Many people pitch Amway as a simple and easy business, and a somewhat shortcut to riches. It's all over the internet, it's what I saw as an IBO, and I have good reason to believe that many still pitch Amway in this manner. I believe that people want to believe that you can create residual lifelong wealth part time in 2-5 years. Amway IBOs and prospects may be told "it's not get rich quick", but 2-5 years to quit your job and live off ongoing lifelong residual income sure sounds like the pitch of a get rich quick scam. It is what has contributed to Amway's currently spotty reputation. in my opinion.
A typical IBO (not counting those who do nothing), according to the "plan" will consume and possibly sell some goods on their way to 100 PV, which will earn them about a $10 bonus from Amway. There might be some profit from sales to customers, but there are also expenses involved in running a business. If an IBO is on the system, then their expenses might run from $100 or so to $500 a month, depending on level of commitment (brainwashing). In the end, a flawed system and generally non-competitive pricing and products leads to most IBOs eventually quitting. The vast majority of IBOs on the system will wind up with a net loss, even with a tremendous amount of effort. Seems that effort has no relationship with success in Amway. Based on my experience, deception and lies seem to be a better way to succeed in Amway than by hard work.But what if someone basically worked a part time job instead of Amway? If someone simply got a 20 hour a week job at $10 an hour (not that difficult), someone could earn about $800 a month gross income, or about $9600 a year. In ten years, even with no raises in salary, that person would have earned close to $100,000 more income. That money, if invested into a diverse portfolio can be the nest egg that would allow someone to retire early, or to retire more comfortably than most. And that salary is guaranteed if you work the hours.
In Amway, there are no assurances of anything, even if you work 40 hours a week. The only assurance if that you will help your upline earn more than yourself by moving products. If you are on the system, you are basically paying your upline (via tool purchases) for the privilege of boosting your upline's volume. It is why uplines teach you to "never quit" and to be "core". These virtues help assure your upline of profits but does little for the rank-and-file IBOs. I write this blog post just to stimulate thought amongst IBOs and prospects. There are better and easier options than the Amway opportunity. If you are reading this, you are looking at one potential alternative. It's your job to decide.
1 comment:
Trying to persuade people to join is effectively sales.
Whether an Amway distributor is doing that business opportunity type of sales, or sales of Amway products, both are sales, and both are very difficult types of sales to close. The first because Amway's reputation is shot (sorry, no two ways about it - never sell anything where you have to hide the name!), the second because of price point and low commissions.
For any person who is good at sales, there are more rewarding sales opportunities. Many can live well being medical reps, or selling vehicles, machinery or real estate. For any person who does not fancy sales that much, it obviously applies so much more, that there are better things.
Which brings me to this: for most people, the best way to increase income is to do more of what they good at and have experience in. I met someone I used to work with, who had been trying the Amway thing for years when trying to pitch this to me. He was more successful than most because he had many under him, though financially things were dire. Meanwhile his career, his actual income, was stalling. I told them if he put half the amount of hours into his work he studied for, he would have had significant fruits, financially, and even start his own business in the industry. I don't think he listened, as he stumbled on at least two more years, but it seems now he eventually quit.
So there are many alternatives, work part time, focus more on your actual job to grap the opportunities that will arise, or do nothing (and at least have much needed free time, or time for hobbies, family, community, church, exercise and so on). Nearly all alternatives short of really bad things are better, it is hard to imagine a more wasteful way to pass time. Someone else who quit after years not making much, tried to justify the time spent, by saying he has learned so much about business. Well there are more efficient ways to achieve that too, and besides it is doubtful if most Amway distributors didn't learn to first thing about keeping and heeding financial records.
The interesting thing is that everyone who quit, even those who justify that it was somehow worthwhile, also seems to stop buying Amway stuff every month for themselves. The statistics back that up. If Amway had retained only 10% of business quitters since 1959, imagine how much of the market of the stuff it sells, it would have had. This proves my point, as far as sales go, these are extraordinary difficult sales, if those who once promoted easily switch to other soaps the moment they give up on the dream of a nice Amway through it. It can only mean the quality, even if okay or good in some cases, is not objectively worth the price.
Post a Comment