For all the Amway business meetings we attended and all the lack of real business advice that was never given (silly us to actually expect to receive good business advice at a “business meeting”!) never once did I hear any Platinum, Emerald, or Diamond speaker tell the IBO’s to create a business plan. The only “plan” ever discussed was to “duplicate your upline”.
Yeah well that don’t really cut it in the real life business world. If you see a bank officer about a loan you will need to bring a business plan and financial statements with you and not your upline Eagle who had to take time off his ditch digging job and is still wearing his grubbies to accompany you to the bank to share this exciting opportunity where the money will be rolling in faster than it can be counted. Don’t need no stinking business plan when you bring a sharp Amway businessman along with you!
Ambot never created a business plan for Amway therefore there was no plan for success.
Our real business plan for our real business was 50 pages long but depending on the complexity of the business and products or services offered other business plans could be much longer.
Business plans - your business blueprint - your plan for success - generally follows the same pattern:
- Executive summary - the name of your business, address, owners, and summarizes what the business does, who the customers might be, and expenses. These will be covered in more detail later in the business plan.
- Business philosophy - description of industry, description of the business, vision statement, mission statement, business goals
- Operations plan - business structure, human resources structure, production methods, service delivery, strategic alliances, risk assessment, licenses, insurance, and regulations.
- Marketing plan - products or service description, industry analysis, competitive analysis, target market description, market strategies, selling strategies
- Financial Plan - projected cash flow, projected income statement, balance sheet, personal financial information
- Appendices - action plan, resume, business outline, etc.
None of the above was ever taught during any Amway “business meeting”.
I did a Google search for a business plan MLM company selling soap and I actually got some hits. I was even curious enough to look at one. The company had a different business name but for all I know it was a pseudonym for Amway.
Serious business owners create business plans. For all the talk I heard about Amway IBO’s being “serious business builders” I never heard of anyone in our LOS who put together a business plan. I’m not saying its impossible for a serious Amway business builder to create a business plan but I doubt it will fly especially when it will be full of Amway speak learned from their upline, tapes, and CD’s instead of legitimate business information. Imagine filling in the competitive analysis portion of the business plan. Here’s where the IBO compares prices of similar products already established in the marketplace. The best they can do is show that similar products are sold at Costco and Wal-Mart for a lower price. “Oh but our products are much higher quality and that gives them an edge in the marketplace.” Subjective, debatable, and doubtful. And the bank loans officer doesn’t give a shit.
If you want to be considered a serious business owner, choose a legitimate business, create a business plan, present it to others, and get feedback on how likely success will be in this venture. Ambot never created an Amway business plan to show to other people - friends, family, business owners, and bankers to get objective third party opinions before slapping down $150 for the Amway registration and starter kit. I’d say his experience is similar to most Amway IBO’s.
What do they say about the importance of having a business plan? If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Likewise if you get involved with Amway no matter what you plan - you will fail.
A business plan is fundamental to success in a competitive market. Anna Banana has outlined the basics of a business plan rather well and she is quite correct in her assertion that those who fail to plan also plan to fail.
ReplyDeleteOnly in The Business will an individual hear that having a Plan-B is a bad thing. The very most successful business owners that I know of not only have a Primary Plan, but they have an Alternate, a Contingency, and an Emergency Plan as well. For lack of a more detailed description, this method of planning is considered nothing more than being a prudent course of action in the modern business world.
However, in The Business, it is considered anything but prudent to plan in this manner. To do such a thing as this is considered to be entirely too negative. In The Business, only a Plan-A is required, which is then provided support by direct counsel from an individual's Upline. Duplicate your Upline is the plan and if you are Plugged-In and duplicate well enough, you are then guaranteed never to fail. If you'll but follow this simple plan, then all are advised that they cannot fail in The Business.
I'm not aware of a single enterprise in the history of the world that did not contend with the chance of failure...that is, except for The Business?
What most are never told and that most never realize is that the real plan is that you simply never quit, you never quit, but you must of course remain fully Plugged-In. Keeping people Plugged-In is the true plan of The Business. This is where fortunes are made. Yes, it's true, there are fortunes that are truly made in this way, but they most often won't be made by you.
Being Plugged-In feels good, it allows many to defray the responsibility of critical thinking and analytical thought/action. A Plan? Yes, there is a plan and those who dream of and pursue walking the beaches of the world are very much apart of it. In this you may trust.
Do your homework and once you've discerned what you honestly think about the matter, then listen to your own good counsel because it's most probably, very likely, right on the money! You are intelligent?
Thanks Anonymous. Actually I had to pull out my business plan to check on something and seeing as how I had it out I just went through the table of contents and put the basic outline into this post!
ReplyDeleteOur arrogant prick sponsor often talked about Plan B and it wasn't until after I read Merchants of Deception that I found out the Plan B thing is no-no speak in the Amway world.
You're quite right. Most business owners keep their options open for other money making opportunities and other services or products they can add to their business to create more revenue streams. For example a lot of landscapers offer snow removal service during the winter months when mowing the lawn can't be done. Or else they relocate during the winter months to Arizona or Florida or somewhere that grass grows year round and needs to be mowed.
That's a good point. The only business plan that Amway speakers need to convince their followers to do is never quit.
Are you asking if I'm intelligent or was that just a throw out piece of advice to everyone reading that last paragraph? Ha ha!
It was a comment to everyone. ;-)
ReplyDeleteHey Anna, long time reader, you are so right on the money about Amway not having a business plan other than not quitting. Infact that's actually the prevalent mindset in ALL MLM's. What kind of business do you run? Did anyone in Amway actually try to contribute to your own business since they were acting "friendly" and stuff? lol
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by Cashbackguru! Anyone who starts up any business gets in with the hope that it will make money. Not all business meet that expectation so the owner has to make a decision when to cut their losses and close down and quit. Amway upline says just keep losing your money, throw good money after bad, but don't ever quit. If you quit you will no longer be a business owner. Stupid. No financial advisor would give anyone that advice if a business wasn't turning a profit after a reasonable period of time. Our upline wanted freebies all the time. Not necessarily business related but more like free labor - housework, yardwork, chauffeur - that type of thing. I was never interested in providing free labor for the "privilege" of getting to spend time with the upline. Now if Brad Pitt wanted me to drive him around town for free that would be a different story!
ReplyDeleteOne important element of a well written Business Plan is SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
ReplyDeleteLet's write this for a typical Amway 'business":
Strength: Learn how to brainwash others to believe the most incredible bullshit and duplicate it too!
Weakness: Aren't any. 'Nuff said.
Opportunities: Evangelise the world about Amway's wonderful "Opportunity".
Threats: Losers, such as JoeCool and Anna Banana, who obviously were too lazy to make this Amazing Opportunity work, spreading their lies about how it's a scam, scam, scam.
Have I missed anything??
Connie - if you keep it up someone is going to accuse you of being another one of Steadson's aliases!
ReplyDeleteYour SWOT list is right on!