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It happens to every distributor at some point in their Ama-career -- they run out names of friends, family and acquaintances to call about the Amway business. It can take a few weeks or a few months, but eventually it will happen. At this point, the distributor must resort to Cold Contacting. This is a process where distributors meet people at restaurants, retail outlets, or any other place where there are people, and attempt to get their name and phone number.
There are many different ways of doing this. Each organization seems to have dozens of tapes that describe many different ways to contact people and rightly so. Cold Contacting people is the hardest thing a distributor will do. If they cannot or will not do this, they might as well hang up their marker and not waste their time.
Whatever tactics and techniques a distributor uses to contact a prospect, the contact boils down to one of two types -- a business contact or a non-business contact.
By business contact, I am talking about a distributor who will be honest and upfront during the conversation and reveal that the purpose of getting your name and phone number is to make an appointment to show you the details of a business. If they are really honest, they'll even tell you it's Amway. But even if they don't tell you it's Amway at least you know the motive behind the contact is to make an appointment to hear about a business opportunity and THEN you can decide whether you want to give him/her your phone number. In my opinion, distributors who use this method of cold contacting at least are being as honest and ethical as telemarketers who call you during supper.
By Non-business contact, I am talking about someone who approaches you at a retail outlet, restaurant, wherever. They seem to be the friendliest person and incredibily interested in you and ask a lot of questions and somehow gets your name and phone number. A few days later, you get a phone call from this "friendly" person. He/she talks about how impressed they were with you, and then hit you up with a well rehearsed spiel about expanding a business and wanting to know if you are open to looking at ways to increase your annual income.
What the unsuspecting person doesn't realize is that the distributor is following a practiced and well rehearsed routine. This method of contacting people is not an isolated practice used by a few distributors, it is widely used.
Most distributors will recognize the ancronym F-O-R-M, which stands for Family, Occupation, Recreation, and Money. These are the topics that a distributor concentrates on getting information about. Many distributors get quite good at pumping a prospect for enough information so they can contact them. They really have no interest in you, as a person. Their interest is greed -- it is the dream of being wealthy. I realize that is a pretty harsh statement, so form your own opinion, How would you classify someone who pretends to be your friend, calls you about a business opportunity, and then you never hear from them again if you say no?
Of those that say no, most of them probably have a "Thanks but no thanks" attitude. They are not interested, but neither are they annoyed or upset that the distributor contacted them. Indeed, most of the people I contacted during my Ama-career fell in this category. They were very polite on the phone. Of course, I don't know what they said after I got off the phone, because I never contacted them again. When I get calls from telemarketers, I politely say "No thanks" and when I get off the phone call them all sorts of names. It would not suprise me if that happened with some of the people I called.
However, some people do get annoyed and upset when they realize that they've been had. And yes, I did encounter people who were angry that I called them up after finding out what their name was and where they lived and looking their phone number up in the phone book. Can you blame them? They thought they were just talking to a friendly person and then they realize that their trust was betrayed by someone who was just pretending to be interested in them and in reality they were just interested in Money, Money, Money, Money, Money. It's kind of like seeing a person on the street with a sign "Will work for food." I used to feel real sorry for these people until I found out that most of the time it was nothing more than a scam to get money.
This is why I titled this page the "Con" in contacting. There is certainly nothing illegal about a person pretending to be your friend. There is certainly nothing illegal about this person looking your name up in the phone book. There is certainly nothing illegal about the person calling you about a business opportunity. There is certainly nothing illegal about the person never calling you again.
If you listen to a few contacting tapes, you will hear why people are contacted in this manner. First it is easier to make a friendly non-business contact than it is to make a business contact. It takes real skill to approach someone in a mall and after a 5-10 minute conversation establish enough crediblity to offer them an exciting business opportunity with a straight face.
You will hear on the contacting tapes that Amway is a numbers game. If you go through enough people, you will eventually hit on people who will at least try it. They even have a phrase for it -- Some Will. Some Won't. So WHAT. Some Where. Six Will. NEXT.
Doesn't that tell you that they really don't care about those who say no -- they only care about those who say yes. Then they will be the greatest friend you ever had...until you decide Amway is not the right business opportunity for you. Guess what happens then? You'll never hear from them again. That's real friendship isn't it?
In my mind, the question becomes -- is it moral and ethical to pretend to be someone's friend when in reality the sole interest is to get a name and phone number of someone to call about Amway? If your answer is yes, then you have a real shot at being successful in Amway.
Below is an article from the San Francisco Chronicle from late Dec, 1998. The link below should take you there. Just in case the article is purged from their server, I have included the text below. If this was just an isolated incident, Adair's article could be called unfaired. But I am sure that there are millions of people in the United States who can relate to the experience she write's about.
MY WAY OR AMWAY -- by Adair Lara
MY SISTER ADRIAN was sitting in her local bookstore in Ukiah the other day, leafing through the Wine Spectator, when a tall, personable blond woman engaged her in conversation. They got to chatting and exchanged phone numbers.
Next day the woman, Jan, called Adrian at the bank where she works and chatted some more. Adrian, mystified, called me. ``What is going on?'' she asked.
``Maybe she's lonely and trying to make new friends,'' I suggested.
Jan called again, and asked Adrian if she wanted to meet for coffee. Still puzzled by the woman's great friendliness, Adrian met her down at the bakery for coffee later in the week. The woman brought along her daughter, who did her homework while the two women talked on personal subjects. The woman even told Adrian all about her natural childbirth.
Then Jan said something about ``uplines,'' and Adrian, startled by this shift, wary, said, ``I'm not interested in business.''
``Well, you should be,'' Jan returned smoothly. And of course then Adrian knew that the woman wasn't interested in being her friend at all. She was selling Amway products.
Amway is a quasi-religious mail-order corporation whose distributors get a percentage of the price of the soap, vitamins and household products they sell -- and that the poor saps they in turn sign up sell for them. These distributors are told they can make $100,000 in their spare time this way.
But they tend to go right through their friends, and so they need new ones -- like Adrian. You will stop to help them change a tire on the freeway and get a phone call a week later. You'll run an ad to sell your TV and get a friendly call from an Amway distributor disguised as someone who needs a Sony for the bedroom.
IT IS NOT illegal for people to pretend to be your friend when they are selling something. But it is a loathsome practice, one that preys on the part of us that is open, friendly and willing to believe that what a person appears to be is what she is. The part of us that believes, too, that we are charming and interesting enough for the person's feigned interest to be real.
Adrian was furious all the next day, not just at the woman but at everybody she saw.
I remember that feeling. Friends asked me to dinner, then took me into their garage and sold me a fire extinguisher I didn't want or need, but that I then understood to be the price of the meal. It was a delicious dinner, a delicately prepared sea bass, but it left a sour taste.
THERE ARE 500,000 people like Jan in this country, poor deluded would-be Amway millionaires out hustling new friendships, convinced that they will finally get that estate in the country, when they are actually lucky to make $65 a month before expenses. They have been hustled themselves, been sold Amway soaps and toothbrushes, Amway motivational tapes and Amway dreams. You end up feeling sorry for them, as Adrian did for Jan.
We lose, too, though, when they come around. They are just after our money, but they take something else, too -- our trust. They teach us to be suspicious and on guard, and sometimes they succeed. Next time a friendly woman speaks to Adrian in a bookstore, her first thought may be to wonder what this stranger wants. She hopes she won't -- that she'll smile, as before, and put her magazine down.
When we're lucky, we keep our trusting, foolish natures -- but not to the point of becoming Amway distributors.