Why many Amway/BWW IBOs stay confused

I was thinking today why I did not quit any earlier than I did! This is what happened to me (and I guess this is what happens to many IBOs who do not make money).

Initially you get attracted to something some speaker says, or something you listen on a CD or you are impressed by a particular IBO's qualifications. You start getting around the system as a naive, new IBO and want to believe that everything they say from stage is actually true. From the outside, i.e. as an IBO who is simply new and excited, everything looks very exciting, everyone looks very happy, everyone loves you and talks nicely to you - there is nothing negative. Your upline actually may give you enough time to soak into the system. You may not have even sponsored anyone, but you stay excited for the first few months.

The first time you may face a confusion is if there is an up line promotion or leadership, like a 600 PV or 1000 PV leaderships. In my experience, you may qualify first time for these events one of two ways:

• by simply buying the products yourself. I, my sponsor and 4 of my downlines qualified this way for several 600 PV and 1000 PV leaderships. You can hear on double diamonds Kumar & Anjali's CDs/tapes that Kumar also qualified this way for his first 600 PV leadership. You can also hear him say that the first time he qualified silver, many of his down lines were made to buy several water treatment systems... it is very funny when you hear him say that he did lamaze classes (push... push...) on his down lines when he went silver. Yes, funny to hear, but think about how many of those down lines were affected.


• If you are lucky, your up line might have sponsored some of your friends for you and you actually have a group. In my experience, most IBOs in this category have no clue how they qualified for the leadership. They are simply excited.

If you qualified via the first way - Then you go to a leadership event, but if you have any conscience, you are actually a bit confused. You know you have stocked up products, but your upline actually recommended that you buy products and attend the leadership. You were told by BWW to listen to your uplines, but then stocking products does not feel right to you. You have a net loss of about $1000 (assuming you bought only 300 PV extra) or $2100 (assuming you bought 700 PV extra), but your up line says the leadership event will help you. You go to your first leadership event and then learn that several people have qualified like you. So you actually feel better - like diamond Sanjiv Sahay says on his CDs "Misery loves company". But if you are smart, you can connect the dots and conclude quickly that if people buy products at 600 PV, then they also buy products for bigger pins. This is where BWW/Amway uses the well known human psychology:

"If a lot of people do something, then you will go with what they are doing, instead of doing what is right."

I was no exception!

Many nice IBOs comment on my blog telling that they are not like this, or their upline is not like this. I don't believe it, because I was in this long enough to associate with so many leaderships and I clearly saw that for several years, BWW itself acknowledges that people do it. Only that papa Bill Britt is so blind to such practices! By simply asking 10,000 people at a function from stage "Did any one of you buy extra products for your upline?" and people shouting "No", he thinks it does not happen!

The second confusion that may happen to IBOs is with 9-5-3-BiB itself. Many of them do these steps diligently, but still do not get any results. They hear from stage that "the answer to the problems in your business is in the 9 core steps. Don't look outside." I used to ask my upline how to get better results and how many plans I should show to reach a goal, and his "safe" answer was:

"Do whatever it takes to achieve your goal. If it meant showing 30 or 40 plans in a month, then do it."

While this is very nice to say and very nice to hear, I wonder how many people have actually done this without having a large group already. If you think you will show 40 plans in a month with C list, please do it and then come and tell me how many people you contacted to do it. What were your results in signing them up?

If your upline abuses any rules, like the customer sales reporting, then IBOs again get confused. Do they listen to their uplines, as they say from BWW stage, or should they go with their conscience and do what is right?

I experienced all the above confusions for several years... Why I did not quit any earlier than I did, I don't know! I think BWW is very good in keeping the IBOs, even the confused ones, in for several years! One should really be impressed how well BWW keeps people in!