Scott, what can I say? We have both been in the Amway business in the U.K for some time now, I joined in Feb 1990. Having recently found your site it was captivating reading and highlighted not only some issues we have held about this business for some time but also showed us that duplication carries across the water.

We felt compelled to share our experiences with you as we didn’t come across any overseas comments on your site and as this business is a world wide concern it would make sense to have a foreign input so here goes.

As I have already said I joined the business (as it is always referred as – a point which bothered me some what in the early days) in Feb 1990. Like most people I was invited by a trusted friend to come take a look at a new opportunity he was thinking about getting involved with.

To cut to the chase my then partner and myself got in and went to our first weekend function 3 days later, dream weekend. As one of your site contributors has already said they know how to get to you emotionally and after this experience we decided to ‘go for it’. We bought £200.00 worth of ‘tools’ things that were essential to our success, and went about showing the plan. We were pretty successful at first achieving 1200pv in our first month and personally sponsoring 5 moving on to 2400pv by month 3 with a fair number of distributors underneath us. At our first counselling session we were informed that we were on track to go direct in 90 days, a great achievement, and that it was tools that built the business. So being well sucked in at this point we bought some more.

I wish I had taken the time to work out a profit and loss after 6 months, it would have highlighted a few areas I’m sure. We were hardcore, every tape, book, function, training you name it we were there regardless. Counselling till 2am then up at 7am for work (which was starting to suffer but hey! It’s all-temporary??)

We did everything that was suggested including selling things we ‘ would get back 10 fold’ in the future. I went through a multitude of different jobs under the grand illusion that it didn’t matter on the resume because Emeralds didn’t need one. I was even told at one stage that you should change jobs every 2-3 months so that you could contact everyone from that particular workplace.

We got people to change holiday plans, weddings (their own in some cases) sell their televisions (PV or TV was a popular statement over here at the time) and all sorts of things I’m not very proud of now in order to buy tools or attend functions. If you had someone in your group not paid for a function you’d call me in to get the cheque – I always did.

We saw this organisation in the U.K go from strength to strength to a peak of approx 40,000. Diamonds started to break, several Emeralds in the same month and Directs all over the place, 75 new silvers in one month alone!! We ourselves went Direct in March 1994, which, looking back was the start of the decline. Up until now we had never questioned anything our upline had told us and we had sacrificed a lot to get to where we were. It was often said to us along the way that after 6 months at the direct level you’d recoup all the money you’d have ever spent getting there!! And to be fair it felt like it. I had paid off a large debt burden with our Amway bonus money; we had a positive value in the bank and a free holiday (leadership seminar) to boot!!

Now I look back it had probably cost us a lot more than we thought. 209 weeks of SOT, a BOM every month, a 9% tape every month since the first month, seminar 9 times a year, 2 weekend functions and a free enterprise day. This doesn’t include all the motoring expenses, extra tools bought to ‘feed’ the group, open meetings, hotels, the list goes on.

As I said 1994 was the start of the decline here in the U.K and the next year we failed to re-qualify as Directs, I was gutted but we still got the tools break, as system money is known as here.

It is paid to Directs to enable them to keep a stock of tools on the shelf without having to spend all your bonus on them unfortunately we now had to pay for the said same tools to be delivered which cost, you guessed it, about the same as the tools break.

The following year we missed qualification again but had hit 5 months out of the fiscal year. The ongoing spend continued and a whole new program was introduced to the group at this time with the corresponding new tools. Again we blindly dived in, believing this to be the next phase or ‘the explosion waiting to happen which was so often being preached from stage at this time.

Video’s, new beauty programs, the ideas kept being rolled out every time with new tools to suit and thousands of ‘loyal’ distributors bought them.

Being seen as a Direct meant you got to hear many strange and wonderful things from other directs. All sorts of rumours were flying about and cross lining became a key topic at many leadership meeting. Although still following the system our upline and we had started to question some of the things that were going on. We got the same old answers we had been trained to give to others and that are often reported elsewhere on your site but by now the decline in business was evident. Numbers at functions had dropped drastically and the number of venues for both seminars and open meetings had been cut. It became more of a problem when weekend functions went from 5 i.e 5 family reunions to one!! When we got there to be part of the team a further shock was to see half the seating area closed off. Strange as it may seem Amway’s leadership trip that year was to Disney world, Florida and we qualified!! (By the skin of our teeth – I think we sponsored a dead relative to meet the sponsoring criteria!)

After that it was pretty much a down hill struggle, we had motivated a 15% group to produce 21% volume (on our uplines advice) and had basically worn them out. ‘If you can’t get wet wood to burn get new wood’!! Was the chant for some time but no matter what we done nothing stuck? We were told how everyone else was exploding in growth but functions showed us the true story. All this time we were told to read more, listen more, study the speakers at functions, we felt small and stupid, if anyone can do this why couldn’t we?

My wife and I had separated at this part (nothing to do with Amway or the business I will add) so I was building by myself and running the business as a single. Running everything made me look at certain areas a lot closer than I had before. This business was costing me a fortune and the less success I experienced the more tools to help me were being recommended.

This wasn’t just me either, some of the directs that I had got to know well and admire in some cases were no longer to be seen at functions and questions to other directs revealed answers not heard before. Reasons concerning tool costs and business costs, profit or lack of and personality issues with upline were all being cited. One emerald even shared with me that when he went emerald he thought his upline Diamond would now relax around him a bit more and they’d get to know each other as friends but in fact his constant system promotion had got even worse so much so that he changed to a different upline for counselling; out of the frying pan and into the fire it turned out though.

My upline Ruby had seen his business, at it’s height, with 2 personal Direct legs both with directs in depth and a 12% leg and others outside, dwindle down to two 18% legs and some bits. He too was told of the growth going on elsewhere and couldn’t except that it was just his group.

At this stage, although we had developed a good friendship, we really started to talk to one another about what we thought was wrong. Things had got to such a low that some Emeralds had even gone back to work and others we heard had lost their system income because they were so low down the scale now it didn’t make sense to allow them some of the spoils any more.

We had always worked with our upline diamonds diamond up till this point and were proud of the fact because we thought it showed our level of commitment but his methods were becoming harder to accept and core groups to 5am did little to persuade us other wise. At this point we heard from another Ruby in our upline that our diamond was planning to go it alone, set up his own system. Although in the states it seems that once diamond this is a natural progression, in the UK it had always been strongly advised against. We were well aware of the system income at this stage, if not the actual amounts being made, and advising people against setting up for themselves seemed to be a clear case of not wanting to lose income by the big pins.

Despite all this we broke away with our upline diamond and set up our own organisation. All sorts of promises were made to right the wrongs that had been happening and gossip about our previous business associates was rife. The one thing we did promise ourselves (including my new partner, a 12% in my group) was that we’d never blindly follow anyone on faith again and we would question what didn’t make sense. That has stood us in good stead and if nothing else I’d advise all your visitors to do like wise. Things started off o.k. and the organisation began with a 1000+ distributors who had loyally followed us over. Unfortunately after a short honeymoon period it was evident that this diamond was no different from all the others we had met and that he too had a hidden agenda except he wasn’t so skilled at hiding it.

I have to mention the fact that this didn’t really reveal itself until he decided to get his advice from our American upline (something he said he’d never do when we first all got together) Now all we heard was about Dexter has said this and Glenn (schoffler) had said that. American speakers were at nearly all our functions. I firmly believe that he too, at this moment, is being ripped by his upline but is just too dumb to notice!! More and more ‘american’ tools are now being used and various new training programs and incentives are being introduced (all with the appropriate tooling). Numbers have dropped considerably and stand at about 450 attending functions. One new significant level in 18 months (a 12% or 2400pv to you guys) he even told me personally that he doesn’t expect any real new growth for at least 6-12 months!! So why all the new tools I asked? To keep the troops happy he said. Obviously the drop in income he’s experienced has to be replaced from somewhere to maintain his lifestyle.

Various other dirty tricks have taken place including trying to get people to change LOS from my upline to another on the grounds that my upline is inactive!! Tape prices being hiked by 5% without any prior notification and others that I won’t mention but include the practice of generally de-edifying (a term common to your readers) anyone who isn’t playing ball!!

To finish up my last point concerns the Internet. We here in the UK watched with great excitement the launch of Quixstar in the states and were fed all sorts of impressive statistics but in October last year (2000) we got the chance to attend a Dexter Yager weekend being held in the UK. This was the first time in all the years I’ve been in that we have had the option of going. Our UK upline diamonds had never even mentioned the fact that Dexter runs a UK function once a year the reason I believe is because we never plugged into their system and therefore all profits stayed with the UK pins.

We had to go just to finally meet the most successful networker ever plus we’d get to know a lot more about the Internet business. I have to say that it was most definitely the worse and best investment I have ever made in made Amway business. The best because it confirmed many of our suspicions and worse because of the same reason. Apart from the cost (which was exorbitant to our usual weekend cost) it was held in an ice rink with boards placed over it in order to place the seats. This made the whole venue like a giant deep freeze. We had the usual men’s meeting while women went off with the visiting diamond ladies. Here we learnt that……..well not much at all actually. All the questions to the panel were screened (so nothing important could be asked no doubt) and most of the diamonds had obviously been inactive for quite a while judging by the way they failed to answer clearly even the most basic of questions except for the one about ‘ How useful is the system to a direct’? (I mean….really).

What was obvious about the use of the Internet was that none of them had!! We managed to ask how much extra volume had been generated by Quixstar or was it just re-directed traditional orders? This question caused much confusion ‘I’m not quite sure what is being asked’? Said Don Storms. How about do the panel still think a board and easel is the right way to present the business given the various other presentation media available? Again this was shuffled around between them without any clear answer being given.

Functions were routinely promoted by each and every one of them like you need to hear that again at the direct level and when my partner returned from the women’s session the look on her face said it all. Birdie Yager had stood on stage and announced that this is not Rich and Jays business…….(long pause for affect no doubt)………this is GODS business. Now you need to understand a British audience for this one but that sort of talk doesn’t win friends over here, it’s a definite turn off for most people. When we all got back together she reinforced this by giving the same speech again!! (Value for money??)

The biggest show of true colours for us was when Birdie made the statement that we all need to be loyal to our American upline who know far more than we do and who we would fail with out. The fact is the UK grew very well for many years without any USA input (certainly no tools) which must have ticked them off a treat as they didn’t make a penny out of any of us (our UK upline screwed us all by themselves!!) but now our diamond has returned us to the flock and for his loyalty he’s rewarded with a personal counselling session from Dexter (all he had to pay for was accommodation and the flights but what an opportunity for him?? – came back with loads of new tools)

Anyway after returning from this function with even more tools (by choice this time – I’ll explain why in a moment) we decided that we wanted to do something more positive with the internet so we used the tools we had bought to study what our USA upline had done, good and bad and actually designed our own online presentation using web television as the medium to carry our message. We spent time and money doing this (remember we had been described as inactive earlier) and shared our ideas with key people in our groups; the response from them was one of overwhelming support. We followed the Amway rules to the letter and sent them a prototype for a first off evaluation. The initial response from both Amway UK and USA was great. UK BSM staff thought the concept was tremendous and agreed with the fact that the old board and easel has had its day. The states too showed great enthusiasm and wanted to see the full site as soon as possible. So we invested the rest of the money and had the thing produced properly. The result we feel is both very prospect friendly and easy to understand. It’s bright, fresh and now!! Said Amway UK and off it went to BSM review for final authorisation. When we got our response a week or so back we were disappointed to say the least. No monetary gain should be shown, implied or suggested on any Amway sales and marketing plan!!!!!!

Now hang on a minute I’ve been in this business since 1990 and have never, NEVER seen any information appertaining to the plan either as a teaching tool or for prospects to take away and evaluate that DIDN’T show money!!

I spoke to Brian Corner direct who is one of the guys at Ada and his answers were again quite surprising. Their decision is spot on and in accordance with the rules of conduct etc he told me but when I questioned the amount of support material I had seen with money in it he said that "not all distributors have been as open or willing to have us review their BSM’s as you have been, if we come across any we suggest to them that they can send us a copy to judge but they never do"

So there you have it, Amway themselves admitting that they are aware of ‘Amway illegal’ BSM’s being used but with very little power or desire to do much about it which verifies much of what we have read on your site Scott.

We got on the phone to all our groups and informed them that we no longer would be taking part in any system that was being provided as ‘support’ for your Amway building efforts. We told them this was our personal decision and that they, as IBO’s were free to make their own choices. With the exception of one, who had a meeting with our upline diamond and got invited to his house they all followed suit. We have greatly encouraged an open and honest communication with our groups since we changed organisations and for that reason alone they all did what we had done. Being a man and not a mouse I phoned our upline diamond to tell him of our decision and that he would no longer see us at functions and that our SOT order was now ONE and could he arrange to supply direct. I also asked him a lot of other questions, which as you have probably guessed he couldn’t or wouldn’t answer.

So where do we go from here? Almost everyone of our distributors stays in touch and many have stated that if we start any other kind of business they’d be happy to do business with us again but like yourself and many of your site visitors I don’t feel we can just disappear from this and let them carry on deceiving people. What we do I’ll let you know in the meantime I’m sorry for this very long version of our story. I hope you can use it on your site even in a shortened version.

One final note, Burt Gullick, a very successful diamond from the USA said on a tape I listened to not so long ago that you don’t leave the money you make in Amway in Amway, you reinvest it in other income producing activities. It always made me wonder why you wouldn’t reinvest in a business that had made you so successful, maybe they know the writing is on the wall and it’s just a matter of time before it all has to end in which case who’d want that lifestyle of theirs to suffer? In the meantime I think they are just to influential over Amway’s turnover for anyone at Amway to do anything about it!!!

Well that’s it Scott, as I said hope you can use it, there’s a lot more I could say about the system and the sort of system we think there should be but I’m fast wearing out my key board.

Keep up the good work; we support you all the way

  Steve & Heidi – former system slaves who are now free

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