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May 12, 2004
And now, the rest of the story
By QBlog in
Bo Short, the former Amway/Quixtar diamond featured in the Dateline NBC show investigating Quixtar, has published an essay on his site titled The Beginning...of The Rest of the Story. It's lengthy but makes for some compelling reading. I challenge you, dear blog readers, to take the time to go through the entire essay. Whatever your feelings or opinions might be about Short, the essay is a solid piece of work with cited documents and testimony.
There are two things that really interested me about the essay:
1. Bo Short is now, for the first time (to my knowledge), telling much of what he knows and believes to be true about Quixtar/Amway and their relationship with the "tool businesses."
2. He's naming names.
If you want to say something to Bo Short about the essay send an email to boshort@hotmail.com.
Comments
Nah, he hogs the covers. And he's a wiggle worm. Not a good bed partner to be sure.
What should he do? Become Joe Land's boy toy?
You completely fail. Siskel and Satan give you four thumbs down. Way down.
Nice SLANT on the TRUTH! I can see how you lost your group! Schools make money on education, right? So isn't teaching success a form of school? CONSULTANTS get paid in the REAL world don't they? GEEZ... WAKE UP!
Except that college doesn't have a 99.9% failure rate for its graduates.
In fact, on average, college graduates make quite a bit more money as a result of getting that education.
When the pros say it is a 'proven system,' do they really mean that it has been proven not to work for 99.9% of the people who try it?
Do the 'training' materials ACTUALLY have any value, or are they repetitions of the dream speech and reassurance that the folks listening are on the right track? How many times do you have to hear the same stuff over and over again before you ‘get it?’
How many tapes do I have to buy and how many rallies to I have to go to before I ‘make it?’ Do you think there would be a lucrative secondary market on Cliffs Notes for the training materials?
If I buy something at Walmart for $14, and hand the cashier a $20, don’t I get a $6 rebate, too?
I get cash back from my Discover card (about $100/year...roughly 1%) but at the cost of 12% interest on carried balances for a net of 11% to Discover, is this a good deal?
If I sign up, why can’t I work directly for one of the big guys who has really made it? Why do I have to start out with the flunkies?
If I join to make money, but either don’t or lose money, what other excuses can I use to stay in?
Do you think there would be a secondary market for ‘already been solicited and not interested’ cards or pins? Kind of a visual ‘gave at the office’ thing? If I just give you $1, is that enough to make you go away? It would be, afterall, a pure profit dollar. Maybe just tape one to my lapel.
Is there ever a point in Quixtar where you get to actually quit your JOB, or is that always a month or two away?
Just wondering.
"In fact, on average, college graduates make quite a bit more money as a result of getting that education."
Or turned down because the other guy without the degree can do the same job at equal quality and is willing to go at it for less money.
You don't have to be a zealous IBO to know that the information age is taking over and there's a dwindling need for snobs with a framed piece of paper.
Dwighty,
If you are going to school for a degree in a field that someone can do cheaper and just as well without a degree, then you picked the wrong field and have indeed wasted your money and your time...hey, wait a minute, wasting money and time seems to be a theme here...
Porkchopjim,
I was considering maybe your questions would be fun to answer with sentences that end with a period, but rather, I figured one that ends with a question mark would do even better:
What if you actually had a brain that thought objectively and compared things with an open mind?
Better yet, what if you had a brain that actually worked?
Quit being an NBC Dateline-wannabe and think things through before you ask questions like that.
HK,
I know I'm slow, so bear with me:
Which one of your questions answered which one of mine?
Why is it that most people who want you to have an 'open mind' really want you to ignore unpleasant realities?
If I only spend 10 hours a week on this, and make $1400 a year on average, that comes out to $2.69/hr, not including expenses, etc...Is your time only worth $2.69/hr? How is the personal cost/benefit analysis of time spent for $2.69/hr vs. anything else you might want to do?
How may tapes and rallies do you have to have under your belt to reach the coveted $2.69/hr? Is there a pin level for that? If you reach the minimum wage point, do you get to speak at one of those rallies?
My phone company is a coop. Does this make me an IBO, too?
Typical, Dwighty.
Objective statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics show an average increase in earning capacity of 75% for those with a college degree.
To try to convince people to join your pyramid scheme, where 99.9% of the participants fail, you ask them to focus on a hypothetical guy who gets turned down for a job. That's lame, dude.
As far as the information age is concerned, it depends alot on what you want to do. Try being an engineer, architect, doctor, lawyer, accountant without a degree. Yes, you can be very successful without one. And a person can be unsuccessful with one. But the data shows that on average you are better off with a college education. By contrast, the data shows that most people in Quixtar make less than $1400 a year - before expenses - and less than one hundredth of one percent (.0000771) of IBOs reach the level of diamond where the income from bonuses averages only $150K (again, before expeneses).
How do we know this Dwighty? Because it's from Quixtar's own data. Unlike you, I don't tell fantasy stories about the job struggles of hypothetical people to scare people into participating in an MLM.
Show us Dwighty. Don't just tell us. Where is the objective evidence that participating in Quixtar is LIKELY to bring about a return on a person's investment in money and time in excess of minimum wage?
I'm waiting . . .
"You don't have to be a zealous IBO to know that the information age is taking over and there's a dwindling need for snobs with a framed piece of paper."
That's also demonstrably false. Look at the following data:
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2002/section2/tables/t16_2.asp
The disparity in income between those with a college degree and those without has steadily INCREASED over the last three decades - despite being in the "information age."
My comments,
If the Diamonds and all the brainwashed people in Quixtar want to make fun of people working their 9-5 jobs and make mockery of the educational system and college degrees, then why not:
1. Why do you want your kids to go to college and earn a degree.
2. Better make sure your kids don't get an education.
If the diamonds really make fun of the job scenario then they should go ahead and practice what they preach.
Mr. Information Age, college ain't no good fer nuttin, don't waste your time on a J-O-B Dwighty doesn't quite get it that even if Quixtar was successful for more than .000something% of the people, IBOs CREATE NO VALUE. They merely suck away at the value that others have created. The basic fact of a self-consumption MLM model is that you need to recruit people into the pyramid to buy things in order to pay the upline. YOU CANNOT MAKE MONEY unles you recruit someone else in...meaning that you depend on people with REAL J-O-Bs to spend their wealth in the Quixtar system. You sure as hell aren't depending on bonus earnings to buy the products. If suddenly everyone in the USA was a Quixtar distributor and quit their J-O-Bs, it would quickly implode as it is the VERY NATURE OF THE MODEL THAT THE BOTTOM 90% would not break even. They'd quickly run out of money, which would flow up to the top IBOs and the Amway founders/families. Fancy business model, eh?
Maybe the new Quixtar chant should be: THANK GOD FOR J-O-Bs! THEY PAY MY (SMALL) BONUS CHECK!!!!
Hey everyone, I'd like to bring your attention to the fact that any positive Quixtar message you have read on this website is actually some PRIMO motivational material of profound value. Therefore, it is my right to demand payment for these pearls of wisdom. Please submit $6 for every pro-Quixtar message you read to:
BUY ME ANOTHER TACKY CADILLAC
c/o Mr. Big IBO
Trump Towers
NY, NY
Q: Why did the IBO cross the road:
A1: Running from the FTC
A2: Thought he saw some pv lying on the curb on the other side
A3: Upline told him to
A4: Path of hot coals for "fire walk" happened to stretch across road
A5: God loves those who use their talents, even though it may be to pursue concepts totally against biblical guidance such as greed
We know you're the same person pretending to be many people. Please pick a name and stick with it or quit spamming my comments.
Sorry, I will begin using my real made up name instead of my made up, made up names. I apologize if I have harmed the integrity of this blog site. Sorry if my comments harm your Pulitzer chances.
But you gotta admit, a little humor in an otherwise humorless blog isn't so bad, especially when the topic is what it is. Perhaps a little lightening up is in order (though the Seinfeld pretzel reference was very nice!)
:)
Never said your comments weren't funny. They are. The humor is appreciated. You're probably just unaware of past problems with comment spamming/flaming. Or are you ;o)
Dear Porky,
The questions I had asked was raised in hopes that you would be smart enough to answer your own questions. However, since my assumption was incorrect, I will spell out the answers to the questions you just asked.
When I ask people to have an open mind, I want them to see all the cards that are on the table. But from your question it seems that you've had things hidden from you when people have asked you to be open-minded. Two words: Oh well. (That equates to "tough luck" in case you aren't able to figure out what that meant.
To the question of the $2.69 an hour, I'm sure that you, like me, like almost the majority of the rest of the human beings, have time that we spend / waste where we generate no income at all whatsoever. So $2.69 to me an hour is better than $0.00 an hour. But maybe you're not like me, and that you don't like getting as much out of things as possible.
I figure everyone gets to speak at the rallies and conventions unless they're mute or something. I guess that people that you know are told not to open their mouths when they attend those kind of get-togethers.
But let me give you the benefit of a doubt and hope you mean speaking on stage. My guess is that it goes hand in hand that if you've achieved that others in the crowd wants to achieve, that you'll pretty much by automatic be on the stage speaking. Unless you refuse to of course.
Also, to answer to the first part of your question, it's kind of like asking a student how long s/he needs to study before a quiz or test to get a ... the near equivalent of your $2.69 figure would probably be a D-. Which pretty much is close to nothing at all.
Personally, without going to any rallies or listening to more than one tape, maybe two, I made three times the amount that you propose. That means that to make the $2.69 that you covet something easily obtainable by IBOs without doing too much.
Your last question ... I'll be the first to admit I don't understand ... rephrase please?
HK,
Sorry it took so long to respond: I had given up hope.
Although your questions were truly thought provoking, I knda figured they were rhetorical.
Your ‘open mind’ analogy with cards on the table is a apt one. Everyone can see the cards on the table. Where you see a royal flush, I see a good reason to fold...it goes back to “I don’t see what you hope you see.” If your ‘open mind’ makes you see things that aren’t there, maybe you should see someone about that.
The $2.69/hr is not what I proposed, it is what Quixtar says is the average. I would be interested to know what the median is. That you have cracked the code and make a staggering $8/hr is indeed impressive...most certainly on the upper tail of the Quixtar bell curve. No doubt poised to toss the J-O-B.
I certainly enjoy getting the most out of things, but pretending to be a savvy business man with my hand on the pulse of the most amazing opportunity available for anything under $10/hr is not one of those things. I’d rather sit here on the computer and earn $0. Much more enjoyable.
Wow, Q. You've really set yourself up for a slam pankin' good time in Short's bed. Hope you guys have a darn toot'n good time!
Posted by: Dwighty | May 12, 2004 9:19 AM