Check out this blog post from 2010 from an Amway and WWDB IBO. He is talking about retiring and now it is almost the year 2016. This IBO (Shaun Guthrie) ran a blog called WWDB Expeditions Of Truth, which is now defunct and apparently, Shaun is no longer an IBO. I would assume that he quit and failed. I can still see his twitter account and there's no mention about Amway or residual income and retiring in another year. I do wish him well in his endeavors and hope that he des achieve his dreams, but also knowing that it wasn't going to happen using Amway as a vehicle. This article is a message written by Shaun in 2010 and you can see some pretty big claims. Read on.............
"Well we are coming up to Free Enterprise Day’s in Portland this weekend and with that I’ve come up to my one year anniversary. I’ve also passed the one year anniversary of this blog and where I started out with it. I started it while being a guest at Free Enterprise Day’s supporting Lindsay (wife) in what I had originally thought was something completely stupid, something illegal, something that was going to drive a wedge between us and our marriage. Turns out it was quite the opposite.
There is nothing wrong with a healthy scepticism and boy did I have a lot of “healthy” scepticism. After spending 5 months of doing some actual research, checking out the Amway site, Better Business Bureau, Checking the history of the company, Industry Canada, and yeah even checking out all the negative blogs out there, I came to the conclusion there was nothing wrong with this business and what it stood for. One of the biggest things that really drew me to business was the environmental stewardship this company stood on and I thought I could get behind that and have no problems promoting those great products. It was however the World Wide Dreambuilders that really intrigued me and instead of driving a wedge between our marriage it has helped solidify it even stronger than it was last year. How the heck could a business do that? Cause it’s founded on good core traditional values such as marriage, relationships, personal growth and living debt free. Not bad values if I do say so.
So I say one year because it’s one year when I joined my wife and we became united together and made a decision together to actually build this. Since then we’ve achieved some great milestones and have had some set backs, as with anything in life. We’ve been able to kill off a HUGE amount of consumer debt that we would have still had to this day if it were not for the great coaches, mentors we have. We’ve been able to ride the example our coaches have set out and we are pretty much right on track with where they are and that’s just the power of duplication. I’ve retired my wife so that she never has to give her 1st best to another man ever again. We will be able to raise our kids never having to know what a daycare or day home looks like. Not to offend anyone however that’s not how we want to raise our kids, we’d much rather instil our own values and be there every step of the way.
Looking forward to the future we are pumped to hit Double Eagle Ruby late next year at which time I’ll be stepping away from my job so that I never have to work for another man’s dream and give my 1st best to them. I know that we will work hard at this so that my kids will always have me at home when they need me and not have to wait for me to come home from work. I look forward to the days that we can take our kids out to the ski hill during the week day and not the weekend when it’s jam packed. I look forward to seeing my parents with the kids anytime we want instead of a set amount of vacation time or trying to stretch out a long weekend. There are so many things we look forward to in our second year in business and we know because of the great examples before us we will actually achieve them.
Now please don’t misunderstand me, these are our goals and things we want to achieve. I’m in no way saying you have to build this business. I’ve chosen this vehicle to obtain our goals and the vision we have set out for our family. You don’t have to agree with me and that’s perfectly fine. I only hope that you have a vehicle out there that will allow you to 100% achieve whatever it is you have set out for you and your family.
Here’s to year #2!"
Joe, please explain what a "Double Eagle Ruby" is, and what sort of monthly income such a person would receive.
ReplyDeleteHere's the parameters for a double eagle:
DeleteDOUBLE EAGLE:
Signed counsel sheet to upline diamond
500 PV Personal use & retail, 300 PV for singles
12 legs at 100 PV or higher
10 legs on standing order
6 legs attending major functions
You'll notice that 300 PV is expected for a single person. Shaun was married so he and his wife were going to move 500 PV by themselves. That's nearly impossible, given Amway's high prices. You'll also notice that the double eagle program, initiated by WWDB, is a program to ensure that your upline is raking in tool money. There is nothing to ensure that you as the IBO are profitable.
A double eagle ruby would have group volume of at least 15,000 PV and the group tool parameters. The expected gross income would be supposedly $100K to $120K, or in that range.
Problem is that a double eagle ruby would have tremendous business expenses, including the heavy burden of trying to use or sell 500 PV as a couple or 300 PV as a single.
You may have to travel to show the plan for downline, which includes air travel for people who are sponsored in other states, etc.
And to be an example, you can't miss any functions, etc.
A double eagle ruby might gross $100K but that person would be lucky to take home $30K in a year.
Shaun never reached that level and he still ended up quitting and failing.
Well at least his initial thoughts were right
ReplyDeleteSo it would seem that Shaun and his wife worked frantically for a year or two, and developed a pretty solid PV for their up-line during that time. He doesn't say if he had any down-line legs, but we can assume he was trying hard to recruit them, and probably had some success.
ReplyDeleteThen what? Despite all this expense of energy, he gradually realizes that he's not going to be able to retire, and in fact he's losing cash steadily. So he quits, and now doesn't even mention Amway or WWDB at all.
See? That's another common defense of Amwayers. Obviously Shaun got hoodwinked and was misled about the Amway business and it's obvious he lost some money and put some bad advice unto action
Delete(He sold his home and cashed out his 401K to pay off debt which was upline advice given to him)
Now his upline has made money from Shaun, who is now probably blaming himself for failure but he won't cme forward to speak about it and is unlike to complain or file a complaint about his upline.
I wonder how much time and money he wasted in chasing the impossible Amway dream?
Yeah, he's moved on to another job as an IT guy for an auto group in Edmonton:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.goauto.ca/about/management/
He's also moved on from selling overpriced products to making and then selling aggressively priced wood products. Some nice pieces there, but since he gets his pallets for likely nothing I personally think it's overpriced. Some may disagree:
http://www.caskwoodworking.ca/shop/
He's also started yet another blog.
http://www.caskwoodworking.ca/blog/
I find it interesting how everyone else was wrong about Amway and how it was different for him. Doesn't appear to be entirely accurate now that we have the benefit of history on our side. Looks like critics aren't always wrong after all.
I still wish him the best, but can't help but chuckle a bit at his past arrogance & demeanour. Here the uninformed folks were right.
I bet that really bugs him.
Couple of those that Shaun criticized when he was fired up contacted him after he apparently left Amway to see what happened but he refuses to respond. And that's his right, to move on and move forward, but it shows how someone can appear successful for a while and wind up quitting shortly after.
DeleteI believe Shaun appeared to be making money but was really losing money as he made a comment that sent up red flag. That he did so well that he ended up getting a big tax return because of Amway. We know that people making good supplemental money (in addition to a job) do not get bigger tax returns because they made a lot of money. Business losses result in a bigger tax return.
@Joecool, Yeah, this guy sounds like he hit the Scamway bricks real hard and then lost his @$$ in the end, also probably dragging down some others in his downline along with him, with all that lost money being soaked up by a chain of dinosaur Scamway upline sponges who provided nothing in return of any value whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteBut here is one of the things that really gets me about the false claims made by Scamway: The notion that people can actually earn some "extra money" by doing Scamway part time. How on earth can anybody make anything at all by buying a small volume of any product at above retail, mark the price up even further and then find anybody willing to place an order for it? How can the small part time "IBO" possibly make so much as a nickel if the big guy cannot survive who is doing bigger volume and paying less for it at the same time? How can Scamway make such a claim? It makes no sense whatsoever.
Unless you can get a big following of people to believe you and buy your tools, the only other way to make a few dollars is to sell a few items and not participate in the tools and functions. But even that is very difficult because Amway products are priced way higher than competitive products.
DeleteBut if you do not participate in the tools or the functions, you will be treated like a pariah.
DeleteYes, if you start on tools and then stop, the adulation you may have once received will stop and you become and outsider.
DeleteIm sure he reached his petsonnel volumes by filling his garage like most do
ReplyDeleteThat's possible but I don't know if Shaun did that or not.
Delete