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July 11, 2006
Link To Your Enemies?
By Drew in Quixtar
According to a blog run by Robert Scoble, Quixtar technical staff has been talking to him about their website because "people aren’t engaging with their company the way they want." According to Robert Quixtar needs something on their homepage that he would be willing to link to, and some real human beings. Now that article was interesting, but what was even more interesting was the previous article he wrote.
In his article "Dell joins the bloggy web" he writes that he told Quixtar they should link to everyone who says they suck. Why would Robert tell Quixtar such a thing? Here is his answer:
Well, it takes away our power to poke at your negative spots if you openly admit them. That turns throwing rocks through your front window into a boring exercise.
Could this be true? Do you think that if Quixtar was to link to all the critical blogs and sites that we would just get bored and give up? Would prospects look more favorably upon Quixtar if they link to the negative sites?
Interestingly enough this would be the exact opposite of the Web Initiative Strategy that just tries to drown out the other side. That concept hasn't worked out too well for them, so I suppose the old "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" strategy could be worth a try.
UPDATE:
My latest podcast deals with this issue and some other points about how the IBOs on the web are hiding behind the mask while the so-called "critics" seem to be much more open and accessible.
Comments
This is 'Trial 101'.
A good trial lawyer, knowing that the opposition is going to present evidence that is damning to his case, usually tries to present the evidence himself first. It's a good technique that serves to deflate the emotional impact that such evidence can have on a jury, while also allowing the lawyer to give his witness a chance to explain himself immediately upon the jury's hearing the evidence, not a few hours or even days later on cross-examination.
Q has nothing to lose here. Anyone doing a google search is going to find the 'negative' sites anyway, might as well beat them to the punch.
This is a good point that I've been pondering for a while. I'm going to post on the forum "What I would do if I ran Amway"
Deb
Yeah, but the information on the web is quite damning. I mean, how do you spin so many people claiming they lost money, time, friends, and self-esteem, among many other things? Perhaps they could hire insider? :-)
I think if they linked to so-called negative blogs, they'd have lots of explaining to do. For example, since there is evidence going back to 1983, (when some of us were toddlers and infants) of abuses, why has it taken so long to do anything effective to stop them?
They must be scared out of their minds to link to negative blogs. I know I would be if I were in their situation.
There are a lot of things Quixtar could do to simply manipulate search engine rankings for its various sites. And with several hundred thousand IBOs out there, many of them chomping at the bit, it would be an easy task to flood the web with positive opinion about our opportunity. Decisions made at the company typically are not focused on the short term problems of negative opinion, but on the long-term issues that contribute to that opinion.
For a long time, Quixtar would not respond to what was said at critics' web sites. If there were patently false statements or copyright infringements, we might send a letter. More recently, we've taken more aggressive steps to correct the record, and this is a direction you can expect we will continue to move.
SO, you can expect that we will be participating in this dialog more often. But please don't think we'll be linking to you. :-) As I said, we're not pursuing a "rankings-at-any-cost" kind of strategy.
keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer.
But a smarter move from a search engine ranking perspective is getting the negative sites to link to the positive ones.
Which Kia has just done. Well done Kia! :-)
quicksilver723>> keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer.
Yeah, Don Corleone would have been proud, wouldn't he?
This whole issue is about being authentic.
A fake blogger responds to this by saying that there will be more dialog.
Quixtar has a problem because it has let a few kingpins screw the rest of the IBOs for decades.
Quixtar's problem is not a negative perception on the Internet. Quixtar's problem is that most of the negative is true and thus far, they have done little to address it.
Further, Kia says...
"More recently, we've taken more aggressive steps to correct the record, and this is a direction you can expect we will continue to move."
So instead of solving the internal problems related to the tools mess, you can expect Quixtar is take aggressive steps to correct the record.
The record still sucks even if no one is voilating copyright or making false statements.
Fix the kingpin problems and you will have dozens of bloggers (including this one) writing about the incredible steps Quixtar is taking to correct the ship.
last time i checked Ty, you are just that, still a blogger... how are you compared against Rich and Jay or the current chairmen of Quixtar? I dont know how "powerseller" compares to international recognition in business, and other awards... i would imagine they really dont care about your opinion or accusations much less your approval... sorry.
Brad,
If they don't care what I think, they have an even bigger problem. Forget the fact that over 1,000 people a day read my blogs.
My wife and I spent 5 years of our life plugging into a system that taught us to plug into the system. The system leaders taught us to get all of our information from the system, not from the company.
Once I left, I created tens of thousands of dollars in volume a month for another company.
Was the problem me or was the problem in the system?
Well, in terms of negative reviews and stuff I can see how that would help. But the anti Amway / Quixtar stuff you probably wouldn't want to highlight, specifically.
That said, I read all the anti sites when I first signed up, and that didn't make me want to stop.
Stupid me :)
Brad said:
Last time i checked Ty, you are just that, still a blogger... how are you compared against Rich and Jay or the current chairmen of Quixtar? I dont know how "powerseller" compares to international recognition in business, and other awards... i would imagine they really dont care about your opinion or accusations much less your approval... sorry.
You see, that's exactly the problem with Quixtar and the AQMOs. They think that the little guy doesn't count, (not that Ty is a little guy, but you get my point), not realizing that the public is made up of millions of "little guys." If Quixtar were smart, they would care about what Ty thought about them. They would also care about what others think about them because, blog or no blog, the negative image of Amway/Quixtar is as a result of the bad experiences of thousands of INDIVIDUALS.
And people will generally trust or identify more with people on their level than with high and mighty Jay and Rich, especially if Jay and Rich have something to gain by their representations.
It's kind of like the "You're just a broke loser; why should I listen to you? I am/my diamond is a millionaire and thus infallible on all important subjects in life" line.
Whatever direction Quixtar wishes to take, I suggest they act soon.
Dick DeVos is running for office and I would think he doesn't want the headaches that skeletons in the closet would bring him.
My suggestion? Come clean, blame it on dad, the corporation, or the "kingpins". Blaming victims will not work. The American people are waking up and are really tired of big business right now. In fact, didn't Alticor lay off a bunch of people?
Just my opinion. But then again, I'm just a little guy. : )
Brad writes, "last time i checked Ty, you are just that, still a blogger... how are you compared against Rich and Jay or the current chairmen of Quixtar? I dont know how "powerseller" compares to international recognition in business, and other awards... i would imagine they really dont care about your opinion or accusations much less your approval... sorry."
They probably don't (unless of course they can launch another lawsuit out of it). Problem is, they don't care what YOU think, either, Brad. Sorry.
Kia writes: "If there were patently false statements or copyright infringements, we might send a letter. More recently, we've taken more aggressive steps to correct the record, and this is a direction you can expect we will continue to move."
Gee, more aggressive sending of threatening-letters? And Brad said you didn't care...Kumbaya.
Simply amazing (not) how the "critics" here seem to have completly missed where Kia said -
Decisions made at the company typically are not focused on the short term problems of negative opinion, but on the long-term issues that contribute to that opinion.
Ty - how many blogs is it you have exactly Ty? I seem to keep coming across new ones almost every day ....
No, Insider, I didn't miss it. I just have absolutely no reason to believe it and every reason not to.
They began attempting to correct "the long-term issues that contribute to that [negative] opinion" in 1983. It cost $300 million in revenue, and they quit. They have a price, and I am confident the kingpins will meet it.
Kia wrote: "There are a lot of things Quixtar could do to simply manipulate search engine rankings for its various sites. And with several hundred thousand IBOs out there, many of them chomping at the bit, it would be an easy task to flood the web with positive opinion about our opportunity."
To which Your Boy Fleak dropped this science: "You ARE aware that Quixtar signed of on a little thing called the Quixter Web Inititive TWO YEARS AGO that requested that individiual IBOs flood the Web with their positive opinion. You see how well that went."
Kia then went on to say: "As I said, we're not pursuing a 'rankings-at-any-cost' kind of strategy."
To which Your Boy Fleak brought this pain: "Is that because you pursued a 'rankings-at-any-cost' kind of strategy two years ago and it blew up in your face?"
And somewhere in the middle, Kia said: "For a long time, Quixtar would not respond to what was said at critics' web sites,"
To which Your Boy Fleak says: "You're right...and they haven't been responding to citics letters since 1983."
And then Kia says, "If there were patently false statements or copyright infringements, we might send a letter."
To which I say,"Yeah, but all the criticisms are TURE."
And then way back at the beginning, Kia says: "Decisions made at the company typically are not focused on the short term problems of negative opinion, but on the long-term issues that contribute to that opinion."
To which I say: "When did this policy start? Today? Why didn't it start back in 1983 when DeVos put out his 'Directly Speaking' tapes and said it was going to?"
And then Your Boy Fleak points out that he hasn't said anything new...that the debate isn't about the legitimacy of the business plan, rather, it's about the morality of the Quixtar corp. that says one thing and does another, and then he asks that you address the reasoning behind THAT, which he knows you won't because critics have been asking proponents to do that for years and they just can't, without typing the sentence, "If Quixtar enforced their rules and cut the kingpins off, they'd lose 2/3 of their revenue, and money is more important than morality," and we all know it's really, REALLY hard to type that sentence.
I have a lot of blogs. In fact, I have an MLM Blog Network and I write professionally for two other Networks. Overall I think I get about 1500-2000 Unique readers a day.
Since we are on the subject, I am looking for someone to write about Quixtar...Insider?
What that has to do with Quixtar NOT addressing their problems is beyond me.
Frankly, Kia is full of crap. How in the hell do you gain trust with your customers by posting on an annonymous blog?
This is not that complicated. Fix the stupid problems and the reputation will begin to fix itself.
Since Insider is so curious about my blogging, I thought he might like to know that the MLM Blog probably grosses 10 times what the average Quixtar IBO makes in a month.
Your Boy Fleak wins the "best comment of the day" award. Please select a T-Shirt of your choosing from the QBlog store.
Thank you.
Yup, its funny and a kick-ass comment. I'm naming my first kid "Your boy fleak".
De-ja-vu?
The one thing that bugs me the most about all this negative talk about Quixtar is that it seems as though those doing the spitting really don't have a grasp on the whole Quixtar business model. Anyone can get started in this business and whithout good guidence from their upline people can misrepresent what this business is all about. I have been involved in many businesses and Quixtar is by far the best opportunity I have seen.
Actually have people from Quixtar respond to negative about Quixtar? In a quasi real time forum? Having to answer real, non scripted questions from people who aren't under the influence of the motivational crap? Directly answer them?
(English accent) You're quite mad you know.
Give me a break. Those hosers would get pounded to the pavement trying to defend their unethical situation faster than you can say "I'm goin' diamond how 'bout you"?
The fact is, Quixtar cannot dispute the facts. When they start being honest about the backdoor shenanigans (ie. the deceptive tools businesses which they ALLOW to happen) then maybe they can start building up a viable and credible business.
Not to mention realistic.
Posted by: rocket | July 11, 2006 10:46 AM