AMWAY Networking Organizations--any comments?
Thomas E. Van Cleave 7830
Just so you all know, I WILL NOT be marketing my tape.
(I can just hear COZ and Steve Potter breathing a sigh of
relief.) I have found a better release in simply
sticking to writing and recording my own music in my
home studio and leaving MLM tape and book production to
the experts.
I am curious, though, about the name recognition of AMWAY
networking support organizations. I read a lot about
Yager and Britt in alt.business.m-level, but I was in
"INA" a couple of years ago, which is a group started by
22 diamond directs, including Dick Payne, Jim Floor,
Clark Broom (& 19 others). A friend of mine was in Winners
Circle International (WCI) run by Bob Crisp in Dallas, TX.
Has anybody out there heard of these groups or individuals?
What has been your experience with them? How do they stack up?
(Any dirt on them?) INA is supposed to be a pretty popular
group, so I'm suprised they've not been mentioned as far as
I can tell (until now).
Write me at: vcl...@mmpc.ssd.lmsc.lockheed.com
Thanks,
Tom Van Cleave
(No reason to flame this post for a change, so my asbestos suit
is not on.)
JonaX
> A friend of mine was in Winners Circle International (WCI) run by Bob
> Crisp in Dallas, TX.
> Has anybody out there heard of these groups or individuals?
Bob Crisp is no longer with Amway - yes, after reading double-diamond
and perhaps higher, he quit. I've met him since his departure from Amway
and asked him why he quit. He said that he wanted more - he was bullheaded
and very egocentric...he wanted to start his own MLM or be a *major* head
in one.
When Quorum first started out he became a distributor - however, before you
know it he was using some of the "lower" type tactics that he used in his
Amway days, he preached dreams more than anything and then at one point even
tried to take over all of the Quorum training material. Needless to say,
level heads prevailed and Bob Crisp was kindly asked to leave Quorum and to
never associate himself with Quorum ever again. Thank goodness. <big sigh
of relief>. He is now trying to start up another MLM with Doug Ridley
(ex-Quorum president and Amway dropout). IMHO - beware of *any* MLM
associated with Bob Crisp or Doug Ridley - I've had the misfortune of
knowing both and can tell you that there are *several* very good
reasons why Quorum asked them to pack their bags and get the h*ll out
of town!
Hope that helps!
Regards,
Art Jonak
"Independent Quorum Distributor
Phil Kellingley
as...@holmes.acc.Virginia.EDU "JonaX" writes:
> I've had the misfortune of
> knowing both and can tell you that there are *several* very good
> reasons why Quorum asked them to pack their bags and get the h*ll out
> of town!
>
Go on - Art - tell us!
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phil Kellingley
"it's not the same thing at all"
Sidney Schwartz
as...@holmes.acc.Virginia.EDU (JonaX) wrote:
It's possible that Mr. Crisp's departure from Amway was not entirely
voluntary. Here's one version of the story told to me by an ex-distributor
who knew Rick Setzer, who was upline to Crisp.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick Setzer? Yes, I knew him for a good while. He still lives in
Greenville S.C. the last time I checked.
Let's see ... that was about five years ago now. I don't remember
exhaustively what happened, but I remember the basics.
Back in 1982, around the time of Rick's "Family Reunion" function in New
Orleans (which I attended), there were two or three couples downline in his
Organization that had reached the prominent Triple-Diamond level very
quickly.
One was Bob & [Jo?] Crisp, the other couple was Keith and Jimmie Belknap.
Both couples had reached that level in something like two or three years.
Anyway, Crisp and Belknap were the talk of the collective "town" for a
while, then all of a sudden no one heard anything more about them. I
learned that Crisp had apparently strong-armed his organization into taking
products that were either not Amway products, or perhaps it was over tapes
and books. I'm not sure.
What I heard about the lawsuit, though, was that Amway called Rick (and
Dexter and a number of others) on the "carpet" for exploiting the
organizations - I.E. shoving tapes and books. Amway also apparently
refused to pay Rick any bonus due him on the (apparently sizeable)
Crisp/Belknap organization. I don't know why, other than to say there must
have been a violation of the code of ethics. I do remember that Rick was
suing the corporation over it and apparently won his case.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The lawsuit mentioned above was filed in Greenville, South Carolina in 1986.
The case went to a jury, which seems unusual, and Setzer was awarded the
sum of $161,000.
Crisp is also mentioned in the '85 Forbes article:
"Meanwhile, some of the big distributors are unhappy enough to quit. Last
September Robert Crisp of Tulsa sold his organization for about $600,000, he
says. Crisp says his downliners generated as much as $120 million in Amway
sales, providing him with an income averaging $200,000, but that business
had fallen over 30% from its peak in 1980."
I'm assuming this is the same Bob Crisp, since it seems rather unlikely that
There would be two hot-shot distributors with that name who left Amway
around the same time. The timing of his leaving also fits the proposed
scenario: Crisp commits some major code of ethics violation. As a result,
Amway pressures him to leave, and also witholds bonus money from his
upline, Setzer. Setzer files his lawsuit after a couple of years
preperation, and is awarded a chunk o' change. Your description of Crisp's
adventures at Quorum - especially the part about him wanting to take over
the training materials - also lends credence to the story I was told.
So, was Bob Crisp given the boot by Amway Corp, and, if so, what for? Does
anyone have more information on this?
+------------------------------------------+
| Sidney Schwartz * Beaverton, Oregon |
| sidney....@f285.n105.z1.fidonet.org |
| 72437...@compuserve.com |
+------------------------------------------+
JonaX
> So, was Bob Crisp given the boot by Amway Corp, and, if so, what for? Does
> anyone have more information on this?
Sidney!
Thank you for the in-depth and great summary of Mr. Crisp. It was very
enlightening and interesting! From the post I assume that Bob was
given the boot by Amway. I know for a fact that Bob was *definately*
given the boot by Quorum.
Bob Crisp is now at the head of a new MLM out there (with Doug Ridley).
A word of warning - if you are thinking about joining an MLM and see
either of those two names associated with it, stay as far away as
possible! If Bob could create such a fervor in both Amway and Quorum
as a distributor (and had to thus be booted) I don't even want to know
what he will do as a head of an MLM (somehow I think the MLM reputation
is going to get scarred once again by some unthical big wigs).
Regards,
Art
John Linthicum
: "Meanwhile, some of the big distributors are unhappy enough to quit. Last
: September Robert Crisp of Tulsa sold his organization for about $600,000, he
He _SOLD_ his organization? How is it possible that one can
_BUY_ such an organization? I have never heard of anyone being
able to buy and sell and Amway distributorship, other than
being sponsored the normal way. Are there any other Amway
distributors who have ever heard of such a thing? I didn't
think it was possible.
--
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| John T. Linthicum | |
| jo...@hopper.itc.virginia.edu | |
| HOO-RAH! | For Office Use Only |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
JonaX
> Sidney Schwartz (schw...@delphi.com) wrote:
> : "Meanwhile, some of the big distributors are unhappy enough to quit. Last
> : September Robert Crisp of Tulsa sold his organization for about $600,000, he
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> He _SOLD_ his organization? How is it possible that one can
> _BUY_ such an organization? I have never heard of anyone being
> able to buy and sell and Amway distributorship, other than
> being sponsored the normal way. Are there any other Amway
> distributors who have ever heard of such a thing? I didn't
> think it was possible.
It is legally your business and you are entitled to sell it to anyone.
It has happened on numerous occassions in several MLMs. There is
nothing inherently evil about this - it is the way it should be.
Sometimes it is simply time to move on.
Phil Kellingley
as...@holmes.acc.Virginia.EDU "JonaX" writes:
> Bob Crisp is now at the head of a new MLM out there (with Doug Ridley).
I see an uncomfortable parallel here - with ex NSA distributors now
being on the staff of another well known MLM :-)
Doubtless someone will now quote my tag line.
B. Monroe
>Sidney Schwartz (schw...@delphi.com) wrote:
>: "Meanwhile, some of the big distributors are unhappy enough to quit. Last
>: September Robert Crisp of Tulsa sold his organization for about $600,000, he
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>He _SOLD_ his organization? How is it possible that one can
>_BUY_ such an organization? I have never heard of anyone being
>able to buy and sell and Amway distributorship, other than
>being sponsored the normal way. Are there any other Amway
>distributors who have ever heard of such a thing? I didn't
>think it was possible.
One way to do it, (And I've heard of this being done) is to tell your
upline you'll "quit" for a certain price. Thus, if your upline is a
DIamond, and you're a Diamond, when you quit, your upline will have 5 of
his 6 directs (missing one...you) and he will have _your_ 6 Directs as
personals now, making him and EDC about to hit Double Diamond.
How an organization can be "sold" when you're getting the boot anyway is
beyond me, unless it borders on illegal...i.e. "give me $500,000 and I'll
_not_ encourage my downline to quit before I'm booted.
****************************************************************************
* B. Monroe * Send flames/email/drivel to mon...@essex.hsc.colorado.edu *
****************************************************************************
****************************************************************************
* You can't teach a pig to sing, * I'm too lazy; it doesn't work; *
* because they don't know how * my wife won't let me do it; but *
* and don't wanna learn, * _I_ make $40k/year!; my cat has *
* and if you PERSIST in trying to * diarrhea; it's against my rel- *
* teach him, you'll IRRITATE the pig! * igion for me to pursue personal *
* -Dave Severn * wealth. *
****************************************************************************
****************************************************************************
* "I don't wanna work as hard as you do!" *
* -Joe Loser *
* "Well, I don't wanna work as LONG as you're GONNA!" *
* -Brad Walgomott *
****************************************************************************
Simon Hederman
>It is legally your business and you are entitled to sell it to anyone.
>It has happened on numerous occassions in several MLMs. There is
>nothing inherently evil about this - it is the way it should be.
>Sometimes it is simply time to move on.
Yes there is. Everyone should start at the bottom. Amway has a very
strong policy on this. I don't have the rules with me at hand but I
can remember reading about this. As far as I understand there is
absolutely no way you can hand over an organisation to someone.
However you can leave the income to someone as part of you
will and testament. I don't know if you can do this before
you are dead though.
Simon
Jon Noring
[about selling a distributorship]
>One way to do it, (And I've heard of this being done) is to tell your
>upline you'll "quit" for a certain price. Thus, if your upline is a
>DIamond, and you're a Diamond, when you quit, your upline will have 5 of
>his 6 directs (missing one...you) and he will have _your_ 6 Directs as
>personals now, making him and EDC about to hit Double Diamond.
>
>How an organization can be "sold" when you're getting the boot anyway is
>beyond me, unless it borders on illegal...i.e. "give me $500,000 and I'll
>_not_ encourage my downline to quit before I'm booted.
Whatever the case may be, an Amway distributor can legally sell their
distributorship.
Jon Noring
--
The Amway business is starting in Turkey real soon!....
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jon Noring | Famous literary works in Windows 3.1 Help format are
OmniMedia | available via anonymous ftp from ftp.netcom.com
1312 Carlton Place | /pub/OmniMedia/books. Current titles include "Fanny
Livermore, CA 94550 | Hill", "Aesop's Fables", "Devil's Dictionary", "Warfare
510-294-8153 | of Science With Theology...", and more coming!
John Linthicum
: It is legally your business and you are entitled to sell it to anyone.
: It has happened on numerous occassions in several MLMs. There is
: nothing inherently evil about this - it is the way it should be.
: Sometimes it is simply time to move on.
Can someone read from that, that you can look for
distributorships that are for sale and 'buy-in' at that level?
That sounds ludicrous. I'm going to look this up in my
business reference manual.
The only plausible way I've heard so far is that you can be
'bought' by your upline to 'give' them your organization, and
even that doesn't sound all that plausible because they get it
anyway if you quit.
Christopher Harwood Snider
> JonaX (as...@holmes.acc.Virginia.EDU) wrote:
>
> : It is legally your business and you are entitled to sell it to anyone.
> : It has happened on numerous occassions in several MLMs. There is
> : nothing inherently evil about this - it is the way it should be.
> : Sometimes it is simply time to move on.
>
> Can someone read from that, that you can look for
> distributorships that are for sale and 'buy-in' at that level?
> That sounds ludicrous.
Why is this ludicrous? It is common practice in all
legitimate businesses that I know of. It seems natural
enough to me, but perhaps you do not see owning an
Amway distributorship to be a legitimate business.
It seems like a great investment in residual income
for someone to buy a developed organization. My $0.02.
I'm going to look this up in my
> business reference manual.
>
Please tell us what you find.
> The only plausible way I've heard so far is that you can be
> 'bought' by your upline to 'give' them your organization, and
> even that doesn't sound all that plausible because they get it
> anyway if you quit.
>
> --
> +-----------------------------------------------------------+
> | John T. Linthicum | |
> | jo...@hopper.itc.virginia.edu | |
> | HOO-RAH! | For Office Use Only |
> +-----------------------------------------------------------+
Regards,
Chris
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
X Christopher H. Snider Voice Mail (804) 961-0277 X
X Quorum Executive Distributor Charlottesville, Va, USA X
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
Sidney Schwartz
writes:
>In article mon...@essex.hsc.colorado.edu (B. Monroe) writes:
>
>[about selling a distributorship]
>
>>One way to do it, (And I've heard of this being done) is to tell your
>>upline you'll "quit" for a certain price. Thus, if your upline is a
>>DIamond, and you're a Diamond, when you quit, your upline will have 5 of
>>his 6 directs (missing one...you) and he will have _your_ 6 Directs as
>>personals now, making him and EDC about to hit Double Diamond.
>>
>>How an organization can be "sold" when you're getting the boot anyway is
>>beyond me, unless it borders on illegal...i.e. "give me $500,'ll
>>_not_ encourage my downline to quit before I'm booted.
>
>Whatever the case may be, an Amway distributor can legally stributorship.
Are you sure about that? It seems odd that the Amway Business Reference
Manual, which devotes over three pages to dissolving a distributorship in
the event of divorce, makes no mention of how a distributorship may be sold,
and under what conditions. I would also think that such a practice could
easily lead to problems. What if Joe Upline sells his business (downline) to
someone who knows little about how the Amway business works, and has no idea
how to support his downline? If Amway has rules and guidelines on this,
where are they published?
>Jon Noring
>
>--
>The Amway business is starting in Turkey real soon!....
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Jon Noring | Famous literary works in Windows 3.1 Help format are
>OmniMedia | available via anonymous ftp from ftp.netcom.com
>1312 Carlton Place | /pub/OmniMedia/books. Current titles include "Fanny
>Livermore, CA 94550 | Hill", "Aesop's Fables", "Devil's Dictionary",
"Warfare
>510-294-8153 | of Science With Theology...", and more coming!
>
+------------------------------------------+--------------------------+
| Sidney Schwartz * Beaverton, Oregon | |
| sidney....@f285.n105.z1.fidonet.org | This space for rent |
| 72437...@compuserve.com | |
+------------------------------------------+--------------------------+
Sidney Schwartz
as...@holmes.acc.Virginia.EDU (JonaX) writes:
>schw...@delphi.com writes:
>
>> So, was Bob Crisp given the boot by Amway Corp, and, if so, what for?
Does
>> anyone have more information on this?
>
>Sidney!
>
>Thank you for the in-depth and great summary of Mr. Crisp. It was very
>enlightening and interesting! From the post I assume that Bob was
>given the boot by Amway. I know for a fact that Bob was *definately*
>given the boot by Quorum.
You're very welcome. I should point out though, that at this point nothing
has been confirmed about what happened at Amway, other than that Crisp left.
It seems likely that Crisp's departure from Amway had something to do with
tape/book sales (it wouldn't be the first time this had landed Amway in
court), but whether he actually had his distributorship revokedr was
simply "advised" to leave, is unclear. I'd also like to know why Amway
withheld money from Setzer, and on what grounds Setzer was able to
sucessfully sue them and recover that money. I have a copy of the docket
from that case, but dockets aren't very informative, and it would be much
too costly to get copies of all the court documents just to satisfy my
curiosity.
>Bob Crisp is now at the head of a new MLM out there (with Doug Ridley).
>A word of warning - if you are thinking about joining an MLM and see
>either of those two names associated with it, stay as far awayble! If Bob could create such a fervor in both Amway and Quorum
>as a distributor (and had to thus be booted) I don't even want to know
>what he will do as a head of an MLM (somehow I think the MLM reputation
>is going to get scarred once again by some unthical big wigs).
I'm not currently looking to get involved in MLM, but you can be sure that
if I were, I'd be looking to steer clear of our pal Crisp. My MLM
company evaluation checklist would look something like this:
* High quality, fairly priced products
* Well-balanced compensation plan
* No Bob Crisp
* Positive comood upline support
* No Bob Crisp
:)
MergeNblur
schw...@delphi.com (Sidney Schwartz) writes:
>Are you sure about that? It seems odd that the Amway Business
Reference
>Manual, which devotes over three pages to dissolving a
distributorship in
>the event of divorce, makes no mention of how a distributorship may
be sold,
>and under what conditions. I would also think that such a practice
could
>easily lead to problems. What if Joe Upline sells his business
(downline) to
>someone who knows little about how the Amway business works, and has
no idea
>how to support his downline? If Amway has rules and guidelines on
this,
>where are they published?
It may be difficult to sell, even if possible. Every single downline
has the right to leave (and possibly get a refund for the kit) and
rejoin somewhere else, leaving the purchaser downline-less.
Jay Hennigan
(MergeNblur) writes:
(Regarding the feasibility and regulations of selling an Amway
distributorship)
>It may be difficult to sell, even if possible. Every single downline
>has the right to leave (and possibly get a refund for the kit) and
>rejoin somewhere else, leaving the purchaser downline-less.
Not exactly. The downline has the right to leave, but if he does so he
may not rejoin within 6 months without blessing from above. Also, he must
have the blessing of his upline direct if he wants to transfer and keep
his own downline. This is one of the reasons that the larger pins "work
depth". It makes those in the middle more reluctant to leave if they risk
losing their downline.
That is why I advocated (and got flamed for doing so by Bandwidth King
Kumquat) that anyone even remotely considering getting into Amway
negotiate an agreement with their upline direct and all intermediates
allowing the newcomer to transfer "with group" at any time. Such an
agreement causes the upline to treat one a bit more like a customer, as
that customer can change suppliers (as any truly independent business
can).
It would appear that other than by willing the business to a beneficiary
and then assuming room temperature, an Amway distributorship is unsalable.
The primary business asset is likely to be the downline, over which the
distributor has little direct control. There may be some hard assets in
terms of inventory, tape library, etc., and other soft assets such as
future MCI and voice mail residuals. It was at one time possible for a
corporation to be a distributor, with rather strict regulations one of
which was that the corporation could do no other business that that of
distributing Amway. (If an existing corporation involved in vending
wanted to becoming a distributor in order to handle Breakmate, or a
janitorial service corporation wanted to become a distributor for
"wholesale" pricing of cleaning supplies, such would be prohibited.) This
might be an option still, although I suspect that the sale of such a
corporation would still need to be sanctioned either by Amway or someone
upline.
-Jay
Gary Fritz
> It may be difficult to sell, even if possible. Every single downline
> has the right to leave (and possibly get a refund for the kit) and
> rejoin somewhere else, leaving the purchaser downline-less.
Which is virtually identical to when a "traditional" business is sold.
All the customers have the right to leave and go elsewhere, but this
doesn't mean businesses can't be sold.
It just means the new owner, if he is smart, will treat the customers
well so they want to stay. Same with downline folks. Of course,
some of the downline folks may decide to move with the previous upline --
same as the customers may go seek out the former business owner --
regardless of what the new upline/owner does. Them's the breaks.
Gary
