One of the things I was taught as an IBO was "fake it till you make it". My understanding was that you were to act successful, even if you had not yet achieved your desired level. By faking success, I suppose you had a better opportunity to prospect other potential IBOs than by showing the reality. Broken down to its purest form, this is deception. To attract others to an opportunity where you are deceptive is less than honest, which I suppose describes my former WWDB upline leaders. What is also sad though, is that I believe this may still be taught. Part of this is evidenced by IBOs wearing business attire to all meetings.
I guess this should not surprise people who know about the Amway business because I believe that diamonds also embellish success as well. WWDB used to have, and still runs a major function called "Dream Nite". This is a function where the diamonds will parade on stage while showing a slide show of all the lifestyle you can achieve at the diamond level. Do what they do and you can have what they have, is what they teach. But can you really?
For one thing, new diamonds in the US or WWDB for that matter probably earn in the range of $200K to $250K a year when you factor in the Amway income and the income from tools. While that seems like a great income, factoring in taxes and medical and dental insurance and the kind of life style that diamonds portray with fleets of cars and mansions and gaudy jewelry and clothing, and you can easily see that diamonds are very likely playing a game of "fake it" as well. It is why I believe many diamonds are actually in debt and/or living month to month financially, just like the working stiffs they criticize in functions. I have heard testimonies and read comments about how IBOs saw their diamonds actually living in very average homes and at times, renting fancy cars and things to show off because their income likely cannot sustain the lifestyles they portray. A prominent WWDB triple diamond apparently went through bankruptcy proceedings and another had their home foreclosed a handful of years ago. . It is all adding up to what I suspect. That diamonds at best live middle to upper middle class lifetyles. Not that this is bad, but it is a far cry from how the diamond lifestyle is dishonestly portrayed. Take away the tools income and the picture would not be pretty, in my opinion.
So IBOs and diamonds can fake it, but I suspect that many of them NEVER "make it".
And if I may add, teaching this and doing this "fake it" is less than honest.
This article was published this year by Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/02/11/recruiting-candidates-for-the-business-of-selling-empty-promises/
ReplyDeleteIf this doesn't tell these wwdb/amway freaks anything then I don't know what will.
-A
Good article. I agree that more black and white (clear) guidelines as to what is legal or not would make it much easier to identify a scam. MLMs live in the gray in between areas in my opinion.
DeleteThe big one should be that more product must be sold to non participants. Ergo, people registering to get a discount on product would still be considered a participant and therefore, sales to themselves would not count. If this rule was in place, Amway and Herbalife might be in trouble.
No wonder, they read your blog and started to call you a "quitter", "loser" and then recite their usual script and brag their income they earn from amway but when you ask a simple question about how much they spend on those tools or started to ask deeper questions, they become evasive.
ReplyDeleteThey try to argue you but none of them can really prove this business opportunity using facts and instead they argue with you with emotional-based reasoning (just like me).
You tell them the truth but they react so angrily, and try to deny the truth. This just shows that choosing to pursue this venture is a poor choice and simply, a financial suicide.
Absolutely. They'll use the scripted answers from upline but once I get deeper into discussion, the Amway defenders react with anger and usually insults.
DeleteWell then, that's another sign of a religious cult. When you react violently to criticism rather than trying to answer it calmly, it means that you're defending an emotionally-based commitment rather than a mundane business.
DeleteAmway is for idiots who want "to believe." Question their belief system, and they freak out.
For that reason and othes, Amway had been compared to a cult.
Delete