icerat
Philosopher
It's tells you nothing? Seriously? Nothing? Seriously? Nothing? (where's Seth and Amy when you need them).
On it's own, it tells you nothing.
You wonder why people are skeptical about your business? This kind of crap is the reason. You can't give us P/L statements.
And you can't give me P/L statements for a single tennis player! Why not?
You can't even make an estimate of the profit per hour invested UP TO THIS POINT? And if you do it means nothing?
I don't keep track of the hours I put in, in to ANY business I own, so no, I can't. As an entrepreneur the question seems ridiculous. You put in whatever it takes to achieve what you want to achieve. You certainly work out what you think will be necessary when you're doing your business plan, but generally the answer is "whatever it takes".
Put it this way, the "profit/hour" for my Amway business after 18 months FAR FAR FAR exceeds the (profit/hour)-(capital investment) of any other business I've started.
Since you're so keen on this, please show me the profit/hour for the founders of the company your "valuing"
Would it make you happier if we included a valuation of the company in the equation? Company valuations tend to include future earnings so:
total profit + company valuation / hours worked
should get us some kind of idea of the value proposition here?
I have never ever, ever seen a company valuation that included the hours work the founders put in to it. Not one. Have you? Please show it to me.
And while we are on this topic why don't you tell us how Amway business are valued typically? I'm curious if I built up my business to say a diamond level how much I could sell it for.
There's a large number of factors that come in to play in determining that. A business could be generating a certain level of income now, but based on it's structure and other parameters, it could easily be predicted that it will quickly deteriorate without a lot of work - or it may increase. Each business is different. I know of Diamond businesses that have been sold for 3 times yearly net profit, others that have been sold for more, others that have been sold for less but included ongoing lifetime payments to the seller.
Bottom line, your refusal to engage when it comes to actual numbers makes it more likely that this is a scam.
There's been a refusal to engage in bogus numbers that mean nothing. There's no refusal at all to engage in real numbers. The business plan describes *exactly* the income that can be generated depending on the volume and structure you create. Nothing hidden or refused. The average incomes at various levels give you an idea of what that plan results in on average, though obviously there's a large variance in profitability due to differences in structure and expenses.
Every time we see numbers from Amyway they reveal the same thing over and over. Crap profitability for the average IBO
Again - why do you think people doing no work should make money? It sounds almost like you're disappointed that it isn't a pyramid scam!
lots of tools profit for the kingpins
Funny how you won't accept official government mandated statistics on Amway income, but any old rumour on "tool income" will be accepted just fine!
For the great majority of Diamonds and above, Amway income far exceeds tool profit income.
and a huge lack of any kind of good information on actual profit for those in the middle of the pyramid.
There's no lack of information at all! You can work out EXACTLY what the income will be for any given volume or structure. Expenses vary greatly and depend on the individual, where they're located, what type of business they're trying to setup over what kind of timeframe etc etc.
They can be estimated, and they are, I've provided that kind of information here, it just keeps getting ignored by you. I've also linked you to a forum where real IBOs from around the world have spoken about how much they've been making. Did you go there and ask for details, or prefer to hide here so you don't have to deal with the truth?
Even some quick back the envelope calculations shows the Amway business to be sucktastic compared to almost anything else (it might beat lottery tickets).
You can come up with any figure you like if you want to ignore the data. This post on how much is an Amway business worth caculates that building a solid Emeraldship over 10 years is roughly equivalent to saving and investing $14,000/mth over that ten year period.
So, if you insist ... let's assume 20hrs/wk, that's about $175/hr.
You can't just trot out bonus checks from people at the top of the pyramid and claim that this is a good business.
ROFL!!! That's just plain funny .... you can't just trot out the winnings of top tennis players and claim that reflects what top tennis players earn!
hahaha ... of course you bloody well can.
You have to look at the AVERAGE case.
And I've already told you. The "average" IBO does nothing and makes nothing. So if you plan on being an average IBO then you're not going to make a cent.
For example if the average diamond business takes 10 years to build I want to see the profitability curve for the entire time. If you have to lose money and invest huge amounts of time over a long period that may be the equivalent of investing a large sum.
The average Diamond takes a little under 10 years to reach that point, and earned around $150,000/yr in bonuses. Recent changes indicate that will pretty much double. They'd generally work on average around 20hrs/wk to reach that point. That would normally include some months and years of only a few hours a week and other periods of 30-40 or more hours a week.
Unless you decide to start building internationally, expenses should be covered by retail profit, which is earned on top of that $150,000/yr.
How long does it take the average diamond to go diamond?
A little under 10 years, but the range is from 1 year to 30+ years.
How much money do they make or lose along the way?
Apart from the first few months you'd generally not lose any money at all, and that first few months is repaid fairly quickly. How much they make "along the way" is not easy to calculate as it's so variable. Most Diamonds will tell you they went Diamond in a period of 2-3 years. The average is about 10 years because they spend 7-8 years stuffing around before deciding to get serious. Many of course go Platinum or Emerald and relax there for years. A friend of mine has been Emerald for 20 years and has only recently decided to put the effort in to go Diamond.
People who treated it seriously from early on clearly have a dramatically different income curve to those who spend a decade stuffing around. If I decided to take it seriously and start working today and qualify Diamond in say 3-4 years, what do we make of the last 8 years when I've travelled the world and done nothing?
Once the average diamond stops working the business how long does the residual income last?
Most diamonds don't stop working entirely, they enjoy what they do so they keep doing it, albeit usually at a slower pace.
The first three Diamonds in the business were Fred Hansen, Jere Dutt, and Joe Victor. They're all dead. Those businesses still qualify at Diamond or higher every year.
Dollars per hour is just a simplification of all of these calculations to give an overall idea of how well your time has been spent. If you include company valuation then it's a very good indicator.
Entrepreneurs don't think that way.
As for your tennis pro strawman doing an actual estimate would be pretty easy for a pro athlete. Take the amount of hours they've spent to become good (typically 10,000+ by the beginning of a pro career), the amount of money they've made up to now and divide.
Ummm ... no. You said you wanted profitability, that calculation doesn't even remotely give it. How about equipment expenses? Coaching expenses? Travel and accomodation etc etc?
If instead you want a straightforward calculation like that, a Diamond puts in at most 10000hrs to go Diamond. The 10000hr rule applies to most things in life, but many of the skills to build a Diamond business you've learned before you start. A rule of thumb is 1000 "plans". A plan should take no more than an hour. Let's say 2 hours including travelling and preparation. That's 2000hrs. Half of those you might take through to followup, another 2 hours. 2500hrs. 200 might be interested in getting started, 3 hours. 3100 hours. 9 monthly education seminars - 50hrs/yr. 3 Weekend Conferences/yr, 60hrs/yr. Customers, 200hrs/yr - total 310hrs/yr. Some miscellaenous etc time, you're looking at maybe 5000 hrs committed.
At the end of that 5000hrs (compared to the beginning of the pro career) they're making, these days in the US, $300,000/yr and above. In addition they also get 3-4 luxury all expenses paid trips a year. Like a Tennis pro and endorsements they also get to earn additional income, if they choose, on things like the speaking circuit. Except of course a new tennis pro doesn't make money on endorsements ...
This will show an abrupt edge if done over time. This edge represents the risk inherent in this type of all or none strategy. If you make it big you will make large dollars and everything will work out. If you don't make it big then you will likely not be profitable at all. This is one reason that I wouldn't recommend someone use a pro athlete strategy to run their lives.
The difference between a pro-athlete strategy and building a business is that virtually by definition only a very small number of people can win the tournaments and make big bucks. That doesn't really apply to the same extent in the world of business. Only one person can win Wimbledon. On current statistics, assuming 1000 people registered in a network as business builders or registered customers, and another 1000 unregistered customers, more than 3,000,000 people could qualify Diamond.
The time that you are working without making money is your investment and represents your risk. I personally think most Amway people completely misrepresent the risk involved because they don't consider time to have value.
It's up to the individual decide what their time is worth. Let's try a simple one. In Europe at the moment, Amway will pay you a single bonus of 200,000€ for qualifying Diamond before the end of 2013. That one bonus alone would be 50,000€ a year - more than 40% higher than the average income in the UK. How many hours would you be willing to work for €200,000?
At 5000hrs, that's 40€/hr in just one bonus!
Bottom line, it's a waste of time compared to almost anything else. Sitting on your ass collecting welfare is probably time better spent than "building an Amway business".
If you define "building an Amway business" as sitting on your ass thinking about it, which is what most people who sign up do, and which based on the statistics you quote is how you define it, then you're absolutely correct.
If you look at the actual data and what's on offer, then you're nowhere near correct.
Plain and simple it's a brainwashing business cult that relys on a continuous stream of suckers chasing an unlikely dream.
Plain and simple is you've decided what you believe, you don't care what the numbers say, you'll do whatever you can to hold on to your belief system.
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