Clarebabes

Anyone had anything to do with Amway or heard any good or bad stories about them?

Cheers
Clare

Mark Miwurdz

I've lost count of how many times 'friends' have tried to get me into their MLM scheme or buy their products. Pain in the butt.

Amway followed closely on the heels of water filters and have an almost evangelical approach to business.

Are you thinking of joining the network?

Cheers
Kav

stevem2k

Never heard a good thing yet .............

Clarebabes

Well, I work in sales and I was talking to this bloke who is an IFA. (Our product works well in IFAs, especially since the new FSA regs have come into force!)

Anyway, I was trying to sell him this and I happened to mention I was in the market for a pension. He then went on about this "organisation" which is the fourth largest in the world etc, etc, and I went along with it. He is trying to get another couple of people to join and said I could do it outside of my normal working hours and earn up to £25K a year - the best way to save for the pension I am after.

Started getting a wee bit worried at this point. He told me a website address which went on about some stuff, i.e. how many people do internet shopping etc. Then he gave me another one which was powered by Amway, so then I knew.

Yes, I do think that the way they sell is almost "religious" and cultish. I just wondered if anyone had actually done it and been successful, or whether it's a load of old tripe. I hear you have to put a great deal of money into it.

Cheers
Clare

Clarebabes

BTW, if anyone wants to sell me a pension, please use PM

Andy Tang

iTrader: (3)

A friend dragged me to an Amway meeting... but I wasn't convinced!! Phew!

Basically mild brain washing, the lure of big money, mock American "God bless America" attitude and too much like a cult for my liking (with gospel type clapping and American chat show type cheering!)

But let me tell you about.... the Kirby vacuum cleaner......

andrewdelvard

LoL that was quite funny a few years ago. Can you still buy them?

Floyd

iTrader: (9)

Don't do it. A very good friend invited me to dinner but then rolled out his business plan, starting off with 'you want to be rich, right?'. He was a very cynical person and distrustful of anything like this but he got sucked in.

The flaw with it is that you have to make your sale quota each month and that relies on picking up clients and more importantly other sellers. You'll end up spending all your time recruiting and probably buying useless stuff to make those budgets

Join it if you want to lose all your friends and relatives...

F

Clarebabes

OK, so that's a resounding "NO" then. OK, at least I know now.....

Question is, shall I call him back and still try and sell him the thing I was trying to sell to him in the first place?

Andy Tang

iTrader: (3)

When I left university *ahem* 10 years ago ( ) I went on one of their training courses.

It was meant to be a 2 day training course, but I didn't go back on the second day. What a waste of time... and the tricks they use to get in the house!!!

One woman boasted how she was in someone's house for 5 hours (until 2am!!) to get a sale!!!

But there was about £300 comission for every one that you sold!

Looks like they are still about: http://www.kirby.com/gb/index2.shtml

Vegescoob

Surely if this scheme worked we'd all be distributors and/or only using their products. IME products just twice the priceish and not extra special.
Like the original Tupperware, remember that? relies on peer group/friendship/relationship pressure.

EddScott

How did you get from asking about a pension to Amway? An IFA doing Amway in his spare time doesn't sound too hot to me?

Mate thought he would make his fortune by Amway but as mentioned its a bit of a con.

What product is it you sell anyway?

Andy Tang

iTrader: (3)

It will be Ann Summers parties before you know it!!

EddScott

Ann Summers isn't too bad actually. The underwear is pretty naff quality IMHO but its quite good fun testing out the samples. My GF did it for about a year. Only sour note was when she finished they told her she had to pay for her original "Pack" that she had actually all ready paid through her account. Told them to check it and push off - which they did.

fast bloke

Some people do make a fortune from Amway - all based on recruiting people who have to buy the products to meet their quota. Kirby are still around as well. We had a guy at the door last year - enter a free draw sir?? Prize was either a car or having one of your carpets shampooed. A week later someone called from Kirby to say we had won a carpet shampoo and when would be a good time for the carpet cleaner to call. I told them that it would have to be next week cos I was in court collecting a couple of CCJ's and trying not to get m house repossesed. Strangely the cleaner never showed

Clarebabes

I wouldn't want to be accused of advertising, but it's document management software. The new FSA regs say you must have a disaster recovery procedure in place so that your client files are protected. This software allows back up of hard copy data to your server with easy access to the files. You then back up your server every night and effectively throw away the paper copies.

We also do offsite storage and hard copy scanning.

EddScott

[QUOTE=Clarebabes]The new FSA regs say you must have a disaster recovery procedure in place so that your client files are protected. [QUOTE]

OMG! Compliance visits on Thursday!!!













Only joking, about the procedure anyway

Brit_in_Japan

Let me relate my experience of Amway. I have to say that I was never a part of it, but a former housemate was. I've been to presentations and seen how the system works from close up.

First the sales pitch is very persuasive. They get you to state what your life dreams are, whether it's a speedboat or 3 foreign holidays a year or living in a big house or sending your kids to private school. Early retirement and a good pension seemed to be a popular aspiration for many people. So they add up the cost of all your dreams and ask you if you can make the extra 60,000, 80,000 100,000 pounds a year in your current job you would need to earn.

So having established that you can't make that money in your current job they then sell you the dream of attaining your dreams by joining Amway. It seems a very easy "in", no (or minimal) upfront cost, you can do it in your spare time (so no risk, you keep doing your current job), you get plenty of support from people who have made a success of Amway etc

They talk about what it takes for success, hard work etc but they say that anyone can be successful if they work hard. Also it's up to you how fast you want to grow "your" business, the more work you put in the faster it grows etc. They give monetary examples and say how long it will be before you earn X amount per month on average, then how much after 6 months, 12 months etc. They will give examples about how long it has taken some people to give up their regular jobs and do Amway full time. There are even Amway conferences where successful Amway people show up in Porsches and Ferraris and claim that it could be you in 2 or 3 years.

Sound great, what do you have to do to earn such riches? Sell "Dish Drops" - an own brand super concentrate washing up liquid, and a myriad of other household items. They have no doubt broadened the product offering in the last few years but essentially all the income into Amway come from selling laregly household products of one type or another. Now ask yourself the question, what volume of "Dish Drops" and the like will you have to sell in a year to make yourself 100,000 pounds for yourself in commission. Lots would be somewhat of an understatement.

In fact it would be impossible for a single person to sell so much product. Why? Because you do not sell to wholesalers, you sell to individuals. But not just any individuals. Amway are eager to dissociate themselves with door to door salesman. You sell to friends, family and colleagues. So are you able to sell enough Dish Drops to friends, family and colleagues to make 100,000 a year in commissions? Of course not.

The Amway dream is dependent on you recruiting others to your network. And in turn they need to recruit others to their network, and so on. In other words there needs to be a whole pyramid of people each selling boxes of products each month so that you can earn your big money. How many people need to be in your network? I don't know, hundreds, thousands maybe?

They will be keen to tell you it's not pyramid selling, it's network marketing. By the strict definition of pyramid selling that exists in the law then indeed it is not pyramid selling. However the large returns promised depend on there being a geometric growth in people selling Amway products, with you on top of your own pyramid.

Success is therefore dependent on a member recruiting others and the network continuing to grow. What this means in practice is that there is huge pressure for someone to stay in Amway once they join. If people leave the network then growth stops. In that respect it is a little like a cult. Once you have joined you will find it difficult to leave. You will get mentored by the guy/girl who recruited you, and it you continue to waver then they will get their recruiter to talk to you and so on. You will made made to feel a failure if you want to leave. You will be askde if you want to give up on your dreams (who would ever admit to giving up on their dreams?). Often Amway people form close bonds with the people in their network and they don't want to let them down, so they stay longer and put in more hours and work harder.

A few more memories and nuggets of experience:-
1. How would you feel calling up friends you haven't seen for a long time and then when you see them trying to sell them products or recruit them to your network? Think it wouldn't happen? Imagine being near the end of the month and you need to make your numbers. You haven't seen Fred for 3 years but why not just give him a call, maybe he really want some Dish Drops. It happens all the time and it's a sure way of losing old friends.
2. How does the product get to your customers (assuming you're not already a "Diamond Distributor" or "Double Diamond Distributor")? You collect it form your upline network member and then deliver it to the customer yourself. So in other words you are driving around in your own car delivering boxes of household products to people. I believe you get no payment for using your own transport, petrol or wear & tear.
3. You won't lose family members by selling products to them, but it sure as hell is abusing your relationship with them. Do you really want to do that to the ones you love?
4. For the vast majority they never make the sums that they were led to believe they could earn, despite working hard and with good intentions. For each person recruited to earn enough to give up their usual job it would require an infinite number of people in the UK so the pyramids could keep growing and growing. This is impossible.
5. Most people who have been recruited in my experience were bright, hard working people who just wanted to achieve their dreams. The fact that so many seemed to be university educated doesn't mean that people can't be suckered into a scheme which is very unlikely to deliver what it promises.

It is cult like. My friend refused to accept the obvious flaws in the business model he had bought into hook, line and sinker. He used to listen to motivational tapes. He used to read books on Amway sales techniques, how to get a chance to give a sales/recruitment pitch to someone, what to say if they said no, not today, maybe, each answer led to a follow up question or statement which was rehearsed and practiced.

I worked out that he would have made more money per hour (after wear & tear on his car, petrol, telephone calls etc) if he had just worked in a pub for a couple of evenings a week.

In my opinion it is an insidious organisation which sucks people in with unrealistic promises and then makes the individual feel like a loser if they want to leave. My advice is to keep WELL away.

I'm not a fan of Amway

MJW

Sounds just like Bettaware !

Just tell him you don't need the money as your friend in Nigeria is going to deposit $24.6m into your bank account soon ...

Clarebabes

Thanks for that. That seems so like the guy who was talking to me. He knew every trick to get me interested but never actually told what I would have to do.

BTW, he said it was internet based. How can this be so if you have to deliver etc?

Brit_in_Japan

Maybe they've changed the delivery method, I'm not current on Amway techniques thank heavens. But I would guess the main business model is the same, it depends on recruiting others for it to work. Some parts of the country are probably saturated with Amway people so it might be difficult to find enough gullible people to recruit to the network as people have already heard the horror stories.

Clarebabes

How come I've never seen Amway products if it is the top internet shopping site, that's what I want to know! And let me tell you, I know internet shopping!

GaryK

Clare,

It may well be like alot of network marketing companies who use the internet as a means of recruiting people, you get your own site when you join with your own referring ID which tracks new sign-ups back to the HQ. I know some of the larger outfits let you recruit people in other countries, the problem with this of course with each distributor having their own mini-site their are hundreds that you are competing with.

As said above really network marketing has flaws in its concept, its a great way for a company like Amway to shift their products by getting thousands of 'agents' to buy a minimum amount of stock each month on products which are overpriced to support the commission payments over several levels (or generations as some like to call it!).

Just do a search on the net for 'the problems with mlm' or 'the problems with network marketing' to get some good facts on the hows and whys (and shortcomings) of MLM.

Dont get me wrong I am not completely opposed to it, in fact I have been involved with several companies over the years myself, but as mentioned people get so involved
they almost become 'disciples' and when it fails become majorly disillusioned.

The simple question you have to ask when looking at an MLM company is would you buy and use the products yourself on a regular basis and at the price quoted?

You will also find *alot* of negative things about Amyway on the net also.

Gary

Clarebabes

Thanks Gary, I did a quick search on Amway and got some rather disturbing results! Seems the products are over priced and this would be supported by the fact that every product has to pay for alot of commission along the line.

I will stay clear I think.

Drunken Bungle Whore

Someone tried to persuade me into Amway. I went to a few events and listened to a few tapes - and as someone who has designed and run training courses for the past 10 years (including many, MANY sales training courses) I'd have to say that their content is pretty sound. The way they deliver it may not appeal to everyone but the basic techniques are standard tried and tested ones. (Same style of delivery as the Tony Robbins). I think the style of sell would be much more sucessful in the USA than over here.

The thing is, if you were gifted enough at sales to make a living with Amway, then you're gifted enough to make it selling with any reputable organisation. Of course they have some massive success stories - but they also have lots of people who've failed.

The products are actually pretty good too - pricey but they last for ages.

It wasn't for me - but it does work for some people. Think of it as starting your own business - to make it work will take time, money, skill and quite a lot of luck - and if they tell you otherwise then they're lying through their teeth!

Harry_Boy

A friend was into Amway many years ago. Seem to remember that they tried to engender the same degree of evangelical lunacy as Kleeneze....

Floyd

iTrader: (9)

I got the spanking clean half penny trick! I asked myself the question of whether I could shift x amount of cleaning products each month and the answer was no. So how could I persuade others to buy into the idea if I didn't believe it myself???

MK is the HQ for Amway and is saturated as a saturated thing in a saturated pool of Amway sellers

F

Chrisgr31

Brit in Japan is right. I have attended one of their sessions where friends (ex now) tried to get me involved.

I asked numerous questions about the amount of goods one had to sell to achieve the figures mentioned and was then told that these would be helped by people I hade recruited, so I then asked what proortion of the counrty would have to be recruited to achieve those figures. I also asked why if the products were so good, and so popular why I had never heard of them!

They even went as far to say as I would never have to sell an item as lon as I recruited people!

Amway may may for a small number of people, but it will only be a small number of people, and their projections rely far too heavily on the commission raised from the pryamid you have to recruit under you.

blip

The internet thing is that Amway is going into eCommerce in a big way. They have recently bought the domain www.shop.com for supposedly a huge amount of money, and this will become their focus in the future. The site will be an online shopping portal for many of the biggest retail names (many are signed up already). The idea being that you get people to start doing some or all of their shopping on that website. You then get commission on those web sales. Also you are supposed to recruit other recruiters, and so on.

I know this because an associate has been trying to get me involved for years. I am not remotely interested but he doesn't give up trying. Like others have said it is an abuse of a relationship and as such now I try to avoid the guy like the plague, and definitely don't sit near him at the christmas meal!

He sounds like DelBoy - ie. 'this time next year I'll be a millionaire'. Has been saying this for years. Still not doing well enough with Amway to give up his normal job though.

However his upline manager (or whatever he is called) lives locally to me in a huge, huge house + helicopter + Aston + pool, etc, etc ,etc. So some members obviously do make money from it. It's not for me though.

Clarebabes

Blip, the guy told me about the website I think. He said it cost them £5.5m Sounds like it could be that one.