Today's blog post is about a common lie that is both repeated and mutated to fit any situation. What I mean by this is, a MLMer can tell you to work as little or as much as you want in order to have success, because the system works for all types of people. I am of course referring to, as the title describes, the 10-15 hours a week rule. This rule is very similar to the 2-5 year rule (very vague), and the 10,000 hour rule (I wrote a post about this called "MLM and Arbitrary Milestones/10,000 hour rule). It incorporates the idea that you can do MLM in your spare time, and with minimal effort, and watch as the money starts rolling in. Unfortunately, the consumer is left to find out for themselves this narrative is false.
The odd thing about the 10-15 hour rule is, most people wouldn't fall for this without the other parts of the deception. If someone came to you and said, "I've got a plan to make you fabulously wealthy, and all you have to do is work 10-15 hours a week" there would be suspicions raised. However, with the accompaniment of a tangible end point such as 2-5 years, it seems more legitimate. Another way that the 10-15 hour rule is made to sound more credible is, the training system works 100% of the time as long as the consumer follows it perfectly. Again, this makes the 10-15 hour rule sound plausible, because there seems to be some sort of proven success attached to the claim.
The upsetting reality is, both parts of the comparisons given above are false. There is no 100% fool-proof system, and there is no 2-5 year guarantee. This, similarly to proofs in geometry, makes the rest of the statements false as well by association. There are no guarantees that hours given in labor will give a specific reward, and there are no guarantees that working a particular system will work every time. It is imperative to have red flags whenever someone suggests this.
The closest thing we have to a guarantee is education and trade skills. Education and trade skills are the only two investments a person can make in themselves that will increase the probability for success. Studies have shown, beyond a reasonable doubt, that people who pursue these two fields have higher salaries and more desirable positions in the workforce than those who do not.
In my other article, MLM and Arbitrary Milestones/10,000 hour rule, I went over a case study that showed chess masters differ in practice time between 2,000 hours and 25,000 hours. Therefore, effort can not reflect a guarantee. There are people that join MLM to only work 10-15 hours a week, and there are people who work MLM 40 hours and above. However, the net result is the same, and it usually a significant loss as reported by the income disclosure statements.
Be aware of buzz words, and people's motivations. Ask questions such as, "What does this person get from helping me?", or "Why does it seem like nobody else in my community has heard of this, or pursuing it?", and of course my favorite, "Does this seem too good to be true?" As Mark Cuban (billionaire investor and star of Shark Tank) has said, "...Always remember this. If a deal is a great deal, they aren’t going to share it with you."
If you have a story involving abuses from your upline and would like me to share it on this blog as a guest post, then please e-mail me and I will be more than happy to post it! Your stories are not as unique as you may think, and your stories are some of the most impactful resources we have to fight MLMs. I will keep your anonymity upon request.
The odd thing about the 10-15 hour rule is, most people wouldn't fall for this without the other parts of the deception. If someone came to you and said, "I've got a plan to make you fabulously wealthy, and all you have to do is work 10-15 hours a week" there would be suspicions raised. However, with the accompaniment of a tangible end point such as 2-5 years, it seems more legitimate. Another way that the 10-15 hour rule is made to sound more credible is, the training system works 100% of the time as long as the consumer follows it perfectly. Again, this makes the 10-15 hour rule sound plausible, because there seems to be some sort of proven success attached to the claim.
The upsetting reality is, both parts of the comparisons given above are false. There is no 100% fool-proof system, and there is no 2-5 year guarantee. This, similarly to proofs in geometry, makes the rest of the statements false as well by association. There are no guarantees that hours given in labor will give a specific reward, and there are no guarantees that working a particular system will work every time. It is imperative to have red flags whenever someone suggests this.
The closest thing we have to a guarantee is education and trade skills. Education and trade skills are the only two investments a person can make in themselves that will increase the probability for success. Studies have shown, beyond a reasonable doubt, that people who pursue these two fields have higher salaries and more desirable positions in the workforce than those who do not.
In my other article, MLM and Arbitrary Milestones/10,000 hour rule, I went over a case study that showed chess masters differ in practice time between 2,000 hours and 25,000 hours. Therefore, effort can not reflect a guarantee. There are people that join MLM to only work 10-15 hours a week, and there are people who work MLM 40 hours and above. However, the net result is the same, and it usually a significant loss as reported by the income disclosure statements.
Be aware of buzz words, and people's motivations. Ask questions such as, "What does this person get from helping me?", or "Why does it seem like nobody else in my community has heard of this, or pursuing it?", and of course my favorite, "Does this seem too good to be true?" As Mark Cuban (billionaire investor and star of Shark Tank) has said, "...Always remember this. If a deal is a great deal, they aren’t going to share it with you."
If you have a story involving abuses from your upline and would like me to share it on this blog as a guest post, then please e-mail me and I will be more than happy to post it! Your stories are not as unique as you may think, and your stories are some of the most impactful resources we have to fight MLMs. I will keep your anonymity upon request.
Joe Cool has brought this up in one of his earlier posts at his blog. If someone came to you and said "Would you shovel shit regularly for two years, if at the end of that time you'd be a millionaire with endless income for the rest of your life?"
ReplyDeleteA great many people would say yes, based on the idea that a limited sacrifice of time (two years) would lead to a much longer period of sheer wealth. And this is precisely what Amway shills tell prospective recruits: work at Amway for a given period of time, and then be rich forever.
But the flaw is that even when you follow the "Plan" to the letter, you are not guaranteed success. Duplicating the procedures of your up-line perfectly doesn't mean that you will have your up-line's results. That is why the biggest lie in Amway is the absurd notion that the "Plan" is foolproof, and always works for persons who follow it precisely and exactly.
No "system" works in an identical manner for all persons. There are just too many variables in human life.
Anonymous,
DeleteThat quote was used on me, and like a perfect twit, I fell right for the loaded question.
The "Plan" is very similar to the Bible. There is good that you can take from both, and there is some otherworldly power that wrote both of them. It would seem the people who follow the "plan" and the Bible blindly are very similar, and both types of people are very gullible. They are willing to forego critical thought and blindly follow. This in turn leads to the opportunity for corruption and manipulation.
I agree there is no one "system", but at least there are systems in place that can give every person a real opportunity instead of some godlike excrement. And those systems are not loaded with jargon or other nonsense making them out to be something they are not.
All pernicious cults seek gradually to take over as much of their adherents' time as possible with unpaid group-related activities. Eventually, all the waking hours of cult adherents can become completely occupied by the demands of their group, but at the same time, they are given the illusion that they are making free choices and no one is controlling them.
DeleteCults adherents are deceived into believing that they will eventually obtain the future reward of redemption in some form of secure Utopian existence, but only if they duplicate their exemplary leaders and believe totally. Thus, when cult adherents fail to achieve this illusary redemption, it's child's play to convince them that failure was entirely their own fault for not duplicating their leaders' example and believing totally.
One of the thought-provoking questions I developed for debriefing former 'MLM' adherents is:
Approximately, how much of your time per week was actually taken up by unpaid 'MLM' group-related activities (e.g. face to face + telephone recruiting, learning recruitment scripts, reading motivational books, visualising dreams and goals, travelling to and attending meetings, watching DVDs, just generally thinking about 'MLM,' etc.) ?
David,
DeleteThe obsession of taking over someone's life through mindless tasks and endless amounts of training seems to be a recurring theme. I never thought about this process evolving over time, and how it starts as a small thing, but eventually spirals into a full time commitment.
I'm curious to hear what other thought-provoking questions you have developed. I think it would be an interesting post.
John - There's a list questions posted on my Blog in various articles specifically aimed at the adherents, and ex-adherents, different 'MLM' cults, but if you want to post an article including these in general, please feel free to so.
DeleteYes, of course. Some systems are markedly better than others, and promise a more likely rate of success. But the entire problem is the contemporary impulse to trust system and theory and ideology slavishly, and assume that something "systematic' is always better than something intuitive or empirical or common-sense-based. The modern world is choking on "systematic" thinkers and their intricate pipe-dreams.
ReplyDeleteI'd rather start a business on a trial-and-error basis, learning from hands-on experience what works and what doesn't, than follow some goddamned "Plan" thought up by some overhyped asshole.
I think this stems from a recurring theme that has come from previous posts. The schooling we receive in this particular generation stunts critical thought, and we are constantly being told what is the right way and what is the wrong way without exemptions. It is difficult to formulate a critical or evaluative opinion based on the information being received from both parents and teachers. They are stuck in a very limited and strict system of values and consequences, and they teach people there is only one correct way to progress. It is rare for someone to challenge this set of values, and much more common for people to fail and resort to out of the box guidance from an unrelated source. Instead of being taught how to find a way to be successful in life, the focus is predominantly "Do it this way, and you will be successful".
DeleteActually, the Amway plan works perfectly. It does effectively work 100% of the time. What people don't see however, that the plan only works for the diamonds. A product pyramid extracts money from the participants and funnels the funds up the pyramid to the diamonds while ensuring massive losses for people on the bottom. In that regard, the 10-15 hours, 2-5 year plan works to near perfection.
ReplyDeleteJoe,
DeleteHaha! That was a pretty funny reply. Yes, I suppose wherever there are losers there also have to be winners. In this case, the winners are doing a deceptive, and downright maniacal trick, however it does seem to be working well.
So-called 'MLM business building plans' are really plans to commit social, psychological and financial suicide and eventually transform into robotic 'MLM' evangelists completely focused on the classic, cultic group-delusion of moral and intellectual authority, incapable of facing external reality or seeing humour in the situation.
DeleteThe overwhelming majority of vulnerable persons who have begun to follow 'MLM' plans have given up (usually when they have run out of money). A significant minority (with access to independent funds) have managed to continue playing 'MLM' game of make-believe indefinitely.
The worst examples I've personally traced are 'MLM' adherents who have spent periods in excess of 20 years as deluded, de facto slave recruiters.
David,
DeleteHave you ever gotten in touch with any former diamonds, or other high ranking officials after they left the "business"?
If you haven't, do you think it is possible for these former diamonds to ever achieve clarity about their deceptions and try to reverse some of the damage?
If you have, have you ever seen a high ranking member be able to rejoin society? Are they able to come to terms with the devastation, or are they still completely deluded and looking for the next way to get rich off of others?
John - I've spoken to quite a few ex 'MLM shills (particularly in the UK), but almost all of them were still largely-deluded. One was the first 'Amway Diamond' in Northern Ireland, Dave McCune, who had swanned about in a Bentley pretending to be a millionaire. When I first spoke to him he was bankrupt and suffering from serious health problems probably brought about by stress.
DeleteI've had another ex 'Amway' shill try to defraud me with a cock and bull story about 'investing in Africa.' At the time, this guy had gone back to working as a pub manager in Scotland and I was given his telephone number by another creepy ex-Amway shill. When I called him out, he went back into Ambot mode and tried to convince me that I had a 'attitude problem.' At this point I just fell about laughing, and he hung up.
Eric Sheibeler (whom I've met) is one of the few ex-'MLM' shills to have confronted reality and who has made enormous efforts to warn others, but for a while he was terrrified for the safety of his wife and children and suicidal with guilt and shame.
Hi David,
DeleteThank you for confirming my suspicions about the higher ranking members and their personality disorders. I was fairly confident they would have a tough time readjusting after being in MLM for a long time, and your interviews have confirmed this.
I read Eric's book, and it was a truly devastating encounter with Amway. Did he ever mention that it was overly dramatized to increase the intensity of the book? While I believed most of his story, it did seem strange that someone like him got so warped. He didn't seem like the typical rube that Amway would target, but he is also from a different generation of Amwayer.
I've never encountered any former 'MLM' shill quite like Eric Scheibeler. I know that he still felt his life, and the lives of his family, to be in danger at the time he was completing his book. The first version which he tried to publish did not bear his given name for that reason.
DeleteThe dramatic/intense picture which Eric painted in his book reflects his troubled mind at the time he was writing. Also remember Eric had no real experience of writing. He was thinking his way out of the closed logic of the 'Amway cult as he wrote + he was destitute and fitting in his writing with trying to keep a roof over his family's head.
Eric is/was a highly moral man, and he had to accept that his traditional Christian view of what was right and wrong was quite literally inverted during his 'Amway' years.
When I first tried to set down my own nightmare encounter with 'Amway' in my family (during the mid-1990s), my initial efforts were compelling, but not clear - mainly because I also had little experience as a writer and I was still too involved.
That definitely explains his very introspective nature as he was writing his story. I found as I continued to write my story on various blogs I removed a lot of the early emotion that had fueled me.
Deletehttp://web.archive.org/web/20051124194000/http://donjlorencz.texerta.com/
ReplyDelete"""This website is published and maintained personally by a former Amway/Quixtar diamond for those of you presently in or thinking of getting into 'the business' to help you ask the big question: Where is the money? Where does it come from?"""
Concerning the idea that cults by their very nature seek to monopolize all the free time and leisure of their members, let me add the following.
ReplyDeleteIt is a frightening fact that that this is also coming to pass in the modern workplace, without any cultic influence. How many big companies now insist that their employees be available at all times, if need be? How many yuppie assholes are compelled to carry a beeper and a cellphone with them, just in case "the boss" needs something? The new notion coming out of our business schools is that persons employed are required to be on their toes constantly, and must be ready at any time to jump at a boss's command. There is no "free time." All your time belongs to your boss.
The old idea of a limited, nine-to-five commitment seems to be disappearing. This is a very bad sign. Human freedom disappears when a worker has no free time.
Personally, I refuse to carry a cellphone or wear a beeper, and I will not answer my phone when I am off from work, unless it is a call from a friend or a family member. Only the President of the United States is obliged to be on the job 24-7.
Anonymous,
DeleteI can completely relate to the situation you are describing. I have had bosses that expected me to do tasks outside of normal business hours, or were not within my job description because I was striving to do my best.
I currently work with my family, and we have very strict rules about not mixing work with off hours. It is mostly to keep the two relationships separate, but it also helps to set good boundaries in general. We have a very firm policy in not bringing our work home, and nothing is a big enough emergency to require immediate attention.
I think there may be some other positions that require 24-7 availability, but MLM certainly isn't one of them. In fact, it should be a very distinct set of hours that should never interfere with your day-to-day life activities. That is a frustrating part of the "business", and something that should be shunned.