I read an interesting comparison on Amthrax's blog about the cost of some of the top selling books on TEAM and the prices of the same books on Amazon and how they are available for free in Library.
Here is the link for those who are interested
http://amthrax.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/team-life-top-50-books-price-comparison-jan-2011/
Most of these books were/are also sold through BWW.
Funny thing is once we became inactive, I sold about 50 of my personal copies of some of these useless books on Amazon. I did not make any profit, but atleast got rid of some clutter (better than shipping my unused tools to my upline who did not pay me anything for that). The rest of the worthless books, I donated to a Goodwill store.
What surprised me the most was the speed at which I sold most of the books. Made me realize that that there is a huge market for PMA books and people were willing to pay for some of the titles that they would not normally find in a bookstore (I sold some of the books for a high price, inspite of the remarks like "book underlined in many places and notes are there on the sides and the backcover).
Also made me realize that people truly like to buy and dont like to be sold. Remember the line from your Amway/network marketing days. We had to sing and dance to make a new IBO get on standing order or purchase some tools. But people who are really looking for PMA titles, were willing to pay for it.(ZERO promotion needed on your part).
Some of the totally nonsensical titles that I can ended up donating, are WWW- stands for World Wide Whinners (yeah right), leadership secrets of Atila the Hun (I swear the author must have paid the system to move these books:-) and not the other way around)). The crappiest part was to sound excited about these idiotic books and promote them at the PASE meetings. Talking about a book you enjoyed is fine. But having to promote an idiotic book and the crowd has to also nod and look excited. Man..it was torture.
What was really upsetting was, the upline GURUS who are supposed to be high on many of the PMA books and can quote page numbers and passages from some books, sucked at people skills, HONESTY, INTEGRITY big time. When you told them about some issues/problems, instead of truly listening and understand your point of view (like how the books taught you to do), gave you tough talk and pushed you to get their point of view. My upline emerald's favorite quote from "Seven Habits of Highly Effective people" was how your map and destination did not match up, then you wont get there. Well this jerk had his destination in mind, but the means he used to get there...wonder if he could ever tell his kids about how he got to Emerald level (Many of us would have gone ooh and aah when upline emerald lady talks in her cd about how her dad did not get influenced by his colleagues and end up drinking, inspite of the teasing. Why, dear lady, you could never use the principles you learnt from your dad about doing things right).
We still do have the books that we really enjoyed, which are still relevant to our daily lives and not promote "vicious network marketing cycle (keep at it no matter what....why it makes sense to keep investing on ABC (association, books and cds) no matter what...u get the drift). Some of the books that we still have are Seven habits of highly effective people, some of John Maxwell's books. Though I still cant understand how a person like John Maxwell would promote WWDB and Ron Puryear and would speak at their functions.
Anyways for active IBOs who are out there if you really sit and think about the contradicting things that the upline and system recommends, there is a chance you might wake up. Why counsel you on delayed gratification, shopping at the cheapest possible places, no vacation, no classy stuff and then drill it to you that you are expected to be on standing order and extra tools and dont you dare return tools that your downline returned to you, why drill it that you have to do 300 + PV (way overpriced, stuff you need only when you are in Amway) on the first day of the month.
Anyways I remember a famous quote from the Amway days "Every IBO has a shelf life. You determine how long it is going it to be." We are sure glad we werent in for "long haul" and came to our senses in 5-6 years.
You can google Amway books and tools and you might find stuff for pennies on the dollar on ebay or craigslist. The stuff is basically worthless.
ReplyDeleteExeagle:
ReplyDeleteDitto to what you said. Some of the books they recommended especially Steve Price ones, the author of Prosumer Power! ( I don't want to remember the author..not worth remembering)..I can't believe anyone with the sane mind would recommend these crappy books. They say Executive committee picks these. Maybe they get a bigger cut for promoting the crap. I agree about Steven Covey, John Maxwell books. It still irritates the heck out of me all the promotion and guilt trips especially when they have the tools table. my upline diamond would say in a team meeting, "I have handpicked all these for you..When we were going direct, we would not let our upline carry any tools..we would pic all the tools..I used to believe all this crap, got the tapes, got the cds, got the extra ones, got the west coast ones, would wait in line to get suparna's blessings as to "what cds would help me to move on to the next level?"..(most of them I would have already had it..but hey..i want to platinum emerald...just have to follow what they say...Will have an hefty bill of 500+$ for all the lit packs..+ tools. Used to boost my ego when Suparna used to mention our names for paying the price to go to the next level. On the way home, will have a major fight about irresponsible spending of money for buying extra tools...Spent countless hours justifying spouse about this. Then just like exeagle said, will promote standing order as if they were qualified God sent people to attain the special recognition of being in Standing order. Once the downline decided to exit out standing order program. I told this to my upline..and it went all the way till upline diamond. Everybody called this downline and promoted this..Now when I think back, it makes me nuts. All these people are adults making their own decisions..why so much promotion..If it is good, why do they have to promote all this. When you are in the system, you are not allowed to think or ask questions.. Then they question you " You need to work on your attitude" All that BS. I cannot believe how much crap I have listened. We used to think about the crap from the prospects. How about the crap from the uplines. Anyway thank God it is over. When I look at my bank balance, I can proudly show it off (than lying about my income.. Just like Exeagle, I would rather be ExIBO than Ill-Egal
I agree that some of the self-help books are absolutely shocking. The rationale was that "everyone is in sync reading the same thing". I wish they'd have just said one can get any book from the book list automatically if they're on standing order or something. Some of those books were REALLY bad, and I'm not an amway critic--I read a lot of self-development. Not all self-help is good though. The Covey and Maxwell stuff are top quality. I once read a book that was later on standing order, and I was scolded, I was told, "normally we only read books that our upline diamond is reading, we don't read anything else". I challenge any Amway IBO to tell me that is not borderline-cultish.
ReplyDeleteYou're correct. AMWAY Does move like a Damn CULT. Give up Everything Including your Job ( your income source) for the Business. CRAZY.
Delete@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteLet me help you just a bit. There's nothing "borderline-cultish" about scAmway. No. Because truth be told, scAmway is right smack down a commercial cult, indeed so is all of pernicious pretend MLM "industry." The mob bosses and dealers of this pretend industry, MLM, deal in, peddle and specialize in thought-altering to stifle and/or stop free thinking without informed consent of their adherents. The tools of trade are a plethora of cds, books (stupid and good ones that are self serving) and an untold number of endless, pay-your-way-in rah rah meetings, some of which while they are long drawn into the night, have the effect of numbing & tiring attendants' thinking process thereby making them easily suggestible robots. Study the BITE model and any quality cult authors and/or websites and see if, as free thinker, you will not have enough evidence to draw a unequivocal conclusion that scAmway is indeed a cult, a commercial one.
You said it. Especially about the Long drawn out meetings. How do they expect People to STAY UP into the wee hours of the morning during the work week?
DeleteThis is my first time pay a visit at here and i am really impressed to read everthing at one place.
ReplyDeleteVisit my website ; Ex Recovery System Review
Remeber "Common Sense is not so common." I wonder how IBOs can parrot these lines, yet not realize how these also apply to their own business. I mean any IBO who has common sense will realize that this is not profitable venture soon enough.
ReplyDeleteI went to the D.C. conference between July 13th and 15th. My bff is a new IBO and his upline paid for my ticket. The only money it cost me was for food and a couple souvenirs to bring home. It was so creepy and culty. Almost joined it because everyone is SUPER NICE. Then I found this and multiple scamway sites.
ReplyDeleteWhat I realized from watching their b.s. is that to make mad bank you have to be the head dudes making tools. I told my boy I'd do it but only if we create our own association and build it like a church group with 2 other friends. Each of our unique skills would allow us to eventually scam people to the tune of a million+ but he can't get it.
Why would I want to be URA cult member 5,001 when I could be #1 through 4 and be deified in my own???
Ex-IBOs from the year 2003 onwards can file a claim to get some of thier money back as a part of Pokorny v. Quixtar Class Action Settlement. Following is the link :
ReplyDeletehttps://quixtarclass.com/Home.aspx
It's always interesting to read peoples commits who feel they have been done hard by "the Upline," Grow hip, are you not adults, can you not speak your mind in a professional manner, why do you have to whine about who did what to you. If you don't like the idea of developing your own freedom ten stay employed. Stay allowing someone to determine what your worth. Whatever the books and Cd's you'll learn something, even if it's being able to stand up and me an adult. Yes it's not perfect and yes there are people who don't walk the talk etc; Try telling your boss the same things that are written in the comments and see how your "performance review" will go. Look at life front, on decode what you want and go & do it, don't whine about it. Watch TV, buy into the crap of the world and whine for the rest of your life, or grow up and be an adult. If you think life is tough now wait till you want to retire and see how that will look. A network marketing business (whatever the brand) will either educate you or eject you. It'll be your choice. By the way your either going to have to decide how your life is or someone else will for you. In the last 10 years we have made money every month out of our Amway business bare the first 3 months. From small to large depending upon volume, I think that proves the benefit of the developing your own business. just do something but stop whining and blaming others for your own inabilities to grow you.
ReplyDeleteHello Mr. Einstein, How do you know that people who are not building Amway business are just watching TV and whine for the rest of their life :).
DeleteYes you are absolutely correct. You mentioned "you are either going to have to decide how your life is or someone else will for you."
DeleteWe decided we wanted to control our lives and not let system/LOS dictate us how we should live our lives.
Dude. Basically Network Marketing is pretty legit and a great way to make some money before you invest in other stuff like real estate.
DeleteHowever here are my observations:-
1. Even a properly duplicable system with the 9 core steps is only the minimums and it suits the employee-minded. You must work hard. really hard for any business to succeed..so maybe just the 9 core steps are not enough...just keeps you rolling from month to month
2. Now pressure is something that either cracks people or sometimes can get the best out of somebody. I have an upline with an acid tongue - constantly pokes and extremely indifferent - so heck with him. I only talk to him about the very important things and I'm now in charge of my group
3. I started 4 months ago and now a 15%. I acknowledge all the ways the business could go wrong through this blog and I thank you for the effort.
Everything you have said about being in control of out life and time is correct. But it is a Totally different matter when the people who promise FREEDOM from the DREADED BOSSES end up Being like those Bosses they're setting Us free from.
DeleteWhat is the new book that is available on BWW. G.W and Edna King's story "It is fun making money." Downline confused why this book now...."it is not like they have a cooking business. Haven't we already listened to this as a cd, paid money for a function and heard them talk". Upline says "Different people have different ways of learning. You dont like the book...somebody in your group will like it" Downline like a obedient puppy dog picks up a few copies of this exciting, awesome, exhilarating, PMA book for himself and future team.
ReplyDeleteMan what a concept, what a business. Build the business...keep making money through the tools. Now all the other good for nothing name sake diamond will be busy copy pasting from various books to create their own powerful book
This is like benefit cricket match for cricketers.
DeleteLots of Good information in your post, I favorited your blog post so I can visit again in the future, Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI was in the Howie Danzik group for about 10 years, 95 to 05. I can remember countless times how I was told by diamonds that if they want to check growth they look at tool sales, they don't care about product sales. That will always follow. Well I figured it out. Finally!! About 07 I cleaned out any overpriced Amway crap in my house. I threw out boxes and boxes of dumbass so-called motivational tapes from standing order. Most still unwrapped. I figured out that if I had just bought silver coins (it was my first plan from a book on investing I had picked up) I would have over 100K worth right now!! I figured 1 tape, 2 tapes the next week plus all the stupid books and major functions and with silver at 5 bucks an oz at the time, DAMMIT!! Makes me wanna kick Howie's and Britt's ass. Or my own for not figuring it out sooner.
ReplyDeletekudos. we were in 1985-1989. moved back home from VA. got away from the hype and came to our senses. we could have had some great vacations with the $ we spent. we did make it to Peter island, though.... on a vacation cruise 3 years ago. and it cost a fraction of going diamond to do it. and they won't tell you THAT either.
DeleteI hate my upline mita sengupta for pushing us all the old CDs on us. Some of them, I was not able to look up in the bww site. She would also throw in some DVD, some calendar (even if we did not order for it!). she was a bitch. iam sure her upline superna did the same.Thank god I don't have to do the same thing again on my people. Sometimes the cds were open and looked old but we all didn't care. some of my downlines at that time were mad at me because of all this, and I had to put up with all this kind of crap.
ReplyDeleteI used to be a IBO for 4 years and accumulated around 400CDs and tons of other BWW supplies. I would say on a rough estimate the CDs itself were 3000$ of expense.
ReplyDeleteAnd then I quit! So instead of throwing the CDs, I googled and found a person in TX who purchases these CDs and resells them. He estimated that I'd get close to 120-155 dollars for all of them.
I got a good deal ha?
The following paragraph is what grabbed me."Anyways for active IBOs who are out there if you really sit and think about the contradicting things that the upline and system recommends, there is a chance you might wake up. Why counsel you on delayed gratification, shopping at the cheapest possible places, no vacation, no classy stuff and then drill it to you that you are expected to be on standing order and extra tools and dont you dare return tools that your downline returned to you, why drill it that you have to do 300 + PV (way overpriced, stuff you need only when you are in Amway) on the first day of the month." Such contradiction is what made know that some of my uplines do not know about business and how money works.
ReplyDeleteYup. The purchasing of tools and attending meetings mattered MORE to my up lines than providing a Service to People in need ( that was my primary focus in the first place). The Only good thing that came out of the Whole experience were 2 books. The CEO of YOU by Marsha Petrie Sue and The MAGIC of THINKING BIG by David j. Schwartz. Ironically, I Now follow Mrs Sue online and watch her lectures on YOUTUBE. She has been MORE helpful to me in doing my Best in life than trying to Grow an AMWAY business.
ReplyDelete