I certainly wasn't making much money in Amway. I found it easy to sponsor people, but I couldn't get them to order or purchase products.
I went to the telephone and called Mark. "I'm tired of this, Mark. This business is a bunch of baloney. The only real money I have seen during the past 13 months is the money spent on books and tapes of which I have received absolutely no percentage--not to mention that every rally or seminar we have attended has cost us money, too."
"It's okay, Phil," Mark assured me. "Take it easy. That's all part of the program. But remember you're not selling the product. You're selling the 'Dream!' Product sales will just happen. You'll see. That will be explained to you later."
This time Mark's answer was not satisfactory. I needed to know more. Now! Not later. Besides, at the rate I was going, these "dreams" would never be fulfilled. Up to this point, they were costing me a bundle.
"Mark," I protested, "if I continue to sponsor in the fashion you and Lester suggest, I will be broke before the year is out. I need to retail in order to cover my expenses."
"No, don't retail, Phil. That's terrible," Mark interjected. "Trust me, will you? Just keep buying the products that you use and instruct your downlines to do the same."
It was time to hang up anyway. These "long distance tax deductions," as they are called in the business, were breaking me.
I was now discovering something I should have known in the first place. I really couldn't make decent profits in this business continually sponsoring and wholesaling the way Lester and Mark had instructed. It just did not pencil out. But how could I have figured it out? From the very beginning they had me so hyped up and moving so fast that I never had a chance to think. From the moment I said, "Yes, I'll join," I was being urged to sponsor as many friends and family members as I possibly could. Training? Forget it! This was a key tactic I was told. "Don't give them time to think. Just have them trust their upline and do as they are instructed."
A frequently used slogan is, "The more you know, the less you'll grow." We were also advised that whatever one does when contacting another, "Be sure you don't tell them it's Amway! You wouldn't want them to be deprived of an opportunity would you?"
I couldn't help but remember what my precious wife had said to me as we were flying into San Juan. "Do you really think Jesus wants us in this business?
What she should have been saying was, "Boy, you sure blew it this time, Phil." I was beginning to realize I had blown it, and I thank God for such an understanding wife.
Both of us agreed that we had had our fill of these Babylonian high priests preaching the gospel of gold. We were tired of seeing these self-appointed prophets strut back and forth across the stages of America daring the living God and using Him for financial gain.
I remember how at one particular event a leading distributor explained to the audience how Amway got its start in the Bible. He said it began in the "Book of Exodus." Casually he began to tell his tale with his hands tucked into his trouser pockets.
"I'm going to tell you tonight a story I haven't told you before. This is a true story, and you can al I check me out when you get back to the Hyatt because you can find this in any Gideon Bible ...
"The Time God Drew Circles for Moses" The crowd burst into laugher.
"Now Moses was shepherd, herdsman and cattleman, and he was a farmer. He was the whole works. He was a forest ranger. If it got done, he had to take care of it cause it was his land; and if he didn't care about it, nobody else would.
"So Moses was on his mountain one afternoon, and he saw a bush burning, and he paused. If that fire jumped from the bush and spread to some of the other little scrub bushes on the mountain, he had a problem on his hands. He'd have to run for help, and they'd be digging ditches and fighting that blaze all across the mountaintop.
"So Moses had to watch to see if the fire would either spread or wait until it consumed the bush and went out. So he stood there for a few minutes with his hands on his hips ... but the fire didn't spread. The bush wasn't consumed. It just stuck there like glue. Moses continued to watch. He was fascinated a little at first, then disgusted. The fire stayed right there. Wouldn't go out. Wouldn't consume the bush. Moses was afraid to go on till it had done its dirty work and he could be sure; but it didn't spread either. He stood for the longest time. Finally Moses kind of tilted his head and said, 'GOD, is this AMWAAAY?'"
By now the crowd was roaring. The speaker continued, "And God said, 'Moses, if I could tell you what this is in one or two sentences, I would have told you in one or two sentences! Now I don't have time to talk about it at this moment, but it's going to take at least a couple of hours so get your shoes off. Come up here and relax. Sit down and I'll tell you what this burning bush is all about.' "Now this is true. God used the curiosity approach! I know there are some people who are against the curiosity approach, but even God used the curiosity approach. Now attracted to the burning bush, God launched into a dream session that would make Donald Chaney envious. God began to describe to Moses a land flowing with milk and honey and a place of freedom and a place where people could wake up in the morning without a chain around their necks in a land of plenty. 'And the great thing about it,' God said, as He was not describing some climbing-the-mountain success game where you get to the top and you're lonely and cynical and you've stepped all over peoples' backs to get there, but God said to Moses, 'YOU CAN TAKE YOUR PEOPLE WITH YOU! You can take your friends and your relatives and anybody who's tired of be in a slave, and they can go with you into this freedom!'
"And Moses shrugged and God began to describe the Promised Land, 'And here's how you'll get there, 'and a white board mysteriously appeared behind God. He took a magic marker, and He drew a great big circle on the board and said, 'Moses, this is youuuuu,' and drew a line with a circle at the top and said, 'I AM YOUR SPONSOR!'"
This is only one example of many similar situations. At practically every event we attended, there was someone who would figure out a way to bend, twist and malign the scriptures for financial gain. Usually it was in a "Steve Martin fashion," designed to keep the listeners in stitches. I had always tried to reassure my downlines not to be disturbed by this. We were building our own organization. Almost everyone I sponsored had a sincere and deep love for God and found the use of the scriptures in this fashion blasphemous.
I was hoping we could build our business outside of this arena, but this constant abuse of the scriptures could not be escaped. The business was absolutely full of it. Almost every tape that one would listen to seemed to have. Another religious or philosophical viewpoint. Every book seemed to shout, "You can do it. What do you need God for?"
Oh, don't get me wrong. God was in the picture. But He became "The Almighty Shelf God." Move Him from one shelf to another, using whatever shelf was most convenient. What did all of this twisted religion have to do with selling anyway?
When Vicky and I greeted Lester and Sherry at the Seattle, Washington, convention, we had more or less made up our minds to get out even if Lester was pushing hard for us to become Directs. The place was packed with thousands of screaming admirers. The band was still playing "Rocky," and I remember Lester's words after he got the crowd to calm down. He is considered by his followers to be the pinnacle of success. Each distributor in Lester's downline is taught that a key to success is to cling to his every word. Lester exhorted the audience.
"I know a lot of you here today are excited about this business. And many of you want to tell people about Jesus, but it's better to get someone in the business first and get some money in his back pocket. Then you can tell him about Jesus."
Statements like these led me to question whether or not God had now become something insignificant. He seemingly had been coolly deported and ostracized for a box of soap! I thought, "Why even bring up God unless He takes top billing?"
It was time for us to leave. We had made up our minds. No obsession for money or power would come between us and our faith in God. Lester had always insisted, "The lack of money is the root of all evil." But we knew this could not be true for the Bible itself says, "The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil." [1 Timothy 6:10, NIV]
In traveling around the United States on my schedule of speaking engagements for the People's Temple book, I had the privilege of meeting many wonderful people. Although many of them had been blessed financially, God, not money, came first in their lives. We knew God had to be first in our lives, too. As we walked out into the night's rain from that rally in Seattle, we could hear the crowd inside chanting and clapping together in unison, "We are family! Brothers, sisters, Amway, and me. We are family! Stand up everybody and sing!"
Deep inside I felt that we had to getaway from there. We did not want to bow down before this modern day Baal. This business could not become a god to us. These people were not our family. The overt demonstrations of loyal adoration we had just witnessed, as far as we were concerned, were not directed to God.
"...Amway's claims on the amount of money distributors are likely to earn had the capacity to deceive potential distributors."
-- FTC News File, May 23, 1979
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