One of the crazy things that our upline taught the group was that the facts don't matter when you have a dream. There is evidence that this is still taught today and in particular, I have heard that from Amway IBOs who claim to associate with WWDB. Amway IBOs are taught to ignore facts because the facts make their Amway businesses look like a joke. Spend $300 a month on products to gain a $10 rebate when you could have bought the same or similar products at WalMart for a fraction of the cost. Then many IBOs spend another $200 or more on tools and functions so they can be taught to ignore facts of that all of this is somehow a great deal. I really can't make this stuff up. I've even heard IBOs mention how the facts don't matter when you have a dream.
Any real business owner would never ignore facts. A real business owner makes decisions based on facts. IBOs are being duped into making business decisions on emotions and hype. The Amway opportunity is already saturated with handicaps and challenges, particularly in the US and Canada, where the reputations and previous antics of fellow IBOs have so stained Amway's name that it appears to be negatively affecting sales and preventing any meaningful growth. Despite what Amway apologists claim, Amway is very likely shrinking in the US, and will continue to do so unless improvements and corrections are made, in my opinion. It's also possible that it is too late to right the ship at this point. Where are all the new diamonds and higher ups? Amazon, with online sales, went thru the roof because COVID 19 made online shopping lucrative. But why not for Amway? Shouldn't their sales have gone thru the roof like Amazon?
It is also why many IBOs talk about how Amway saves marriages, or Amway made them nicer people. Uplines will teach this because it takes a business owner's focus away from their bottom line, the profit or loss. Or IBOs are taught that a loss just means they are investing in their business, despite being told upfront that there is little or no investment needed and that a profit can be turned quickly in Amway. These uplines have gone on for years with no accountability placed upon them by either Amway or their downlines. Any "incidents" are simply ignored or history revised by uplines.
There is one blog on the internet, where a WWDB IBO is writing about buying homes in cash, and Amway IBOs having a 2% divorce rate compared to more than 50% in the rest of the world, yet you have Amway defenders claiming this isn't being taught, when clearly it is. Cover it up all you want, the evidence is right there but these folks aren't interested in the facts. Sadly, that blog owner has now quit Amway and deleted his blog. Any old time readers remember Shaun, the zealous WWDB IBO. His blog was called "Expeditions Of Truth".
Why are Amway IBOs ignoring facts? A better question is why Amway IBOs would listen to a "mentor" who teaches them to ignore facts?
Amway teaches people to ignore facts because Amway, at the deepest level, is a CULT. It isn't a business. It's an entire way of life and of thinking, a mentality, a way of seeing the world that is totally different from the way sane people see the world.
ReplyDeleteAny cult is about mind-control and the manipulation of perceptions. A cult commands its members to think, see, and act in a special way, even if that way might seem stupid or insane to everyone else.
Every cult has its own myths that are devoutly believed by the members. One of them in Amway is the lie that there is a very low divorce rate among Amway IBOs. It's false, but IBOs keep repeating it the same way that fundamentalist assholes keep repeating that God made the world in six days.
Another myth in Amway is that you can retire from the business and still get "residual income" for the rest of your life. Even the Amway Corporation in Ada, Michigan no longer spouts this lie, but the creeps in the various AMOs continue to trumpet the myth to gullible recruits.
In the real world, a steady loss of money is a bad thing, and should be avoided. But the Amway myth is that a steady loss of money, month after month, is a gain or an investment. This is just as cultic as the saying "Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou shalt find it after many days."
You cannot separate Amway from its cultic, religious underpinnings.
Yea Amway diamond in LTD (Leadership team development) Manny Winston often says "logic kills dreams" at info sessions and conferences. This is all used to shame folks from questioning the uplines and BS of this scam/ pyramid scheme.
ReplyDeleteDeVos and Van Andel were two Dutch Calvinist crackpots.
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