway has created more millionaires than any other company in the US. I call BS on that claim. I am not saying that Amway hasn't created any millionaires, obviously, the Amway owners are worth billions of dollars. But what the IBOs are apparently implying is that the diamonds are millionaires. I'm sure there are some diamonds who indeed are millionires, especially if they are tenured diamonds, in particular the double diamonds and higher. But conversely, I believe that many high level diamonds are not millionaires. I believe it is just as common for a diamond to be in debt as it is for a diamond to be living large. I also believe that many diamonds did not accumulate their alleged wealth exclusively from Amway.

The reason why this is an issue is because these big pins will stand on stage and show off excessive wealth and imply that it is their Amway income that pays for these mansions, sports cars, and in some cases, jets. In the US, I attended a function called "Dream Nite" where these kinds of trapping are displayed, to the tune of the song "I wanna be rich". The diamonds would say that you can have what they have, if only you will do what they advise. These functions still go on today and I believe it is now called Winter Conference.

Stanley and Danko's book, "The Millionaire Next Door"
http://www.personalfinanceplaybook.com/2009/08/the-millionaire-next-door/

This book makes some very interesting points which I believe applies to Amway diamonds. I will outline the significant ones and I will comment below:

**Predictably, the data shows that most people who you believe to be very rich are not.

**High net worth individuals, statistically, tend to be people that live within their means. They don’t spend a lot of money. They don’t waste money. They tend to be pretty frugal people.

**The authors point out that most of the richest people you know aren’t driving expensive luxury automobiles. That’s what the people who want everyone to think they’re rich drive.

Joe's commentary. The book does say that about 1/3 of millionaires acquired their wealth thru a J-O-B and saved and invested, but did mention that many millionaires were also business owners, such as a pest control company, etc. But based on the points made by the book above, I can see where it is likely that diamonds portray a wealthy lifestyle as a recruitment tactic, when the reality is they may be living very middle class lifestyles off stage, or may even be in debt. I have seen evidence of diamonds having their homes foreclosed and being in debt (Ruth Carter's book: Amway: Behind the Smoke and Mirrors). Recently, there was also a report that a Triple Diamond filed for (chapter 7) bankruptcy in 2009 or so. The report indicated that he could not make his mortgages, or something to that tune. Odd, because when I was in WWDB, some of the upline leaders said diamonds paid cash for everything because paying interest to the bank wasn't very smart.

My question is why IBOs continue to make up these claims? Try googling millionaire or Amway millionaire. There is nothing to indicate that Amway was responsible for creating the "most millionaires" of any US company. If this were true, wouldn't Amway state it on their website? If someone finds any veracity about this claim, inform me and I will post it.

Ineffective Tools?

 One of the things my Amway upline always pushed on us was the tools system. While the tools are said to be optional, they are not promoted that way. They were promoted as vital, necessary, almost as if you were insane to try and build an Amway business without tools. Basically the tools were a defacto requirement. My upline always claimed that nobody ever "made it" without tools. Some Amway defenders insist that the tools work, and that IBOs who were on the system proved it with higher levels of success and product volume. But the tools work for maybe a fraction of 1% of IBOs who try them. The vast majority of people who use tools make nothing or lose money. Similar to a lottery.

IBOs participating in the system (voicemail, book of the month, standing orders, functions, etc) do more PV. I believe this is true, but it is true, only because once the upline can convince you to participate in the system, then that same IBO is also convinced that they should or must do 100 PV as part of the deal. People who aren't convinced that the system is vital, subsequently do not purchase or sell as much PV because they have not been convinced that moving PV will make them successful or wealthy.

Critics and Amway supporters have debated this issue for years, but clearly, the evidence supports my position. Why? Because if there was a true demand for Amway products because of their quality and/or value, then there wouldn't be such a steep drop off in movement of volume when an IBO becomes a former IBO. Many, probably most former IBOs never buy a single Amway product once they leave the business. If the products had true quality and value as Amway supporters claim, why don't people continue to purchase 100 PV per month when they quit? Because they never wanted or needed all of that product in the first place? If former Amway IBOs continued to but products, Amway sales would continue to increase. Amway's sales and revenues dropped more than 25% from 2014 to now (2018).

If someone is convinced that Amway will be their financial savior and that by using tools and moving 100 PV will result in long term financial security and residual income as claimed by upline, then that is what they will do in hopes of achieving the end goal. When that goal or dream doesn't materialize, the former IBOs realize that the tools and products no longer have the value they once thought they had. How many former IBOs will buy standing order or attend functions? If these materials really made you nicer, or saved marriages, why don't any former IBOs keep buying them? Why do they resort to selling them for pennies on the dollar on Ebay or Craigslist? What happened to the great return policy?

Bottom line is that the tools don't work. They only work for the uplines who directly profit from the sale of tools, plus the artificial demand in product sales created by those IBOs who are convinced that Amway wil make them rich. Once the reality sets in that Amway will not make them rich, and that the tools are simply draining their resources, then the demand or tools and Amway products disappears almost instantly. There is no unbiased evidence that I know of to suggest that these tools work, and basically, the miserable amount of new diamonds emerging in the US seems to confirm this fact.

Submit To Upline?

  Another cult-like teaching that comes from upline diamonds is to submit to upline.  Sometimes it’s called being teachable but as you get more immersed in the system, you are expected to consult with upline for everything, including important life decisions such as getting married or buying a new car.  In retrospect, I believe it’s done because upline doesn’t want you making decisions that could hinder your ability to purchase tools.  Thus IMO, they will advise you to do things that keep disposable income available so they can teach you to buy more tools and functions.

But they make it sound harmless, that checking upline can help you because upline has experience in the business and can tell you how some decisions can impact your business.  Sounds harmless but the upline teaches this more likely for their own benefit than for your benefit.  If you can recognize the game, you can see thru the idiocy of upline teaching.  Looking at it in another angle, how much analysis did upline do on your business before giving you business advice.

Some upline even “counsel” their downline.  Can you imagine submitting to someone for such important decisions that can affect your life and your upline's only real qualification to do this is they joined Amway before you.  You could actually be a counselor, but you would be counseled by someone upline with less qualifications simply on the basis that they joined Amway before you.  Or can you imagine a young say 30 year old single guy sponsoring a 45 year old married guy.  The married guy would get advice from someone who isn't married any may not have been in Amway for long.   Yes, the sponsor will go upline to seek more expertise, but is that really a reliable "system"? 

When I was an IBO back in the 1990s, I was engaged to be married and my upline advised to dump my fiancée because I could build the business faster and if I achieved diamond, women would line up to court a single diamond.  By then I had already smelled a rat with regards to Amway teaching so that was the last straw for me. 

I was a 4000 PV IBO at the time, so I told my group what happened and that because of what happened, I had decided to walk away from Amway.  All of my group except 1 or 2 IBOs downline from me walked away when I did.  So, my upline and sponsor went from direct distributor to less than 4000 PV and I do not believe he ever requalified at that level again.  

I do know that my sponsor was still active as recently as 2019 but I’m not sure if he’s still chasing Amway in a "all in" manner.  Being that he was a physician, I see it as a life wasted on Amway.   Submit to your upline is total BS.  

Always A Diamond?

 I've seen some interesting discussion recently about how a diamond pin is like winning a gold medal. That you don't get it taken away from you later even if you don't qualify anymore. The discussion also flowed as to where they mentioned that former US President Jimmy Carter is still addressed as Mr. President. Or that someone with a Superbowl ring can be addressed as a Superbowl champion. While I agree with that to some degree, I think the issue of diamond or former diamond is significant and different from former President Carter or a former Superbowl Champion. Terry Bradshaw or Peyton Manning don't parade around as if they just won the Superbowl last year.

The diamond pin is a significant achievement for sure. Seems that recently, it's even harder to achieve in North America. I don't know of more than a few new diamonds emerging in the last 25 years or so in the US. But if say a diamond qualified in 1988 and never qualified again, how would you as an IBO feel about paying to see this diamond speak function after function and how many would continue to buy standing orders from a guy who may have achieved diamond 25 years ago and never again? Would the audiences be "fired up" to see these speakers? I find this ironic also, because many Amway defenders like to criticize Amway critics for having an outdated experience. Well, conversely, a one-time diamond would be basically the same thing. If not, then Joecool should command the respect of a 4000 PV Eagle since that was my highest level.

I actually have no issue with Amway allowing the achiever to carry their highest pin as a recognized achievement, but I do believe that those who use their former pin status to exploit and profit from new IBOs and prospects should be stopped. I know I would not have been so excited attending a function where the keynote speaker went diamond for 6 months a decade ago and was no longer qualified. Else, by upline's definition, he will teach me to go diamond and fall apart? I believe there are fewer North American diamonds now than ten years ago. Some diamonds resigned and some outright quit. So much for residual/passive income. Obviously if these things existed, then nobody would quit or walk away from residual income.

BTW, an article on an Amway Corporate website says this about passive income:
"Passive income is a term we do not permit distributors to use and it’s not a term the Corporation uses. In our business, there is no such thing as doing no work, and expecting money to still come in.” Link:
http://blogs.amway.com/answers/2010/11/02/unwelcome-words/#comments

Still think there's a free ride at the end of the tunnel?

IBO = Glorified Customer?

 One of the silly things IBOs say is how they need to be their own best customer. That a McDonald's owner would never eat at Burger King, etc. That is complete hogwash. While there is nothing wrong with supporting your own business, IBOs are blinded by the fact that their business produces nothing. They are simply middlemen distributors. Do you really think diamonds consume thousands of dollars of standing orders because they own or profit from tool companies, which are for profit companies that produces training materials? Of course not. When you purchase something from your Amway business, you make no profit. Any "false" profit you see is simply money out of your own pocket moving to the other pocket. The Amway corporation makes the profit. Yes, you may receive a volume bonus, but that is still a lot of your own money being given back to you. Spend $300 and get back $10. If you can get enough people to follow you and move volume, your bonus will increase, but the increase then comes out of your follower's pockets instead of your own. The only real profit would be selling product to actual non-IBO customers.

I know some business owners, and they are never the best or sole customer of their own stores. Many Amway business owners are their only customers or their best customer. That simply is not how a business is run. Any REAL business cannot support itself by having the owners and perhaps the owner's employees as the primary customer base. For any business to thrive, you need customers and a demand for products. Without customers and a demand for products, you have no business. But some upline leaders still teach "buy from yourself" as the primary means of doing business. Other leaders may ask you to sell, but to focus on sponsoring others because they are hopeful that this will result in increased volume. Sadly, most IBOs will never sponsor a downline, and many will never acquire a customer other than themselves.

It seems as though many IBOs think they are business owners, but the reality is that they are simply glorified customers of their own business. Their only hope of making a profit is to sponsor others. In my opinion, this method of doing business is a pyramid because the only way to eventually make a profit is to sponsor enough downline until you can leverage enough volume to finally break even or profit. An IBO with a real customer (and not buying tools) can make a profit by selling a single product. But many IBOs are not taught this because their upline makes a much bigger profit by selling to their downline IBOs standing orders, voicemail, books and seminar tickets. Many IBOs do not realize that they are simply customers of Amway and customers of the tools system.

For people already involved or considering involvement in the Amway opportunity, you are highly encouraged to seek more information and to fully understand how a profit is made in this business. Simply seeing circles drawn oversimplifies the process as most IBOs never get close to finding six (6) like-minded people. Even those who find six are unlikely to be able to retain them. Over time, the cost of the products and the cost of the training will start to add up and the losses will escalate. For real business owners, an assessment of profit/loss and return on investment should be done and if the return is not good, a real business owner would consider other options.

So, are you a business owner or a glorified customer?

Something For Nothing?

 In my opinion, Amway is a legal pyramid. They have not been found illegal but still operates a product pyramid. The reason why they remain legal, apparently is because they do not pay anyone for directly recruiting downline and they claim to sell products to actual customers. But most everyone has been or knows someone who was recruited by a zealous Amway IBO. The emphasis of most active IBOs is on recruiting and much of the teaching by upline is on techniques to recruit and/or how to talk to people without tipping their hat to reveal the Amway name. Most IBOs are not very good at this and they stick out like sore thumbs in many cases. It's also comical when uplines teach crazy antics, like how some IBOs use to deny that Amway and Quixtar were even remotely connected, or if anyone remembers the "perfect water" fiasco a number of years back.

One of the reasons IBOs use to justify their involvement in the product pyramid is that they can earn more than their sponsor. While that is true, it is only because everyone below the emerald or diamond level is basically expendable, or a slave in the pyramid. There are many IBOs who achieve fairly high levels who quit or had upline wreck their businesses. Thus, even platinums are expendable to upline. In fact, an upline might make more money by removing the platinum because then the downline are directly under his/her control and spot in the hierarchy.  For new IBOs or recruits, do you really believe that you are going to ever surpass your current upline diamond or higher? If you believe that, you are sadly mistaken.

And for those who dream of achieving diamond and walking the beaches of the world. How do you think you can ever achieve that? You don't get something for nothing unless someone gets nothing for something. In order for you to receive income for little or no efforts, your downline IBOs must keep purchasing products and replacing IBOs who quit. If your downlines cannot keep up with the attrition rate, your business will collapse in a hurry. Come to think of it, if a diamond can walk away and collect a large income forever, why hasn't anyone done it? I mean we still see crown ambassadors still busy working functions or dying on the job and I don't know of any who walked away to spend their lives jet setting on the beaches of the world.

The sad reality is that you see new faces at meetings and functions, just as often as you see familiar faces disappear. With that kind of attrition rate, you may have to work even harder at the higher levels just to keep your business status quo. In Egypt, the slaves built the pyramids. Do you have enough slaves? What many Egyptologists find amazing is how the Egyptians were able to motivate the slaves to keep on going, doing backbreaking work all of their lives. The same can be said of a diamond level business (or higher)

Dreams?

 One of the things that Amway leaders use to attract new IBOs is to talk about the dreams that these folks have. They may talk about how having a job will wear you out and dreams that you once had as a child or young adult gets suppressed and/or completely forgotten. They try to revive some of these dreams in the hopes that they can convince prospects that Amway is the only way, or the easiest or best way to accomplish these dreams. They also try to instill the notion that people can choose to succeed in Amway. Being that success in Amway has so many variables out of the direct control of an IBO, nobody can simply choose to make it big in Amway anymore than they can choose to win the lottery. And by the way, the chances of going diamond and maintaining it is about as remote as winning a lottery.

What is somewhat cruel is reviving dreams that for many, will never come to fruition, no matter how much work is done, and no matter how many tools are consumed. There are many instances where no matter how big the dream, it will never come to pass because of physical and financial limitations. For example, as a child, many of us had dreams of playing professional football, hockey or basketball, and living in the glory of winning. However, no matter how many hours you put in and no matter how hard you work, the vast majority of people will never be pro athletes. And even out of the ones who become pro athletes, very few are considered "elite".

Yet the Amway promoters will have people believe that just buying a few products and selling a few products and 2-5 years of "hard" work, people will join the financially elite in the world. As if home care, beauty and nutritional products moved from person to person is going to make you achieve your dreams. That you will quit your jobs and walk the beaches of the world while the cash rolls in by the barrel full. Sadly, many young people become attracted to a proposition that allows them a shortcut to retirement instead of working until age 62 or whatever the standard retirement age is. They are basically promoting false hopes and promises to the vast majority of people who get involved. I believe those who are deemed as "dream stealers" might be doing their family and friends a favor by stealing their dream, which will not come to pass anyway.

With about 1 out of 240 IBOs reaching platinum (the alleged break even point) and about 1 in 20,000 IBOs reaching diamond, the dream is a stretch indeed. Even for the select few who can overcome major challenges and hurdles, maintaining their status often becomes impossible and and not worthwhile (many diamonds have quit).
Also, if you do make it, you will leave behind a trail of people who could not or did not come close to that level of success. It means that in many cases, your success will come at the expense of those you sponsor. It is why many claim that Amway is a legal pyramid.

Having dreams and goals is a good thing. But do you want to accomplish your ultimate dream by hurting (financially) those who trusted you and agreed to be your downline? Is it your dream to go diamond and have 500 to 1000 or more downline IBOs losing money? Is it your dream to be wealthy by exploiting people who trust you and believe that they can achieve the same level of success, when the opposite is true?

What is your dream? Are you willing to hurt others to achieve it?

A Letter To Amway?

 This is an open letter basically explaining Joecool's position and why in my opinion, criticism of Amway doesn't stop. 

Dear Amway,

Why does criticism of Amway continue Ad Nauseum? Because you have not taken any apparent visible action(s) against higher level IBOs (Usually Diamonds) who make their living by ripping off unsuspecting prospects and faithful downline by feeding them lines about how easy it is to build an Amway business and how they can ditch their jobs and live on easy street. I saw it and there are countless testimonies and experiences posted on the internet.

When I was an Amway IBO in WWDB, we were fed outright lies by upline. Nobody made any money from tools being the biggest. Downline were taught how long they could string out their mortgages or electric bills so they can attend functions and buy more tools. Yes, IBOs have culpability as well, but the culture of these groups is one of trust and loyalty to the diamonds. Amway's owner, Mr. DeVos acknowledged this in his 1983 speech "directly speaking". But despite the speech, no apparent visible action was taken, thus status quo continued. Even the accreditation system which seemed nice on the surface appears to be a farce. I believe that possibly millions of people over the years have been adversely affected financially because of some of these Amway IBO leaders.

Many of the same leaders who lied to benefit themselves are still at it. A fellow blogger named "Rocket" at one time, reported a possible violation where crown ambassador and IBOAI member, Brad Duncan is caught on tape claiming that IBOs can make "hundreds of thousands of dollars" a month in Amway. Your response was to make non sensical remarks and then eventually no response when pressed for one. I also reported a WWDB IBO who was making disparaging and false statements about some competitor's products while making misleading positive statements about Amway products. Your response was no response and my comment wasn't even published on your "Amway Answers" blog. Ironically, one of the topics on that blog was about how Amway doesn't turn a blind eye to problems. Yeah, you can say it but your actions show something else.

Maybe someone can explain why actions in other countries indicate that the folks who sell Amway tools are scammers. For some reason, the regulatory agencies in the US have not taken notice of the tools business. The Dateline segment in 2004 exposed the tools and systems. It became a big debate on the internet with critics and proponents. While Amway can claim innocence because the unethical actions were taken by IBOs, or "independent" business owners, I still believe that Amway has a responsibility to reign is some of the sales force that represents them.

Food for thought: Joe Paterno was an assistant and head coach, an icon at Penn State University for more than 60 years. He was fired some time ago because he had knowledge of child abuse occurring at the program under his watch. While he was not personally guilty of this, and did many good things for Penn State and the community, still his inactions may have caused harm to befall innocent children. Ultimately, he had the ability and power to stop the wrongdoing but did not. It is a sad ending for a man who many consider a legend. I wish his family well.

Amway can reign in the tool abuse and take control of some of the bad leaders, but apparently has not and will not. The fight goes on.....

The Phenomemon?

 http://scamadvocates.com/164-Amway.html

Other November 27 

"""I have read all of these posts. Interesting that everyone who supports Amway cannot spell very well. Lots of typos and grammatical errors in here by those who jump up and down reciting Amway's many virtues. It is a scam and a groupthink phenomenon of staggering proportions. From a psychological perspective, Amway does its best to separate people from those who would challenge its legitimacy and operations. This is not unlike how Hitler or any other leader would silence opponents or dissidents by having them "removed" from the equation. Same thing goes here, Amway teaches people to ignore and remove obstacles and people who challenge the system, even if said challenges are completely rational and offered by people with the IBO's best interest in mind. It hits IBO's in soft spots for family, friends, and freedom (the 3 F's), and it entices them to focus on emotional reasoning rather than very cognitive-based, rational dissection of information.

Amway IBO's are taught emotionalism, not rationalism. From a business perspective, it is a farce. IBO's are no entrepreneurs, as they wear the collars of their uplines. Over and over, I have been told to do as my uplines say. What if my upline is a total moron and I have a law degree and an MBA?? I'm supposed to follow these uplines?? According to the system, yes, the uplines' words are paramount. So no, IBO's are not entrepreneurs and do not gain any real experience. IBO is a fancy name for distributor, pure and simple.

I had the opportunity to meet a number of "diamonds" and "emeralds" recently, all of whom had either left the business to get real jobs or were still struggling bringing in about $30,000 per year. Many of them are posting massive losses, and by the way, the IRS does not consider pro-suming OR tickets to a convention (to hear Yager scream at you) to be business expenses. Good luck trying to recover those losses. It is a pyramid scheme simply because mathematically and considering the law of averages, a downline cannot really earn more than his upline. It just doesn't happen - it's a nice idea, but it doesn't happen. I worked through multiple scenarios with a friend, trying to see how I could out-earn my upline, and we found several variables that would keep that from happening.

Finally, on a personal level, this Amway monkey business cost me a great friendship, an IBO who decided that taking a chance on some crazy dream was more important than those who loved him most. I think he will continue prospecting and pushing "the plan" until there isn't anyone left. If you know someone in Amway or who is thinking seriously about it, you need to realize that they will soon be lost. Amway people are very much like crack users (very similar psychopathology, actually), and they will choose Amway over you, their family, their friends, and anything that gets in the way."""

Failure By Design?

 Many people, including Amway IBOs and prospects see the 6-4-2 plan or a similar version when they are being recruited into the Amway business. The plan consists of 79 IBOs, all who actually earned a bonus with 1 person being platinum and the rest earning significantly less. Now I can say with virtual certainty that nobody has ever built a group with that many people who all went out and actually earned a bonus. This is because most IBOs do little or nothing and many join and never order a single product.

Thus, we know that someone who actually achieves platinum PV). For round numbers, let's say an average platinum group has 150 IBOs. Already we can determine that a platinum is less than 1% of the Amway population and the rest mostly earn little or nothing. While the platinum might earn some decent money, a hardcore dedicated platinum can still lose money because of the "system" consisting of voice mail, CDs, books and functions.

Just by analyzing what I've discussed thus far shows that a platinum group would typically consist of 100 or more (most likely more) Amway down lines and therefore the platinum is firmly in the top 1% of IBOs. This demonstrates that Amway is failure by design. If there are 2 platinum groups, then it's 2 guys on the top each with a group of 100 or more downline making little or nothing. A diamond consists of 6 of these groups with the diamond making good money with hundreds if not thousands of downlines making little or nothing. If some day, the entire planet signed up for Amway, guess what? Nothing statistical will change.

When I used to see Amway announce 1000 new platinums, all it means is that there are 1000 new people with groups where the vast majority makes little or nothing. Many people get excited about Amway thinking they will be the platinum and "make it big" but even if they do, they have a group of downline making little or nothing and taking losses if they are on the system of CDs and functions. You can have smart, motivated downline but it doesn't change the fact that Amway leads to failure by design, as does most other MLMs where you are always recruiting new people. Recruiting is priority because in order for you to reach the top, you also need to find your 100 or more downline who make little or nothing (or losses) in order for you to succeed.

Many people think they have what it takes to "make it" in Amway but that doesn't change the reality in what can be extrapolated from Amway's own business disclosures.  For example, the average income of any IBO in Amway is $202 (last I checked).  But that $202 is only for "active" IBOs.  Approximately half of all IBOs are not considered "active, so the real average income is roughly $101 a month.  And that $101 a month include the diamonds, double diamonds and crown ambassadors.   I can't explain every nuance and "what if" about this average income, but I think you get the idea.