The Key Ingredient

Disclaimer: The thoughts in this blog are my own opinions. Names (if any) have been changed in order to protect everyone's privacy. The thoughts in this blog do not address Amway directly, but rather the motivational organization known as URAssociation (URA).

Kool Aid...if you don't love it, you're practically un-American. I mean, pack your bags and geeeeyit out right? My blog of course is titled "The Financial Jonestown." For those of you who may be a bit young (or historically illiterate), Jonestown was a community in Guyana (That's South America for the Geographically illiterate) founded by Jim Jones, a minister turned cultist. The community was officially called "The Peoples Temple."

Long story short, the people of Jonestown wanted to escape the perils of American life to establish their own way of living. Having his people brainwashed, Jones began imposing his own will much contrary to the principles that led people to join the commune. When distress arose back home after concerned relatives voiced their opinions, the United States sent California Congressman Leo Ryan and members of the media to Jonestown to investigate. Make an even LONGER story short, Jones flipped out, had the Congressman and media members shot at an airstrip as they were leaving. Realizing he fucked up something awful, Jones had the 900 members of the commune drink poisoned Kool Aid resulting in their death. Jones, proving his un-Americanism decided not to drink Kool Aid and instead, put a bullet in his head.

Communist douche bag.

Back on track...in Bill Maher's 2004 comedy routine "I'm Swiss," he criticized then-President George W. Bush's sitting in the classroom for seven minutes after hearing about the 9/11 attacks. While a die hard Republican I am and even a fan of  Maher's, I didn't agree with this piece, but that's neither here nor there. He summed it up that if Republicans still supported Bush after he sat there for seven minutes (Even though his Chief of Staff signaled for him NOT TO...dammit! WILL YOU STAY ON POINT???)

He said "You have drunk the Kool Aid. You're apart of a CULT."

The URA and other AMO's serve up their own brand as well. Regular Kool Aid is known for its particular flavors, Jonestown Kool Aid had cyanide, AMO's have TOOLS (get it? LOL)!

It's always been said that attending these seminars are the key ingredient to building a successful Amway business. You see the IBO's with their voice recorders and notepads (Hey, I took notes, no shame) hinging on EVERY WORD the Emeralds and Diamonds said. But the sleep deprivation, mixed messages, and even some of the snobbery/up our own ass swagger from some of these jagoffs threw a damper on it (See my first blog "Come to My Seminar").

But when it was time to leave, we met up with our upline platinum to get a "pep talk" before heading home. He said "first order of business...let's get our fall tickets locked in."

Hold up.

FED (Fall Conference) was THREE MONTHS AWAY! We've got businesses to build, we got team members packin' lunch meat that can't afford a cup of coffee and need to get their businesses going and THE FIRST $100 we get our hands on shouldn't go to buying samples/generating PV (Personal Volume), gas money to show plans, etc...no LET'S BUY OUR TICKETS FOR THE NEXT CONFERENCE!!!

Get the serious FUCK out of here!

At the time, I thought it was weird, but in retrospect, THAT MOMENT was what caused me to start THINKING (an unwritten no-no in URA).

So I sat at home one night thinking about how much CONferences were emphasized. WHY? It drove my friend away after attending, plus, it was basically the same stuff I had heard a year ago when I was prospecting. So I pulled out a calculator and had a fun, fact-finding session/epiphany.

After I wrote 43LL and 80085 (Hell and Boobs...hey I said I had fun), I started crunching a few numbers.

The venues I went to held about 4,000 people and was pretty close to capacity. Let's just be optimistic and say there were 3,500.

3,500 people X $100 a ticket = $350,000

$350,000 X 4 conferences = $1.4 Million

Considering that URA more than likely didn't have to pay for the venue (most hotels give you the venue for free if you're staying at their hotel...and we were). That's a pretty nice racket. Chop that up among the dozen or so speakers and everybody's taking home six figures a year. Not to mention the "independent" seminars they do on their own for a much smaller gate fee of about 10-15 bucks.

We're not done yet.

The URA also has a website where you can keep track of your downline, download audio of speakers "teaching" you the (Am)Ways of the business (Pun intended) and of course...this is where you buy your TICKETS!!!!!!

The membership has three levels. The cheapest is around $35 a month, medium is $50, and premium package is $75. Now if I was a bettin' man, I'd be willing to book that most URA members have the "premium" package...but for all intents and purposes, let's just say everybody in the URA is po' folk (which in reality...never mind...skip it) and has the $35 package.

I'm sure there were a few "losers" who missed out on the CONference because something else happened. Petty reasons like a funeral, childbirth, dumb shit like that. But let's just say that EVERY URA MEMBER was in attendance.

3,500 members X $35 a month = 122,000 a month.

122,000 a month X 12 months = $1.4 million (and change)

Well hit me with a turd pie and call me shitface...That's nearly $3 million A YEAR. And these are BARE MINIMUM estimates!

Now you chop that up over a few years between the Emeralds/Diamonds who speak at these events. Plus the bonuses they DO get from their Amway qualifications, though miniscule compared to this, and yeah...you can have financial freedom.

But this is a FACT. 99% of Amway IBO's will NOT reach that level. Want to fact check? CHECK THEIR WEBSITE. This isn't propaganda, this is something that you see right on their page. The "average" active IBO earns $200 a month. That's $2,400 a year. Subtract your CONference tickets, personal volume for samples, personal consumption, etc., Independent conferences, gas money to show plans and go to weekly business briefings and THEN what do you have? Is it EVEN CLOSE to the time/effort you put in???

These CONferences are no different than if you took 5,000 high school baseball players and had Bryce Harper, Andrew McCutcheon and Clayton Kershaw give speeches about how if you have "this particular mindset" and "do x, y, and z" then YOU TOO can make it to the majors. You'll have 5,000 dudes all jacked up and excited, when in REALITY, maybe ONE OR TWO OF THEM will have a CHANCE to make it to the bigs.

You do with this information what you will. Me? I'm JONESin' for some grape Kool Aid.

Good night.