Early Retirement?

 One of the humorous things I read is when a Amway IBO says he or she is 19 years old and will be "retired" at the age of 24 because of the Amway business. I personally don't know of anyone who has retired primarily on residual Amway income, as many seem to claim. I am not suggesting that nobody has ever done this, but I suspect that there are so few people who may have done it that it is not noteworthy. Even the Crown Ambassadors appear to not only be working, but have very busy schedules where they are constantly on the run. In recent years, some crown ambassadors have passed away while still on the job. Why don't we see any Amway retirees? I know retired teachers, police, fire fighters and such. I don't know of any Amway retirees.

The poor retention rate of IBOs would suggest that even a sizable Amway business could fall apart rather quickly without a constant replacement of IBOs. It is for this reason that I suspect that Amway folks never retire. They need to keep working or their businesses will fall apart. If you are a diamond, one downline platinum falling out of qualification could drop you to emerald status. Diamonds are not forever, especially in Amway. They may carry the diamond pin, and could be speaking at functions, but they might be a former diamond with a small downline group.

I ask this of IBOs. Is your upline diamond, or someone in between you and the diamond retired because of (primarily) Amway income? Do you as an IBO have a projected date when you will "walk away" from the business and retire? When I was an IBO, I always wondered why nobody "walked away" from their business after they went diamond. I believe the answer is crystal clear. Because IBO turnover is so high, if a diamond were to walk away from the business, he would probably fall out of qualification in less than a year. The bonuses would disappear and the diamond would probably have to look for a job. There are many examples of diamonds who have quit, and in some cases, went back to work.

Many unsuspecting prospects may be lured into the Amway business with the hope of an early retirement. Amway recruiters may mention that control of time and money is the key to success, but ironically, for most who sign up, will end up with less time and money than if they did not join at all. For many people. especially young people, it might be a good idea to seek financial advice from a professional and to make long term investment goals. Am investment of about $200 a month can net you close to a million bucks after 30 to 40 years.

Yes, there may be "some" people who retired early due to (primarily) Amway income. But I don't know any. And not a single Amway defender has ever been able to name one. It reminds me of bigfoot/sasquatch. Many reports and allegations are there that these creatures exist but there is no real evidence to support that such a creature actually exists.

Who's The Broke Loser?

 One of the things I heard as an Amway IBO and still hear today, is that people who do not view Amway as favorable, or decided to quit and walk away from the Amway opportunity are "broke" or "losers" or "broke losers". As an IBO I remember one of the upline saying that IBOs are winners, and therefore, if you are not an IBO, you must be a loser. I still see much of that today. I'm not sure why that kind of teaching still exists, especially when most people who work for minimum wage earn more than most IBOs.

I suppose it's a form of subtle pressure used by upline to prevent people from quitting, as nobody wants to be labeled a loser. It creates an "us" versus "them" attitude. One of Amway's co founders, Rich DeVos, stated quite clearly in a speech that IBOs should not use the term loser just because someone doesn't agree that Amway is the greatest. And I agree.

Many people who are not IBOs are very successful and many people are simply not suited for or want to run a "side" business. Some people are not in need of an extra income and some people do not want to sacrifice family time. IBOs should respect other people's wishes if they are turned down when offering the opportunity to others. Also, because of previous unethical behaviors of IBOs, many people simply do not wish to get involved in an opportunity where such behavior exists. Sure, not all IBOs act that way, but enough of them still exists. And what's more, it appears that not much, if anything has been done about it.

But here's the biggest reason, in my opinion, why IBOs should not be calling anyone derogatory names just because the prospect does not wish to join Amway or purchase goods. There's no reason to burn bridges with a potential customer or future IBO. Let's say I entered a store but for whatever reason, decided not to make a purchase that day. As I exit the store, the store owner calls me a loser or broke, or not having guts. What is the chance that I would want to do business with that store or store owner ever again? Furthermore, many or most Amway business owners conduct business person to person and face to face. If I insult people who don't initially do business with me, then I am doing a lousy job of PR and chances are by business will fail. Yet that is exactly what many IBOs do.

IBOs and upline leaders should read this and think twice before using the term loser or broke loser. You could be burning bridges with potential future customers or IBOs.

2-5 Years To What?

 One of the things I heard as an Amway IBO myself, and is still promoted is the concept of a 2-5 year plan to financial freedom. As a prospect, 2-5 years of hard work in your spare time sounds reasonable. After all, anyone can work an extra 12 hours a week for a couple of years with that kind of reward awaiting you at the end. The sad reality is that you are likely to suffer 2-5 years of financial losses without getting any closer to financial freedom.  In fact, you might be further from financial freedom as a result of being involved in Amway.

When Amway morphed into Quixtar, a very relevant question was how many diamonds were "quixtar only", meaning they signed up in 1999 when quixtar was implemented and then became diamonds in the advertised 2-5 years. As far as I know, there were very few (if any) new diamonds. The new diamonds that were named all seemingly came from other countries, not the US or Canada. Even now, my former LOS (WWDB) is touting "double eagle rubies" which is not a recognized achievement by Amway (as far as I know), and there is no assurance that achieving such a level makes an IBO profitable. In fact, the eagle program run by WWDB is only measuring tool parameters which is great for upline but not necessarily for the IBOs.

Even today, I do not see a steady stream of new diamonds emerging from Amway. If the 2-5 year plan actually worked, there would be new diamonds constantly emerging. Instead, my former LOS (WWDB), actually has fewer diamonds now than back in my IBO days. And of those diamonds who remain, some of them had homes foreclosed and it also appears that at least a few of them ran into some financial difficulties. Makes me wonder what a diamond's finances actually look like. I suspect many of them live in debt, especially if they flaunt the "diamond lifestyle", which is probably not sustainable on diamond income as reported by Amway.

So while it might be possible to achieve diamond in 2-5 years (some have done it), but tens of millions (or more) have tried. It is much more likely that you will win the lottery (provided you have a ticket) than it is likely that you will join Amway and go diamond. It is also unlikely that people in the US and Canada who join will go diamond in the advertised 2-5 years. The 2-5 year plan is not promoted by Amway, but by the LOS leaders. I believe it is a hoax and the numbers back up my claim. You are much more likely to be better off working part time for 2-5 years and saving and investing for your future. If not, you will end up with 2-5 years of losing money on functions and standing orders.

As many Amway leaders will state: Look at the fruit on the tree. In the US and Canada, the trees are bare.  Sure, Amway defenders can name a few new diamonds but still, there isn't a steady stream of new diamonds emerging which would be evidence that the 2-5 year plan actually worked.    Never mind the financial freedom.   How many IBOs even make a net profit?  My educated guess is that a tiny fraction of 1% of IBOs might make a profit which is statistically insignificant.

So it's 2-5 years to what?   

Ambots Everywhere?

There are different levels of dedication that Amway IBOs and prospects fall into.  Typically, they often dress alike, look alike and sound alike.  They parrot the same teachings from upline which is why you may have heard the term "tapespeak".    While the systems have developed other means of distributing audios, they used to sell cassette tapes and the IBOs would often parrot the lines they hear on these tapes.  I'm pretty sure not much has changed except perhaps, the means on how information is transmitted to the downline from upline.

Sometimes it happens to the nicest of people and it often happens slowly and subtly. These are the signs that you are becoming indoctrinated and you are likely annoying your loved ones at this point.  Hopefully you haven't reached the point where your friends and family actually avoid you because they are tired of being recruited for Amway related activities and events.

These are the telltale signs that you might be an Ambot (Amway zombie);

*You're driven to recruit everyone you know. You may even resort to deception or outright lies to get people to meetings. Before you know it, your family and friends avoid you like the plague.

*You're encouraged to develop an unreasonable, irrational zeal for the products. Even so far as to justify the quality of toilet paper or to call the products prestigious. You may even argue the quality of energy drinks or about phyto-nutrients, something you may not even know about.

*A whole bunch of demands, promises, subtle threats of failure if you don't try hard enough are made in the promotional material and motivational seminars. i.e. If you quit, you are a loser destined to die broke and unhappy.

*Because the system is touted as the way you're going to make yourself fantastically rich, you're under pressure to drop any conflicting or competing interests such as your bowling league or golf club. Nothing else in life has importance except for the quest of financial freedom. All activities in your life must enhance your Amway business and have an affect on your financial future.

*Your upline soon becomes your most trusted friend. Your thoughts and feelings are shaped in part by the cds, meetings and functions.

Do you recognize these behaviors? Hopefully you aren't displaying these behaviors.

You Must Believe?

 One of the things my Amway upline taught us ad nauseum was that we needed to have faith in our business and in our upline. That we needed to believe that we were going to be successful. IBOs are told that they should act successful even if they are still working their way up the ranks in the business. It is why they ask (require) IBOs to wear suits and business attire to all meetings and functions. This is one of the weird quirks about the business in my opinion. I live in Hawaii and I remember a function they held in the middle of July in a high school auditorium and there was no air conditioning. I think my suit needed special cleaning because it was completely saturated with perspiration.

Anyway, with this part of the year, soon there will be thousands of IBOs shuffling off to a function called dream night, or in some cases, winter conference. The tickets are about $75 to $80 and includes a dinner. What IBOs are often unaware of is that many venues will allow you to run these conferences for $25 to $35 per person. The rest of that ticket prices goes directly into your upline's pockets. Anyway, the dream night function will feature slide shows of mansions, yachts, jet skis, sports cars, fabulous vacations and other trappings of wealth.

What many IBOs don't realize is that this display of wealth is just that. There is no bonafide evidence to indicate that these diamonds actually own all of those toys and goodies. The diamonds probably won't verbally confirm it either, because these toys and goodies may not really be owned by them. It could be rented, or maybe some upline crown ambassador may own the mansion, but IBOs will assume that these trappings of wealth are common once you reach diamond. As an IBO, I never actually knew how much a diamond really earned. I just assumed it was a lot because we were shown all of these goodies and just assumed all diamonds had these kinds of lifestyles.

If I posted a picture of a mansion and a jet and said I owe it all to my earnings as a blogger, people would cry foul, that I am lying or making things up. And they would be right. Well, I would guess that many diamonds are doing the very same thing if they appear on stage and implying that they have jets and mansions. As I said, someone may own a mansion and a jet, but to imply that this is a part of the typical diamond lifestyle is a stretch. The evidence is there. Some diamonds have lost their homes to foreclosure. My old LOS diamonds (WWDB) taught us that diamonds pay cash for everything, including homes. Now confirmed as a blatant lie. Who knows what else they may have misrepresented?

I ask IBOs and prospects who may be attending dream night, to watch with a critical eye. What is being implied with the display of wealth? Analyze if those goodies can be purchased with a diamond income ($150,000 plus some tool income). Ask yourself if this lifestyle is truly sustainable? Ask yourself if you can live with yourself if deception is a part of earning your diamond lifestyle?

No PV For TV?

 Often times, upline would give you advice, such as "there's no PV for watching TV". It makes sense when you hear it but when you critically analyze the advice carefully, you can easily see that it's BS. The idea was that "broke people" with no direction in life waste their lives away watching TV and doing other activities that do not affect their financial futures while Amway IBOs are out trying to better themselves. On the surface, this sounds like completely sound advice and it makes perfect sense if you're an IBO. Why spend time on your couch when you could be out trying to build your Amway business? Right? Broke people watch TV after all.

But wait a second, let's turn this around. There's no PV in attending a function. There's no PV in reading some self help book or a Kiyosaki book. There's no PV in subscribing to standing orders or to communiKATE. There's no PV for attending any meetings and there's no PV for most of the CORE steps. Technically, IBOs would be better served by concentrating on personal use and by actually selling products to customers. Only by increasing your PV does your volume get larger. Now sponsoring also has the possibility of increasing volume but most IBOs never sponsor a single downline, ever. So if you follow upline advice not to do things that don't get you PV, remind them that those activities include most if not all Amway related activities.

To compound the problem, the Amway activities such as standing orders and functions cost money and takes away resources from the IBO, who channels resources into products and activities that the upline profits from. Therefore, the upline is dishing out advice that is self serving: "attend all functions and listen to audios every day". When you really think about it, what direct benefit was there for your business by doing the Amway related activities? Unless you move more volume, your activities are for nothing. It doesn't increase your business and your PV/volume. All you are doing is making your upline wealthy with loyal purchases of tools and functions. That is the Amway business. IBOs think they will be getting rich from Amway while the upline diamonds get rich by selling tools to their downline. To coin a phrase, "you live with the classes when you sell to the masses". That's what the diamonds are doing. Capitalizing on a captive audience whose loyal purchases makes nice profits.

There may be no PV in watching TV, but at the same time, your upline wants you doing all kinds of things that get you no PV.  Seems like IBOs spend too much time (on upline advice) doing non income producing activities.  It's no wonder that the vast majority of IBOs make nothing or lose money.  Participating in the tools and functions virtually assures that you will wind up with a net loss of income.

You can take that to the bank!

Blame Upline?

 One of the things Amway IBOs are taught by their "great" diamond leaders is to blame themselves for not working the business hard enough or not doing things exactly right, even if they do exactly as upline advised. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. Many people put forth tremendous effort but still do not succeed.  But uplines want to be absolved from any responsibility so they teach downline that failure in Amway is their own (The downline's) fault. Upline however, is quick to take credit for any success, even if minimal.  

But the reason is why hard work doesn't equal success is because an Amway IBO is basically a commissioned sales person. In commissioned sales, one can work hard for no reward and at times, little effort may reap large rewards. But in Amway, with a crappy reputation, Amway IBOs are given a handicap that most simply cannot overcome. Getting new people to recruitment meetings is hard enough, not even factoring in the ability to sponsor others. When factoring in these tidbits, it's easy to see why uplines teach buy from yourself and selling is not important. It deflects the fact that selling is nearly impossible with less than competitive prices (in general)

Additionally, IBOs are encouraged to join the "system" such as WWDB, LTD, N21, etc.  The system costs money and teaches IBOs to engage is many non income producing activities such as attending countless meetings and functions that do not result in increased sales volume.  Imagine a store owner whose store was constantly closed so the owner could meet with other owners and/or someone who encourages them to do things that don't produce sales volume.  That store owner would fail, which is what at least 99+% of Amway IBOs do. 

The work involved is very simple. Sell products and get other IBOs in your downline to be able to leverage your volume. Many Amway IBOs work hard and attend all of the functions and do all of the steps as outlined by upline, but very few reap rewards and most quit when they realize that the system doesn't work. It is sad that on top of losing money, that IBOs are also taught to blame themselves for their demise. Where is the upline when IBOs bust their butts working hard and get no rewards? On top of that, to make it worse, uplines profit from selling training and motivation to their downlines. Why aren't they held acountable?   

I've read comments by some Amway defenders wanting to sue Amway critics for a potential loss of business. But most critics, like myself are simply stating our experiences and opinions. Many of which are true and still happening today. So I will ask, what about the millions of former IBOs who may have lost billions of dollars because of false claims which led them to believe that they would get rich following upline advice? Maybe former IBOs should unite and file claims against unethical upline leaders who led them astray?   How can IBOs lose business from a critic when the vast majority do nothing and/or ultimately fail anyway?

In any case, hard work doesn't equate success in Amway and I dare anyone to try to prove me wrong.  Maybe IBOs should blame upline?