Amway Case Studies
"...find me one guy, anywhere who has put in the kind of time we talk about and hasn't generated the life style that you get discussed when you get shown the business. You won't find them."
Double Diamond-Greg Duncan-tape: "EDC Attitude" RP419
"If there are a lot people out here right now that you are working your butt off, and you are saying "Ok Rocky I'm showing the plan 5-6 nights a week. I'm meeting people. I'm calling people, but I'm not getting the results I want". Your work ethic is right, but thinking stinks. You got Stinking Thinking!"
Diamond Distributor - Rocky Convington-Tape: BPB-201
last updated 6/30/04
Many business schools use the case study method to quickly give students overviews and experiences in a diverse number of business conditions and problems, which could normally only be accumulated over a long period of time. Basically case studies are learning from "history". In the same light, this web site brings to you case studies of people who have worked the plan to the "T", but have failed to realize the income and success promised by the plan. This page will be one sided since there is so much information from die-hard distributors about the success side of Amway. Just look at any Profiles of Success Book, for the other side.
If you were in Amway showing the plan ten times or more per month and it didn't work for you, you can have your story posted here. This can help others make a rational decision about the effort required and probability of becoming successful as an Amway distributor.
Scott,
My wife and I got "involved" in Amway, and we regret it in the worst way.
Four years ago a friend I hadn't seen in years called us and said that he wanted to come and see our house that we had just bought. We said sure, and he and his wife showed up at our place all dressed up. Immediately I knew what was up. This guy had been involved in numerous other mlm's.
Anyway, he shows up at our place and shows us the "plan". My wife gets excited and I say fine if you want to do it, we'll get one of those kit things. All of the questions that I asked went unanswered, to be answered later. Our sponsor would only say he would answer our questions when we were ready. It seemed very shady, but we went on. Then we went to our first major function. It was a Randy Haugen family reunion. In spite of myself I got pumped. It all seemed so smooth. I got scammed. For the next 3 years we did everything that we were told. We went to every seminar and rally. We showed the plan 10 to 15 times per month, except those months that we stopped and said we were are all the people. We followed the system to the "t". We did sponsor people. When they saw the requirements to succeed that we pulled on them after they broke their kits, they all quit. You know the system, the ten things: buy 5 tapes per month, a book a month, a couple of videos a month, worship your upline like they are deity, etc. etc. We did all that. We were told to keep doing what we were doing because it was all going to pay off. We kept going. Our upline diamond, was a mere 5 distributor's above us, would have these little brainwashing meetings. He would keep us up until 2 or 3 in the morning on a weeknight to tell us about his nice fancy cars, his R.V. coach, and how much he paid for them. We would hang on his every word, as if he was speaking some secret to us so that we could go diamond.
It was all a big joke. The joke was on us. We spent every penny to go to functions because the tapes said to do that. It is a subtle form of brainwashing. But, contrary to anyone's retort, it is brainwashing. I personally know distributor's who were some of the most religious people that I have ever met, who are now more interested in the almighty dollar. I have seen personal example of parents neglecting to get their kids new shoes because they were delaying their gratification. It is the biggest joke I have ever experienced.
Amway is based on a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Don't ask your upline how their business is going, because that would be "crosslining." This is ridiculous, and a front for the upline being too embarrassed to truly say where their business stands. After all, they have been in for seven years and they are currently doing 1500 PV. One month they did buy $3000 worth of water treatment systems and vacuums, because they wanted to go silver so badly. They still have the product, and are still trying to sell it. But, hey, they are 4000 pins.
Don't tell your "prospects" and "suspects" more than they are prepared to know. This in essence means; don't lie to them if they come right out and say "is it Amway?", Don't answer that question directly. Say "Why? What have you heard about Amway?" Also, don't tell your downline where you business is at, because after all you are at 2500 pv after 3 disenchanting years. You wouldn't want to discourage them. You want them to think hey my upline is a 2500 and therefore they must be tearing it up. You never want them to know the truth.
Scott, as you can see, I can get really upset about this business. I have been 100% honest in everything I have said. Amway is about to unveil Quixtar. Do not be fooled. It is the same thing. You have every tax "benefit" that you had in Amway. These include many of these "legitimate" business expenses; mileage at .31 cents per mile, all meals while out "building" the business, clothing (if you had to but three new suits and new ties), all tools (which is the biggest scam of the distributors in this business), etc. etc.etc.
You still will not get straight answers if you ask what is it. You will be misled. You will in some cases be lied to. You will still be asked to come to business meetings at the Little America hotel to see a business plan in which the emerald will make grandiose claims that Bill Gates himself has been endorsing Amway as the future of business. There will be no explanation of this business meeting before the meeting, because the only thing worse than a 'no' after the plan, is a 'no' before the plan. There will still be uplines that will totally screw you over for tools, which they currently do now.
My sponsor used to say to us that if you do enough of the right things for a long time you success is guaranteed, which means, buy tapes, books, videos, a board and easel, and every other tool to insure your success. Who benefited from the literally thousands of dollars that we spent on tools, that I now have collecting dust in my basement? My upline, including Randy, Don and "Dex". If you feel that it should be expected because you are building a legitimate business, you have been brainwashed. I don't give a "rip" (whatever that is), what they say to the contrary. I do want to say that there has been one benefit of me buying the books that I did. The books that were written by men like Dale Carnegie and David Schwartz, have been invaluable to me. They have helped me so much in my career, and with many of the decisions that I made since my awakening.
What caused my wife and I to question the business, which ultimately led to us taking a close look at what Amway had changed in our lives? I received a tape of the week that totally changed my life for the better. On the tape the wife was talking about the price that they had to pay to go diamond.
She said that they would drive 200 miles to the nearest "big" town to show the plan. They had three kids and could seldom find a baby sitter. So they took the kids with them and the kids stayed in the car for the hour or more that the couple was inside painting a glamorous picture of what Amway had done for their family, and how excited they were for the future. Then they would get back into their car, drive the 200 miles back home and get to bed at 3 or 4 in the morning. Now just stop and think about that for a minute. This was in Canada and it was all year long. The wife said that she kind of felt wrong about leaving them in the subfreezing temperatures, but they had a dream one day they would be diamonds. She said they would just wrap them up in blankets, and let them sleep. It completely blows my mind. It shows the mentality of the business. You pay a price in Amway, and after hearing that I decided that I didn't want to pay that price. Again, there will be people who read this and will justify to them selves that not everyone does this. They will say, "this business is the best thing on the planet for creating millionaires." they will claim that "the business is headed in a new direction", They can now wear casual clothes to show the plan. blah, blah, blah. It doesn't matter what you say to justify what you do to build the business.
If that doesn't bother others, as it did me, then my prayers are with them.
I could go on about the reasons why I feel Amway is a cult because of the mind-control and deceptive practices the upline uses. If you are not a direct or above you need to check with some of the other web sights that have been put out by emeralds that have been in the business and the amounts of money that they made off of tools. It angers me. "Oh, but there is the investment, and if there is no price there can be no prize." I agree with this statement. The greater the price the greater the prize. However in Amway, the prize will not be realized for 98% of all of those who break a kit. That says it all. "Oh, but think of all the friends that I have made. The friendships have made all the disappointment and rejection worth it." I say to you who feel this way, you could join the vacation of the month club, see the world, meet hundreds of new friends, and pay as much as you have been paying to have your mind controlled and your wallet emptied. For those of you who might read this and are thinking of becoming a part of Amway, I want you to carefully consider all that I have said to you in this letter.
This letter is 100% honest and straight from the heart. I would challenge you to make of copy of this letter and take it to your upline to see what he or she has to say about it. They will dismiss it as rubbish. Ask them how long have you been in the business? Ask them what their average PV level has been each month. Some of you will be impressed because your potential sponsor is a direct or above. Most of you will have an eyebrow raising experience, and you will question why. Many of you sadly will get no response from your questions, and what does that say to you about a business that teaches it's leaders to withhold information because it will discourage 90% of the people from getting involved.
It says to me that there is a reason not to get involved. THIS IS NOT SOUR GRAPES. No one has offended us. I have been in a hot tub on the side of the mountain in Ogden Utah numerous times. We have been on the "jet". We have been in the coach going to meetings and to dinner. We have walked through the multi-million dollar homes. We have been in the Hummer, and the Mercedes, and the custom Suburban. I have experienced it all. I have seen the evidence of this business providing an extremely comfortable living, for a couple of families.
I have also seen the parents of three little girls "delay their gratification", by not buying their kids new shoes, when the old ones were falling apart and were too small, all in the sake of having enough for their weekly tool purchases, or going to the next major function. I have seen more problems that this business has caused, than I have seen people that it has helped. If they can argue with me on that, go right ahead. In the long run, if their house is built upon the sand the house will ultimately fall. If they deceive, lie, and cheat, they will ultimately pay a much higher price. We were very successful, until our groups saw the price they had to pay, and the money that they spent on tools and products, and the price for shipping and handling, etc. etc. etc.
We still have a group. We renewed and then regretted it. Since we have been in our upline pearls were kicked out of the business, and our directs quit. Now the only thing between our double diamond and us is a silver. Some of you reading this are thinking wow what an opportunity to be that close to the source. We are so close that we have seen the benefits of the business for the select few, and have run in the other direction. Your success is guaranteed. The price includes, alienating your close friends and family. Spending all your money on tools, (unless you don't give in to the guilt trips that you'll never succeed if you don't buy them all.) and not to mention the tax scam. It means leaving your kids for hours and hours at night to chase your dreams. What about your children's dreams? Ultimately you will look back after so much money and so much time had been wasted and you will regret ever being involved. There are other things out there besides Amway. I'm not talking about MLM's,
either. Don't let yourself be brainwashed. I know how it feels to wake-up after three years to ask "what were we thinking?"To skip to the end of our Amway experience, we finally decided to stop doing what we were doing. In our minds it was only going to be for a short time, but we began to wake up. I never had any negative, unless you count all of my former friends that cringed when they saw me coming. I never went online to a negative sight. I started to use my common sense. It has been very humbling and it is hard for me to write about it because it hurt us bad. I wanted to write this to you because your sight is right on. There are other things that I have information about, that you may find amusing at least. If nothing else I hope that my experience can help someone else. Don't listen to the crap. You can paint a skunk pink (Amway to Quixtar), but it is still a skunk and it still stinks!
We need to spread the message!
Here are some FACTS about when I was building the business:
I got in June 1994; I did nothing for the first 4 months (meaning I went to plans and my upline only showed about 6
people for me. When I started to build the business hard I was showing 3-4 plans a week for 3.5 years. After a period of time I had about 4 "core guys" who were out there as much as me. The highest pin I reached was 2500PV. I was at most 20 people wide and 8 deep; most of them did nothing.
The most I've made in 1 month was $697, that same month I spent over $1000 (bought 2 water treatment systems to push me over that pin, as my upline advised me to do so). The average income I received was between $40-$200 a month.
The average week in my Amway Business:
Sunday - 7:00pm-9:30 Phone Team (everyone got together to call prospects)
10:30pm-1:30am - Night owl (we would meet at a coffee shop and listen to our upline speak all night)
Monday - 6:00pm-7:00pm - An appointment or call prospects
7:00pm-9:00pm - Place orders, do paperwork, call everyone regarding orders, if people did not have an order I would guilt them into ordering, etc.
Tuesday - 7:00pm-11:30pm - Open meeting & training afterwards (we would invite people and show them the Amway Concept)
Wednesday - 1-2 appointment(s) (show someone the business personally)
Go out "contacting" with people in my group (basically walking around making conversation with people, etc.)
Thursday 7:30pm-12:00am Large open meeting (invite prospects to see the Amway concept) & training
12:00am-2:00am - Night-owl at a coffee shop (our upline would guilt us into working harder if there weren't enough guests)
Friday - 6:00-7:30 - Product pickup - would organize products, pick them up, give them to downline etc.
7:30-11:30 - would go contacting, after the malls closed, I would go to the airport etc.
Saturday - 1-2 hours contacting
1 appointment (showing someone the business) & 1 of the following
5:00pm-9:00pm - Team Meeting
9:30pm-12:00 - would go to a restaurant with everyone, and talk about our amazing "future" or
2:00pm-5:00pm - Seminar (guest speaker would come)
8:00pm-11:00pm - Rally
11:30pm-2:00am - Night-owl
Other than doing this I had no life, and no REAL friends.
In here please note I did not include travel time, in most cases I drove 1.2 hours each way to the plans, etc. I worked out my gas usage in my 3rd year of business, it was $7400!! This does not include the wear and tear on my car which now has 260 000kms from 20 000kms, and I can't afford a newer car now.
I spent money on:
- Tapes ($10 each Canadian) (have over a thousand!!)
- Books (ranged in cost)
- Functions ($75US + $110 bus ticket + $30US hotel room & etc costs)
***WATCH OUT HERE - my upline organized the bus and hotel room, and make over $20 a person from this without telling us!!!!!!!*** They also make money on the function itself.
- Paid for new peoples functions if they could afford it
- Clothing (Required suits & shirts & shoes etc.) as I wore them every day in my Amway Business.
- Gas in my car not to mention the cost of the car
- phone bills, etc.
- I had to deal with all the people not paying me for products etc. and ripping me off. ****PLEASE NOTE: If your downline rips of the Amway corporation (i.e. credit card fraud, not returning a product, etc) Amway comes after YOU, the upline for that money, It comes directly off YOUR PV check!!!!***
- they are too many more expenses to list, but the biggest one is the isolation factor!! The people "in the business." only care about you if are in!! Humm....
Hope this helps someone...
We got into the business in February of 1997. From the start we did everything our upline told us to do. We got in on a Sunday night and had tickets for the monthly function the following weekend. We broke our first kit that week and already had a "house" meeting at another couples home.
This was the norm within our group. We took turns (even with crossline) having meetings at our home and bringing prospects to them. It made the meetings seem much larger as new prospects could not figure out who was there to see the plan and who was there to fill it. We got on tape of the week plus one and book of the month. Even though the tapes were more often then not, late.
We'd get two months worth of tapes at once. Every late night coffee meeting, every "counseling" session with our sponsor who lived two hours away, every function, every product pickup, just everything. We did it. We prospected family and friends as do most new people in the business. Most of those declined, if politely and we were taught by our upline that they were losers, they didn't see the big picture. We were winners and if we did everything we were told, we would have everything we ever wanted in life. I guess the main point I'm trying to make is that Amway soon took over our life. We were separated from our families and friends and thrown together with our "new" family, our "Amway" family. EVERY, SINGLE DAY we were doing something with die-hard Amway people. It became a way of life. When you get involved in the system, that's what happens. You eat it, you breath it, you dream it, you live it.
Notice I didn't mention sleep because that's the one thing you don't get to do. You can sleep later, on the beach, is what we were told.
As far as working the business, we did it constantly. We couldn't have a conversation with ANYBODY without prospecting them. If we did go to a wedding or birthday party or anything "normal" with regular people there, we always had the business in the back of our mind. We collected phone numbers, addresses, whatever we could so that in a few days we could call them with the intention of showing them the business. I'm embarrassed to admit that, but we became drones. That's the best way I can describe it. Everything we did involved Amway. We showed the plan at least 10-15 times a month, this was while my husband and I were both working full time jobs AND he was going to school at night five days a week to earn another degree. (which our upline, many, many times encouraged him to drop out, thank god he didn't) We went full tilt and we were exhausted, but it didn't matter. While my husband was at school in the evenings during the week, I was taking orders from my downline and calling them in, writing little note to my downline, encouraging them and trying to soothe them when they paid for tools up front and it took weeks to get them. Products were always backordered, which was a sore spot since upline always wanted a check for it up front. I'm STILL waiting on products almost four years later. It was hard enough for us to understand (which we didn't) but how do you expect downline to understand. So a good portion of my time went to running interference. I also made the calls and set up as many appointments for my husband to show the plan over the weekend as possible. I traveled by myself over two hours every Tuesday for product pickup. Then brought all the stuff home and separated it for my downline to pickup. I did my paperwork, had meetings with other new distributor wives to teach them how to do their own paperwork. I had Artistry parties and taught my downline to have Artistry parties themselves. I did everything a good little Amway wife is supposed to. I counseled with upline to make sure I was as supportive of my husband as I could be. Weekends were when we mostly "worked the business". Neither of us had a break, ever. And according to our diamond we didn't deserve one. I can't tell you how many times my husband would get home from class at 11:30 pm only to turn around and leave to counsel with our upline until 3am, get home and have to get up to go to work once again. All through this, our downline quit. They saw firsthand what was going on and got out. It seemed all our effort was concentrated on replacing our group. When we got someone in, someone else got out. We never grew to the numbers they promised no matter how hard we worked. We had downline who were "plugged in" to the system and worked just as hard as we did. They, too, quit. Our upline, because we became such good friends with so many of them, started to slip in front of us. Some things came out that was the exact180 of what they would say on stage. We became aware that things weren't as they were supposed to be. We grew more and more uncomfortable getting people into a business that obviously we didn't know as much about as we thought. We saw our sponser's sponser who was only at 1000 and had been working the business as hard as we were but they did it for 7 years. What's the old Amway saying? If you keep doing something with little or no results, how can you expect anything different? Paraphrased, sure, but the jist is there. We found that all those "Amasayings" could describe the drones just as much as it described all those "losers". I can't even begin to tell you the money we lost in the business; the wear and tear on our vehicles, the clothes we needed to buy, the money we put towards products that we never got, the tools, the books, the tapes, the videos, the tickets to functions, the hotel rooms (that we never got to sleep in), the food at the late night coffee meetings, not to mention the time we lost. We claimed a loss every year at tax time and I just found out that we have a chance of being audited now because after so many years of a loss the government categorizes the "business" as a hobby. Damn expensive hobby.
We became Amway distributors in 1977. We worked very hard, made our home an "Amway product only environment" and went to every Dream Weekend, every Family Reunion, every rally and bought those stupid tapes by the wheelbarrel full! They are now located among the cobwebs in our former product room, -- shrine of all Amway distributors. We believed it all. We refinanced our home in order to "fake it until we make it" which means snow other folks into believing you are doing better than you are. The biggest check in all of our five years in Amway was $700 and we got to keep (after paying our downline) a total of $423. Yippee! The last straw was when my husband and I had invested so heavily in the "dream" that we were near to losing our home, and decided, one dreary Saturday afternoon to go hear Debbie tell us why we weren't making it in Amway. She arrived in her expensive car, with her expensive furs wrapped around her to keep the chill off and stood up front to begin her lecture. She said that frankly we weren't succeeding because we weren't willing to sacrifice enough to get our dream. By then, (I was in the last months of my third pregnancy) I was shaking with fury. I went to the women's bathroom and stood gripping the edge of the counter and just shook. I was somewhere between despair, shame and fury. My upline Direct came in and asked what was wrong. I said that someone had better restrain me before I went out and choked that overstuffed, greedy woman with my bare hands. How dare she say that we weren't doing enough! We were out showing the "plan" and doing everything else that they asked us to do and still we never came close to making a profit, let alone creating a career. It was sold to us by Christians, who said that this business was the "next best thing to Jesus". Eventually we all dropped out. Our upline went to jail for embezzling from the local township accounts (probably to pay for all of these super-motivational weekends and stupid tapes) and several got divorces. Thank God we were able to save our home but it has taken us over 20 years to finally dig out of the hole Amway caused in our finances. Be careful out there, Amway is never going to change. It's too late. There are no good legs and bad legs. There is just the truth, which became our living nightmare.
My wife and I started our Amway business on a Saturday Morning. For the next 6 years, We ate, slept and drank Amway. We would sow the plan 4 and 5 times a week for months. If we didn't get where we wanted to be, why, it was because we just didn't give enough. I missed family functions to attend Rallies, and my boys spent the first few years of their lives "wondering where there daddy was". Now that we are Amway free, My upline Diamond won't return my calls. I wonder why. We are still bitter.
Case Study #6 From Network 21 Australia
Is Amway a good business? As an Amway distributor who has been active in the
business since 1984, I would say no. Although there are many arguments for joining a well
established network marketing company, most Amway distributors begin to realize
that it's not as easy as they say in the open plan business presentation seminars.
The bottom line is that Amway has been around for over 40 years, and while this can
only be seen as a positive aspect about the company, one should note that over that time,
'the plan' has been shown over and over and over again to millions of people around the
world. Far too often, the plan is shown wrong, with false and misleading promises made.
I joined the Amway business (through Network 21), and by the 12% to 15% pin levels
I began to realize that this business was going to eat up more and more of my time and
budget. Just to keep it in the same place as well as replacing lost distributors (ones who
will not resign), despite all the best intentions, you will always lose people, and unless
you keep replacing them, your business size (and income) will cease to grow, or shrink.
If you've made it past Direct Distributor level, and you're still doing this on a
part-time basis, with a full-time job on the side, then you'll be proud to be a member of
the '100 club' - ie: working 100 hours a week, half for your boss, the other half for your
future. Note that the average distributor does NOT spend $300 per month to make up the
average 100PV, as per the Amway sales and marketing plan. The average distributor
spends $45 per month and generates about 5PV per month. Unless you can get some big
spenders into your downline, you will need to sponsor 1500 downline distributors spending
an average of $45 per month, to make up your 7500PV required in order to keep re-
qualifying for direct distributor. Annually, of those 1500 downline, you will lose around
35%, which means that you would need to replenish your downline distributor base by 525
new ones per year, or around three new people sponsored into your business every three
days!
There are too many hidden variables in building an Amway business. There are
negative preconceptions amongst the public, the now more so due to the easy accessibility
of the internet will see you 'in the hotseat' not just once in a while, but continuously,
all the while you are prospecting for new people to show the business to. They're all
excited about the 'business opportunity' they've got themselves involved in. As soon as
they start talking to their friends, there's always somebody who's heard something about Amway
before. Worse yet, they decide to 'do some research of their own' by looking up Amway
with one of the many search engines, and then coming up with a lot more negative
information about Amway than there is any positive information about it. Isn't that
a bit strange?
My wife generated most of my personal PV/BV in the business as she specializes in skin
care and cosmetics. One thing about the Amway range of cosmetics is that although
they are of very high quality, they are virtually "unretailable" because the
retail profit margin is far too low. Competitors in the retail marketplace are offering
their re-sellers margins in excess of 50% while the Amway distributor has to make
do with 30% to 35% GP.
Notes on the Price Amway price guarantee in Australia. If the size doesn't match the store, you are out of luck.
Early in 1996, we got a phone call from friends of ours, two people that we respected (and still do). It was a couple, the woman I had been friends with for years and they had been just recently married. She was a marketing executive for a major publishing group and he was a controller for a big accounting firm in Manhattan. Both had masters degrees. So when they called us up asking us over to look at a business we really didn't bother to ask questions. We just figured that they were looking for investors.
What we got instead was a well rehearsed sales plan....in 2-5 years if we followed "the system" we would be able to retire on the fruits of our labor. I'm a salesperson and I was skeptical but at the same time I was intrigued. It did seem possible. All I had to do was change my buying habits (become my own best customer) by buying from the company instead of going to the store and find 6 people to do the same. Piece of cake! Who wouldn't want to do this?
We were told we could have big savings through buying through the company and by encouraging others to do the same, we could make a lot of money.
We were given information to bring home...a book "Whatever Happened To The American Dream?" which covered different pyramid schemes and other money making schemes and why interactive distribution (the catch name for Amway) would work. In addition, we were given two tapes...one was a story tape from a successful couple in the Amway business (Diamond Directs) and the other that in retrospect was a tape to "close the sale."
Two nights later I went to see the "plan" again at a local hotel...my friends who had invited us were there as well as upline. I decided that night that we would get in...What did we have to lose? All we needed to invest was about $150 in a product kit and about $285 in a tools kit.
A week later I wrote out 2 checks and we were in. I should have listened to my gut as I became very uneasy, but I just blew off my feelings.
I would like to add that Amway folks like to prey on people who have a weak spot in their lives. At the time we got in, my husband was facing his third buyout and we were unsure if he would make the final cut. I hated my job (and still do) and was always looking for ways to get out working 8 hours in a place I hated.
I found out that this business looked easier on the outside than it looked.
I'm thickheaded and stubborn so I decided to push on. Besides, I had met all these people who were so willing to take the time and help out. Everyone was so friendly and nice.
They said I needed to buy motivational tapes and videos to help my business grow and soon we were spending upwards of $50 a week or more on tapes and other materials, including prospecting materials. In addition it was strongly suggested that we attend seminars that were often over an hour away one Saturday a month as well as mini "nuts and bolts" sessions that it seemed occurred every other weekend. There was always something going on. In the beginning we didn't mind because we figured we were learning.
Next thing you know the upline started announcing a "major function" in North Carolina. Initially we said no because we lived in New York City! Somehow we were convinced into going and the whole time we were there we were pumped up by our upline...You are special because you are here...there are those who "wanted" to come but you came...you are not one of the 95%-ers...
Now you have to picture the scenario...there were literally thousands of people there...this was in the arena where the Charlotte Hornets played. Everyone was screaming and hollering and "fired up." My husband and I said, "How can all these people be crazy?" This was our first function of many.
These functions lasted until all hours...they would go to sometimes 3AM and then we'd go to bed and get there early the next day for good seats (there was no assigned seating...all part of the mind game). The only assigned seating was for the people who had reached the level of direct and above.
I wanted to succeed so badly...I was doing everything the upline recommended at the expense of my own personal well being and my family and friends. The business came before anything else and the *only* tapes and videos I listened to and watched were tapes from "the business." My head was being filled with those in "dead-end" jobs that "needed" this business and were "looking" for us to show it to them. That I was *not* one of the 99%-ers and that by virtue of the fact that I did Amway (the *only* way to succeed and be successful) I was special. Half the tapes were "rah rah" tapes and the other half were story tapes...rags to riches tapes.
I lived, breathed, ate and spoke the business.... My husband and I after awhile could only talk about the business and nothing else. I knew we were in trouble when we were lying in bed and talking about the business.
We followed the plan exactly. We did exactly as we were told. After awhile we sponsored folks into the business and developed a nice little downline.
Now we were told we had to lead by example...we were told to buy extra tapes and tickets to events for our downline so no one gets shut out. We even went to a major function on Thanksgiving weekend.
We kept plugging on...spending more money and getting seemingly nowhere for our efforts. I was becoming frustrated and depressed and we hadn't had a vacation in months that didn't revolve around the business. Even when we went away we showed "the plan" because I had a few alumni books from my high school and my husband's as well and we showed the plan to the people in whatever cities we were at.
We couldn't make money even with the product because they were not price competitive. In addition, the prices were not what they were cracked up to be...there was no savings and we ended up spending more than we used to. PV (personal volume...what we get paid on) was a lot lower on a lot of items, not how it was presented to us at all.
I didn't realize it, but my life was a mess. Everything I did and anyone I associated with was associated with Amway. I hadn't seen my non-Amway friends in months and lost touch with some completely. Not having time coupled by the fact that we were constantly being told by upline to stay away from the negative people started to have their effects. It was like having a nasty drug addiction but not knowing about it.
If the tapes, books, functions, seminars...etc. wasn't enough, we were also hooked onto a voicemail system that we had to listen to every day...messages from upline of course. We had to listen every day because if we didn't the voice mailbox would fill up and upline would get on our case to empty it.
These were all "motivational" messages, many hawking tapes, books, and functions. They were even hawking The Achievers Channel" an all Amway station on an all Amway cable network.
In addition...we were told we were privileged...we had the *best* upline...look how close our Diamonds are to us! This was the *best* line of sponsorship...just like a family. We were truly a "privileged" group. No one had an upline like ours. We even had a function called "family reunion" every July!
We were given mind games. Only Directs had special seating at functions and everyone else had to stand in line to battle for the best seats. The Directs were let in on privileged discussions...it was so bad and so rude that if we walked up to people with a direct or higher pin, they would stop talking. We would be let in when we became direct we were told.
We were told never to question upline and if we did, the shit hit the fan, often with public chiding and upline ignoring us. Upline knew better...how dare we question? Since Amway is very patriarchal we were told that we would never succeed if I continued to show the plan...no one would take me seriously I was told. My husband questioned and that caused quite a stir. The worst part is...I apologized for my husband's behavior to the upline (questioning).
I started to have my doubts after we sponsored a couple who seemed gung-ho at first until I got an angry voice-mail from the woman claiming we had cheated her...and lots of nasty words. I called her and I said I wouldn't speak to her voice-mail and I wanted to speak to her in person where we were both on equal ground. She apologized for being so rude and agreed to meet, because she had stuff she wanted us to see.
What this couple had was printouts from a now-defunct website (I forget the name of it, but Amway forced this fellow to take it down after a time) claiming that the Diamonds and other upline made the majority of their money through the sale of BSM (business support materials which include tapes, books and tickets to major functions). We didn't believe it, we told them that anyone could put anything on the Internet and that this person had no credibility.
We did however operate our business at what we considered above board and offered to refund their money. They took us up on our offer. They kept the product, returned the tools and we never saw them again. In addition, they complained about the high catalog prices. We never saw them again, and they never ordered again.
We kept plugging on...spending $$$ on BSM (it had been thousands of $$$ by now) and showing the plan. This is what we ate, slept and dreamed.
One day, I came home from the J.O.B. (just over broke for the Amway folks) to find my husband at the kitchen table, irate with smoke coming out of his ears. In his hand, he was holding a paper that was sent to us from Amway itself stating that upline might be making money off of BSM. Amway wanted us to sign this paper to waive our right to sue upline or the company and instead go through an arbitrator assigned by them.
We were getting voice-mails from upline urging us not to hesitate...to sign this important agreement that "protected" all distributors right away.
Yes...it did protect. It protected those distributors with huge downlines that might have unrest. To the rest of us, it was in the upline's favor. We never signed it.
It was around this time that we also accidentally got a voice mail from our upline direct that was meant to someone higher up. It was a panicked message about what to tell this person and that this looked like big trouble.
Attached was a message from this guy...a fairly new distributor who had found a very comprehensive website set up by Jeff Probst...and Emerald (one step lower than a Diamond). He had credibility. This guy said he was upset by the site and if this were true, he didn't want any part of it. What a great screw-up for our upline to send us this by mistake!
We found the website and boy, what we found. There were links that had wave files of Diamonds and Emeralds saying incriminating things...there were links to the court system (once a case is finished it is published as common knowledge). Dexter Yager, who is a Diamond (and who my upline is descended from) and has 1/3 of the Amway business had been convicted and fined for such lovely things as racketeering and restraint of trade. Our upline had descended straight from Dexter. In addition, a lot of Diamonds were being sued...mostly over tools. The lawsuits are public knowledge and on official sites, so we knew they were true. Not only had distributors sued Diamonds and the company, Diamonds were suing Diamonds! One Diamond was suing because he was a doctor who quit his profession after a certain point of success in the business. He decided that he couldn't cheat people anymore with the tools and wouldn't play the game, so his upline circumvented him and he lost income and his livelihood! What a mess.
We decided we couldn't lie to people. In every plan we had seen (and we had seen many as we were told we should "support" our upline by attending open opportunity meetings in hotels in the area) we were told "no one makes any money until you do." Now we saw this wasn't true. We had to make a choice. We felt betrayed.
We came clean with our downline and they left the business as did our sponsors...we couldn't live a lie and we felt we owed our downline the truth.
Had we known, we never would have brought them into something involving so much deceit.
We confronted our upline and they told us in a fit of frustration that once we hit the direct level that we could make money on the tools too.
We then wrote a letter to Amway:
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June 10, 1998
Mr. DeVos:
We are writing this letter hoping that you will be able to address some of our concerns and answer some of our questions.
We would like to begin by stating that we have absolutely no problems with the Amway Corporation and that any time we have spoken with any employee of Amway we have always been treated with courtesy and true professionalism.
Because of this, we feel that the Amway Corporation is above board in its dealings with its distributors.
We have had our distributorship for two and a half years and during this time we have built ourselves a small downline and customer base. We love the Amway product line and have always enjoyed sharing the products with people. We have often made sales because others have seen us using the products and have inquired about them.
However, we are concerned because we feel that there is more to this Amway business than meets the eye.
When we began our business in early 1996, we were told that if we went to functions and seminars, as well as bought tapes and books, our business would grow and that it was nearly impossible to grow our business without this "system." Since we were entering into an arena in which we were totally unfamiliar, we listened to our upline and took their advice as to the best way to grow our business. We had never had our own business, but we understood that in order to grows a business it was important to invest money in order to make money. We were prepared for that and did not take issue with it, particularly since we were told during our first viewing of the Amway Sales and Marketing Plan and numerous subsequent plans that "none of us make any money until you do" and that our investment "goes to two major corporations - the Amway Corporation and Internet Services Corporation."
Between February 1996 and September 1997, we went to every seminar and every major function as well as bought the two SOT/GoGetter tapes a week that our upline was very insistent that we subscribe to in order to build a strong business. We bought a number of books as well. This all added up to over $10,000.00 each year. Although we did find some value in a few of the materials, we were not impressed with the Business Support Materials (BSM) as a whole. We did, however, decide to continue with the BSM program at the urging of our upline.
In late 1997, via literature sent directly to us from Amway, we found out that upline could be making a profit on BSM. This directly contradicts the two statements that we heard our upline state time and time again during their Amway Sales and Marketing Plans..."none of us make any money until you do" and that the money for tools "goes to two major corporations - the Amway Corporation and Internet Services Corporation."
We confronted several of our upline at the Direct level and above, but could not get any satisfactory answers as to whether or not any of this was true.
Some were understanding, some were defensive and some made outright excuses as to why they thought this practice was right.
During a lengthy discussion with one of our upline Directs, we stated that if upline were indeed making a profit from the sale of BSM to downline, that this was congruent to stealing and we obviously would not accept any money from such a practice should we be put in a position to do so. We were told upline deserved to make a profit "for all their hard work" and once we hit the right pin level we could make the money too and do whatever we wanted with it. It was suggested that we should give any money we could receive in the future to charity if it made us feel better. We responded that it wasn't right to give "blood money" to charity. They told us we were "too moral."
We thought helping other people make money was a good idea and we were led to believe that the promoting of BSM was good for the growth of our business.
Now we feel that we promoted BSM for someone else to make money and that we were deceived by our upline Direct Distributors.
We have strong moral issues telling someone who is new in this business to spend at least $50.00 or more a month on tapes, $500.00 or more on each function, $12.00 a person for Seminar/Rally tickets and see them get, at most, a couple of hundred dollars a month. It seems like a "company store" where upline gets back a good portion of the newer distributors' checks back in BSM.
We also had a very negative experience with our upline not being very helpful at all when we wanted to return a Seminar/Rally ticket at the door of the event. One of our downline had to back out at the last minute and we were told by our upline (at the Direct level) that they could not refund the price of the ticket and that we should "stand outside the door and try to sell it."
We had different ideas regarding the returning of BSM. We had one instance where we had signed up a new distributorship who later got "cold feet" and did not want to participate in the "system," due to negative things they had heard. They had purchased a $285.00 BSM kit from us, which included several tapes, two paperback books, a Profiles of Success hardback book, Ad Packs for prospecting as well as other materials. We refunded the entire cost of the kit on the spot even though some of the tapes had been opened. They chose to keep the Amway product kit, otherwise we would have given them a refund on that as well. We felt that this was good business practice and we wanted these people to have a positive viewpoint of both us and the Amway Corporation.
We were also told that we should not lend out BSM and that each person in our downline should buy his own, no matter what his financial situation was.
There were some people in our group that could not afford BSM and we did lend it to them against upline's wishes. We felt, as upline, that we had made a personal commitment to each of our downline and we liberally lent our BSM to all that needed it.
What is wrong with this picture?
It appears as if there are two businesses here -- Amway for the majority and a BSM business for the very few. We get the impression that the "real" money is to be made in the sale of BSM. If it is true that distributors further upline are making a profit from newer distributors that are not yet at the Direct level, than the BSM business is truly a pyramid.
Is this really the type of business that Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel wanted to start in the 1950's?
We have an entire room full of BSM and feel that we were lead to believe that this was all needed to build a business. Now we know that Amway says its not so.
Our experience says that if you buy into the whole system, about 10% are of any worth and the rest is another business making a healthy profit for someone else. It's interesting to note that the amount of help we received from upline was directly proportional to the amount of BSM in which we were investing at the time.
We have several unopened tapes and videos and we want to know what Amway's policies are on whether upline must refund to us the money we spent on these.
We also have many tapes and videos that are open but are in excellent condition. If these materials are so valuable, we feel upline should buy them back and if they are worth anything in building the Amway business, the open ones should have a market worth to other people as well.
If we are unable to return these BSM, it will prove to us that the system is worthless and this whole business is just a farce.
We hope that you will be able to assist us in any way you can regarding this matter.
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I would like to add that none of the tapes were ever refunded. Nothing was. Upline had told us they were so valuable but they did not take back one tape. Guess they weren't so valuable.
It was a very cathartic experience bringing all those tapes and stuff out to the curb. The tapes that were going to teach me how to succeed were now being thrown out. They had turned into horrible reminders of what has happened.
As for my husband and I...we started to deprogram slowly. It took awhile, but eventually we were able to discuss things other than things related to Amway.
The last tape I had listened to had hit me very hard...like all the others it had stated I would be a failure if I didn't do this business but this one was particularly strong. I remember crying as I listened to it. It had said without Amway I would never get my dream...plus I heard this saying over and over...winners never quit, quitters never win.
I actually went to therapy for a time...my exercises: "this weekend you and your husband do something fun," "tonight listen to your favorite music tape and relax," "take some time for yourself and do something relaxing."
You see? I had to relearn all this stuff. For so long, my life had been Amway and everything Amway related. It's the closest to being a cult without it actually being one.
I really feel bad for those who can't afford to lose the money. Yes, it hurt for us, but we know people who were a lot worse off and couldn't afford the extra money as much as we could. We know a guy who totally destroyed his own public relations business.
I wish I'd never heard of Amway.
After being in the Amway business since 1990 at the age of 18 I finally in 1998 decided it was not for me any longer. The reason was because of Jeff Probst's information. I was in the line of sponsorship that was close to Jeff. I actually saw him go from Direct to Emerald and such.
After reading his information and talking w/ my sponsor I realized that all the information that had been given to me from Non-Amway hired employees was somewhat fabricated. Since day one I had been told that no one made money on the tapes and books. And that the functions were break even events.
Amazingly enough I believed it. I spent approximately $50,000 dollars on just tapes/books/rallies and functions during that 8 year period. I made approximately $15,000 during that 8 year period. I hit Silver Producer. 7500 PV in one month. Never hit it again though.
The largest downline we ever had would have been about 50 People. We were heralded as the tough group. We promoted so well and did exactly what we were told that we were moving 50 SOT and 50 GG.
I am however grateful that I actually read all the books and listened to the non-Amway speakers at the functions. I learned many successful business practices from that. Things that have helped me at the age of now 28 develop 3 large privately held companies. Each one grossing in excess of 15M/yr. I do believe that the books and the countless hours of listening to Zig Ziglar, Norman Vincent Peale and speakers like that helped me. Of course I could have done that without going to all those functions and spending all that time and money trying to build something that in my opinion is built to fail.
I guess the thing that disappoints me the most is the fact that I have recently had the opportunity to see how the higher level people in the business think. Again let me state that I am not saying all of them, but most of them. They all make their money off the downline at all times. A little off the tapes. A little off the books. A little off the speakers at the functions books and tapes. A little off everything. Amazingly enough I guess anyone can justify anything. Because when I talk w/ a few of the friends I actually built in the business (I say that because some of the so called "friends" stopped having anything to do with me when I "lost my dream".) they still can't seem to understand that it is deceiving. That is what caused me to stop. Not the fact they were making money like this. I mean give me a break. I would definitely be up for making 10M or 20M a year off some tape and book sales. Even if they didn't tell anyone the fact of the matter is as Jeff Probst puts it is there is no written agreement that you can maintain these bonuses off of tapes/books/rallies etc.
Within the Amway Sales & Marketing plan it states that your business is willable to your generations. However, the money derived from the system is all hand shake money. I started thinking. What would happen if somehow after 8 years of working this thing hard I did go Diamond. I would be making somewhere around $150K to $300K from Amway and possibly $500K to $5M from the System. Now if I did something or said something that someone didn't agree with or I refused to speak at functions I started wondering how long would it take for them to cut off the $500K or $5M. That is what finally got me to open my eyes.
I have to say that since I have stopped going to the functions and such I have been enjoying life a lot more. I still read the PMA books and listen to non-Amway tapes and such. I have 3 successful companies and I actually get to do things with my kids. I haven't missed their entire childhood. I know that many Amway distributors have been sold on the fact that if they build the business they can spend all the time they want w/ their kids. I believed that too. What is funny is the contradiction and selective examples. Listen to Howard Eckman tell people on a tape that it is not the quantity, but the quality. However, if you work during the day at a job the Amway Distributor will tell you that you are doing your children a disservice by not being free to spend all day with them. So I guess it is quality of time only if you are building your Amway business. If you are building any other business then you should be at home instead....
Scott- Thanks for the web page concerning the "Business". Here's a story for ya. I'm an ex Amway Direct Distributor. I was several down under Don Wilson for 11 years. For those 11 years I worked my tail off-showing the plan, going to functions, gobbling up the tools, the whole 9 yards. Even though I had reached the title of "Direct", I was actually making very little money in the business. Certainly less, on average, than I was spending. That much I was willing to accept for the longest time, because I know that's the way it is in any business, especially in the early years. But when I reached my 10th year in the business and still wasn't any closer to Emerald than 8 years ago, I began to ask myself some very poingnant questions. (Like "WHY NOT?) The old tired saw that "I just wasn't showing the plan enough" just wouldn't work anymore. While it's true that I hardly ever showed the plan my last 2 years in the business, that was mainly from the continual discouragement of working my tail off and getting nowhere. I finally had to face some hard realities.
One was that my sponsor in the business, while pretending to be a Christian, was actually an extremely disreputable character. He had been destroying my business faster than I could build it for years, due mainly to ego problems. He was also extremely dishonest in handling money. I want to cry when I think of how much money I allowed him to pilfer from me over the years, all in the name of "building a relationship" and "so what, whats a few hundred dollars when we're all going to be milionaires?" Anyway, to make a long story short, I decided that before I left the business (and I really loved the business), I would go to my upline Diamond, Don Wilson, and talk to him about the situation. Hey- isn't that what they say on the tapes- that you keep going upline till you can find someone who can help? Well to make an even longer story shorter, Don's (paraphrased) response to me was "Yea, that's a difficult problem you've got there, and No, I'm not going to help
you; I don't have time.) Funny thing was, he'd already solved the same problem for a crossline distributor who had had similar problems with my sponsor. I suspect that the real reason he wouldn't do the same for me is that by that time, my business didn't justify an effort on his part, or so he thought. This, from the man whose name is synonymous with integrity throughout the world of Amway. What a shocker for me. Anyway, to anyone who is considering getting into the business, you can give them this advice from me:
BE CAREFUL WHO YOU GET IN WITH!!!!
Yes I was getting a tool rebate, but a very small one. It never covered even the money I personally spent on tools. It wouldn't be fair really for me to speak out as a former direct in the business... What I really was was a "phony" direct. Oh, yea, I reached 7500 for three months in a row, but much of my outside 2500 points was due to some heavy reach orders; also encouraged by my upline. The underlying problem behind my non-profitability was my lack of width. I had a HUGE group, but it was mostly all down one leg, making it very profitable for my upline but not for me. So I guess here is another piece of advice you can pass on to people considering getting involved: GET WIDE IN A HURRY! Make sure the business is profitable for YOU, not just your upline!!!
I'm not stupid; I saw what was going on and tried like crazy to put more people in the business outside my main leg, but what usually happened is once those people met my sponsor they wanted nothing to do with the business and disappeared into the black hole. As far as how much money I spent on the business vs. income, I really don't' have any documented records except what exists in my memory. I would say that in an average month in the business, I spent $200-300 more than I took in. Doesn't sound like much, and a lot of that wasn't legitimate business expense but rather theft on the part of my sponsor, but please remember it went on for 11 years! That adds up! As far as the credibility and use-ability of your website, I can't be of much help yet, I haven't gotten into it that deeply. At this point I was just hoping I could pass on a bit of useful information to anyone contemplating getting involved. It makes me feel a lot better knowing that I might prevent someone from making the same mistake(s) I did. When I go back through the website more thoroughly, maybe I can add more comments that would be of help. In the meantime, please pass this one on: CAVEAT EMPTOR!!!
I was part of what you would consider a "go-getter" group, when we were told about the 10-15 meetings a month, we (naturally) got fired up and decided that if you really wanted this thing, you should be doing 5-10 plan showings a WEEK, with 5 being a "slow week". I don't remember now exactly when we started or finished, but I personally maintained that pace for 1-1.5 years.
Of course, you would obviously think that after all that contacting, interviewing, etc. I would have done much better, but it didn't happen, and I wasn't talking to run-of-the-mill individuals either. Anyway, what I didn't mention was that a lot of the challenges that we eventually couldn't overcome was coming from the DIRECTS, so unfortunately, I can only imagine what was going on further up the chain, if anything. Anyway,
I was involved with "the system" for about 11 years. I have to say that I wish this info. was available sooner. I originally got in back in October of '86 and was a Networker until around '94 (or thereabouts). After becoming completely disillusioned I didn't bother to renew in '97. Briefly, I was part of the "Britt System", but we didn't have an upline diamond below Britt. I could probably put up my own website detailing everything that I had experienced. I'm not bitter, just relieved that I'm not caught up under the "spell" anymore. I recently checked out Probst's website which had REALLY opened up my eyes as to some of the situations that go on upline.
My husband and I are Amway/Quixtar distributors who have pulled away from the group that has been created by our upline diamond. It is almost unbelievable what we have experienced in the last 9 years. Now that we look back we are ashamed of the part we played in the system. From the start, we were looking for a business opportunity that we could build on together, share (and teach) the opportunity with others, and work with people of "integrity". We have always respected the Amway Corporation and took our business very seriously.
However, we always kept our eyes open and refused to be controlled by anyone. The system that we were being taught was more confining than our jobs; the deceit of upline and the system is too evident for us to ignore.
Family time is lost forever and the amount of time and money being "invested" is staggering all because people (who are being taught not to think) are "loyal" to system and upline. We are fortunate that we pulled away-and hope that your site will help others to do the same.
The retail sales rule was a taboo subject in our line of sponsorship. We tried to teach our downline how to retail products to make a profit. So many of the people involved were broke. A few of the "devout members" went straight to our diamond to inform him of our rebellious spirit-we dared to teach something that was frowned upon by upline. We had been spotlighted for many years as "leadership", (we were only silver directs but took on leadership responsibilities). When our upline found out that we were teaching retailing, he quickly called a meeting with our downline and informed everyone that it wasn't the "T&E International" philosophy and he would never go back on his word, never teach people that they needed to sell products. At one point, I asked him why it was ok to sell tickets, tapes, and functions, but not a bottle of LOC, and he said "I won't even go there". He felt that the selling aspect of the business was negative and unprofessional. As leaders, we were not to teach any type of retailing. For a long time we tried to "do the system" but we were seeing that the system, as it was being taught, wasn't working. The people in our group walked around calling themselves business owners, still making a few dollars a month after years of teaching. They still only make a few dollars, after we've been gone for a year. (Oh-we were blamed for their stunted growth because we caused "confusion in the group".)
I wrote a letter to the Amway Corporation, detailing the warped teaching of our upline. After personally speaking with distributor relations about our concerns, I faxed the letter to them, asking for a reply. I never received an acknowledgement that they received the letter. At that point my respect for the corporation started to fade away. Since I received no reply, and was not aware of any changes in the group teaching, I assumed that they backed the diamond, and maybe retailing really wasn't required.
Did we ever report a profit? No, not even the month we went silver. There were so many group events that as "leaders" we needed to attend, so many business meetings, rallies, functions, tapes, books, winner's circles, Eagle Teams, Britt School, Go Diamond, "quality time with upline and downline- etc,etc-you know the story.
My wife and I got involved in this MLM, I knew what it was and what was involved and opted to put in the hours (5 - 15 isn't realistic) that it takes to grow a business. Over the next four years we had a net loss of $4000.00, but mostly we alienated many friends ( some remained friends, some didn't) and prospected unbelievably. I was a GO Getter for 10 months in a row (10 to 15 plans a month with at least one new sign up). At the end of this time I still had the same number of down line that I began with. I hustled the product, I purchased from myself, I attempted to create a retail business. Hard to do when working another full time job, that is needed to pay the bills. My wife quit before I did, I just wasn't willing to say NO.
But I finally came to the realization that as I was getting to the end of my commitment the Amway friends were drifting (RUNNING) away. Finally I quit, and there were no longer any contacts with all of the new friends we had made. My upline never made it beyond Direct, in spite of traveling to groups established in four other states, and recruiting feverishly. This really isn't a business, I don't know if it qualifies as a cult (my wife feels it is), but there is a draw for people who are looking for the DREAM, the one that can be had while asleep. This is the first time that I have actually put this in writing, and I do not hesitate to share the story with anyone who asks, I do not go out of my way to denigrate Amway. The company and the Diamond organizations do that so well, they don't need my help. Unfortunately this is a greed driven organization that preys on peoples weakness.
Thanks for putting up a very informative site. I cannot begin to tell you how accurate the information you've compiled is. I was an Amroid (that's an Amway pain in everyone's *ss) for 3 years, but did not remain active beyond the second. Anyway, I have had experiences much like those of people whose comments you've posted. I found myself broke (not because I made no money) and alienated from many of my friends and family. My wife was active longer than I was, but figured out some of its downside when people in our upline told her to build it without me.
They told her to come to meetings and to set the example because I would eventually follow. Then we started looking at how much we'd spent on Amway and realized that we were not going to make any money according to "the plan". We also realized that in order to become "profitable", we were going to have to lie to a lot of people about how much money they were going to make. We were encouraged to give people facts and figures that were misleading because they were part of "the plan". We were encouraged to stress the "partnerships" that Amway had with IBM and Microsoft as if it was some Earthshaking announcement. Then we started to realize that what IBM and Microsoft were doing for Amway was nothing unusual. They were supplying hardware and software to a client. Big deal! Anyway, overall, we spent $2000-3000 per year on tools, etc. On top of that, I spent two years "showing the plan" to people night after night (15-20 times per month) looking for six magical people who would make me rich. This doesn't count all the people who never showed up for meetings. We sponsored a grand total of 2 couples. One we never heard from again and the other bounced checks to us. It wasn't because the people we talked to weren't "sharp" as much as it was they could tell I didn't enjoy lying to them. Boy, you sure have to be devoid of a conscience to do that for too long. In the end, disillusionment set in pretty heavily on both my wife and me. We noticed that when we became inactive the people in our upline, our "friends", stopped calling or coming around. We've only had contact with one couple that was in our upline with any frequency, and that's because she works the same kind of J-O-B as I do. We're both teachers. He is also a teacher, but he's only building the business because his wife is so gung ho about it. Everyone else disappeared. We saw two other former upline/crossline couples today. One of the husbands told my wife recently how much he missed seeing us. My wife told him that we didn't live too far away and he could stop over sometime. Funny, he didn't even recognize me today because I grew a beard since before Christmas. Yep, they miss us.
Anyway, I suppose I've said about all that I can say for now. Thanks for shedding a little light on a subject that the AMOs would prefer to keep under wraps. I'm attaching a couple of image files that I doctored up to express my opinion toward Amway. Enjoy.
Dear Mr. Larsen:
I think you are providing an invaluable service. Keep up the good work.
My husband and I are filing bankruptcy which is directly related to our 3 years as active distributors. We showed the plan on a regular basis, 'drove the miles' to attend upline functions and for the first two years, attended all major functions. Our upline was based in Connecticut and we lived in Rhode Island at the time so all of our meetings were a minimum or 2 hours away. Some were 3 to 4 hours away. These were not the major functions, these were our basic weekly meetings, the opens and the other meetings our uplines deemed necessary for their downlines success. To compound matters for us, my husband worked in Massachusetts which meant he had to drive an hour to get home, pick up the babysitter, drop her off and pick me up only to then drive a minimum of 2 hours one way to our meeting. Considering we were driving in snow and ice a considerable portion of the time and always through woods with lots of deer running around, it is a true blessing that we were never involved in a major accident.
We were lied to as well and it was so hard when we began to put the pieces together. We wanted so badly to believe that we were in a business built on the foundation of helping others to succeed and that we could provide a better life for our children. We believed what our upline told us but at the same time, we both had little private doubts. We could put two and two together. I guess our problem in succeeding in this business was that neither my husband nor myself like to be told how to think. We both cringed whenever Dexter or any other big pin stood up on stage and called all the people who weren't there, losers.
I am sorry if I am rambling and unorganized in what I have to say. It's just that I have so much bitterness and disappointment in me that hasn't had an outlet. I am just trying to tell some of the story.
We started out buying just one tape of the week but after some minor successes, when our upline Emerald took a personal interest in us, we began buying the second tape of the week, the book and video of the month and all the tapes and special tools that were recommended to succeed. Of course, we weren't making any money and flat out couldn't afford to buy all of these things, no matter how inspirational or educational they were. We did it anyway because we figured that everyone above us was so successful that they must know what they were talking about. Also, the pressure to buy and attend was so great that it was almost impossible to say no. Even though we were made to sign a form that said we were not required to buy anything at all and that all tools outside the kit were optional, it was well understood that this was just a formality to keep Dexter from getting sued again by people like us who finally get sick of paying for his lavish lifestyle. We were subjected to all kinds of tactics to keep us inline and buying. It was strongly inferred and at times said outright, that if we didn't buy whatever they were selling at the moment, we couldn't be serious about the business and of course, if our upline saw that, they would never make time for us.
Between the tools, functions and doing our required 200 pv per month (which no matter how you do it, does NOT come out to 1 pv per $1, instead of the $200 per month they mention in the plan, it was more like $300-$350 per month to get our 200 pv) we couldn't even buy enough food to feed our family. We never resorted to what we saw many people around us doing, feeding our children boxed macaroni and cheese or peanutbutter sandwiches night after night and telling them to deal with it, we're going diamond. We could never allow our children to suffer that much for 'the biz'. We certainly did without though and often didn't quite make it from one paycheck to the next with enough food to last.
We were product loyal as far as we could be but I have to tell you as a certified Coupon Queen and Wal-Mart aficionado it killed me to pay $6 to $8 per bottle for shampoo that I didn't particularly like and which certainly did not work any better than the brands I could buy at Wal-Mart for .99 to $1.58. I also liked those negative brands better. However, since our upline had a little habit of checking our orders each month (we got in when you still had to order products upline although that did change while we were still active) not to mention the trick they liked to use at meetings of having everyone stand up and listen to a product list. As soon as you heard one that you weren't wearing, hadn't used or taken that day, you had to sit down and endure the knowing snickers and smug looks from everyone still fortunate enough to still be standing. The person or couple still standing at the end of the list usually got the privilege of going out to eat with the upline at dinner break. This little tactic was usually employed at Seminar/Rally when there would be plenty of people to witness your disloyalty.
We maxed all of our credit cards, closed out my husbands 401K plan at work (on our uplines advice) and cut costs to the bone for this 'wonderful' opportunity. My husband even used his company credit card to advance money so we could attend functions and keep food on the table. All of this combined is what brought us to where we are today. Bankrupt. We fought hard for the last couple of years trying to turn the tide financially but because we have always homeschooled our children couldn't do enough. I have a feeling now, and actually my husband has confirmed it, that even if we had put the kids into school and I worked full time, we would still most likely have ended up where we are now, it would have just been forestalled a year or two longer.
We feel pretty stupid not to mention angry and bitter. My husband developed acid reflux and Barrett's Syndrome as a result of all the stress and tension.
We are not perfect people and have certainly made many bad choices but our decision to try Amway when we had both heard bad things about it, ranks right up there as the stupidest thing we ever did.
Just for your information, our upline Emerald was Amy Berger, our upline Diamond was Al LeBlanc and as a whole we were part of Don Storms organization. We lost our Directs about 8 months into our odyssey and never had any replacements. Our 4000's (who only qualified as 4000's once from what we could tell) became our upline mentors and the people we answered to in lieu of a direct.
If you care to use any part of our story, please feel free to, just don't identify us please. I know you understand and I don't need to elaborate any further.
Again, thank you and keep up the good work.
Second Letter
You are correct, I meant to say 100 pv but it still took $300 to $350 to get it. Every few months the new price booklet (I think it was called the SA13, I have forgotten some of the terms) came out and I noticed that while our costs often went up on our products, the pv was often lowered by a point or two. I didn't tell my husband about that for a long time because I didn't want to be seen as a negative wife. My husband never once did or said anything to make me think he would have a problem with me being honest about such things, it was council from the upline that kept me quiet about "little things".
I am so sorry I didn't know about your site before we moved to Houston, because we threw everything away. I would have sent you everything we had (and we had a considerable amount of material) but my husband was so angry about it, he just took boxes and boxes down to the curb to be picked up by the trash collectors. I have no idea if they were picked up the trash collectors or people stopping to see what was in the boxes.
We had hundreds of tapes. We bought tons and tons of them plus when our sponsors quit the business, they gave us their tapes. They gave us around 300 tapes and we purchased at least that many. A shame that I didn't know I could sell them on Ebay or send them to you!
In response to a question in your other email, we spent/lost in the neighborhood of $20,000 to $25,000 trying to build the business. The amount we are in debt now is higher and I am not going to disclose that but it started with the above amount and snowballed until we got to where we are now.
As I said to you in my initial letter, all of our meetings were distance meetings and our children were too young to leave alone which meant a babysitter every time we left. So, by the time you add the cost of the meetings, food (we always had to eat out due to the timing of things), meetings after the meeting (which involved coffee at least and sometimes food), gas, babysitters, tools, Amvox and product, we were out the amount I mentioned above.
Of course, that total includes our 401K which went to get us to our first "Family Reunion" the summer we signed up. The pressure to attend that was incredible. We initially said no, we could not attend it but they were relentless. We finally closed out the 401K when one of them casually mentioned during a meeting that serious people would do such a thing because after all, the business was all the security anyone could ever need in their golden years. We bought it. Talk about feeling stupid!
Oh and by the way, if you have never attended a major function or a meeting where you may have heard this, we heard countless time that the losers who fail at the business and insist they lost their shirts were flat out lying. They would go on to say that everyone who knows anything about Amway knows that Amway would take back all products you had on hand so there was no way to lose money. Of course, you get so caught up in the attitude that you are aggressively taking hold of your future, that you forget to think about the money it takes to "run hard" and of course, no one on stage ever mentions that. If anyone ever questioned that, they were treated derisively and told that anyone who knew anything about running a business would have known that it takes investments of time and money to get a successful business off the ground and quit focusing on the "little things".
We were not "Go Getters" every month. But, we consistently showed the plan between 8 and 15 times nearly every month for the first two years. There were a couple of month in there that the total was lower but on average that's what we did. In addition to attending meetings every week.
I feel that we didn't do better than we did because we had deep seated doubts that may have shown through to our prospects. We also didn't like lying and it didn't take us long to realize that the formula didn't really work and that we had to flat out lie to people in order to show the plan. We followed all the rules and I edified my husband and my upline to our prospects like a good Ambot wife should. But, telling people that they would save money by buying Amway products instead of the inferior products they would find in the stores was a flat out lie. I knew that wasn't true but we had to follow proven "system" in order to succeed.
Our mentors, the 4000's, didn't stand up at Seminar/Rally as Go Getters all that often either. We had begun to figure out that people had to qualify once and they could continue to claim the pin until it was publicly called to someone's attention. As long as everyone maintained a strict "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, everything would go along just fine. Talk about denial.
It is really hard to handle that all the people who seemed so honest and so trustworthy, really weren't. That was a bitter pill to swallow. When I ever found out that the upline got cuts on the tool orders, I was flabbergasted as was my husband. Things began to make so much sense after that. For instance, before our Directs quit, we (the group, not us personally) would sometimes get these irate messages via Amvox from them regarding our low tool orders. They would be so upset and now of course, I know why, they probably couldn't cover a bill that month because they weren't going to make as much.
Our Directs were fairly successful entrepreneurs and as the story began to unfold, it became obvious (to us at least) that they hadn't actually built their business. Our upline Emerald who recruited them had built it for them.
Her success, we learned, was due to the fact that she had hundreds of friends and a brassy enough attitude to approach them all. She was able to sponsor so many people in such a short time, she was off and running. She also has a gift for making people think she is a really warm and caring person who really believes in them. You have to get in close enough (which eventually happened for us) to see what she was really like. It wasn't a pretty picture. It was so disheartening. I was fascinated by the intelligent people who were her constant satellites. They all loved her and edified her and seemed to not notice or to ignore her abrasiveness up close. I don't know if they were that brainwashed or if they just knew that if they hitched their wagon to her star, they would eventually begin to reap the rewards too.
Anyway, this all I have time for now. I should tell you though in the interest of fairness, we did have some good times. The major functions were fun due the fact that we were going to cool hotels for the weekend and there was always good entertainment and some excellent speakers from outside of Amway. I first saw a wonderful educator named Marva Collins speak at a function and was blown away!
We also did learn a lot of good principles that apply to all areas of life. It was just sad that they don't actually apply to building the Amway business.
Thanks for listening.
Third Letter
Dear Mr. Larsen,
I already answered your email but I just reread the first one and had to add a couple of things. The reasons that hooked us were all the ones you mentioned, save money by buying from yourself, retire in two to five years and be free and of course, the Profiles of Success which showed us what was in store for us if we just signed up and did what they did.
In addition to these reasons, my husband had been going through a serious period of questioning his path in life. He wasn't happy in his job or company (which by the way he still works for and has received a promotion and I just found out today, may be getting another one in the next week or so) and all the right buttons got pushed. My husband wanted to provide a better lifestyle for his family than we were enjoying then (although, in hind sight, we were far better off then than we are now despite the promotions, we were debt free then) and he wanted to control his own destiny as well as earning potential. Our sponsors were wonderful, down to earth people and the combination proved to be our undoing.
Our sponsors quit about a year into our odyssey. They never gave us a real reason as to why they quit because they were smart enough to know that we would not have listened to them at that point. We continued seeing them and we all just had a sort of truce over the whole thing. Such a shame.
I'm not sure that this quite qualifies as an Amway case study, because it's being told second hand, but I swear that this is a true story. I joined Amway back in Feb '96. My active upline - let's call them Bob & Emily - had been in since late '92. They were hard-core, devout, full-blown Amway disciples. Bob had at that time personally sponsored about 30 different people - God only knows how many plans he must have shown.. For the record, above him there was a direct and two pearls - neither of them had personally sponsored that many people. In all the time they'd been in they'd never missed a function. At the functions they'd even by lots of extra tools - like the video made about the function itself - whatever it was that upline was promoting. They were on standing order tape, go-getter tape, extra tapes, extra kits, board and easles, book of month, Amvox, they went to at least one open a week, and at least one seminar and rally a month. They promoted everything to their downline. They did over 300 personal PV a month. They took the Nutrilite vitamins. At seminar and rallies sometimes a high pin would make everyone stand up and do product loyalty. "Everyone who isn't doing 100 PV sit down, not on book of the month. . . use negative soap. . . not on MCI. . . no water filtration system" - you get the idea. Bob & Emily were always among the last ones standing. Hell, he bought his furniture through Amway. Bob's office was full of Amway motivational material. The lamps in his house came from Amway. He even bought his MINI-VAN through Amway and had a vanity license plate that read "DREAM 31."
And you know what? Despite all of this effort, when I joined he had just finally gone 4000 PV. He immediately went backwards. He went rhino (20 plans a month) the first few months after I got in, but when it was time for a function in July, he had exactly one person in his downline come - me. He couldn't get more than a van full of people to show up for a function or seminar & rally in all 1996. Late in the year he had to take some time off of showing the plan to be able to do enough of his real job (selling insurance) to be able to afford his son's college tuition. In early 1997 he EXPLODED and sponsored 10 people in a month and starting driving depth in several legs. One leg went 1000 PV. There was a program in my organization called Quicksilver (Sponsor 5, drive 5 in depth in one leg, and get 15 in over all). Bob went Quicksilver (it was the 3rd or 4th time he'd done so) and had the newly minted 1000 in depth do so as well. He brought 4 mini-vans full of people to a function in May 1997. He told me his goal was to be in qualification for emerald by year's end. He and his wife wrote "7500 PV OR BUST" on their bathroom mirror in lipstick. Despite this he was still only a 4000, and when I spoke to him, it sounded like 7500 was probably about 2-3 months off at best.
So what happened? That's a very good question. It was at this point that I walked away from Amway. I last spoke to them in either August or October of 1997 (it was Bob's 60th birthday). I asked them how the business was going and if they were silvers yet. They said it was going good, but they still were a little way from silver. Even though I was no longer active, I renewed in Amway two more times - mainly in the hopes I'd see Bob and Emily in the Amagram. (They were very nice people and I really wanted them to succeed). I never saw anything. Not diamond, not emerald, not direct - I never even saw their names in the list of new silvers. Maybe they quit, maybe their age caught up with them. . . or maybe their business fell apart and they're still out there trying to build it again. If you think about it, by the time I left the business, Bob must have had 40-50 personal sponsors and was as loyal to the system as he could possibly be. He never even went silver.
First I wanted to thank you for ypur website, it saved me from the poor choice I made to build the AmaQuix business, and made me really look into it. Second, I would like to offer my story, in hopes that it will help others.
I was the most promising leg of my sponsor, who I first met while in college in 1988, at the age of 28. My wife was in the hospital, and I this guy at church, I was an usher, and was locking up the church one night.
They ( my soon to be sponsor) was holding a meeting in the fellowship hall, and talking about "business". I poked my head in the door, and they asked me who invited me. I saw a little, but noticed the time was getting late into the night, so I decided to go home, but the guy on "the board" saw me.
Later that week, I was at church, during the day, as I was in college, and the guy on the board shows up, in a brand new MBZ 500 SEL, and was "working" on repairs for the church. The pastor told me he was volunteering, the guy saw me, and made a beeline for me, and introduced himself, and asked how I liked his business presentation.
I said, that I didn't see it all, but it looked like Amway ( I had no idea what Amway was) he gave me this strange evasive look, and rattled on that he was retired from electrical engineering, at the age of 36, and his wife was home, free also, and he helped people start businesses with little capital.
I was 28, and already not too crazy about the corporate world, as I worked full time at a small bank in the L.A. area, and wanted to have a business for myself. I also went to night school, and some day classes, in between.
Next thing you know he calls me and wants to come over and show me the business.
My wife was in the hospital at the time, but I had them over anyway.
They sold me, I really liked it, and saw it as a way out of banking. I especially liked the idea of being free, travelling, and having my wife home. When the Amway word came up, I really didn't think it was bad. If they had asked, I would have signed up right there.
A big white box with products and info was left with me, and they were to get back to me, next week. They also told me about INA, the big support group they belong to, and we don't sell, only find others like myself. I thought this would be easy. They even had VCR's, computers, and snoopy toothbrushes, I could sell this easy, and MCI was even involved.
They came back for the follow up and I signed up. Then they put me on recommended book, and weekly tape, and scheduled to pick me up for this big major function.
My wife came home from her surgery, and almost left me, that night, she was furious, refused to have anything to do with it.
I went to functions, bought books, learned to prospect, as fast as I could, I prospected the entire bank, everyone at college, and we were showing plans to everyone. The only problem was nobody wanted to sign up, my upline took me everywhere in his MBZ, out every night, while going to college, and working full time.
Time went by and my zeal leveled off, but my wife was still dead set against it. She despised the business, and was irritated how I prospected everyone at church, her friends, threw away her make up and home products, militantly ordered 100% personal use 100 PV, for my home every month, bought tapes, went to functions 3 times per week. It cost a ton of money, on a 28 year olds JR banking salary.
My sponsors rapidly became my best friends, but my wife still had no part of it, we began to have separate lives, and fights erupted.
The years went by, and I tried everything to make this thing work, the emeralds and diamonds kept encouraging me via, tape, book and function.
I grew discouraged at prospecting and recruiting, and tried retailing. I worked in downtown LA, and noticed all the Pacific Bell Telephones, all around every corner store.
I found out about the pay phone program, and started talking to owners about the payphones being deregulated, and Amway had a great program for this (forgot the name)
I made it a point to hit three or four sites every day during lunch, I actually made $150 per month, for the first three months, and residuals, I liked it, it was not really like selling the SA8 and dish drops, and driving to peoples homes, and they never sign up.
I ran out of places to sell pay phones, and my work schedule changed, so I tried MCI,
I signed up at least 50 phone lines from the bank (using my sponsors number) to avoid conflict of interest, FAX lines, modems, galore, I was in charge of telecommunications, anyway. He gave me a check, when he got his PV/BV; there were some good bonuses, on commercial accounts, back then.
So, the years went by, I actually made it to 1000 PV, I was so proud, I had a group, I had people on RT, I was on my way, personally sponsored by and Emerald that was free, meeting all the diamonds, my wife was even starting to warm up to the business.
I bought new suits, extra tapes, stock in the garage, I had people on Amvox, and I went to functions 3 times per week. I did retail, everything my sponsor said I did.
Soon my nice 1000 group all slowly quit! I was devastated. I tried everything to save it; we did house meetings, late night rhino's and prospecting practices.
I was discouraged, slowed down a lot, but still went to every function, prospected, read listened to tapes, sold an SA8 a double XX signed up an MCI or two, and sponsored one or two every three months, but I spent a ton of money, especially on these big functions, hotels, meals, gas, airfare! I started to put everything on credit cards, believing I would pay them off, I would be a direct in a year.
I was a best friend with my sponsor, and we did everything together, so long as it was centered on the business.
Ten years later, I was 39, I grew in self confidence, tremendously, still believed I was destined to be a diamond, I did self talk on my way to work, still read, did everything I was told.
I failed to notice, or was oblivious to the high turnover at functions, especially the ones my emerald personally did, he claimed he had 3 directs, had copies of checks for $16,000.00 had a Porsche, he was "unemployable", he said.
Little by little as the years went by, I noticed his lifestyle was not as glamorous, he was not travelling to Portland, Phoenix, and the L.A. area to speak anymore. I now realize he was no longer an Emerald. I suspect he was not an Emerald in volume for long after he sponsored me.
My sponsor/friend and I discovered garage sales, in late 1998, and this is where I learned that this business was not "marketable".
We were able to go to 30 - 40 garage sales, on a Saturday, and prospect every one.
We developed the best prospecting lines, we were good! We showed 3 plans per week, easily, just like the diamonds talked about. People signed up, I averaged 1.5 sign ups per month, that year, people would sign up, go to a few functions, buy a few tapes, and quit, I noticed a cycle.
The Diamonds said on the tapes, you needed to sponsor way more that that, I was already gone 4 -5 nights per week, worked a full time job, how could I. The tapes said just get it over with, I was willing, but another side of me said, what was I doing? I am not making any money here.
My sponsor/friend did functions and showed the plan once per week for us, so we could bring prospects, it seemed like mostly guys like me paying $6 each showed up. I never thought to find out how much the hotel room cost, and multiply it by the number of IBO's!
Here was a good income for him.
Then came Quixtar, the hype was incredible, I was really excited, the new CD-Rom, and video and internet will get them in, we showed many plans, I even made a flyer on home shopping, and went door to door selling MCI, and passed out catalogs. I still didn't make money! I was deeper in debt! Buying big catalogs, flyers, I tried it all, and from every angle!
Then in early 2000, I ran across your website! Wow, did I feel like an idiot! But I am glad, because I went to a big INA regional, and counted the number of people that attended, I called the City of La Canada, CA. and asked how much it was for the rental of the auditorium. There were 600 people at that function at $12.00 each (double session) that's $7200.00
The City said it was $600 for the day to rent the auditorium! I was shocked, how stupid I felt! My sponsor said they charged enough to pay for the place, at most of the functions, when I asked.
I then checked into the tapes, I did some research on the Internet, and found how little it cost for the tapes; they charge $6.00 each for! I felt even more stupid. Now we were in CD Rom's, charging for web space, and Amvox was not good enough anymore, we needed a genie (the diamonds at INA bought it) and it was $29.00 per month.
I also "hired" my upline for odd jobs at the bank, once per month, as he was an electrical engineer, he did alarm wiring, repairs, and I third party ordered large amounts of janitorial products (conflict of interest, I'm sure) As he was very eager, in those late years of my INA career, to work and take odd jobs.
Next I know mid 2000, he is interested in a part time job, but is concerned that I quit INA education (book, tape, website and everything), he starts part time, and asks me not to tell "the group" , and tells everyone he likes helping out, for fun, but has a big internet business, and prospects everyone.
My wife smelled the "rat" years before. I learned the hard way to trust women's intuition.
We fought about this business for year, one time we shoved each other, as I threw away her shampoo that was "negative". I was sure deluded. I wonder why my wife stayed with me!
I left my job, Jan 2001, and moved across country, my sponsor/friend/emerald slowly pulled out of our lives, coincidentally, he was a real estate agent, and did real estate on the "side" and bragged to all his "full time agent" friends how he was just doing it for fun. He sold our house, for us.
He is now full time, at the company I left, thanks to me, and his wife in now full time, "just helping out" as a receptionist, how ironic, things turn out strange sometimes.
We have not heard from them in almost 8 months now, and I wonder what happened, I learned a lot, grew a lot, the business helped me a lot, but the financial cost, time obligation, and hundreds of times, being asked to leave people's homes, having seen the disappointment when they find out it's really Amway!
I really regret not looking at the business the way you have, I guess I was young, naive, and chose to not look at it closer, I feel like a former cult member!
Thanks so much for the great web site! I left a lot out of the story, to protect names, places, jobs, etc. I have no ill will against anyone in the business. I found a lot of people need that second family, or some association, as they are so unhappy in their jobs.
I am now in the restaurant business, and absolutely love it. The business sure helped me, my people skills are tops. But, that Amaquix business model really was hard to market, I just can't figure how those diamonds did it. Maybe that's why so many are divorced? I beat myself up for years wondering why I could not succeed; I sure worked at it hard.
Thanks again
RON THOMPSON
I enjoy your website. I was an Amway distributor from 1989 to 1994, and am glad to not be a part of it anymore. When I was a senior in college, I was talked into joining up in this thing. I should have been saving my money for the future but I like thousands of others was talked into believing that I could retire by the time I was 35.
I can thankfully say that I didn't lose a marrage over Amway because I was single when I joined and was still single when I quit. However, I probably could have been married several years earlier had it not been for Amway. I had more girlfriends break up with me when I started talking about "The Business" or "The Dream". I had co-workers and family members laugh at me and even tell me to invest more of my time learning my job better.
I honestly worked this thing hard for the first 4 years. I cannot remember how many "Realizing Your Dream" packets I gave out and how many circles I drew, but ended up getting all 'NO's'. I figured that I invested over $2,000.00 in tapes, $1,000.00 in books, and probably close to $5,000.00 in seminars. This didn't even include the money for gasoline and wear on my car.
When I didn't have the $450.00 to go to a weekend seminar, my upline would always tell me that I wasn't serious about wanting to build my business. And anytime I got a 'NO' from someone, I was accused of telling the prospect too much. I was spending hours into the night driving back home from showing "The Plan" to people who told me 'NO' only to get about an hour of sleep before having to get up and go to work. I was brain washed into calling anyone who wouldn't join - a loser. I WAS THE REAL LOSER!
In March of 1994 is when my eyes finally opened. After being in the business since February 1989, I never reached the 1000 PV level. There was a major function in Nashville, Tennessee and I was once again talked into spending $450.00 to go. I only had two couples and one single in my down-line and non of them had the money to go, so again - my uplines were asking me what was wrong with my business.
While at the convention that Saturday, I was sitting there listening to these upline Diamonds come out on stage, Stewart, Pawlak, Gooch, etc. and talk about the same old pep talk junk that I had heard about a thousand times over. While sitting there, I noticed an employee of the convention center in the back, so I decided to ask them what it cost for a weekend convention like this. Well, I won't go into details, but there were an estimated 23,000 people at the convention and each spent an estimated $450.00 to get to this show.
I got adding this thing up and I figured out of the $450.00, after hotel expenses, bus expenses and the amount to pay to rent the convention center, that about $200.00 went toward the Diamonds. At this convention, there were five Diamonds, so 23,000 people X $200.00 each came out to $4,600,000.00 divided five ways, and each Diamond probably took home $920,000.00. Now, not including Enterprise Weekend at Indianapolis, there were three of these $450.00 functions a year. It was no wonder the diamonds lived in big homes, drove Lincolns, Cadillacs, Lexuses and Mercedes and owned big motor coaches.
When I asked my upline where all the money went to, he couldn't give me a straight answer. When I asked him how much that the Diamonds made off the convention, he became very defensive. I said no more. The light bulb turned on and my mind was made up as to what I was going to be doing within the next several hours. So instead of taking a stuffy crowded charter bus home on that Sunday afternoon and have to listen to the Amway rah-rah cheers about "I'm going diamond - how about you" garbage for several hundred miles, I took a cab back to my hotel, packed and went to the airport and flew back to Kansas City. That following Sunday evening, my upline called and asked why I left on Saturday. I told him that I figured out how the Diamonds made their money and I was tired of pouring out my valuable time and spending money to get nowhere. I QUIT!
When I quit, I found that my relationships with other got better. I met this cute lady in April of 1994 and dated her for over a year before asking her to marry me. We have two lovely children and our marrage is still going strong. She admitted that she would have never married me if I would have been in Amway.
I would have blamed myself if I hadn't followed the system like they told me and didn't work hard at it, but I spend an enormous amount of time and money and came out financially in the hole. However, I always look at the positives in everything. I came out with the knowledge that I read from the books I purchased, and realized that when something is too good to be true, it usually is.
Keep up the good work, Scott.
Thanks,
Mark
My wife and I joined Amway in 1992 in the Yager line of sponsorship, and are still involved in the business as far as the product side of the business.
If you look in the August 1998 Amagram, you will see our photos as new Directs. We stopped qualifying in 1999 when our upline Emerald decided to leave our Diamond and was placed with Don Storms.
We worked hard from 1992 until 1998 when we qualified. We lost over $150,000 by wrecking cars, taking the focus off our business, and being guided by our upline Emeralds who really did not have our best interests at heart.
I don't have all bad things to say about the business. We still get a check for about $200 to $250 a month for products that we still sell. The functions, tapes and books have changed our lives for the better. But the truth is, we would be much further ahead if we just would have focused on our careers and our family instead of sleeping in cars in rest areas.
The year we went direct, I put 90,000 miles on a used 1989 Cadillac. We were dead broke, and everyone in our family tried to stop us. We were like crack addicts with the business. As a new direct, we got a check for $800 the first month for 'tape credits'. We spoke at a local seminar and were paid $600.00, which totally floored me. We also got a bonus check from our sponsor for $6,000.00, $3,000.00 of which was paid to our Downline as their bonuses.
Of course we never talked about what we paid out, or the functions, driving all the miles, all the money in tools that we spent, and the money I Iost while driving to show the plan instead of working my primary business. When people asked what we were making, I just showed them a photocopy of that $6,000.00 check and left it at that.
Because our Diamonds were close to the Yagers with no active people in between, we got to get close not only to Dexter and Birdie, but other really big pins. I even drove Dexter around at a few functions.
The question that was raised by your site that haunted me was, 'If the business is so good, why is so much money changing hands for training?'. I think that most of the people in the business mean well, but some are corrupted by the tool money.
What would I say to someone looking at this as a business? Don't waste your time until Quixtar stands up to the Yagers and takes the tool business away.
Sincerely,
http://www.webraw.com/quixtar/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1098
For awhile now I have been reading these posts....I guess, I am trying to adjust to all
this "negative" (I have learned to call it truth at this point), and get a
handle on this.
I want to get this all off my chest, and since my I.D. is my real name, I know that I am
officially burning my bridges! Here goes....
I was involved with Amway/Quixtar for 7 years, I am now 27 years old. When I was in
college, I was approached by my roomate to look into a business opportunity. I was looking
for a job at that point, so I was open to anything. I was asked to meet him at Dennys. I
showed up at Dennys on time, to find not only him, but his father-in-law and some strange
man as well. No biggy, I thought. I sat down and listened to the idea. Being a young
college student, I thought it all sounded great. He said 2-5 years, I believed him....he
said 10-15 hours a week....I believed him. He said to come to an opportunity meeting...so
I did. Long story short, I signed up, and promptly did nothing....well, that is not true,
I went to some open meetings for awhile, and I went to some functions too. To be honest,
the first little bit was great.....the functions were fun because I was with my roommate
from school, we would make a road trip out of it, it was all new and it was just fun. The
Sunday morning service is what hooked me for good...I went to a Bible College, so seeing
people respond to the gospel was a great thing for me....I was in.
Then college started to get busy, and Amway became a back burner issue for me....I still
believed in it, and had the intentions of getting it going when I got done school.
Well, fast forward to Spring of 1999. I get a call from my sponsor (my roommate) about the
NEW internet business that Amway was launching....I was back in! I remember spending the
evening of Quixtar's launch at my friends house trying to get on line to see it...if some
of you remember it didn't launch quite right.
Anyway, i was in big time. I went to everything. In fact, from June 1999-December 2003 I
did it all.
There is so much to tell....and so much I am embarrassed at. First of all, for all of the
Quixtar IBOs who will read this and call me one of those guys who doesn't really try it,
and quits when it gets hard, here is SOME of what I did:
-for over 3.5 years, I met 3+people every day. I always kept a name list of 300+ people
that I had recently met to call.
-showed at least 4plans a week, for 3.5 years
-by myself, with no upline help for a year, and no tools and functions, built a team of
20+ IBOs.
-went Eagle....THREE TIMES (that is another story)
-Paid the price (as they say) by driving straight from Philly to Lake Charles LA to show
the plan....it was a no show. Drove all over the East Coast to show the plan...if you had
a pulse and I could get an appointment, I showed it too you. I put 50,000 miles on my car
EACH YEAR.
-did my PV, 300pv every month
-went to the open....every week, went to every function, every team meeting, every group
get together, and EVERY qualifier
-was on "leadership teams"
-showed the plan many times at our open....150/200 person open, so it was not a
"small time meeting"
-did all the core steps, all the time, without question.
So, the facts speak for themselves, I am not one of those guys who do nothing, and then
quit.
I am embarrassed and ashamed that I have spent so much time involved in something that has
caused us so much damage.
Before I go ANY further though, here is my disclaimer...I am completely responsible for
the choices and decisions that I made!
One of the most damaging things that happened to me was the idea that Diamond was just 2
years away, and all those bills that I have now, I can put them off and pay them when I
get free! That concept, the concept taught by people from stage, has cost me dearly by
severely damaging my credit rating. I am in the process of cleaning it up, but for anyone
who is still in Quixtar PLEASE....if you are not paying your sears bill because you need
to go to the function, or buy that tape that will put you over the edge....PAY SEARS!
Another thing that I am ashamed I was a part of was the lying....here are some examples:
-10-15 hours a week, that is all it takes. What a crock of crap. While I was in the hunt I
NEVER put that kind of time in...I was at 30-50 hours a week, plus working. Now I hear
people say that the 10-15 hours a week does not include DRIVING....that driving to the
house to show the plan was the equivalent of commuting to work. BULL CRAP. It is part of
the price, in fact, it is a BADGE of honor to be doing Miles After Midnight!
-Success is 2-5 years away. I am sorry, and I wish this wasn't a lie, but I have got to
say it is. I have been in for Seven years, and gotten to know hundreds and hundreds of
IBOs, and you know what, I only see ONE person who has "moved on".
-Pin Lying. The people who told you to "buy" your way to a pin....I have done
it, and I have seen it done.
-Scripture twisting. OK, some of you won't care about this, but as for me as a Bible
believing Christian it matters. I can't count the times that I heard things from stage
that would twist scriptures....prosperity twisting, speaking positively stuff....it was
and is horrible. And you know what, I knew it...I felt it in my gut, and I did nothing.
I am embarrassed that I allowed my wife and I to be caught up in this. It has cost us a
lot, our marriage is still good, but we are in a tough spot financially. I am ashamed that
even now, as I go through the process of quitting that I feel guilty for letting my wife
down....that I have killed her dreams (she has not said that too me, I just feel that
way).
There is so much more, and I am sure that I will be posting more, but I needed to publicly
get this out there.