Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Amway - Your Chance Of Success?

Prospects and new IBOs may wonder at times, what is my chance of succeeding in Amway? It is a fair question, and one that is likely to be spun into another debate, or avoided by upline and Amway apologists. It is why an upline may show you a copy of his diamond's bonus check, but fail to mention the expenses associated with the business. Or they may show you slide shows of mansions and sports cars, but not tell you about their mortgages or their proceedings in bankruptcy court. In other words, many Amway uplines will imply their financial success with displays of wealth and other "trappings", but apparently, none have ever come clean about their business income. In the real business world, this kind of disclosure is common. Now I am not talking about disclosing social security numbers or about how much one donates to charity, but simply the Amway business income and expenses as outlined on your schedule C business tax return.

Aside from all of this, what is the chance of an IBO succeeding? Well, obviously, if you sign up and do nothing, or sign up and never order anything, then you received fair compensation for your efforts, which is nothing. But what I am concerned with is the IBOs who are told about a virtual guarantee of success if they do the work. That is not true, many IBOs do put in an earnest effort only to lose money, most likely due to the expenses such as standing order and functions.

Only 1 in 5 IBOs manage to sponsor another. Thus if you are not able sponsor downline, you are unlikely to succeed in Amway. Even if you sponsor some downline, unless they can also sponsor, they are unlikely to stay in business for long. Can you actually sell products? That is another way you can succeed, but since Amway IBOs only sell about 4% of their goods to non IBOs, unless you are good at selling, you are also very likely to fail at Amway. And selling can be challenging with limited advertising, and the fact that generally, Amway products are priced higher than comparable products available at other retailers, because Amway must include their bonus payments in the cost of their products.

Then you also have the reality of the business. The 6-4-2 plan includes 79 IBOs, all doing 100 PV, and collectively, there is 1 platinum and 78 lesser IBOs. This shows that it is mathematically impossible for the majority of IBOs to make a significant income. Factor in the cost of business expenses and it's possible for everyone in the group to suffer a business loss, possible with the exception of the platinum.

So what are the chances of succeeding in Amway? Slim to none describes it quite well, in my opinion. Sure, Amway is not a gameof chance, but still, as someone involved or someone thinking of getting involved, you need to take a look to see what is the likelihood of success. Sure, some people can and will succeed, but you need to analyze your business objectively to see if you are progressing as per the plan, or are you simply becoming a statistic while being advised to ignore facts by upline?

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