DeVos on Donahue

DONAHUE:

What did you do?

DAVE:

A terrible experience, you'd have to have a long time -

DONAHUE:

What's the point?

DAVE:

The point is we got in the Amway business because we were told not only by distributors, but about a lack of enforcement of the code of ethics by Mr. DeVos and Mr. Van Andel. We were told things and we believed them. When we got to the direct level the money wasn't there that we were told was there and they already proved a lot of things like diamond direct distributors, like "how much did you make on books and tapes and rallies last year?" so fifty percent of the income from diamond direct distributor's nowadays is probably made from books and tapes and rallies."

DONAHUE:

Let's let the woman in here. Sherri, go right ahead.

SHERRI:

I'm a great grandmother, and I have been in Amway for twenty-three years, and I think it's wonderful - and it's just great for women. Let me tell you why: Because my husband and I started it beFORE they had books and tapes (laughter), and, uh, after uh, and he uh, died after nine years of building the business; they didn't, uh, check to see if I was, eh, happened to be qualified to carry on the business, they gave the business to me, paid my husband's salary, continued to for the last fourteen years. The business is growing, and us I think it's wonderful because it keeps more mothers in the home then, uh, any other way. We wanted -

(audience lets out a collective groan)

SHERRI (Cont'd):

OH, because when I get on the [indecipherable] and I try, I try to contain myself, but this gentleman said he is a million strong, and I want you to know that for that million there are three million bodies out there like my husband and myself and relatives, and we have to find each other and we have to band together and we have to starting talking to our communities...

[indecipherable interplay of voices - probably the mike being shifted from Sherri to Martha]

MARTHA:

My name is Martha Elles Baggs, I am a PhD in the Chicago area, and I am quite sensitive to everything the young people are saying over there, but on the other hand let me say in the first five months in the business I became a direct distributor four years ago. And I am not a stupid person; I make some money, and that is why after four years I am still in the business. And I would like to know where the three thou - three million statistics came from; have you done some kind of study? Thank you.

DONAHUE:

The suggestion is that, after the emotion of the rally, people go home and there is evidence to suggest that many of the, many of the preachers or the people who sell the Amway idea, include in that sales pitch information which isn't true, that you can work two or three hours a week, six hours a week and wind up with a thousand dollar a month income. That's one. But second that the emotion and the vision become so much a part of the personality of the people who hook onto the Amway idea that they are literally driving their friends nuts...it's almost like having a born again person -

MARTHA:

I don't know where you're getting these terms.

DONAHUE:

That's not true. I'm -

MARTHA:

No, no; this is a business we're talking about. We're all independent business entrepreneurs.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 1:

That's right.

MARTHA:

There is a lot of support from the Amway corporation.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 1:

Amway is [blotted out]distributors are often emotionally bound. You are constantly torn between highs and lows. You go to these rallies and they build you so high, and when you get in the car and van and are going home and everyone's trying to be high and you set your mind inside of you "WHAT IF YOU GO HOME AND FAIL?" and when you go home and knock on that door -

MARTHA:

And do nothing.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 1:

IT'S SLAMMED IN YOUR FACE!

MARTHA:

You musn't have negative attitudes.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 1:

So you're running around...

MARTHA:

Look at you. You don't do that...

[things get blurry here]

DONAHUE:

Let's let the President in on this.

(DeVos Laughs)

DONAHUE:

Let's let the President in this. Go ahead, sir.

DEVOS:

Let's just - let's just settle a few points submitted that, we can maybe have to look around some of that down to knowledge, you know. Out of a million people you've got certain people, some of whom are in Amway, who do INDEED do some of the things they accuse us of. Some of the things you want to toughen up on in the first place, I hear that every day about the police departments in this country, that they're not tough enough, that's the national debate. We are a voluntary organization. Not one distributor has to associate with Amway, and if they choose to stay in Amway that's their privilege. Now there - there is an element that has crept into Amway as it has into society, and we're taking a variety of steps to hopefully get rid of that. Now, if you get hatred going and then understandably you got a problem.

DONAHUE:

We are -

DEVOS:

Now the rest of the people in Amway, on the other hand, operate it, they demand (settlement), they put some of their money to work on social values - just [something missing here] I have been in business longer than you have, my dear, and I appreciate your emotion but I've stayed this business worked very hard, and we have worked at it, chipped at and built a very large business. (fade out)

DONAHUE:

(fading in) So where are we at?

DAVE:

Dave: Well, when Mr. Devos talks about there's no profit on tapes and rallies - My name is Dave Rhona and I'm from Atlanta Georgia. We were Pearl Direct distributors in Amway -

DONAHUE:

What does that mean, Pearl?

DAVE:

Pearl is a level of achievement. We were considered very prominent (in our group) for a couple of years. We averaged over 15,000 month personal group volume, had a free trip on the Amway yacht, the Enterprise. We left Amway. I still have a lot of respect for Amway, I have a lot of respect for Bernice Hanson who just spoke and Rich DeVos. One of the reasons why we left is because we saw there's a lot of deception in what's being made in the Amway marketing plan and because there's a lot of profit being made in tapes and rallies. Tapes at Amway will sell for a dollar ninety-five throughout the organization, although the diamond directs are selling for three, three - three fifty; and they have a built-in type of thing of where there's a tape of the week program. People are intimidated to buy the tape-of-the-week program or their upline will not work for them. (Then there) are weekend seminars that they charge four hundred dollars, three to four hundred dollars for three days and two nights. Ah, it might only cost the promoter or organizer of that maybe, two or three, ah, a hundred fifty-two hundred dollars for that. Now -

DEVOS:

Now I have a point to take -

DONAHUE:

One more, if you would.

DAVE:

You see. So, there is a lot of money being made on these outside activities and tapes and rallies. Rich himself has talked, ah, to direct distributors in saying he does not like this, but then these diamonds and so forth come back in front of rallies and say "We have made this home or this car and so forth." Not all diamonds are this way, but a lot of them are; "And it comes from the Amway business. You can do it also from Amway" when really it's coming from tapes and rallies.

BETTY:

I disagree with that. I'm Betty (last name blurred), and we're Double Diamonds, and WE have never had a tape program, and we have never ever forced anyone to buy tapes.

DAVE:

You may not have, and Bernice, and she's a very square person, but a lot of people have.

DONAHUE:

What is a Double Diamond?

BETTY:

A Double Diamond is one who sponsors twelve Directs. And we have lived in the same home that we have lived in - in the same area for the last sixteen years...

DEVOS?:

There's absolutely no confusion in the subject here.

DONAHUE:

What? It means that she has done very well.

(crowd laughs)

DONAHUE:

Would you mind sharing with us, you'll pardon our checkbook mentality here, but what kind of dollars are we talking about for you? What have you -

BETTY:

Well, I'll tell you: we worked - my husband and I worked in the factory, and we quit two years after we started the business fourteen years ago, and it's been much much more than we made there.

DONAHUE:

But what do you bring home on net, you and your husband?

BETTY:

Well, I...

DONAHUE:

This is America, and you don't have to answer that.

BETTY:

I would not want to answer that.

DONAHUE:

All right.

BETTY:

But I know it's not made on tapes and rallies; it's made on the Amway business.

(undecipherable voice)

DONAHUE:

We are in Chicago discussing the Amway Controversy, and we hope you'll join us.

[break]

RABID SPEAKER:

Some of you - right here in this meeting - you're gonna leave this weekend and for the first time in your life you're gonna say in real life: I'VE GOT WINGS! I CAN FLY! I'M A WINNER! I'M GONNA DO IT BECAUSE I HAVE FREEDOM; IN AMERICA!

(Rocky theme, loud.)

RABID SPEAKER:

I BELIEVE YOU ARE EAGLES! I BELIEVE YOU CAN FLY! I BELIEVE THAT IN AMERICA YOU CAN BECOME ANYTHING YOU WANT TO BECOME.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 2:

...an example: The younger son said to me one day, was trying to get me to talk his father and myself into going into the Amway business, and I said "I am very - I sell life insurance, I make a lot of money, and I'm very proud of what I do and happy. Your father is a district court judge. WHY do we need to change?" And he said "Is that all the ambition my father has, to be a district court judge?" He was TAUGHT this in Amway, to not have any respect for anything...

DEVOS:

No, he was not taught this in Amway, my dear.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 2:

He darn sure was, for he gets no other information.

DEVOS:

No, you're wrong, dear.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 2:

Listen, it's on you tape, sir.

DEVOS:

No it is not.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 3:

I'm just curious, I've seen your beautiful yacht down in St. Thomas, and if you can tell me how many bottles of cleaner to sell so I can get a week on it -

(De Vos Laughs, Audience cheers)

DONAHUE:

Let me, ah, let me - let me just show 'em this tape: Here are just some of the products that Amway distributes through its more than one million distributors around the country. These are personal, ah -

DEVOS:

Personal Care?

DONAHUE:

Personal care products as we might say generally. It's ah, this is the business that started, eh, Mr. De Vos and a partner started in Nineteen -

DEVOS:

Fifty-nine.

DONAHUE:

Fifty-nine?

DONAHUE:

Started in our home.

DONAHUE:

You have a biodegradable cleaning product?

DEVOS:

An all-purpose detergent.

DONAHUE:

And - no kidding - they're doing more than a billion dollars a year now, gross, through its million distributors. We say again, that these products are not available in any store, they are sold to you by the people who attend the rallies and become, very often, very enthusiastic about the Amway approach to retailing and self-development as they would say. The problem appears to be the suggestion, and with some evidence to support, the fact that an awful lot of money is made, not so much in the sale of products, as in the sale of distributorships AND tapes AND they want to know why they have to -

DEVOS:

Let me see if I can correct you on one or two little things, okay? One of which is NOT the sale of the distributorships. The criticism is in the sale of support materials.

DONAHUE:

Okay.

DEVOS:

But let me say that I accept that. That's one of the problems that we've encountered, and they're correct in that; we've got some people in this business who went Bananas. And they have overpromoted that-

DONAHUE:

But there's a lot of evidence to suggest that this is more than just an isolated problem. That you've got people up there in front of often desperately financially strapped people giving them a hope and a dream that has no chance, and you throw in Rocky, and a Big Rally, and a Preacher, and you got a lot of people hooking on to a very, very (exciting?) bandwagon that's going nowhere.

(cheers from audience)

DEVOS:

Well. . .let's go with the opposite side, and that is: yeah there are some people who get a little overexcited about this business, but a lot of those people have had benefits from this business that make them do that. Now, forgetting those that get overexcited-

DAVE:

Mr. DeVos, Mr. DeVos-

DEVOS:

Then there's a whole lot of people in this business who, when we have a big rally, say "What should we do, run around and lie to these people and say -

DAVE:

How many reprimands do you give to those who do?

DEVOS:

There's no hope? That there's no opportunity in life? You're never gonna get ahead? You're committed to debt?

DONAHUE:

You're proud of your enthusiasm.

DEVOS:

I'm proud, I'm proud of achievement.

DONAHUE:

Very briefly. Briefly.

DAVE:

How many reprimands have been made to these people, that, that you allow these people such as Mr. Yager and the big, Crown directs in the business, how many reprimands have been made to these people?

AUDIENCE MEMBER 3:

There's a large difference between the individuals in the business and the corporation itself, and the way it is. The Amway Business and Marketing Plan-

DAVE:

They're willing to accept the money many of these distributors give and they're not willing to take the responsibility of reprimanding distributors?

AUDIENCE MEMBER 3:

Yeah, that's a fact.

DAVE:

You wanna take the money but you don't want to take the responsibility for what your distributors are doing?

AUDIENCE MEMBER 3:

It's better to go through life with hope than without.

DEVOS:

It's easier, you know, on the outside.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 2:

There's a million Amway distributors, sixty percent of which are inactive that means six hundred thousand inactive distributors -

DONAHUE:

And we'll be back in just a moment.

[break music]

AUDIENCE MEMBER 4:

We want to know about this suit in Wisconsin. We want to know what that suit was about and why it was settled out of court and we want to know - we don't know anything about that, and we want to know?

DONAHUE:

You have much time?

AUDIENCE MEMBER 4:

No, but we wanna know.

DEVOS:

You want to know about Wisconsin?

DONAHUE:

Yeah.

DONAHUE:

He says I don't wan - He says I don't wanna talk about Wisconsin; I'm happy to talk about Wisconsin, because it verifies some of the things they were talking about in that in Wisconsin the Attorney General said that we were overclaiming. When we got all through arguing about it we got down and said "Yeah, there are some people in this business who are indeed overclaimers. And so we wrote up an agreement under which terms we would make our statement and we settled it. And that's fine, we have no problem with that. They're arguing always is that a whole lot of people are promised a lot. You know, I look at these people, they're not dumb people. You know, they're intelligent people. But they act like they're the pawns of anybody who comes along. These are pretty intelligent folks. I presume they make rational judgments. They make judgments to buy or not his or that product -

DAVE:

Mr. Devos -

DEVOS:

- or do this or that thing. So that's a part of life.

DAVE:

You still haven't answered my question, Mr. DeVos.

MARTHA:

And I would like to answer what Mr. DeVos said in that when I first saw this opportunity four years ago my mother was the first who invited me out, and I can really sympathize with this woman who has had a rift in her family because I know the benefit that I've gained from working with my mother in this business. But I'd like to say this: people from all backgrounds get into the business, and many of us here can sympathise with what you feel there because we've been through much of what you are going through now.

DONAHUE:

Like what?

DAVE:

Mr. DeVos?

DONAHUE:

What's true? What does that mean? What have you been through?

MARTHA:

In other words, you'll, you'll-you'll confront negative people who will not want to get involved in Amway, and it takes a lot out, it takes the wind out of your sails.

DONAHUE:

Yeah?

MARTHA:

And the next thing you gotta decide is do you wanna quit or do you stick with it. We decided-

DAVE:

Mr. Devos, you still haven't answered my question.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 5:

Okay, the one guy from Wisconsin: Can you tell me why you let a product, um, break up a marriage, and why you, uh, spend seven thousand dollars-I'm not for or against Amway, okay, because I don't know much about it.

DAVE:

It's not the product that causes the problem. My wife and I based our decision to go as far as we did in Amway by what we were told by distributors. When we achieved the levels in the business that they told us we'd be making money at we weren't making money at because of the plowing of profits into books and tapes and rallies.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 5:

Why did you-why did you let yourself lose that much money before you did anything.

DAVE:

(speaking over DeVos) My wife and I were-I believe my wife and I were brainwashed. You don't believe in brainwashing, they have a million Amway distributors, sixty percent are inactive. That's six hundred thousand inactive Amway distributors that can't speak for themselves.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 5:

I just want to know, I just want to know why. I'm not for or against because I don't know too much about the product, but I want to know why (things get indecipherable)

DONAHUE:

Mr. DeVos?

DEVOS:

(laughs) There's a very simple thing. I don't disagree with you. You say "Answer my Question," I've been trying to answer your question. I agree with you that we have some people who overclaim. We got some people who've been taking people with books and tapes.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 6:

Well then can you tell me why-

DEVOS:

I'd be happy to. Let me tell you what we're doing about it.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 6:

Automobile-

DEVOS:

A Lot of things.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 6:

Automobile dealers; They have independent dealerships, but yet they are responsible for their product and they are responsible for what parts and service and what a salesperson tells a person; and-

DEVOS:

Uh, let me, first of all-

AUDIENCE MEMBER 6:

-and if you don't believe it, you go to Detroit with a complaint and it will come back.

DEVOS:

(The two opportunities) don't equate. In an automobile dealership an individual person has paid a million dollars and has a different agreement.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 6:

...can go out into the field and see about this stuff that is being deceptive. What controls-can't you all not afford computers or something to keep up with this stuff?

DONAHUE:

(over mild applause)Is the caller there? Is the caller there? Go ahead. Let the caller in. Hello.

CALLER 1:

Yes, I was approached two weeks ago by a person soliciting me to join a telemarketing organization. I asked them "Is this Amway?" and they said "No, this is the American Diamond Guild." Upon attending the meeting, it was Amway. I would not have attended it if I had known it was Amway. Why was I deceived?

DEVOS:

Because they violated every rule and every principle that we talk about.

CALLER 1:

But (words overshadowed by applause and anarchy) by Amway and-

AUDIENCE MEMBER 6:

But that's just it. I've been approached by Amway too, but they keep it a secret. They want you to come and "make money, make money," then you get there, you sit down for an hour of talking and then they say "Oh, this is Amway."

[lots of stuff drowning each other out]

AUDIENCE MEMBER 7:

On the one hand, people will state that the Amway people are all robots, then they complain because they're not. You know, I don't understand.

DONAHUE:

Yes, Ma'am.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 8:

The state of Wisconsin, now these distributors that were prosecuted-they had them on tape deceived people. They had them on tape. Yet Amway took their side. They didn't reprimand these distributors for what they were doing, they supported them and back them up. The code of ethics says "You cannot deceive people and not tell them it's Amway."

DONAHUE:

Well, I think that De Vos has already taken-accepted some responsibility for what he understands is the crude behavior-

AUDIENCE MEMBER 8:

He has taken no guilt.

DEVOS:

What she says is in error, because we have indeed reprimanded the, we have monitored them, we have, in fact, had other disciplinary procedures with them, so just so you get the facts straight.

DONAHUE:

Yeah, go ahead.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 9:

I guess I don't understand the person that said-

DEVOS:

...firing people every day. You know, you have a philosophy that says "if somebody does something wrong, CAN THEM!" You know, and that is part of what is the fear that runs across this country, "As soon as you don't do it my way, we're going to throw you in jail." You know, our rule is to win and correct people, not to throw them in jail.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 9:

I don't know why these people get into these things that they can't seem to get out of. It would seem to me that they're in a business like anything else, you terminate the business, cut your losses and go about your-go on your way.

MARTHA:

You are so right.

(applause from audience)

AUDIENCE MEMBER 10:

You're programmed to thinking that type of-you know, when you're in that situation, that's all that they want you to do. You go to rallies, and they build you up. You go home, and you impose yourself upon your friends and relatives. (low response) Right. Sell anything, we borrowed money-

DEVOS:

I'd like to have you find that in some Amway literature and Amway tapes.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 10:

We borrowed money. Let me show you this. This is what we made in 1982: two hundred and twenty-seven dollars and ninety-four cents after thousand and thousands of dollars we put into Amway and not-

DEVOS:

No, No, NO, You did not put it into Amway. You put it into other things that you thought were gonna make you rich without working. You did not put it into Amway. (laughs)

AUDIENCE MEMBER 10:

Mr. De Vos, I'm doing just fine working at my job and I'm making money and I'm bringing it in.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 11:

I can't understand why you kept pouring money into this when it wasn't getting you anything. (De Vos laughs) Did they make you put money in there? (applause) I don't understand. What you want Amway to do, exactly? One by one, what do you want it to do? I don't understand.

DONAHUE:

Just take the mike, you-you.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 12:

When you get under their spell, just like Jonestown.

(massive audience response of disbelief)

AUDIENCE MEMBER 12:

When you get under that spell, it is hard to get loose. You have to have a very strong (will) to break loose.

DEVOS:

Just a minute. I remember George Romney getting knocked out as a presidential candidate for admitting he was brainwashed.

DONAHUE:

Is the caller there please?

CALLER 2:

Yes I am. You've heard from people that have lost money and heard from people that have made money. Well, my husband and I are in Amway, we've been in Amway for about four years, and we're right in the middle. Now we've made a little money, but we've also invested a lot of money too. But, you know, eh-our-Brian Hays is our Diamond, and he's always told us that "Your lord comes first, your family comes second and your business comes third," and we're supposed to mark off on our calendar when we want-when our son has a basketball game. Don't plan an Amway meeting then, spend it with your family. Build your family together. And Amway has done that for us. Now we've had some hard times-

AUDIENCE MEMBER 12:

You could say "no." We were asked to join Amway two weeks ago, we said "no."

CALLER 2:

Right. We said "no" the first time we were approached too, and then we were asked to come to another meeting six months later and we joined.

DONAHUE:

Hang on just one second.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 13:

We were a member of Amway for about a year, and we jumped out of it, and so we didn't lose any money, but the thing that really got to us was our Diamond Direct used to send us at Christmas and at Holidays his check stub of how much he had made, and just his, his little profits and just his bonus checks and things, and that really used to irk us.

DONAHUE:

Why wouldn't that be called promotion and motivation?

AUDIENCE MEMBER 13:

Yeah, sure, I can see. He's saying "Okay, you're making this much money. I'm making this much money, if you work hard you can do it too. But you're losing friends. We've had people literally hang up the phone on us and stay away from us.

MARTHA:

I'd like to make one comment on the money issue.

DEVOS:

You're not supposed to be losing friends, you're supposed to be making friends.

DONAHUE:

I've got to break, I promise I'll get to you. I'm sorry. We'll be back in just a moment.

(DeVos breaks into laughter as show goes into break.)

[break, then an abbreviated version of the Rabid Speaker's Speech/ Rocky Theme combo]

DONAHUE:

You have a comment?

AUDIENCE MEMBER 14:

It seems that those two groups are monopolizing this whole show. Let them go somewhere else and have their arguments. (De Vos laughs) Let us have something to say, now, please.

DONAHUE:

What would you like to say.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 14:

I've said what I have to say. (audience laughs) Let the rest of the people-

DONAHUE:

You're upset that I haven't let the regular audience (speak their mind?)

AUDIENCE MEMBER 14:

Right, right.

DONAHUE:

And I should-

AUDIENCE MEMBER 14:

Think of why most of the audience came here, I believe.

DONAHUE:

To get on the TV at six?

(general laughter)

AUDIENCE MEMBER 15:

Okay, if...if your friends are your friends, you're pressing your products too much, that's why they're running away from you. I would run away from you.

DEVOS:

My friends don't run away from me, and they use my products. I give them a choice, they buy it or don't. You see, you got people who use extreme pressure and load it on, and they jeopardize their friendship. There's a million other Amway people who don't use those tactics, and they all do it correctly.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 15:

You're not really selling the products. They always say "The products sell themselves." What you're selling is the company. It's like a pyramid thing, it's you're on top and you wanna stay there.

DEVOS:

It's not like a pyramid company.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 16:

Mr. De Vos, I'd like to comment about what you commented earlier, that he was hopeless? You consider all your distributors that don't make it hopeless? Is that your responsibility to his failure?

DEVOS:

No, but he said, he said he was helpless before us and what I asked him was that he was hopeless. That's one reason they stay in.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 17:

That's one of the reasons that people stay in as long as they do and lose money.

DEVOS:

I consider most people - the real difference is, you see, that ha-

[an interruption in the recording]

AUDIENCE MEMBER 18:

...make money, but this thing is, there's people here that know that that this facade of "well, you can have a tax shelter or whatever" and then you get there and find out it's Amway, and you know that that's happened and what are you doing about it?

DEVOS:

You know what, I agree with you.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 18:

And you said that you were gonna tell us what you're doing about it, and you keep getting interrupted so I wish these people would like be quiet so we could hear what you're doing about it.

DEVOS:

I would love to tell you.

(healthy applause)

DEVOS:

We had a variety of people who offered it as a tax shelter, others talk like you can get rich quick without working, (low-level muttering) - Just be quiet, just like she said. (audience laughter and applause) she said, she said...you know, I know those things go on. Now what am I doing? Number one, I have a complete group withinside the company who police that as a new policing organization. I didn't have that before. We built this business on the idea of helping people get ahead and suddenly I got to run a police department. Well, you know that's not my instinct, ours is a business of opportunity. So we are FORCED by certain elements in our business - and that's why what they say has some validity - of people who are out of control. So we are, we are (low-level voice) like our legal system - pardon me?

AUDIENCE MEMBER 18:

Businesses have control, they need-

DEVOS:

Ah, well, I'm a little innocent boy and I grew up selling-

(audience reacts in unison with disbelief)

DEVOS:

Well, I'm a little innocent man. But I grew up in this business like you did with fifty bucks; or like most people; so I struggled and we built a business. One day you wake up and suddenly you realize you don't just have a business, you've got to run a policing organization. So, one day you making it Ð we don't all discover things the day we're born, we learn them in the process, and so we have a complete new system in place today with our legalty people, with our enforcement organization, working with attorneys generals throughout the United States, to monitor the actions of all our people. So, they're right. "Why don't we do something?" The answer is, we are.

DONAHUE:

We'll be back in just a moment.

[break]

DONAHUE:

Let me show the, the headquarters. This is something. Say what you want about Amway, they have, uh, really hit it in terms of the numbers. You're talking one point five billion dollars sales annually. This is the headquarters in Ada, Michigan; a magnificent sprawling complex at which I assume most of the products which Amway distributors sell are developed and packaged for, uh, shipment throughout the world.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 19:

I, uh, I joined Amway, and after they told me I could join I had to buy a kit. First, it was twenty-five dollars the first time I went to one of these meetings, then it was forty-six dollars, now they're talking eighty dollars. Why do you have to buy a kit when you join?

DEVOS:

A very simple reason why you buy a kit: We used to charge people a dollar to join Amway, but what we found out is they got into the business and they didn't know what we were in, and we decided if they're going to join the business they ought to know what the products are and they ought to have the literature and information about what they're going to represent;

DONAHUE:

Briefly, sir.

DEVOS:

And if they don't want to do that they shouldn't join.

DONAHUE:

Sir?

AUDIENCE MEMBER 20:

We've been in the business for fourteen years, and we've never-we didn't get it-I think that people who get into the business that invest money to get rich lose. But we got into the business fourteen years ago because we lived in a home and I worked for a company for fifteen years and all of a sudden I'm discriminated against because I don't have a high school-a good, us, a good high school education. And we got involved in Amway not to get rich but just to fin-just to finish furnishing a home that we lived in four years, and put a muffler on the car. And consequently I got involved in it, and I understood it: The principles and the idea that you get out of it what you put in it.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 21:

But yet at a rally, you'll tell- Eighty percent of people are encouraged to go to rallies. They also tell youÉ

AUDIENCE MEMBER 20:

I've never encouraged people to go to a rally, I have never been recruited to go to rallies, I've never had to buy tapes.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 21:

Eighty percent of people are encouraged to go to rallies. They also tell you...

DEVOS:

We've got a wonderful group here,-

AUDIENCE MEMBER 21:

...at rallies that any of your friends...

DONAHUE:

(to DeVos) Just let the woman make her point.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 21:

...sitting at home are losers. Anybody that can't get into the Amway business are losers.

DEVOS:

NO!

AUDIENCE MEMBER 21:

They don't have the ambition to get off of their hinders and do something. My husband and I were almost divorced!

(three voices going on at one time, at first indecipherable)

AUDIENCE MEMBER 20:

You only need enough to furnish your dining room.

DEVOS:

...repeat on this program falsehoods that this company does not represent.

DONAHUE:

(to DeVos) All right, all right.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 21:

I was six months pregnant, and I was counseled by my upline to leave, to forget my husband because he was a loser.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 22:

What is the income of a successful distributor, what's the average distributor.

DEVOS:

(aside, probably to Donahue) That's the truth.

DONAHUE:

What is the average income of a successful distributor, the lady-

DEVOS:

Let me talk about success, because I don't know what success is.

[another flood of unified derision from the audience]

DEVOS:

I got people who make a half a million dollars, and I got people who make ten dollars.

DONAHUE:

What's the average?

DEVOS:

something that fits here

DONAHUE:

Is the Caller there?

CALLER 3:

Yes, the caller is here.

DONAHUE:

Go Ahead.

CALLER 3:

I'd like to say that I think that Amway is a destructive company and that it feeds off the people's dreams and hopes and wants. I watched a very good friend of mine and her family go completely down the tubes because of Amway. I watched her abuse her children because she was too busy trying to make an extra-

DONAHUE:

Well, there are people in the audience that want you to know that they feel that anybody who behaves that way cannot blame a company, there had to be a problem going in.

[enthusiastic applause]

CALLER 3:

I can blame the company not only for that, I can also blame-

AUDIENCE MEMBER 23:

I'm sorry, I realize that you people were, you know, hurt and burned, and I realize that you are successful. I was approached several years ago. I joined. I've gone to rallies, I jump up, I say "I'm excited," the whole thing. But the choice was mine. I did not Ð I did not continue to do it. Because I found that I could not ask my friends to buy a product that cost more than they could buy elsewhere on sale price so logically my friends prefer sale items. But I disagree with you, honey. I am not a loser. I definitely not a loser I consider myself a winner.

DEVOS:

I agree with you.

DONAHUE:

(over applause) She agrees with you. She's upset with the pitch that brings that judgment.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 24:

They didn't tell me that I was going to be a loser. I met Brian Hays. People that were in the same first meeting with me, have gone on in the business and are very successful here in Chicago. I admire them for it and they have a choice-

AUDIENCE MEMBER 25:

I just - I just want to make a point in conjunction with that lady's point. You see, we can't blame a group or an institution because some people failed or some people got hurt by a few rotten apples in the bunch.

DONAHUE:

All right, is the caller there please?

CALLER 4:

Yes, I am.

DONAHUE:

Please, briefly.

CALLER 4:

I was ten years in Corporate America. Every weekly management meeting I went to they told me "Work Hard and You Will Succeed." And every business in America tells its new people to say "I was recruited right out of college by a college recruiter." And I feel that Amway is taking the heat unjustly because they come out publicly with their realities and they say "Work Hard and You Will Succeed."

DONAHUE:

And you say "That's what they say in IBM?"

CALLER 4:

That's what they say in EVERY corporation.

DONAHUE:

Okay, hang on.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 26:

This has really been an exciting program; it's an exhausting one, there's so much emotion. (DeVos laughs) Okay, I just want to know: We have been approached by many people, and once you have all your friends and relatives into Shaklee or Amway-

DEVOS:

Careful, careful, careful.

(a smattering of laughter)

AUDIENCE MEMBER 26:

Where do you go for new people?

DEVOS:

You go the same place we always went: you go out and get some customers from the people you contact after that. I've been doing that for thirty-three years, and it's not really a problem

AUDIENCE MEMBER 27:

I've been very satisfied with the product quality of the items I've purchased. I'm wondering about the rest of the people in the audience.

[applause; there seems to be a hidden break here]

AUDIENCE MEMBER 28:

Phil, I'm wonder how many of these people that sell the Amway products use it themselves.

DEVOS:

Oh wow. I hope they do (laughs).

MARTHA:

That's the first thing we do. Yoo-hoo, that's the first thing we do. I have two closing comments if you please. Number one: You know, I'm the type of person who goes to the top. I've been in the business for four years, and whenever I had a question I was surprised at the people who would listen to me at Amway. You pick up the phone and you say "Give me the top co-ordinator."

DONAHUE:

Okay, and they give him to you?

MARTHA:

And they do, yes. Secondly, I'd like to say I got into this business to make some money and found some other serendipities. The loving and caring and sharing that comes from the Amway people is truly (incredible).

DONAHUE:

Is the caller there?

CALLER 5:

Yes, I am.

DONAHUE:

Okay, you don't have much time.

CALLER 5:

Okay, you can knock Amway all you want to but Amway fed my kids for six months while my husband was on strike, and we didn't sponsor one dealer. We just sold Good Products.

DEVOS:

Amway offers a chance.

DONAHUE:

And we'll be back in just a minute.

[break]

DONAHUE:

Rich DeVos is the President of Amway, Ada, Michigan. That's an address simple enough: Amway; Ada, Michigan. Caller, you there?

CALLER 6:

Yes I am. We were approached by an Amway distributor in Philadelphia. She said that she recognized the fact that we were Jews and wanted to know if we could be comfortable living a Christian way of life within the Amway Corporation.

DONAHUE:

Well, Mr. DeVos wants you to know that he can't monitor all your distributors. I assume that's-

DEVOS:

Well, we monitor a lot of the, as much as we can but we do not and never have represented it for one group or another.

CALLER 6:

(something very crunched - maybe by the operator)

AUDIENCE MEMBER 29:

Very simply, I'd like to know why your people do not tell who they're with when they call.

DEVOS:

You know, sometimes that's because they have had...

EXIT ANNOUNCER:

(drowning out DeVos) Services provided and promotional fees paid by the following: