I enjoyed the idea of obtaining independent success after attending a seminar about Amway. I struggled to find the initial investment of 120 dollars. The purchase included a selection of Amway products, such as laundry detergent, multi-purpose cleaner, a boil-in-bag meal and some vitamins. It also came with a 3-ring binder with instructions on how to demonstrate the products and sell them. I got started right away.
I was enthusiastic about selling the products. After I sold the contents of my starter kit I began taking orders for items that would arrive weekly at the home of the person who had sold me the kit. This got their attention since I wasn’t following the plan they had laid out for me.
My Up-line expected me to attend weekly seminars where the plan would be outlined. These meetings cost a few dollars. The person presenting the plan varied from week to week and was usually someone who had found success following the plan they were outlining for us. Despite the person changing every week the outline never changed.
This is the plan. I was expected to order vitamins which cost about 50 dollars a month. I was expected to recruit 6 more people who would also order the vitamins and each of them were expected to recruit 6 more. This would create an organization that would eventually support me. It is also known as a pyramid scheme, although not to anyone from Amway.
In addition to buying vitamins, I was supposed to buy tapes of the weekly seminars to listen to in my spare time and use Amway products exclusively for everything in my house. I was not impressed with the plan and quickly ignored it.
The up-line became frustrated with me because I wasn’t growing my organization. I was ordering more products every week than anyone else, but I wasn’t following the plan. I considered myself to be successful at selling Amway products, but eventually the up-line asked me to meet them in a parking lot with what was left of my starter kit. They told me they were kicking me out and gave back my 120 dollars.