One thing I recall being taught by some WWDB leaders was that there was no selling of products required. You could ask a prospect if they liked selling, and if they said no, you could say "great, this business is perfect for you". If they said they enjoyed selling stuff, you would also say "great, this business is perfect for you". I would guess that most people do not enjoy selling things, and if you add in the high prices of products and a spotty Amway reputation, then it makes it that much more difficult to move products to non IBO customers. For this reason, many IBOs simply "buy from themselves" with little regard to finding actual customers.
Some WWDB leaders exclusively taught the philosophy of buying from yourself. That way you are moving volume but you don't have to get uncomfortable enough to go out and sell stuff. You just use your own goods each month and try to sponsor people who also want to buy from themselves and get others to do the same. I believe this method of business may be borderline on illegal so it would likely be taught in smaller settings rather than on a major function stage. That way the upline can claim plausible deniability and state that the downline must have misunderstood what they were taught.
Oddly enough, if you stop and think about this for a minute, in what business can anyone earn a nice living without selling a product or service? The answer is there are none, but some uplines trick their downline into thinking they can earn financial freedom from self consumption. I once asked my sponsor how Amway tracked our customer sales to determine who qualified for a bonus and my sponsor said not to worry about it since no one bothered to check. Imagine that? While the upline might mention sales as a means of remaining in good legal standing, but the reality was a different story. And it makes sense. To the upline diamond, whether you bought or sold 100 PV makes no difference to them. They get credit for your volume whether you bought or sold it.
While there are some IBOs who do sell some goods, I would think that anyone with significant products sales is a rare individual indeed. Looking back, many of my sales were to those who were probably more sympathetic to my cause than a genuine want or need for Amway products. This can be confirmed by the apparent relatively few ex IBOs who continue to buy Amway goods. If ex IBO sales were common, then Amway sales would coninue to skyrocket even if IBOs were dropping like flies. But Amway sales have been tanking since 2013. Their sales peaked at 11.8 billion and has decreased each year since, coming in at 8.6 billion in 2017.
If your upline teaches buy from yourself, no sales required, run fast in the opposite direction.
