There was enough of evidence when I was an IBO, and there is plenty of evidence now, that uplines continue to teach inconsistent and terrible business practises. It is my belief that the misuse of downline continues because no one has ever corrected or held upline accountable for their incorrect advise or even plain lies, such as the earlier claim that no one made a profit from tools, and therefore the abuse of downline persists. On the surface, some of the upline teaching appears to make sense; nevertheless, I believe that most of it contains an undercurrent intended to benefit the upline at the expense of individuals they are advising.
For example, your upline may instruct you on how to get out of debt and live within your financial means. While this may appear to be sound advice, it will be made meaningless if your sacrifices and money are spent on the acquisition of equipment. The blog of an IBO who was able to get out of debt by selling his house and cashing out his 401K has recently caught my attention. I assume he was urged to do this by his superiors. The terrible issue is that I feel he is overpaying on tools and items with the savings he has realised as a result of paying off (most of) his outstanding bills. The upline most likely wants you to live below your means and pay off debt so that your spare income may be used to purchase equipment and other necessities. I seriously doubt that the hard tool pushers are concerned about whether or not IBOs make a profit as long as they continue to acquire tools. The failure to make progress in company is one of the reasons why an upline would often urge an IBO to purchase additional tools.
Getting into vertical alignment would be a pretty fascinating piece of advise to take into consideration. God is number one, followed by spouse number two, family number three, work number four, and Amway number five. However, whenever a conflict arises with a function or a business meeting, the "priorities" are rearranged in such a way that the Amway meeting gets the top priority. Unfortunately, I have witnessed several dedicated IBOs miss their children's childhoods while chasing the Amway goal, and they never make a net profit. This is a sad situation. If your upline teaches you this, I would encourage you to consider keeping Amway at #5 and not rescheduling family or church functions until you have proven yourself.
Although selling products is essential to maintaining a business, many uplines do not place a strong emphasis on this side of the business. Many independent business owners are educated to eat their own products. If this occurs, the only option for IBOs to generate income will be through the recruitment of downline. This is on the verge of crossing the line into the realm of the lawful. Furthermore, it creates a fictitious demand for Amway merchandise. How many former IBOs use 100 to 300 PV on a consistent basis? How many current IBOs truly use that much without having been taught it beforehand? How many of you spend more than $100 on vitamins each month? How many would you drink if you drank energy drinks, or how much would you pay for a case of (ideal) water?
Other "side benefits" of the business, such as becoming a nicer person, are sometimes touted by uplines, however this is not always the case depending on the perception of others. They may claim that they are your buddies for life, or at least until you fail to show up for a scheduled event. Although they may claim that Amway helps to save marriages, they may fail to mention the IBOs who may have divorced as a result of the Amway opportunity. If you want to know how long some of those everlasting friendships persist, stop being CORE for a little and see how long they last. My lifelong Amway buddies never said a word to me after I quit being CORE, and I was devastated.
In many cases, uplines will instruct downline IBOs on topics that are beneficial to the upline rather than the IBOs themselves. If you see or hear any of these ideas or others, please let us know. I encourage you to raise difficult questions about why the teaching may be in conflict with the principles of business or with the content of what they are attempting to teach. If you are trained to get out of debt, I do not feel that the money you save as a result of doing so should be used for social gatherings. You should seriously reconsider adding debt to build your business, afterall, you were probably told that the Amway business has little to no risk or overhead. Keep your upline's promises and don't let them down. Allowing them to manipulate it for their own gain is not acceptable.
Good luck to IBOs and prospects, but seriously think about teaching that does not add up.
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