Hi Loving Father, Hal, as always, has offered his usual excellent
advice on how to handle your current situation. I just want to
comment about asking questions of your wife to plant seeds of doubt.
I know from personal experience that when I question my wife (of 20
years) about something with the intent of having her discover for
herself that a plan is flawed she can get very defensive and become
stubborn and refuse to see anything wrong. I also tend to behave the
same way when it is my wife that is trying to get me to change my plan
(s) for something with questioning. We've both had to learn how to be
very gentle, humble and supportive of each other when trying to get
the other to see the error of their ways so as not to get the others
back up. Quixtar/Amway motivational organizations are expert at
exploiting this. They will tell her that you are jealous or afraid
that she might become more successful than you and that you will do
everything you can to sabotage her success. They will advise her to
do things such as buy tools in quantity or many more tickets to
functions than she will be able to sell. They will advise her to hide
these things from you. They will try to convince her that she should
do these things because she loves you and is going to make a very
large residual income so that you will not have to work again and in
the end you will see the error of your ways and be ever so grateful.
I spent 5 years in that business and saw them destroy quite a few
relationships and a few marriages (our sponsors for one) with such
practices.
Her up line will try to prepare her so that when you ask "hard"
questions she will be immediately suspicious of your motives and
closed to any opposing point of view that you may have. They will try
to convince her that the only way to fail at this is to quit and that
only the biggest losers quit. Please just remember that you are
dealing with a group that uses cult techniques to keep marks onboard
while they separate them from every penny they have.
My wife and I were played against each other this way and barely
survived it. This business can turn from an "amusing little" home
business to an obsession very quickly. Please be careful. Regards,
Trevor Hunt
--- In mlmsurvivorsclub@
<cantonoh2003@
>
>
> Hal Vaughan, THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!!!
>
> I have lots of questions but let me start with........
>
>
> HV wrote:
> "The people at the top don't make money on product sales, but on the
> business tools."
>
>
> Who makes all the money off the products?
>
>
>
> HV wrote:
> "There's also the functions they expect people to attend."
>
>
> I'm chaperoning my wife to one this October. I think it's in
> Kentucky. I'll fill you in on the experience. lol [;)] (as a note:
> I support my Wife, but I do have boundaries. "Lovingly" let her
> know I would not be attending all/most the functions.)
>
>
>
>
> HV wrote:
> "Make sure she keeps track of the money she spends."
>
>
>
> THANKS for the reminder. I'm going to take a closer look at the
> TRUE cost/purchases she has made. I was helping her create and keep
> track of her expenses. No need to keep track of revenue when it's
> ZERO. lol [:))]
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hal you got me thinking…… I really don't know how much she has
> spent. [:-/]
>
>
>
>
> Hal, thanks for helping think his through. [:D]
>
>
>
> --- In mlmsurvivorsclub@
> >
> > On Thursday 30 August 2007, Loving Father wrote:
> > First background:
> > - My wife signed as a Team member a few months ago. (My personal
> > opinion then and now – not a money making venture )
> >
> > - I am a partner in a "traditional" business that does quite well.
> >
> > - I support my wife just as she has supported me in …..ahhhhhhhh
> > activates SHE shook her head at.
>
> Support is fine, but don't go too far. Keep the income from your
> business and use it for living expenses and make sure she keeps
track
> of what she spends.
>
> Also, as a business owner, I'm sure you know the phrase you'll hear
> often from Team members, "You've got to spend money to make money."
> You'll hear that a lot. As you and I, as business owners, know, it
> does take spending some money, but what do you spend it on? I'm in
the
> tech field. I had to buy computers and tech books. If I had not had
> sales experience, I may have needed to get a few books on sales, but
> that's about it. How much do you spend on "lessons" for how to do
> something? Isn't there an end at some point where you stop paying
for
> lessons if there is no income? Or does a person just keep buying
more
> and more lessons? While the phrase about spending money is used
often,
> point out how much is spent and that there's a point where you have
to
> look at things logically. Isn't insanity doing the same thing over
and
> over and continuing to expect different results? Remember that if
she
> stays in for a few years and is still buying the tools.
>
> > - as a business owner I have invested(paid) money and time for
> > education on business development. (My college education which I
paid
> > BIG bucks and worked very hard studying to get a certificate of
> > completion[degree]
> >
> > - I have lost money in different investments not because they were
> > scams but because I was not educated enough to deal with the
issues
> > that arose.
> >
> > - SO FAR the cost of the "business training / personal growth
> > material" by Team is much cheaper that what I have paid over the
> > years.(I have taken Dale Carnegie, Zig Ziglar…etc,etc…
>
> Personally, I don't think much of any of these. I think you can get
as
> much from books and spend less. There's nothing they can give you in
> person that a good writer can't tell you in a book.
>
> I also, honestly, don't think much of most self help books. In my
> experience, they make their point in the first 50 pages, then spend
the
> next several hundred pages pounding it in.
>
> > - The monthly products Team likes you to buy, small cans of pop
> > called "energy drink" and candy bars called "energy bars" are
> > way overpriced,. However my wife and I have a "splurge fund"
> > and these over priced products don't even put a dent in
our "splurge
> fund"
>
>
> I've told this story before about the energy bars. My ex-gf kept
> pushing the bars and energy drinks they got through the system. She
> gave me one to try. I put it in the fridge. There was one night I
> needed a break from programming work and was exhausted. I grabbed
that
> energy drink and sat down to watch a 1 hr. documentary on Groom Lake
> from the History Channel. I was really looking forward to that. I
> drank the drink and was asleep in under half an hour.
>
> Can anyone out there say "placebo?"
>
> >
> >
> > -on a personal note:
> >
> > * SO FAR I feel the cost of the experience is well worth the
> > education my wife is getting. (especially since the fall out.)
>
> Much of that can come from a few self help books in the appropriate
> topics anyway.
>
> > *because of the resent law suits and the information being shared
> > by the top-ranking people there are many inconsistencies with what
> > both the Team and Amway preached before the law Suit and what they
> > are preaching now.
>
> There are many inconsistencies anyway, but people have been trained
not
> to notice them. The people at the top don't make money on product
> sales, but on the business tools. That's a big part of the reason
for
> the lawsuit. Watch what people say now, with comments like how the
> prices are too high for people to make a profit and see how they
> compare with what they've said all along.
>
> Look for sources of info from the outside and find what the leaders
are
> saying. It's not what they tell their downline.
>
> >
> >
> > Question:
> >
> > I am very leery and I would like to know how do people loose Large
> > amounts of money?
>
> They don't lose it all at once. You know the story about the frog in
> the pot on the stove? You start with it at room temp, then gradually
> increase the heat and the frog supposedly is unable to detect small
> increases in temperature and eventually will die in boiling water
> before jumping out.
>
> That's what goes on with this. People get in and piece by piece
their
> thinking changes. The CDs have people saying to buy all the CDs.
> After a while, that message sinks in. It is, literally, a form of
> brainwashing.
>
> There's also the functions they expect people to attend. If you
> ask, "Do I need to go?" They'll say, "Do you want to succeed?" They
> start pushing more and more for people to buy more and more tools
and
> go to more functions. I broke down function expenses once. They were
> charging $100 per person for one they expected up to 8,000 people. I
> checked on the coliseum size and it was comparable to the one in my
> town, so I called and checked on prices.
>
> About $25,000 for one weekend rental. Someone else here indicated it
> was also about $5,000 for the insurance. The advertising is free,
> since it's through the network that the IBDrones pay for and they
don't
> have to pay people to work it, since people are eager to volunteer
to
> do it. What nobody bothered to do as add things up. About $30,000 in
> costs and at $100 per person, if 6,000 people come in, that's an
income
> of $600,000. Take out the $30,000 and even allow another $15,000 for
> various expenses (which should not be that high) and the income is
> STILL over $550,000. Quite a tidy sum for a function where nobody
> makes any profit, as they claim.
>
> The documented odds of succeeding in any MLM are less than winning
big
> at Vegas.
>
> Many people would do much better learning web design and charging
> $75-$150 an hour to create websites. I know some people doing quite
> well with that.
>
> >
> > (allowing my wife to buy some over priced products and "business
> > training/personal growth material" she believes in is apart of
> > marriage. Keeping ones partner from loosing Large amounts of money
> > is also apart of marriage.)
>
> Make sure she keeps track of the money she spends. They pretty much
> discourage accounting because that would show people how much
they're
> losing.
>
> Hal
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
__,_._,___
