Amway Cult Lingo Sets Off Cult Alarms

A reader shares their story of their friend getting sucked into ScAmway and ends it with some great advice:

My friend (let’s call him “Jack”) got involved with Amway about a year after we’d both graduated college. I went to visit him, and he told me that he’d started his own business. I was excited about this; during college (we were both in food science) we’d talked about maybe someday opening a cheese shop, and he’d also developed a soft drink that I thought maybe he’d sold to somebody. But nope! Not a food science related business. Well, okay then, Jack, what is your business going to be selling? Businesses can make money one of two ways, either by selling a product or by providing a service, so what exactly would the business be doing?

He seemed to dance around the question, which I thought was weird but after having read up about Ambots, I now realize was something he was trained to do. He basically said that he’d be teaching other people how to start their own businesses.

Keep in mind that he wasn’t a business major, and this was his first year out of college. He’d never started his own business before this point. While Jack is extremely personable, he doesn’t have the technical knowledge or experience to be training anyone in entrepreneurship.

And he still hadn’t explained how he was going to make money off of this; I asked if people would be paying for his mentorship, and he said no. After prying for probably 15 minutes, he finally revealed that this was. . . *trumpet sound* Amway! And that him “owning his own business” was, in actuality, a commission-based salesman position.

“But Jack, do you really want to run a business where you’re selling people granola bars and laundry soap?” I know Jack pretty well; we had a brother-sister type relationship back in college. I really couldn’t picture Jack being happy being a salesman. Jack pooh-pooh’ed this; he didn’t care about selling the products. And then he revealed what really drew him to this “business”: Financial Freedom.

He then jumped into a bizarre rant that didn’t sound like him at all (again, the culty lingo slipping in and hijacking any actual thought) about how when you go to work, your boss is exploiting you to get rich, and he’s so sick of being in debt, and it’s ridiculous to work a 9-5 grind.

This seemed pretty absurd to me at face value; I get paid when I go to work, and my efforts aren’t lining my boss’s pockets, they’re assisting the company to grow (which would also allow for people like me to get raises). If I did feel like my boss wasn’t paying me fairly and was lining his pockets instead of doing the right thing, I would quit and find a better company. This isn’t Victorian-era London; I have options if my workplace sucks, and I don’t find the expectation of working 40 hours a week totally irrational; people have always worked in order to live. As for debt, yeah student loans can suck, but Jack was making more than $60K, again, right out of college, and based on his apartment he certainly wasn’t suffering.

But oh, “financial freedom.” The beautiful euphemism for “being rich.” As far as I could gather, that’s Jack’s one and only motivation. I asked “but will this job make you happy?” “Being financially free will make me happy.” “Is this a company you can really support? Do you back their products? Do you see them as ethical?” “I see them as a way to become financially free.” He actually got frustrated with me, asking questions about if this is really going to be a fulfilling way to make a living-- because apparently the only thing to consider in your employment is the $$$.

After he vehemently explained how Amway is totally-not-a-pyramid-scheme after I suggested that it looked and sounded like one, I went back to my hotel for the night but rejoined Jack for breakfast the next morning. While eating breakfast, we listened to an Amway tape (or MP3?). Immediately my “this is a cult!” alarm went off; the audio first asked you to visualize your success (“success” meaning having a fancy car and traveling the world, not “success” in the sense that you’ve created a business that improves society, gives you personal fulfillment, or creates real employment opportunities for others), and then told the listener that the only way to achieve their “success” was to CONTINUE LISTENING TO THE TAPES. Gee, an authority figure telling you that you need to continue listening to an authority figure in order to get what you want? That doesn’t sound cult-like AT ALL.

At that point, I could take no more. I brought up my concerns to Jack, that the tape gave no business advice at all, that he wasn’t actually passionate about the business, just the money, and a statistic I’d read the night before, that 99% or so of all MLM distributors actually LOSE money. He got upset by this, but to his credit did not accuse me of being a dream-stealer or negative person (though I’m pretty sure he thinks I am one; I’m pretty cynical and skeptical and am fairly suspicious of people telling me to be happy all the time (which with my depression is not even possible)). He DID however say that those 99% of people just weren’t trying hard enough, and HE would succeed where they failed because he wouldn’t give up like THEY did.

Again, cult-alarm. If someone says to you “If you do X, you will get results Y” and you try X and do not get Y, normally that would mean there’s a problem with the premise. In cults, especially cults of positivity, the response is always “Well, you just weren’t trying hard enough.” It’s always, always, ALWAYS “your fault” in a cult if you aren’t happy with the results, because a cult exists to perpetuate itself, not to actually provide you with help or answers.

He let me express my concerns and dismissed them, though interestingly he said his parents said about the same things I did. I went back home, a little disappointed; honestly I do think it would be fun to open a cheese-shop with Jack, but I am very unimpressed with his business ethics if he thinks Amway is a good thing. Jack fortunately didn’t try to bombard me with Ambot products or anything like that, but his facebook feed got REALLY annoying for the next two months. He constantly shared “Positivity!” memes, many of which were extremely judgmental (because being critical and actually bringing up problems in order to address them is something only “negative” and “unsuccessful people” do, and people who watch TV are “unsuccessful” while people who read are “successful”. . .even if the TV watcher is enjoying documentaries and the reader is enjoying a shitty romance novel, we can TOTALLY make broad generalizations about “successful” and “unsuccessful” behaviors). He would also share stories about people who have been “on vacation” for three years or something dumb like that. There were a number of other posts, too, often with a lot of disdain for people who work “normal jobs.” Do Ambots ever realize that the people who make their overpriced products work normal jobs? Do they realize that their “road to financial freedom” is only possible because there are a lot of people out there who are willing to work in manufacturing jobs for 8-12 hours a day? Biting the hand that feeds you, is all I’m saying.

It’s especially ironic because those factory workers-- all of them-- will be bringing home net profits from their work, even if they’re making minimum wage. Amway reps? Less than 1% of them are actually making anything.

Jack and I don’t talk a lot anymore; he’s busy living his life and I’ve got mine, but I recently got married and my sister-in-law is also an Ambot-- and my husband is starting to feel the draw as well. Sigh. Again, the motivation with them is pretty much the same as it was for Jack: sheer, unadulterated greed. Money makes a lot of things easier, but it doesn’t actually make people happy, and it’s frustrating to see my SIL waste SO much money on this-- especially since this is 2017 (** yes it was 8 years ago when this was written!!***), and it’s really, really easy to start up a legitimate small business, often with very little to no startup costs. I started a coloring book business as an extension of my hobby of drawing, and aside from the hundred bucks to register an LLC it has cost me nothing to run or maintain and has even brought in a few dollars on some months. Small businesses are not hard to build nowadays, and with my SIL’s talents she could be doing a lot more than pretend she’s a business owner when she’s actually a salesperson for Amway.

To all of you out there considering Amway-- THERE ARE BETTER AND EASIER WAYS OF MAKING MONEY! Whether you’re starting your own business or not, make sure you’re picking something that makes you happy at your job, not just happy with your paycheck. Pick something that makes your corner of the world a bit better of a place, pick something that you can stand behind and be proud of-- even if others sneer at you having a “J.O.B.” You’ve only got one life and you should live it in a way that you’re happy with; don’t let Amway use greed to corrupt your dreams of being happy with dreams of being rich.