I often find it comical that to this day, I still see people who like to hide the Amway name when recruiting others. I believe this tactic has been a major factor in why Amway has a bad reputation in North America. When I was recruited, I was lied to as well. I was invited to a "beer bust" only to find out it was an Amway meeting. I went home that night thinking WTH was that? They lie to us and then expect us to join the business. And to this day, I believe this practice continues. They might use another name such as "Liberty Marketing" or "Worldwide Group" to mask the opportunity they are pitching. My question is why?
Over the years, IBOs have tried all kinds of ways to disguise the Amway opportunity. In the past, it was network marketing, e-commerce, online shopping mall and the corporation even changed Amway in North America to "Quixtar". Sadly, the name change to quixtar did not work, probably because the same tactics were used when recruiting new IBOs into Quixtar. Amway eventually changed the name back to Amway. I believe this bad reputation in North America is why Amway, in years past, enjoyed the most business growth overseas where people either do not know the Amway name, and likely because there haven't been enough former Amway/AMO victims to soil the name in other countries. As markets mature and people get to know about Amway, we se what is happening now. Amway revenues have plummeted from 11.8 billion in 2013 to 8.8 billion (global) in 2016. That's a serious decline!
So IBOs, how can you expect someone to trust you and do business with you if you are deceitful or outright lie about the Amway opportunity? Are you ashamed of the Amway name? If you are ashamed or scared to drop the "A bomb" on people, how will you ever be able to show any plans, let alone sponsoring anyone into the business? My former sponsor used to tell our group that the biggest challenge is overcoming the name Amway. To be fair, Amway the corporation is not the reason for the bad reputation. It is the unethical and bad behavior of IBOs that lead to a bad reputation but on the other hand, it's not the like Amway police have been cracking down and visibly taking action against the violators so Amway is also guilty to some degree.
Conversely, people who come right out and talk about Amway are unlikely to net any decent results either because of the past reputation. It's an almost no-win situation for IBOs and prospects. For these reasons, I believe it to be nearly impossible to build and maintain a group, especially if your goal is to reach diamond. It seems as if more diamonds have left Amway in recent years than there have been new diamonds. I believe this to be spot on for WWDB, my former LOS. So IBOs, are you ashamed of Amway? If not, why are there still so many IBOs using trickery and deception in recruiting prospects?
If you avoid using the Amway name, what are you ashamed of?
Amway has a real problem. Their name has been irretrievably soiled by too many nasty anecdotes, sad histories, tales of abuse and lying, and exposes like Merchants of Deception. Various anti-MLM blogs have raked the company's reputation over the coals. Everyone has heard the equation "Amway = Scamway."
ReplyDeleteIt was a big mistake to attempt the name-change to "Quixtar' some years ago -- this only confirmed in people's minds that Amway was a racket with something to hide. You can call a used car a "pre-owned" car, but it isn't going to fool too many persons. Successful companies like Coca-Cola don't change their name.
The LOS subsystems can do a little better; they hide their Amway connections with camouflaged names like "WWDB" and "Network 21" and all the rest. It works for a while, but not for long. Pretty soon it's clear to everyone in the LOS that they are flogging Amway products and recruiting into the Amway "Plan."
So what can Amway do? If an IBO wants recruits to sign up, he has to downplay the Amway connection as much as he can. He can try to work up enthusiasm in prospective recruits my giving them all the phony-baloney jargon about "prosuming" and "buying from your own store" and "the business of the 21st century." This kind of song and dance will fire up a few people. Or he can hide the Amway connection by making some off-the-cuff remark about "Yes, we do handle some Amway products... but we do a lot more than that." This will make the prospective recruit think that he's getting into something much bigger and better than the Amway scam his brother-in-law warned him about.
But really, none of these options is effective. You can't hide the fact that recruits are being asked to join Amway, a company whose name is now synonymous with P.T. Barnum and his frauds. This is a real dilemma for Amway.
Spot on comments. I believe the world is realizing it and back by the fact that Amway sales and declined big time in the last 3-4 years.
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