I was thinking about how clever my upline "big pin" was. I still believe that he is very clever. If I ever talk to him again, I will still be impressed. He is so convincing and dynamic! That's why I never want to talk to any of my up lines :-).
Nice guy, except that he is still exactly like how he was during his U.G. years. If you listened to his CD you know that he says he used to get things done, but would leave a trail of destruction behind! "Get it done one way or the other"! "Hook or by crook" philosophy!
I thought about something that happened couple of years ago... I had a down line IBO of mine whom I was "counseling". I asked him what his goal was and he told me he wanted to save $60,000/yr in 2 years and use it as a down payment to buy a home. I was impressed by his goal, but I did not know how to give him a game plan. I was already in for 5 years and making $200/month. I could not "act" like I had that much in my savings via "my business". I had barely gotten out of debt then. I told him I would ask my up line to give him a game plan. I was feeling bad and I called my up line. I asked my upline "My down line wants to make this much. How could I help him make that much when I am not making that much?" To this my upline initially stuttered - but I told you he is clever - he responded by asking me how much I am making. I told him my (pathetic) income of $200 to $300/month. He told me I should first get my down line to start making that much and then worry about the rest later! I was convinced by hearing that!
But I was spending $1,500/month or more each month, spending close to 50 hours per week doing all the 9 core steps and making $200 to $300/month... my up line wanted me to teach that to my down line. I thought that down line will definitely save $60,000 in 3 years if he first quit Amway and started saving 25% of his job income!
I've got news for you. If you were spending $1,500/month overhead to generate $200 in gross profit, you were losing $1,300/month in negative net profit.
ReplyDeleteI bet your upline told you that you were a huge success earning $200 a month! The facts don't matter right?
ReplyDeleteDude your upline sounds BRUTAL. Are most IBOs in BWW like that? I'm a part of WWDB and my upline have never been so aggressive and negative.
ReplyDeleteGreat posts!Expose them!I know many people lost their not only Money their precious time life too.This blog could create awareness to them ,save their rest of life!Keep it up!
ReplyDeleteNot only can you not argue with your upline, but if you try they will sit you down in front of the pastor for the LOA.
ReplyDeleteMy husband and I where sat down in front of Paul Tsika who told us we where all wrong and that our upline was always right????
Then he actually looked me over a few times , what a creepy old man. I am not surprised he was recently exposed for sleeping around on his wife with pastor daughters!
I feel bad you have an upline like that. My upline is a very sharp helping man.
ReplyDeletehey man, i'm waiting for more posts! please keep them coming.
ReplyDeleteEagle, thanks for posting on my ambot.0 blog. I'm interested in creating a "testimonials" page on my blog and I'd like it if you would submit one. Feel free to cut and paste. Message me if you'd like. Thanks much!
ReplyDeleteI just did a comprehensive post in my tax blog on how Amway IBO's have fared in Tax Court. Not well. One of the common comments the Court makes to show lack of serious business purpose is the reliance on upline advice which is not disinterested.
ReplyDeletehttp://riles52.blogspot.com/2011/06/selling-soap-as-hobby-amway-ibos-in-tax.html
I quit the business after 5 years. My wife and I both were working each making 75K. We saved 50K in a yeas by banking one salary each month. We used to spend much of that income on buying products, purchasing tools, attending long distance rallys, flying around to help long distance business. After quiting, we purchased a home by putting 50k as down payment. We continued with our saving plan and refilled the 50K savings. We can afford to also have a care taker for our little one who comes home. We think we can continue with our savings plan easily for another 8-10 years. If I had continued in the biz I doubt I would have made the same amount. Let's not even talk abt all the time lost for my family spinning cicrcles.
ReplyDeleteI quit Amway also after it dawned on me that 7 years have already passed since I started the business. I had a lot of fun and acquired incredible amount of intangibles. I qualified as an eagle and re-qualified twice right before major functions.
ReplyDeleteMy uplines showed they were very proud of me and always pushed me to qualify so I can get on the stage as part of my upline diamond's team.
I spent over $1500/ month to make a meager $250/month in a very good month.
I am not writing this to criticize my uplines or Amway, just wanted to share my experience.
One platinum upline quit and nobody would accept that he quit the business, they would not mention anything about this upline. Two other uplines dissaperared after couple of years.
Now looking back, I realize that there was a lot if brainwashing. You have to do those crazy things that up lines suggest if you want to make it in he business, if you ask any question or think about it then you are not core. They tell you to send blank check book yo your up line for tools, you only listen to cd's from your up lines and read book that they have handpicked for you. Then once you are a willing, brainwashed fool, they introduce some more tools, for example leadership standing order and also having a stock of certain books and cd's. My up line once suggested for me and my wife to get a second job in order to be able to increase our book and cd stock.
I am glad I quit, because now I feel like the scales finally fell off my eyes and I can see. It feels very stupid that I fell for all that stuff.
I spoke with another former up line platinum and he told me that he also quit. If intangibles were the reasons we start businesses, nobody would ever quit Amway. But if even platinums are not making any money,it's just a matter of time before they too quit
This is true what you said. I have seen many people who appear to be core in meetings and doing all the activities that we think it takes to build this business. Sometimes these people's passion even scares you and you ask questions to yourself. "Inspired but not intimidated" Kumar says. But these people really scare you.
ReplyDeleteAnd then all of a sudden one day these couples vanish. You don't see them in meetings, and even you forget. And then one day you see them in the mall doing regular stuff, not contacting people, and you are like "Wonder what happened here?"
This is from personal experience. I have seen many people do this. I asked my upline gold about this and he said "don't worry about those quitters"
What was funny was my gold quit 2 months after we having this conversation. I tried reaching out to him but couldn't get any perspective. His wife cut ties with my wife and our upline q12 started to work with us.
But we were not able to build that bond with them. We were more vigilant of what was happening and decided to not blindly follow upline. As it would have panned out we got lashed by the q12 in one counseling sessions. We were accused of not putting in faith and not doing what it takes.
Our group was also dwindling, SOT count was going down. All signs for us to realize business was not moving for us how we were shown when we got into it.
But then we had to relocate to Bay Area for my job. My wife made a 6-month trip to India to nurse her ailing father. This is when I started to build business again. I got new energy and started associating and sponsoring people. I had a good A list in Bay Area, but nobody was interested in Amway due to a lot of negative. I somehow was able to sign up 4 IBOships that function. Uplines were starting to wonder what was happening here. I created enough momentum for that upline q12 to make a trip here. My group and I started working hard to make their trip worthwhile. However the trip didn't go quite well. My group was mostly students who were looking for quick income and had big student network. Upline wasn't able to cash on that group. They would've needed to invest lot of $$ in that group but they didn't want to do that and started pushing for my eagleship. I can tell you I was not an eagle and didn't have any eagle mindset. I was ready to do that work but needed someone to guide me and lead me right way. But then q12 was planning on shooting emerald the year after and they were really counting on this leg as one of their 3. From what I knew they just had one another local leg which was a q12 themselves and some volume coming in from that leg and my sponsor leg in India and that was going to be leg 3 to take them over.
So instead of themselves going eagle on the side of their existing org, my upline was looking at me going eagle.
My student group wasn't seeing much future in this business and my numbers kept going down. My debt started increasing.
Eventually I decided to chuck it all and walk out if this all as a free man.
I still remember the open meeting in Fremont where I walked out and said to myself "I am not coming back to this again"
Same story..different people..Always..Different LOS..Whether it is 2001..2009..2017..
ReplyDelete