Financial Commitment for Amway’s URA Cult Sect

Thanks to one of our readers for giving a breakdown of costs during the time he was inside the Amway cult. Specifically the URA sect. This is from a few years ago so the prices have gone up. That’s the only thing that changes in ScAmway. Prices keep going up.

 

Speaking of screwing people over, I wanted to post costs as to one may incur if they join my old organization; URA (specifically in the Northern Virginia/Washington DC/Maryland area). The costs for other organizations around the country and around the World may vary.

I am submitting this in two parts are this post was too large to submit in one.

Feel free to post this information in its own post so that potential prospects can see the financial commitment they are indirectly being asked to make. Of course Upline will never tell people the actual costs and; in fact, they tell IBOs concerned with their finances are often told to “not count costs.” What business owners do not count costs? Bad ones, apparently.

These were the minimum annual costs as of about three years ago so mileage may vary. I will also mention hourly commitment but not associate costs as some people value their own time differently.

Here we go (prices as of December 31, 2018):

Annual Amway Membership - $62
Monthly URA Membership - $53.75 (There is a cheaper option at $39.95 plus processing but Upline isn’t allowed to sell you that as they don’t get credit. IBOs can select the cheapest option but might catch crap from their Upline for doing so.)
Quarterly Conferences - $93 per conference (Winter Conference, Spring Leadership, Summer Conference, Free Enterprise Day)
Hotel Room for Conference - Minimum $60 per conference (if you are jammed five people to a room)
Parking per Conference - Minimum of $20 per conference
Weekly Meetings (Business Briefings) - $5 (however, depending on some meeting locations, they can range as high as $10 per week)
Biannual Seminars - $15 per (Upline will encourage people to attend multiple seminars)
Biannual Team Meetings - $5 per meeting (just a way for URA to squeeze in another meeting to offset quarters where seminars are not held…usually done for “conference prep” but “conference prep” is generally done during the business briefing prior to conferences)

Total out of pocket costs before buying any Amway products: $1,699

Now here comes the fun part…buying products!

URA used to push the, “URA Standard” of 300 points by the 5th of the month. Leadership openly told us at a conference that they could no longer use that term anymore so they were going with, “URA Recommendation.” Plus, they tinkered with different phrases such as, “500 by the 5th” and then “500 by the 1st”. Oh, and you will get ripped if you don’t process a Ditto on the 1st of each month or even a small Ditto on the 1st of each month.

So with no customers and even a small Ditto and/or do a total 100 points a month, that’s at least $300 a month for $3,600 a year. If you go buy 300 points worth of product, that’s at least $900 a month and $10,800 a year.

In addition, you will have to buy books and audios to hand out or send out to your prospects. When I was in URA, we would have to send out a Greg Duncan (yes, THAT Greg Duncan from WWDB) audio called, “Financial Stability in the 21st Century.” After being able to send out a free version audio to your first potential IBO, you have to start buying them at $3 a pop in order to send them out.

As far as time goes (and I gauge these timeframes really conservatively). This does NOT include driving or travel time:

Weekly IBO Meetings - Minimum 3 Hours = 160 Hours
Weekly Phone Team - Minimum 3 Hours = 156 Hours
Biannual Seminars - Minimum 4 Hours = 8 Hours
Biannual Team Meetings - Minimum 4 Hours = 8 Hours
Quarterly Conferences - Minimum 25 Hours = 100 Hours
Various Meetings at Upline’s Place (Nuts & Bolts, Covered Dishes, Summer Games, Christmas Project) = Minimum 25 Hours Annually

Total Minimum Time Commitment (does not account for showing the plan and prospects meetings and followups): 1077 Hours (just over 27 40-hour work weeks.) This doesn’t even account for the time to go out and prospect IBOs.

So overall, you’re looking at a minimum financial commitment in the range of $5,133.40 to $12,333.40 to be in Amway as a part of URA as of 2018 (and that’s if you only do 100 points a month with the lowest cost membership) while (if you attend all events) having a minimum event time commitment of 1,077 Hours (not all-inclusive as this doesn’t include prospecting or gas in the car, or wear and tear for your car…but you must “attend all events”).

This also means that at the absolute minimum once you break down the numbers, you need to make $427.79 a month from Amway just to cover the costs that I mentioned (a small Ditto of yourself buying product along with the event costs) and that does not include the costs of extra audios and extra books they want you to purchase.

So there you have it. A large time commitment. I encourage those who read this to put a dollar figure on your time (maybe equate it to the hourly rate at your normal job). And the financial commitment is considerable as well even though you will be told that “no one else can own a business for ‘$62’ a year.

And finally, I remind you that these are numbers for one group from late 2018. Who knows what falling membership numbers and inflation have done to that group and others?