Saw this very detailed comment about the recent R3Global Dream Days events on the Purple Horror web site this morning:
Just went to a R3Global Monavie Dream Days 2009 conference in Anaheim.
THIS IS MY OPINION NOT YOURS SO PLEASE DONT GET TOO UPSET ITS AN OPINION OF MINE NOT YOURS.
Anyways I have been doing this for 2 months about am on autoship 1 case actively but about to change the active part.
Dream Days felt very weird. Different from parties or local events.
The 13 hours of seminars seemed interesting. The ticket was $175 U.S. and I feel screwed.
The day was uber republican christian messages, hate speech about certain political issues. The speakers were a youth group non denom Christian pastor, a self help author that speaks to teens at school functions about god, a self help religious writer, Brig Hart and various salesman for the company, I felt scared after some of these talks, it was religious with no acceptance of anything else but what if you’re future biggest salesman is an athiest or homosexual or intelectual (cheap shot sorry).
It was also a day of goal planning, recruiting tactics an dream talk which is totally fine. Come on though I’m chrisitian and I felt they were using the lord a bit much it doesnt feel right when you’re talking about $$ and him in the same sentence.
Brig Hart even mentioned one of his buddies in the company how they lied to him about being interested in Monavie and went to a different MLM. I had no clue what he was talking about so it scared me when he started yelling about it. The crowd seriously stood up and roared well at least about 75% of the crowd…yelling for vengeance and bad mouthing a man they didn’t really know.
I checked out mentally and was non responsive after that point.
If he’s a real Christian he should just cast greed and hate and live a life of forgiveness and love. Poor guy, his wife even stated that all the women in the audience need financially stable men….in the U.S. at a Monavie meeting…she c*** blocked the whole place. How can you love someone with that mentality.
I’m all for the Monavie juice bring down the cost to average wine…about 10 a bottle and sure maybe. O.J. is cheaper and yields proven results while giving more realistic jobs to America.
R3 Global is a cult.
Never mix religion and capitalism.btw I’m new here.
Thanks.
Posted by: Eric | November 2, 2009 9:06 AM
Dream Days is one of Brig Hart’s R3Global International’s major functions. Eric’s description matches up pretty well with what I saw first-hand at INA-sponsored events when I was in the business. It’s pretty clear that some things haven’t changed much in the past decade with regards to MLM-based “training” and motivational organizations. In North American, the lines between religion, politics, sex, and money are very blurred within these groups. The reason why these topics are so entwined here is because the organization’s leaders need something to keep their groups together. The products alone aren’t enough to do this, so they get them with the three taboos.
Dream Days is coming up soon to the San Francisco area; I wonder how Brig’s right-wing, fundamentalist Christian views are going to be received there?
Update November 2, 2009: Here’s an excellent response to Eric’s comment on Purple Horror:
I just read Eric’s post…
I have been a Mona Vie distributor for almost two years. I have some very high level MV Distributors in my upline, including Brig Hart.
My wife and I worked MV VERY hard for the first 18 months. We have signed up over 50 people personally, and NOT ONE of them got off the ground (only ONE even became a Star!!!). We have not gotten past Star 1000. Our power leg has almost 600,000 PV, but we have not gotten ANYTHING going on our inside leg. We recently dropped from 2 cases to 1 case auto-ship, and I stopped drinking it a few months back, to save money. Our credit card that we dedicated soley to the MV business has $14k on it from product, supplies, tools, and of course, several MV and R3 Global conferences. I burned up all of my frequent flier points for these, as well. We made $2k in commissions last year, and will not even make $1.5k this year.
I have a couple of Golds and Silvers on the power side of my downline, and their businesss are stagnating. I have seen Bronzes go dormant, which amazes me, as they should be solidly in the black at that point! The problem is the inside leg collapses, and although you are still called a Star 1000 or Bronze, your income just dried up, and you need to start over…
My wife and I are vacillating about whether to walk away or try again. The problem is, we went through the rolodex already, and I am just not wired up to talk to everybody I meet in a grocery checkout lane or who sits next to me on an airplane. My wife is MUCH better at that, and has done it, but the one or two she signed up that way did nothing (like everybody else we signed up). It’s almost like a gambling problem…so hard to just up and quit when we are down so much.
From the get-go I thought that $30+ for a bottle was outrageous, but I thought maybe this had merit, as I really respect the person who signed me up and promised me help. He definitely put the time (and money) into us, but even those he helped us sign up did nothing. His answer (and I believe it to be true in it’s purest form) is “more”! More contacts, more appointments, more signups, until we hit the “right” ones. He is always there to offer training and support, but still we cannot gain any traction! In watching the downline dwindle, I have come to realize that I am not the only one to have these problems.
I WANT to believe in the MLM concept! There SHOULD be an alternative for the average guy or couple sick and tired of the corporate rat race! Why DOESN’T this work for most of us?
Back to Eric…I am a committed Christian, and I too am concerned about the “God” thing going on in Mona Vie.
First of all, most of the Executive Staff at Mona Vie is Mormon. As a Bible-believer, I have serious questions about whether Mormons are Christians or not. Brig Hart isn’t Mormon, but he is certainly over the top a lot and can make me quite uncomfortable with some of his diatribes.
As an aside, here’s a topic for discussion: If the Mormon thing does not have God’s blessing, then will hooking up with them for a business venture get His blessing?
Second, I agree that mixing Christianity and capitalism is definitely dangerous, but from the perspective of using (abusing?) one’s faith to legitimize a business to others.
Chick-Fil-A is an incredible, Christian-owned, Christian principle-run company, and God is obviously blessing them, but they are NOT exploiting their faith to do it. Wall Street probably laughs at them for giving up all those profits they could be making if they were open on Sundays. That’s why they can never do an IPO. If they did, then Earnings Per Share would become their god. If a company plans for controlled growth, they shouldn’t need the capital infusion from an IPO.
I have heard rumblings of an IPO for Mona Vie. The day that is announced, I will know that the whole thing was a ploy for a few to get rich (I am already quite close to believing that already).
BTW, I am aware of Dallin Larsen’s past experiences with MLM’s, as well.
So many questions…
Posted by: Anonymous | November 2, 2009 7:44 PM
11 Comments
You should post this on a few gay activism chat rooms. Also let them know that Henry Marsh is a major funder of homophobic political causes…get some picketers and the media ready when Brig goes to SF.
From what I’ve read of the NWM literature, the second persons comment in the article about “inside leg” collapsing is a common weakness in the binary model. It typically starts occuring after a few years when the hype dies down and can cause teams to unravel rapidly.
With regards the top half of the post, in my opinion one of the reasons why Woodward et.al were wanting to leave Amway was because of Amway’s new, stricter restrictions on using the business as a platform for religious and political evangelism.
I’m glad they’re gone.
I read this comment on PH when it was posted, also. I thought about commenting…but those of us who’ve been around the MLM block know very well the drill. Same old, same old, the “motivational” indoctrination is alive and well.
@IBOFB, David, do you have ANY proof whatsoever of the claim you just made, in quotes below:
Certainly nothing has changed in Amway in that regard. Devos’ and VanAndel’s are still as outspoken as ever, still politically active, and still allow the biggest abusers of using Amway as a platform for religious and political evangelism to remain, Dexter and Birdie Yager.
And you know that’s the truth. Instead of talking about the truth of why Orrin Woodward left Amway, which is the fact that Amway products are over priced and cannot compete in the market, thereby providing no real method for an IBO to actually turn a profit, AND that Amway wanted to cut out some of the tool money profits that OW was making, you try to color Amway in a positive light by saying “Look, Amway isn’t doing what MonaVie is allowing”.
Now, Amway may well have tried to curb Orrin Woodward and his potential to fleece the flock with his tool scam, and Amway may well be moving towards that continued goal with other distributors, but you and anyone who researches this knows that Amway is not the exemplary model of MLM perfection that you, IBOFB, would like your readers to believe it is.
Scams and scammers, the lot of them.
Brig Hart’s over-use of religion did not make many friends with his own upline or downline.
It was a sore spot between Hart and his downline (now) Crown Ambassador Tim Foley.
Foley, a Catholic, was offended at Hart’s overly evangelistic talks. Reports claim that Foley used this issue as a reason to go upline and by-pass Hart on tools.
Uplines Childers, Gooch and Yager (all evangelical Christians) agreed to by-pass Hart. Other downline Diamonds of Hart’s followed in turn. Hart sued upline and Amway.
Hart claims that Gooch, as a member of the IBOAI, gave him a written promise that if Hart dropped the embarassing and public lawsuit, Gooch and other members of the IBOAI would arrange a $30 million gift to be given to Hart’s favorite ministry- Oral Roberts University. Billy Florence, president of the IBOAI wrote an apology from Brig Hart, and asked him to sign it so Hart’s apology could get out on the internet and reduce any collateral damage from this lawsuit.
Needless to say, Hart was offended. (BTW, how much tool money has to be at stake for the opposition to offer $30 million to make a lawsuit go away?)
The good news is that the documents DID make their way on to the internet.
You can find them here:
http://www.amquix.info/shs_v_alticor-complaint.html
http://www.amquix.info/pdfs/shs_v_alticor/exhibit_e.pdf
http://www.amquix.info/pdfs/shs_v_alticor/exhibit_d.pdf
Amway and the IBOAI supported Yager/Gooch/Childers/Foley and sued Hart, driving him out of the business.
It is rather ironic that Yager would be involved in this, as he and his wife spew contorted versions of Christianity all the time. Don’t forget the “new chapter of the book of Acts that God told Cherry Meadows to write and Birdie Yager to share with everyone” at a business convention.
http://www.amquix.info/amway_birdie_religion.htm
The kingpins and tool money…they are like a pit of vipers, they will happily take one another out if it betters themselves financially.
Candace, I said it was my opinion. Woodward’s decision to leave Amway coincided with the introduction of the linking of bonuses to Accreditation. From both his blog and reports like the above it’s clear he sees his business as a tool to evangelise his beliefs.
With regards Yager etc, from all reports things have improved across all systems. There’s still problems (particularly with politics, as I’ve noted on my blog) but it doesn’t appear to be anything like the problem it was.
As for the DeVos family – so what? They’re free to do what they like in the outside world. So are all Amway IBOs for that matter.
With regard product pricing – it’s blatant hogwash. If he left because he sincerely believed the products were too expensive he wouldn’t have moved to a premium priced fruit juice. Again and again I do price comparisons of Amway products and they stack up just fine.
Finally, “MLM Perfection”? Are you serious? Do you ever actually read The Truth About Amway or Amway Talk? There’s regular posts pointing out what I think are flaws in what Amway does. At least have the integrity to read what I say before you criticise it.
Dave, Do you think I just knew your name by osmosis? Of course I’ve read your blogs and your numerous comments all over the internet. I’ve seen the self contradictions and I’ve seen the Amway apologetics.
Their products do NOT compare price wise with mainstream products from main street stores.
Of course, Woodward wants to make as much money as he can, and further his agenda, beliefs, and political views as much as he can. That’s a given.
However, in his letter to Amway and his initial lawsuit he specifically said that it was the over inflated prices of the products that he had a beef with. Of course, it was and is totally hypocritical of him to now be involved in a “business” where the prices for similar products are even higher than those he whine….err, complained about to Amway.
I was, and am, just questioning your source of info proving that Amway has really scaled back on IBO’s spreading their own political and religious dogma “across all systems”.
I don’t see that happening.
Integrity? you’re gonna lecture me on integrity? Who do you work for? And what level have you built your Amway business to? I hear you defending it, but I don’t see you building it.
Maybe you should have enough common sense to figure out that if someone uses your name online when you haven’t posted it…maybe, just maybe, they might know a thing or two about you. And they just might have read your rantings.
Why the tough love? I cannot believe that you took this post as an opportunity to extol the glorious fact that “MonaVie does this and Amway doesn’t do this anymore, isn’t Amway great?!”
Nope, Amway still isn’t great. And neither is MonaVie. Birds of a feather, in my book.
By all reports things have improved across all systems?
What reports Dave?
If it was that good, you’d think that Amway would be throwing them out so fast that the critics would be tripping over them.
Candace wrote, “I don’t see that happening.” Candace, have you been attending functions put on by the various systems in the last year? Amway Global does training events for IBOs now too. I was at a fantastic one in Detroit a couple months ago. Excellent business training by the Amway Corp., even some radical stuff that combats a lot of the goofy “networking” lingo and techniques we’ve been taught in the past–no evangelizing. The Yager events that I attend are product/business focused–quite “clean” by my book, and I side more with the liberals out there. You criticize IBOFightBack for a lack of sources, but I’m skeptical of your (lack of) sources as well. I’m wondering if you’re tuned in to information on the ‘net or from your circle of acquaintances that supports what you believe. We all do that to a certain degree.
I’m glad to see that the corporation itself is providing more product (and business?) training for IBOs. Regarding the systems, I hope what you say is the case, but I’ve read reports to the contrary. If I ever find myself at a meeting, you know I’ll be here to report on it.
ajgannon,
My sources are my own life experiences.
Achieve a high enough level, and you can have them, too.
You can best answer after you’ve had some one on one time with Dex, and after you’ve attended plenty of “Leaders Only Meetings After the Meetings” with Dex and his children. If you ever build it big enough to get to do transportation duty, or housekeeping, or work the tool booth, or hawk jewelry for the Yager girls. Or maybe you’ll win a big promo and get to sit in a sauna with Dex while he keeps his boots on and rambles some pretty incoherent and scary stuff.
There are plenty of controversial comments that occur in the afore mentioned scenarios.
Don’t fool yourself, that is where the “real” training takes place, and where kingpins reveal their true thoughts and agendas.