Amway

From R.C.: “Tom’s account reeked of Amway. You could do worse, as you say. They do have actual products, though any discount store makes their idea of ‘wholesale’ look ridiculous. Seen their price on a 3-pack of underwear? I wanted to share a favorite quote from an Amway training tape. The man on the tape is down-to-earth, Italian, owner of a small struggling construction company. Very funny guy and tremendous motivator, especially to anyone considering a stint at cold-calling. His impression of Amway and similar prior to his getting involved: ‘I thought that was something you did just before you killed yourself.'”

And Sarah Heacock cautions: I would NOT go around suggesting that Amway was a legitimate multi-level marketing company because it actually sells goods. In my humble opinion (and my dad tried to make Amway work for MANY years while I was growing up, so much so that it nearly tore his marriage apart), what this guy was describing sounds exactly like Amway.

Sure, in Amway, you can sell the (overpriced) goods and get people to buy them as well as buying them yourself (everything I ever had except for the soaps were fairly shoddy goods). However, that is NOT what they stress to the people wanting to strike it rich. Nor is what they DO stress — recruiting other distributors and making a portion of your downline’s orders back in profit — what really makes the money.

What really makes the money for Amway is the motivational tapes and such that they sell. THAT is where people become Diamonds, etc. They are good at convincing their downline to buy the Amway-produced motivational tapes and going to Amway’s out of town functions. That is where the money is, not the products that Amway is selling.

This is evidently stuff that Amway folk learn when they get higher in the business. My father had friends who became distributors in their own right. They discovered this nugget of info and immediately abandoned the company, even though they had spent over $40,000 plus lost two good jobs and a car on the way up, telling everyone they knew how Amway made its money. Which is what convinced my father to get out. He trusted these people.

Anyway. Just wanted to let you know.

But Marie sees it (somewhat) differently: “Those ‘circles’ and ‘Diamonds’ [your correspondent writes about] are Amway. I used to be an Amway distributor — and I know exactly what he’s saying because it’s what I was told. It worked, but true … you have to work it — really hard. But yes, it does work. Now as for the people who can’t afford it being the ones who are in it the most: well, sometimes. But I can say that the scenario that George H. presented is indeed Amway. BTW, just in case you would ask … I left because I truly didn’t like ‘selling.’