A reader shares their Amway experience from 20 years ago. Apparently back then Amway cult leaders didn’t sling out insults to the downline and call them losers. What’s stayed the same? The Amway tool scam and losing money. Does anyone know if this Amway cult sect is still around or did they move over to another scam MLM?
It doesn't sound as though much has changed in 20
years. We were in from 1997-1999 (INA, West Coast) and faithfully attended
every major and local function for those 3 years.
There was mention in an earlier post about "the company" providing
accounting services. Sure they will-- yours and your downline monthly PV/BV and
bonus checks. You want to keep track of your "real" business
expenses-- travel, tools, etc.-- you do it yourself.
I'm enjoying your site very much. But I am going to share with you three
positives that came out of my all-too-typical money-losing experience with
Amway.
1. Education in the school of hard knocks. No classroom, no professor, no
curriculum can possibly match the real-world experience of going into
strangers' homes and showing "The Plan." You learn to do this without
fear, you can do ANYTHING! When you are confronted eye-to-eye by the 6'3"
boyfriend of your prospect, who says, "If I think you're scammin' my girl,
I'm'a drag you out on the front lawn and kick your ass," -- and you end up
sponsoring them both!-- after that you can stand up in front of a crowd of a
thousand people and do a professional presentation with no fear.
Less than a year after leaving the business, I took a job in professional
presales that boosted my income by 40%, and I was successful at it. This was
nothing compared to Amway!
2. The business, as originally conceived, can indeed provide you with a steady
residual second income. But YOU MUST SELL PRODUCTS, and so must your downline.
I can't count the number of times I heard a Diamond or Emerald say,
"Shoot, all you gotta do is buy from your own store, show others how to do
the same, and you can retire in three to five years." That is bullshit.
Our LOS constantly talked about "duplication": "Your downline
will hear what you say, but they'll DO what you DO." How true! And unless
you are making a profit, even a small one, on retail products every month, you
are duplicating a money-losing business. You have to move enough product at
retail to cover ALL your expenses or you are losing money! The failure to
emphasize sales-- heck, the word "sales" is mentioned even less than
the word "Amway" at functions-- has killed this business. The genius
of the original model is that even a small retail profit can and will multiply
into a much larger steady income IF your downline retails like you do.
3. Our upline LOS was always supportive, we never took any abuse or were called
"losers" by them even though we struggled and never got above 600PV.
Some remain our friends to this day. All have either abandoned the business or
started additional businesses or taken jobs (even the Diamonds).
To sum it up. We lost money. We were disillusioned by the "tools"
scam. We were never taught to retail and build a profitable business. We saw
evidence of corruption and conflict of interest at the top leadership level.
But overall the experience was positive. The personal growth was worth the
money we lost.
This was just heartbreaking in its own way. Just imagine what this person might have accomplished if they'd taken a sales job that wasn't actually a thinly-disguised veneer of respectability on top of a total and complete scam.
ReplyDeleteWhatever good someone might think comes out of MLM scams, be it products or sales techniques, they can find it elsewhere for far less. Remember, always, that MLMs don't care if their victims learn to sell stuff. All they care about is that their victims open their wallets wide. Whatever else those victims bring out of their experience is irrelevant to MLM leaders and uplines alike.
I bet to even get that much, this writer must have had to unlearn a whole lot of *bad* sales techniques too.
Cas
I agree Cas. It's something I noticed inside the Amway cult that if some of those Ambots had applied the same devotion to a legitimate business they'd have accomplished a lot. Also that there are ex-Ambots out there that still think Amway and other MLM is a good idea. And they got something out of it.
DeleteMost education comes at a price. If the money a person spent on Amway educates them not to get taken in by another scam then that was an education they paid for.
Anyone who's been in the Amway cult has to unlearn all those bad sales techniques like insulting and sneering at your potential customers.