Had an Industry Briefing?

Greetings all, instead of a tape analysis, I decided to talk about a new means of contacting that some groups in BWW are using. This is called ‘Industry Briefing’. Now, I have a theory as to why this came about. When you are calling people to ‘check interest’ in building a Quixtar powered business, the most common question that you are asked by the person on the other side of the phone is, “what is this all about?” Now, we would typically use a blanket statement which more or less side-stepped the question and that would be something like this:

“There’s no way I can explain what we do over the phone. I would need to show you several things. I have a brief CD ROM or 10-minute video which will basically explain what we are doing. Then we’ll see where you could fit into what we’re putting together. I have ________ or _________ night available. Which is best for you?” (From the BWW Basics Manual BBAS 6/02, Pg 20)

The problem with this approach is that you can not give them a means to get that tape or video for at least a day.

What the Industry Briefing (IB) does is that it bypasses the delay by referring people to a phone number they can call to get that information. The number would be a long distance call if you are not local to the New York Area Code 212.

In short, you will be called, probably on a Sunday night (though it could be any time). You will be asked if you are interesting in making extra money. If you say yes, you will be given a phone number to call and asked to listen to the recording and call the person back (or they will call you in 30 minutes).

The phone numbers can be found on the My Coaches Corner website for Joel Griffin’s coaching network. Joel is a Diamond in Angelo Nardone’s business, and he is an EDC in Rex Renfrow’s business, and he is an EDC of Bill Britt. As for the other phone numbers listed, Lord Errol and Aris Pavlides are in Nardone’s business. Dave Taylor is the other EDC leg of Rex Renfrow. One thing that I will not make much argument on for the time being is the video under the link ‘Meet the Coach’, Joel says that he started his ‘consulting business’ to help other people succeed. In reality, he started an Amway business and switched to Quixtar in the 1999 conversion.

An Analysis of the Industry Briefing

Let us start with an interesting quote:

“If they find out that this is the Amway business that you are going to show to them, you got a real problem right there, and that is called deceit because are deceiving people by telling them this is the Amway corporation.” – Ron Puryear, “The How and Why of Contacting and Inviting” [Stock Code EA31]

Ron was actually talking about some people in the good old days who would say they are an employee of Amway, and this might be an issue at Boston University now. But Ron takes his teaching one step further by suggesting that you simply NEVER MENTION AMWAY at all. As such, you begin to use the ‘curiosity’ approach almost universally because you are worried that people have a false concept of Amway (now Quixtar) and thus, you need to keep that information from your prospect. Why is this?

I bring this point up because chances are, if you heard this IB, you have not been told it is Quixtar they are going to show you. I want you to know that they do not leave the name of Quixtar off because they want to deceive you, but because that would be a violation of the rule 9.8 in the Rules Compendium (PDF). Come to think of it, however, how they currently have it, it may STILL be a violation. {If there is a Quixtar Employee reading this, please check into this.}

Now, although each speaker puts their personality into the recording, they all say the same thing. I will use Joel’s call unless otherwise stated.

Analysis

In the introduction to all of these, the speaker is said to be “sought after”, though I can not find any verification about this except in the BWW functions.

Joel says that his income was determined by other people. He asks us three questions:

1. Are you on track to get to where it is you want to go in life?

2. Is your current income enough to take care of you in the future?

3. If some thing were to happen to you today, would your family be provided for?

Joel answered the first of those three questions and found that he needed a better way, so he prayed and then someone called him about the Amway business. He was then able to build a life that he could only dream of. I find this funny from a man who claims to put God first in all areas. If that were true, perhaps to words from the lips of Jesus from Matthew 6:25-34 would have come to his mind. Also, take note of 1 Timothy 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 6:17. Now, was Amway an answer to his prayer? I highly doubt it because of the track record for more damaged persons than helped. I am not advocating a life of poverty, but rather, the vast time commitment required to build this business is certainly not fitting with God.

At this point, Joel talks about the beginnings of Quixtar. He talks about the two wealthy men (Rich DeVos and Jay VanAndel) fully funding Quixtar. They are indeed as wealthy as they stated to be. Jay was on the Chamber of Commerce. What he says about this is true, but he starts to walk on shaky ground when he talks about the rapid growth…it is the truth, but not the whole truth. In June 2001, Forbes magazine talks about this fast growth:

Indeed, [DeVos] boasts that Quixtar hasn't spent a dime on advertising or employee acquisition. However, it is more likely that most of Quixtar's rapid growth came at the expense of Amway. As its reps move their business to the Web, Amway's worldwide revenues have remained flat at about $5 billion.

He starts to talk about how high Quixtar rankings are. Indeed, in 2004, they were number 14 on the Internet Retailer list, but the article boasts of “Upgrades, but sales remain at status quo.” Keep in mind that the listing may or not have anything to do with how good or solid the company is. There are a lot of criteria that goes into that report and since it costs money, I am not going to buy it to find out what their criteria is.

He starts to refer to Harry Dent’s “Roaring 2000’s” and starts to imply that since E-Commerce is ‘pre-knee’, it will take off and all the people involved in Quixtar will get Hog Nasty Rich! I am not holding my breath since last year sales dipped and I do not see a lot of growth for this year either. Perhaps when this years sales report is out, I will be proved wrong.

The next part, Joel talks about the Quixtar IBO’s take the place of the middle man like the big stores such as Wal-Mart do, and thus they get that money. I have two problems with this:

1. He says that they are the middle man to the other companies. For clarity, Quixtar has Exclusives, the Store-for-More (an online department store), and Partner Stores. If you buy from a partner store, it is exactly like going to that online store directly, except you might receive $6 back on a $100 sale IF you are a Platinum. The Store-For-More section, even with your ‘wholesale’ price, many items you will be expecting to pay the same if not more for the identical item at the local department store. For the exclusives, the price of similar items tends to be very high, such as $4.10 for toothpaste, $5.05 for a small bottle of liquid hand soap, $10.50 for 6 bars of soap (smallest available quantity), $8.90 for 1 liter of dish detergent, etc.

2. You are not the ‘middle man’ of this operation, you are a customer of Quixtar, in fact, he even says that “we predominantly are Business Owners, and so they have a vested interest in buying.”

Now, he starts talking about ‘Anyway’ money, that is, money that you have to spend anyway on household goods. He says that if you spend that money at the local store, you are spending it, but if it is at your own business, it is investing. This makes NO SENSE AT ALL!!!!!!!! You are SPENDING, but instead of Wal-Mart, Wegmans, Giant, etc getting your money, Quixtar is. The products are much higher price and you will effectively be LOSING money, not even breaking even, if you convert your whole house to Quixtar products.

He starts talking about how much money he made and basically says that it will happen to everyone. I would like to draw your attention to probabilities and incomes from the Quixtar approved site ThisBizNow:

$345,000,000 in bonuses to 370,000 IBO’s: Averge income of $932.43. That is before the big pins get there chunk, so try to follow this from the link above:

Number of Diamonds: 370,000 * 0.0176% = 65 Diamonds @ $175,116 is $11,382,540

Number of Emeralds: 370,000 * 0.0420% = 155 Emeralds @ $70,954 is $10,997,870

Number of Platinums: 370,000 * 0.2440% = 903 Platinums @ $40,970 is $37,898,910

Number of Rank and File: 370,000 – 1123 = 368,877

Money left for Rank and File: $345,000,000 - $60,279,320 = $284,720,680

Average Rank and File income: $284,720,680 / 368,877 = $674.26 per year or $56 per month. That is what the 2004 – 2005 snapshot of their business looks like. Could you become one of those few people at the top? YES, but according to Jon Talyor, you have a greater chance to succeeding at wealth creation by rolling the roulette in Vegas (PDF)!

When talking about people they are looking for, the Aris Pavlides recording specifically targets people like me as ‘failures’ who want to make other people failures, basically like a crab in the bucket pulling down the crabs that are trying to get out. That is not the case, as you can see on this post, I have documented clearly the major objections with this organization. I recommend that you study it freely from ALL perspectives (not just the perspective the recruiter wants you to) before you make up your mind.

Next he talks about the three things you need to do:

1. Get back to the recruiter to find out the details how it works. They will take you on a tour through the website as well as talk about the training and support system that will help you (WATCH OUT, THE TRAINING SYSTEM IS THE PART TO BE CAUTIOUS OF!!)

2. Get to a meeting. (Note, this is a meeting for the support system, most likely an Open meeting, but they may bring you to others as well. I have compiled a detailed list of descriptions, costs, and what to expect on the Types of BWW Functions post.)

3. Sample the products and learn the ‘value’ of them. In reality, they are nothing special. Some are good, some are bad, most are over priced.

Joel ends with a warning against people like me, but since I am done writing now, I guess I can’t do you any more harm!