Talking A Good Game?

 Having blogged for a number of years now, I have observed that IBOs talk a good game about retailing, sponsoring and doing Amway business activities. They will tell you to set yourself up with 20 customers, sponsor 6 frontline, show a number of plans and set up certain follow ups with contacts, and doing other activities supposedly to build an Amway business. I find if humorous when these same IBOs start throwing insults or diverting the discussion when someone asks if they are actually making money. Of course, it would be understandable if a new IBO would admit they had not made a fortune as of yet but it seems that even that response is not forthcoming from IBOs.

It seems that the Amway business is simple enough. Buy some products, sell products and try to sponsor some downline in order to leverage your volume with your downlines. IBOs mistakenly believe that you can build it once correctly and that the income will flow into future generations. What goes unnoticed is that IBOs come and go with such a high frequency, that a business generating residual income would be like a sandcastle on the beach. You might build it nice and big, but the waves of attrition would quickly turn that sandcastle into nothing. The same would be true of an Amway business. The IBOs dropping out would wipe out your business unless you are constantly replacing the people who quit. IBOs like to talk about Amway sales and how the company is growing in sales, but the Amway sales have no relationship with making IBOs more profitable.

IBOs may also toss in comments about how they are nicer people or how they are improving their marriage because of the Amway business. I often wonder how that can be when functions and meetings take you away from your family and spouse. I suppose it could be because the uplines talk about people being nicer or tossing out lies about Amway and the AMOs saving marriages. I remember a WWDB diamond talking about how WWDB members had a 2% divorce rate while the rest of society has a 60% divorce rate. Ironically, that diamond's marriage ended in divorce. I believe this crap is still taught as a WWDB IBO who blogs, had mentioned this tidbit on his blog last year. I don't believe Amway IBOs or anyone else has a higher or lower rate of divorce than society, but it becomes an issue when uplines teach it and their downlines repeat it.

So, it would seem that IBOs talk a good game. They know what to say and how to act, but they're like poker players who are bluffing. If you call them on it, they are likely to fold in their hands because they don't have the goods. It is why many Amway discussions turn into an insult contest, when the IBO suddenly gets confronted with facts that are contrary to upline teaching. It's usually quite funny but I wonder if these folks question their upline or go on their merry way repeating uplines lies? It becomes apparent to everyone but the IBO when they are repeating crazy stuff taught by their upline. Good luck to anyone who tries to build this business against nearly insurmountable odds.

Evolved Teaching?

  One of the things that is clear, many Amway recruits are shown fancy cars and toys, along with luxurious vacations and trappings. This is a way to get prospects excited and interested in signing up for the Amway opportunity. Many sign up, and soon enough, the excitement eventually fades and they quit. Either that or the IBO sees monthly losses and no prospects of improvement and quits. Many do little or nothing. But what many people do not understand or realize is that there is a reason for this. Many do little or nothing, I suspect because the business is much harder to build than advertised.  Amway's name reputation is already a challenge and the uncompetitive pricing of products doesn't help.

Because Amway has a stigma in the US (and growing in other locations), finding prospects is a daunting task. Add in the high prices of Amway products and you have major challenges that IBOs simply cannot overcome. Most simply quit and fade away into society. Some, like myself were lied to and abused, with upline leaders (WWDB)who were never held accountable for their actions. Thus I blog so others may share my experiences and can decide if they wish to climb insurmountable challenges for a less than a fraction of a 1% chance of financial success.

What many leaders do is evolve their teachings. They start to teach their IBOs that the Amway opportunity may have made them nicer people, better fathers or husbands and other nice to hear stories because it covers up the fact that these IBOs are not making money. Sometimes I wonder how someone can be a better person by deceiving others about the business opportunity, or how you can be a better father or husband when Amway meetings become a priority over your family and friends. Or how you can be a nicer person and leave threatening messages on forums with those who disagree about Amway being a great business opportunity?

Rather than justifying your involvement or looking at side benefits, IBOs should be looking at their bottom line. If your Amway "Business" is not generating enough money to pay for your voicemail and other expenses and leaving you with a net profit, then what exactly is your upline teaching you that is worth the ongoing expense? If you are like most, you are told that Amway has little to no overhead and has little risk. Well, that becomes untrue after months pass by and you have spent hundreds if not thousands on support materials that do not deliver you a net profit. Additionally, your upline is making a nice income by selling you those support materials and advising you to buy more.

Are you new or a tenured IBO? Has your teaching from upline evolved away from making money as the bottom line? If so, what do you do next? I would run in the opposite direction.

At Least Amway Makes Me "Nicer"?

 Many IBOs "think" they have become nicer and better people as a result of their association with other Amway IBOs and because a part of the system they are with advises them to read self-help books. They are also taught that as a side benefit of the Amway business, that they are nicer people. Of course, many IBOs mistakenly think that they started a business not to make money, but to become "nicer". The entire premise is ridiculous and upline uses this approach to take the focus off the fact that IBOs are not making money. Thus, they will say Amway makes you a nice person, or Amway will save your marriage or some other baloney.   I don't really know of anyone who set out to make money in a business and decided that profits are not as important as "being nicer".  Again, in my opinion, this is just a distraction away from your bottom line, which is a net loss.

I certainly agree that some people can benefit from positive books and association with others, but for many, it is not a genuine "nicer" person, but simply a phony persona that is put on in order to recruit potential Amway downlines. That is how my former sponsor appeared to me. Because I had known him for a long time, the "nicer" looked as phony as phony can be. There are many examples of phony niceness that some IBOs profess. Even Amway's (former) biggest defender (David Steadson AKA IBOFightback) was called a "cyber bully" by an Amway corporate blogger and some others for making disparaging comments about those with opposing views. Others have resorted to calling people broke or losers simply because they did not agree that Amway was their savior. Is this an example of being a nicer person? Doesn't seem like it to me.

On this very blog, there are comments, I assume by Amway IBOs, that make implied, subtle threats and in some cases, direct threats against me and others. Some of these comments are not subtle at all. In fact, in my blogging experience, it is usually the IBOs and Amway defenders that resort to name calling. I suspect that is because the facts are on the side of the Amway critics. For example, it is a fact that most IBOs never make a dime, even if you don't count the ones who "do nothing". If you look at system IBOs, then the vast majority never make enough to pay their voicemail expenses, let alone anything else. The IBOs will say that they are paying for education like a college student. But college students can list their education on a resume even if they did not graduate. What does your Amway education do for your resume other than giving an employer a good laugh?

Even the coveted diamond level appears to be a facade, especially seeing diamonds quit, resign and simply walk away from the business without the lifelong passive income. A triple diamond's bankruptcy revealed some poor financial decisions and planning and his income as a triple diamond wasn't all that impressive considering the size of his business plus longevity in the business. This triple diamond made about half a million dollars from Amway. A good income, but not one that will finance paying for homes in cash, owning a fleet of sports cars, or a jet. The diamond lifestyle might be one of heavy debt if people try to portray a life of excessive wealth. Many Americans live in debt, why would diamonds be any different?

So IBOs, are you a nicer person? Is it evident by your words and actions? And how does that translate into making a profit from your Amway business?

No PV Watching TV?

 Often times, upline would give you advice, such as "there's no PV for watching TV". It makes sense when you hear it, but when you critically analyze the advice carefully, you can easily see that it's BS. The idea was that "broke people" with no direction in life waste their lives away watching TV and doing other activities that do not affect their financial futures while Amway IBOs are out trying to better themselves. On the surface, this sounds like completely sound advice, and it makes perfect sense if you're an IBO. Why spend time on your couch when you could be out trying to build your Amway business? Right? Broke people watch TV after all.

But wait a second, let's turn this around. There's no PV in attending a function. There's not PV in reading some self-help book or a Kiyosaki book. There's no PV in subscribing to standing orders or to communiKATE. There's no PV for attending any meetings and there's no PV most of the CORE steps. Technically, IBOs would be better served by concentrating on personal use and by actually selling products to customers. Only by increasing your PV does your volume get larger. Now sponsoring also has the possibility of increasing volume but most IBOs never sponsor a single downline, ever. So if you follow upline ad vice not to do things that don't get you PV, remind them that those activities include Amway related activities.

To compound the problem, the Amway activities such as standing orders and functions cost money and takes away resources from the IBO into products and activities that the upline profits from. Therefore, the upline is dishing out advice that is self-serving: "attend all functions and listen to audios every day". When you really think about it, what direct benefit was there for your business by doing the Amway related activities? Unless you move more volume, your activities are for nothing. It doesn't increase your business and your PV/volume. All you are doing is making your upline wealthy with loyal purchases of tools and functions. That is the Amway business. IBOs think they will be getting rich from Amway while the upline diamonds get rich by selling tools to their downline. To coin a phrase, "you live with the classes when you sell to the masses". That's what the diamonds are doing. Capitalizing on a captive audience whose loyal purchases makes nice profits.

This week, Joecool will not be posting anymore blog posts. I'm flying to the mainland to see an NFL game. I'm accomplishing things that I wanted to do, but now I have the time and resources to do, from saving and investing. Without Amway, I might add. It's been a great life, sans Amway. :)

Duplication?

 Many IBOs are taught that "duplication" or "copying" is the key to success in Amway. It is why so many IBOs are desperately trying to sponsor downline. It is why, in my opinion, so many IBOs will use any tactics to get people in front of the plan. I have heard of many zany tricks and deceptive practices by IBOs who are recruiting potential downline.  This has damaged the Amway name over the years to where you might get funny looks by mentioning Amway.

Unfortunately, even IBOs who are able to sponsor a few downline run into problems. That problem is retention. Downline come and go with great frequency. Many IBOs come and go because they simply do not make a net profit and they quickly lose interest in "doing the work" for so little reward.  Some might sign up so their sponsor will leave them alone.

I will agree that duplication can be a vital part of being successful in this business. But in real business, an owner will duplicate himeself/herself by hiring employees. The employees perform certain tasks in exchange for a wage or salary and allows the owner to accomplish certain tasks that he/she cannot do single handedly. If the employee is compensated fairly, they tend to stay, and in jobs where minimum wage is the standard, they often have retention problems and have to hire and train new workers with regularity. It is no different in the Amway opportunity. Those who make money, although the exception, will stay, and the vast majority of IBOs, who make little or nothing despite their efforts, will leave. It is that simple. If IBOs were actually making that extra $200 a month or maybe even an extra $150 net profit, I would guess that they would continue to be in business. But like a real business, when they do not make money, they fold up and do something else, which may be simply working harder at their jobs.

While duplication is a good concept on paper, it doesn't work because not enough IBOs make a net profit. There is no continued interest in staying in a business where they spend more on tools and products than they take in. Groups who focus on the prosumer or buy from yourself concept make it worse for downline as they have little or no sales to add to their bottom line.  No business can survive with the owner and possibly the employees account for most if not all of the sales.

If IBOs and prospects would see and understand this concept, they could avoid a lot of pain.

Transparency?

This is a repost of a story I penned some years ago.  It's a bit lengthy but a fun read:  

Apparently, Joecool has a new fan. A WWDB IBO who runs the blog called "Transparency Of A Dreamer". http://transparencyofadreamer.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/transparency-how-do-you-filter-online-information/

This blog is run by Cameron, who is apparently a WWDB IBO. I used to follow a blog called WWDB Expeditions Of Truth authored by Shaun Guthrie. Both apparently hail from Canada. What I find humorous is how Cameron uses the word "transparency" in his blog title. Cameron, like Shaun, does not allow comments on his blog. I find it odd how pro-Amway blogs often do not allow comments unless they are positive about Amway. What are they afraid of? Hmm.

Cameron says on his blog:

Dream Builder training and mentorship system while being “transparent” in my success’ but MOST IMPORTANTLY my non-success. As a dreamer I identify myself as wanting and desiring more for myself, my family, my friends and my associates. Thus – Transparency of a Dreamer.

When I chose the name of this blog I chose it because I felt that there was a lack of integrity and transparency in how information / experience was shared.

My question to Cameron is why doesn't he allow comments, or transparency on his own blog?

He openly criticizes me because he feels I have some hatred towards Amway and WWDB. That is not true. I don't hate anyone. My blog is about my experiences in Amway and WWDB and some of the bad practices that WWDB leaders employed. Based on my observations of Shaun Guthrie's blog, I can say some of the same practices I saw over ten years ago still happen now. Shaun's blog is now gone (because he quit??) but he spoke of getting out of debt (which is good) but he did so by selling his home and cashing out his 401K. He spoke of buying homes in cash, and abut a 2% divorce rate in Amway/WWDB which is a dicey claim at best. I often hear how Amway/WWDB has changed but here we have the same leaders teaching the same stuff. What exactly has changed? I might add that WWDB leaders in my day LIED and said nobody made a profit from tools. Now that the lie has been exposed, they admit profit is made on tools but none of the liars were ever held accountable.

Let's examine Cameron's business:

Business Level: Founders Belivers Pin almost 2 years straight + additional consecutive months to today’s date (Mar – Apr 2014 as of this post)
Highest PV Bonus Bracket: 9% BV over our organization + Retail / Personal Use Volume.
Personal Width: 1
Depth: 2 wide on one sponsored leg.

Cameron is around the 6 to 9% bonus bracket. With his premiere membership and assuming he attends functions, he is LOSING MONEY! 6-9% will pay you around $100 a month (gross) which will leave you at a loss when factoring in business expenses. That doesn't account for time spent in the endeavor. Cameron says he is not in debt, but he doesn't mention that he profits from Amway. Most likely because his job covers his Amway/WWDB losses.

For the record, I did as an IBO, witness WWDB leaders offer advice such as having your family skip a meal to buy another tape/cd, or quitting your job to attend a function, after all, you can just get another job. You can skip paying your mortgage for about 3 months before the mortgage company forecloses (so you can attend a WWDB function). Greg Duncan taught us how stupid it was to take out loans (can you say hypocrite). I wonder if Mr. Duncan paid off all of his loans yet? LOL Brad Wolgamott taught about the 2% divorce rate (can you say hypocrite?).

Cameron then tries to discredit me by linking to David Steadson's blog. (Steadson aka IBOFightback). Steadson has already been discredited as a liar and referred to as a a cyber bully by Beth Dornan, who ran an Amway corporate blog.

http://blogs.amway.com/amwayinsider/2008/01/15/cyber-bullies-not-welcome-here/

As those who frequent the Opportunity Zone know, our conversations here are governed by a philosophy we call "civil discourse."

Civil discourse means we agree to disagree, but not to be disagreeable. In other words, I accept your right to have an opinion that differs from my own and ask that you do the same. In a word, it means respect. Bullies aren't allowed.
I was disturbed to read that someone who has been critical of this business has been harassed and disparaging information about him posted by a cyber bully.

Steadson, aka IBOFightback is the ONLY ONE who wrote disparaging articles about Amway critics.

Cameron then criticizes the fact that I occasionally use profanity on my blog. I have and I allow some of it. But nobody gets a handful of dirt in their face without dishing it out first. I've been threatened and had IBO's slander and libel my name. That is why I use the pseudo name "Joecool", to protect my true identity.

Why does Amway and WWDB continue to receive criticism? It's not because of Joecool or any other Amway critic. Amway and WWDB receives criticism because of the actions and behaviors of their IBO's. People are still lied to and tricked into meetings. People still overstate the income and effort needed to build Amway. People give the best case scenario without informing prospects of the typical IBO's experiences. The internet is still loaded with legitimate complaints about Amway and WWDB and their only response is to attack the critic rather than fixing the problems that leads to the criticism.

Good luck Cameron, I know you've been reading this blog. You've been an IBO 3 years and you have one leg with a few more downline. A WWDB leader once said insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Were you shown a 2-5 year plan? Maybe it's time for you to sit down and come to grips with Amway and WWDB yourself. I truly hope you won't quit and take your blog down like all other WWDB IBO's I've encountered.

Building A Business?

 When I was an Amway IBO, many people would talk about "building a business". But many folks who spoke about building a business didn't know what that meant. I believe it is because they were taught that building a business meant listening to tapes or audios and attending functions. Or building a business might mean sponsoring others. In my segment of the Amway world, building a business pretty much meant recruiting and showing the plan. Apparently, I was mislead, and many others were as well.

Building a business, generally speaking means building a customer base. A business moves products and services for a profit. In groups that focus on buying from yourself or prosumer nonsense, generally will struggle because the revenue they generate in their business is coming from their own pockets. Or their jobs are actually supplying the money for their own bonuses. In this model, the only way to profit is to sponsor many downlines so the pyramidal compensation plan can work in your favor.

Many IBOs compare themselves to a franchise. Can you imagine a true franchise where your long-term success depended on your ability to open other franchises? What if you as the owner and your family accounted for the majority of the sales? Could this franchise survive? More than likely not. Yet this is exactly what many Amway IBOs do, and they mistakenly think they will be successful. The only reason why Amway IBOs are able to play out this model longer than a traditional franchise owner is because they do not have to rent office space or hire employees.

If an Amway IBO ran their business like a traditional business, the lack of retail sales to non-IBO customers would be immediately apparent when the first month's electric bill or lease payment arrived.

Building a business entails many things. These things may include advertising, marketing of products, and do not necessarily include any training. In its simplest form, the Amway business is about selling and using products, and getting others to do the same as you do. Why do IBOs think such extensive training (standing order and functions) is needed? I challenge IBOs to write up an actual business plan for their Amway business, including projected sales and expenses and see what you come up with. If you think I am just being negative, write up your Amway presentation and show it to a loan officer at a bank. See what they have to say. Seriously.