Even after a month of my resignation from Amway, it seems the dust is not yet settled. Though I understand the confusions amongst the bottom layer distributors, the ‘pseudo- loyalty’ being exhibited by some of the senior leaders is making me laugh.
I have built Amway with emotions. I had taken it as a life, more than a business. Even in the wildest of my dreams I had never thought about leaving Amway. However, from 2008 onwards all the senior leaders in India saw a drastic change in company’s attitude to distributors, especially to leaders. Most of these senior leaders who are now apostles of Amway have been abusing Amway for the last 3 to 4 years. All the leaders started realizing that Amway is no more a life, its just another business. When the Police investigations and raid on Amway and its distributors happened in Kerala, they proved once again that they are just another business. CEO himself made the statement that “Arrests have happened in AP, it may happen in Kerala. Distributors have to protect themselves.” Amway, in their written communication to Govt of Kerala stated that ‘Sales is effected through outsourced sales agents.’ I am not saying that there is anything wrong. But all these show that Amway is just another business.
Instead of investing on distributors by way of improving the compensation plan, they have been investing on show rooms and on advertising. Nothing wrong, it’s a business decision. In two years the PV/BV ratio is hiked from Rs 45 to Rs 66, that’s a whopping 46% hike. Nothing wrong, it’s a strategy to show growth in turnover. This is called Effort Index; the effort you need to put in to get the same results. Eva Chang, CEO of China addressed Indian Diamonds one year back and stated “in China we recognize products rather than people.” What is wrong in this, it is again a business decision.
I believe all of us are running our own businesses. We all have the freedom to take business decisions like the way Amway is doing it. My business is to help people to fulfill their dreams by giving the vision and hope and strategies to achieve those dreams/goals using the right vehicle. While Amway can grow their business by increasing the PV/BV ratios or by increasing the prices or by creating more customer base using the distributors, I can grow my business only by helping others to grow. Hence I had to take business decisions, decisions to ensure that I am helping enough people to fulfill their dreams. Its not because Amway is wrong or bad or anything like that. But because I know that their business decisions are not coinciding with the purpose of my business; ie to help lot of people achieve their dreams.
Hence lets don’t play with emotions. Lets be professional. Let Amway and their distributors accept that Mona.Vie is a competitor. In any business there are competitors. Amway was lucky enough that in the last 13 years they never had to face a real competitor. There is no point in becoming panic and scared in front of competition. Instead of feeding distributors with wrong and false information about competition, a good company should stand up and talk about the strategies to beat the competition. Always remember, wrong or false information is short lived, and people will know the truth soon. That point of time it would be very tough to face the questions.
Indian market is so huge, there is space for hundreds of good Direct Selling companies to operate. We all should understand that when more and more good companies enter the industry, the industry only grows. Those who continue with Amway distribution, find out the strengths in that and focus on it and continue working towards the goals. Don’t waste energy on developing dirty strategies to block the business of Mona.Vie.
Mona.Vie is a legal company, which has launched its operations after getting all statutory Govt approvals. They are not any money chain; they are the fastest growing direct selling company in the world where income can be generated only from the volume of sales happening in the network. They are not a Binary, their compensation plan is a hybrid of some of the best plans in the world. They are not a juice company; they are the leaders in functional health beverages. They are importing products now; but in the next year itself they will start manufacturing all their products in India.
I believe that this is the best time for Direct Selling industry as in most of the states investigations are happening on companies involved in this industry. This is good as people will be able to differentiate the good companies from the pyramid schemes. As Direct selling is going to be one of the biggest contributors to Indian economic growth, we all should put our energy to get central Government come out with an Act regulating this industry.
So as a concluding note; those companies and distributors who are scared about Mona.Vie. please realize that India is a huge market and there is space for hundreds and thousands of companies. Also please realize that you and me are running our own business; neither we are running Amway business nor are we running Mona.Vie business.