A site visitor comment mentioned that a diamond us basically a con artist. Con is short for confidence. They get you to trust them with small talk, building you up and eliciting your goals and dreams. Once they get you there, suddenly they try to close the deal by saying you can’t afford to open a real business so Amway makes perfect sense and with their nearly foolproof system you can’t go wrong. This is where the hook comes in. You might take "baby" steps, but eventually the hard sell comes.
They may start you out with a few free audios or meetings, but the bar gets raised soon enough. You’ll be told that a real business owner needs to invest in their business. An investment into learning about the business and how to build it. You just need to be reachable and open minded and follow the footsteps of your upline leaders. Ironically many IBOS call their upline mentors when in reality, they are like con artists working a scam or working theirs "marks" as one might call it.In a way, they’re not much different than any run of the mill scammer. You get the prospect hooked and get them to hand over money. One difference is that the upline just takes smaller amounts but on a regular basis via their system of books, audios, functions, meetings and other educational materials. If Amway IBOS actually did the work and many were profitable, my opinion would be different. Instead, the masses contribute to the diamonds lifestyle with the irony being that the IBOS treat the diamonds like rock stars and worship them. That's like a guy smiling as he reaches into your pocket and takes your wallet.
The vast majority of IBOs make nothing or lose money. That isn't even remotely disputable. Some people lose a lot of money. What’s worse is the diamonds apparently don’t care that many are hurting and possibly struggling to make ends meet. But they continue to exploit their down line by running functions but charging high prices for giving the IBOs useless information. But in the end, the Amway business is person to person and typically face to face. I can’t imagine any serious useful teaching coming from upline. Not that normal functions have useful teaching. Where's the actual sales to customers? Where's the attention to someone's bottom line? Aren't those things more important than having IBOs stalking people in coffee shops?
In the end. it is my informed opinion that Amway diamonds operate just like con artists but they try to make themselves look like business associates and mentors. Big deal.
Amway, like all MLMs, is essentially a confidence game. The entire racket runs on "confidence" (trust, belief, faith in promises) rather than on revenue and profit from the sale of products.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most damning admissions of this truth was made by some of the Amway IBOs who came to this blog years ago, and who attacked Joe Cool for saying bad things about their business. These guys were all moderately successful types who had down-lines, and who were getting some income from them. A few of them said something like this:
"I've been in Amway for a long time, and I haven't handled an Amway product for years now! I don't have to, because my money comes from my down-line!"
In other words, they were admitting that the movement of retail products was utterly unimportant in the Amway racket. All that really mattered was their getting the "trust" and "confidence" of IBOs, and living off their work.
One of the really stupid ones said this: "Amway is a business opportunity ABOUT business opportunities!"
In other words, your actual job in Amway is not to sell things, but to convince other persons to sign up in the racket.
Amway is a pure confidence game.