MLM

[icerat]

My parents got sucked into Nikken (magnets) first and then Isagenics (cleansing diet). Both were wonderful magical products that will cure virtually anything that ails you and make you rich if you just sign up.

Don't know much about Isagenics, but in my opinon Nikken seems to be bogus products. Bogus products exist in any industry.

Any company that claims you get rich just by signing up is clearly bogus, though I doubt either of those companies did that.

They first joined back in 97 or 98 and have been trying to make money ever since. So far they have spent all their retirement, are in credit card debt up to their ears and have refinanced their house. If only they can get that downline going... My dad still works the same job and my mom had to get a job for the first time. Pushing 60 and no way to retire in sight...

MLM's have ruined what should have been my parents best years.

How is this the fault of the entire MLM industry?

 

[icerat]

Pointing out that you are associated with Amway isn't an ad hom.

calling me a shill is

Besides you have no credibility to be complaining about ad homs:

already apologised for that. I stand buy the sentiments though. There's an awful lot of people on Jref that aren't exactly rational. Now I know a lot of them are the generic woo supporters here to argue whatever, but the fact you get some otherwise ostensibly rational people who seem to just lose it when it comes to some topics (such as MLM) is just a little bizarre (and disappointing) to me. Whatever happened to objectively collecting and evaluating evidence, especially from independent or reliable sources?

 

[icerat]

No, they just found it impossible to make any money and ended up with a box of products they'd purchased "for their own use".
...
Why didn't they apply for a refund? I don't know. Perhaps it was past the 180 day period before they worked out they had no use for most of it.

They purchased stuff six months or more before they thought they might need it? No offence, but I think they dug their own hole more than a bit. Products can be returned after 6 months too, you just might only get 90% of your money back.

No, because we're saying it's an ineffective way to make money. If it was an effective way to make money, it'd be so obvious that they wouldn't need to hide their identity.

huh? I'm not sure what you're referring to here.

It's worked great for Amway, and a few people who started the whole system off in the first place. It doesn't work for anyone trying to get into the system now, though. The market is too saturated.

Amway's oldest market is the United States, 500 to 1000 new people qualify at the Platinum level and above every year (source). That requires generating new turnover of at least $22,500. How can you claim it's "saturated" when new business is getting created all of the time? Heck, I just created new business in the US and I don't even live there.

Compare and contrast Amway with companies like Enjo and Tupperware, that sell a quality product that people actually want, and where distributors make a commission on the things they sell, with no multi-level shenanigans.

I love Tupperware, but Amway's brands are some of the most respected and best selling in the world, winning multiple awards for quality and consumer satisfaction, and outsell Tupperware 4 to 1. To claim people don't want them is to ignore clear evidence to the contrary.

Furthermore, Tupperware is a multilevel company using a compensation plan very similar to Amway (stairstep breakaway). Enjo I hadn't heard of before, but is clearly also a multilevel company

 

[NewtonTrino]

calling me a shill is

Given that you are the most prolific amway defender on the internet is this really an ad hom? Has it actually been proven that you have never been compensated for defending amway? I honestly think these are valid questions to ask.

My personal opinion is that you are not paid btw. I think you are just very enthusiastic. I just wish that the enthusiasm was tempered with a little bit more personal success in amway so that you could talk with more authority.

Since you seem to know some high level IBO's I wonder if it would be possible to arrange some sort of QA session with them? What if we came up with a list of pre-screened questions that he/she agreed to answer publically (e.g. here)? Do you think anyone would be game?

I'll come right out and say that none of the high level guys I know would touch this with a 10 ft pole. They don't want the light shining on the scam

 

[Careyp74]

I think that perhaps there have been many people that have misused Amway and others in the past when the company was still starting out, and there may be a whole different experience now. I feel that perhaps peoples judgement is based on that past. Yes, Mary Kay and Avon are both MLMs that have been able to keep away from the bad image, perhaps because they are predominantly run by women? Just sayin....

I have not had any experience with them for years, so I cannot say what they are like today. icerat does, so I am willing to listen to what he has to say, but in an objective way.

As far as the companies that sell Woo, well, it is woo, maybe the fact that they are an MLM is not the main issue with them.

There are some points that are made that sound rational, like, if everyone did it there would be no one to sell to. Well, understanding business, I can say that a lot of the economy plays by the same rules, and if there is any proof that any MLMs are reaching saturation, that would be a good point to make. If not, it is just more rapid firing the thread.

I also like the ideas raised in NewtonTrino's last post, 11:01am. A chat with some higher ups would be very informative. Tell them it is a chance to recruit!

 

[politas]

Enjo I hadn't heard of before, but is clearly also a multilevel company

Your definition of "multi-level" is too broad. Enjo representatives get a flat bonus fee if both the reps they train and themselves reach a particular sales target. They get no remuneration for reps trained by their trainees. It's an incentive payment for training, not marketed as being a primary income source, whereas Amway certainly promotes the downline income as a (potentially) substantial income source.

 

[politas]

And I note that the Tupperware page you link to mentions nothing about multi-level systems, and also, most importantly, gives a fairly realistic idea of average earnings ($2,000 per annum is clearly a little bit of extra money, not a way to make a living).

Why do you keep providing links to things which do not provide evidence for your statements? How can we trust anything you say, if you are willing to so blatantly misrepresent the information you present to us?

 

[politas]

My biggest beef with Amway is that professional speakers/motivators, who don't make their money through Amway sales or downlines, wander around claiming to show people how they can quit their jobs and live off an Amway business (eventually). Yet I've never met a single person who actually does live off an Amway business. Thus, my perception is that people who can live off an Amway business are very rare, and it is therefore a far more difficult to do than it is represented as by those professional speakers/motivators. The stucture is set up in such a way that the best way to make money with Amway is to recruit a lot of people who earn small amounts of pocket change.

 

[icerat]

Has it actually been proven that you have never been compensated for defending amway?

How could it possible be "proven". Both myself and Amway have stated I'm not paid by Amway for it, but still it's not believed.

I just wish that the enthusiasm was tempered with a little bit more personal success in amway so that you could talk with more authority.

I've had enough success to know it's possible to build profitable, long last incomes from Amway. I've had enough success to know it's not hard to get customers. etc etc

Since you seem to know some high level IBO's I wonder if it would be possible to arrange some sort of QA session with them? What if we came up with a list of pre-screened questions that he/she agreed to answer publically (e.g. here)? Do you think anyone would be game?

No idea, but I'll see what I can do. Come up with some questions. I reckon there's a fairly good chance I can get some answers.

 

[icerat]

And I note that the Tupperware page you link to mentions nothing about multi-level systems,

Ok, was obvious to me in the links on that page, but maybe not so much for the inexperienced, try this link instead

and also, most importantly, gives a fairly realistic idea of average earnings ($2,000 per annum is clearly a little bit of extra money, not a way to make a living).

Every MLM company is required to give a similar disclosure, Amway has been doing it for 30 years.

Why do you keep providing links to things which do not provide evidence for your statements? How can we trust anything you say, if you are willing to so blatantly misrepresent the information you present to us?

You only had a problem with one link, and I thought the presentation and the income disclosure were evidence enough. Clearly I was wrong. Hopefully the new link will satisfy you.

Here's another one from Direct Selling News, the industry trade mag -

The 100 Million Club

You'll notice Avon, Mary Kay, and Tupperware are all listed as having multilevel compensation plans.

 

[Antiquehunter]

Yet I've never met a single person who actually does live off an Amway business. Thus, my perception is that people who can live off an Amway business are very rare, and it is therefore a far more difficult to do than it is represented as by those professional speakers/motivators. The stucture is set up in such a way that the best way to make money with Amway is to recruit a lot of people who earn small amounts of pocket change.

FWIW - I have two acquaintances in my life who both are highly successful MLMers, both of whom started out in Amway. They built a dedicated downline, and shifted this network of folks through various startup MLMs. I don't like what they do, but they make money at it - quite a bit. I'm not saying its 'right' or a pleasant business, but it CAN work. I concur that this must be one of the toughest business paths to hoe, and is absolutely the furthest thing from a 'get rich quick scheme'. It is a get rich slowly and with a helluva lot of work scheme.

Icerat: You mentioned earlier that Amway doesn't profit from membership / startup fees. Perhaps so, I'm not motivated to research further. However one thing I DO recall from my dalliance with the organization in the late 80's was the rampant profiteering from selling conferences, conventions and weekly motivational tapes - often a combination of Amway products and 'network' products from (then called) Diamond Direct distributors. These products were expensive, pretty much useless and were a 'hard sell' to any distributors who were active in the business. I'm pretty sure that more money was made by the sales of this material than on the BV/PV commission structures by those in the 'loop'.

 

[icerat]

My biggest beef with Amway is that professional speakers/motivators, who don't make their money through Amway sales or downlines, wander around claiming to show people how they can quit their jobs and live off an Amway business (eventually).

Ok, I can understand how that would be a concern. The problem is it's generally not true. Except for "outside" speakers, the guys on stage are nearly always people who have actually built significant Amway businesses generating significant incomes.

Yet I've never met a single person who actually does live off an Amway business.

Where do you live? I can introduce you to one nearly anywhere in the world, give or take a hundred kilometres.

Thus, my perception is that people who can live off an Amway business are very rare, and it is therefore a far more difficult to do than it is represented as by those professional speakers/motivators.

Depends what you call "rare", there are hundreds of thousands of "platinums" and above. Founders Platinums, those who are qualifying month in month out with a properly structured business earn significantly above the average wage, from a part-time business. There are hundreds of thousands of them.

I'd also have to challenge your claim that most of these guys represent it as "easy". How can you interpet 10-20hrs of work a week, on top of a full-time job, facing the constant rejection typical of a sales-type profession, and with low income for at least several months and usually more ... which part of that sounds easy?

Still, easy compared to what? If you want to become an engineer you have to work what, 30,40,50hrs a week, unpaid, for 4 years or so before you start getting an income - on top of tuition fees. If you want to buy a McDonalds' franchise you have to work 1000 unpaid plus invest hundreds of thousand of dollars - just to get started.

Building an Amway business isn't easy, but compared to what?

I suspect a lot of people confuse "simple" with easy. It's a pretty straightforward business. Ignore the complexity of having to deal with people, it's pretty simple. But not easy.

The stucture is set up in such a way that the best way to make money with Amway is to recruit a lot of people who earn small amounts of pocket change.

That's not true either. The best way would be to recruit people who all earn lots of money. The reality is that it's all volunteer, and most people who join elect not to dedicate much, or any, time to it and don't make much money. If everyone put time in to make money, then the model works even better. Ever heard of the Pareto Principle? It applies strongly to the Amway business. At any given time only about 20% of people are actually doing much. The rest are what I heard a guy today describe as a mix of wholesale price customers and "club members". The latter might do a little occasionally, might come along to meetings because they find value or have some future intent, but aren't actually doing much to earn an income, and most certainly don't expect to.

 

[icerat]

Icerat: You mentioned earlier that Amway doesn't profit from membership / startup fees. Perhaps so, I'm not motivated to research further. However one thing I DO recall from my dalliance with the organization in the late 80's was the rampant profiteering from selling conferences, conventions and weekly motivational tapes - often a combination of Amway products and 'network' products from (then called) Diamond Direct distributors. These products were expensive, pretty much useless and were a 'hard sell' to any distributors who were active in the business. I'm pretty sure that more money was made by the sales of this material than on the BV/PV commission structures by those in the 'loop'.

Yes, there's definitely been problems with that, particularly with some groups in the US. It's never been as widespread or universal as some would have you believe, but it has been a serious issue. Amway has been trying to deal with it for several decades. In the last 10-20 years the groups that were abusing that setup have become an increasingly smaller part of Amway's revenue, such that they've been able to implement various programs to rein them in without threatening the whole company.

Back in the 80s the groups that were notorious for this kind of behaviour made up more than a third of Amway's volume, and when the company tried to implement some controls they pretty much got their groups to boycott the company. At the same time a book was published about these groups that got a lot of publicity. While the book was really about these groups rather than Amway as a whole, it didn't distinguish and caused a lot of reputation problems (it still does for that matter). The boycott and the publicity caused sales to drop by some 40% and the owners had to focus on keeping the company together and they pulled back on the changes.

Several years ago Amway introduced an "accreditation" program for the multitude of companies that supply these products services. While often setup by "Diamonds" or larger businesses, they're wholling independent companies so Amway has no legal say in how they are run. What they did with accreditation was quite clever. Acheiving accreditation required a company to go through an audit of both their materials and any compensation plans they may have for promoting their products, as well as agreeing to certain guidelines such as not promoting political and religious topics at Amway-related training sessions.

The program was voluntary for a few years and a few companies undertook it. Then Amway said that if you're an Amway agent, and you want to earn various of Amway's discretionary, non-contractual bonuses (including free trips or various one off bonuses) then you either had to get accredited yourself, or be connected to an accredited training system.

This of course effectively required all of these third party companies to clean up there acts, or all the agents using them would promptly pack up and go to one who was. By this time the "troublesome" groups were a much less significant part of Amway and they had no real ability to implement something like the "boycott" of the early 80s.

There's still a few problems, but from my monitoring it really seems to have made a difference.

 

[vIQleS]

No, they just found it impossible to make any money and ended up with a box of products they'd purchased "for their own use".

I used to be in Amway - I used to just buy the products that I thought I would use... Despite the extreme pressure to "do [200?] bv [or pv or whatever]"...

When I stopped registering I had some stuff left over which I gradually used up (I think I may have ordered some more SA8 - which comes more concentrated then your average clothes washing detergent, although it's also very expensive).

Up until fairly recently, I tended to defend Amway - the system tehnically works (if you're able to put in the work, and happen (or can learn) to be the right sort of personality).

But more recently I've been hearing things on the various podcasts, and looking at the criticisms online, and I've basically dropped the idea that there's anything redeemable about the Amway system and MLMs in general...

The only thing I would say is that I'm a lot more positive now than I used to be. Which is good but not enough of a reason to join an MLM.

Compare and contrast Amway with companies like Enjo and Tupperware, that sell a quality product that people actually want, and where distributors make a commission on the things they sell, with no multi-level shenanigans.

Can't say I've ever been terribly impresed with tupperware (at least since the first time I saw the prices). I can get containers for a fraction of the price at the local 'cheap plastic crap' shop...

 

[icerat]

I used to be in Amway - I used to just buy the products that I thought I would use... Despite the extreme pressure to "do [200?] bv [or pv or whatever]"...

Was this pressure coming from Amway or the people you were working with?

But more recently I've been hearing things on the various podcasts, and looking at the criticisms online, and I've basically dropped the idea that there's anything redeemable about the Amway system and MLMs in general...

Which criticisms have concerned you in particular?

 

[NewtonTrino]

Which criticisms have concerned you in particular?

How about cult style recruitment tactics? Just for starters...

 

[icerat]

How about cult style recruitment tactics? Just for starters...

I didn't ask you, but could you be more specific?

 

[NewtonTrino]

Let's start with how amway distributors aren't upfront about what they are selling. As detailed in the other thread the flow of information is very restrained until it can be presented "properly". E.g. spun.

 

[icerat]

Let's start with how amway distributors aren't upfront about what they are selling. As detailed in the other thread the flow of information is very restrained until it can be presented "properly". E.g. spun.

I'm not sure how that is "cult-like" exactly, but the problem is we don't know what we are selling until we know what the customer is buying. Do you really expect people to go through the several thousand products in multiple different categories, as well as the myriad of possible business opportunities on the phone?

It's not as simple an issue as you make out. I could say any one of a dozen things to you about what it is I do that would all be true for me but which you might consider deceptive because it's not what you think I'm doing.

 

[politas]

I've never had an Amway person approach with an offer to sell me products. They are only ever interested in recruiting me. They're selling the business not the products.

Why can't you see the difference?