Just Buy From Yourself?

 As an Amway IBO, our group was often told that selling products were not that important. Just buy from yourself and get others to do the same. When prospecting, you ask if someone likes selling and if they say no, you say "great, this business is perfect for you". Or if someone says they like selling, you say "great, this business is perfect for your". Keep in mind that a business exists to sell a product or service for a profit. I believe many Amway folks forget about this simple and basic business fact.

People naturally do not like selling stuff to people, thus the adaptation to being your own best customer or buying from your own store. While it's fine to support your own business, it is not true that a McDonald's owner would never eat at a Burger King or other silly claims. Do you believe that a McDonald's owner would only eat food sold at his own restaurant? I guarantee you that isn't true. I know someone who owns a very popular pizza franchise, and she says she never eats at her own restaurant because she's sick of eating pizza. You make money selling pizza so you can have other options.

Another thing that Amway IBOs are probably not aware of is that buying from yourself and getting others to do the same without real sales to actual customers is running a illegal pyramid scheme. Another MLM company Herbalife, was investigated by the FTC and while they were not shut down, they were fined and had to change their operations because the FTC found that they lacked sales to legitimate customers. Herbalife is now forced to track retail sales with a compliance monitor watching their moves. There are stories of Herbalifers trying to fudge sales and Herbalife higher ups encouraging people to sign up as preferred customers instead of business builders. That suggests to me that Herbalife is basically admitting they are a sham. If they had legitimate demand, they would run a campaign to recruit more business builders who would in turn, sell products to customers who want their products.

So, Amway IBOs, are a majority of your PV sales to yourself or to customers? Are your customers your family and friends who are somewhat reluctantly buying products from you, if at all? If you are just buying and using your own products, you are actually not entitled to an Amway performance bonus. On the bright side, it seems that Amway just ignores this requirement and pays bonuses anyway. But without legitimate demand, sales and revenues dry up when the markets begin to get saturated. Amway's sales hit a peak at 11.8 billion in 2014 and hasn't (AFAIK) exceeded that figure again.   Not even during the covid crisis, when online sale were going through the roof.

With sales and revenues down, that can only mean there are less sales and volume, therefore there are less Platinums and diamonds that can be supported by sheer numbers.  But Amway prospects will never know because once you earn diamond recognition, Amway never updates it. Once a diamond, always a diamond, if you will. Thus the leaders that are Bing worshipped on stage might not even be diamonds anymore.

In the end, I write this post to give you food for thought. Too many prospects and IBOs are not aware of these issues but they certainly should be,