You have the opportunity to earn up to 150k within the 1st year.

You have the opportunity to earn 300-400k by reaching “XYZ” level.

Look at Mr. X, He Owns a Lamborghini and retired by age 25.

I’ve been to one or two Amway events; I know many individuals who have done Amway for a short period of time; I have many friends who are still IBO’s of Amway/Quixtar. I was shocked when I went to an event in Sacramento as to  how much of the event is FLUFF. No real numbers, no real statistics, no real actuals. The only thing I witnessed in two hours were people’s dreams becoming a lot larger.  Mike Wallace from 60 minutes covers a wonderful example of how much hope is created through Amway. The statements above are non-exagerated phrases you will likely hear at Amway conventions.

I’ve found through out my experience that many IBO’s are hopeful that within two to three years, they can retire and walk away from their business and survive from simply collecting residual income. Amway (the American way) promotes the hope that individuals can retire very soon, enjoy luxurious vacations all within 2-5 years of work and ‘lifestyle’. Lifestyle is one of Amway’ s largest promotional tools honing in on fancy cars, yachts, and fancy suits.

For the purpose of this study, I looked at various Amway training programs. These training programs are  built by some of the largest organizations of Amway. I looked at BWW & N21. If you look carefully at the instructions and advice these organizations provide, you will realize you aren’t walking away with any profound technical skills, but rather heart-warming stories. Here’s the typical story on BWW and N21, an many more stories are available on AmwayWiki. The stories have the exact same pattern: Blah Blah Blah struggled with their traditional business. Blah Blah Blah was heart broken and down; Blah Blah Blah learns about the wonderful opportunity of Amway. Blah Blah Blah reached double diamond ten years later.

I do not deny that hopes, dreams, and inspirations are important in an individuals life. I believe these values give individuals the strength they need to keep working: knowing that something amazing awaits in the future is a very strong force of power. In fact, many people dream of being filthy rich and enjoying the finer things in life. However, it is both cruel and unethical to lead people to believe that everyone can achieve significant results and the millionaire lifestyle. Imagine promising your kids a trip to Disneyland for example, knowing that you will never take them there. That’s a pretty good comparison to standing on stage and saying everyone can go diamond if they will only follow the system.

Amway Products for Sale. Source: AwaazEntrepreneur

Then when an IBO is convinced that they are a surefire future millionaire, filled with hope, then they need to go and peddle their soap. Sadly, even with all of the hope, most IBOs find that they can’t sell soap. Many of Amway’s products are not competitive with similar products that can be purchased at big box retailers. It makes a tough sell, thus many IBOs are told to simply buy their own goods without an emphasis on selling to others, thus producing an unsustainable business. In this environment, only those who profit from the tools can endure, because the tools system has many customers – the downline IBOs. However, the downline IBOs, lacking Amway product customers, end up losing money, often directly related to tool purchases.

In many cases, an IBO does not realize that his own upline or sponsor is really his or her dream stealer. The downline’s money is slowly drained and channeled upline in the form of tool purchases. Many IBOs realize later that at least some of their dreams could have been financed simply by not purchasing tools from their upline, or by avoiding the Amway opportunity altogether! While some people do make some money in Amway, their numbers are insignificant.

Ignore the Fluff. See the False Results and see the 1%.

Takeaway: Amway uses fluff and lots of non factual, dogmatic, inspirational videos and rallies to encourage individuals to choose a lifestyle pathway that ‘Amway’ encompasses. The fact of the matter is that it is beneficial for Amway IBO’s to encourage down lines in a positive manner. Most Amway training videos by high-level IBO’s in Amway talk about ‘lifestyle, lifestyle, lifestyle’ without any real statistics.