constantly get hit up by friends involved in pyramid scheme nutrition? Today makes the 4th time, “Hey its been a long time, the reason Im calling is I know you like to be healthy…”
Whatever you do DO NOT try the Amway Tooth Paste or Macaroni and cheese.
~Matt
Do Girl Scout cookies count?
I had an acquaintance who was big into Amway. He even quit a government job to do it full time. He tried for years to get me into it. I looked at it but decided not to get involved.
About 15 years ago while in college, I was after this very hot girl. A couple of weeks into our class and some flirting back and forth, I get a call and am invited to a dinner party at her house. Needless to say, I thought I was THE MAN. Boy was I psyched…even got the car cleaned in case we went out afterward. I got there, and found a typical dinner party with family and friends. I was at the bar when I commented to her brother that I liked his tie…he said thanks I got it at my business. I knew the family business was construction and then I realized…this is a freakin AMWAY meeting. So one hour of free food and drinks followed by the longes hour of my life listening to a sales presentation.
I obviously didn’t get the girl, but does anyone want to buy some Amway stuff?
ha! you dont want to hear the story of how I almost had to use physical force to get a Kirby Vacuum cleaner salesman out of my house.
My AMWAY story…
I had a friend, at the time a very close friend. In most other aspects of his life he was very intelligent, monetarily wise etc etc. Since I respected his opinion, when he approached me with the “Business opportunity”, I was intrigued.
We went to the meeting at his house and other than the “Leader” being your typical “TV infomercial” type the “idea” seemed sound. It was based on the idea that you simply buy the stuff you already buy but you buy it wholesale, kinda like being a Sam’s Club member but also owning some stock in the company.
Looking back I should have been more suspicious of the situation considering they would not tell us more about “how it worked” until after we signed up. Well going on my friends recommendations, the fact that we always used Amway soap at home as a kid and a fairly “marketable” idea we signed up.
It was downhill from there.
Our first week we order the stuff we thought we’d use. You know Mac N Cheese, TP, Toothpaste…typical Walmart stuff. After going thru the somewhat heinous process of filling out paperwork and placing the order we found out our “Pick up time”. “Pickup Time I thought?” Why can’t I just pick it up any time I want? Turns out the entire system is based on one guy picking up a product so the people below them can pick up and then below them etc etc. My pickup time was 10:15 PM at the guys house I was under that just happended to be 25 miles away. Not only that but they stringently enforced a 15 minute window, if you were late, come back later. WTF?! That means I won’t be home until 11 O’clock in the middle of the freakin’ week! I went the first week.
Still thinking it might be doabale even with such an ineffecient delivery system we started using the products we ordered.
Well the toothpaste can only be described as Playdo in a squeeze tube and the Mac n’ cheeze…let’s just say I think they made it to close to the soap production area. The toilet paper was the industrial 1 ply that you either end up sticking your finger thru or ripping you anus off. Even the soap sucked taking on the order of 10X as much to do the same job as cheap ass dish soap.
All in all of the 10 or so products we tried that first week only one was worth a shit and I think that was the shaving cream. To top things off the price was typically equal to or higher than name brand stuff that I could get at my local 24 hr grocery store ANY FREAKIN’ TIME I FELT LIKE IT.
Needless to say after the first week I realized I was not going to be in business to try and squeeze money out of other people by giving them false hope of riches by selling crappy, overpriced, inconvienant product.
Well we decided to tell my friend that AMWAY was not for us. Him and his girlfriend, now wife’s, response was. “That’s fine but we aren’t sure we will be able to spend much time with you anymore. We plan on being succesfull so we will be spending our time with others that plan on being successfull (AKA other AMITES)”
I was abit taken aback by this but the only thing that was going thru my mind was, I’m sure Bill Gates will be disappointed to know that he will never be successfull without selling AMWAY.
~Matt
Add Quixtar to that list.
Someone called me the other day about Quixtar (pronounced quick-star). Basically an internet version of Amway. The annoying part was that the guy had got my name from a triathlon results page and started off talking about the race we were both in. Then it was all the usual BS about only working 5-8 hours a week and making an extra $1000 a month. The time honored expression “getting in the ground floor” was even used. Only because he was a fellow triathlete did I politely let him go on for 15 minutes before I told him no thanks. Makes me want to register under a pseudonym from now on. If you look up this stuff on the internet, it’s amazing anyone falls for this stuff. When you calculate the actual average hourly wage you get less than $2.50/hour.
I will share my experience for fun. After college I wanted to do anything besides go to work in the traditional “Job” and to this day I plan to get out of the “job”. I joined a new nutritional company and we did real well by most standards in that business. We were both bringing in a few thousand a month and having a good time. My downfall was that I didn’t keep a daytime job, if I had I think I could have made it work. I had friends making true money by any standards (high 5 or 6 figures). After two years our system broke for a few reasons and that was it. I would not do it again, although been offered a number of opportunities. Some of those companies will work for people who have a certain personality, but then those people could make it selling just about anything:)
It is like most things, for every 1 that is rolling a $90,000 Porsche or 750 IL there is 50 pumping in everything they have and maybe breaking even
Okay Matt here’s where I get defensive 
Name one other charitable contribution where you actually receive in return soemthing equivalent to your donation - i.e. a box of cookies for $3!!!
Now I’ll be the first to raise an eyebrow when you find out what they do with some of the proceeds. Last year my 8 year-old got to go to build a bear and had a $25 budget. Heck she even got a merit badge with a little bear on it (I kid you not).
This year some of the proceeds are for a “Glamour girls” outing. Not sure what that is but I bet it involves make-up and fancy hairdo’s. Can’t wait ti see the merit badge.
So lay off the GS Cookies. Their for a good cause (My kiddo).
Hah!