One of the things the diamonds and other big pins like to do is to flaunt their wealth. They show up at meetings with fancy cars, they like to wear fancy suits and my former LOS, WWDB, even had and still has a function called "Dream Night". Dream Night is where the diamonds show off pictures of mansions, jets, cars and vacations and they claim that everyone will one day join them in their lives full of pleasure and excess. Despite these displays of wealth, there is much evidence to suggest that these diamonds may not be able to afford all of these goodies. In fact, I strongly suspect that many diamonds are living in debt because they cannot sustain these fairy tale lifestyles on their incomes, even adding up the Amway and tools income. Now I'm not claiming that all diamonds are in hock, but I would not be surprised if half of them were in debt.
Even lower level IBOs attempt to appear wealthy. They may dress nicely and whatnot, but in the parking lot at functions, might see a more accurate glimpse of reality when you see what these IBOs are driving around. I remember seeing a bunch of broken down cars, some of them on their last legs at the local functions. Yet if you were to speak to some of these nice folks, you would be told they are doing great and that business is booming.
But my question is why isn't all of this Amway success obvious? Why do IBOs dance around the questions about how much they earn from Amway? Why do diamonds like to copy some once a year bonus and pretend that they earn that kind of income on a monthly basis? If a room were full of IBOs and only the ones with a NET profit were to stand up, only a small handful or less IBOs would be standing. Most of the rest probably don't even make enough to cover the cost of their voicemail.
Why can't an entire group of IBOs earn a net profit? The answer is simple. In the vast majority of groups, the cost of tools exceeds the group income that is earned from Amway. Do the math and it's easy to see. Unless your group refuses to purchase any tools and focuses on selling products, then you are more than likely to end up losing money. Success is not obvious, and the reason for that is quite obvious.
If an Amway IBO had the courage to 1) refuse to purchase any tools or function tickets, and 2) concentrate all of his energy on selling Amway products to retail customers, and 3) not make use of Ditto or CommuniKate, he might actually be able to make a bit of extra cash to supplement his regular job income.
ReplyDeleteThat's what Amway was SUPPOSED TO DO FOR YOU -- let you make a little extra cash on the side! And if you were energetic and resourceful enough to sell Amway products on a regular basis to a small circle of satisfied customers in your vicinity, nobody could possibly have any objection to the business. Amway wasn't supposed to fulfill some big fucking "dream."
What happened to change that original good idea? Two things: the growth of the greed-driven LOS programs like Network 21 and TEAM and WWDB, all of which were interested in nothing except mindless and endless recruitment; and the absurd dream of "residual income" from the labors of others.
These two ideas essentially said that selling Amway products was stupid and meaningless, and that the shrewd persons in Amway never bothered with it, except to force it on down-line. The real big money was in recruitment, and getting your down-line to recruit endlessly. In short, you were to get rich by selling hope, not soap.
Does it work? Sure, for a few hard-driving, tunnel-vision fanatics who exploit everybody else. But for close to 99% of all IBOs, it's all a pipe-dream.
You are exactly right. Spot on comment!
ReplyDeleteI have come up with a new motto for Amway. I urge them to use it in all their future advertising campaigns to recruit IBOs:
ReplyDeleteThe Great Amway Opportunity: LOW-GRADE SOAPS FROM HALF-WIT DOPES!
ROFLMAO
DeleteYes your are right about that. The Another problem is, people are so focused on sponsoring another person, that they forget that "sales of the products brings the profit" Just like other businesses.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. People are focused on recruiting because they know that you can't go diamond without a big downline and they forget about making a profit.
DeleteHey Joe,
ReplyDeleteI know this is a bit off topic, but my acquaintance just got back from a Vegas WWDB event and talked to me about a guy named John Maxwell. He said the guy was amazing, and asked if I had ever heard of him. I told him I had not, and then he told me to google him...I asked, are you sure you want me to do that? He laughed, and said yes he's brilliant.
I found his website and his little intro video which was...interesting? He seems to have taken a unique position as a leadership guru...w/e that means...and his business is to go around to Amway functions, and sell his program to teach others to be "leaders" and change their way of thinking in order to be successful (sound familiar?)
At the end of the video they called him a doctor, and needless to say I was shocked...so I looked up what his degrees are in and from where he got them. It turns out the good doctor has a masters in divinity and a doctorate in ministry (Sounds like Harry Potter degrees...) from Azusa Pacific University (Apparently a top notch private Christian college).
This is the extent of the research I have been able to come up with, and am curious to learn more about "Dr." Maxwell. It seems odd that a man with such devotion to the Christian church studies would be donating so much of his time and energy towards teaching business. Especially since he, much like Kiyosaki, has no formal training in the field.
P.S. He has apparently written 70+ books on being a leader and teaching others to be leaders (Seems like he has a massive ego...and is just foaming at the mouth to talk about his philosophies). He also claims that he is never done teaching, and that leaders can always generate new "content", because there is always more to learn (Remind you of those lovely cd's and tapes they have you buy every week?) This guy seems to be the stem of the "Tools" business idea, as he has been doing this crap for over 40 years.
John Maxwell is well known among the Amwayers. He is a motivational speaker and apparently, he's spoken at big Amway functions. But like Kiyosaki, he's not involved in Amway and has no experience AFAIK, in MLM or Amway.
DeleteBen, this is an important question that you raise. Maxwell himself is just a small facet of it.
DeleteThis blog and several others have for years been pointing out the business flaws in the Amway program. Horror story after horror story has been recounted about lies, deception, manipulation, the tools scam, useless "functions," bankruptcy, nonexistent profits -- you name it, and the anti-Amway or Amway-critical websites have brought these scandals to light, and via the internet these facts have become available, world-wide. The brute reality of Amway's Pyramid-and-Ponzi scheme is now open to anyone with a computer. Not all the lawyers in Ada, Michigan can put that genie back into the bottle.
And yet, despite it all, Amway still chugs along, roping in new IBOs year after year to replace the ones who drop out after exhaustion, depletion of funds, or the realization that they are being ripped off.
Are these new IBOs all stupid? I don't think so, even though we sometimes go a bit too far rhetorically here and at Anna's site in attacking them. It's just not statistically probable that they are all dimwitted morons. I mean, hey -- Joe Cool and Anna Banana were in Amway, and they are certainly not stupid. And many ex-IBOs who come here to post are clearly persons of intelligence. So what gives?
It's the RELIGIOUS factor. And if the word "religious" bothers people, let's say instead the PSYCHOLOGICAL factor, or the NON-RATIONAL factor. Amway is rooted in BELIEF, not in reason. The entire plan appeals to a kind of misdirected faith, a faith that Amwayers sincerely believe can "move mountains" or "change the world."
That's why facts don't matter to them (Dexter Yager was quite specific on this point). And this is why a man like Maxwell, who is basically a preacher and revivalist, is so very important to Amway. He's not going to tell you anything specific about building a business. But he's going to fire you up with religious zeal, of the sort that sends you off on a business crusade to "build up a down-line" and "sell The Plan."
This is why it was in the cards for Amway to have a pseudo-Christian coloration. Atheists, agnostics, skeptics, secularists, or non-theistic Buddhists aren't going to be drawn into Amway. They don't have the "need-to-believe" gene in their mental DNA. And persons who are seriously committed to an inherited traditional faith (like devout Catholics, orthodox Jews, or non-trendy Protestants) don't need the kind of fake faith that Amway feeds on and encourages in its members.
Amway appeals, first and foremost, to those with a vague and incoherent need to believe "in something big," something that holds up a glittering promise of a heaven on earth, something that fills a void in their lives. Maxwell is in great demand because he offers that to them, in spades.
And here is a clue as to who tends to drop out of Amway. It's persons (like Joe Cool) who were primarily interested in Amway as a BUSINESS PROPOSITION, not as a substitute faith. Clear-sighted persons like that saw pretty quickly that Amway is a non-starter as a way to build up cash. And the religious razzle-dazzle and holy-roller rhetoric of the "functions" (and motivational guys like Maxwell) turned them off. "I'm not really making a profit in this fake revivalist meeting," they said to themselves. "So why am I in it?" And they did the intelligent thing and bailed out.
Who stays in Amway? The true believers. Nothing will shake you when you have finally found your true faith.
Thanks for the comment. I believe that what you stated is true and for that reason, a part of what was weaved into the teaching in Amway were other things that relate to the bigger cause.
DeleteFor example, teaching spoke about traditional values like mom staying home to raise kids. Amway saves or strengthens marriages, Amway makes me a better or nicer person.
Then religion is introduced because this also gives the hopeful a common thread where faith is needed and a common bond with the upline leaders.
These teachings make it very difficult to quit because you are love bombed and told that Amwayers are all part of a family making a difference in the world.
But in reality, it's like a big cult where the members all give their money so the leader can live in luxury.
Thus a speaker like Maxwell can be very powerful.
You described it perfectly Joe on why the functions are nothing but a pseudo-cult program because they indoctrinate values and religion and twists it for their greedy gains.
DeleteThe functions are where the diamonds show off stuff (which they may not even own) and then indoctrinate the audience into thinking they can have the same if they will only buy the tools and attend monre function. Basically the tools talk about a diamond's wealth and that you should never quit and keep buying more tools.
DeleteAnonymous and Joe,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your well thought out responses. You two are definitely confirming my suspicions on Maxwell and his ridiculous accolades. It would seem he has given himself a title, a brand, a look, a personality, and above all else a sense of credibility that appears to be hard to shake.
I have continued to try and learn more about the guy, but google searches yield little results. I fear his ego is even bigger than I imagined, or is he smaller than he portrays himself, because everything that comes up is an advertisement for himself/his website/blogs he is a part of etc. He has actually monopolized his SEO hot words to a point where he looks all powerful (He is a god in the search engine universe).
I can confirm that the rational thoughts will quickly subside once someone tells you exactly what you want to hear. In my own experience, I was about to follow a guy that had no college education, worked 30+ jobs in 2 years (which he bragged about), had been doing Amway on and off for those 2 years, had been in and out of his parent's trailer in their backyard, and probably more red flags that I can't think of at this time. All because he was promising me a chance to make my life better than I ever could have imagined. Of course he used deception along the way, and never held himself accountable for his own business. He was such a strong believer he actually said the numbers don't matter, and that his upline was the one worrying about that sort of stuff...(W T F MOMENT!)
Anonymous described me perfectly when I got to the main event and saw this wasn't a business, but rather a religious revival fueled on misguided beliefs.
Anyways it would seem that John Maxwell, much like Kiyosaki, and probably many others have found their gift of gab and turned it into a large sum of money. They are the modern day reincarnates of Hermes. Unfortunately as the world evolves, the scandals and BS evolve along with it.
Yes, these speakers can be motivating and charming but if you could peek into their financials, they may very well be making money from their captive audiences. I recall some IBOs being taught "fake it till you make it" or "if the dream is big enough, the facts don't matter".
DeleteIt's dangerous teaching but IBOs want to believe that you can work 2-5 years and walk away from Amway to enjoy untold wealth with residual income for life.
Sadly, they usually self discover that it's not going to happen and they quit. But by then, debts have built up and the damage is done.