It was back in April of 1971 when a friend of mine walked into the Kroger store where I worked as a cashier. In excited tones she exclaimed to me how Bill Britt (then City Manager of Carrboro, N.C.) had just made $60,000 selling something called "Amway" products. I did not know Bill Britt personally, but had heard of him. Of course I was thrilled for his sake, but I did not know how in the world this had anything to do with me.
A few weeks later she told me what a great thing this Amway was, and that I should attempt to sell it myself. I had no desire to get involved with peddling soap door to door, but I was interested in looking at any proposal which could improve my financial situation. She let me borrow her "Career Manual" which I Iooked over that night. Frankly, I wasn't impressed. Seemed like too much work for me. Gave it back to her, and thanked her for her time.
Let me say at that time I was a pretty good prospect for the Amway pitch. I was trapped in a dead-end job with no future. Long hours, low pay, dull monotonous work.
Next month the husband of a co-worker told me about a terrific money management program. Every time he went through the checkout line he dropped a few bits and pieces. Didn't know it at the time, but I was being set up. In the meantime I was hearing all kinds of things about Amway, and how people from all walks of life were getting rich at it. He drove me to an "opportunity meeting " at Bill Burch's (a Pearl Direct who was sponsored by Bill Britt) house where I saw the plan for the first time.
Bill Burch drew the circles then demonstrated some of the products. Theoretically the plan would work, but it would depend on all of those people going out and selling $100 worth of products. He then showed me his scrapbook. It was filled with photocopies of checks from Bill Britt, and later from Amway itself. That got my attention. Even if he only got to keep half of what he received, it was still much more than I was making as a cashier at Kroger. It was more money than my father had ever made as an advertising executive!
I tried to show it to several people, all of whom turned it down. My sponsor then persuaded me to come with him to Charlotte to attend something called a "rally"
Frankly it was an electrifying experience. There were about fifteen hundred people in attendance. I had no idea so many people were involved in this!
There was Dexter Yager, Bill Britt, and a lot of the other high-level directs. I should have picked up on one thing. Why were these people here on stage? Wouldn't this be a great day to be showing the Plan and developing the business? I was told that they were there for only one reason: To help us become as successful as they were! I was told that they could be anywhere they wished, but that they were taking time out of their lives to be with us and help us grow!
Have to admit one thing: Dexter does put on one hell of a show. There was a lot of singing, and testimonials from higher ranking distributors. Particularly moving was that of Willie Bass, a fourth-grade dropout. Obviously Amway had made a significant difference in his life for the better. I was truly moved by this. I wanted so much to find someone just like him, show him the Plan, and see him go out and achieve the same things Willie had! After the rally we went to a burger joint called the "Big E" where Dexter mesmerized all of us. Every time he spoke, some lower level distributor was holding a mike to his face, grasping every word as if it was coming directly from the Burning Bush!
I didn't sleep at all that night, I was so excited. My sponsor and I drove back to Chapel Hill, and I finally went to bed at around 8:00 A.M. I was so excited I called a prospect whom I didn't even know, went to his house and showed him he plan. He and his wife did get into it.
Meetings didn't go as I thought they would. They had thirty no-shows in a row! Factor in the time I spent with them, (gas etc.) as opposed to doing a part-time
I sponsored six others over the course of two years. Had a real live one who sponsored three people the next two days, and before I knew it I had a group in Columbia, S.C. One of the members wrote a check to me for some products, and it bounced. I eventually collected it, but it sure was an inconvenience. More gasoline, more wear and tear on my car!
By now I was at the $300 PV level. What little I made from that was more than eaten up by trips to functions, book and tape purchases. Luckily for me, at that time the tapes were only $3.00 a piece. Functions were maybe $5 or $10.
What was wrong? I was doing everything my upline was telling me to do, and then some! In December of 1971 I even drove down to Ft. Lauderdale just to hear Rich DeVos. I was the only member of the entire Britt organization who did this. Like Dexter kept telling me, I kept hanging in there, showing and showing the plan, all to no avail. Any questions I had would be discussed at the meetings (which I had to pay for, incidentally!).
The second Rally I attended opened my eyes somewhat. I was so eager to see Dexter Yager again. (He does have that effect on some people). Couldn't get anybody in my group to attend, so it was just me, my sponsor and his wife.
Again, I had a great time, but just a few things were bothering me. Very conveniently located was a booth where "positive thinking" books and motivational tapes could be purchased. I was told to make the check out to Dexter Yager. Had been in retailing long enough to know that in these quantities, Dexter was not selling these books at cost. At Kroger we sold the same cassette tapes for less than fifty cents a piece. I'm sure Dexter was buying them wholesale and was paying less than that for the tapes. You're talking about at least a two dollar profit per tape. And there were thousands of them being bought by would-be Double Diamonds!
Got to know Dexter a little better the second time around. Actually, when I had heard people talk about him in such reverential tones, I expected to see a much older man. He was only 32. Seems Bill Britt got in touch with him back in '69. Dexter was able to get him to drive out to Charlotte, N.C. (about 120 miles) and show him the plan. He did this by telling Bill Britt that he was 30 years old, and in the top two percent of the nation's income bracket. Bill Britt got into the business. He had little success with it at first. In his own recollections: "Nine people in a row turned it down flat!"
That changed after Dexter Yager got involved. Being the city manager of Carrboro, N.C. Britt commanded enough clout to get five couples to his house for an opportunity meeting, which Dexter put on himself.
Let's just say this scenario was very much the exception rather than the rule. Would to God all rookie Amway distributors could have this break! I don't begrudge his success because of this, but be honest. He had a lot of advantages in getting started that the average Joe Blow Amway did not!
Back to the Rally. I had assumed that the primary reason for a function such as this would be to teach us how to sponsor distributors and sell the products. It was a little topsy turvy to say the least. There was a little bit on how to prospect, nothing at all on how to sell Amway, and 95% of the event consisted of how to live our personal lives, and how we were needed to turn our nation back to God. Dexter made no bones about being a Christian. Personally I had no problem with that, but it seemed just a little inappropriate to bring it up at a business meeting. At a conventional business seminar, they teach you how to operate your business, and not delve into your personal affairs. This was just the opposite.
Dexter made a very contemptuous remark on people on welfare, which I thought to be poorly thought out. Sure, there are well publicized cases of welfare abuse, but what about the elderly, what about the disabled? Seems you have to handle each situation on a case by case basis, not just call them all lazy.
Still, Dexter and Birdie put on quite a show that night. It was very moving to hear their rags to riches struggle. They seemed to imply that if only I worked harder, then success would be right around the corner. Returned home again at 8:00 A.M. resolving to push myself harder.
I was still troubled, though. I had gotten into the business because my dream was to own a Mercedes Benz 600 Pullman. Their top of the line model. At that time it retailed for $34,000. That's not much to pay for a car these days, but it was almost thirty years ago. When I told Dexter this was what I wanted, he immediately told me my car should be a Cadillac. After all, how could I promote American Free Enterprise by driving a foreign car? His logic seemed a little skewed to me. I drink imported coffee, I drink imported whisky. Does that mean I don't love the U.S.A.? For cryin' out loud! I thought this was a business where you could be free!
Dropped by Bill Burch's filling station (remember, he was the Pearl Direct sponsored by Bill Britt?) and Bill Britt pulled into the service bay very excited. He didn't know I was there, so he blurted to Bill Burch how he had just returned from Dexter Yager's house, where Dexter had shown him a suitcase with $150,000 in cash! After he noticed I had overheard that remark, Bill Britt sternly admonished me to never mention that to anyone! This is a business where we're supposed to be successful. Why the Hush Hush?
That night I did a little mental calculating. Dexter Yager was just a Double Diamond back then. I guesstimated his Amway earnings to be between $150-$200,000 a year. Yet at the functions and rallies, he was talking about his lifestyle, his cars, his vacations. There was no way he could live like that on $200,000 a year! And if Amway only paid him that much, where did he get that much in cash? I thought about the recent rally I attended. Must have been twenty thousand people there. If each one paid fifteen dollars, that's $300,000 right there. And what about the books and tapes he was selling? There was a lot more to this so-called "business" than met the eye.
There was a lot that bothered me. My father took a dim view of the whole set-up. He smelled a rat, I think. But since he would have been negative about anything I might have pursued, I gave it little thought. At another rally, Bill Britt flat out declared that anybody would have to be an idiot not to see the Amway opportunity and get into it. I told Bill about my father and he (Bill Britt) said I should write "My father's an idiot!" on paper and paste it on my bedroom wall. So much for God's commandment to "Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother!"
One of the main selling points of Amway products is that they are biodegradable, causing less harm to the environment than the "negative" products out there. It was ironic to me that here were these people distributing such products, then turning around and buying huge numbers of cars (I believe Dexter said he owned fifty cars!) to pollute the environment.
Made the biggest mistake of my life back in April of 1972. I quit my cashier's job at Kroger, and resolved to do Amway full time. I had three months salary saved up, and all the big-name distributors assured me I could make direct in three months. "Very easily!" Money was going to run out then, so nobody can tell me I wasn't motivated, or didn't work the business hard enough!
Three months later I was a real "broke loser" The people I sponsored didn't do the business, others dropped out. I was spinning myself into a mudhole. Upliners assured me that success was just around the corner. It was very humiliating when my first check bounced. That had never happened to me before. I had no steady job, no income coming in. Yes, I detested my job at Kroger, but at least I was getting paid every week and my self esteem was still intact. Bills were now coming in, and I had to try to stall my creditors. It was winter and I dreaded being evicted from my apartment. I had too much pride to return home.
In retrospect, I have nobody to blame but myself. No one in my upline actually TOLD me to go quit my job! But it was the incessant downgrading of jobs from people like Dexter and Bill Britt that encouraged me to do that. I like a quote from Dexter:
"Nobody can make an intelligent decision without knowing ALL the facts!" So far, so good. I have no quarrel with that statement. How I wish the [INTER]NET had been available to me [back then]. Then I could have discovered:
Less than one distributor in a thousand makes in excess of $15,000 a year. Even if you make it to Direct, you can still have a loss due to operating expenses. Don't even think about quitting your job at this point!
Your chances of making it to Diamond are about one in ten thousand. You can become a millionaire in Amway, but it won't be from selling products or sponsoring distributors. It will be from tape sales, book sales, speaker's fees.
I consider those facts to be pretty important. I would have liked to have known them. Certainly anyone contemplating getting into Amway would want to know them. Somehow I don't think Sergeant Joe Friday (Just the facts, ma'am) could have been a success as an Amway distributor!
In '73 I took a long look at what I had accomplished those two years. Lost a job, ruptured relationships, a box of motivational cassettes, making payments on a small Toyota, worrying about the rent. I did not renew that year. But I did go to the A&P and bought my first "negative product" in two years. Don't know how to describe it but instinctively I felt a real sense of freedom. A huge burden had been lifted from me.
Got another job and slowly began to rebuild my life.
Does my story have a happy ending. Yes, there IS life after Amway! I've been with the U.S. Postal Service twenty years and run a liquor store part time. You know what I love? No prospecting! Been married nearly twenty years. My wife works full time and is a terrific mother to our teenage son. We live in a nice subdivision, take nice trips, and give generously to our favorite charities. I drive a late model Luxury Car that's paid for. We have a net worth in excess of one Million dollars, an earn over $100,000 a year. Less than 1% of all the people in Amway can make that statement.
Here's to JOBS. Ain't it Great!
the web address for this page is http://members.tripod.com/hunza1/amway/woodell.html