It seems to me, that over the years, not much has changed about Amway. You can still find deceptive recruiting and some are more unethical than others. A common approach is the "curiosity" approach where the name Amway is not used and vague terms such as Ecommerce or other terms are used to get your interest up without saying the word "Amway". Upline will claim that this is to keep everyone's mind open so as to not have them reject the entire concept just because of the name Amway. If you are already using this tactic, you're already playing with fire as most prospects will find out anyway, and likely be upset that you were deceptive in recruiting them.
Another trick is to have prospects assume that their diamond or higher level pin is wealthy by showing picture of cars or mansions or maybe even a copy of someone's bonus check. This is bogus because nobody knows for sure who owns the cars or mansions and the check, while it could be large, can also be rare and it will reflect only a gross payment, not favoring in business expenses and other expenses such as taxes. My own paycheck would be much larger if I only showed the gross amount and not the deductions. I have yet to see a diamond offer to show anyone their profit/loss statement and the few that had to because of public bankruptcies or other reasons, didn't reflect the diamond lifestyle that is so heavily promoted at functions.
The opportunity is made to sound easy. Buy from yourself and get others to do the same. Maybe you'll hit up friends and family to sell some products. Well, to qualify for a minimum Amway bonus, you need to sell/buy 100 PV (points) and that will cost anywhere from $250 to $300 a month or more. And if you move your 100 points, you get back about $10. How many of you were already purchasing household goods and vitamins to the tune of $300 a month before Amway? Most likely nobody. But you do it because it's what is needed to succeed. After a month or more, the expense can become crushing, especially when Amway folks claim their products are concentrated and last a long time.
Additionally, Amway folks will tout a "foolproof" success system. Typically these organizations will be called WWDB (World Wide Dream Builders) or Network 21, or BWW, or one of the like. They are for profit third party companies that sell training materials designed to help you succeed in Amway. Your diamonds make significant income from selling you these materials. The sad part is that there is no documented track record of success for anyone following these systems. Amway's own stats show that only about 1 in 400 reach the level called "Gold" which is where you earn about the equivalent of full time minimum wage. And that's gross, not net income. A diamond is about 1 in 20,000 or so and many who reach diamond cannot maintain it. In WWDB, my old group, there are fewer diamonds today than when I was an IBO in the 1990s. That's food for thought.
The Amway opportunity is made to sound "doable" and reasonable, but when the rubber hits the road, you are trying to sell basically unknown generic quality products for premium prices and an IBO just cannot compete with retailers such as Costco or WalMart. To compound an IBO's problems, they spend money on training materials that cost them money but do not help them produce income, which is why the vast majority of IBOs make nothing or suffer losses. It is nearly assured that you will fail is you participate in Amway and the tool system.
But beware, it's not that hard to get "sucked in" by smooth talking pitchmen called diamonds.
2 comments:
Joecool, with all due respect. I personally believe that is not the vehicle, in this case "Amway". First of all, let me start by mentioning that I'm an Amway IBO with a great and extremely powerful downline consisting of a few (Emeralds, Diamonds and other pins throughout my organization. What we should mention here is that 97% of people failed in this or any other company of Network Marketing, because they refused to follow the proven path to success of the Leaders that made it happened. Easy?, maybe not, in fact everybody should know that Network Marketing should not be taken as a hobby, you have to put some hard work, yes, you read this well, work, for a period of 2-5 years to obtain the so called "Financial Freedom", is possible, of course, but is not going to happen overnight.
Mistake # 1. A lot of people signed up as an IBO, and without any knowledge, go out to the world to explain a compensation plan that they not even know or understand in depth how it works. Use the leverage you have, your upline.
Mistake # 2. They get a couple of "NO", (rejections), with a few negative feedbacks, from people that never did the business to start with, usually friends, family, and we say, this doesn't work, is a scam, a pyramid, the products are to expensive, etc, etc, and we throw the towel. Really? Please, we need to do some research and obviously learn something new that a lot of people never will learn. For example, you may be a Doctor, a Lawyer, a Mechanic, but about Network Marketing you know nothing. Of course you have to be trained, of course you need to stay out of negative influence, is all you see and hear all day long, you need to read, learn about this, training is a most. Amway has being around for 58 years to be exact. Yes it has created a "reputation" for some positive, not so for others. Amway has paid more in bonuses and incentives than any other company of its nature.
I can keep all night long mentioning mistakes after mistakes people make, and also positive things that have worked for a lot of us. The bottom line here is, if you do the right thing, concentrate on the people that really want to work with you on this, work the smartest you can for the next 2-5 years (success is up to the individual). Is up to everyone of us to make it happen. Thanks for your post, it opens the reality to the world. This is not a business model for everyone, that's for sure. ✌ Good luck to all.
Omar, thanks for your comments but I must say you're completely wrong about why people fail is MLM. I wrote a article earlier this month fully explaining why people fail in MLM. They fail because MLM is designed that way. In order for someone to succeed in Amway, they need many downline. It takes 1oo or more IBOs to create a platinum group. The platinum might make some money but the rest likely get net losses because of the training they pay for. And if more platinums emerge, that just means they each have about 100 or more downline who fail. MLM is absolutely designed this way. Just like a lottery is designed to create a few winners at the expense of the masses. MLM is the same concept.
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