Amway IBOs, Don't Quit Your Day Jobs?

 So many Amway IBOs have grandiose dreams of untold wealth, financial freedom. They think they will "build it once' and sit back on the beaches of the world sipping exotic drinks while the 6 figure checks keep coming in the mail. Sure it's a nice thought, but not a single IBO I have encountered can name a single IBO who achieved diamond, and walked away from the business to enjoy freedom while the money pours into their bank accounts. It is very likely that nobody like this exists. I suppose someone could go diamond and walk away from the business and still earn some bonuses, but very quickly, that business would likely fall out of qualification and the bonuses would shrink to nothing very quickly. Also, to earn bonuses, I believe an IBO needs to have side volume exceeding 2500 PV, which is roughly $7500 monthly in personal group volume. With normal attrition, it's easy to see how a diamond business can fall apart faster than a cheap suit without maintenance.

I also see and hear many IBOs popping off about how someone in their upline earning $60,000 a year. While it may seem like a nice income to someone who has a low paying or entry level job, that income is gross and may not leave much left after taxes and associated business expenses. Even a diamond with an average income of $150,000 in a year likely has a very low monthly income from Amway as much of that income comes in the form of an annual bonus. As a former emerald once told me, you needed to budget out that annual bonus or you could be in financial trouble later in the year, if Amway is your sole source of income.

Also, you may have seen diamond showing off sports cars and other displays of wealth. My former LOS, WWDB has a function called "Dream Night" where they show off lavish displays of wealth. Well, it is my informed guess that most diamonds cannot afford the lifestyles and toys that they show off in these functions. If you do the math, you can see that after taxes and other expenses, a diamond lifestyle is likely to be quite ordinary. Normally, nobody would care about this but since diamonds use this display of wealth to recruit IBOs and to sell tools, it is significant for IBOs to know.

While it is great for someone to have dreams and goals, it is also important to have achievable goals. It is simply impossible for a room of IBOs to go diamond and to earn the kind of income that is shown in "the plan". Amway recruiters will show you "what's possible", but not "what's likely". To put perspective on that, it's "possible" that you can start a software company that puts Microsoft out of business, but it's not likely. It's possible for you to win the lottery, but not likely. My advice to IBOs is not to quit your day jobs - ever. Your dreams and goals can be accomplished in many ways, but it is unlikely to be achieved with an Amway business.

Food for thought. If diamonds have so much free time and money to burn, why don't we see slide shows of them donating $10.000 checks and volunteering to help the less fortunate more often?

Amway IBOs Make More Excuses Than Money?

 I've been a Amway related blogger now for a number of years. I've debated with Amway apologists and they ultimately resort to excuses and/or personal attacks when they run out of defenses for Amway. Food for thought, when you have to make excuses about why your opportunity isn't a scam or a pyramid scheme, that should already make you stop and think for a minute. The easy excuse is to say that "my group isn't like that". Yet I see testimonies and statements that indicate to me that things have not changed and have never changed. even in all the years since I left the Amway business myself.

Even the product's prices need to be justified. That there is concentration or other factors that really make Amway stuff a better value. Strange how that better value doesn't seem to translate further once an IBO realizes that there is no residual income at the end of the rainbow. Many IBOs don't seem to mind paying more for Amway stuff when they believe that they will one day walk the beaches of the world while more money than they can count will keep rolling in. When the dream fades, so does the desire to purchase these awesome products. If not, with tens of millions of former IBOs, Amway sales should be through the roof after all these years. But it hasn't. Amway recently reported a huge decrease in sales and Amway's sales have decreased about 25% in the last 3 years. Amway apologists were bragging about Amway's 11.8 billion in sales about 3 years ago, but they are dead silent now that they decreased to 8.8 billion in Amway's last fiscal year. Maybe market saturation is finally catching up?

Amway also reported some year back that they have updated their average IBO income and it is still miserable. A clear explanation as to how and why they calculated the "average income" was not given. So the debate continues. Critics analyzing and predicting how and why, and Amway apologists making excuses and justifying their position. Why not just be transparent and end the debate once and for all? I think most people know the answer. The bottom line for most is whether or not they make a net profit. For the vast majority of IBOs, especially the ones on the system, the answer is a net loss. It is predictable and easy to conclude. The 6-4-2 or any other version of the compensation plan clearly shows that very few people can make any decent money. If a platinum IBO typically has 100 or more IBOs, that is your answer there. It should be noted that a platinum might not even be very profitable if they are sold out on buying system tools.  The math bears this out very clearly.

So IBOs and Amway defenders, are you making money (net profit)? Or are you just making excuses?

Is Amway "Life Changing"?

 One of the things that was heavily promoted when I was an Amway IBO, and I believe is still promoted, is the control of time and money. I recall hearing that "broke" people often have lots of time, but can't do much because of a lack of money, or how a very hard-working man might have money but a lack of time as he is working 80 hours per week. So why not join Amway, work hard for 2-5 years and have all the time and money you need for life?

Well, it sounds good on the surface, but how many people actually do that? I don't know of any IBO who worked the business 2-5 years and walked away from their business to enjoy control of time and money forever. And there are reasons for that. Attrition. Most IBOs who join don't do much and more than half of all IBOs won't even be in business for more than a year. IBOs also need to be active and moving side volume in order to qualify for some of the bonuses. It is why I believe that there aren't any diamonds who left to enjoy their time and money because of passive ongoing Amway income. Diamonds and above must continually work the business or their businesses will fall apart like the waves would erode a sand castle at the beach.

For many IBOs ironically, what they desire most, time and money, is what they have less of because of their involvement in the Amway opportunity. It is because of the way many IBOs are taught by the systems such as WWDB, BWW or N21. Many of these groups will teach a defacto PV requirement of 100 PV which costs about $300 monthly. In some cases, you are getting a small box of goods for the same amount of cash that would have gotten you a cartload of goods at WalMart or Costco. For system IBOs, you are also paying for instruction that basically tells you that this is a great idea and that you should never quit.

So now when your family and friends have backyard barbecues or birthday parties, you are absent because you are securing your financial future. Your kids surely won't mind you missing their baseball games or sending them to the sitters while you attend a function. Your family and friends will be wowed when you retire next year and throw them a party to end all parties. It all seems surreal, and for most, it truly is. There may be $10 or even $50 monthly checks rolling in from Amway but is never covers the cost of your expenses. You can't quit because success might be right around the corner.

Suddenly your sponsor or upline might tell you that the Amway business is not about money. You might be told that you are a nicer person or a better parent (even if you neglect your kids to attend functions), or that the business opportunity has saved your marriage. Which leads to my question. What have you achieved in the Amway business that has given you more control of time and money? Do you have less time and money as a result of your involvement with Amway?

During my involvement with Amway, my life was changed, but not for the better. And it wasn't because of Amway. It was self serving teaching by WWDB leaders designed to suck the life out of IBOs. We were to attend all meetings. All means all. We were to submit to upline. Check your ego at the door. We were to buy extra tapes/cds because you can;'t listen to the same ones each day. Wives and husbands needed separate standing orders. If downline quit, you don't cancel standing order. It is why I saw crosslines go bankrupt, lose a home to foreclosure and many ended up quitting and with large financial loss.

I hope this message of personal experience helps information seekers.

CORE, The Design For Failure?

 Amway leaders often refer to CORE as their steps to ensure that an IBO will succeed. But in my informed opinion, CORE will guarantee failure. Here's a breakdown of CORE and why it doesn’t work. Here are the CORE steps. Some groups may have variations of CORE, but this is generally what many groups use:

1 - Show the Plan (10-15 per month)
2 - Retail the Products (10 customers @10 PV each)
3 – Tapes/cds
4 - Books
5 - Functions (attend all)
6 - Accountability
7 - Counsel with Upline (Be teachable!)
8 - Buy 100% of your own products
9 – Communikate

Many upline will tell you that your success is nearly 100% guaranteed if you follow these steps for 2-5 years. Some Amway enthusiasts will tell you that 6 months of this activity will nearly assure you of a platinum level business. Certain steps are within the IBO’s control, such as reading every day and listening to cds, and attending functions. It is also easy enough to be accountable, counsel with upline, buy your own products, and use KATE (voicemail).

Here’s where an IBO’s efforts will break down. Showing the plan and retailing products. And remember, if you cannot do these steps then you are not considered “CORE” and your upline will likely tell you that it is your own fault and that you simply haven’t been CORE, therefore you did not achieve success. There is some truth in this but let me expose the system in a different angle.

Amway has a spotty reputation in the US. I don’t think anyone can dispute this fact. Therefore, for the vast majority of people, being able to show the plan 10-15 times per month is a nearly impossible task. If you are able to do this, you are a really good salesman or a good liar. In this scenario, the IBO is already successful, but not because of CORE, but simply because the IBO has the gift of being able to convince people into seeing the plan. But for many IBOs, they may contact hundreds of people and not be able to get anyone to see the plan. Even IBOs who follow upline advice on how to contact will probably not be able to show 10-15 plans per month. Thus this IBO, who is doing the work, will not be able to succeed. The system will blame the IBO, but the reality is that the IBO has too big of a disadvantage to overcome.

Secondly, with high prices (on average) and with a spotty reputation, most IBOs are unable to retail products. Thus most IBOs are unable to sell products, therefore they are not CORE, therefore upline will blame the IBO for failure.

What if an IBO contacts 1000 people and cannot get 10 people to see the plan? Upline will claim that IBO is not CORE and therefore it is personal failure of the IBO. IMO, the only reason why upline can claim that CORE works is because in order to do the CORE steps consistently, you have to already be at a certain level of success. The vast majority of IBOs cannot and will never be able to reach that level.

That is the myth and the deception that many uplines will use to attract recruits. That each IBO can do the CORE steps. When only a fraction of 1% ever reach the level of platinum or higher, the numbers strongly support what is written here. Apologists are welcome to try and prove me wrong, but they can't.

The Forgotten Challenge?

 Some, probably most people may not recall any of this, but sometime about 15 years ago or so, then Crown Ambassador Ron Puryear (now deceased) made a challenge to all the WWDB Diamonds. He said that in order to prove that going diamond is possible, he challenged the WWDB diamonds to build a diamond business on top of what they already have.  In other words, a diamond would become a double diamond, etc.  That would prove to downline that going diamond is indeed possible and that "anyone" can do it. Of course, the diamonds had the advantage of having already achieved some level of success. They could use their experience and credibility to build an even bigger business and to be an example of what downline should be targeting.

Not a single diamond, as far as I know, was able to achieve this feat. All the same diamonds and whatever, remained the same. The challenge fizzled out after a number of months and WWDB leaders just pretended that nothing ever happened. That seems to be a common tactic of WWDB leaders, to just pretend something never happened or to simply revise history to erase this memory. A good example was how diamond Howie Danzik claimed he built his diamond ship as a single, when the truth is, he was married to Susan Danzik and went diamond with her, until their divorce. But ask any WWDB people and they'll deny it or make up some story that the marriage failure was all on Susan, when in fact, nobody has ever heard her side of the story, or at least the Amway people won't tell both sides of the story.

There was a time when the Internet was fairly new, and WWDB leaders stood on stage and boldly proclaimed that nobody made a cent of profit on the tools and functions. Later, when the Internet exposed that as a lie, the narrative changed to how WWDB diamonds made a profit on tools and functions, but that their profits were minimal. If anyone can do the math on tools and functions, you can see how much profit is inevitable. The tools and functions have a much higher profit margin than Amway products but the rank-and-file IBOs don't get any portion of the tools and functions profits. For example, a cd or audio might cost pennies to make but if you pay $50 for WWDB premiere club play $2-3 for a cd or audio, upline makes hefty profits. The same goes for voicemail and books. But the major events such as Dream Night, or family reunion are significant profit makers. You might pay anywhere from $75 to $150 or more for a function ticket and maybe 10-20 thousand people are in attendance. The IBOs provide a lot of the labor for free (ushers, etc) and the set-up is basically mics and some video screens, nothing elaborate.

What many people also don't see is that a city or county gives discounts on venues if you're bringing 10 to 20 thousand visitors to their city. I can only imagine how much actually profit is made by the diamonds on these functions, not to mention they sell shirts, audios and other materials at these functions. Whatever happened to that WWDB challenge? Most IBOs or leaders will pretend it never happened or make some excuse as to why they could not meet the challenge. To me, the answer is obvious.

Are IBOs Ashamed Of Amway?

 To this day, I still see people who like to hide the Amway name when recruiting others. I believe this tactic has been a major factor in why Amway has a bad reputation in North America. When I was recruited, I was lied to as well. I was invited to a "beer bust" only to find out it was an Amway meeting.  To be polite, I never complained about it during the meeting, but I went home that night thinking WTF was that? They lie to us and then expect us to join the business. And to this day, I believe this practice continues.  

Over the years, IBOs have tried all kinds of ways to disguise the Amway opportunity. It was network marketing, e-commerce, online shopping mall and the corporation even changed Amway in North America to "Quixtar" at one time. Sadly, the name change to quixtar did not work, probably because the same tactics were used when recruiting new IBOs into Quixtar. Amway eventually changed the name back to Amway. I believe this bad reputation in North America is why Amway seems to be enjoying the most business growth overseas where people either do not know the Amway name, and likely because there haven't been enough former Amway/AMO victims to soil the name in other countries.  But conversely, Amway sales tanked for a while and apparently only started a minor recovery recently.  

So, Amway IBOs, how can you expect someone to trust you and do business with you if you are deceitful or outright lie about the Amway opportunity? Are you ashamed of the Amway name? If you are ashamed or scared to drop the "A bomb" on people, how will you ever be able to show any plans, let alone sponsoring anyone into the business? My former sponsor used to tell our group that the biggest challenge is overcoming the name Amway. To be fair, Amway the corporation is not the only reason for the bad reputation. It is the unethical and bad behavior of IBOs that lead to a bad reputation buy on the other hand, it's not the like Amway police have been cracking down and visibly taking action against the violators, so Amway is also guilty to some degree. 

Conversely, people who come right out and talk about Amway are unlikely to net any decent results either because of the past reputation. It's an almost no-win situation for IBOs and prospects. For these reasons, I believe it to be nearly impossible to build and maintain a group, especially if your goal is to reach diamond. It seems as if more diamonds have left Amway in recent years than there have been new diamonds. I believe this to be spot on for WWDB, my former LOS. So IBOs, are you ashamed of Amway? If not, why are there still so many IBOs using trickery and deception in recruiting prospects?

Making A Living?

 I've been blogging for many years now and one of the conclusions I have made is that there really is no defense for debating the merits of an Amway business when the IBO is participating in a system such as WWDB or Network 21. I have no issues with IBOs who sign up and sell actual products to non-IBO customers, but these sales oriented IBOs are very rare. Most IBOs who are entrenched in a system are often focused on sponsoring downline because that is the only way an IBO can achieve certain levels such as emerald or diamond. The emerald or diamond level is the goal of many because it is allegedly the level where an IBO can "walk away" and enjoy barrels of cash rolling in for the rest of their lives. I find it ironic that even crown ambassadors keep busy schedules and have not walked away into a quiet life of retirement and uncountable amounts of money.  Instead, Crowns such as Ron Puryear, Bill Britt, and others just died on the job.  

In general, it would take about 100 IBOs or so to make up a platinum level business. That's 1% at best and even less when you factor in IBOs who do nothing or IBOs who start and quit. In my estimation, a very dedicated hard-core IBO would lose money, or only begin to break even or make a little bit of income at the 4000 PV or platinum level. Of course, your business structure would be a factor in determining how much you can earn. Sponsoring width gives you more profit and sponsoring depth allegedly gives you some stability. Thus, you could reasonably argue that about a fraction of 1% of IBOs break even or make a little bit of income. What real businessman would even consider opening a business where your chance of making a profit is less than 1%? Yes, you can argue that Amway is a business and not a game of chance, but a prudent decision also factors in your chances of success. 

Other factors that would make Amway unattractive is that the products are priced higher (in general) than comparable or the same products that are available at people's local retailers. Yes, Amway folks will argue quality and concentration factors, but those arguments are simply justification for the higher prices. The vast majority of people are satisfied getting cheaper prices at Walmart. Also, IBOs are restricted from advertising their goods, thus are relegated to person-to-person advertising, which is probably the least effective methos of getting the word out. Higher prices and unfamiliar products results in what many groups have - IBOs who "buy from themselves" in order to earn their bonuses. Also, any bonus that is earned by most IBOs is just a partial refund on having overpaid for a product. Not to mention unless you are at a higher level in the business, your upline(s) get most of the bonus, whether they helped you or not. 

Yes, it is possible for some people to make some money in Amway. Yes, some people do make some good money from Amway. It is not possible for all IBOs to make money unless they are selling products to non-IBOs and we know that most IBOs don't sell anything or sell just a few items to others. We also know that the tools systems generally eat away any small bonuses IBOs earn and leave them with a net loss. For the truly dedicated IBOs, the losses can mount into thousands of dollars and more. 

Can someone make a living with Amway? The answer is that it's possible but not likely. But as to whether the Amway business and associated tools is a good idea? For that there is no defense.