Friday, February 27, 2009

Amway Global - Do Platinums Lose Money?

I read about an investigation conducted by Bruce Craig, attorney general (at the time) of Wisconsin. He concluded that the average platinum in Wisconsin (in the 1980's) lost an average of $918 per year. Granted the study is now a bit dated, but even though Amway bonuses may have gone up, the prices of Amway products and the prices of functions and other related expenses have also gone up, therefore we can reasonable conclude that if a platinum lost money back then, it is quite possible that it still happens. In fact, due to the heavy emphasis on the use of cd's KATE, functions and other tools that cost money, I would guess that a platinum's losses could be much more today!

I have seen many testimonials from former platinums who said they lost money or perhaps, broke even at best. I was at a pin level with recommended parameters, and I was at break even/small losses. I was not privvy to, but have also read of additional functions and expenses once you reach the platinum level and above.

Based on my understaning of tools expenses and some believable testimony, I can reasonably conclude that it is quite possible for a platinum to lose money, mainly due to system expenses.

IBOs who are checking out the buisness or who are new, should take this information and thinh about it. If platinums make little or possible lose money, is this truly a viable business option for you? Also, keep in mind that only a fraction 0f 1% of IBOs ever reach platinum. Can you overcome these odds? Can you build a platinum business without the system?

It is possible, but highly unlikely.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Amway Global - More Lucrative Opportunities?

I just happened to come across this article. It is about panhandling. Based on Amway's "average" income of active distributors, it appears that panhandling might also be more lucrative than becoming an IBO. $10 to $130 in 5 hours shows some potential. Averaged out, that would be about $65 in 5 hours and about $260 in 20 hours. That is more than double of the average income of an active IBO! Of course these results are not scientific, but since we are talking about averages, we can speculate can't we?


http://media.www.dailyemerald.com/media/storage/paper859/news/2008/11/25/News/Peddling.For.A.Pretty.Penny-3561405.shtml


Sexton and Mathew "Huggy" Miller, 21, both said they asked anyone for money, but said it always brought varied results. Some people would give as much as $5 to $50 at once. "You can make anywhere from $10 to $130 in five hours," Miller said. Sexton generally stopped once he hit $20 because it was usually all he needed.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Amway Global Opportunity versus My Newspaper Boy

Just the other day, I was working in my frontyard and the newspaper boy tossed my newspaper. Recently, our local daily paper increased their ratees from fifty cents to seventy five cents for a daily newspaper. Out of curiosity, I asked around and found out that a newspaper delevery boy gets paid about $3 per house, per month. An average newspaper route is about 50 - 60 homes and takes about 45 minutes to an hour per day to deliver these papers.

Thus a newspaper delivery boy earns $150 to $180 a month (not including tips) and works 5-7 hours per week.

Yet another opportunity where one can earn more than an average IBO!

(Amway/Quixtar reports that an average IBO earns $115 a month)

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Amway Global Opportunity Versus Working At McDonald's

When you visit the Amway Global blog, they have a sectiobm I believe called "by the numbers". When you click it, it takes you to "Thisbiznow" and shows the average income of "active" IBOs to be $115 a month - and that's after disregarding about 1/3 of the IBO sales force as they are not "active". I believe that this figure is based on a 2001 survey done by the corporation (And Amway supporters complain and bemoan critics for not having currect information).

One of the things I often hear from Amway supporters is a comparison of Amway and franchises. (McDonalds in particular). First of all, unless I am mistaken, Amway is not a franchisor, and their salesforce (IBOs) are not franchise owners. This is simply a trick used by some lines of sponsorship to make you feel nice and important (I guess). So there is no valid comparison between an IBO and McDonalds.

But let's look at one very telling comparison between Amway IBOs and McDonalds. In Hawaii, the minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. If someone were employed at McDonald's for $7.25 per hour, and they worked 5 hours per week, or 20 hours in a month, their gross income would be $145.00! That's more than 30% more than an average IBO receives from the Amway opportunity! For you average IBOs out there - want a 30% raise? Get a 5 hour per week job at McDonalds! Go Big Mac!

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Amway Global - Sign Up To Be A Salesman?

One thing many IBOs are commonly mistaken about is that they think they own a franchise, or they are independent business owners. They call themselves IBOs afterall.

Let's go over some items that are overlooked. Amway is not a franchisor. People who sign on to sell Amway products are not franchisees. When you sign the dotted line with Amway, you have basically become a commissioned sales person. Any expenses associated with generating sales are yours to bear, although Amway did run some nice commercials recently.

You get paid on volume. The more volume you move, the more you (potentially) get paid. You may be able to "sponsor" others to help increase your volume, but whether you sponsor others or not, you get paid based on volume created. You do not receive a fee for recruiting. It is a wonder why so many IBOs spend most of their time recruiting when they are not paid to do so. I believe it is because they feel a need to get others to work for them so they can "retire early" and "walk the beaches".

I believe the term "Amway Distributor" is more appropriate as Amway sales people buy products from Amway and resell them. For IBOs who cannot or do not sell items to non IBO customers, then you are an Amway customer and not a distributor.

The term independent business owner sounds attractive as you can "own your own business". But the reality is that you are a saleman who is commisioned on movement of volume. Nothing more and nothing less. You can put a BMW emblem on your Ford, but you still own a Ford.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Amway Global - Why Does Amway Need Defenders?

One particular champion of Amway wrote an article about an internet war against Amway. The author claimed that Amway was losing the war. The "critics" he claimed were winning as "negative" websites were moving up the search engines and what not. But it brings a simple question? Why does Amway need IBOs and PR folks to defend them in the first place? I know they have people monitoring this website, and many others.

Let me explain. If I worked say, at a grocery store, and slippery floors caused some people to slip and get injured, I would make sure the floors were mopped and warning signs placed where there were potential slippery areas. I would not go online to blog about stupid customers who did not watch their steps in the store. I would not question the credibility of someone who was injured in the store.

Most if not all LOS's seem to teach bad business practices. These practices cause many people to lose out financially while participating in the Amway business opportunity. The result is a bad reputation. This is evidenced by stories of IBOs denying that Quixtar has anything to do with Amway. It appears that some IBOs are now claiming that Amway global is not Amway. What gives? If it is standard practice to avoid mentioning the name of the company you represent, you have a problem.

Although Amway has taken some measures to address the issue, such as accreditation, it appears that their corrective measures were cosmetic. Fix the problem, take action agaunst abusers and thrive. If not, then don't expect things to get much better than they are now.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Amway Global is Not Amway?

Ok, first we had the Quixtar is not Amway. Now I am starting to see some IBOs claim that Amway Global is not Amway. I am still trying to find out which LOS is teaching this but here we go again. Do IBOs not realize that lies and slight of hand tricks are not going to result in a long term successful business?

Can you imagine tricking someone into attending a meeting and then showing them your product line? The presentation of the plan, the compensation plan, all the same and the corporation still the same. What are some of these uplines thinking when they teach this stuff?

More to come on this subject later....

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Amway - At Long Last - A Written Breakdown On How Function Money Is Disbursed!

Recently, a anonymous person emailed me a written spreadsheet which indicated how profits from seminars are compensated. I am guessing that this would apply for major functions, where tens of thousands may attend, and millions of dollars collected to more regional types of meetings where thousand of dollars are up for grabs.

Basically, the income is derived by adding up the collections for IBOs and guests, and subtracting the expenses. That becomes the net income. The LOS then takes 10% off the top of the net profit. After that, it appears that the remaining profit is distributed to the host couple and speakers. The spreadsheet says in bold "Speaker is paid last".

Thus if a function had 10,000 IBOs and guests, and they all paid $100 to attend. The gross is 1,000,000. Say the expenses to run such a function were $100,000, then net is $900,000.
The LOS gets $90,000 and the rest is spread amongst the host couple and the speakers (I presume). So if a function has 5 speakers, they would all get $162,000 for a speaking engagement. (Average diamond income reported by Amway = $146,900)

So we can conclude, based on this evidence, that an "average" diamond could conceivably make more money from one (1) major function han this Amway business makes in a year.

Some of this of course, is my speculation, but you can observe a function and massage the numbers based on the formula given here.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Amway Global - Joecool's Blog

For the benefit of new readers, I have decided to write a brief synopsis of my blogging career and why I blog. I started out as simply a member of the Quixtar Blog Forum. I believe I joined in late 2003 or early 2004. I had joined the forum as I had been an IBO, built my business to 4000 PV. I had some problems with upline and saw some crossline get bad advice, which made my decision to quit an easy one.

A year or so later, I started my own blog. It was quite popular, getting as many as 10,000 visitors in a month. Eventually, the host of my blog did not maintain the host site and I was unable to log in and write new stories. I had quit blogging briefly and was about to drop off the blogging scene. But prolific Amway apologist, IBOfightback kind of ticked me off and gave me the energy I needed to restart Joecool's blog.

After I quit Amway in 1998, I sort of forgot about it and got on with my life. Eventually, with Dateline and the internet available, I eventually discovered thye tools scam, which I had suspected when I was an IBO, and now fully confirmed as an ex-IBO. The more I learned about how my upline had scammed us, the more I was determined to expose the truth for prospects and current IBOs.

Over the years, I have probably received a hundred or more letters/emails of thanks for the information that I provide to potential recruits. What I have found is the lies and deception many IBOs and Uplines use in recruiting and retaining IBOs. I remain to help them find the truth. It's why I am still around after all of these years,