I hope it's fine to make requests here, but can someone point me in the direction of some good links addressing how few people make any money in MLMs in general and Amway in particular? I have an acquaintance I was discussing FIRE topics with, and it turns out that this person's SO is involved with Amway, who apparently are also using "financial independence" related terminology in their pitches (sigh).
I am going to send some links explaining why MLMs/Amway are remarkably unlikely to deliver on the financial promises that they make, and I was also going to suggest that the person track their earnings/expenses carefully if they do end up continuing with it, since that's the only way to honestly determine whether it's actually profitable. Any other suggestions for points that I should consider making?
I don't have any delusions that I can convince someone to ditch Amway with one email, but I figure if there is anything I can do that might cause this person to leave Amway two years from now rather than in five years, then that's still a win. I know I've seen some discussions in this thread (and maybe other threads?) that seemed relevant, but I didn't want to parse through hundreds of replies to try to locate the best potential links if someone had good ones readily available.
You are correct. You cannot convince them, so just let it run its course.
Example: A friend pitched me on the Amway Visa years back. The rewards were a compensation of 1% "BV". If you bought $1,000 of stuff, you got 10 BV, which grossed you a taxable $0.30, compared to a tax-free $10.00 on any other cash back card. He mentioned there was a 50 BV bonus for signing up. I tried to show him the 10,000 JetBlue pts I just got, which could fly me round trip to a couple places.
But, there was nothing I could say or do.
In the end, I said, "I'll sign up for the CC if there's no annual fee." He was ecstatic, like I'd made a huge order. The card came in and I tossed it.
Books you can read, and other resources (for you, not your friend; they won't listen):
-
Merchants of Deception: By a former Emerald IBO who netted something like $20,000 a year. His book led to huge increases in the Amway compensation plan for people at his level. It also exposed that the real money being made was by whoever ran things like seminars, etc.
-
Behind the Smoke and Mirrors: Written by a former Amway person who was the personal assistant for a big wig in her upline. She discovered it was all just a show. They'd make something like $100,000 a year from Amway, and maybe another $400,000 a year with stadium events.
- Sadly, even with all this income, they lived like they made 2x that, flying in private jets, and buying new mansions.
-
IRS info. There was a report years ago that the average Platinum in Amway operated at a loss. This isn't hard to believe, particularly if they are working hard to get to the next level and just living off of their regular job income, unless you're in Amway, then it's all hard to believe.
It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.