J. Valjean
BANALITY
Friend of mine graduated a semester earlier than me and has been attracted to a get rick quick scheme called "Amway". It was through his friend and his friend's dad. They supposedly "made it big". This was one of my best friends and we used to have all sorts of inside jokes and talk about whatever, now he's always talking about Amway and keeps bringing it up to me. I have no money, I owe student debt, and I'm a psych major, not going into law or medicine. My mother has three MBA's and so over time I came to know a few things about business. I know Amway makes most of its money by making recruits buy more and more of their stuff to "distribute".
But the stuff they sell has no chance in the market because its stuff Best Buy, Shoprite, and GNC has, and those department retailers make the sales because they have massive amounts of money put into TV and radio advertising. Amway does it through word of mouth, a business model that died after Manifest Destiny. So the ultimate purpose boils down to recruiting more and riding off the backs of recruits- the more you pitch them with success stories and "believe in yourself" ********, the more seminars they pay for and product they buy.
Meanwhile, as far as distribution goes, if you are a really good (I mean really good seller most likely situated in rural America where people have it hard and have little education) perhaps you can make a few dollars, but even for recruiters, their real money comes from recruiting more people and sitting back as the interest comes in. When you buy a product (any experienced car shopper knows this) it diminishes in value the second you own it. Most distributors end up eating their own products because they can't sell it. And what they do sell, a percentage goes up to their recruiter and then up the ladder. Not making enough money selling? You have little faith! Come pay for another seminar. Amway says its running a "new business model" but the fact is this business model is archaic and Amway itself has been around for like forty years. If a business has real value and practical assets it makes it big in this country no question- Best Buy offered a mall-type selection of electronics where PC Richards was limited to computers and expensive warrantee plans and Radioshack catered to old people and parts-buyers. Theres practical value in this- the store is situated on the highway system (like McDonalds for restaurants), it sells everything with electricity running through it, and its employees stock and find, they don't pressure you into buying crap you don't need. And it took 15 years or so before Best Buy became the giant eating machine it is today.
Amway may have lost out to times and practicality decades ago, so it shifted its "new business model" to the "evangelical church model". Now its cash comes from duping people into its schemes and making money off of them. It's never been practical for me to, I'm lower-middle class and geared towards human services and the health industry. But my friend is upper-middle class and doesn't have an education in business or economics to be able to discern this stuff. I'm just worried because its like we can't talk about normal things any more without me expecting an obligatory "join Amway" speech at the end. I want to tell him this is not going to end well for him and even tried to explain that these schemes are high-risk investments that shouldn't be made without a low-risk, steady investment like solidifying a career and resume. But he keeps saying "I have nothing to lose from it". And you can't argue that he will be losing if he can't see what he'll be losing, right?
I'm worried because to calm him down I agreed to go to an Amway meeting tomorrow with him but I have a feeling he's already been bought and is trying to buy me. I don't want to upset him because I know he's running on the high these schemes produce, he'll pay for my ticket, pay for whatever junk they throw at me, thinking I will participate. But I won't, and I don't want to lose my friendship.
Does anyone have advice or experience with this sort of stuff?
But the stuff they sell has no chance in the market because its stuff Best Buy, Shoprite, and GNC has, and those department retailers make the sales because they have massive amounts of money put into TV and radio advertising. Amway does it through word of mouth, a business model that died after Manifest Destiny. So the ultimate purpose boils down to recruiting more and riding off the backs of recruits- the more you pitch them with success stories and "believe in yourself" ********, the more seminars they pay for and product they buy.
Meanwhile, as far as distribution goes, if you are a really good (I mean really good seller most likely situated in rural America where people have it hard and have little education) perhaps you can make a few dollars, but even for recruiters, their real money comes from recruiting more people and sitting back as the interest comes in. When you buy a product (any experienced car shopper knows this) it diminishes in value the second you own it. Most distributors end up eating their own products because they can't sell it. And what they do sell, a percentage goes up to their recruiter and then up the ladder. Not making enough money selling? You have little faith! Come pay for another seminar. Amway says its running a "new business model" but the fact is this business model is archaic and Amway itself has been around for like forty years. If a business has real value and practical assets it makes it big in this country no question- Best Buy offered a mall-type selection of electronics where PC Richards was limited to computers and expensive warrantee plans and Radioshack catered to old people and parts-buyers. Theres practical value in this- the store is situated on the highway system (like McDonalds for restaurants), it sells everything with electricity running through it, and its employees stock and find, they don't pressure you into buying crap you don't need. And it took 15 years or so before Best Buy became the giant eating machine it is today.
Amway may have lost out to times and practicality decades ago, so it shifted its "new business model" to the "evangelical church model". Now its cash comes from duping people into its schemes and making money off of them. It's never been practical for me to, I'm lower-middle class and geared towards human services and the health industry. But my friend is upper-middle class and doesn't have an education in business or economics to be able to discern this stuff. I'm just worried because its like we can't talk about normal things any more without me expecting an obligatory "join Amway" speech at the end. I want to tell him this is not going to end well for him and even tried to explain that these schemes are high-risk investments that shouldn't be made without a low-risk, steady investment like solidifying a career and resume. But he keeps saying "I have nothing to lose from it". And you can't argue that he will be losing if he can't see what he'll be losing, right?
I'm worried because to calm him down I agreed to go to an Amway meeting tomorrow with him but I have a feeling he's already been bought and is trying to buy me. I don't want to upset him because I know he's running on the high these schemes produce, he'll pay for my ticket, pay for whatever junk they throw at me, thinking I will participate. But I won't, and I don't want to lose my friendship.
Does anyone have advice or experience with this sort of stuff?
