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!
Showing posts with label bww. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bww. Show all posts
Friday, December 10, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Amway (pipe) dreams
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! I feel so sorry for them and the other 99.9% of the Amway IBOs who are looking for that "pump in the desert", which does not exist at all!
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! I feel so sorry for them and the other 99.9% of the Amway IBOs who are looking for that "pump in the desert", which does not exist at all!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Beware student IBOs
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.
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.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Another Amway Milking Success Story
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:
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:
Friday, January 29, 2010
Eagle leadership and other PV based leaderships
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.”
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.”
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Our Quixtar/Amway Global Story
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!
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!
Monday, November 2, 2009
How much time does it take to build the IBO business?
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???
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?
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 >
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 >
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Truth about upline leaderships
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!!!
(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
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!
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!
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