Just A Sales Person?

 Our Amway group (WWDB) edified people who bought extraordinary amounts of extra tapes/cds, extra function tickets and made superhuman efforts to get to functions. Looking back, I remember an IBO who was edified for coming all the way to a family reunion function in Portland Oregon when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The speaker said he could have been miserable spending time at home but here he was making a difference in people's lives. WTH? I once wrote a post about how IBOs think they are saving the world and helping people when in reality, the masses of IBOs are only "helping" their diamonds to attain material wealth by purchasing function tickets, voicemail, standing orders and other materials. While people are doing community service, IBOs are sitting in functions and rah rah meetings.  Who does more good for society as a whole?

I would agree that some training and information can be helpful for new IBOs, but I do not see any value in a never-ending supply of cds and an endless number of meetings and functions. The very thing (support materials) that uplines claim is your key to success is the very thing that nearly guarantees business building IBOs will suffer financial struggles. Our upline wanted IBOs to be out of debt, which is good, but they would also say in the same breath that it was okay to go into hock if it was to attend functions or to purchase additional support materials. Sadly, many IBOs do not see through this self-serving advice.

Most people, including myself are very wary when we deal with car salesmen. We are wary because we know that the salesman is out to make money off of us and will try to sell us every option in the book. Thus, we negotiate and reject the car options that we don't really need to have.  Guess what? Your uplines are like car salesmen except that they sell you different options such as premier club, standing order, book of the month, function tickets, voicemail, open meeting tickets. Just like a car buying customer, taking all the options maximizes the car salesman's commission and the car dealer's profit. Buying all the support materials increases your upline's profits. Imagine the car salesman telling you that the extended warranty was vital to owning the car. You'd think twice about it, yet uplines will tell you that functions are vital to your Amway business and many IBOs buy it hook line and sinker. I hope this analogy will encourage IBOs to think of support materials as options on the car. You don't need any options to make the car work. Just as you don't really need support materials to buy and sell Amway products, and to get some downline to do the same.

We are wary of car salesmen. In my opinion, downline and prospects should be just as wary of uplines who promote tools as "vital" to your success in Amway. Keep in mind that a sponsor is obligated to help train any downline, regardless of whether they are on the system or not.  I believe this little known fact is not taught by upline for a very good reason.  Their profits.  

5 Years To Profit?

  One of the things I heard as an Amway IBO and I believe is still said in some Amway meetings is that conventional businesses do not profit for up to five years. That's bogus. Conventional businesses make a profit as soon as they sell their first product. They may not have a net profit right away because of the initial investment into equipment and rental property, but they do profit by selling goods. The same principle would apply to an Amway business except that Amway IBOs have difficulty selling products. If you opened an Amway catalog and compared their prices to local retailers, you would know what I'm talking about.

Despite the small start up costs and the little to no overhead costs, most IBOs never turn a profit. I will acknowledge that many IBOs probably never do a single thing once they sign up. I believe there is an underlying story behind this as well, but I will move on. Out of the more serious IBOs, even in this group, most of them will never make a net profit if they are using tools. Factoring the cost of the website, the voicemail, standing orders, books and functions and cds, IBOs simply get drained of their money a couple hundred of bucks a month at a time. Amway uplines meanwhile, are earning nice profits on product purchases and someone upline are also earning profits on the tools. The tools carry a higher profit margin so it would make sense that some uplines earn more from tools than from Amway.

Toss in other challenges such as high prices for many products (higher than local retailers) and a crappy reputation from IBO behavior such as tricking people into meetings and you have an opportunity with nearly insurmountable handicaps. Yes, a rare few and usually charismatic people can overcome these odds, but only one or two out of tens of thousands are able to do so. And even those who reach the pinnacle of diamond, may not be able to maintain qualification. It's very common for someone to reach the level of emerald or diamond only to backslide and not qualify the following year. So much for residual income and walking the beaches of the world.

So I don't know all of the detailed statistics about how long it takes for a conventional business to turn a net profit. It may take up to five years. But based on my experiences and some number crunching, I'd have to say that the vast majority of Amway Business Owners NEVER TURN A PROFIT - EVER, and most of them ending up with net losses when business expenses are factored in. And toss in the fact that Amway allegedly has little or no overhead costs and I can only conclude that the Amway opportunity sucks.

Invest In Your Business?

 If you own a conventional business, you more than likely had to make some significant investments into that business by acquiring/leasing/renting a property to operate on, purchasing equipment and possibly hiring employees.  But once you open your doors, customers purchase your products or services and hopefully you make more than your expenses, which would be your profits.  Most likely you will not invest in equipment or people who do not help you to further your profit and/or build up your business.

But in Amway, you’re very likely told how you can operate with little to no overhead which gives you a chance to profit quickly.  It makes perfect sense when you say it like that but sooner or later, your upline will advise you to invest in yourself and your business in the form of books, voice mail, meetings and functions, and other self-development types of activities.  While some upline may mention it to you, they most likely downplay the fact that they (the diamonds) make significant profits from creating this overhead for rank-and-file IBOS.  And the this overhead is in the form of relatively small, but monthly and never-ending purchases.  In other words, upline extracts a few hundred dollars for thousands of people or more on a monthly basis.   The part IBOs miss is that they are simply customers of their upline diamond's tool and function business.

It will be called education or an investment into yourself and your business.  But stop and think for a bit.   What is the return on your investment?  In other words, is that book or attending a meeting going to create a profit for your business?   Here’s a good one.  Why should you pay to attend a recruitment meeting if you don’t have any guests to recruit?  Oh, your upline will say it’s to learn and to show support for the diamond but the diamond is supposed to be rolling in dough while your business is likely losing money, directly attributable to the expenses of the tools, meetings and functions.

Real business owners do not incur business expenses unless those expenses result in profits for the business.  Yet your upline will have you believe that you should blindly spend your money on hopes that someday you will make it or that you can fake it till you make it.  Or maybe success is right around the corner so keep going and never quit.  Nice platitudes but in business, sometimes the wise decision is to quit and try something else.  If not your Amway business just becomes a money pit.  You keep feeding it but it only needs more and more investment with little to no return.

Keep a weekly log of incoming profits and losses/ business expenses.  If the expenses consistently exceed the profits, ask yourself honestly.  What will change that will turn things around?  People too often spend years doing the same thing and getting the sane results.  That term about insanity also applies to the Amway business.   😀

What Does It Look Like?

 In my opinion, Amway is a pyramid. They are not illegal, but still a pyramid. The reason why they remain legal, apparently is because they do not pay anyone for recruiting downline and they claim to sell products to actual customers. But most everyone has been or knows someone who was recruited by a zealous Amway IBO. The emphasis of most active IBOs is on recruiting and much of the teaching by upline is on techniques to recruit and/or how to talk to people without tipping their hat to reveal the Amway name. Most IBOs are not very good at this and they stick out like sore thumbs in many cases. It's also comical when uplines teach crazy antics, like how some IBOs use to deny that Amway and Quixtar were even remotely connected, or if anyone remembers the "perfect water" fiasco a number of years back.

One of the reasons IBOs use to justify their involvement in the pyramid is that they can earn more than their sponsor. While that is true, it is only because everyone below the emerald or diamond level is basically expendable, or a slave in the pyramid. There are many IBOs who achieve fairly high levels who quit or had upline wreck their businesses. Thus, even platinums are expendable to upline. In fact, an upline might make more money by removing the platinum. For new IBOs or recruits, do you really believe that you are going to ever surpass your current upline diamond or higher? If you believe that, you are sadly mistaken.

And for those who dream of achieving diamond and walking the beaches of the world. How do you think you can ever achieve that? You don't get something for nothing unless someone gets nothing for something. In order for you to receive income for little or no efforts, your downline IBOs must keep purchasing products and replacing IBOs who quit. If your downlines cannot keep up with the attrition rate, your business will collapse in a hurry. Come to think of it, if a diamond can walk away and collect a large income forever, why hasn't anyone done it? I mean we still see crown ambassadors still busy working functions and I don't know of any who walked away to spend their lives jet setting on the beaches of the world.

The sad reality is that you see new faces at meetings and functions, just as often as you see familiar faces disappear. With that kind of attrition rate, you may have to work even harder at the higher levels just to keep your business status quo. In Egypt, the slaves built the pyramids. Do you have enough slaves? What many Egyptologists find amazing is how the Egyptians were able to motivate the slaves to keep on going, doing backbreaking work all of their lives. The same can be said of a diamond level business (or higher)

Feeling Sorry?

 One of the things I recall as an Amway IBO myself was thinking how sorry I felt for people who were not IBOs because we were all going to be rich and everyone else was a loser. Our upline used to tell us that we were winners - and if you weren't a winner, then obviously, you are a loser. Many times, the term "broke" was attached to the term loser. That was my mindset back then, but having been out of the system more than 25 years, I can look back and laugh, realizing that the losers were the ones buying stuff they don't need, stalking people at malls and bookstores, and wasting their time and money on tapes (cds), books and functions. 

What goes unnoticed in many cases, is how much time and money really goes down the drain for IBOs who work the system. Your life revolves around the business if you are dedicated and hard core. You are always looking for prospects and people to show the plan to, and you have to rearrange your schedules, or outright skip social or family gatherings because of the never-ending number of meetings and functions, many of which teach you nothing about running a profitable business. When I first left the Amway business, I was sort of angry at the time and effort that was wasted, along with the cash I threw down the crapper.  Because uplines teach most IBOs to accept failure as their own fault. most people simply quit, blame themselves and walk away.  I decided to start blogging to help others avoid falling into the same trap that I did. 

But after I did finally cut ties with the business and the people associated with it, I got back into a routine of sorts. I focused on my job and after some years of gaining experience and working my way up the corporate ladder, I received some promotions, and I retired at the age of 55 with a decent retirement income and my house paid off.  So, while I did have to work a dreaded job to be able to retire, pretty much all IBOs are also working a job or business PLUS having to expend their time and money to run their Amway business which has little to no chance of providing a long term stable and significant income. And if I may add, it is the systems such as WWDB or N21 that usually end up costing the IBOs the most money because of things like the functions and tools.   

So, I will ask the question. Who's the real loser? The person diligently working and saving for their future or the person chasing a dream that is unlikely to materialize? Factoring in the expenditure of time also makes the systems even more costly than it appears on the surface. I feel sorry for IBOs.  They end up in a vicious cycle or meetings and functions and negative cash flow but they are fed lies that they are somehow successful in spite of obvious facts.  That's what the systems and the upline does to otherwise hard working and reasonable people.  It's sad.

Losers?

 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 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.  Not to mention that many IBOs themselves are actually "broke" which is why they joined Amway in the first place.  I can only imagine that many prospects are probably better off than the Amway IBOs who approach them.  LOL

The Evolution Of Amway Teaching?

 One of the things that is very clear. Many Amway recruits are shown fancy cars and toys, along with luxurious vacations and trappings and other extravagant luxuries, allegedly only available if you're an Amway diamond.  This is a way to get prospects excited and interested in signing up for the Amway opportunity. Many sign up, and soon enough, the excitement fades and they quit. Either that or the IBO sees monthly losses and no prospects of improvement and quits. Many do little or nothing. But what many people do not understand or realize is that there is a reason for this. Many do little or nothing, I suspect because the business is much harder to build than advertised.  And those who put forth effort ultimately fail because the system as taught, is designed that way.  For there to be a few high pins and the rest of the rank and file struggling and losing money.

Because Amway has a stigma in the US (and growing in other locations), finding prospects is a daunting task. Add in the high prices of Amway products and you have major challenges that IBOs simply cannot overcome. Most simply quit and fade away into society. Some, like me were lied to and abused, with upline leaders (WWDB)who were never held accountable for their actions. Thus, I blog so others may share my experiences, and anyone can decide if they wish to climb insurmountable challenges for a less than 1% chance of financial success.

What many leaders do is evolve their teachings. They start to teach their IBOs that the Amway opportunity may have made them nicer people, better fathers or husbands and other nice to hear stories because it covers up the fact that these IBOs are not making money. Sometimes I wonder how someone can be a better person by deceiving others about the business opportunity, or how you can be a better father or husband when Amway meetings become a priority over your family and friends. Or how you can be a nicer person and leave threatening messages on forums with those who disagree about Amway being a great business opportunity?

Rather than justifying your involvement or looking at side benefits, IBOs should be looking at their bottom line. If your Amway "Business" is not generating enough money to pay for your voicemail and other expenses and leaving you with a net profit, then what exactly is your upline teaching you that is worth the ongoing expense? If you are like most, you are told that Amway has little to no overhead and has little risk. Well, that becomes untrue after months pass by and you have spent hundreds if not thousands on support materials that do not deliver you a net profit. Additionally, your upline is making a nice income by selling you those support materials and advising you to buy more.

Are you new or a tenured IBO? Has your teaching from upline evolved away from making money as the bottom line? If so, what do you do next? I would run in the opposite direction.