Debating A Zombie IBO?

  I apologize for the length of this post but it's actually quite humorous and I will also post the link in case you wish to follow along or perhaps leave your own comments. The classic Amway defense is used here, including unsubstantiated income and lifestyle claims. He also calls me a liar but never identifies what I'm supposedly lying about.  It's a bit dated, but I call it an oldie but goodie!  Enjoy!

https://amthrax.wordpress.com/2010/07/12/penn-and-tellers-verdic-on-mlms-bs/#comment-48347

Malachy:

“, FAILED system”?? Yeah. Right. 8 billion annually no sticks no dent. 60 merchant partners and double digits growth in North America these past 2 years.
(Oh yeah. And #1 selling nutritional supplier world wide. Aha. )


Joecool

8 billion annually. Down more than 25% from 2013 when Amway did 11.8 billion. No debt? How do you know Amway has no debt? That’s an old talking point that was proven wrong in the past if you know how to use google. And #1 selling nutritional supplier worldwide is a HUGE lie.
The #1 selling nutritional supplier in the world is Nestle. In he Americas alone they exceed 40 billion. You are just repeating lies that uplines tells without verifying for yourself. More than likely you are repeating income claim lies from upline as well.
Nestle: https://www.nestle.com/investors/annual-report

Malachy:

Nobody went black or lost their homes BECAUSE OF AMWAY. (Gee by your logic maybe Greg (Duncan) couldn’t afford the tapes books & travel to all those functions?
Dude Matt (Tsuruda)was making $90,000 a month as an EDC.
He probably makes 4-5 times that now

Joecool

It’s not how much you make, but what you do with it. $40K per month and (Greg Duncan) winds up bankrupt?

Malachy:

FYI there are 3500 college players who graduate or declare for the draft before they graduate. Know how many are drafted in the entire NFL? 254. That means there’s only a 7% chance of getting drafted
Then there’s several walk ons who are undrafted who show up to training camp. Then you have OTA, mono camp, training camp, and preseason in which 90 or so men all hope to make the roster (of which there are really less than 50 possible openings in a maximum 53 man roster (a half a dozen maybe ten or so of which are already taken by the superstars like Tom Brady or Beckam or Gronk.

So it’s about a 3% chance of even MAKING a roster, and that doesn’t guarantee the big money but only minimum scale if you’re on the practice squad.

Then there’s the chance of getting injured ending a season (or a carreer)
Average length of an NFL carreer? Less than 7 years.

And how much money do you make after you leave, quit, get cut, or injured out of the NFL?
Zero (except maybe some pension depending on how long you played & what money you made. )
Tracey Eaton had to play a preseason game with a flu & high fever, just to prove himself make the team. At Arizona.
Know what happened after he left the NFL with $300,000 on the bank & had to try & make it as a stock broker?
He ended up $400,000 in debt & had to sell his house!
Thank God Wolgamott came along & he asked Wolgamott how he managed to sleep in every day & be rich.

Now they are free as diamonds & have a beautiful high rise condo in Seattle and paid Cash for a second home on the river.
Eaton makes more money than he ever made in the NFL & is not subject to injuries, age, or roster cuts
Yeah we know all about the odds.

(Then there’s also Superbowl champion Tim Foley in Miami, Hal Greer from the NBA and numerous other world class championship athletes who make their living from amway or endorse the nutrilite Brand. (see Kurt Warner- another walk on who had what it takes in character & went from walk on back up quarterback to Superbowl champion. Yeah. He believes in nutrilite & amway)
Not everybody who plays the game is a winner or a champion. Only those who got what it takes (which obviously you didn’t!)

Joecool
July 30, 2018 10:00 am
7% is a whole lot more success than Amway IBOs. A platinum is allegedly where you start to break even more make a small profit, depending on your commitment to the system. A platinum is already in the top fraction of 1% of IBOs. What serious business owner prospect would want to join and opportunity where the likelihood of success is so low?
Arena football players know the deal before they sign up. They are signing up because someone told them about residual income for life if they play arena football.

Again, how do you know what Tracy Eaton makes? Did you show you his financials? You have no idea but you keep making those kinds of claims. All you are saying is that he lacks integrity and is able to sell people on lies to make his living. 2-5 years, walking the beaches is a lie. One that has serious consequences for many who get involved.


Malachy:

woww. Once again you demonstrated a difficulty understanding (or paying attention to) what people actually say.
If 7 % get drafted that doesn’t necessarily mean they will make the roster by end of preseason and if they do make the roster half of them will NEVER make a million a year

Many have ENDED up broke after being retired (average carreer is less than 7 years and they don’t pay you or even guarantee your salary if you’re not playing. Many get injured and most contracts have team friendly incentives that only pay based on how many snaps you play in the year.)

Tracey Eaton lasted a handful of years after busting his @$$ to make the team during preseason only to end up broke & having to sell his house after retirement. None of hos NFL income was secure or willable to his children

Now he makes more than he did in the NFL and it’s all willable to his children and most of it is passive ongoing income streams.

He paid Cash for his second home. (did you?

Joecool

I understand completely. But anyone who gets drafted receives at least a signing bonus of about $100k or more, even if they fail to make the team.

Most Amway IBOs make nothing and if they attend functions, almost all of them LOSE MONEY.
Tracy Eaton can tell you he paid cash for his home. I paid cash for my home. See how that works? Talk is cheap. Greg Duncan also said she paid cash for his homes. Then we see foreclosures. Guess what? Homes that are paid for can’t get foreclosed.

“None of his NFL income was secure or will-able to his children” Total bullshit. All of his guaranteed income could have been secured and will-able to his children.

You know why Amway diamonds might quit or resign but they never “walk away? They have to keep working the business. Most Amway IBOs do little or nothing and quit. If you stop building your Amway business, people will continue to do little or nothing and quit. You cannot build a sustainable income where the attrition rate is so high unless you are constantly working it. The never quit that upline teaches applies to the upline as well. If they quit, their business will fall apart faster than a cheap Amway suit.

Malachy:

Name one example of an NFL contract which says they continue to get their bloated salary after they’re no longer able to play?
No such thing! It’s all based 100% on their own ability.
Amway isn’t based on ability. It’s based off an asset which continues to generate revenue and therefore earnings for you or your beneficiaries
Ever hear of an “integrated Diamond”?
(Oh. I’m sorry. So now Georgia Lee (Puryear) no longer gets any income since Ron died? )
Better tell Jim to go get a job ha.

Joecool

So why don”t diamonds walk away and retire? Because their business will crumble apart once they stop working. In Amway, you need the ability to recruit and lie to recruits so they will sign up and buy Amway stuff and tools and functions.
I don’t know. Georgia Lee didn’t show me (or you) her financials so I don’t (and you don’t) know what or if she’s still making money from Amway.
You do know that Amway diamonds invest in other things besides Amway right?

Malachy:

I’ve never been lied to by anyone in the Amway company or WWDb. You on the other hand lie all the time & make up stuff to support your excuses why you quit. LOSERS do that & we don’t do that in our family.

Joecool:

What have I lied about? I share my personal experience. Whether you like it or not is another story but these are not lies.

You make up all kinds of stuff. You quote income from people you don’t know. You pretend to know how much income and expenses the diamonds have. The truth is you don’t know.
You bought into the lie that buying from yourself can turn into profits.
You still haven’t answered why not a single diamond walked away to enjoy residual income. Instead, they are on the job until they pass away. That’s not freedom.

Transparency?

 Apparently, Joecool has a new fan. A WWDB IBO who runs the blog called "Transparency Of A Dreamer". http://transparencyofadreamer.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/transparency-how-do-you-filter-online-information/

This blog is run by Cameron, who is apparently a WWDB IBO. I used to follow a blog called WWDB Expeditions Of Truth authored by Shaun Guthrie. Both apparently hail from Canada. What I find humorous is how Cameron uses the word "transparency" in his blog title. Cameron, like Shaun, does not allow comments on his blog. I find it odd how pro-Amway blogs often do not allow comments unless they are positive about Amway. What are they afraid of? Hmm.

Cameron says on his blog:

Dream Builder training and mentorship system while being “transparent” in my success’ but MOST IMPORTANTLY my non-success. As a dreamer I identify myself as wanting and desiring more for myself, my family, my friends and my associates. Thus – Transparency of a Dreamer.

When I chose the name of this blog I chose it because I felt that there was a lack of integrity and transparency in how information / experience was shared.

My question to Cameron is why doesn't he allow comments, or transparency on his own blog?

He openly criticizes me because he feels I have some hatred towards Amway and WWDB. That is not true. I don't hate anyone. My blog is about my experiences in Amway and WWDB and some of the bad practices that WWDB leaders employed. Based on my observations of Shaun Guthrie's blog, I can say some of the same practices I saw over ten years ago still happen now. Shaun's blog is now gone (because he quit??) but he spoke of getting out of debt (which is good) but he did so by selling his home and cashing out his 401K. He spoke of buying homes in cash, and abut a 2% divorce rate in Amway/WWDB which is a dicey claim at best. I often hear how Amway/WWDB has changed but here we have the same leaders teaching the same stuff. What exactly has changed? I might add that WWDB leaders in my day LIED and said nobody made a profit from tools. Now that the lie has been exposed, they admit profit is made on tools but none of the liars were ever held accountable.

Let's examine Cameron's business:

Business Level: Founders Belivers Pin almost 2 years straight + additional consecutive months to today’s date (Mar – Apr 2014 as of this post)
Highest PV Bonus Bracket: 9% BV over our organization + Retail / Personal Use Volume.
Personal Width: 1
Depth: 2 wide on one sponsored leg.

Cameron is around the 6 to 9% bonus bracket. With his premiere membership and assuming he attends functions, he is LOSING MONEY! 6-9% will pay you around $100 a month (gross) which will leave you at a loss when factoring in business expenses. That doesn't account for time spent in the endeavor. Cameron says he is not in debt, but he doesn't mention that he profits from Amway. Most likely because his job covers his Amway/WWDB losses.

For the record, I did as an IBO, witness WWDB leaders offer advice such as having your family skip a meal to buy another tape/cd, or quitting your job to attend a function, after all, you can just get another job. You can skip paying your mortgage for about 3 months before the mortgage company forecloses (so you can attend a WWDB function). Greg Duncan taught us how stupid it was to take out loans (can you say hypocrite). I wonder if Mr. Duncan paid off all of his loans yet? LOL Brad Wolgamott taught about the 2% divorce rate (can you say hypocrite?).

Cameron then tries to discredit me by linking to David Steadson's blog. (Steadson aka IBOFightback). Steadson has already been discredited as a liar and referred to as a a cyber bully by Beth Dornan, who ran an Amway corporate blog.

http://blogs.amway.com/amwayinsider/2008/01/15/cyber-bullies-not-welcome-here/

As those who frequent the Opportunity Zone know, our conversations here are governed by a philosophy we call "civil discourse."

Civil discourse means we agree to disagree, but not to be disagreeable. In other words, I accept your right to have an opinion that differs from my own and ask that you do the same. In a word, it means respect. Bullies aren't allowed.
I was disturbed to read that someone who has been critical of this business has been harassed and disparaging information about him posted by a cyber bully.

Steadson, aka IBOFightback is the ONLY ONE who wrote disparaging articles about Amway critics.

Cameron then criticizes the fact that I occasionally use profanity on my blog. I have and I allow some of it. But nobody gets a handful of dirt in their face without dishing it out first. I've been threatened and had IBO's slander and libel my name. That is why I use the pseudo name "Joecool", to protect my true identity.

Why does Amway and WWDB continue to receive criticism? It's not because of Joecool or any other Amway critic. Amway and WWDB receives criticism because of the actions and behaviors of their IBO's. People are still lied to and tricked into meetings. People still overstate the income and effort needed to build Amway. People give the best case scenario without informing prospects of the typical IBO's experiences. The internet is still loaded with legitimate complaints about Amway and WWDB and their only response is to attack the critic rather than fixing the problems that leads to the criticism.

Good luck Cameron, I know you've been reading this blog. You've been an IBO 3 years and you have one leg with a few more downline. A WWDB leader once said insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Were you shown a 2-5 year plan? Maybe it's time for you to sit down and come to grips with Amway and WWDB yourself. I truly hope you won't quit and take your blog down like all other WWDB IBO's I've encountered.

The Amway Warrior?

 I received this comment by a fired-up Amway and WWDB IBO some years ago. I think re-posting it now will be quite humorous. It might in interesting to note that I took "Bryant" up on his offer and friended him on facebook. After a week or two, he stopped responding to my comments and questions and a few months later, he unfriended me on facebook and apparently quit Amway. When I looked him up, he was not posting Amway stuff anymore and just reverted back to his "quitter" or Broke loser" lifestyle.  I am posting it for your reading enjoyment. BTW, I was downline of the infamous WWDB Duncans as an IBO. I wonder if Greg Duncan recovered from his chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2009?

Bryant Xxxxxx July 31, 2015 at 4:29 AM

Dear Joe,

First, wow do you sound like a quitter; have you ever dedicated yourself to anything? Sorry that was an attack at you, I’m new to WWDB, and I enjoyed reading your quitting words and how you inspired more quitters to quit. I personally have researched WWDB before I came to the WWDB group because I seriously thought it was Amway and I’ve been approached 5x by Amway. Guess being a cage fighter gives me a great personality.

I would also like to call you out on your line ups since I know the Duncan’s beside their children could never possible be your uplines. Brad is very selective on who he mentors and it is usually the non-quitters that he mentor, the diamonds and emeralds, My upline Fenton and Susie Eng are mentored directly by Brad and Julie.

Before I was a Dream Builder, I was chasing the money; I sold drugs, damn right, just like the cartel blood that flows thru my veins. I was proud to be a drug dealer, finally I was a cool person, and then I woke up and realized ever one fronts that they have money but no one really knows how to get it. I held a regular job, sold drugs and trained every day to fight in a cage. Wow my life was in utter chaos, then my best friend asked me to meet her sponsor and mentor, Jerry Liu and Fenton Eng (emerald mentor) so with one foot out of the door and my right ass check of the chair ready to bolt, I sat down and meet them. First there was never any offer made in fact I had an application process to go thru and win my mentorship which I am so glad and happy I fought for it. I guess we all come from different paths and what im really trying to say is I would love to sit down and speak to you face to face and prove that your wrong about world wide dream builder, I haven’t paid out a single cent and I’ve so far been receiving the Kate messages for free and haven’t need to buy a single thing, yes I will because that apart of this program.

Did you expect money to fall from the sky? If you would have listened to your mentor, you would have learned one of the key parts to this entire program. Without HARDWORK you get nothing. Hard work is the key that slipped past you obviously! I have permanently been changed by the world wide group and will defend WWDB with my dying breath that’s what it means to not quit and not give in. I would love you to meet ALL of Fentons teams, Las Vegas and Atlanta and Bellingham Washington. Everyone of them would look at you and shake their heads, you were in and I don’t understand how you could leave. Unless…wait for it….. you’re a quitter. Hmm I was tired of being a loser and a quitter to now I am a worldwide dream builder for life! Plus the Family Reunion blew my mind thank God I’m willing to sacrifice for my future, unlike some cooljoe who wrote this blog.
With love because we all make mistakes,

Bryant Xxxxxx find me on facebook I dare you!

The Same Old Amway?

 A friend of mine and former downline (when I was an IBO) told me that his daughter recently joined Amway and WWDB. Despite his warnings and objections, she joined anyway, and insists that things are different in Amway today. That gave me some food for thought. What is different between Amway of today and the Amway I was in? The products are basically the same, perhaps with some new packaging. The concepts are the same. Buy your own stuff and try to get others to do the same. And recruit like crazy. That part of the business hasn't changed at all.

But what also hasn't changed is the same old Amway reputation that hinders the ability to sell products and/or to recruit others and to show the plan. Seems as if people joining and quitting without doing much is still the same. There is still an emphasis of the consumption of tools and functions by the rank-and-file IBOs, and why not? The diamonds make nice profits from the sale of business support materials and unlike the Amway compensation plan, the rank-and-file IBOs get no compensation for the tools.

It sure seems as if the same old - old diamonds are around. The Duncans, Leslie Wolgamott (Divorced from Brad - WWDB saves marriages?). Harimoto, Tsuruda, Danzik. Where are the new diamonds? It might also be significant to note that Amway revenues have declined significantly from 11.8 billion in 2013 to less than that now, as far as I know.  Amway has not fully recovered.  And that's despite Amazon and some other online retailers making a fortune during covid 19.  Perhaps people are seeing Amway for what it is? A poor business opportunity where your chance of failure is nearly 100%. And it's not because of a lack of effort or motivation. The Amway system is just set up for failure.  A typical platinum business usually consist of 100 or more IBOs, and there is one platinum.   That's about 1% but actually it's less when you factor in attrition.

A quick look at the common 6-4-2 plan is 79 IBOs. One platinum and a whole bunch who aren't. And this plan doesn't factor in that many people join and quit without doing much of anything. Thus, there can only mathematically be a small fraction of 1% who make anything with a whole bunch of wannabes who never make it. And that is what Amway is. The same old sorry ass Amway opportunity where the diamonds sell you false hopes and dreams while their dreams come true from your tools and function purchases.

What Is A Double Eagle Ruby?

 In a previous post titled "Fired Up IBO Ends Up Quitting", this IBO was harping about becoming a double eagle ruby and being financially free and retired from his job at a very young age.  But you might be wondering what in the world is a double eagle ruby?

Well, a Ruby distributor is basically a platinum that runs twice as much volume, or 15,000 PV per month.  That ruby would have to move about $45,000 worth of good in a month to reach 15,000 PV per month.  

Now what is the eagle/double eagle business model?   In a nutshell, it's a made-up ranking system made up by World Wide Dream Builders, or WWDB aka Worldwide group.  I'll break it down for you but the eagle or double eagle program was designed to ensure that plenty of tools run through your Amway business so that your upline diamond can rake it in.  It has no relationship to the IBO's and their downline in terms of profitability because a ruby level IBO would make very minimal kickbacks from the volume of tools and functions that move through their business.   The latest information I had was that a ruby or platinum IBO earns only a very small percentage of profits from audio related tools such as standing orders. They do not share in the lucrative business of selling voicemail, or functions and meetings.

Additionally, a double eagle ruby would move 500 PV personal volume for a couple, and 300 PV for a single.  (How in the world can a single person use 300 PV?).  Also, a double eagle ruby would have 12 downline (downline are called "legs" in Amway) moving 100 PV or more, and at least 10 of those downline on standing orders, and at least 6 of those downlines attending "major" functions.  Major functions is where the diamonds make major profits.  Thus a double eagle ruby as a single for example, would be expending nearly $1000 a month just to meet the PV requirements.  The double eagle ruby would get a few dollars kickback for his downline on standing order but the diamond would rake in the lion's share.  And the double eagle gets nothing for the downline attending major functions.  Also, a double eagle ruby would be expected to be on standing order themselves, as well as attending all functions.  

If you were to break down in math, the amount it would cost to be a double eagle ruby, you'd see that much of the profits a double eagle ruby makes would be taken by upline by PV volume and tool and function participation.   Perhaps I will break down this process with the math in a future post.  

Now a regular "eagle", which Joecool was at one time, consists of the following:  300 PV personal use for couples and 200 PV for singles.  6 legs moving 100 PV or more, 5 legs on standing order, and 3 legs attending major functions.   Now I can tell you that as a former "eagle" myself, I was running about 4000 PV monthly, which brought me a gross profit of approximately $1000 monthly.  Sounds great right?  But as a single, 200 PV in personal use (at the time) cost around $500 a month.  Add in the expense of my standing order, book of the month, voicemail and functions and other meetings and business expenses and I was losing money.  I should add that I live in Hawaii and some "major" functions took place on the mainland US which required air travel, hotel and rental car expenses.  

Thus being an eagle or double eagle is just a title with no assurance of any kind of profit.  Your dedication to the tools and functions could have resulted in even greater losses than I have described here.  Reducing your dedication to the tools and functions may have resulted in better profits, but more than likely would have resulted in being shunned by your upline diamond, which really meant you had no choice but to be "gung ho" about participating in the tools and functions without question.

 

Fired Up IBO Winds Up Quitting?

This article is a reprint of an article originally published by me in 2016.  It is from a former Amway IBO who was fired up and later quit.  To be fair, I have no hard feelings towards this individual and wish him and his family the best.  He was likely motivated and hard working, but may have been misled into believing that Amway was the best path to success, but when you read the verbiage, you can really see the mindset and how these new IBOs think, especially if they have achieved even a small amount of what upline leader might define as success:

Check out this blog post from 2010 from an Amway and WWDB IBO. He is talking about retiring and now it is almost the year 2016. This IBO (Shaun Guthrie) ran a blog called WWDB Expeditions Of Truth, which is now defunct and apparently, Shaun is no longer an IBO. I would assume that he quit and failed. I can still see his twitter account and there's no mention about Amway or residual income and retiring in another year. I do wish him well in his endeavors and hope that he des achieve his dreams, but also knowing that it wasn't going to happen using Amway as a vehicle. This article is a message written by Shaun in 2010 and you can see some pretty big claims. Read on.............

"Well we are coming up to Free Enterprise Day’s in Portland this weekend and with that I’ve come up to my one year anniversary. I’ve also passed the one year anniversary of this blog and where I started out with it. I started it while being a guest at Free Enterprise Day’s supporting Lindsay (wife) in what I had originally thought was something completely stupid, something illegal, something that was going to drive a wedge between us and our marriage. Turns out it was quite the opposite.

There is nothing wrong with a healthy skepticism and boy did I have a lot of “healthy” skepticism. After spending 5 months of doing some actual research, checking out the Amway site, Better Business Bureau, Checking the history of the company, Industry Canada, and yeah even checking out all the negative blogs out there, I came to the conclusion there was nothing wrong with this business and what it stood for. One of the biggest things that really drew me to business was the environmental stewardship this company stood on and I thought I could get behind that and have no problems promoting those great products. It was however the World Wide Dreambuilders that really intrigued me and instead of driving a wedge between our marriage it has helped solidify it even stronger than it was last year. How the heck could a business do that? Cause it’s founded on good core traditional values such as marriage, relationships, personal growth and living debt free. Not bad values if I do say so.

So I say one year because it’s one year when I joined my wife and we became united together and made a decision together to actually build this. Since then we’ve achieved some great milestones and have had some set backs, as with anything in life. We’ve been able to kill off a HUGE amount of consumer debt that we would have still had to this day if it were not for the great coaches, mentors we have. We’ve been able to ride the example our coaches have set out and we are pretty much right on track with where they are and that’s just the power of duplication. I’ve retired my wife so that she never has to give her 1st best to another man ever again. We will be able to raise our kids never having to know what a daycare or day home looks like. Not to offend anyone however that’s not how we want to raise our kids, we’d much rather instill our own values and be there every step of the way.

Looking forward to the future we are pumped to hit Double Eagle Ruby late next year at which time I’ll be stepping away from my job so that I never have to work for another man’s dream and give my 1st best to them. I know that we will work hard at this so that my kids will always have me at home when they need me and not have to wait for me to come home from work. I look forward to the days that we can take our kids out to the ski hill during the week day and not the weekend when it’s jam packed. I look forward to seeing my parents with the kids anytime we want instead of a set amount of vacation time or trying to stretch out a long weekend. There are so many things we look forward to in our second year in business and we know because of the great examples before us we will actually achieve them.

Now please don’t misunderstand me, these are our goals and things we want to achieve. I’m in no way saying you have to build this business. I’ve chosen this vehicle to obtain our goals and the vision we have set out for our family. You don’t have to agree with me and that’s perfectly fine. I only hope that you have a vehicle out there that will allow you to 100% achieve whatever it is you have set out for you and your family.

Here’s to year #2!"

Level Playing Field?

 The Amway business is a level playing field. At least that's what my upline told us when I was an IBO. That everyone starts at zero. While that is somewhat true, there were other factors that existed, that most IBOs did not know about. That factor is the possibility of PV manipulation. I believe that groups that are not on direct fulfillment (Groups still calling in and picking up) are able to transfer PV around. Thus, certain groups or favored downline could be manufactured into higher pins. I believe most groups are currently on direct fulfillment, but I did confirm about less than a year ago that some groups still are on call in and pick up.

But let's examine the concept that everyone starts at zero. While this aspect may be true, certain people are simply better at selling, or better and more adept at socializing and talking to others. So while your PV count may be zero, the skills needed to start and run a business is not a level playing field for most. I believe uplines state this to give prospects the idea that everyone has an equal chance at succeeding in Amway. I just cannot believe this to be true. Even current diamonds, while having achieved a certain level, probably could not "start at zero" again and build a diamond business.

Thus, when you really think about it, the "old timers" of the diamonds should actually be given less credibility than the newer ones. Do you really believe that a diamond or higher pin who built his business in the 1970's can really teach people in 2016 how to build the business in a way to address people in 2016, and the fact that the business is mostly internet based as opposed to the old days, not to mention the advance of social media, text messaging and other modern forms of communication.

It is easy to stand on stage, tell people how great you are, show off material wealth and then tell prospects that everyone starts at zero and that anyone can build the business. I do not believe that it is true. I also strongly suspect that very few (if any) of the current diamonds would be able to "start at zero" and build a new diamond ship here in the US, where the reputation and shrinking sales would be handicaps too great to overcome for the vast majority of prospective IBOs. I recall back in 2005 or 2006, WWDB had a commitment for personal growth amongst the diamonds and above. I do not believe much fruit was grown out of that effort. The diamonds had committed to duplicating their groups to prove it could be done. Not a single one of them, as far as I know, advanced to a significantly higher level (i.e. diamond to double diamond).

Lastly, to be able to profit from selling tools, regardless of the outcomes for downline, is an advantage that most IBOs are unaware of, and unable to participate in.  That alone makes for a uneven playing field for downline IBOs.  The diamonds therefore, are able to promote Amway as "easy" or "simple" or that anyone can make it.  Basically the diamonds can say almost anything they want to hook IBOs into the system.  Whether they fail or not is of no consequence to the diamond as they have already made their profits from meetings, functions and other support materials.  The level playing field is a myth to make prospects think that have a real chance of success when they really don't.