Question:
I was approached by a company called Network 21 to become a business partner and sell Amway products. I felt extremely uncomfortable during the presentation and got a nasty reply when I rejected the offer. What is the deal with this company?

Answer:
Amway has been around for more than 50 years, and in this time it appears that the nature of the business has changed from selling household products to selling motivational books and tapes on how to make it in network marketing!

Amway responds: This is not correct. Distributors only earn profit on the retail sales of products they purchase at distributor cost. They also earn bonuses based on these sales and the sales of those they sponsor and train. Distributor leaders are successful leaders and managers of large businesses.

It's their job to train and motivate their sales force, however Amway rules stipulate that participation must be voluntary and all business materials should be covered by a reasonable buy-back policy. Books, tapes and meetings can be effective training and motivation tools for encouraging a large sales force to sell products and build business.

There are thousands of people out there valiantly trying to recruit underlings to market their products. From what I can gather, the product is not that important; instead it's how many people you get in your 'down line' so you can earn a commission off their sales.

Amway responds: This statement is devoid of truth. Amway offers a business opportunity that is both easy to enter and easy to leave. With a low up-front investment in a business kit and no minimum inventory requirements, Amway provides maximum flexibility to those who wish to simply try this business out or do it for a limited time. Income is derived from one’s own sale of products to others and also from sales of other distributors in your business group.

No money is earned until a product is sold. Amway’s leading brands include Nutrilite and Artistry. Nutrilite is the world's leading brand of vitamins, minerals and dietary supplements (based on 2004 sales) and it is the only global vitamin and mineral brand to grow, harvest and process plants on Amway’s own certified organic farms.

Its beauty brand, Artistry has become a global leader in prestige beauty and has sets standards in skin science and research. It is the only direct-sell brand classified in the prestige category with over $1-billion in annual sales. These brands could not reach international sales volumes if the claim of "the product is not important" was correct.

To be honest, I find my attention drifting every time I listen to an explanation of how the up lines, down lines and sidelines work. And I further confess to not really getting it. What I do know, however, is that if you have a network marketer in your social circle they can clear a room quicker than a nervous skunk.

Putting off your friends

Can you make money out of doing this? Absolutely. Is it easy money? Absolutely not. Firstly, when you finally run out of family and friends to sell the product to, it becomes difficult to find new clients that are too polite to tell you to get lost. This is why you need to earn off the people in your down line (or is it up-line). But if they are not also hard-core salespeople it all becomes very hard work.

If you are going the get-rich-quick from network marketing, it is by no means a part-time dabble. You have to be a total zealot, and sell, sell, sell in order to make money from it. So if you have the drive of a workaholic, the skin of an elephant and the faith of the converted you should do reasonably well.

Amway responds: Multi-level marketing (MLM) is not a get rich quick scheme, but a successful way to managing your own business. With MLM one benefits from your personal product purchases as well as from the sales of persons sponsored into the business and it facilitates personal growth through building an organisation of people who sell products.

However if you are meek, faint-hearted and you really like your friends, don’t give up your day job. You were probably dealing with one of the more 'eager' members of the team. There is even a website which serves as a forum for people who tried and failed to make a success of multi-level marketing. It's called mlmsurvivor.com — and it makes for interesting reading.