Wednesday, May 18, 2016

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.



21 comments:

  1. Great post. Especially the last paragraph with the analogy to a baseball function. I hope those baseball stars don't get any ideas though : )

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  2. Less than half of the IBO's are considered "active" to get to the number you posted up there, which would cut the average in half if you included everyone that is currently signed up. Also, the "active" IBO's include diamonds and crowns that gross over 90% of the Amway sales through their downline, which leaves the remaining millions fighting for the scraps. It is not alarming that Emerald's and Ruby's drop out once they find out there is no access to the bigger piece of the pie.

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  3. Actually, the part about seminars being the key to success is true. It's just that the diamonds lie and don't tell you that the seminars are key to THEIR success, not yours. Seriously, you did the math and even with a marginal group of 3500, big money can be made.

    Imagine in the "old days" when my sponsor attended a function in Seattle at the old Kingdome. He said there are about 50,000 people there. Imagine that times $125 or so?

    But I believe that information access is slowing down the growth of these groups as people can find blogs and forums and find the truth about Amway and groups like WWDB or URA. Good job!

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    1. Oh I shudder to think how much WWDB and BWW haul in! The URA is actually a splinter group of BWW so no doubt they pulled in a big rake to set the "example" of what this "business" can bring to you. 50,000 in the Kingdome? The Mariners and Seahawks struggled to do that! Geez...

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  4. Can't wait to read more of these posts... Awesome!

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    1. Thanks for stopping by! Appreciate your support!

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

    That was probably one of the most useful things you did that related to the Amway nonsense. Good on ya!

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  6. Is it just me, or does everyone here get the feeling that URASucker and Ben Dover are actually the same person? : )

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  7. I was never diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, therefore I can only assume that I am me, and me alone.

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  8. Maybe we have a Clark Kent/Superman situation on our hands : )

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  9. More like Batman/Robin. Two different people on the same team with the same goal.

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  10. Ben Dover, I wanted to discuss with you some points you had raised in your previous comments. Please email me on mlm05122016@gmail.com. I tried leaving my email on Joecool's site, but it seems a filter didn't allow that post to be published. Anyone else who wants to discuss Amway, please feel free to email me as well. Thanks!

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  11. excellent post! You break down numbers
    which at least helps give a general idea to readers, that it IS all about the money. Problem is, as you show so well, it is for only a select miniscule few.
    Great job!

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  12. .... you know the money is in profit sharing pool with all the platinums. As your business grows you actually get less money from the tickets and memberships. which is fine because your Amway check gets bigger. but you know, the 60 Billion dollars paid out over 58 years. Its literally set up to be transparent and you could've gotten all these questions answered if Matthew wasn't a dumbass. If you're going to be ignorant at least be factually ignorant.

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    1. And of course...you have PROOF of this right? Didn't think so.

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  13. ...and you don't have to be Bryce Harper just direct PV to the site. More PV more money. Its not that complicated. Kirk Cousins does take Nutrilite, and probably the entire cubs team... since we bought them.

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    1. Kirk Cousins sucks. Yeah Amway makes big money from their product sales, but I'm not talking about Amway. I'm talking about URA and the other AMO's that take money from people under false pretense and the people like you who encourage it. YOU LIKE THAT? YOU LIKE THAT!

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    2. And the Ricketts family owns the Cubs (Ameritrade). What...Mr. Prince tell you that one too?

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  14. Your numbers are very conservative. I know the FED I was at had 10,000 in attendance. URA has at least 10k members. And yeah, 99.9% are po’ folks

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