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March 22, 2005
How Do You Like MOP?
By QBlog in March of Perceptions
So what do you think about the "March of Perceptions" so far? There are less than two weeks left for this special project and I'd just like to know your opinion. Love it? Hate it? Get itchy thinking about it?
I'll just say that I'm really enjoying it. It's fascinating to see how IBOs have different perspectives of the same business. If you missed out on the beginning of the project, visit the blog archives and look under the "March of Perceptions" category.
The "March of Perceptions" is a special Quixtar BLOG project featuring the perceptions of four guest bloggers during the month of March.
Comments
I like the idea as well, in at least a couple instances, we get to see a detailed article from people who want us to believe it works.... unfortunately those same have not been able to discuss their articles with the same fervor in which they were written.
Roger
P.S. Better/Bitter ... Welcome to the discussions.
I love it......'nuff said
Love the March of Perceptions! Keep it up. I think it's great that you show both sides of the aisle. Thanks.
I LOVEd it.
So it's not just one man's perception, more like every one's opinion. Any one who is willing to participate.
This blog keeps getting better.
I have really enjoyed MOP and felt it was a good experiment. Maybe you could do a regular monthly feature. Maybe "The IBO Soapbox" at the end of each month.
I have enjoyed being a participant with my two articles, and I'm working on a third, just so you'll know.
But, like I told someone else, if I write something "really good" I always think, "Naah, that belongs on my OWN blog.
I have also enjoyed the posts from everyone else.
Ain't blogging great?
Dave
I'm glad that you instituted the MOP for a few reasons:
It benefits the casual reader of the blog who is trying to get a sense of what to do. A more balanced approach works better in deprogramming the serious Qbot locked into tapespeak, is more palatable to the neutral information collector who might be scared off by the shrill anti-Q voices, and the balanced approach may even possibly allow the very writer of the Pro-Q stance to see through the haze of the upline propaganda machine.
I've tried to make it clear that I am not per se against A/Q, but I don't know if you could find anyone who is more of an opponent of the tools system. It appears that throughout the MOP, I'm not alone in this negativity. The irony is there, though: without the brainwashing of the system in general, A/Q would probably not be able to have the distributor retention it has had, even as low as it is. Fundamentally, as MLM's go, the compensation plan is just not that good.
There is obviously an uncomfortable symbiotic relationship between the Kingpin distributors and the Corporation. With billions of dollars in revenues generating hundreds of millions of dollars in profits, plus the tools system income, the stakes are high. Perhaps, one day, Alticor will get the big pins under control, and fix the deal for all distributors.
I'm not holding out much hope.
Keith,
I think I can echo your sentiments about the A/Q issue vs the tools business led by the so-called successes of A/Q, The "Diamonds".
I have long stated that without the shemes perpetrated by the tools promoters, one _could_ possibly make some money at A/Q...even if the plan is not stacked in their favor. MY contention to the blame is that the corporation has been complacent in allowing the abuses for so long now, for their own profit, that one must consider them complicit and accomplices in the scheme.
Roger
Like the March of Perceptions very much. People fixate on the Tools scam so much that you forget there's other things going on - like the items themselves, plus what's going on with the people inside the group; and the MoP makes people look at that stuff through the eyes of those actually involved in the business.
Again, thanks for the MoP
I like MOP because it gives an excellent viewpoint from someone still involved.
It seems that a lot of the pro-Quix folks out there do have a tough time refuting it when someone is describing struggles that they are going through. I thought I'd hear at least one, "YOU CAN DO IT!"
Anyone know the whereabouts of DF? No action out of him for a while.
I think it's awesome. I especially think it's telling, seeing the difference between Jennifer7Lee's perspective, and Dorothy's. As always, Qblog raises the level of discourse to something more than you can get anywhere else.
Great feature Qblog!
Sort of cool how you start MOP in March and we started MAP. What a coink-e-dink.
I appreciate that it gives the Guest Host the ability to present their perception & experience with authority and validation. It gives the new view weight and legitimacy that it might lack if it was just another reply in a forum. I'm glad March has 31 days . . . .
This is a great and very insightful blog. I wish I had seen it before I spent years and thousands "showing the plan" to 150 couples to have 45 of them sign up to do nothing and 5 people buying soap every once in a while. While I have used some of these products nearly 30 years, by year's end my home will be free of all but the replacement water filters and I will finally be free of the manipulations and being made to feel like a looser. I quit 2.5 years ago when I went online to see why 3 out of 3 people I had "showed the plan" to that week went negative after doing a Google search. I found Bo Short's letter, had a lightbulb experience, and realized my only failure was in believing the Diamond lies. To their credit my upline Diamond/Crowns never lied to me: they just skillfully evaded my honest direct questions. I then went back to ask friends why they had said no to my Quixtar presentation, and collected many horror stories about their prior involvement with the AMO's in the Amway incarnation of Quixtar. The honest and in this case accurate freedom of the Internet will be Quixtar's downfall long before the regulator's get in gear.
I love the March of Perceptions and this site, although I originally found it somewhat disturbing to read about so many others who had the EXACT SAME experience as I did... work really hard, follow "The System," believe the pablum your Upline feeds you, point to the success of the Diamonds (because no one in your line of sponsorship has moved on since you've been in the business) and on and on.
I got into Quixtar in June of 2001, and until last summer, I worked by butt off in the business. (B.Q. -- Before Quixtar -- I was a freelance writer. Coincidentally, my writing business had just about dried up when I was approached or I never would have considered it.) I truly believed that the business made sense, and in some ways, it still does. It's the other stuff that doesn't make sense, like all of the things I've read about here that I won't bother repeating.
After three years, I was struggling to hit 300 PV a month. I share this because I think people put on a mask about how their business is really doing. If you've ever hit a certain "pin" level, then you're that pin level, no matter how measly your actual points are. For example, my upline Gold hit 7500 points three months in a row in 2002. I don't believe he's been anywhere near that since, falling closer to the 600 point range. But he qualifies for all the Silver and Above meetings -- rock on! Silliness. I have a 2500 Pin, which I hit once, and once only. The rest of the time I hovered around 600 PV. That's a whopping $50 a month if you're lucky.
When I finally came to the realization -- when the veil was lifted from my eyes -- that no one in my line of sponsorship knew any more than I did about how to make this business work, I quit. I just stopped going to meetings. And interestingly enough, after three years of never missing a meeting, STP all the time, lots of guilt feelings because it just wasn't working for me and there must be something wrong with ME, because of course there is nothing wrong with the business -- nothing but a sense of relief. Profound, overwhelming relief.
Relief that I can still chat with people while I'm standing in line, but I don't have to take the conversation to the next level of "do you ever consider other ways of making money?" Relief that I don't have to spend every night out "contacting or showing the plan," that I can actually be at home with my husband and 4-year-old son watching television. (It goes without saying that watching television is the height of sin if you're serious about building the business.) Relief that I could read fiction again, that every book I read didn't have to have something to do with the business. And relief that I don't have to spend ten times as much on products as I would spend if I bought them at Costco.
While I ended up in serious debt as a result of my involvement in the business, there are some good things I took away. Here they are:
1. I do like to read books that will further me professionally, and I have developed that habit of reading nonfiction.
2. I'm one of the people who became a Christian through my association with the buisness, and I am profoundly grateful for that. My faith has enriched my life and will continue to do so.
3. I learned people skills that, now that I'm back to writing and in business meetings frequently, I am putting to good use. And I notice how few people skills people in general have.
4. I learned practical application about attitude adjustment that I didn't truly grasp before my involvement in the business. And it's helped me separate myself from the business, and not to beat myself up too much for being so gullible as to get involved in the first place.
I did not make friends that will last a lifetime. In fact, I haven't heard from anyone in the business since I quit, with the exception of the woman who sponsored me who was a casual acquaintance to begin with. She did become a friend, but I am seeing that fade rapidly over time.
So while I do consider myself better in many ways through my involvement with Quixtar, I also consider myself a little bitter. But that will go away with time, and will probably be gone by the time I'm done with every Alticor product that is in my home. And we're almost there.
By the way, GREAT comment about XS as "this cult's kool-aid!" Even my very burned husband laughed at that one!
Posted by: Better and Sort of Bitter | March 22, 2005 5:51 PM