Where Are You On the Amway/System Grid?
There’s been some great discussion on my site recently. Thank you to everyone who has posted comments. I have been writing a more in-depth post on the different types of critics and supporters of the Amway business, but I realized a picture may be worth more than another long post of mine. With the following diagram, I pose this question to everyone.
Where are you on the Amway/System Grid?
The Y-Axis represents your feelings for the Amway business opportunity and the corporation, while the X-Axis represents your opinion of Amway Motivational Organizations (AMO), or the Systems.
Where do you see yourself on the Amway/System Grid?
I took the liberty of placing certain commenters1 on this site onto my diagram. If you feel I’ve misplaced you, let me know, and I will update your position on the grid.
Seen this way, I find it fascinating to see how much variety exists between critics and supporters!
1 Tex, as many people know, is an interesting case here; a square peg that does not fit in the round world of critic and supporter. He’s finds tools useful but is very critical of the tools business. Thus, he is on both sides of the spectrum here.
AMTHRAX 
Amthrax, move me higher up on the x-axis… at least as high as IBOFB!
Sorry, I meant higher up on the y-axis!
You can put me right there next to you and QIAC!!!!
rdknyvr and Gina – I’ve edited the graph to reflect your choices.
Put me next to Gina. Funny, two of those who think the busienss is so great have made nothing out of it. (Tex amd IBOFB)
You can move me to the lower left corner of the upper left box, if I understand this corrrectly.
As the author and strongest supporter of the LCK term/theory, it only makes sense nobody is further left on the box than me.
The unconscionable rules (according to 4-5 federal judges) and lack of enforcing their own written rules have put me definitely NOT “in the tank” for Amway.
Funny how you would put one of those who think they understand the issues, and don’t on this graph at all (joecool).
Also, to clarify, I am a HUGE supporter of tools, just not the tool scam (high prices and resulting profit, along with associated losses to most IBO’s). This makes the x-axis rather inconsistent and confusing.
The same with the y-axis, as the scam is associated with the tools, not the A/Q business. This is similar to having a scale that goes from green to loud, the terms are not greater and lesser extents of the same topic.
Tex – This would require a three-dimensional representation of the graph, which unfortunately, is beyond my means at the moment. It does help to illustrate some of the issues in a different manner.
I’ve updated your position in the graphic, btw.
Or you could relabel the axes.
The x-axis could be from lower priced tools or transparent profit to higher priced tools and hidden profit. There would be no reason to hide lower tool profit. The higher tool profit could potentially be transparent, but then I don’t think the prices would stay high, as you would then have true market demand kicking in.
The Y-axis could be from bad opportunity to good opportunity (A/Q only, ignoring the tool scam).
You can leave me at the same location on those coordinates.
Tex – I changed the axes headings slightly. Although you do find value in the tools, that feeling is overridden by your serious issues with the tools business. That’s why you’re still on the left-hand side of the upper-left quadrant.
I agree with both ends of the System axis. Tools are vital, yet there are serious issues with them. Mainly the pricing and hidden profits.
Would you like me to put you into the middle, then? Or have a clone of you on the other side?
Go ahead and put me on the far right side as well, that should get some discussion going!
By the way, it’s “Tex”, with a capital “T”, which is suppressed by some blogs.
Tex – you are truly the manifestation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in the Amway/System debate.
Okay, let me muck up your graph even more. I’m middle up in the upper left hand box. Amway/Quixtar CAN be a good opportunity with certain conditions; But regarding the tool issue; where do I fall if I say that tools are NOT vital nor necessary in the traditional sense of books and CDs and yet I also feel the “tools business” has serious issues.
Tools “being vital” is not necessarily the opposite side of the grid as it relates to “serious issues” with the tool business.
Dave – welcome to the discussion. I’m running out of symbols to represent everyone!
Yes, the tools business is complex to reduce to one’s opinion of it to a single point along a line (just look at Tex).
As a way to illustrate the differences and similarities between all parties, however, this grid a good first start. Maybe in the future, we can have something more detailed and accurate!
One thing I am certain about, and that’s the damage the tool scam has done to this business. This includes reputation, finances of IBO’s, misrepresentations (lying) by the LCK’s, etc.
You also have to define what is meant by tools being “vital for the business.” If all you want is a small retail business, tool probably aren’t necessary. If you want a large retail business, the “traditional” tools probably aren’t necessary, but you would want to have more detailed record keeping, spreadsheets, etc., which I consider a system of sorts. If you want a large network, then the “traditional” tools are vital.
Put me in the far bottom left hand corner, cause I think that both Amway and the tools are a bad idea..
I think Tex would like the tools scam if he was making money on them..but that is just an assumption on my part….
I mean selling over-priced products to people is well that same thing anit it?
Mike,
That’s a very bad assumption on your part. My customers don’t mind paying for the “over-priced products”, thank you very much.
Mike,
Also, it isn’t the same thing as the tool scam, because the product profit isn’t a secret like the tool scam profit is.
Tex, looks like you found a new home here!
Put me on the FAR bottom FAR left corner:
bad opportunity, useless tools
in fact you can put me “outside the box” …. like an “Outsider”
Willy – the graph gets distorted if you use values lower than zero. So, I’ve placed you at the bottom corner. It’s getting crowded down there!
Between here and QIAC’s blog, I’ll post and do wherever else I can that has the potential of putting down the tool scam. qblog has been looking pretty weak lately. I didn’t last long on Tracy’s blog. Hopefully, I’ll get a major publication’s interest soon as well. I had a real good discussion with a reporter today and sent him some information.
The graph does look a bit like a tennis court, with me as the net!
I agree with Tex regarding the need for training the mind for success, but ended up disillusioned with SOT & the control games in the AMOs. I searched WWDB a coupla days ago because I found an old tape case in my attic. I threw about 40 cassettes ( opened, of course ) into my burn bag, but I guess I’ll xfer them to my recycling can. I found duplicate & triplicate copies of some. It REALLY pissed me off because I’d been shamed into buying extras ( so I could get rich, kinda like a Robert Tilton “offering” pitch ) while I was in BAD, BAD, BAD financial shape.
I loved the Amway biz opportunity, because it had been really good for my parents in the 1970s; the first time I ever got to stay in a fancy hotel was at their major conventions. I found new friends among the Amkids & we ran around all over the place, put in some serious mileage on the DFW tram & I discovered Space Invaders… The people at our level were really decent folk, & our hopes & dreams were stoked.
My folks were within a month of going Direct, & his immediate upline found a “flipping” scheme, to invert our downline group in a new MLM company called Enhance, so all involved could “get rich.” He’d been one of my Dad’s best buddies in childhood, & my Dad showed him the door. My Dad was eligible for a small disability pension from the VA, but was from the generation that didn’t want “handouts”. That Direct designation would’ve brought him home from punching a clock & probably allowed his health to rebound. His downline group fractured because of the Enhance experiment, & we lived in a rural community, so prospecting was a real uphill swim, & his health hampered his ability to travel across numerous counties to show the plan & develop his new Distributors. We still believed in Amway & I still find bottles of the cleaning products & even 40-yr-old old cosmetics packages as I clean up the old farmhouse.
My parents renewed until the 90s, when I got prospected by an airline colleague into WWDB. They then moved to become my downline. We never grew it, & I’ll delve into that in future posts.
I floundered along for a few years, hampered by my own poverty mentality, & harangued by my “grandsponsor” about not having the right mindset. He wasn’t all wrong, but the word games of prospecting, & “sneaking up” on possible candidates never sat well with me. That always felt like a tangled web of lies. I wearied of the rhetorical gymnastics, & eventually dropped out.
I must add that the “church” services they held during convention weekends had a positive impact on me. I saw people that I looked up to who worshipped God unashamedly & they helped lift me up from sone things that had entangled me. So, the Net Gain ( did you see what I did there? 😉 ) was positive.