Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Why this hype about HONESTY and INTEGRITY?????

Bill Britt would often ask from stage “Have any of you heard or seen anything immoral or illegal”? at functions. We would feel like shouting from the top of our voice “YES YES YES.” But lamely everybody in the crowd would say “NO.” How could you reply anything but no to this question when asked from a stage in front of 5000 people.

Double Diamond Kumar would often say, unlike other corporations- in this business, the higher up you go, there is no one doing any secret deals and it is all so honest and transparent and how united everybody is. This same guy, once Larry Winters team was out of BWW, was making fun of the Winter’s team diamonds and made fun of one of the cds made by their diamond- “Wednesday through Monday,”- he was like what a idiotic title and blah blah blah. Paul Miller, Bill Britt, Rocky Covington from stage implied Winters team were greedy and imitated and made fun of some of their diamonds.

Why should they keep talking about how honest they are all the time and make fun of corporations like Enron or whatever new scam that breaks out on the news at that point of time. Honesty and integrity is all stage talk. From stage they will say build it right, build it with structure. When you counsel with upline, they will say you cannot do everything that u hear from the stage.

In fact one of the 9 core steps is building the business with honesty and integrity. One of the nuggets of Kumar is – “In every other business the bottom line is money. But in this business the bottom line is about people.” If the bottom line is people, why are they being asked to stock up products, buy fake pins (including qualifying as a Eagle fakely), why stroke people’s ego to make them move on.” The Bottom line in this business is not people- but FAKE PINS and FAKE RECOGNITION.

Stocking up products, buying fake pins is very very common within the system. If the hype about people who qualify for eagle leadership will start platinum qualification in 3-6 months, why haven’t the 200-300 people who qualify every year for the eagle leadership in my upline diamond’s team do not start their platinum qualification in 3-6 months. Only 2-3 people, at the max 5 people qualify as new platinum every year in his team. If you ask this question to your upline- “You will be branded as a person who does not have faith, who is not loyal, not a team player, etc etc etc.”

If you ever decide to leave the business, try asking your upline for tool refund as mentioned in BSMAA- your upline’s honesty and integrity will come to light. At least WWDB website mentions about tool refund as mentioned in BSMAA agreement. In BWW website there is no mention about tool refunds or BSMAA agreement. When we sent an email to BWW asking about if there was any tool refund, they replied us back saying we have to check with upline, as “we were not direct customers of BWW.”- They did not mention anything about the tool refund that is possible as specified in BSMAA. This after every one of their cd carrying a disclaimer message at the end about the refund that is possible.

When we asked upline, they said they offer tool refunds only to new people who try out standing order for the first time. This refund they said is similar to often repeated statement to new prospects that “function ticket will be fully refunded if you attend all the sessions and don’t think it does not have any value .”

Your uplines and the system is all about Honesty and Integrity and you will experience it very soon if you have not already experienced it.

No! No! It is not saturated

When you research into the opportunity, IBOs usually defend by telling impressive statistics about the company. They are #1 online health and beauty and then a bunch of statistics like "Since 1999, IBOs powered by Quixtar have earned more than $2.2 billion in bonuses and other incentives by generating sales of more than $6.8 billion at www.quixtar.com, and another $500 million for Quixtar Partner Stores."

These numbers do mean something, but the following numbers give you a better picture:

2000 $0.440 billion
2001 $0.750 billion
2002 $0.990 billion
2003 $1.035 billion
2004 $1.100 billion
2005 $1.058 billion
2006 $1.118 billion
2007 $1.072 billion
2008 $1.112 billion
2009 $1.100 billion

From 2002 onwards the North American market has pretty much flattened out in its revenues. So they only quote the performance along with the global market or they defend by telling who else has grown in this economy.

But the fact is if you are trying to build this thing now, it is all the more difficult. Defense that there are more people turning 18 than we can recruit, does not seem to hold true when it comes to Amway/quixtar recruiting for the past 7 years!

Tap rooting vs. 6-6-8-6-6

BWW introduced the new practice of tap rooting in late 2008. This was going to change the whole face of BWW - so it was claimed.

The concept of tap rooting does make sense. If you sponsor someone and he does not have anyone below him, he gets discouraged. So you try to sponsor someone for him asap. But what happens usually is - out of the contacts the new guy has, you won't get all the numbers. Many new guys have a huge "chicken list" i.e. people whom they are scared of calling. So new IBOs won't share their list with the sponsoring IBO. Also many of the new guys are not properly trained initially to approach people in person or on phone, so they goof up a lot initially. About 80% of the IBOs quit within 30 to 60 days of joining - or they do literally nothing - after 4 or 5 guys tell them NO.

So with tap rooting you sponsor one of your contacts for the new guy. To properly do this you need to introduce the two guys and should let the 1st new guy know that he is now responsible. Then you need to keep them all under one roof in meetings, so that they can build relationship. What do you do for the 2nd new guy? You either sponsor one of your contacts or the 1st guy's contacts or the 2nd guy's contacts - and repeat this process until you go 20 or 30 deep. The expectation is that out of every 4, you will find 1 guy who will duplicate what you are doing in his leg 2. Then you do the same in leg 2 of yours. You should go platinum with hopefully two or three legs.

Just like Bill Britt's 6-6-8-6-6 theory, this concept looks great on paper. It is very nice to hear these kind of new ideas and think how it is going to change your business. I had 3 legs in BWW, so thought I was going to go emerald in 2 years! That was how they hyped it!

BUT - many times the new guys really do not understand anything. I saw several lines of sponsorship get 20 and 30 deep - including mine - but the IBO at the top did not qualify for newer pins. Because the new guys do nothing even when sponsored in depth. The real issue is that with one leg you make no money. You have not really removed the fear in the new IBO when you sponsor somebody for him. The dude has to get out and get his nose bloodied to do anything with the business. But several guys do not share their list or try to build the business even after having 1 leg below them.

IMO, whatever the technique for building the network, the Amway/BWW business model is an extremely tough one to build. Tougher than building it is to keep the people in once you have built it.

Managing IBOs in your downline is worse than managing employees - bcoz if you are the boss then you can threaten your employees, but if you are a diamond you cannot. You need to keep finding ways to keep on motivating your downline IBOs. The typical saying at the open meeting "you can go to Timbuktu after you break 6 platinums and your platinums will not need any help in building their business" is a lie. Diamonds work from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. on weekdays and whole weekends instead of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. If they qualify diamond, they make good money - else they are just fake diamonds - the guys who do not qualify for Peter island trip. They still make good money in tools and functions and have a glorified job.

The claim of 2 to 5 year diamond is a theory. I did not see a single diamond who went diamond in 2 to 5 years in my 6 year history with this thing.

18 years with Bill Britt's 6-6-8-6-6 theory

If you were associated with BWW any time during 1990 to 2008, you might have heard of 6-6-8-6-6, supposedly the way to go CAM in Amway/quixtar business.

According to this CD/tape, you sponsor a batch of 6 in width in a short span - in one week or one day - and let them compete. You get 1 or 2 good legs out of 6 on an average and you work with them for a month or two and help them sponsor a few. Then you sponsor 6 more in width in a short span - that gets you 12 wide - according to Bill you should get 3 to 4 good ones and you go platinum with them. Then you sponsor 8 more quickly in a batch and you will go emerald. You then sponsor 6 and 6 once again - and you will go diamond.

Bill Britt claims he did this and all his guys did it too. Maybe Paul Miller did it and one more ex-BWW double diamond John Crowe did it.

But let us face some facts:

how many people can sponsor 6 in a short span?

The answer I found was 2 out of 700 - where did I come up with that number?

My upline diamond had a promotion a few years ago. He had about 700 people coming to functions - so these guys are just not "active" according to quixtar - these are really a small group of people in the "active" group. The promotion was to sponsor 2 legs each month for 3 months or 6 legs in 3 months. He told the promotion will not care what your pin is and you must sponsor 6 in 3 months to qualify - so even platinums and emeralds had to sponsor 6 new legs. After 3 months only 2 guys actually did it - and several IBOs, including me, worked very hard and sponsored 2 or 3 legs in those 3 months.

No platinum or emerald sponsored 6 in 3 months. Finally my diamond had to eat his words and invite all platinums and emeralds for the promotion - else he would have had to teach those 2 guys all his pearls of wisdom and won't have the crowd around him to give him that air of importance!

It took 18 years for Bill Britt and his leadership to finally realize that 6-6-8-6-6 was really a THEORY. Only 3 or 4 guys ever did it in BWW. Rest of the folks simply liked to hear it and thought they were going to do it some day! But it was never done!

Finally BWW changed the rules and introduced the concept of tap rooting - where you keep sponsoring in depth in one leg - so you keep going deep instead of wide and put all the new IBOs in depth - and BWW claims that they are growing the fastest in the whole world of Amway! Only time has to tell the answer, because 6 months of tap rooting only took my legs deep with absolutely no PV/BV increase. The guys who did nothing in width still do nothing in depth. We put about 20 people in tap root in 6 months - and 19 of them still did nothing. Were the people dumb or is the technique dumb? Or is this just another scheme to keep the IBOs in temporarily???

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Your upline can rip you off using Amway promotions

Amway periodically announces promotions, where they usually give extra PV/BV for an item. This is a nice advantage for uplines who are trying to get to some pin. In some cases, you should do the math to see who really wins from such promotions.

There is a product called Zsenso tea. At one point Amway gave 20 PV/20 BV for $24 per case. The usual PV/BV you would expect for $24 is about 8 PV/24 BV, if the product is an Amway exclusive.

My upline was qualifying for platinum during those months, so they suggested we could "plug into upline's goals" by buying Zsenso tea, instead of other products for the same money. Let us say I had to do 300 PV that month, by spending $900, then in those months I could instead buy $900/$24 = 37 cases of Zsenso tea and get 740 PV!!!

So our house ended up with tons of Zsenso teas... how much could I drink? (I was in the loo most of the time :-). Also Zsenso had lots of sugar in it! But you see, they justify that sugar in Zsenso by telling it is fructose.) You see when you are naive and believe everything your upline says you do stupid things like this. Of course, your upline loves you!

Two years later I still had cases of Zsenso and disposed them, after the bottles had solid deposits settled at the bottom!

There are more recent promotions - BillMeLater, financing for e-spring & atmosphere, another promotion with gift albums, etc., I am no longer actively involved, but just heard a recent story. Many IBOs have bought gift albums for close to $1500 in one month! Will they sell it next month? I don't know... But some upline and the biggest upline AMWAY have definitely profited from this BIG DEAL. Imagine, just 5000 IBOs buying $500 worth of albums on an average - that shot up Amway's volume by $2,500,000 in one month!

Also Amway is claiming that their customer volume has shot up this year by 30 or 40%... some huge number like that! Of course, in paper this is true. But if you really look behind the scenes there is the AUTO CAPTURE customer option that is severely abused in several IBO teams. Read my other post here for details! Will Amway investigate this? I doubt it. Because they are selling more products and they have answer to FTC on paper now!

How much of your personal life is your upline controlling??

You think when you sign up in this business you are a Independent Business Owner. Freedom from your boss, you can set your own hours...etc...etc. You have been dreaming a lot..now wake up to the New world of a Amway Business Owner.

When we were building Amway we had a constant guilt feeling if we even spent a dollar on non-amway product or spent a few minutes over non-amway activity.

Our uplines were hovering over us all the time. In the system they talk about how "your boss and your pay cheque determines where you live, what car you drive". But literally in this business your upline does determine where you live, what car you drive, even what you eat.

If our uplines ever saw us spending a couple of dollars on a food that we liked or if we ate outside they would comment.."You could have spent that money on tools." The upline ladies were worse than mother in laws. If we ever went on a day of vacation, " she would say something like."Hope you guys had a great time..by the way..you know what our upline emerald only takes Amway sponsored vacations." At the next nuts and bolts event, we would have to sit through lectures about "delayed gratification, about the only way to do things in life is in style etc etc."

Delayed gratification for a year or two is ok..but delaying things forever in the hope that you are going to achieve material rewards through amway is just idiotic. In fact BWW constantly promotes to consult with your upline any purchase over $500. These same idiots would not have any problem with people getting into credit card debt for stocking up products, buying extra tools, or for that matter any expense related to business- coz business is the future

If you are a immigrant from a foreign country, the uplines heavily emphasize that you should travel home for a maximum of 2 weeks. These upline idiots are so scared that a IBO not in the clutches of the system, will fade away.

Uplines advice against getting a better job, as "The hunter who chases two rabbits catches neither one." If you are pursuing higher education, these idiots advice to get a job instead and not waste money and time on education and instead build the business.

Are you really an independent business owner???. If you think you are, tell your upline that "you are not going to do 100pv this month, not going to be on SOT for a 1 month or that you are not going to come for the next function" and see their reaction....(Just like Sugeet Ajmani says if you are really indispensable at your job, "Ask for atleast a $1 raise at your job and see your boss's response").

Monday, December 21, 2009

Amway can destroy marriages

One of the defenses that Amway people give to justify their very low incomes is "intangible" values. They frequently tell how Amway and BWW save marriages. At the outset it appears true. When you see the emeralds and the diamonds they act like they are perfect couples. You should see guys like Kumar Shivram and Sugeet Ajmani talk highly about their wives on stage. One wonders whether such a relationship is possible! Then you start thinking that maybe once you reach higher pin levels you will also have a great marriage, or that is what you are made to believe.

What is untold is the story of so many couples who are continuously failing to reach the goals they set. Well, you can see from the number of new pins at any event to get an estimate of how many are actually not succeeding at all. Their home is not a happy one. The husbands and wives will look cool and act with love in front of others, but when they are alone, they will actually be fighting with each other like cats and dogs.

After observing some emeralds and diamonds closely, it also became evident that they are also putting up a show in front of others.

Why do they keep promoting the intangibles?

Because 95% and above DO NOT MAKE ANY PROFIT from amway. To keep those guys in, you need to appeal to nobler motives, like Dale Carnegie's book "How to win friends and influence people" says. Amway people are expert in appealing to every kind of nobler motive - their whole business plan is told with very careful selection of words.

You should see how Bill Britt talks in the prayer service. He says that Amway leads people to Jesus and it is the best way you have to lead maximum number of people to God. WOW! That is the noblest of all motives to a Christian.

If you attend Muslim prayer service, they say similar things.

Hindu prayer service uses quotes from Bhagavad Gita and other religious texts.

One wonders why BWW should do all this. While it appears noble from outside, one can also think it is purely manipulative to keep the failing people in.

Of course, one should applaud the intelligence behind this whole idea, but if you ain't making profit with a business, then that one reason is good enough to leave.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Life is great after I quit Amway

One of my biggest fears was created by the BWW leadership was that my life was going to suck if I quit Amway and my life will become horrible!

Well, I believed them and stuck around for several years with those idiots, just spending my time, money and efforts...

Actually I will tell you the truth:

MY LIFE IS GREAT! To tell you the truth, I hardly even think much about anything amway or BWW had to offer.

I am living a better and happier life pursuing my other dreams and goals, where I do not need to run after people and keep on going to meetings and keep clapping stupidly at the same jokes week after week at the open meetings, PASE meetings and functions.

I was a hypocrite when I was in that business, but now I can live my life freely and do not need to trouble others.

In fact my savings has gone up by more than $1500 per month after I quit amway/BWW! Amway/BWW does not help you save money. More than that I have freed up 30 to 40 hours a week of my time and am able to really do productive things.

Life is awesome! I am fired up! This is the truth.

In amway I used to keep saying these things, while I was feeling sick all the time!