Recently, when a friend of mine made mention of really business opportunities through multi-level marketing, I figured that it was just another booming market which would be ultimately inaccessible to mere students. As an individual, I would freely admit that my strengths are not in subjective courses such as marketing, but rather in studies such as Economics or Accounting. However, an opportunity is an opportunity, and when he dangled the carrot of being able to network with the son of a wealthy, successful entrepreneur, I jumped at the chance immediately.

What I was presented with in fact was the direct selling private company called Amway, which engineered its marketing structure in a truly ingenious way, which coincidently allowed me to make incredible connections in understanding this course in itself. In sort the company itself functions as the retailing for a range of higher quality, wealthy brands, acting as retailer directly to the consumers. This in itself facilitates a greatly simplified channel of distribution, in which the manufacturer has sells all its products exclusively to Amway. Instead of employing large numbers of salespeople, Amway instead invites people to become “Independent Business Owners”, franchisees charged with finding clients and new potential IBOs. The payout for each participant would be calculated from both sales of immediate clients, as well as the sales of IBOs which you have invited into the organization yourself. This creates enormous incentive for IBOs to recruit more IBOs into their own chain of organization, while developing thousands of points of contact with the consumer market, allowing brand awareness and distribution on an enormous scale. In essence, every IBO becomes an independent retailer, providing products not available in any store shelves.

In its product mix itself, Amway has chosen products not conventionally selected for salespeople. Instead of sophisticated, highly valuable products, Amway sells common necessities, such as health, body care, and beauty products, which would attract customers in their network of customers to continue their purchases, and thus retail profits.

Sitting in the living room of Executive Diamond level member Dan Yuen’s home, this seemed like an unbelievable opportunity that I could not pass by. I was outlined massive projected profits of up to $60,000 for my very first year, granted I introduced on new IBO a month, and they in turn introduced one IBO a month.

In doing some research of my own, I found radically polarizing opinions on Amway, and it’s potential. While some arguments cited the vast potential inherent in such a system, others decried the massive profits higher level members would reap from the work of blindly loyal lower level network members, who would rarely make profits over $150 a month for incredible efforts. Many questioned the ability to retain customers and IBOs, which could leave anytime, and most strikingly, the ethical aspect of creating a pyramid shaped structure that benefited the most charismatic. Amusingly, I thought this was oddly reminiscent of my Political science class, where Marx lambasts the stereotypical capitalist who steals the profits of production of the working class.

The opportunity for me is there, but as of this moment, I’m truly torn on whether it’ll be the right thing to grasp it.