IBO = Independent Business Owner. Most Amway folks consider themselves IBOs, or independent business owners. To some, owning a business sounds cool. It sounds like you are achieving something and it may even seem that there is status involved in being a business owner. It is one of the reasons that may compel someone into signing up for the Amway opportunity. It was a small factor in gaining my interest some years ago when I was pitched the "plan". But are you really a business owner running an Amway business?
Based on what I see and hear from Amway related blogs and forums, most people involved in the Amway opportunity are not business owners. They are simply customers. They are customers of Amway and they are customers of the system, consisting of voicemail, cds/audios, books, and seminars. Does this sound confusing? Think about it. Many groups teach "buy from yourself" and get others to do the same. If you belong to one of these groups, you are being taught to be an Amway and system customer, nothing more and nothing less. Both Amway and the system profit from your loyal purchases and they fool you into thinking you are getting a good deal by giving you a tiny rebate each month. Only if you are able to lure enough gullible people into your downline will you finally be able to leverage their purchases to make a small profit. If you can get a large following, then you might make some nice coin, but it will come at the expense of the people who trusted you enough to sign up and follow you.If you stop for a minute and truly think about a business, what business can thrive without customers? I cannot think of any businesses where there are little or no customers. Why would the Amway opportunity be any different? If you are your only, or your own best customer, then maybe you are not even a business owner, but simply a customer of Amway and a customer of the system. Think about this for a moment. Without actual customers, any bonus you generate is coming out of your own pocket or from any downline you may have sponsored. Is this what your business consists of?
Without any sales to non IBO customers, any profit simply comes out of the pockets of the people in the Amway system. When you receive a rebate, you are simply getting some of your own money back. You have not generated any real profit. The only way to generate real profits is to sell to outside customers. This brings money into the system or the "Amway economy:, if you will. If not, an IBO is just a glorified customer bringing profits to Amway and the tools systems.
So are you a business owner or a customer?
Many people who become Amway IBOs are not so much interested in the financial profit that is promised. Sure, they would like to have it -- but the real thing driving them is prestige, honor, self-importance, and pride. The fake title "Independent Business Owner" gives them all of this, and allows them to look in the mirror and claim that they are big shots of great importance.
ReplyDeleteThe Amway company knows this, and takes advantage of it. That's why its propaganda is always talking about what "a real businessman does," and how "a real businessman operates," and how much money "a real businessman has to spend for success." This is what really drives the "tools" racket, where IBOs are milked of endless money just for a lot of stupid tapes, CDs, books, and other useless crap. Buying tools makes the IBO think that he is really a professional who is serious about his "business."
In fact, being a "businessman" in Amway is like doing karaoke in a bar. You stand in front of a crowd, you pretend to sing into a microphone, and the loud music playing behind you gives the impression that you actually are a singer, when in fact it's all just fakery. You're NOT a singer, you DON'T have talent, but you can congratulate yourself that you are a professional performer.
A lot of desperate people want this. They need the paltry self-esteem that it generates. And Amway gets rich off this.
In practice what it is, is a buyers club with a joining fee. And it promises to be an effective sales opportunity (the sales being recruitment of members who want to make an extra buck).
ReplyDeleteIs it worth it as a buyers club? Doubtful if people who quit the proposition as a business tend to stop buying the stuff for themselves.
Is it worth it as a sales recruitment opportunity (or in typical speak “to make it big by helping others succeed”). If I put it this way, if you get 100 active people in your group, you are quite rare, you’ve probably worked hard, and probably have a good rapport with people and persuasive talent. Yet with 100 people under you, you typically don’t earn nearly enough to quit your job. Eric Scheibeler sets out in detail how, with 2000 people under him, he just scraped by.
Any person with that amount of commitment, rapport with people and administrative skills, can really ace it sales. A commission only sales job (one that calls it by name) has many of the things Amway promises, like managing yourself, planning your own time, and balance the demands and desire to earn with your needs and stage in life. But you’ll have more self respect as you can actually tell prospects what you sell without scaring them off, and because the commissions are A LOT better you can actually make a decent living.
The “systems” (WWDB and N21) are also buyers clubs, but whereas the product value offering of Amway products bought like this is questionable or debatable, the value being delivered through these motivation systems, if we measure it as results achieved / money spent on them, is an unquestionable rip off.