In the Amway business, many active IBOs are advised to trust upline. To think of upline as a coach or a mentor. These upline mentors or coaches are supposed to have your best interest at heart and they will guide you to success if only you will be open to learning. Many uplines, including my former uplines used to coin the term "copy" or duplicate. If you can do that you will be successful. Even the simplest of people can copy. The upline may crack a joke about getting thru school by copying. Thus, many IBOs follow exactly what their upline advises them to do.
But then uplines turn the responsibility away from themselves. Many Amway defenders will also claim that downline should not simply follow the advice of upline. They may make a ridiculous claim that standing orders and functions contain advice that must be discerned. That information is like a buffet. You pick and choose what you need and discard the rest. If you are a new IBO or prospect, let me tell you that is a load of guano (crap) that is being heaped on you. Your upline is touted as having experience and wisdom in the Amway business, which is why you are paying good money for voicemail, books, cds, and functions. So why would their advice be something you pick and choose? How would a new IBO know what to pick and choose?
Imagine hiring a guide for a trek in the wilderness. The guide is supposed to be an experienced outdoorsman, perhaps an expert. So if he recommends that you eat certain plants or fruits, you trust that he is going to guide you right. Imagine eating something that made you sick to your stomach, only to have the guide tell you that he just points out plants and fruits and you have to discern which is good for you and which is not. You would fire the guide and tell everyone you know not to use that guide anymore.
But here we have these "systems" such as Network 21, WWDB or BWW that have been "guiding" IBOs for up to 20 years or more in some cases, and the number of diamonds are negligible. Sure there are many new platinums, but many tool consuming platinums have been found to be losing money or making very little money for their efforts. What's more, it would appear that Amway is losing ground in North America based on sales. One can reasonably guess that any new platinums that break are simply replacing the volume for a platinum that no longer exists or a platinum that no longer qualifies. My former upline diamond appears to have all new qualifying platinums from the time I was in the business and here's the kicker. My former diamond had 6 downline rubies. As far as I know, none of these rubies are qualified as platinum anymore, although I have heard that some of these are still active.
Uplines also program their downline to take responsibility for the failure. Thus you have IBOs who did everything that was asked of them, only to fail. Yet these IBOs often blame themselves for their failure. It is my opinion that former IBOs who did everything asked of them only to fail should file a formal complaint against their LOS with the better business bureau. Amway defenders like to think that a lack of formal complaints means that the system works when clearly, there is no unbiased substantial evidence to suggest that the system works. It looks like some succeed in spite of the system, not because of.
The catch in all this is uplines skirting responsibility for the outcomes of those they "mentor" and profit from. IBOs should ask if upline really cared about their success, why do you have to pay for any help that you receive from your upline diamond?
The typical rote response of Amway zombies to this particular criticism is that you pay a doctor for his medical advice, and you pay a teacher tuition for teaching you. But the analogy doesn't hold. A doctor or a teacher is working in his own interest, and therefore has a right to ask for payment. Your Amway up-line is supposed to be IN BUSINESS WITH YOU, since he profits from whatever success you may have in developing your business. He has no right to make a profit on the tools and other motivational stuff that he foists upon you. When he does this, he is literally asking to profit TWICE from you -- first for his cut of your sales and down-line expansion, and second for the tapes, CDs, books, and other bullshit propaganda that he insists you purchase from him.
ReplyDeleteThis would be like a bank asking you to pay interest on the money they lend you, and then asking you also to pay a fee for the mere fact that they interviewed you before making the loan! The bank is profiting from their loan to you; that's OK. But asking you to pay for the privilege of being interviewed and checked out by them would be absurd and thievish.
At a traditional job, your boss or company doesn't ask you to pay for any training that you need in order to do your best work. Once you are hired, any extra training is given to you on THEIR dime.
When your Amway up-line demands that you buy all of that monthly motivational garbage from him, he is ripping you off. As someone who has a financial interest in your success as an IBO, he should be happy to advise and counsel you without a fee.
AMWAY IS LEGALIZED THEFT.
Good comments. Yes, Amway is a great business - if you own Amway. The IBOs sell Amway products and they incur all of the risk and expense associated with moving those products. Amway only pays you if you sell enough products to make their 100 PV quota.
DeleteThen to add insult to injury, your upline charges you for their advice which usually doesn't help your business.
IBOs are in a lose lose situation.
Amway is a cult - period. They steal your money, your identity, your soul. How this cult still continues baffles the brain. It is unbelievable what people fall for and allow to happen to them in this cult.
DeleteAgreed, lBO's are worse than a slave. A slave, at least, gets paid and is given food for his work delivered. An IBO has to grind his ass for "work", the more he works, the more money he bleeds. Add on that insult that IBO's are not paid any salary at all.
ReplyDeleteTrue, the IBOs basiacally pay to sell Amway. They take the risk of incurring the cost of advertising and moving product and must even make a quota (100 PV) to earn any bonus. To make it worse, some IBOs pay for training on top of everything else so their overhead becomes significant.
DeleteAmway IBOs aren't even allowed to advertise that they have Amway products for sale to the general public. That would go against the whole MLM concept. Your up-line would have a shit-fit, and the Amway administration would come down hard on you.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this article. Just yesterday i had a couple friends come talk about Amway. Now im convinced I wont be getting caught up with this. Just dont know how to get rid of them?
ReplyDeleteJuts say no thank you. What more can they do?
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