Based on my experience in Amway, my blogging experience, and observation of other people who give financial advice such as real estate gurus who teach you to buy property with no money down, or others such as Robert Kiyosaki for that matter, all show testimonials of sucessful people. Obviously they do not show you the vast majority of people who try their systems and fail. They hightlight a few "successful" people and put a disclaimer in such as "unique experience" for folks who actually made some money. They do not claim that the income however, is long term sustainable.
It is my informed opinion that whether it is Amway, WWDB, BWW, N21, real estate or the cashflow business, the vast majority of people who try these systems do not make any kind of significant income. Sure, some may, and those are shown as the possibilities. But if you watch infomercials, you will see in small print on the bottom of the screen, "unique experience", you results may vary. I believe that a similar message used to be at the end of Amway diamond recordings as well. That the system may work for some people, but "your results may vary".
These systems in general do not work for various reasons. Many people simply do not have the acumen to work the system. Or the system has too many variables for the system to work, or the system calls for things beyond your control. For example, success in Amway generally requires you to sponsor others, something that is beyond the control of most people. Add in the lazy and people who are hoipng for a quick score and it is understandable that most will fail. But these systems are often set up where the majority simply cannot all succeed. Nowhere is that more true than the Amway business where the pyramidal compensation plan nearly guarantees failure for the lower level IBOs.
So what can someone do? Well, it may no be as sexy or attractive but a part time job and investing and saving might be something to think about. Even a part time business where you focus on selling products for a profit might work. It just seems prudent to avoid these "systems" as the primary beneficiary of these "systems" are the ones who directly profit from them
So true! A disclaimer would prove that you can do everything they tell you to do to be successful, and still not be a diamond.
ReplyDeleteThey made that ridiculous 'guarantee' claim at every function. "YOu do the work, you WILL become a diamond. Hog wash!
There are no guarantees in life 'cept death and taxes; not even amway.
I think people forget that. They want so much for it to be true, they give up thinking for themselves.
One word, one syllable.....NO
ReplyDeletePlease notice that even the boring mutual funds disclaimer is 'PAST PERFORMANCE is not indicative of future results'. At least we can still look at past performance to see/compare various mutual funds.
ReplyDeleteContrast this with infomercials/amway/etc that usually say 'your results may vary'. IOW, you do not have ANY objective data to compare.
Even JOBs have statistics that you can narrow down to industry, location, etc. to find out the mean, median, top 25%, etc. of salary.
Don't even start with REAL franchise, that gives you detailed breakdown of averages, etc.