Not counting IBOs who sign up and never do a thing with the Amway business, I would guess that a typical business building IBO spends several months at 100 PV, earning $10 a month, and spending some money on functions and other support materials, thus ending up with a net loss in running their business. What I have also observed is that these new IBOs are often the most fierce defenders of the Amway opportunity. What is amusing is their defense of Amway, because they aren't knowledgeable enough about the business and cannot back up claims of being profitable.
A common defense is to attack someone's job. Oftentimes, I will hear that my job is a pyramid, or that the social security system is a ponzi scheme. What they fail to understand is that people with jobs have a net gain of income at the end of the month, unlike a typical IBO. Also, even if my job was a pyramid, that doesn't have any relevence as to whether the Amway opportunity is also a pyramid. And the same goes for social security. But although I find some faults with the social secuiry system, they have not yet failed to pay benefits to anyone who has paid in, as far as I know.
One of my favorite conversations is when an IBO, probably in frustration with facing the facts, will state that they have been in Amway for a month and they are already earning in excess of $5000 a month. Sure it's possible I suppose, just as it's possible for lightning to strike the same spot three times in a row. These IBOs are often the "drive by" commentors who never show up again. I recently had a conversation with an IBO who swore that he was earning $1000 a month in Amway, but refused to discuss what level he was at, or whether he made any actual sales, or had downline. He later asked for my email address and when finally supplied with it, he ended up blocking me from further contacting him.
I just wonder why upline leaders would teach such nonsense to downline, or whether downline simply want tp deceive others about their status in Amway? I mean it's really no big deal is a newbie IBO isn't making a lot of money. In fact that is expected when you are new. But I believe IBOs to some degree, might still be taught the old "fake it till you make it" theory that existed back when I was still an IBO 12 years ago. The concept was to fake success as a means to entice prospects until you actually made some progress in the business. Sadly, most IBOs never ever sponsor a downline, get discouraged and quit. I can't blame them when most IBOs who build the business suffer a financial loss, ironically it is usually from purchasing training materials that may have been promoted as the key to your success.
The sad result of all this is that "most" IBOs make more excuses than dollars.
$1000 a month profit for a new IBO in Amway? $5000 a month? That is simply NOT POSSIBLE in any conceivable sense. What did the guy do? Get a government contract to supply SA8 to the Army?
ReplyDeleteStrong retail sales! That's the only real way for anyone starting out in Amway to make money. Big-shot pins and platinums can get rich on the tool scam and the function-money rakeoff. But a lowly IBO, new to the business? All he can do is sell Amway products.
Claims of making a four-figure profit by lowly IBOs are nothing but hot air and fantasy. It's VERY, VERY HARD to sell Amway products in large quantities! And it is even more difficult to recruit new people into a down-line!
There's some South American guy who shows up every now and then on Anna Banana's blog, claiming that he is a multi-millionaire from Amway, running all sorts of operations and enterprises. It's clear from his posts that he is living in a dream-world.
What infuriates me about Amway is that the company teaches that this kind of wacky dreaming and hallucinating is essential to being an entrepreneur.
The IBOs or Amway defenders who claim to be making big money in Amway are often like drive by shooters, never to be heard from again.
DeleteLast year, an IBO "dared me" to debate with him on facebook and when I did, he told me to stop or he would unfriend me. I stopped so I could remain his friend and see his progress. I can't say I've been impressed.
Amway types are very bad at debate. It's because they are used to what goes on at the typical Amway meeting or function: just a lot of rah-rah hype and cheering and arm-pumping about how "great" we are, and how "rich" we're gonna be! No one asks any kind of serious, critical question. That would be "negativity" or "dream-stealing" or "stinking thinking."
ReplyDeleteSo quite naturally, when they face a real debater like Joe Cool or anyone else who actually knows how to think and argue clearly, they run away like frightened rabbits.
Thanks, but I have also noticed that many IBOs have atrocious grammar and spelling skills. Of course that could just be a coincidence.
DeleteJoe,
Delete3 logical reasons for why IBO's have atrocious spelling and grammar.
1. They are from a foreign country and this is at best their second language. Amway is dying quickly in North America and has been noted a lot more recently. The people who seem to have the honeymoon crazy mentality are the fresh bloods...and most of those people aren't in the U.S. anymore.
2. Amway IBO's from the States are mostly 18-25, and at best have a high school degree. As we have seen, the education system is failing badly with our current politicians at the helm. We are constantly bombarded with news stories about emerging societies toppling us in their respective educational categories.
3. Of the 18-25 year old's being recruited to Amway, most of them are targeted in low-income and or minority areas of the Country. The meeting that I went to was far from being all whitey, and most of the people attending were very blue collar. The other types of people there were the prototypical entitled kids from the millennial generation that believe hard work and education are outdated. They have been programmed to believe they are "special", and that good things will materialize for them. Unfortunately for me, I am part of this millennial group, and have to bare the burden when we become the oldest generation in the country (sorry slight side note). Amway has run out of targets that have substantial incomes and connections. They are going for the leftovers/dregs of society and utilizing their ego's, lack of resources, ethnicity, and any other edge to get the remaining legs of the pyramid. The Eric Schiebeler (or however you spell his last name) generation is essentially gone from Amway and we are about to see a huge downgrade in the company's finances as my current generation has no net value.
Thanks Ben, very good analysis!
DeleteMLM or network marketing is very common in third world countries.
DeleteBen is right on target, as usual.
DeleteI have been a college professor for nearly fifty years. And I can attest that the command of proper English spelling, grammar, and prose style among American students has been in free fall for decades. Today it is truly abysmal. There has been a complete pedagogical collapse in the K-12 grades, and these days a student who actually has a good command of proper English is either foreign-born, or home-schooled.
MLM seems to grow in foreign countries as they stigma and bad reputation isn't always well known. But Amway is already in China and if they become known as a scam there, sales might begin to tank.
Delete4. Amway in North America is targeting new legal immigrants from India, China, Latin America, etc., who don't have perfect English, but have dreams of taking Amway 'back home', i.e. opening a market for it in their home countries.
ReplyDelete5. Only retards are now joining Amway in North America and Canada.
Often these folks come to the US with dreams and Amway IBOs capitalize and sell them hopes and dreams that will not come true. They get victimized and to make it worse, they are made to blame themselves for failure as per upline teaching. Really insidious.
DeleteAmway is running out of countries to screw! 90% of the products are sold overseas! I would not want to build an organization that will eventually fall apart! Their already going backwards in the US that's why the big pins are fighting to create groups in these other countries. In 1996 they had 2.5 mill distributors and 20 years later they only have 3 mill and it has been exposed to many different countries already!! Don't waste your time and money with this SCAM!!!!
ReplyDeleteYep, Amway is in China already. Most of their sales are in China, I believe. If that well dries up, sales will drop dramatically.
Delete