What your upline won't tell you

Are the Tools(??) really worth your money

2012-01-10T18:29:00.000-08:00

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.

One more Amway/Quixtar Story

2011-12-25T00:13:00.000-08:00

One of the anonymous commentors on my site has shared his Amway/Quixtar Story. You would not get to hear REAL stories like these in the opens, pase or on CDS. But sadly this is the story of 99% of the IBOs.

"Just like yourself I got started about a decade ago and I graduated top of my class and got multiple job offers. RIght around the same time, I was exposed to this opportunity by a person who went to school with me. I saw the plan and it made sense. I loved the association where people spoke positive and felt these are group of people who are growing somewhere in life. I started showing the plan and noticing most of friends and families were not excited about it. I felt that I will prove them wrong by succeeding.

As I was making good enough money from my workplace, I wasn't counting money for the standing order, 300 PV (1000$) and the trips to New Jersey where the leaderships were happening. We were 11 wide paying 7 PV checks and were profitable. I liked everything what the business has to offer, what the speakers said and the whole nine yards. When things did not happen, I did not google the internet to hear other people's experiences. I was part of Rishi and Shampa's team who were new Emeralds. Very aggressive funny couple. There are lot of doctors who were involved which gave great credibility to the whole thing.

Main problem started when one of the uplines decided to go Q12 and Emerald. They said " We are counting on you". I had vowed that I will do everything in my side to make it happen and so are my cross lines. Upline went Emeralds and we were talk of the town as we were one of the people who made it happen. There are few months where we did personal 2000-3000 PV. We had about 40 people in our team and we did not make anyone buy extra stuff as we were not comfortable doing that. Uplines directly did not force like Exeagle case, but since we knew them for 4-5 years at that time, they said stuff like "whatever you do for uplines someone will do it for you".

Since we were making good money we made it happen. We had extra E-Springs, Atmospheres to make the entire city clean. Finally the day came where I lost my job and my wife was taking care of the household. Within months, she lost her job and we were making roughly about 800$-$1000$. We were spending about 1000$ on the products and another 300$ on tools, associations etc. Whatever we were spending before, we had to slow down and watch what we are spending. Uplines who had set higher goals had the same expectations that " we will do whatever it takes". The moment we talked about our financial situations and what is happening, they said not to worry and focus on the business. Well, the months of qualification started and we couldn't do extra volume other the regular 300 PV (even that looked like a big chunk and we started charging in the credit cards). The moment we backed of and started talking about financial situation, they started putting us through guilt and saying stuff like , "Are you fired up'?" What happened to you? Can't you retail? Retailing can take care of your financial situation?

Uplines starting calling our people and started mentioning that they need to stretch to make things happen. We had built tremendous relationships with our team and they were comfortable with us all the time and after they started getting calls like these from uplines they expressed their dissatisfaction about getting calls during work hours, late hours and felt pressured. I brought this to my uplines attention and they got defensive and they mentioned that everything they did was to help my team go. I had told them that I am not comfortable with this pressurizing and told them to slow down and back off.

This was the time I really slowed down to think what me and my wife have accomplished for the past 7 years. We had a sizable group making about close to $1000 bucks but again whatever we built , our uplines destroyed and our team started to exit away. Long story short, I started seeing the rift between my downlines and uplines. Even though everybody seems to be having good time, there were lot of undercurrents. There was a Q12 ruby in our diamonds team (Bald Bengali couple) who always built the business with many people. He was going Emerald 10 years back. He is yet to go Emerald. Rishi and Shampa, our upline Emeralds were talk of the town when I got started. He was like a body guard to Kanti Gala and were powerful speakers. Now I am not sure they are building the business.

The last Emerald in our uplines team was my uplines which was several years back. I am just talking about upline Diamondship which is TD and Suparna. If the business is growing in leaps and bounds, wouldn't you expect more people to go Platinum, Emerald and Diamond. I am not talking like it is everyone else responsibility to move on. I slowed down and looked at my financial cash-flow. My wife and I worked hard to find a good job. It doesn't have the promises of business but at least I felt I do not have to give false promises to people saying in a period of 6 months, you will make $3000. I am able to sleep better. When I was actively building the business, my uplines gave lot of guilt trips. My sister was getting married. We went home for four days and behaved like guests. On the outside we said we built the business for the family. Inside we hardly spent time on anything.

Anything we enjoyed we had a side order of guilt which was killing us. Last three years we took good vacations, cruises, everything self paid but no debt. What is my conclusion? If you have a good upline who lets you be you and build the business with right mindset who never pushes you for volume and never pushes you to buy extra tools (when you already have it), keep building it. Build it once, build it right. Please do not manipulate your hard earned relationship to get PVs. I enjoyed the business when I built it right. The moment my uplines started pressurizing my team, my fun ended and they lost us and our team. Now, they might have to do the same thing with different set of eyeballs (maybe talk about us as someone who lost their dream, whatever!). This is not the way I choose to lead my life.

BWW/Upline Tool Refund Policy

2011-06-27T23:59:00.000-07:00

I am posting an anonymous commenter's comment as a separate post.

"On May 20, my credit card was automatically charged for the next quarter (until Aug 20)for $50+ for the Bww TV and Webspace package .It was around this time when I decided to not do the business anymore. So, I missed cancelling that service and was charged. Anyway, that is fine and usual business practice. However, next thing I noticed is that immediately my Website and BWW TV service stopped working even though I had paid until Aug 20!! I contacted Bww and they said that the service cancels immediately upon cancellation! Now that is not how businesses operate, the so called "traditional" businesses that BWW puts down so much would either give me a partial refund or at least continue my service until the date I have paid for it!! I don't know where I can report a business practice like this."

One more testimony that any money that goes to upline/system is like a one way channel. Any chance of getting a refund is slim to none unless you are persistent and consistent:)

By the way, most of the videos posted on BWWTV are filmed at functions. You pay for the functions, then pay for cds to listen to these talks and then again YOU HAVE TO PAY TO WATCH THESE TALKS AGAIN. Upline and system is interested in only one thing and that is their profit.

By the way here are Amway's rules regaring tool returns:
https://www.amway.com/en/support/ordering-product-support/business-rules

7.1.2.2. During the first 90 days following an IBO's registration, the IBO may return all BSM of any form purchased, including meeting tickets, together with proof of purchase, for a 100% refund of the price paid for such BSM.

7.1.2.3. Except as provided in Rule 7.1.2.4., an IBO end-user of BSM may return BSM purchased, together with proof of purchase, within 180 days following purchase, for a refund on commercially reasonable terms.

If I remember correctly, there used to be rule that an IBO can get off BSMs any time they want to. Dont know what happened to that. Remember, Amway keeps tweaking their rules. They will tweak and tweak till everything is in the big pins favor.

If in case, any of you IBOs decide to get off standing order and your upline says things like, it takes a couple of weeks to get you off standing order or any other excuse, do know that they are just giving you a bunch of BS. These same guys will put an IBO on standing order as soon as the IBO is willing to get on it. Why didnt it take them 2 weeks to put them on standing order?

Do share your comments if any of have had tough time getting a refund for tools from your upline.

Founders EDC Ganesh and Neha Shenoy divorced?

2011-05-20T23:27:00.000-07:00

This was really a shocking news. Man, I thought marriages of IBOs lasted forever.

We would have heard statements like these so many times, "Amway saves marriages", "our marriage got better and better only because of this business, " "we were going in two different paths, only because of the business we have common goals. "

The last year we stayed in this business only because of "supposedly intangible values" you get out of the business. Latha Gala's statements about how their kids turned out to be great only because of the business would play out in our minds and we would think "Gosh, what would happen to our future kids without this business." All these statements are just a trap to keep IBOs who are not making any profit within the business. Uplines want you to belive that your life will be doojmed without Amway. Even when we told our uplines about our decision to become inactive, they asked us "What about the intangible values?"

Yeah right "Intangible values". My foot.

Anways curious to know how BWW is handling this news about this split. I guess like Paul Miller's divorce they would just not talk about it and pretend like it never happened or acknowledge that Debbie Miller ever existed.

You cannot argue with my upline

2010-12-10T19:13:00.000-08:00

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!

Amway (pipe) dreams

2010-12-08T18:23:00.000-08:00

When you join Amway, your upline recommends that you cut out pictures of your dreams and put them on your refrigerator. This is a wonderful visualization technique and it supposedly works for many people. But I want to caution you on this as well.

My recommendation to IBOs is the following: first go and figure out your short-term i.e. 3-to-6 month goal. It could be just as simple as making your car payment with your Amway profits. Note that it is profits, not income. Let us say your goal is to pay your car payment of $200/month with your Amway profits. Then print out your car payment bill and write a check below it for $200. Write on the check "Amway profit". That way the philosophy explained in the BWW recommended book The Secret by Rhonda Byrne is followed exactly.

Then go out and work and accomplish this in the time frame you have set. Here is what you will most likely realize: you will realize that you have not reached your goal after 3 to 6 months! Ok, you want to reset it... you reset it and try again. If you reach your goal in 9 months, it is OK. But if you see yourself missing your goal after 2 and 3 years, please do not put pictures of bigger dreams! Because that is where you will lose faith. You already know that you could not accomplish your small dream - how could you accomplish your big dream?

I was so foolish that I cut out my long-term dreams and put them on my refrigerator! I had a yellow lamborghini murcielago, a red lexus sc430, a black lexus ls460hl, a nice big home and several travel destinations. (What I was driving was a 1995 toyota corolla with body damage!) It was a BIG mistake! Because your mind keeps thinking that "some day" you will accomplish those dreams via Amway. But if you really think whether you are first accomplishing your short-term goals, your eyes will be opened!

Hei, if you accomplish your goals in the time frame you have set, GOOD FOR YOU! Go ahead and build your business! But my experience was that I could not accomplish any of my dreams through Amway. I accomplished many of my dreams by simply quitting Amway! What an irony!

Also I am seeing my downlines' PV going up and down and finally remaining at the same level after 1.5 years! If there are pins like "founders 300 PV", "founders 600 PV", "founders 100 PV", "founders 1000 PV", then you can award them to my downlines! In between one guy went silver, but his PV has come down to his original... Another IBO signed up with spouse's name under my sponsor and I see credit card PV/BV transfer out of that IBOship every month. But I wonder how well that "new" IBOship is doing because I do not see my upline fake platinum's name yet on my LOS as qualified platinum! I feel so sorry for all my downlines and the other 99.9% of the Amway IBOs who are pumping that "pump in the desert" (remember Ron Puryear's 2-tape set?), which does not have any water table below!

Extending end of month order AGAIN in Nov

2010-12-06T16:24:00.000-08:00

So End of month ordering deadline was again extended in Nov till Dec 1st 6 p.m EST.

This time the reason was that the deadline was extended as lot of IBOs were travelling and a even more funnier reason- that many IBOs will be Achievers(Funny considering the percentage of IBOs qualifying for Achievers trip).

Why do "sharp IBOs' require an extra day to make their "anyway purchases"???

Instead of going against the LOSs whose main way to breaking new pins is end of month "stocking up orders", corporation seems to be promoting such practice by extending the ordering deadline.

What would be the reason for extending end of month orders in DEC- "IBOs very busy with New Year Celebrations?"

Fake customer orders

2010-11-29T16:57:00.000-08:00

n Gala diamondship, IBOs are really smart. New IBOs are taught to register their friends or neighbors as customers and then ship their personal orders to that customer id. This way the new IBO gets free shipping, and also gets 20% PV/BV uplift(customer orders get 20% PV/BV uplift) and the new IBOs also qualify for $50 bonus in the first 3 months(if u do 150PV in the first 3 months out of which 50PV is customer volume, you get $50 bonus during the first 3 months).

It is a good deal for new IBOs as they have to spend less money to complete 150 pv because of the 20% PV/BV uplift, they get free shipping and also $50 bonus.

So in my line of sponsorship IBOs have gone from zero retailing, to now zero personal use as all the orders are now fake customer orders. I should say uplines are really smart. They teach the IBOs to order products like sales kit, catalogues, gift albums (which has free shipping anyways) to their own home instead of shipping it to customer id, so that Amway does not become suspicious.

This is what the honest and most upright uplines teach new IBOs (to cheat big time on Amway promotions). People like IBOFB will claim that new IBOs should be responsible for their decisions, inspite of these dishonest teachings by upline. I dont know who can hold these dishonest uplines responsible for their total dishonest teachings.

Instead of promoting such practices, Amway can offer free shipping to everybody who orders products worth $75 or everybody who orders 50PV or 100PV on ditto.

Again for people who claim, Amway cannot offer free shipping for all IBOs as products like XS and protein shakes are heavy- please note that #1 online retailer Amazon.com does offer free shipping on so many heavy items and what is more interesting is Amazon also offers 15% off if you order a product regulary(like set up detergent order for every 3 months or so and so on).

Extending end of month order

2010-11-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

On Oct 31st, I noticed a message on the Amway website, that the end of the the month ordering deadline has been extended till Nov 1st 6 p.m eastern time, as Amway was experiencing heavy traffic.

Why do the ordering time needs to be extended, if it is not to aid people in qualification to hit their pin levels. If IBOs genuinely needed the products, they could have ordered it a few days later as well or why shld a IBO care if the volume of his/her order goes to month of OCT or Nov unless all of a sudden this becomes very very important for somebody upline in Platinum/Emerald or whatever qualification.

For all those IBOs whose main job seems to keep repeating that " that this does not happen in their line of sponsorship or this does not happen in this day and age" I guess Amway kind of acknowledged this practice is widespread across North America (stocking up products to hit new pins), by extending their ordering time. Otherwise why would there be heavy traffic on the last day of the month?

If this business is such a great residual income business, why would Amway experience heavy traffic on the last day of the month??? Shouldn't people qualify easily atleast by 20-25th of the month?

What would irritate us more than the calls we would receive from upline on the last day of the month convincing us to order 1500-2500 PV would be the calls from my upline platinum lady asking us why we did not process our ditto for 300PV on the first of the month( this after us ordering 1500-2500PV on the last day of the previous month) and would give us lecture about how core IBOs are expected to do 300PV on the first day of the month.

If only Amway would bother to check with IBOs who went from doing 300+ plus PV for years to less than 50 PV once in a few months, they would really know if there is a genuine demand for products or if people just buy PV and the products come free( famous statement by double diamond Kumar Shivaramakrishnan)

Beware student IBOs

2010-11-04T09:54:00.000-07:00

If you are a student IBO, you need to be quite careful with how you interpret what you hear from stage or from your upline.

I joined as a student IBO pursuing my doctoral study in a decent university. There was constant bombardment from my uplines that I should quit my doctoral work and join a job. My upline emerald told I could get all the degrees I want, after I go diamond in 5 years. I was so stupid and naive that I believed him. I completed course work (with a CGPA of 3.97) and passed my preliminary examination for Ph.D. degree with flying colors. (I was ranked #2 in my department.) But my sponsor and other uplines were always asking me to quit and join some job, so that I can build the business faster... I eventually did that after 1.5 years into my Ph.D.

In addition to influencing me, they also tried to make my wife quit her Master's degree. Many times my uplines would ask her why she needs to study the degree. There was also pressure on several of my downlines to quit their Master's degrees.

But then you look at how diamonds think about their own childrens' future.

I was working at one of the top ranked U.S. schools until a few years ago. I and my wife once drove our upline diamond and his family at that time. They came to know where I was working. His wife was so impressed - she said she wanted her kids to go to some school like that! My upline diamond added that he wanted all his kids to go to a similar school close to his home town and how nice it was that he has saved up all the money he needs to pay for their education! But both of them ridicule education and working for top companies in their talks from stage. My upline diamond was so obnoxious in one CA bay area function when he was making fun of all the people who work for Google, Yahoo, etc., That ticked off so many people big time. Our upline diamond lady also personally has advised many of us to quit education and get some low-paying job to build the business faster.

If you have listened to enough CDs, you would have heard that diamonds are actually very proud to send their kids to top schools. Another Indian diamond based in Atlanta bragged how his son got admission to Georgia Tech and is interning at qualcomm.

When it comes to their own kids, the diamonds value education so much. But when it comes to their downline, they could care less.

If you are a student IBO, do not make the stupid mistake I made. Go ahead and complete your degree. If you are thinking you are not growing fast enough only because you are a student, let me tell you something - even if you quit your school and join a job, your business growth will still be almost the same as what you are having now.

Penny wise; pound foolish

2010-11-03T19:30:00.000-07:00

Today while having dinner with my wife, we suddenly remembered how our upline tried to control even what food we ate daily.

My upline sponsor was once visiting our home. He saw that we had a small ethnic snack item (chilli powder) in our kitchen. It is primarily used as a side dish with Indian pancakes (called dosas). It costs only $3/pack and usually lasts us for 2 to 3 months. My upline started his rambling: "Why do you need that snack? We never buy those kind of snacks at our home. You know how much you could save by not buying such snack items?". Then he added "I made a calculation how much Indians lose money every day by snacking on ethnic grocery items. I calculated that it comes to about $100 to $200 per month." He also later added looking at some fruits in our refrigerator: "I completely trust nutrilite. We do not eat any fruits at our home. I haven't eaten an apple in years. Why do you need fruits when double-ex has everything? People waste so much money eating fruits."

Do you know how my sponsor would set an "example" for his downline? He would literally not eat anywhere outside, because he told it is a business decision. Once I, my wife and my sponsor went to do a home meeting couple of hours away from my home town. I was literally dying of hunger after the meeting around 10 PM and I could not hold on any longer. So I, my wife and my upline went to a restaurant and ordered food - he did not order anything. I told I would buy him some food, but he said he would not eat that too. I could care less, so I and my wife ate. He was also hungry, but he told he gave a promise to his wife that he would not eat outside and spend money anywhere outside the business! Then we drove and reached our home couple of hours later. Then we cooked for him and he ate at our home after midnight! Then he gave a lecture about how much we spent in the restaurant and how he could control his hunger and not waste those 10 bucks. He told he would have invested that money in business!

This fellow was giving me advice how to save a few bucks here and there, when the main drain in my bank account was the stupid business itself!

You don't know how relaxed I and my wife were when we ate our dinner today. That feeling cannot be simply put in words! We ate nice, hot Indian pancakes happily and cherished every bite of it... The peace of mind that no one is looking over our shoulder to see what we are eating!!!

If you were not in my upline's team, you would not know what kind of value that freedom has! Real freedom - from my sponsor and all my uplines! Priceless!

Tips for Amway IBOs

2010-11-02T10:40:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking what I would have done differently, had I known all the things I experienced with my upline, before I joined the business. Hindsight is always perfect and if you are an active, excited Amway IBO like how I was, then you can learn from my experience. You may not fall into the same traps and flawed thinking like I did, but overall, you may find some of these tips useful. You can think of me as your anonymous upline, if that may help :-).

See if your upline is really concerned about your overall success in life or only for success in your Amway business.

For example, is your upline giving you right advice about job? Does he/she feel good when you succeed in other arenas of life or do they feel threatened? If you get a job promotion and a salary hike, do they feel threatened that you may not be motivated to build your business anymore? If you change to a better job, do they feel threatened? If they do, then you need to be careful about taking their advice on such matters.

If you are in a software engineering profession like me, then are you keeping up with what the industry needs and increasing your skill set? Or are you super-confident that you will go diamond in the next 5 years and do not care about updating your skills? I had to put in almost a year after I quit Amway to upgrade my skill set and get new job offers. It was tough, because for 6 years I was under the false confidence that I would go diamond in 5 years and did not care to upgrade my skills! Yes, it was my mistake, not my upline’s. Don’t make that mistake - Do not be over confident until you are making more than $100,000/yr in profits through your Amway business and have very solid groups. Even then there is a chance that it may not last, but at least until then, don’t think you can goof up at your job.

I had an upline who told in his BBS (maybe it is on his rally CD too) that he worked only for 3 hours in a month (not in a week or a day; yes, a month) in his consulting job and make a six-figure income. This was good to hear. Who wouldn’t want that kind of a job? But can you do it and do you want to do it?

Does your upline care about how much savings and investments you have? Do they feel threatened if you buy a home or have outside interests in investment opportunities? Do they feel threatened if you are good at day trading?

If you are a student, is your upline encouraging you to finish your degree or asking you to quit it? This could be one big deciding factor about whether they really care about you and your future. Think about this - if you were their own son or daughter, would they ask you to quit college? Will they ask you to take up a mediocre job so that you can “focus” on your Amway business more? I remember one diamond, Vinnie Pappalardo (BWW), whose daughter wanted to quit college and he was OK with that. Maybe she is successful at Amway and is making enough money. Good for her! But is that right for you? Why can’t you succeed at both college and Amway? They are not mutually exclusive.

Is your upline using your job/educational qualifications as a promotional tool? It will feel so good to you when your upline talks about you, telling what a great person you are, especially in front of your downline and crosslines. The message for other people is that if such a great person needs this business, then the others (who are not as good as you) definitely need it. You get a false feeling of pride, but don’t let that flatter you too much. Your past success is just one more promotional tool for your upline!

What about your health? Does your upline encourage you to work out at least 30 minutes a day? Or are they telling nutrilite will take care of you?

If Amway really makes your overall life better, then they cannot just give lip service. Majority of the IBOs need to succeed in all areas of life. So far, I have only seen people goofing up with several areas of life, thinking they will succeed in Amway, only to realize several years down the road that the profits are not enough and they have also missed out on life... some like me have a very tough time to quit, because we are over confident. But the numbers don’t lie - I mean the numbers that show how much you got in your bank account. You need to be honest with yourself and bite your ego to quit, if you are not happy looking at how much you got.

Ultimately, you are responsible for your own life, so be wise and do not fool around in other areas of life until you are making substantial income through your Amway business.

Another Amway Milking Success Story

2010-06-26T23:02:00.001-07:00

Hei! I got news for you!

My upline just confirmed this month that they will NEVER change!

Even after people like us quitting and their reading our blog and following it actively, they do the same thing all over again. And this time it is one of my front lines who goes silver. And guess what? That IBOship looks exactly the same as how our IBOship looked when we went silver - one downline SOT and 5 people at the last function (including my front line)!, not a single new pin this month and he has bought almost 7000PV himself. The 20 SOTs for silver is just stage talk.

This just reconfirms that this Amway thing does not work at all. You either stay at the same level or buy your next pin, especially when you are in my upline's team.

Had my downline built a group of 40 or 50 IBOs and broken a whole bunch of new pins, I would have been wrong. BUT that did not happen! I am so glad that I walked away from this! I would really like to thank them for reconfirming my fears about this business!

Ok - my cross lines who are actively following this blog can clap for that new silver in your next function! My upline RR will most likely be there to "support" that huge group in the next function! My front line bought products for about $22,000 - you should congratulate him for that! Now he needs to find garages to store the nutrilite, artistry and gift albums he has stocked up.

I just think that this front line of mine could have been smarter. I told him several times that buying a pin won't take him anywhere. He saw us right in front of his eyes for 4 years, struggling even after we went silver and then finally quitting. I discouraged every time he came to me and told he wants to buy his way to silver. It has become very convenient for my upline to suck our down line, since we are also gone now!

When my upline RR gets you hypnotized, you can't do anything! The way he brain washes you is like this "You get silver done and come to 'go diamond'. What you learn there will help propel your business towards platinum in the next 6 months. The information you will get at 'go diamond' is something that you haven't learnt at functions." Next month there is a 'go diamond' happening at Kumar level in seven springs. My front line will go there excited for the first time. But when he gets back, he will see his PV drop all the way back to 300 or 600 PV! The information learnt at 'go diamond' is nothing special. Over half the people come there as fake silvers or fake platinums, so you see more sad faces there!

I hope at least our other two legs do not qualify silver this way, taking this front line and us as an example.

You should watch out for these new exciting CDs from your line of sponsorship soon:

If you are not a marker man, I will be your milk man

Milking success stories

Milking your way to diamond

5th basic: Making your first milking work

Join The Milker-of-the-Month Club | Foundation For Ultimate Milking

Proper Use Of The Milking Tools

Balanced Milking

Milking Fundamentals | Cardinal Rules for Milking

Do watch snippets of these talks and more such talks on exciting ways to milk on your system's TV and get inspired to do what??? "Milking", of course.

There is a whole new galaxy inside the GALA galaxy. It is called the

MILKING WAY GALAXY

which could go all the way up to my upline double diamond!

Here is a pretty picture of our "awesome" uplines for all those curious folks:

Tool Refund policy as per BSMAA

2010-03-07T11:51:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to post an email conversation with an employee at BWW. When we decided to become inactive, I emailed BWW asking about what the tool refund policy was. I was not aware of refund available for tools for upto 6 months when I sent this email. I later searched online and found out about the tool refund details specified in BSMAA about it- That is the awarness level of rules among active IBOs.

The person at BWW who responded to my email, did not give out any information on tool refunds and wanted us to deal with uplines -So much for following rules.

I do also have an email which I sent my upline asking about tool refund and him replying that tool refund was available for only new IBOs who are trying out standing order for the first time- So much for following rules. Talking about rules, I am totally amazed how my upline broke a "vital rule" by responding by email (usually real email conversations are avoided as much as possible, expect for the usual "fired up" kate emails, to avoid written trails)

Anyways, here is the conversation with BWW:

to: bwwna@bww.com
date: Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 9:02 AM
subject: Regarding Tools return policy

Hello,

I wanted to know about the tools return policy.

Is it full refunded on unopened tools purchased within the last 90 days by the person from whom you bought the tools (Immediate upline)?

It would be great if you can get back to me on this. Also wanted to know where I could find more information about the BWW tools return policy. I could not find them on BWW website.

I would appreciate it if you could get back to me at the earliest possible.

Thank you

from Danny Hill
date Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 9:33 AM
subject RE: Regarding Tools return policy

Hello,

you will need to consult your upline about returns. They should be able to let you know any guidelines.

Danny

to Danny Hill ,
bwwna@bww.com
date Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 9:44 AM
subject Re: Regarding Tools return policy

Hello,

How can you send a vague reply like this? So, you are telling me that BWW has no tools return policy of its own and every upline has their own policy.

If I contact my upline about this they will tell me, that I should check with BWW about the return policy.

What about the disclaimer message at the end of very CD that “it qualifies for refund”- so that message is not of BWW’s?

Can you please let me know, if BWW has a tool refund policy or not? Please provide me a Yes or No answer and if Yes, can u let me know what that is.

Thank you very much

from Danny Hill
date Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 9:47 AM
subject RE: Regarding Tools return policy

Hello,

BWW return policies are for IBO’s that purchase directly from BWW. You are not a direct customer of BWW. That is why I suggested to go upline. Please have your first upline who orders from BWW contact us if there are any problems. We will be glad to assist.

Danny

Of course, this is an isolated event and it does not happen to other IBOS. I should follow up with IBOAI etc etc on this and not be posting anonymous posts.

Downline's NUGGETS of Wisdom

2010-03-05T12:10:00.000-08:00

1) If you are talking to your downline, don’t start the conversation with the excitement that is supposedly going on with you other legs. Believe me it ticks off people, and does not motivate them
( please go back and read again “How to win friends and influence people”, a book which you have been promoting to everybody). If growth is happening in your other legs, people will find out from kate messages and from seeing those people at the associations. It is mildly amusing to see the people about whom you were gushing so much, vanish in a few months.

2) On one hand you are totally fine with people spending 10’s of thousands of dollars to stock up products, to fly and drive to different parts of the country to help build ???teams(one IBO is according to you TEAM) and invest thousands of dollars in old tapes and cds- but when you go to your downline’s house, you criticize them for spending $3-4 on pickles or some spice powder- your downlines might not argue with you when you criticize them for such small things- but inside they are seething with anger.

3) It is OK for people to go on a vacation, honeymoon, go on a trip to India. You don’t have to be a mother- in- law and tell people how you did not go on any vacation or your upline did not go on any vacation, you went to India for 1 week for ur marriage, you did not even attend your own brother’s wedding etc. We know that your real reason for this advice is you are scare out of your lives that when people are out of system for 2-3 weeks, they will fade away. You would rather have people invest (spend) in tools and products rather than spend that money on vacations.

4) It is OK for people to return products. Amway says so. You don’t have to come up with theories like, “If we bought it , we kept it”. I am stuck with sooooooo much jewellery , which looked nice in catalog but did not look good when I actually got them and kept them with me anyways, because you once said not to return products, because your upline was in sapphire qualification and they needed all the side volume that they could get. Not to mention extra sets of icook, Genesona etc etc etc.

5) You do everything against people’s skills, but later remember people’s birthdays, anniversaries etc and wish them and expect that people are going to turn around and appreciate your thoughtfulness. In fact it feels like you want to use every possible occasion to intrude back again into people’s lives.

6)On one hand you expect people to buy world class products from Amway and expect the same people to shop for non-Amway products from dollar store, Food for less, Ross etc. What happened to your wonderful lines about, " People know the cost of everything but value of nothing"???? Please remember that even Amway wants people to eat real "fruits and vegetables" and "real food", in addition to the "Concentrated fruits and vegetables supplement" and food bars and shakes.

7) Please don’t give theoretical advice like so and so sold so went Q12 by putting up a jewellery display in hospitals or so and so spent $1000 for putting up a stall in bridal shows and are getting tremendous results- and expect your downlines would go and do the same). Why don’t you do these things yourself and produce some results, before expecting your downlines to do the same things??

8) Don’t advice people on what kind of jobs they should get, whether they shld continue their education or not, just because according to you people should have a certain job profile to build the business). According to Napoleon Hill, put other’s interest ahead of your own interest. For somebody who can quote pages of pages of Napoleon Hill’s book to prove your points, I am really surprised you do not pay ANY attention to this particular line. Can you ever put other’s interest ahead of your own interest and please you don’t have to decide what is the best decision for others.

9) Most importantly don’t give your expert advice on how and when and where people should get married. Don’t cite examples of people who are moving on(according to you), because they got married and urge/encourage people on your team to get married. Don’t play with people’s personal lives.

End of the month- Miraculous orders

2010-02-26T13:05:00.000-08:00

I do agree that not all the orders placed at the end of the month are not necessarily- “nefarious orders”.

But how do you explain “Miraculous orders” at the end of the month , in all 3 legs for 6 months for a Emerald in qualification or in atleast 2-3 legs for a diamond in qualification(assuming first time diamonds atleast have 3-4 solid legs- who qualify month after month).

The person I pity the most is not the new platinum who qualifies to be in the backpocket of his upline- but the PLATINUM (and his team) WHO HAS TO RE-QUALIFY SO THAT UPLINE CAN GO EMERLAD/DIAMOND WHATEVER. No wonder these guys have to talk abt delayed gratification forever.

All the miraculous orders sometimes do not necessarily also happen at the end of the month-For eg: When we went I think 2500 PV for the first time, we bought about 600-700 PV in the middle of the month. Upline's logic- when you are like halfway through your goal,you get the belief that you can accomplish it. Also how can you retail e-spring, icook, atmosphere- if you dont have them??? If you buy it by the middle of the month- can you imagine how many you can retail by the end of the month,(IN MY DREAMS FOR SURE- I NEVER RETAILED ESPRING, ATMOSPHERE, ICOOK as long as I was active in the business), imagine how you can promote these products to your team (NON-EXISTENT TEAM- oh Sorry, I shld be speaking right- UPCOMING FUTURE TEAM). And then in the next month of qualification- you would hear things like- oh you have only one Atmosphere in your home?? You shld have one in the living room, one in the bedroom.

Why do Amway wait until somebody completes platinum qualification for audits? 1 or 2 months of such miraculous orders at the end of the month is not quite enough for them to do audit?

See auditing after somebody completes Platinum is such a win win situation for everybody. A guy finishes platinum qualification by pushing himself and his downlines. End of 6 months –including the bonuses(which is nothing compared to money spent on getting the pin), he gets the pin, his uplines get pin ( and in case of Emerald and Diamond- significant system income from then on). Amway gets to report atleast the same or a little bit increase in sales in that fiscal year– Then I guess they will proceed with their audits, and in the meantime the story repeats itself with some other new Emerald, Diamond and so on.

Why cant they send an automatic email say for eg: like a congratulatory email to all newly qualified 1000PV and above and in the email also let them know if the IBO has any faced any situation with stocking up of products, they shld contact Amway.

Well, I guess all these are all toooooo tough to implement and the easiest thing is to expect all low level IBOs to act right ( while of course being bombarded from the system abt submission to upline, not questioning upline, being part of upline’s goals inorder to grow, etc etc etc)

Taking advantage of downline's friendship and trust- for FAKE RECOGNITION

2010-02-22T19:30:00.000-08:00

I do hope there are people who build the business with right values, because as far as I knew-my upline's way of building the business was/is- GETTING IT DONE ONE WAY OR THE OTHER. There was a new platinum last year in his team and God only knows how much they stocked up- as they dont have a team big enough to support platinumship and my upline himself, one of the PATHAGAN BROTHERS ;-) said-THEY GOT IT DONE ONE WAY OR THE OTHER.

Whom do u go and complain to - when more than 1 upline calls you on 30th night to get you to 7500PV knowing fully well that we had a grand total of 2 STANDING ORDERS, not a single retail order in that month and knows that ur credit cards are maxed out and loans you money so that u can get 7500PV done.

Whom do you go and complain to when the theme song for Ajmani team at that Go Diamond event was - "You got to Move it, move it"- Implying that you got to move the products you stocked up.

It wont be very surprising when one of the Pathagan brothers talks from the stage in a future function..abt "How their passion for the business does not diminish one bit inspite of silvers on their team, in whom they invested so much time, money and energy quits and how this business is all about helping and Impacting people...blah blah blah." We are not the first silver to fade away from their business and we wont be the last.

After doing all this, the sad/funny part is they will claim that intention was always right, that they believed that it is for our good (qualifying for go diamond event no matter what was supposedly for our good- dont know for whose good and with what good intention we were made to buy 1500-2500 PV for his other months of qualification.) They will always maintain that they thought that we wanted it so bad and that is why they recommended it to us. That this is how they qualified for first time and with the information from go diamond event- they were able to move on so fast, and they thought that we would also move on fast..yeah right.

These guys who claim that this way of qualifying is the right thing to do in private- if they have guts- they should talk about it in their cds, in their rallies- so everybody else can learn to move on faster. Why make such a passionate glossy stage talk and let the world think so highly of you. In fact I even asked this question to my sponsor- of course- he had no answer.

They have not stopped and will never stop. After we became inactive, my downlines are now stocking up products, so that they can reach new pin levels.

I guess this is the legacy/intangible values they will leave their kids- that cheating is perfectly OK, as long as your intentions are right.

Has Amway done anything about the orders they miraculously get on the 30th of the month- especially the 30th of August and March?? I guess in the world of Amway all of a sudden on the 30th of March and August and in the in between months- "God's hands miraculously starts moving in the IBO's lives" (that is IBO stage code word for stocking up products;-)). When Amway really does something about the miraculous orders they receive at the end of the month- there might be a possibility for lesser abuses.

If they want to do somthing about it, why dont they openly write against miraculous orders on their website and ask IBOs to contact them anonymously about abuses?? They can decide to take/ or not take action against the upline IBO based on the number of miraculous orders the upline has had in the past.

Month of March is almost here and there will be new diamonds, emerlads, platinums etc this year and there will be newer abuses. I think in stead of saying "Pledge for the flag" at the beginning of the seminar rallies, speakers should be asked to pledge from the stage in front of everybody that not a single person on their team- bought even 1 PV extra for their goal.

Why exeagle blog?

2010-02-11T12:17:00.000-08:00

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?)

Amway Income Summaries for 2009 and 2008

2010-02-06T16:26:00.000-08:00

I saw that a new feature on the Amway website is that- income summary is now available online. I don't know how the diamonds and above allowed this to happen as the income summaries also include "Purchases". Earlier we used to get W2. It would not have the information about the purchases made in that year.

Most of the IBOs who during the year don't pay any attention to income and expenses are sure in for a shock when they get to look at these income summaries.

According to the online income summary my earning for the 2009 was around $3600 and Purchases around $9000. I stopped being active in the last quarter of 2009, otherwise my purchases would have been easily more by another 3K. Doing 300Pv every month is such a small price for your freedom. Yeah right.

Earning for 2008 around $3800 and purchases ONLY AROUND $11k.

This was only the the expenses involved with purchases from Amway. They dont include the system expenses or the expenses involved with actually building the business.

I noticed that nothing much in income had changed between 2008 and 09 and when I decided to leave the business my upline was trying to convince that I was so close to platinumship and would be able to make $2k month after after (yeah right- in my dreams)

We would have thrown up if we had received the income summary with "Purchases", the year we went silver and were a "Strong part of Upline's platinumship."

The system Thrives on Negativity

2010-02-05T15:57:00.001-08:00

For the group of people, who claim to be positive all the time, it is very surprising and many times irritating to see the system focus so much on negativity.

For eg: When you go to a open meeting - the first 45 minutes is spent on emphasizing the negative things about economy, job market, world in general. I really cannot comprehend how these people can talk so much about avoiding newspaper, internet news site but still have all statistics about divorce rates, unemployment rate, the percentage of foreclosures, etc etc in their finger tips. When the economy meltdown started happening the Amway IBOs were almost rejoicing. Speaker after speaker kept saying “ WE TOLD YOU SO…WE KEPT TELLING NOT TO BUY HOUSES, SEE WHAT HAS HAPPENED NOW” and so on. Their goal is by the end of the presentation to create such a hype to make you think nothing but doing Amway is good.

Have you seen any other professional claiming to be the best by justifying that all other professions are utter waste of time. Have you seen a doctor insulting a computer consultant to justify that his profession is better or vice versa?

But that is exactly Amway IBOs constantly do. If you are a computer consultant- they call you insult ant. If you are a doctor- “you still have a bucket, it is just that you have a golden bucket” (meaning- a doctor has to show up at work every day to make money, just that his hourly rate is higher- as if Amway IBOs are making money in their sleep).

If you are a very senior executive in a company- then you have sold your soul to that company to be in that position, if you are a priest- then they say that cannot comprehend a broke person teaching “God wants everybody to be prosperous” etc. If you own conventional business- “then these conventional business owners are time broke and don’t have employees but headaches.” (Yeah Right Amway is a sure way of becoming even more time broke and getting a much much bigger headache called upline). Basically if you are an employee, then you nothing but a slave. Even Bill Gates or the President of United States is not spared from their ridicules.

They make fun of everybody on the earth- If you are planning on doing Master’s they make fun of you saying- “you know that jobs don’t work and now you are after masters and do what- go back to job”. If you have a Ph.d, you will have to suffer much more ridicule- like it erally takes a Ph.D to figure out how to make a living with that salary (I don’t know what it takes to make a living with the Amway IBO income). Yet, these same idiots will claim at the end of the plan abt how Amway is such a great corporation which employs many Ph.D scientists to conduct their research.

The speakers on the function stage who put down education so much will gush about their children have gor admitted to top schools and will tell you that only because of the business that their children were able to achieve that.

Bill Britt when he gets on stage and irritates so much by saying that the stage is set up by broke people, flowers, audio is set up by broke people and that he needs about 40-50 broke people to conduct his daily life- everybody who is doing something other than Amway- according to him is broke. Talk abt humility.

All their claims abt people are being laid off and the employers not caring for the employess- Just stop your standing order for a few months, your uplines will really show you how much they care about you.

Their so called night owl after night owl is nothing but, hours and hours of laughing behind people’s back- putting down the prospect who did not get it, putting down the new IBO who does not want to continue the business anymore, putting down people who are just working their jobs, putting down people who laughed at them. But these same people claim from the stage - “Average people only discuss other people”.

Go Diamond Leadership- Should it be called "Go Broke Leadership?"

2010-02-04T17:29:00.000-08:00

Why don’t the qualification for these events be- Should have achieved atleast 7500 PV once in the past 6 months or atleast in the past 1 year?? Or have a qualification that only people who made so much money "Through the business"in the previous year are allowed for these events??

Why should they let all the people who qualified 7500PV once in their lifetime in the business and that too you know how from my previous post.

The sad truth is if they had these qualifications even most of the platinums would not then qualify for these events. It is no fun right only the bigger pins meeting each other- they would miss the joy of thrashing all the low level IBOs who are supposedly not moving on

I must say that for the claim in these teaching systems that they are the most positive people on the face of this Earth, they take tremendous pleasure in pointing out the negatives in everything else (except the Amway business ) and in putting down every single profession.

I checked the hotel rates for the go diamond event this year. It is “only” $250/night. The go diamond expenses would easily add up to more than $1000 or more – adding up flight tickets, parking, rental car, hotel for 2 nights, food not to mention the function ticket, baby sitting expenses- if you have kids.

Not to of course mention- the cost of actually qualifiying silver- I have a cd which was made in one of the Go diamond events, one of the EDC talking about how the water quality and the air quality of the new silvers neighborhood has tremendously increased- Implying that they have stocked up E-spring and ATMOSPHERE to qualify.

Why should the system torture the IBOs who are as it is not making money and bleed them financially and call them losers if they are not “willing to pay the price”
( very expensive price I must say). If you tell your upline that you don’t think you should go to the diamond event this year, because you have not qualified in a long time (I MEAN REALLY LONG TIME), be ready to receive an earful of thrashing as to “How you are not a team player”, “How you are losing faith”…etc etc etc.

You see you can "Go Diamond" only from the nuggets you receive from the night owl after night owl at 4 a.m that happens at the "Go diamond events" and that is why you should go- to learn to "Go Diamond" (yeah right).

Eagle leadership and other PV based leaderships

2010-01-29T12:27:00.000-08:00

Despite being a system pin, why are downlines encouraged to fake the qualifications for eagle ledearship?? One thing I can say is downline has no real monetary benefit by faking eagle qualifications. Infact it adds up to an already heavy expense involved with being a committed IBO and the downline who fakes such qualification feels like a mosquito- because he knows that everybody else knows that he is not actually an Eagle. The fake qualification in no way helps the IBO’s self image or his bank balance.

Uplines have to verify eagles in their team by sending eagle verification sheets to their upline diamond. It would be very foolish to think downlines come up with the brilliant idea to fake eagle qualifications without their upline platinum, emerald – whoever they are working with recommending it and fully aware of it. The upline diamond is very well aware of such things. You have to listen to the jokes that are made the speakers in these leaderships that imply that they are aware that most people have faked the qualifications.

In my upline diamonds team there would have been anywhere between 200-300 people who qualified for these leaderships. In kate conferences prior to these leaderships and in many associations, there is constant programming that once you get eagle done, you will start platinum qualification in 3-6 months. If this is true, my upline diamond shld be breaking atleast 100 new platinums every year( considering the rest of the people at these events are already platinums and above). Well, that is not the case, he breaks at most 5-10 platinums every year. One year was exception and he broke I think 20-30 platinums- coz there were so many new emeralds.

Who could be actually benefitting from such leaderships?

1) I cannot deny the fact that some people because of the leadership work extra hard and get all the parameters right. Some fly to different conferences to different parts of country to take one person to atleast one session of the function- so that he gets the function parameters right. These people are put in such a high pedestal and are made out to be such heroes in the eyes of other IBOs. I don’t know if flying to all the different functions to get that one new person to that one session is of any benefit- atleast by qualifying Eagle the IBO’s self image is so high now- so I think it is a god thing, depending on how you look at it.

2) Most of the emeralds at the most qualify as q12s every year. These leaderships are such a boon for them as they can get in a couple of months of their qualification (7500PV for that month) because of these leaderships. Many of the eagle leaderships, PV based leaderships- the qualifications are for eg : you have to be an eagle or 1000PV( in case of PV based leadership) for Jan and Feb and there are other recognitions like if you have a downline IBO eagle for a couple of months then you get to spend with upline diamond- to soak in more nuggets(read: to learn more how to rip off people). I know for a fact that there were so many fake eagles part of my upline emeralds team. My sponsor himself has told me that in their open people wonder how come there are so many eagles who have only a couple of locally associating IBOs. If the upline emerald say for eg: gets even 10 eagles for a leadership and if each of their PV level is atleast 1000PV because of fake PV cheques- he gets atleast 10,000PV that month. Some of these pv cheques could be from inactive ibos doing volume for that month- since the ibos qualifying for such leaderships would have pleaded/begged their inactive IBOs to buy products for that month- which the downline would not have done if not for the leadership. So many emeralds talk abt how they have qualified for all the q12 trips straight for so many years. I do know how they actually qualify.

3) Of course the system income for the UPLINES associated with the surge of tool order- atleast a surge in their income for that particular month.

4) Most important I think- If only people who had all the parameters right were allowed into these associations- only platinums and above and a handful of non-platinums would be there at the event. The platinums and above are all already indoctrinated with the system’s philosophies. They need a new bunch of IBOs whom they can indoctrinate with their theories and ideas of honesty and integrity and who can continue on their legacy of ripping off people in the name of “being part of inner circle, intangible values and all bunch of crap” . In such leaderships you are clearly told- “THERE IS NO GROCERY STORE APPROACH ANY MORE. YOU HAVE TO TAKE IN EVERYTHING THAT IS TAUGHT TO MOVE ON.”

In these leaderships they have separate men and women leaderships and men are taught they need to have vision and should not give into wife’s complaints of not making money. Women are taught to applaud their man coz they are showing they plan and not to interfere with their husband’s investment in the system and most importantly not whine about lack of results. I cannot even write many things that are taught in these men and women leadership and you are not even allowed to record things.

5)Getting the heat from below: If the upline works with a downline of yours and gets them to Eagle or 1000PV, then all the uplines above now are in pressure to qualify for these events.

I have had so many many moments of hating myself for giving into my upline’s advice and faking these qualifications – like the red dog(Tape/CD positive talk) and white dog (Ur conscience) analogy of Kumar. The white dog’s voice would soon be drowned out by the much much louder red dog’s voice through the cds, books and the twice weekly associations (open, pase). Only when you are totally away from the system’s influence for some amount of time, can you ever think rationally and really make decisions by yourself. I am in no way blaming uplines entirely for whatever happened to me and I know that I allowed these things to happen to me and I keep asking myself how come I was so dumb, so weak, such a coward for not standing up to them?

AS the system keeps saying “TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE”, I hope by sharing my story, “TRUTH WILL SET ATLEAST A FEW PEOPLE FREE.”

Our Quixtar/Amway Global Story

2010-01-27T17:36:00.000-08:00

I had never posted our Amway story and thought I should make a post about it. I had dreamed countless times about the glorious story of achievement, I would tell from the stage to a crowd of eager IBOs ready to soak in the nuggets about my achievements in Amway, but that was not the case to be.

We started in 2003 and were active till around end of 2009. By active I mean being out there more than 5 nights a week, showing 3-5 plans a week, attending all associations, flying/driving miles, doing more than 300 pv per month.

I was sponsored by my best friend whom I had known for around 10 years. I was new to the country. I had been in the US for only a month. My friend invited me to a FED in Minneapolis. He told me in no less words that I can forget our friendship if I was not willing to come to the FED and start the business. He in fact paid for my flight tickets, function ticket, starter pack and even paid for me to complete my 100Pv in my first month. Of course, I did repay all of this money, but this is how I got started. I went to the FED reluctantly but a lot of things talked about from the stage appealed to me and I decided to start the business.

Our woes started when my upline Emerlad decided in 2005 that he was going to get Emerald done no matter what and be a part of the upline diamond’s inner circle. So as a part of my upline starting emerald qualification, my sponsor started platinum qualification (Silver)- So we committed (Made to commit) 2500PV to be a part of upline’s goal. When we went 2500PV , we had no associating IBO. We bought more than 2000PV ourselves. We must have done retail about 100PV at the maximum and a few non-associating IBOs bought some big ticket items like e-spring. We bought a lot of jewellery. My wife who is a medical graduate and has a Master’s Degree was encouraged by upline to go to Nail spas and talk to the ladies there and sell jewellery. We had a long distance upline. So she had to do this on her own. When I think about my wife going to spas and selling jewellery for my idiotic upline’s goal-my blood boils even today.

Then we qualified for Ajmani Eagle leadership for the first time in 2005. We had 1 associating IBO who did 100PV and who was on standing order. The rest of the PV cheques we created by buying products and transferring the volume to inactive IBOs to create 5 more PV cheques. We were 8 SOT short to complete our Eagle parameters- So what did we do??? Our upline told us to buy just 8 Standing order CD for 4 weeks and 8 books for a whole month. BWW was not sitting there at the eagle leadership and checking who had 10 SOT or not or if we had 6 pv cheques or not- to this day, I wonder why the heck we were made to buy those extra standing orders and do extra volume to create PV cheques. For this we had to fly to the east coast- so more money had to be shelled out for flight tickets. There we realized many people had qualified like us, since many of the speakers kept saying that now that you have put your grandmother on standing order and have qualified, we want you to go back and fix your structure.

Most of the group my sponsor had put together at this time had vanished and he had decided to complete platinum qualification in 05-06 and be his upline’s third leg for his emeraldship. This meant more trouble for us as being my sponsor’s close friend and the system’s constant programming we were to become the scape goats. So the first month when he restarted platinum qualification we again did more than 2000PV. As soon as we did it, a big fight erupted between me and my wife due to me doing everything upline was telling without any concern for our future. When I talked to my upline emerald in qualification about why he was doing this to us- making us buy so much for his goals, he was so angry that we were questioning him and not being thankful for all the help he was doing- flying to meet us, and did a lot of guilt trip and made it clear that if we question uplines- we would not grow.

Our trust with our uplines had greatly reduced but we still believed that if what we did as told by the system, we will still win. We later realized that pretty much in all lines of sponsorship, the same thing is being done, but the system portrays itself as honest and full of values, so that the IBOs being exploited get the feeling that uplines may be bad but if you follow the system you will still win.

For the next few months there was no pressure and we thought that the uplines had dropped the idea of going platinum and Emerald. We did not realize that they had given us breathing space for a few months. It all started again from April of 06, when you had only 5 months to complete qualifications that year. April and May we again stocked up 1500 PV or more. June 06 was a big month as Kumar Go Diamond event was coming up in July 06 and we were highly encouraged to qualify for that event. At this point of time we had 1 active associating IBO who was on standing order- so the grand total of our standing order count was 2, including ours. In system they always teach from stage that you should have 20 Standing order when you start platinum qualification.

But in close quarters, in night owls uplines used to always tell that you cannot wait till you have 20 standing order and the perfect timing to start platinum qualification. So, finally in June 06 we qualified as Silver by BUYING MORE THAN 6000PV OURSELVES. At this point of time, our credit cards were maxed out because of stocking up products and all the other regular expenses involved with being a 100% core IBO. So what do our honest uplines do - My sponsor loans us $10,000 so that we can stock up products and qualify Silver. My up-upline emerald SMR calls me and this is what he told me verbatim - "You go silver this month and I will make sure you go platinum within the next one year". Guess how many calls I got from him after we went to Kumar go diamond? ZERO! He never called me even to just enquire how we are doing!

All he made sure was that his downline and brother RR qualified as emerald! My upline Emerald had the nerve to even call me in his last month of qualification if we were willing to buy 1000PV worth of jewellery. I still have my BWW calendar from that year, in which all the last days of my upline's emerald qualification were marked "PV deal", meaning my upline was convincing me/making me accountable for the goal we committed at the beginning of the month!

I still don’t know why I stayed in till this point or beyond this point, knowing fully well what crooks my upline were. I can attribute my staying in only to the bombardment of the teachings of the system and some cross line leaders, who seemed genuine and honest!

My sponsor did complete his platinum qualification and my upline his Emerald qualification in 2006. My upline Emerald cut a wonderful cd in where he talks about how he has made it in Amway. Sadly, his wonderful cd with a beautiful story does not tell the ACTUAL story about how many trusting IBOs he has exploited on his way to Emerald, how many IBO's bank balance he has wiped out, how much of a crook he actually is and how low he would stoop to achieve his goals.

Another big thing was our wedding. According the "system" you need to be legally married for people to trust you, so you cannot hang around for too long telling this is my fiancee, girl friend, etc., Since we had some resistance from our families for our wedding, we could not get a traditional Indian wedding done in India when we wanted it. So our uplines recommend us to get secretly married here, which we did. Everything was fine after our wedding, except for the fact that we both were feeling guilty. So we wanted to go to India and get a traditional wedding done. Whenever we talked to upline about this, my upline emerald RR would say "If you want to go to India, you can go for 10 days and come back. But if you want to go platinum in the next 1 year, then forget about it. You cannot go to India for 10 days and then expect to go platinum within the next 1 year. Your platinumship will be delayed by at least 6 more months." The truth was actually not that - it is to keep us here until he qualified emerald. Every time the wedding topic would come, he would pretty much black mail us with the same lines. So we were forced to stay here until he qualified emerald. But after that, he never really cared. The ultimate turn-around was when he told me a few years later he and my sponsor friend were wondering why we did not go to India and get our traditional wedding done any sooner than we did.

Next two years, no pressure to stock up products, though in 2007 in a major fight with uplines, we let them know what we really thought about them. We still believed that if we did what was taught by the system, we could still be financially free.

In 2008, my sponsor decides to start q12 qualification and his upline founders emerald qualification. This time they knew we would not buy a single extra product for their qualification. So, they come up with such a brilliant idea. At this point of time, Amway was giving 20% Pv/BV uplift for all online customer orders worth $75 or if you reported any customer order that you made from your inventory more than $75. My upline gets password for my Amway account and all our downlines and reports everybody’s personal purchase as customer order, so that they would get this 20% uplift. So this way, they exploit Amway’s promotion to get extra free PV. This happened for a couple of months and a few IBOs decided to drop out not wanting to be part of this team. One of my close friends and downline IBOs quit at this time. He at least had enough integrity in him to quit as soon as my uplines started the "real deal" on him and his downlines! I lost a good friend from my life! When I confronted my upline and asked him why he is being so dishonest, he said “Why would Amway have such a promotion if they know that people would misuse it. He said Amway wants people to take advantage of this 20% uplift promotion”. How could you ever argue with somebody who is hard headed and believes what they are doing is right?

Finally towards the end of 2009, when we had a chance due to our international trip to not be a part of system for about 3 weeks, we finally started asking ourselves why we are in it, when we are not making any profit, when our relationship was so sour due to the arguments about this business, when we were made to feel like losers by the system for not making it inspite of all the HARD work that we were putting in with no results to show for, when we were not winning in it and when we were not seeing any chance of winning in the next few years?? We decided we had had enough and not to be active with the system anymore. Even at this time our upline tried to influence us and keep us in the business and we were not willing to agree with him. We are so glad that we made this decision as we are so much happier and we dont have false hopes anymore.

We would have easily invested more than $80K in our Amway journey- with doing 300PV every month- most of these products that we had never used prior to being IBOs and would have NEVER used if we had not been a IBO, with all the flights we had to take to support our long distance groups, all the flight tickets to attend Go diamond leaderships- the money does add up to a staggering number. We had spent more than
$20K just for my upline’s Emerlad qualification. More than the money the time we spent, it pains us to think about the relationships that we had failed to nurture, the careers we had not paid attention to and the mess it created in our personal lives.

We have started our journey back to normal lives and we are glad that we came to our senses atleast now. Life is actually going great now. We took 3 quality vacations, have saved up a lot through our job incomes and are looking ahead for a great future!

And I am not saying you should not join Amway/BWW. Join it and make money honestly. Do not become part of anything dishonest, even if your upline does it and recommends it to you. Just because 100 people are doing something wrong, does not make it right. Have the guts to do it right every step along the way and achieve your dreams!

Will the Training systems recall all hyped up cds about Perfect Water??

2010-01-19T20:40:00.000-08:00

A Couple of years ago- Perfect water demo was a rage. Any association that you went to or in any CD- you would hear about how perfect water is going to change the face of the business.

Especially the WWDB cds that we listened to- were full of stories of the demos, how there were mass sign ups, how people were going silver and ruby because of perfect water. All this excitement died a natural death and perfect water definitely did not change the face of our business- except for creating a dent in our pocket with the outrageous price for supposedly "Perfect water".

When we tried the demo at home, it never worked. When we asked our upline, he gave the typical upline advice, "just keep trying and perfect the demo...a lot of people are getting tremendous results with the demo."

Well today in Amway global website, there was a post about Perfect Water- that "tip test" and "flexibility test" should not be performed to demonstrate perfect water's claims. This news is being posted when there is no more excitement among the IBOs about this product.

Here is a link for a video for "tip test" demonstrated by a WWDB diamond Jimmy Head

click here

Wonder if the system will recall all the cds with the hype about perfect water?? Does the process of accreditation include reviewing such hyped up cds?? What if such cds with outrageous lies are out and Amway global posts a contradicting message that these demos should not be done- what happens then???

Anyway cant wait for the next hype which will keep the IBOs temporarily excited for 1 more year.

Doing 100 PV- Is it really redirecting your "Anyway Money"?

2010-01-17T21:46:00.000-08:00

In the open meetings in the plan I have always seen the speaker mention redirecting "$250 of your anyways money " towards Amway purchases and the speaker implied many times that you will save 30% by shopping through Amway.

Well, I am posting the product bundles created by my uplines for new IBOs to complete their 100PV. The list does not include tax and shipping price. This product bundle was created after there were price reductions for most of the products. For some of the products the quantity is 2 or 3 - the PV, BV and the price has been multiplied by the quantity.

Sample Product Bundle for Single Lady

Product Quantity PV BV IBO Cost\

1)Nutrilite Daily
(3 month supply) 1qty 3.24 9.40 7.35

2)Nutrilite Conc Fruits
& Vegetables 1qty 11.76 34.09 26.64

3)Nutrilite Omega3 1qty 7.31 21.20 16.57

4)Artistry essentials Skin care
system(cleanser,toner,moisturizer) 1qty 13.48 39.10 30.56

5)Nutrilite Meal Bar
(case of 12 bars) 2Cases 9.46 41.13 27.42

6)XS Energy Drink 2Cases 15.84 45.84 45.84

7)Sa8 laundry (33 washloads) 1Case 8.78 25.45 9.31

8)Pursue Toilet Bowl Cleaner 1qty 1.35 3.91 3.91

9)Glister Toothpaste 1qty 0.70 2.03 3.39

10)Glister Oral Rinse (100 uses) 1qty 1.23 3.56 5.94

11)Glister Breath Freshener 1qty 1.04 3.04 5.08

12)Artistry essentials Replenishing
Eye Crème 1qty 7.74 22.46 17.55

13)Artistry essentials Polishing Scrub 1qty 6.60 19.13 14.95

14)Artistry essentials Makeup Kit 1qty 11.63 33.74 38.35

Total 100.16PV 304.08BV $243.55(Only $243.55 of your Anyway money)

Sample Product Bundle for Single Guy
Product Quantity PV BV IBO Cost
1)Men’s vitamin pack 1 6.59 19.12 14.94

2)Nutrilite Conc Fruits & Vegetables 1 11.76 34.09 26.64

3)Nutrilite Balanced
Health Omega 3 1 7.31 21.20 16.57

4)Tolsom Men’s Skin Care
(Facial cleansing foam, shave gel,
after shave splash, skin protective
lotion and skin smoothing gel) 1 19.37 56.19 63.88

5)Nutrilite Meal Bar (case of 12 bars) 2 9.46 41.13 27.42

6)XS Energy Drink 2 15.84 45.84 45.84

7)Nutrilite energy bar 2 7.88 22.86 25.98

8)Sa8 laundry (33 wash loads) 1 8.78 25.45 9.31

9)Pursue Toilet Bowl Cleaner 1 1.35 3.91 3.91

10)Hand wash ( 450 uses) 1 0.70 2.03 3.39

11)Dishwasher detergent 1 2.70 7.82 7.82

12)Dish Drops 1 2.36 6.84 6.84

13)Multi purpose cleaner 1 1.69 4.89 4.89

14)Satinique 2 in 1 shampoo and conditioner 1 0.70 2.03 3.39

15)Glister Toothpaste 1 0.70 2.03 3.39

16)Glister Oral Rinse 1 1.23 3.56 5.94

17)Glister Breath Freshener 1 1.04 3.04 5.08

18)Deodorant 1 0.70 2.03 3.39

When we were active, we did 300pv personal volume every month. It costed us only about $750-$1000/month of our “anyway spending money”.

Since the personal use products like glister and the cleaning products last a long time, how do you do 100PV the next month- uplines will highly encourage you to get on to perfect health pack (double X- multivitamin, concentrated fruits and vegetables and omega 3 - which will gives about 38 PV). After all, getting onto perfect health is a small price to pay for your freedom.

I will sign off with the most impressive analogy I have ever heard about using products from your own business:

During India's freedom struggle from the British, Mahatma Gandhiji encouraged people to use khadi (a dress material that was spun in India) and not buy any products that were manufactured by the British- it was one of the non-violent movements to attain freedom from the British rule. Similarly are you willing to use 100% of the products from YOUR business to attain financial freedom???

Trust the BWW leaders to come up with logical analogies to confuse/influence/maipulate people.

You decide for your yourself from the sample product bundles, how much of your "ANYWAY MONEY" you will end up spending as a IBO.

Is the System really Interested in your Education or in their Profit?

2010-01-04T15:38:00.000-08:00

One of the things that is often taught from the stage is that if you go to school you have to buy books or whatever learning materials- you don’t argue with that. Then why do you argue when we teach you have to buy books and cds. But in colleges or in school, the teacher does not really care about where you buy the book from- from Amazon.com or the school book store.

But your uplines are very particular about where you buy the book from. If these people are all for educating their people and do not care about their profits- why do they not let their people to buy books from sites like amzon.com, or loan the book for free from their local library? Why do they want the IBOs to buy these books only from the uplines. The reason they give you – is that it is not duplicatable. The uplines claim that you really can’t keep track of what books people are buying and reading, but if you order through upline, you know for sure what book people are ordering and in which subject they are being educated on. One thing the system and the uplines are very very good at is giving analogies and making everything sound so logical. I think some of these diamonds, who are supposedly free, spend their time to think about analogies that sound very logical to counter every opposition(?excuse from the IBOs).

Many of the books promoted in the system are available in Amazon for 1 cent- in system depending on the book it might cost anywhere between $7-$15. These same guys have a big issue if you spend a few bucks on a starbucks coffee or go watch a movie- but it is ok to pay the FULL PRICE, when it comes to the system.

Sometimes the books that come through the book of the month are utterly ridiculous and makes you think- if they really wanted to educate you or if there was a major profit from that particular book to the system or worse yet the author of the book is a Diamond or above.

Example of some of the Idiotic books we received:

WWW stands for World Wide Whiners- In spite of running an online business, they want you to read this book with this title- Reason: To learn about why you should avoid internet negatives. As if telling somebody not to do something is going to work.

Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun- I could not figure out what leadership qualities you could learn from and apply in Amway business from somebody who was a barbarian and supposedly had 2000 wives.

By the way if you are not building the business any more, and are stuck with tons of books and if you have the patience, sell them on Amazon- You will for sure make some money without having to deal with mentoring(should it be tormenting) uplines.

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

2009-12-29T12:07:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-29T11:59:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-29T04:45:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-29T04:26:00.000-08:00

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???

Your upline can rip you off using Amway promotions

2009-12-22T22:43:00.001-08:00

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??

2009-12-22T19:46:00.000-08:00

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").

Amway can destroy marriages

2009-12-21T19:04:00.000-08:00

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.

Life is great after I quit Amway

2009-12-05T22:13:00.000-08:00

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!

Fake Product Demos

2009-11-05T17:23:00.000-08:00

Yes, the products are great. No doubts about that, but they are not the only best products that is available on Earth. It is now funny to think that, in the past, I have completely believed in these demos and have done them so many times myself.

Let me share with you a few tricks that are commonly used to convince people the superiority of Amway products.

1)Scrub buds: Panty hose demo
The demo basically is to rub the scrub buds over the panty hose and show that it does not tear a delicate material like panty hose, so it wont cause scatches on vessels. Bring a stainless steel vessel or any other vessel to your almighty upline and ask them to clean that and you can see the big scratch marks left by scrub buds. So this demo is great but only works on panty hose and not where it is supposed to work – on your vessels.

2)Dish drops demo:
The demo is to take 2 spoons with little oil in it and pour diluted dish drops into one spoon and undiluted any other dish washing liquid (x brand) into another spoon. When the oil in the spoon is mixed with diluted dish drops, the oil will come out. In the other spoon once you mix the oil and X- brand dish washing liquid it will form a white paste which is difficult to dissolve. Dish drops is a great product and probably I will use it for the rest of my life, but let me share a little secret:

a) Try the same demo with undiluted dish drops-you will see a white paste with undiluted dish drops as well.

b) Try the same demo by diluting the X-brand product- you won't see the white paste

3)Best joke of all demos:
Dissolution test of Nutrilite vitamins:

One of the main selling points of the expensive Nutrilite Double X is that it is unlike other vitamins and it dissolves in 20 mins and therefore readily absorbed by the body. To proove this, you will be shown a demo with the Golden yellow color Double X tablet (Nutrilite multi vitamin) vs Centrum. The golden yellow double X will dissolve within 20 mins, whereas centrum will remain like a chalk powder.

Trick:
Do the same demo with other (silver, and bronze colored Nutrilite double X tablets or Nutrilite daily multivitamin or for that matter other Nutrilite vitamins- they will not dissolve- of course ur upline will not show this to u for obvious reasons). Ask why others don’t dissolve in 20 mins- they will change the topic;-)

4)Anti-oxidant power of Vita min C, Immunity twist tubes, Nutrilite Double X and Nutrilite Daily multi-vitamin:

Demo: When iodine solution is added to water or rice and then a powder of Double X vitamin/ or Nutrilite Daily Multi-vitamin or the Immunity twist tube is added, you will see that the color of iodine disappearing- meaning the anti-oxidant is working against the free radical iodine. Try the same demo with powerful antioxidant containing product NUTRILITE ROC20 (RED orange complex)- and this demo will not work. Of course ur upline will not have an answer for this well.

5)Last but not least, Perfect Water Demo:

This is a hilarious demo and if you just type on youtube- perfect water demo, you can watch so many diamonds and above performing this demo. I dont know if perfect water does, what they all these diamonds claim it can do, but we did try the demo, by of course purchasing a very overpriced case of supposedly "Perfect Water"- The demo did not work, when we did at home. When we asked our upline he said, "Keep trying...lot of people are getting phenomenal results with this demo." "Keep trying" in Amway is nothing but BS.

If you know of more fake demos, please leave your comments about them.

What is your chance of Success?

2009-11-05T17:08:00.000-08:00
If you had ever asked this question to your sponsoring IBO or the IBO who invited u to see the plan, you would have gotten a funny look ( Meaning of the funny look: u dumbo, u are questioning the success of a $8 billion corporation?...what world are you from?..Can’t you see the success in the room, in the Achieve magazine, in the lifestyle videos?)

If you had ever watched the profile video of a charismatic double diamond, when this question was asked to him, with this characteristic eyebrow arched look of utter disbelief, he would ask you back....how you could ask this when there are factors like hard work, faith and belief which can't be compared and would tell you apples and oranges can’t be compared. He would go on to tell you that the average income of an IBO is mentioned on paper by Amway and he would answer this question back with a question "DO YOU WANT TO BE AVERAGE?". Do you get the point, there are no real answers for real questions. All the techniques learnt from books will be put to full use to circumvent your real questions and real concerns.

Coming back to the question of "What is your chance of Success"? and similar questions -specifically questions about "income from the business", "number of people that you have sponsored in the business", “"number of people that you have in your team" – You will realize from the so called positive programming of the system that these are strict no no questions to ask your upline.

While these same people who give you funny looks when you question them about your chance of success in the business, they will go to great lengths to cover about negative statistics about everything else on the planet. For eg: These are things u will regularly hear in the system:

1) Social security.gov says 98% of people will be broke or have to depend on somebody else by the time they reach the age of 65.
2) About 85% of non-franchise type businesses fail in the first 5 years.
3) Unemployment rate
4) Increasing number of people who have lost their homes ( in the recent past, the bigger pins had such a great time boasting about how their predictions that the economy would plummet has come true. Seemed like these guys were looking forward to the bad economy)
5)Conventional businesses don’t break even in their first 5 years of business (Dude if you have been in the business for 5 years or more and you still did not break even in so called low investment Amway business, you should seriously re-think, or rather start THINKING)

Another common thing, you will hear in the system is “Numbers don’t lie”. Okay agreed. Let’s look at this phrase in the context of the Amway business. One of the things that is constantly promoted is that if u showed 5 plans/week for at least 90 days straight, you will definitely start platinum qualification.

During functions and seminars or open meetings, big pins from stage ask who showed 5 plans/week in the last 3 months- just look around and see how many people stand for that. In a function, from a crowd of about 3000 people u will see about less than 50 people stand up when this question is asked. And if you take a close look at them, you will notice that they will be mostly be silvers and above. Again you can argue, see what they promote in system is true right, if you showed 5 plans/week you will start platinum qualification. But the problem is many of them have been silver and above for many many years and one of the reasons they show 5 plans/week is that they have some group- and they show 5 plans / week in depth- meaning they show plan for many new people on their team. Again, I am not saying nobody other than silvers and up shows 5 plans / week nor am I saying that nobody can succeed in this business- but do look at the number of people who do this- you see, NUMBERS DON’T LIE AFTER ALL.

The main reason for this promotion of 5 plans/week which not even 5% of the IBO’s can accomplish is because once you are subjected to this heavy programming, u will stay in the business thinking it will work when you show 5 plans/ week or even when you decide to leave, you will have the feeling that you did not show 5 plans/week and that is why the business did not work for you.

Every time you counsel with your upline, you ask them why the business is not working as fast as you want it to work, you will be asked “Are u showing 5 plans / week?, Come talk to me when you show 5 plans/week blah blah blah.” The so called counselling sheet you take to your upline for the counselling session, will have many questions like the number of PV cheques you have, the number of people on SOT on your team, the number of people coming to association, the number of plans u showed, the number of contacts u made, the retail volume you did, etc. However, there won’t be a few very important questions vital for running a business like “HOW MUCH MONEY YOU MADE LAST MONTH, OR THE MONTH BEFORE THAT, OR THE YEAR BEFORE THAT’? or “ WHAT WAS YOUR EXPENSE LAST MONTH OR THE MONTH BEFORE THAT, OR THE YEAR BEFORE THAT?"

One thing you will commonly hear from the system is, if social security says that only 2% people are financially independent at age 65 after years of hard work, what is your chance that you will be financially independent by just working a job. By the same measure, if the average IBO income is $110 - what do you think is your chance of making it to the projected emerald and diamond 6 figure income shown in the plan?

The so called residual income and all the talks about once a leg goes platinum u continue to get $800/month is only by assuming all your legs( 3 organizations to go emerald and 6 to go diamond), qualify month after month. The number of IBO's who reach founders every year is probably less than 5%. Next time when u go to your summer conference, listen to how many diamonds talk about their recent diamond trip or trip to Peter island (or look at the number of diamonds part of your system, who are in the diamond club pictures you received) . If they are not talking about their trip to diamond club, they did not qualify as founders diamond that year, probably they never went diamond after their first year of diamondship.

Again, “What is your Chance of Success in the Amway business”?, this question can only be answered philosophically like, “ 100% for the ones who decides to pay whatever price it takes to succeed in this business”? ... “ Look at the man in the mirror and he is responsible for your level in the business” , “ You are exactly where you are in your life, because of your choices” …..etc, etc, etc.

How much time does it take to build the IBO business?

2009-11-02T16:28:00.001-08:00
What is told at the open meeting is 8 to 12 hours per week. Biggest lie of all.

this is how a typical IBO's day goes, assuming he has a 9-5 job.

on a weekday - from 5 pm to 10 pm is your prime time. this is the time you should do your 4 basics of contacting, calling prospects, showing the plan or do follow-ups, and also retail sales. according to a very famous diamond, you should do the 4 basic in reverse.

but you have only 3 weekdays to do this. open and pase mtgs will take 2 weekdays. but you see, you can still do some work before the open - for which you need to show up only by 7:30 and show up at your pase only at 7:30 or 8:00. so you squeeze in few more hours here.

weekends - start your car ride to costco, wal-mart, malls, grocery stores - literally anywhere - or go long distance.

you are encouraged to build the business 5 nights per week, but 3 nights are gone for open, pase and phone meetings.

the total time you will be working your biz is anywhere from 20 to 30 hours per week!

then you need to talk to your upline and downlines (if you have any). add 2 to 3 hours per week.

if your upline calls for a kate conference, add another 2 hours that week.

then communikate voice messages and email - you will spend average 3 to 4 hours per week on that one.

reading - give 4 to 5 hours per week (if you are an avid reader) else give 7days * 15 mins/day = 105 min/week.

and listen to your CDs while driving, so that time does not count.

how would you like to spend 30 to 40 hours a week, and spend the money explained in here and would like to make the money your 1099-misc shows???

How much does it cost to run an amway/quixtar/BWW business?

2009-11-02T07:14:00.000-08:00
While Amway/quixtar plan is very clear and says exactly how much you will get paid at each level, what your upline will never tell you are the hidden costs.

When you first hear the plan at the open meeting, you will hear things like "You just redirect your buying power. Take $250 you are spending outside in wal-mart, costco, grocery stores, and buy from your own store. You have no employees, no overheads, no running costs. You shop and refer others to shop. You make $2700/month." Also they tell you,"In the next 6 to 12 months, working anywhere from 8 to 12 hours per week, you can reach platinum and make $2700/month." (Read my other post on how much platinums really make.)

Here is the truth.

If you have to get REALLY committed and become someone who is going to be the NEXT PLATINUM on the team, then here are your actual additional expenses for your business:

(1) If you have only one car and you are a couple, then you will think about a second car, so that your wife can do retail. While this looks appealing and gives you both more mobility, if your wife is already not selling products then it will put a big hole in your pocket.

(2) Most likely you will be driving around your town in evenings and weekends and may "prospect" in different stores in different locations. It will easily put 10 to 30 miles per weekday.

(3) If you have a group that is 6 to 8 hours away from where you live, you need to drive there on weekends... to show your commitment, you will start driving on Friday night and reach there Saturday morning super exhausted.

(4) If you get a group in a place like California and you are sitting in New Jersey, then you will need to fly there sooner or later...

(5) Based on the experiences of one of my downline IBOs: if you are sitting in California and your uplines are all in New Jersey, then you need to fly to many leadership events in NJ. These will be for very insignificant pins, like 600 PV or 1000 PV or eagle, where you don't even make as much money as it takes for your travel and leadership event ticket. Sometimes you need to attend a big function that is on the other side of the country!

(6) You do 150 PV as single IBO and 300 PV as couple - that is a CORE requirement. If you are not selling at least 50% of this (most IBOs don't even sell 50 PV, forget about selling 50%) then you will be spending $450 as single and $900 as couple per month, not the $250 they show. If you do a careful analysis you will see that to get one PV you will be spending close to $3. Quixtar/amway says this in their documents, but your upline and the education system will not.

(7) Shipping costs have increased... for an order I placed last month for $300, I had to pay close to $30 for the shipping.

(8) Standing order is minimum wage. Lot of nice CDs will come on leadership standing order. You will slowly get onto it. Put $7.50 plus tax per week.

(9) If you show more commitment, then you will get on WWDB standing order. So add another $7.50 plus tax per week. And, oh! you need to buy extra story CDs, Power Wave, lit packs, DVDs, PNAsheets, etc.,

(10) You will need to change oil in your cars more frequently, if you drive a lot of miles. In my upline's case, he was driving 35000 miles per year on an average. His work is 5 miles from his home, so he could not have put more than 3000 miles for his work!

(11) Gas price - you will easily be spending $100 to $200/month for running around your town, doing your "4 basics" and meetings.

(12) Laundry: you need to be crisp and sharp all the time because you don't know when you will meet your next diamond, right? Also you may need to invest in some nice clothes. And oh, you need a suit, tie, and nice shoes. Your spouse may need a couple of nice dresses too! This may be good for you, but these costs are all HIDDEN.

(13) If you have one or two downlines coming around, then be ready to buy more products for doing grand openings in their home.

(14) Samples - you will give lot of samples to prospects! my experience was less than 10% of the people actually place an order. About 50% of them never try your products. And, oh do not forget the catalogs - they do not get you any PV, but you need to buy them to give to others!

(15) Factor open meeting attendance charge. Typically $4 per person or $5 per person. If you are doing with spouse, then double.

(16) Function expenses: ticket costs $95 to $105. You need to stay in hotel for 2 nights. If you prefer privacy, then you spend close to $200 in hotel, $200 in tickets and another $50 for food, coffee, etc., Most likely the function will be a long drive - bus drive means $55 to $100 per person and if you drive your own car, then factor the miles.

(17) Meetings after the meetings, night owls: if you go to Dennys, Diners, or anywhere after your meetings, then you cannot simply sit and not order something. If you do, you will be scolded indirectly at the next open meeting at the training. So you will spend a few bucks there - at 12 midnight putting on more calories in your system.

(18) Communikate: about $35/month.

(19) New addition: web space, BWW TV - another $25/month.

(20) If you do not want bww.com email address (because your prospect can figure out you are an amway IBO) and prefer your own domain name email address, then you pay another $50 per year.

(21) S.A.M. - this costs about $600 plus shipping. the skin analyzer magnifier machine... if you are not selling Artistry products, till now, YOU WILL GET THE MOTIVATION after you buy a S.A.M. machine!

(22) WORST: if you are a fake platinum or gold or silver, still you need to go to GO DIAMOND... the big event for the real leaders and the real men and women - so factor flight charges, ticket charges, hotel charges, food expenses, rental car expenses and since it may be in an exotic location like Florida - you may be tempted to visit the theme parks and spend more money. In my opinion, the big leaders who conduct these functions, should really allow only people who made at least $20,000 the previous fiscal year to attend these events. But you see, half the people won't come to GO DIAMOND anymore then and whoever is profiting from these events will not make the money.

In my experience, I have seen people spend anywhere from $2000 to $2500 per month just to maintain a small 5 to 10 people business, which makes $300 to $400/month. Only 5% or less of the IBOs at the meetings actually qualify eagle within the first one year, even though you are supposed to reach this level within the first 3 months. Many who qualify eagle do not re-qualify the following months. Are people so dumb that they cannot build this fast or is the system really not working?

So am I telling you should get out? No, go ahead and build it properly by selling products and building a huge team and actually making a profit after all these expenses. Then come back and comment here.

Till then,

run around in malls trying to smile and ask someone "Are you from such and such place/country/university?" "You look familiar. Have we met before?" etc.,
feel sick at the functions, BBS and the open meetings,
fight at your home,
miss your children,
tell many different lies and lie to your parents and others telling how much money you are making with your business,
have many sleepless nights,
have close to zero savings account,
do not talk to your relatives who are negative,
do not take any vacations,
do not do anything for fun without feeling guilty,
have wet palms every time you go to any store,
< add anything else that makes you feel sick >

Amway 20% PV/BV uplift abuse

2009-11-01T23:10:00.000-08:00
Now, there is a legal way to cheat in Amway.

This was taught by one of uplines (a big pin who has spoken on CDs) to me. My suspicion is my upline diamond is also aware of this or promoting this to his big pins, since I complained to him about this a year ago and still my upline big pin is forcing me to do this. (By the way, both of them talk about integrity, honesty from stage very well and have made several CDs on these topics.)

Amway/quixtar will give 20% uplift on PV/BV if you report customer sales. you can either do this yourself or quixtar will capture this automatically. What you report yourself is something you can cheat on... no one really checks. Amway assumes people follow honor code. But my upline big pin gives another nice idea.

Why not find someone, say a relative or friend, in your local area and register them as your customer? Then you ship all the products to them, get free shipping and the 20% PV/BV uplift...

NOW, isn't that a wonderful way to cheat the company that is paying you legally??? If you fight with him, he will not answer your question...

and you are supposed to be in "submission" to your upline and never embarrass your upline. But what if your upline is a third-rated cheat, who actually believes he is doing a great service to mankind while he is actually doing all dirty tricks to qualify for a pin??? Big booby trap, my dear fellow IBO!

Truth about upline leaderships

2009-11-01T23:04:00.000-08:00
Chances are your upline is promoting a leadership event to you. Here are some tips for you:

(1) If it is a PV based leadership and if you do not have enough people to back up the PV, then do not buy the products and stock up at home. It will soon become a habit.

(2) If it is a structure based leadership, do not fake any PV checks, SOTs, legs at functions or numbers at functions. If your upline says it is OK to attend the leadership, be man/woman/couple enough to say NO. If you sit in that leadership, you will lose your self image.

(3) Never buy anything on credit card and get into debt for any leaderships.

(4) If you did not re-qualify for a pin, do not keep going to those leadership events that you may be qualified for. Have the guts to tell "No, I will attend after I re-qualify."

(5) If your upline is reaching for some pin, then be extra careful. They may take advantage of any leaderships to achieve their pin goals.

QUALIFY RIGHT FOR EVERY LEADERSHIP EVENT. You will have enough money to cover the expenses and will really have fun. Else you will spend money for faking your pin/numbers/SOT and then spend more money to attend the leadership and will lose your self respect in the process!!!

Truth about how much platinums make

2009-11-01T22:33:00.000-08:00
The actual platinum income is not what they show in the plan!

The platinum income of $2677/month portrayed in the 6-4-2 plan is only for the 6-4-2 plan. The additional $20,000 bonus, which makes the total platinum income to $52,000/yr, is only if the 7500 PV is maintained month after month for 12 months.

Your actual platinumship (if at all you go platinum right) should be like this:

You will have one 4000 PV leg, one 2500 PV leg and one 1000 PV leg.
(Hopefully none of your downlines had to put additional money to stock up the products in a warehouse! If they did, chances are they won't stay with you for long!)

If you REALLY have this when you go platinum, you must be SUPER-excited...

Your net income with such a structure will give you optimistically:

(4000PV*4% + 2500PV*7% + 1000PV*13%)* 3BV/PV = $1395.

off your downline's volume, provided you do your 50 PV CSAR.

(If you did not get the Math for this, STOP showing the plan and first figure out how your plan, the one you are supposed to show 5 times/week actually works!)

If you do a 300 PV that month, then you will make an additional 300*3*25%=$225. That gets your total to $1620 - which is a WHOPPING $1057/month less than what you see and show in the plan.

BUT YOU SEE - you need to show the plan as 6-4-2... and you need to lie telling
1 PV = $2.50...
while it is a long time since it changed to:
1 PV = $3.00...

And think about 300 PV - that is a difference of $150/month!!!

Also the above figure is assuming all the PV came from high BV items. Have you figured out the relationships between PV, BV, IBO cost, suggested retail cost? If not, dude, you need to do your homework!

Now the truth is about 90% of the platinums do not have even this! Many of them buy anywhere from 1000 PV to 4000 PV per month to go platinum for various "intangible" reasons and lose money overall.

According to one CD made by a very famous young single emerald, the average number of active legs that platinums have is 2 - this statistic is your company's statistic - not your education system's statistic. That means you will make much less than what I showed above...

Also many of the platinums who are recognized at the end of your open meetings are not true platinums. They are guys who qualified platinum some time in their IBO career! Some of them did not re-qualify even after 10 years! They may actually be 1000 PV. How do I know? I was close to becoming one of them!!!

Litmus test for your upline platinum - is he/she/they going to Q12 trip? If not, they did not qualify for 12-out-of-12 7500 PV last year. They are fake platinums. In my experience, including myself, about 90% of all platinums are fake platinums, making only anywhere from $300 to $700/month, not the portrayed $2677/month.

Silver - is even a worse pin to have. That is 7500 PV in one month, some time in the career. The first time I went silver, I bought more than 5000 PV with upline recommendation. Why? Because one of my uplines was reaching a BIG pin! Where did I come up with the money? Credit cards!!! Why did I do it? To be in submission to upline and for plugging into upline's goals, so that my downlines will plug into my goals. That is a BIG BIG trap - please do not fall for that crap!