I was invited to a meeting by a guy I met at the gym. He never mentioned Amway by name. He said it was a business mentoring program. I showed up to a hotel conference room with about 100 people. A couple in expensive clothes gave a presentation about financial freedom, retiring young, and building generational wealth. They drew circles on a whiteboard showing how the income grows exponentially. Everyone cheered and clapped. Then they revealed it was Amway. The products looked decent but overpriced. The real pitch was about building a team. At the end they asked me to buy a business kit for $199. I left without buying. The next day I got 7 follow-up texts. This was 3 months ago and they still message me weekly. Is this normal for Amway?
I was invited to a meeting by a guy I met at the gym. He never mentioned Amway by name. He said it was a business mentoring program. I showed up to a hotel conference room with about 100 people. A couple in expensive clothes gave a presentation about financial freedom, retiring young, and building generational wealth. They drew circles on a whiteboard showing how the income grows exponentially. Everyone cheered and clapped. Then they revealed it was Amway. The products looked decent but overpriced. The real pitch was about building a team. At the end they asked me to buy a business kit for $199. I left without buying. The next day I got 7 follow-up texts. This was 3 months ago and they still message me weekly. Is this normal for Amway?
The comparison between MLM failure rates and traditional business failure rates is misleading. When a traditional business fails, the owner usually has assets, inventory, and equipment they can sell. When an MLM distributor fails, they have nothing but overpriced products in their garage.
The best advice I ever got was to spend 80% of my time on customer acquisition and 20% on recruiting. Most new distributors do the opposite because recruiting has bigger potential payoffs. But without customers, you are just building a house of cards.
Your story mirrors mine almost exactly. I want you to know that it gets better. I left my MLM 2 years ago and it took about 6 months to stop feeling embarrassed. Now I can talk about it openly and even laugh about some of the ridiculous things I did. Healing takes time but it happens.
Great post. I have been saying this for years but nobody wants to listen. The people making money in MLM are the exception, not the rule. The income disclosure statements prove this but recruiters conveniently forget to mention them.
My mom has been in the same MLM for 22 years. She never made much money from it but she genuinely loves the products and the community. She treats it as a hobby, not a business. I think that is the healthiest approach to MLM.
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