Responses Part 4
(same person again. You should grab another snack and
a drink!)
>From Fri Jun 13 14:42:30 1997
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 17:42:55 -0400 (EDT)
From:To: TooEthical@aol.com
cc: ayukii@medford.net
Subject: HI there
I hear all these bitter stories and I hear people and
their fears. I
have
spend the past 3 days on the Anti-Amway web site.
The network marketing industry as a whole is a big industry
and it will
change the was we do business. Let me ask you a question:
Who (in his
right mind) would join Amway if he had been told that
"this is Amway".
People don't need to read these Anti-Amway sites in order
to make them
turn
away from just by the sound of the name Amway, most think
it's a door to
door
sales type business. People don't like to listen, people
don't like to
be
"bothered", they don't have time, their dog is sick,
all kinds of
excuses!
Do you see any other way for people to be more open to
Amway or the
network
marketing industry? Not disclosing the "tools", let's
take this to "real
life" for a moment; I have opened several conventional
retail outlets,
each
time I tried to forcast the initial investment and the
long term
overhead,
each time I was wrong and it way more expensive than
I have ever thought
it
would be. Mind you, most people in conventional business
stay in
business
only because of money they borrow.......they eat drink
drive fancy cars
buy
homes financing their life away. VERY few have all they
want and a
positive
cash flow, but is had become "the norm" in the conventional
business and
this is THE OTHER SIDE OF "REAL" BUSINESS. Now, to tell
you the truth,
if
I had known in advance that one store would cost me $100,000.00
to open
as
apposed to the $50,000.00 I planed on ( which happen
with many at most
cases), the chances of me starting this business would
have been very
slim,
but how would I have known......I did my best and it's
not my fault that
I
don't have as many costumers as I'd like to although
I can spend a few
more
thousands of dollars in advertising and "hope for the
best". However, I
still have the store and it looks like I am doing great
and everyone
think I
am very successful. Looking around me and knowing how
others run their
businesses helps me feel "normal" yet "just over broke".
It's all
relatvie,
ya know. I drive a $32K and I feel and know I am broke!
does this sound
familiar?
The same goes for the Amway "tools", if I had known or
if all people
were
informed a head of time non, would have joined. After
all, we all are
looking
to get something for nothing, it's great when it's free
but it's
terrible
when you have to pay especially when you have to pay
more than expected.
Let's compare the two: I ( and millions of others) have
a retail
business,
we all work hard to keep the doors open we all look like
we make lots of
money but do we really?
Did we really spend as much as we expected to spend,
do we really make
as
much as we expected to make or do we live of off PLASTIC?
Perhaps if all
of
us would have gotten together and created a "system"
i.e a "success
machine"
(like most franchies do) , many of us would have been
better off. We
would
have had the same goals, the same vision, we would associate
with the
same
people and would have the same way of marketing our produts
BUT not all
of us
will have the same results. Wouldn't they call us a cult
too?
Amway does the same thing yet it's different because
the nature of
Network
Marketing is different. Not disclosing the cost of the
tapes is
understood
by me and I am sure there are other things that are not
disclosed.
There's
too much information to handle for the begginer distributor.
My dear
friend.....hear me out; If I had known what it realy
takes to run a
conventional business and be told about it at stage one,
I would have
NEVER
got into it but as I think of it now (after 12 years)
I am doing better
than
average, so I am happy I stuck with it. I paid a price
I didn't want to
pay,
in order to be where I want to be and that's is what
the Amway business
is
about.
During my years in business, I spent hunderds of thousands
of dollard
and
many made money of off me, wheather I made any or not.
I tapped into the
conventional business system, I PAID first and only then,
I started
seeing
some money.
I was not upset when I realized (about 7 months ago)
that there was
money
being made from the tapes and functions, It actually
made me feel more
secure
that there is a lot of money at the end and there IS
residual income. I
think
it's regular business to be making money of off people.....call
me
crazy. At
least, this is the only business I know off that takes
you were you want
to
go by following the same path.
A network marketing business will only work if it's duplicatable
and
that's
why it may seem like a cult because people use the same
products and
sell the
same products in the same manner. My god, I can't recall
how many times
a
sales person try to sell me one machine or another. Most
don't tell you
about
the "accessories" that are worth many more thousands
of dollars. They
sell
you on the machine first rather than all the other things
that really
make it
work. Now, if you're sold on the Amway marketing plan
then in time you
will
buy the accessories and you will understand that you
have a slim chance
of
building this business without them. No one can sell
you anything unless
they
make you understand why you need it. You, on the other
hand have a
choice to
buy it or not.
I think we all need to "step aside" and look at this
picture again; The
fact
is that the network marketing is a wonderful and most
profitable
business to
many who are involoved. It is a fast growing industry
which will replace
the
way we do business today. Think about it and imagine
how wonderful it
would
be to be making residual income from the GNP.
People who got into the Amway business were not stupid
people, they saw
the potential and knew it was there, no one can deny
it! The network
marketing is a new industry and that's why you need to
"get" people into
it,
most don't understand it yet.
Perhaps, instead of spending time building hateful web
sites, we need to
understand the industry ourselves and educate other people.
See........
the
scarey thing is not Amway and the network marketing industry,
the scarey
thing is that people refuse to get informed as to what's
coming in the
near
future. Changes are scarey!
Mind you, everything that is new, be it Network Marketing
or anything
else on
this planet is always presented as a wonderful thing
which is common for
misrepresentation, it is really how big you want to blow
it out of
proportion.
It is a fact that the Amway corp. pays it's bonuses to
it's distributors
like
clock work and there is lots of money to be made. The
ONLY challange
with
this business is the skeptasisem of ignorant people.
Let me give you
some
examples; "I will buy Amway products after I make some
money" , "I want
to
see you make money first",
"yeah, BUT I am not going to change my favorite tooth
paste" and on and
on.
People fail to see the SYSTEM of duplication and they
treat network
marketing
as an ordinary business. It is so DIFFICULT for people
to understand it
and
that's why the "tools" were created. We can write about
this issue
forever
but It will never change the facts, the Amway plan works
and so do many
other
plans and there would be enough money to be made for
all people
involved,
some will make more and some will make less. If people
really SAW how
much
money is there to be made just from following the plan
there would be NO
NEED
for the tools. Unfortunately, the human mind is very
strange, whether
it's
being "washed" or not.
I am a part of a different Amway organization which is
called I.N.A
(Network
Marketing association). I find it to be very ethical
and moral and the
horror stories I read on the Anti-Amway sites don't agree
with what we
are
being tought.
Yes, we can't say Amway upfront ( I couldn't imagine
why) and yes we are
encouraged to buy tapes and books but we are also told
that God is first
(for
whom ever choose to believe in God), Country comes second,
family, our
jobs
and Amway is last.
Please, don't judge the the Network Marketing concept
by the act of a
few
dishonest distributors in some Amway organizations. Amway
has a great
mission to be the best business opportunity in the world
and they will
succeed due to the honest people who distribute their
products and not
because of dishonest ones.
We all need to have more facts regarding the Amway operation,
weigh the
good
and the bad and then decide, is it really a scam or is
it something so
wonderful that's changing the way we do business, thus
changing the way
we
live.
We need more facts, I will not dismis the info on the
Anti Amway sites
but so
far it's no more than rumors or stories and a few law
suits.
I will be more than happy to learn more.
All the best
(I gave him reference to some other sites and information)
>From Thu Jun 12 21:05:31 1997
From: "
To:
Subject: Your Web Site
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 23:00:04 -0500
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
Hello,
I've written this letter to you as a concerned person.
First I will be honest with you and let you know that
My wife and I are
Distributers and probably always will be. Though we are
not currently
active. But still recieve an income from the business.
I was disturbed to read the misconceptions you have about
the business.
We
found most of the people we interacted with in world
wide to be
forthrite
and honest, brutaly honest at times, upfront.
When we joined World Wide I was the most negative individual
you could
have
ever run into, when it concerned amway. (My wife was
an ex-distributer
under Dexter Yaeger and all they did was product demos.)
But out of
respect
for my friends I went and met Dean Kosage, an emerald
down line in Brad
and
Julie Duncans Line, and liked what he had to say.
Over the next couple of weeks I researched the business
thoroughly, both
online
at the local library and on the phone with the better
business bureau
and
FTC. Any time I found any thing negative it was always
distributer
related
and not directly related to the company itself. From
there I researched
world wide and the people in my upline and found that
everything I had
been
told is basicaly true.
In my line of sponsership they were honest and upfront
with us about all
aspects of the business. Including the fact that they
did not focus on
selling in the world wide org. Though we were informed
that at least ten
retail customers would be needed to meet company and
ftc criteria.
What we found as distributers was that if we bought our
essentials from
ourselves we could save money. So personal use was never
a problem.
Though I will admit that at times money was. However,
when we got our
retail customers it paid for our tools and functions.
Tools and functions,....... There is no money in the
tools or the
functions. (Give me a break!!
He hasn't been snowed, has he?) Any amount of honest
research will show
this to be true.
(Where in the world did he do research?) Think
about it. You would pay between 300 and 500 dollars for
a major
function, which included room, food and the function.
As an Airbrush
Artist and Illustrator I pay any where from 800 to 1600
dollars to
attend
an airbrush seminar, and that don't include room or food.
The money you paid barely covered the expenses with a
little left for
employee salaries. You pay $6 for a seminar, I pay a
minumum of $90.
Your tapes are $5 dollars, I pay anywhere from $15 to
$60.
The Amway Coorporation has produced more millionaires
than any other
company on earth, period. As of 1994 it was somewhere
around 35,000.(
This
is a matter of public record and has been touted in many
financial
publications.) (I would love to see these "publications",
since I have
yet to dig up any
source but Amway Distributors to support that claim!)
If there was anything wrong with Amway they wouldn't
be where they are
today. (Hasn't he heard the phrase "There's a sucker
born every
minute?")
I am very sorry your business did not work out. It happens,
the business
isn't for everybody. I can only guess that your experience
is due to a
bad
line of sponsorship, I've met some real fruitcakes in
this business.
There
are a couple of million people in this business, like
any other cross
section of society they aren't all nice. (Now, there's
an
understatement!)
I hope that you will do some research for yourself into
this matter. You
will find that you are misinformed about a lot of what
you wrote, and
perhaps you will change your opinion about the business.
(Yeah, RIGHT!
Like I am so
misinformed about two years of my own life? Maybe I wasn't
really in the
business, it was
my EVIL clone or a body snatcher! )
It doesn't matter, the business will always continue
to grow dispite
this
website and the others out there. It is an excellent
opportunity for
those
who take advantage of it.
Thank you for your time./
>From > Wed Jul 02 14:40:37 1997
From: "To:
Subject: thank you
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 14:43:40 -0700
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
Just wanted to thank you for talking me out of becoming
a distributor...
Karma will get the "leaders"... the followers will be
repaid.....
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!
*smile*
Subj: Response to web page
Date: 97-07-17 01:23:00 EDT
From:
To: Exambot
You hit it right on the head!!! I get so angry thinking
of all the lies
we bought into and all the
money we flushed down the toilet for 5 years!!! Brad
Duncan was the
blood sucking, dishonest
as hell, arrogant pig responsible for our waste of time
and money.
Christians? My eye, did you know a ton of the biggies
are Mormons? Easy
to see the parallel
with cultism there, huh??
Did any of these recent law suit plaintiffs win any money?
Subj: AMWAY DIATRIBE
Date: 97-07-18 01:17:43 EDT
From: To: Exambot
Well, you certainly have an axe to grind! Good Points..a
little cynical
but very informative...I can
truly relate!
Subj: Amway
Date: 97-07-22 19:54:51 EDT
From: To: Exambot
A couple of months ago a fellow reservist in the US ARMY
Reserve.
Offered this marvelous
plan: not a get rich quick. So it turned out to be AMWAY
something that
I had never heard of
before.
I listened and almost bought into it. Luckily I did not,
And now I found
your sight I thank my
husband for telling me what a fool I would be if I joined
these people.
I knew it sounded to good to be true.
Thanks.
yg
Subj: Response backgrounds
Date: 97-07-23 12:11:52 EDT
From: Reply-to: To: exambot@aol.com
I enjoy reading your responses, but some of the background
jpg's you
have chosen are a little hard on the eyes. I like the
diversity, though
(it's a very clever and unique way of presenting your
information).
Congratulations on an interesting site.
MDB
Subj: Help extricating friend from Amway
Date: 97-07-25 06:59:41 EDT
From:To: exambot@aol.com
Please help me.
Seven years ago I read a book about helping friends or
family to leave a
cult. I read it on the prompting of a friend of mine.
He had met a
woman recently, and had become romantically involved
with her. He wanted
me to help him convince her to leave a cult. I do not
remember the name
of the book, but it was written by a man who had successfully
extracted
a
family member from the same cult and then had gone on
to succesfully
help
other people extract friends and family members from
cults. The book
advised the reader to find information that would cast
the group in a
bad
light, and present them to the member indirectly, by
showing interest in
the group, and raising the points as things that you
were confused about
and wanted the member to help you to understand. It stressed
that the
reader should prompt the cult member to come up with
the answers, rather
than telling him directly, and that it would be especially
good if the
information came from the cult's own publications as
the member would
have difficulty claiming that the information came from
the Devil's
works. The book warned very strongly against directly
attacking the
cult, or letting the member know that you were trying
to get him out.,
because all cults had a defense mechanism against this,
that is, that
the
members would be told ahead of time that people seduced
by Satan would
attempt to attack the organization or convince the member
to leave the
cult, and that once the cult member identified you as
one of these
people, they would break contact with you.
I have no idea if the method described in the book would
have been
effective as my friend completely ignored these last
two pieces of
advice
and proceeded to directly attack the cult, and shove
the contradictions
in the cult's writings in his girlfriend's face. As predicted
by the
book, she retreated into the organization and cut off
all contact with
him.
In any case, a couple of days ago, a friend of mine approached
me about
joining him in a business opportunity which he later
revealed was being
a
distributor for Amway. His presentation was pretty effective,
and there
was a part of me that was convinced, but I decided to
find as much about
Amway as possible. When most of the information I could
find was bad,
and I heard the organization compared to a cult, I decided
to try the
technique described in the anti-cult book on my friend.
I went through
the promotional material that he had given me, and found
the scariest
passages in them, and did many calculations based on
the figures
presented in them, the results of which convinced me
that the five-year
plan presented in the literature was doomed to failure.
My friend is
also of a mathematical bent, so I expected if he duplicated
the
calculations, that he would be troubled as well. My friend
was scheduled
to come back in two days to collect the materials he
had left, and
discuss my reactions to it, so I soon had an opportunity
to try it out.
The meeting was a complete success and a complete failure.
I talked to
my friend for three and a half hours. I had prepared
many questions that
I already knew the answers to. I was completely successful
in getting
the answers I wanted, to come out of my friend's mouth.
He openly
admitted that the amount of cash coming into the organization
was small
compared to the number of distributors. He openly admitted
that the
success of the plan depended on rapid growth of the organization.
He
admitted that he had been told not to listen to what
people outside of
Amway said about Amway, and that he had been told that
doubt in the plan
would prevent him from succeeding. These are very scary
facts to admit
and if it were me, I would have been scared spitless
to find these
admissions coming out of my mouth. The amazing thing
was that it didn't
seem to faze him at all, in fact, he seemed to have an
excuse for all of
them. He said that many people had these kind of doubts,
and promised to
introduce me to someone who could straighten me out.
Every time I seemed
to be about to get him to admit that there was some kind
of
contradiction, he launched into a long anecdote that
"proved" that the
plan was sound. In spite of the fact that I felt I had
succeeded in my
goals in terms of getting him to admit certain facts
about the
organization, he was just as committed when he left as
when he came, and
in fact, was talking to me about taking me to some meetings,
and
introducing me to people.
I am a little at a loss at what to do. I do NOT want
to attend any
meetings or meet any of the people in his upline. Not
merely because of
the waste of my time, but also because sooner or later
someone will spot
the fact that my interest in Amway is not genuine, and
I will be
labelled
a trouble-maker and a negative influence, and therefore
lose any
influence on my friend. He will lose interest in talking
to me about
Amway, or perhaps in talking to me at all.
I know this has been quite a build-up to my request,
but here it is. My
friend seemed to be very well prepared for my questions.
I may have
failed miserably without realizing it. Is there anything
I could use as
a "recipe" or "instruction manual" for getting my friend
out of Amway,
especially something specific to Amway? Something written
by someone who
had successfully extracted a friend or family member
from Amway would be
ideal.
I figured I would be able to influence him, as he has
only been a member
of Amway for two months, but he already seems entirely
brainwashed.
Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated.
Subj: Response to your page
Date: 97-07-28 03:10:11 EDT
From: To: exambot@aol.com
You don't understand business. You have totally distorted
the facts and
exaggerated many
ideas that you are trying to get across. You forget that
you did all
that you did voluntarily. Don't
be a sore loser and spoil opportunity for others.
RESPONSES
part 5
Worldwide
Dreambuilders and The Things They Will Say To Profit From Your Dreams
INFO
LINKS
Exambot@hotmail.com
