For people who have taken small
business ownership/entrepreneur courses one of the things we’re taught is to
create a business plan. We’re also told that we should be pulling out our
business plan every 6 months or every year and looking it over and making any
changes in our services, products, goals, etc.
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. Or shorter. Or in the case
of Amway pretend businesses: non-existent.
Business plans - your business blueprint - your plan for success - generally
follows the same pattern:
1. 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.
2. Business philosophy - description of industry, description of the business, vision statement, mission statement, business goals
3. Operations plan - business structure, human resources structure, production methods, service delivery, strategic alliances, risk assessment, licenses, insurance, and regulations.
4. Marketing plan - products or service description, industry analysis, competitive analysis, target market description, market strategies, selling strategies
5. Financial Plan - projected cash flow, projected income statement, balance sheet, personal financial information
6. 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 the money 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.
Amway and its various AMO offshoots CAN'T have a genuine business plan, because of the complete dishonesty of the entire Amway racket. If they were to write down precisely the truth about making money in Amway, people would see immediately that it is a fraud.
ReplyDeleteHere's the REAL Amway business plan:
1) Convince as many jerks as possible to sign up underneath you as your "down-line."
2) Make sure they buy at least 100 PV worth of Amway products every month, without fail, plus paying a lot of other incidental fees.
3) Convince all of them to become "CORE," and to buy endless tapes and CDs and printed material through you, as well as coming to every meeting and function that the AMO holds.
4) Get them to recruit new IBOs to be their down-line, and let those people follow the same pattern as outlined above.
That's it. That's the real Amway business plan.
Let's see if some Amway jerk has the nerve to come here and deny it.
Anonymous - that about covers the Amway IBO business plan LOL! Won't even take up half a page to write it down. The Amway "business plan" is designed for failure. Over 99% of participants following the Amway "business plan" will not make money but they're all guaranteed to lose lots of money in the pursuit of going Diamond.
DeleteWow. You got by lucky. In URA, we had to buy 300 PV so at least $900 a month in products or we would get yelled at by our Upline Emerald. Boy, do I feel like an idiot. But I feel smarter now in being a self-made millionaire about three years after being involved in Amway.
DeleteAnonymous - thanks for stopping by to let us know there is successful life after Amway. Yup get out of the Amway cult that sucks your money and your brain cells and there'll be a better chance of increasing your net worth.
DeleteWhen we were in WWDB buying 100PV a month was the absolute *minimum* the fucking assholes in the Amway upline would let you get away with. All month long and especially at the end of the month there would be phone calls and texts bullying Ambot to buy more Amway shit so I'd say it was closer to buying $1000 worth of useless overpriced Amway shit on the worst month.