Amway IBOs Critical Of Jobs?

One of the things that IBO leaders do quite often in their recruitment pitch for Amway, is to put down people's jobs. They criticize people's bosses and the fact that an employee needs to report somewhere to earn a living. They try to paint the picture of a job being compared to slavery. They do this apparently to make people feel uncomfortable with their present situation so they will be open to looking at the Amway opportunity as a means to make a living. They may call a job "just over broke" or "jackass of the boss".

So I will ask - What's wrong with a job? A job is not slavery. People apply for their jobs and they agree to a wage or salary in exchange for their services. Certainly, you can leverage a higher wage or salary if you have an education or a skill, such as being able to work in the construction field. A job ususally offers more than just a wage. A job often allows one to have benefits such as medical insurance, a 401K retirement plan, and some other benefits such as paid vacation and/or sick leave.

A recent site visitor bemoans concept of working for minimum wage, where a husband and wife would earn in the neighborhood of 30K if they both work full time at minimum wage. Of course, a high school student can earn minimum wage so two adults only able to generate that kind of income makes me think my site visitor is speaking of people with very little to offer an employer. Most people may start out as entry level, but earn more and more as they gain experience and can offer more to their employer. An employee might also be able to promote themselves if they can prove to the employer that they can manage more responsibility.

What does the average Amway business owner experience? $202 a month (gross)income (which is probably way above average)? Most IBOs as outlined in "the plan" earn about $10 a month and may have expenses such as standing order which will take away from that tiny profit. Thus an average business building IBO stands to net a loss. It is very easy to look at the math and make that conclusion. A dedicated IBO attending meetings and functions and buying the other tools will likely spend more than $250 a month on average to be on the system. Couples will spend more. And that doesn't include the funds spent to do your 100 PV.

So I ask again. What's wrong with a job? You have a net gain each and every month, be able to pay for your living expenses, and allow you to contribute to society by paying taxes. The average CORE IBO is a drain on the US tax paying society by spending money on standing order and functions and then deducting these expenses when filing their taxes. The only beneficiary is the upline leaders who sell standing orders and function tickets. If the IRS actually took IBOs to task, I'd be interested to see what kinds of deductions would be not allowed? I bet it would help the US treasury to recover all that money.

The Amway Phenomenon?

http://scamadvocates.com/164-Amway.html

Other November 27 2011

"""I have read all of these posts. Interesting that everyone who supports Amway cannot spell very well. Lots of typos and grammatical errors in here by those who jump up and down reciting Amway's many virtues. It is a scam and a groupthink phenomenon of staggering proportions. From a psychological perspective, Amway does its best to separate people from those who would challenge its legitimacy and operations. This is not unlike how Hitler or any other leader would silence opponents or dissidents by having them "removed" from the equation. Same thing goes here, Amway teaches people to ignore and remove obstacles and people who challenge the system, even if said challenges are completely rational and offered by people with the IBO's best interest in mind. It hits IBO's in soft spots for family, friends, and freedom (the 3 F's), and it entices them to focus on emotional reasoning rather than very cognitive-based, rational dissection of information.

Amway IBO's are taught emotionalism, not rationalism. From a business perspective, it is a farce. IBO's are no entrepreneurs, as they wear the collars of their uplines. Over and over, I have been told to do as my uplines say. What if my upline is a total moron and I have a law degree and an MBA?? I'm supposed to follow these uplines?? According to the system, yes, the uplines' words are paramount. So no, IBO's are not entrepreneurs and do not gain any real experience. IBO is a fancy name for distributor, pure and simple.

I had the opportunity to meet a number of "diamonds" and "emeralds" recently, all of whom had either left the business to get real jobs or were still struggling bringing in about $30,000 per year. Many of them are posting massive losses, and by the way, the IRS does not consider pro-suming OR tickets to a convention (to hear Yager scream at you) to be business expenses. Good luck trying to recover those losses. It is a pyramid scheme simply because mathematically and considering the law of averages, a downline cannot really earn more than his upline. It just doesn't happen - it's a nice idea, but it doesn't happen. I worked through multiple scenarios with a friend, trying to see how I could out-earn my upline, and we found several variables that would keep that from happening.

Finally, on a personal level, this Amway monkey business cost me a great friendship, an IBO who decided that taking a chance on some crazy dream was more important than those who loved him most. I think he will continue prospecting and pushing "the plan" until there isn't anyone left. If you know someone in Amway or who is thinking seriously about it, you need to realize that they will soon be lost. Amway people are very much like crack users (very similar psychopathology, actually), and they will choose Amway over you, their family, their friends, and anything that gets in the way."""

How Amway Recruiters Suck You In?

It seems to me, that over the years, not much has changed about Amway. You can still find deceptive recruiting and some are more unethical than others. A common approach is the "curiosity" approach where the name Amway is not used and vague terms such as Ecommerce or other terms are used to get your interest up without saying the word "Amway". Upline will claim that this is to keep everyone's mind open so as to not have them reject the entire concept just because of the name Amway. If you are already using this tactic, you're already playing with fire as most prospects will find out anyway, and likely be upset that you were deceptive in recruiting them.

Another trick is to have prospects assume that their diamond or higher level pin is wealthy by showing picture of cars or mansions or maybe even a copy of someone's bonus check. This is bogus because nobody knows for sure who owns the cars or mansions and the check, while it could be large, can also be rare and it will reflect only a gross payment, not favoring in business expenses and other expenses such as taxes. My own paycheck would be much larger if I only showed the gross amount and not the deductions. I have yet to see a diamond offer to show anyone their profit/loss statement and the few that had to because of public bankruptcies or other reasons, didn't reflect the diamond lifestyle that is so heavily promoted at functions.

The opportunity is made to sound easy. Buy from yourself and get others to do the same. Maybe you'll hit up friends and family to sell some products. Well, to qualify for a minimum Amway bonus, you need to sell/buy 100 PV (points) and that will cost anywhere from $250 to $300 a month or more. And if you move your 100 points, you get back about $10. How many of you were already purchasing household goods and vitamins to the tune of $300 a month before Amway? Most likely nobody. But you do it because it's what is needed to succeed. After a month or more, the expense can become crushing, especially when Amway folks claim their products are concentrated and last a long time.

Additionally, Amway folks will tout a "foolproof" success system. Typically these organizations will be called WWDB (World Wide Dream Builders) or Network 21, or BWW, or one of the like. They are for profit third party companies that sell training materials designed to help you succeed in Amway. Your diamonds make significant income from selling you these materials. The sad part is that there is no documented track record of success for anyone following these systems. Amway's own stats show that only about 1 in 400 reach the level called "Gold" which is where you earn about the equivalent of full time minimum wage. And that's gross, not net income. A diamond is about 1 in 20,000 or so and many who reach diamond cannot maintain it. In WWDB, my old group, there are fewer diamonds today than when I was an IBO in the 1990s. That's food for thought.

The Amway opportunity is made to sound "doable" and reasonable, but when the rubber hits the road, you are trying to sell basically unknown generic quality products for premium prices and an IBO just cannot compete with retailers such as Costco or WalMart. To compound an IBO's problems, they spend money on training materials that cost them money but do not help them produce income, which is why the vast majority of IBOs make nothing or suffer losses. It is nearly assured that you will fail is you participate in Amway and the tool system.

But beware, it's not that hard to get "sucked in" by smooth talking pitchmen called diamonds.

The Real Amway Business?

Many people, often young and motivated, see the Amway plan and get "fired up" and join the business. Most fizzle out before making any real effort or maybe they try but quickly become discouraged by the dismal but predictable results. And that's expected because in Amway, you are selling generic quality products at premium prices with a company that has a spotty reputation. Often times when you mention the word "Amway", people look is if to say "who farted"? If you don't believe me, why do so many Amway distributors use the "curiosity" approach to avoid saying the name "Amway"? There's a reason for that.

When I first saw the plan, I thought perhaps I could find some niche market where I would capitalize and sell products and make some tidy profits. But my sponsor told me that we were to basically use the products ourself and find like minded people to sponsor who will do the same. It sounded like reasonable advice and since people by human nature, do not like selling stuff, it made perfect sense to use this approach when prospecting recruits. After all, how hard can it be to use your own products and get others to do the same?

Well, the problem was that 100 points in Amway costs between $250 and $300. As a single person, I never spent that much on household and other types of products. So I found myself purchasing vitamins and other kinds of products that I never used before because I wanted to be "teachable" and to make sure I was a good example to my downline. After all, if I didn't do my 100 to 150 points, why would my downline right? So summing it up, the Amway business was about buying and using Amway products for myself and finding others to follow me. Easy enough right? What I never realized when I was in the Amway business was that Amway was just the "front" for thr real business. Sort of like how an Italian restaurant was the front for the mafia, who met in the backroom of thr restaurant.

What is the "real business"? The real business of the Amway leaders is to sell motivation and training to downline. They sell voicemail services, books, CDs, seminars, and other functions that are designed to "help you success in Amway", but in reality, are the real "jackpots" for the Amway diamonds. Voicemail is a monthly charge, along with a book of the month program, a cd subscription called "standing order", and meetings and seminars that have entrance fees. Every 3 months, there's a "major" function that will cost over $125 to attend. Selling these materials is the "real" business in Amway. This is where the diamonds and higher pins make their "real" money. Think about this carefully, there training and functions have a higher margin of profit than Amway products and with the Amway products, the entire distributor population gets to share in the Amway bonuses if they qualify. With the training amd motivation, only the platinums or "direct" distributors and above get any cut of the profits.

Let's look at a function I attended as an IBO. I attended a major function in California at a convention center. It was a two day function at a cost of $125. The function had about 20,000 people in attendance. That means the convention grossed about 2.5 million dollars. The cost for paid staff and convention center staff and security may have cost about $500,000, leaving literally millions for the handful of diamonds to split up. Say there were 10 speakers that weekend, that's a cool $200K per speaker. And that doesn't include the thousands of people buying all the other materials I mentioned such as a monthly voicemail and cd subscription. That doesn't include income from the monthly book subscription or the other on they but smaller functions. That's the "real" business of Amway diamonds. They make bank selling your training on how to succeed in Amway, even though Amway's own stats show that less than 1% of IBOs make any significant money.

So if you are planning to join Amway, at least know that you are nearly assured of failure, unless you get to the point where you get to profit from the function tickets and other false "success" materials sold by the diamonds.

Amway Sucks Because Amway Sucks?

I will admit that I was once upon a time, an Amway IBO, because a good friend of mine had joined and had qualified as a "direct distributor". I didn't really know much about it at the time but I knew it was a fairly significant level in the Amwya business. Sadly for me, my friend reaching that level was just a way to get me in the business because I had other friends who joined Amway and failed, all the while telling me they would become rich and would have to hang out with their "rich" friends. Of course they were back hanging out with us months later when predictably, they failed in Amway.

I used to participate in very active Amway/Quixtar forums around 2003 and 2004. Amway was a hot topic back then and Amway switching names to Quixtar in North America brought a lot of controversy and criticism. It seems like Amway was hoping that a name change would "fix" their reputation but it also failed miserably. I recall IBOs and Amway defenders saying Quixtar had nothing to do with Amway. I would respond with "then why do you sell Amway products such as LOC and why do your bonuses come from the Amway corporation"? That's when the insults ususally took place.

Basically, in my opinion, Amway sucks. Their products are grossly overpriced and that's because they have to include Amway's generous "up to 33% bonuses" in the prices of their products. Thus Amway charges at least their own mark up and then another 30 - 33% to the prices to pay for the IBO bonuses. A business like WalMart marks up their products maybe 15% to 20% to pay for their rent/lease and their employees and sells their products with razor thin margins. Amway ca't do that because they have to pay IBO bonuses. That's why any neutral and open minded price comparisons will have Amway losing by large margins.

But what makes Amway suck even more, in my opinion, is that Amway as a business opportunity, is used as a "front" by the diamonds to sell voicemail, books, CDs, seminars and other training materials. Thus an IBO has products that re generic in quality and premium in price to sell, and then in order to get into "good graces" with their upline, will have to participate in the "training" system that consists of those CDs, seminars and the like. Those who refuse the system are basically "shunned" by the leaders and "unteachable" and unworthy of being "mentored" by the diamond. Those lucky enough to be mentored, will be advised to be immersed in the teaching system, which nearly assure failure. This totally sucks.

Joining Amway is like a case of betting with someone on a coin flip where the coin flipper has rules that say "heads I win and tails you lose". The vast majority of Amway IBOs have effectively zero chance of success but the opportunity is pitched as foolproof and "guaranteed". Amway just sucks because Amway sucks. If you read this and still join Amway, good luck to you but keep your eyes wide open.

Amway, Failure By Design Part 2

There were some interesting discussion points on my Failure By Design article so I wanted to write a follow up and point out even more reasons why you are doomed to failure in Amway. As discussed earlier, if most IBOs and prospects do little or nothing, then that's already a more than 50% failure rate. Out of the remaining who apply themselves and try to make an effort to profit, less than 50% of those IBOs will make any money because that's how Amway and most other MLM's are designed.

But what makes Amway even worse? It's the systems such as WWDB, Network 21 or BWW that teach you how to fail. Of course they will call it "CORE steps" or teaching you hot to be successful but what these steps actually teach you is how to engage a lot of your time in activities that cost you money (business expenses) but there are hardly any activities that produce income. Showing the plan can help your business but even many Amway defenders will claim that there's maybe a 20% sponsorship rate. I personally doubt this because most people wanting to sponsor never do. The other step that can make you money is to retail (sell products) but with Amway's bad reputation plus having generic quality products at premium prices, Amway is a tough sell.

The other "success steps" such as reading books, listening to CDs and attending seminars and meetings are activities that cost you money but bring on no income. And these activities comprise the majority of an IBO's time and resources. Even current IBOs can track their activity and expenses and easily see that I am correct. In the famous 6-4-2 plan, the majority of IBOs only earn 100 PV which gets them a (gross income) bonus of about $10. An IBO listening to CDs, participating in voicemail and books and functions easily exceed $150 a month in business expenses and more if they are hard core dedicated. If you were like me where the large quarterly functions (i.e. Family Reunion or Summer Conference) took a plane ticket to get there, then the expenses were enormous relative to the $10 that many IBOs earn.

The only way an IBO can actually make decent money is to sponsor a lot of downline, who in turn will absorb the upline's losses and allow for a profit, or to sell products like crazy. But I've never seen or heard of a platinum who achieved that level by retailing Amway products alone. Those who do an open minded and honest price assessment will easily see that Amway products are overpriced. The products are overpriced by design, because those generous Amway bonuses that your diamonds and emeralds receive are included in the price of AMway products. How else can Amway pay those bonuses? The Amway owners aren't billionaires for no reason.

So there you have it. Amway is a business opprtunity where the vast majority of those who try, fail. But former Amway IBOs and people who had a brush with Amway shouldn't feel bad. They failed because Amway is designed to make most people fail, in my opinion and I have explained how and why I have formed that opinion. Good luck if you read this and still join hoping to overcome the overwhelming odds.

Amway, Failure By Design?

Many people, including Amway IBOs and prospects see the 6-4-2 plan or a similar version when they are being recruited into the Amway business. The plan consists of 79 IBOs,, all who actually earned a bonus with 1 person being platinum and the rest earning significantly less. Now I can say with virtual certainty that nobody has ever built a group with that many people who all went out and actually earned a bonus. This is because most IBOs do little or nothing and many join and never order a single product.

Thus we know that someone who actually achieves platinum would likely have double (or more) of the amount of people in order to achieve a similar result (7900 PV). For round numbers, let's say an average platinum group has 150 IBOs. Already we can determine that a platinum is less than 1% of the Amway population and the rest mostly earn little or nothing. While the platinum might earn some decent money, a hardcore dedicated platinum can still lose money because of the "system" consisting of voice mail, CDs, books and functions.

Just by analyzing what I've discussed thus far shows that a platinum group would typically consist of 100 or more (most likely more) Amway down lines and therefore the platinum is firmly in the top 1% of IBOs. This demonstrates that Amway is failure by design. If there are 2 platinum groups, then it's 2 guys on the top each with a group of 100 or more downline making little or nothing. A diamond consists of 6 of these groups with the diamond making good money with hundreds if not thousands of downline making little or nothing. If some day, the entire planet signed up for Amway, guess what? Nothing statistical will change.

When I used to see Amway announce 1000 new platinums, all it means is that there are 1000 new people with groups where the vast majority makes little or nothing. Many people get excited about Amway thinking they will be the platinum and "make it big" but even if they do, they have a group of downline making little or nothing, and taking losses if they are on the system of CDs and functions. You can have smart, motivated downline but it doesn't change the fact that Amway leads to failure by design, as does most other MLMs where you are always recruiting new people. Recruiting is priority because in order for you to reach the top, you also need to find your 100 or more downline who make little or nothing (or losses) in order for you to succeed.

Many people think they have what it takes to "make it" but Amway's recent revenue reports indicate that Amway is a tough sell. Their revenues dipping from 11.8 billion in 2014 to 8.8 billion globally in 2016. But if you've seen this and disregard the information, then good luck to you. You'll be on an interesting but most likely a lose money venture.