In the Amway business, most active IBOs are advused 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?
5 comments:
From what you say about the structure of your organization when you were in WWDB and what you know of it now, it seems that everything in Amway is based on one central idea: KEEP THE BALL ROLLING!
Everything in Amway is an endless push, push, push... never stopping, never resting. Slow down for a second, and your down-line income begins to evaporate. You have to recruit endlessly, you have to cold-call endlessly, you have to show "the Plan" endlessly. What the hell kind of life is that? You might as well be a galley slave on a Roman trireme.
Being in Amway seems to be like being in one of those circular cages where a squirrel or a hamster just keeps on running forever, and getting nowhere. And if you stop, you're dead.
Your comment is spot on. There is no lifelong residual income. Diamonds must push push push and keep working or their business will shrink and die. For that reason, diamonds talk about residual income and living a luxurious life but you never actualy see them retire and life the life they brag about. Instead you see diamond work until they die. Sure, a diamond's "job" might not be as bad as working 9-5 but having to be somewhere (a function) at a particular time to earn money is still not the freedom that Amway leaders preach.
Diamonds basically traded their 9-5 jobs for the night shift. That's why they hold meetings late at night. They are out recruiting and prospecting. And they can't stop, ever.
It seems that your bitterness is from your own failure not those of the Amway corporation or WWDB.....Walmart does not blame its supplier when they buy a bunch of products that do not sell or a bunch of music and movies that do not sell. They just clearance the items to make room for what does sell.
Industry professionals like Real Estate agents, plumbers and car salesmen don't get to start blogs about their failures and blame the company they worked with.
This blog is only as successful as you make it by working at it, and any business you put work into and take the time to study how to actually make money in that industry will generate an income. Congratulations on identifying the type of success available by attacking Amway and WWDB. It is a pretty easy path. Like selling tabloids prostitution and drug dealing. All you really gotta do is put it out there.
I'm not bitter. What I found is that I worked the business almost exactly as my upline advised. What I learned however, is that working the business a advised only made profits for the upline and not for me. That's exactly how Amway works.
WalMart doesn't blame suppliers. They simply cut them off if they receive products that don't sell. That's why tens or maybe even hundreds of millions of people have quit Amway over the years. Because Amway supplies them with products that can't sell and a business that doesn't generate profits.
By the way, since you talk up Amway, what have you accomplished with Amway other than leaving negative and bitter comments on this blog?
This "MLM Defender" doesn't have the slightest idea what he's talking about. His post of January 8 is just an emotional whine.
First off, Joe Cool's blog is not a "business." It's a non-profit public service designed to warn people about the Amway scam. It's been spectacularly successful in stripping away the veils that Amway uses to hide the company's basically corrupt structure.
Second, real businesses like Walmart sell things that people actually want. The only way Amway sells its products is by compelling IBOs to stock up on the stuff, regardless of whether they can use the products or sell them to others. Nobody wants six cases of Perfect Water or SA8. But Amway up-line browbeats and pressures IBOs to buy the crap anyway, as a way to "build your business."
That isn't normal retail. That's extortion.
I dare "MLM Defender" to give us an example of a single Amway subsystem (WWDB, BWW, Network21, etc.) that doesn't compel its members to buy useless CDs, tapes, function tickets. CommuniKate, and all the other pointless extras. Come on -- name one!
Wake the fuck up, "MLM Defender." And tell us honestly how much money you have lost in Amway so far.
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