No Responsibility?

 One of the disturbing things I have noticed about Amway IBOs and IBO leaders is how they will tell downline to trust them. To trust them as they have already blazed a trail. No need to re-invent the wheel. Just ride the coattails of your upline to success. The system is proven. Many IBOs take this to heart and put forth tremendous effort. Then when they ultimately fail, upline will shun them and tell them that the failure is their own. That they are personally responsible for failure.  In other words, upline suddenly has no responsibility for the downline failure despite the fact that the faithful downline may have done everything they were told to do.

Now I am not talking about IBOs who sign up and do nothing, or never place an order. I do believe that the fact that many IBOs sign up and do nothing brings concerns about how these IBOs were recruited, but I do not recall ever seeing an IBO do nothing and then complain that Amway was a scam or anything like that.  But there are plenty of IBOs, myself included, that put forth a lot of dedication and effort into building an Anway business.

I have found, however, that many people who are critical of Amway and the systems, put forth much effort, did everything they were told, and did not find the success that upline promoted, or in some cases, guaranteed. My former sponsor was still active, last I heard and has been in Amway for over 25+ years. I do not believe he has ever gone beyond platinum, and I know that he was never a Q12 platinum. Some Amway apologists might see being a platinum as a bonus, but when you are hard core sold out to the systems, platinums can still carry massive losses, although I have heard that platinum is a break even or make a small profit level in the Amway business. Factor in that time spent by husband and wife and these folks are losing money, breaking even or making a fraction of minimum wage. Is this the dream that will allow you to buy mansions with a cash payment? 

What is also disturbing is how people will tout the system as responsible for any success but hide the vast majority that the system doesn't help. Sure, some will succeed in Amway, but for every success, there are hundreds if not thousands who fail. And if you consider diamond as the benchmark of success, the failures could be in the millions. As I said, some succeed, but very very few in relation to the number who try. Going diamond is probably less common in the US than winning the lottery. 

Succeed and the systems and upline will quickly take credit for the success.  But fail or quit and it is your own responsibility. Are these the kinds of leaders or mentors you want advice from?   It's like playing a game of heads I win and tails you lose.  Sadly, many IBOs don't see this BS until they are in quite deep and then the sunken cost fallacy sets in, making it hard to quit sometimes.  Good luck to anyone who reads this and decides to try anyway.