Guess many of you have read my Amway story. There are facts in there and then there is my view point. If my upline reads it, they will definitely have a different view point. If my cross line reads it (as some of them have already read) they will have a view point as well. Since this is a blog I am writing, of course, I will have the last say on this blog on anything. Many (like IBOFB) have linked to my blog and have the last say in their blogs about me, which is fine with me.
Yes, like some of you say, this blog should have been titled "exfakeeagle" not "exeagle" :-). I agree! In fact, the first time I went to my eagle leadership, I was a flamingo, so you can call this blog "exflamingo" blogspot too.
Why take so much pain to write this blog? Here are my reasons:
(1) I cannot go to my upline and ask for justice.
I tried several times, but they were deaf ears. In fact, my upline emerald once told me: "What I realize after going emerald is that, what works for me, does not work with everyone. I assumed that you guys are also like me, in trying to get to some pin level and then fixing it. I am sorry that I have hurt your self image in the process, because now I realize that I might have made a mistake." It sounded very honest to me and I decided to stay with the business. But two years later, when he wanted to start founders emerald qualification, he again did dishonest things. I personally lost one of my downlines and close friend from business (and from life) because of that, because I could not go to my down line and tell that my upline emerald is a crook. My upline emerald had lot more people in his group and lot more credibility than me.
(2) I cannot go to Amway for justice.
Because, on paper, nothing can be proven. In fact, they can say that since every order was placed through my login account, I am the one who willingly did it. Moreover, if I were Amway and I see that one guy qualified fake silver and is actually bringing 600 PV to 1000 PV per month business to me every month and he is griping about some big pins who are bringing thousands of dollars of business to me, why would I care?
I do not have anything to say negative about Amway itself. They are a wonderful company and they make great quality products, which I still use. (Some of the BWW-promoted product demos are simply lies though.) Their compensation plan is clean and I never missed one bonus check. They are THE best company when it comes to customer satisfaction and money-back guarantee. That is what attracted me to the business and kept me in. And they do everything they can to prevent cases like mine from happening, but they do not have any influence over how a specific individual does his business.
(3) I cannot go to BWW or IBOAI for justice.
Before I go there, I need to get a pass from my upline diamond. In fact they have told several times in leaderships never to contact Amway or IBOAI for any issues and first check with upline diamond. Even for product return, my upline would say "we never return any product to Amway. If we bought it, we keep it." (Think about XS protein pudding on first dibs auto shipment... even my upline diamonds' kids were telling "YUK!!!") In fact, I did contact my upline diamond about my upline emerald anonymously once about a few things. He responded telling he will take care of them. But it was not taken care off. Same problems erupted back after a year.
(4) I do not want any guy in Amway to think that he can do dishonest things and can then take BWW's teachings as alibi and get away with it.
My uplines broke several cardinal rules and thought they could get away with it. They represent BWW as well, since one of them is in BWW executive committee and is a dynamic speaker and the other guy talks in BWW open meetings as well. Trust me: my upline emerald is a great speaker and can keep you motivated.
(5) If some other IBO is in a similar situation like me, he can learn from my experience and not do the same mistakes we made.
I guess no one else has revealed as much as I have about what happened, along with my identity. If you know me, you can easily guess who I am.
In our situation, we could not fight our uplines and at the same time, we could not follow them as well. I could not follow the usual advice "You pass them and you do not need to listen to them anymore." We could not promote them to our downline with excitement, since we never felt any respect for them. So we decided to only follow what is taught from stage and not listen to our uplines. We are thankful to all the wonderful cross line leaders who have supported us in many ways. Since they were not my upline, I do not know how they actually did their businesses. Maybe their downlines can vouch for their honesty and integrity. Unfortunately, in our case, after showing about 220+ plans for 2 years, we had only 2 more proper IBOships added to our group of the original 3 IBOships. (I know core Amway IBOs are justifying our poor results telling I missed out on the other 8 core steps, which was not the case.) We once had about 15 people at a function, but many of them were dragged in and my downline who dragged them in quit as well.
(6) Never spoil your career or education for Amway.
BWW does not ask you to stop your career progress. They initially say it helped them advance peoples' career, which I agree with. They teach soft skills, which is valuable for life.
But sometimes you hear some diamonds and EDCs make some statements that can confuse you. I have heard Vishal Jain telling "once I knew this is it, I never looked for any pay raise. I would wait for 5 PM and will run home and get ready to build the business. Once I lost my job and found that I could not find any job, I decided diamond is my deal. " Yes, it worked for him. Hats off to him! But will it happen for everyone? Now hard-core IBOs will say "If you have faith like him and work like him, you will also get it." Then go and get it done. What are you doing by reading my (negative) blog here? You can hear Kanti telling: "If you chase 2 rabbits, you will miss both" - Great analogy, but what are the 2 rabbits? In what context does he say these things? Taking things out of context and trying to apply them to your life can be disastrous.
(7) If you really believe in Amway and your teaching system, then for God's sake, do not waste your time reading blogs.
I am NOT the guy you are looking for. I am NOT the guy who can help you. Don't do the stupid things we did. Go and get the job done and achieve your dreams. Even though you won't care what I think, please do it honestly. Do not cheat your way to pins.
Guys like IBOFB: if you are really an IBO who wants justice and want to fight back, you are fighting in the wrong place. Don't be like my upline to your downline. Fight to build your business properly. I never read a single blog like this as long as I was actively building my business. You could not have argued with me telling Amway does not work when I was active. I would not have participated. Even after not reading blogs, I still could not build it to the level I wanted. Do you think you can take all this junk in and still build your business?
If you are my upline:
At least from now on, do not build your business like the way you built it. Build it honestly and really help your downline make money.
Really CARE about your down line and their lives.
Do not recommend them on things you are not qualified for.
Please do sell the 50 PV minimum required customer sales and do not fake it. If someone is selling 50 PV then do not tell them "you know your cross line sold 400 PV. 50 PV is nothing." Of course, we know that you did not sell even 2 PV, but we have to keep quiet because you are my upline.
Please do not use all the guilt trip, accountability fear, comparisons, sarcasms, indirect messages at kate conferences and leaderships and total indifference as techniques to motivate people. It is OK to acknowledge and uplift people for simply who they are, not for what they could accomplish in the last 6 months in their business.
When your downlines are going through tough times, give them room. They need not qualify for leaderships. Not everyone can handle crap like you do.
If a downline comes and asks you for counseling, do not tell them how many other bigger pins are waiting for counseling and you have only 30 minutes. Recall John Maxwell "people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care". Really sit down with them and spend some time helping them.
And most important, NEVER force a downline to stock up products so that you can achieve your goals. Have the guts to call people and discourage them from stocking up products even to reach their own new pins. I would have stayed with you, even if one of you called me telling "It is OK for you not to qualify silver now. Build it right and you will have a lot more fun later" instead of telling me "I will make sure you go platinum in the next one year, if you go silver this month." You just cut open the goose that could have laid the golden egg every month for you! (I know you are calling me as a weak fellow to make yourself feel good...)
To my downlines:
I like your guts. Many of you know all of this and still are going ahead. I hope you do not become like how my up line was.
I feel ashamed for motivating many of you to stay in when you wanted to quit and then finally quitting myself. I am sorry! I just could not fake it after 5 and 6 years of failure.
If we have hurt you in any way, we are sorry. Only you know what we did wrong; we do not know, since my view point is what I did at that time was right. At least we did not push you to buy extra products so that we can qualify for a new pin. When we qualified for a new pin, we bought it all ourselves... But we kept quiet when my up line might have pushed you. Since we kept quiet, you are justified in thinking we were part of the scheme as well.
And as they teach you - "today is the first day of the rest of your life." So I decided to subtract 6 from my age and re-start my life. (BWW PMA teaching to the extreme, huh?)
Read this, slowly. Over and over. Then ask questions. It wasn't your fault you didn't make money with Amway. Read:
ReplyDeleteAmway is a scam, and here's why: Amway pays out as little money as they can get away with, so they support the higher level IBOs ripping off their downline via the tool scam. As a result, about 99% of IBOs operate at a net loss, while the top 1% make several TIMES more from their Amway tool scam than from the Amway products. Read about it on my blog, I suggest you start here: http://tiny.cc/D5oJh and forward the information to everyone you know, so they don't get scammed.
Wow, I was in WWDB but your experience is eerily similar to what I experienced.
ReplyDeleteVery Honest posting..Nobody can refute what you wrote about. They can make a spinout of it making it look like "You don't have what it takes" stuff like. I really hope and wish all the higher pins read this.. They could have had a downline Diamond if they had not beaten the PV out of you. Sometimes the pressure to perform is so much that you fail to look at people.
ReplyDeleteI know you very well and I feel bad for missing a good friend in all the associations. We always tremendous fun in the front. ..I know you will shine in anything and I wish you continued success. I really wish I can meet you and talk to you.
Who is your upline? I might know your upline. Does his name sound something like Subesh Waghavan (note: I've purposely distorted name purposely distorted)? Do you swear that what you are saying is true?
ReplyDeleteAlso why not join www.amwaytalk.com and share your unbiased experiences. It's a good forum, as there's critics, current IBOs, etc, but unlike other forums, you don't get malice and people actually get along with each other and learn something about Amway (the products, other LOAs, etc).
You should probably expose the person who cajoled you to stock up products. My upline has never made me do things which I did not want to do. In fact, one time I got a bigger customer order and he called me several times to make sure it is not for self use or stocking up products. My understanding of BWW was that they are always protective of my interest so that they have a long term business. You had whole bunch of uplines whom you have access to and I am surprised none of them did anything to take care of what happened. Kumar, Sugeet and two Emeralds (One of them was the main one) and your friend (who is the Platinum). I used to admire both the Raghavan's for building the business despite hardship as students. Now after reading your description, it makes me feel all they did was Lamaze PVs..Pushing people to move PV, making them stock up products so that they get the glory to go on stage..Now I don't have respect for them. You should expose them that way more people don't fall into their trap. There are also people who build the business with right values.
ReplyDeleteI was in Rashmi's group and agree every bit of what you said. It looks like that was the practice of most of Gala pins. pin pushers.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you give us the names of your upline? Why is everybody on this blogs so afraid to name their so called upline platinums, emaralds & Diamonds. Let them read this & change if they screwed up with you and your teams. F them. Who cares what they think about u? I know even the diamonds read all the blogs.You quit anyways. And btw don't apologize to anybody. You did your best building the Amway biz. It worked for the Galas & Kumars..the rest are just sustaining by pushing PVs.
ReplyDeleteDude sorry to hear you had to go through all that. You sound like someone who is a hardworking guy with good intentions; but end of the day you and I need to realize that we chose to stay in or continue with it , because we chose too.. Time to move on bro ... life's amazing post Amway lol.
ReplyDelete