Were you in Winbiz21? (Winbiz 21)
I’ve created this page because I noticed so many people coming in from search engines having searched for Stephen and Gemma Stranney; Pat and Eileen Stranney; Stewart and Carol Melville; Bert (or Burt) Gulick; Barry and Pam Cooper; or Ron and Ann Gee-Pemerton. All of these people are leaders are leaders in the Amway group or motivational organisation (AMO or QMO) called Winbiz21 or Winbiz 21.
At first I was surprised that there are so many people looking for information about this organisation. But I guess that one of the first things we did when we joined was to look up the names of the company and the Stranneys (who were our upline Diamonds). One of the things that helped us join Melaleuca was a mutual dislike for this organisation (our sponsor there was also previously in Amway, twice I think!). We’re not with Melaleuca any more, for reasons discussed on our Melalueca page, we’ve now got fingers in many pies as discussed on many places on this site. Please feel free to contact us (chris@bigblackbug.com) to discuss any of them.
Personally we feel that Winbiz 21 exist as an organisation for one reason and one reason alone - to keep the people in that downline by making them feel as though they need to be part of the Winbiz 21 group. It’s not like you join Amway and think there’s any other way. We thought, at first, the "training" events were actual Amway things.
What kind of training can you expect? After all, that’s what this whole thing is dressed up as… "Training to enhance your business" and "Tools" to help you expand as a person and in business. For a start, don’t EVER expect to be told how to make money with this damn company. You’ll never to told to retail Amway products (the reason that the company exists in the first place). Instead you’ll be encouraged to be a "business builder" and recruit people into your downline and get them "plugged into the system". That phrase alone should send a shiver down your spine. So then these people will recruit people, who in turn recruit.
You will be forgiven for asking… "I was told this was a business. What kind of business is this?". Well, it isn’t a business in my mind. It’s a traditional products catalogue company used to form a pyramid. The training consists of being told endless stories of "success" by the people at the top who have made it. I’ll save you the bother, the story usually goes along the lines of:
"I was poor, I grew up on a farm, I met my partner, got introduced into this business and it’s the most wonderful thing ever. I’ve travelled to more places that I thought imaginable. I can buy all the things I want to. I manage to spend all my time with my kids now I’m free of that nasty horrible job."
They’ll always be blantently shoe-horned yet seeming casual mention of the books, (sorry "Tools") that helped them build this wonderful business. And you’ll never guess what, these books will be on sale at the back of the show. Just to make sure you buy these books even if you don’t read you’ll be told how they used to hate reading and forced themselves to read 15 minutes a day and one day a marvelous thing happened where they read for 20 minutes without looking at the clock.
Should you get involved with Amway? I’d say not. Unless you want to spend the next year of your life with "recruiting" people occupying your every thought and controlling your every decision.
Can you make money with Amway? Yes, if a) you manage to recruit enough people underneath you to benefit from the profits made from motivational rallies and the books and tapes that form the tools you’ll sell to your downline. Or b) you sign up and treat Amway as a sales based business and market the products and make proper retail money from the profit there.
But before you do that, I’d check out the products and prices themselves and compare them to the offerings from other traditional sales companies. We’re still with a few network marketing companies - but never play the recruitment pyramid game. We sell the products and gain commisions from the number of actual customers we have - not the amount of salesmen we can recruit.
June 27th, 2006 at 6:50 pm
Pam and Barry Cooper came to my house last night to give me some background into Amivo. What advise or information can you give me.
June 29th, 2006 at 11:21 pm
I’ve replied to this on the front page, and I’ve also emailed this poster privately.
Here’s that post
September 29th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
my guess youve never been successful or even owned your own business of any kind
it does not matter what business you are in if you dont think about how you can make it produce money and think of it constantly youre not really in business its a hobby to you
there nothing wrong in reading it adds to your knowledge now is that knowledge going to benefit you?
i wish you all the luck in the future and hope you win the lottery thats the only way you’ll have money in your pocket…….. (for a while)
regards
jas
February 2nd, 2007 at 6:30 pm
I have experienced good and bad with people who have approached me in the past. The bad experiences I have had were with people who lied to me about their business opportunity, and I lost a lot of money because I believed them.
With this winbiz/amway opportunity, the people I have met so far have never tried to push me into any decision. Neither did I feel harrassed at the meetings I have attended.
Surely there are good and bad in every business, but principally I feel that the structure is fair and a great opportunity for those who believe in the priniciple of getting what you want WHEN you help others get what they want.
March 10th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Please read the book “World Wide Whiners” by Dr Steve Price. Negative blogs and Complaint Sites (like this one) dominate cyberspace. Why? Because the World Wide Web empowers a few man-spirited… misingormed…and misguided malcontents (like this one) to spread negativity about legitimate companies and reputable people
March 10th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
[…] This is a reply to a comment on the winbiz 21 page. The comment reads as follows: Please read the book “World Wide Whiners” by Dr Steve Price. Negative blogs and Complaint Sites (like this one) dominate cyberspace. Why? Because the World Wide Web empowers a few man-spirited… misingormed…and misguided malcontents (like this one) to spread negativity about legitimate companies and reputable people […]
March 21st, 2007 at 8:12 pm
What strikes me is that the stranneys are now millionares and it took them since the 70s to become millionares ,and its still only them , no one else seems to be able to get near them , go to one of the seminars they host montly ,where they charge you in the door and for the coffee that you drink , i went around and met various people , everyone of them was linked back to the stranneys ,so it dosent take a fool to see who really makes money , a good freind of mine sponsered me into it and he is totally genuine ,he was trying to do me a favour because i was going through money troubles ,he belives in the whole thing and i hope he makes it because he has been driving around the country for 5 years or more now
April 4th, 2007 at 12:38 am
Good points Dickie, and are they even Millionaires? I never heard them say it themselves, but plenty of other people spreading it.
I think the last Diamond in the UK was in 1986 or something and that was Stewart and Carole Melville.
April 4th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Chris ,i was at a seminar and Stewart and Carole were the main speakers , Carole made a point that her and her husband would not buy a new car beacuase they did not see the value in buying a new one so they always bought one a year or two old ,please
if you spend all that time and motivation getting from poverty to financial freedom , your not going to but a 2 year old jag , one of the rewards is being able to buy a new car …
alarm bells rang for me anyway !!
September 21st, 2007 at 6:23 pm
I have just found this web site and read Dickie Donnellys post April 4th.
We were at a couple of Seminars that the Melvilles spoke at and found them to be very relateable speakers. They built Diamond from a pretty rough/poor background. Give them credit not a lot of people have built this to Diamond HAVE YOU ??? For Carole to say whet you say she said ref buying a 2yr old Jag instead of brand new makes a lot os sense to me. When/IF you ever go Diamond then you can do whatever you want to do ref Buy new or not. Maybe they have better things to do with their money…cant wait to have that choice myself…..
October 3rd, 2007 at 9:17 pm
Was in Winbiz 21 for quite a while. Contrary to the stuff above, I found the retailing support to be excellent. There were constant training sessions dealing with the beauty products in particular. Stopped doing the networking a while ago, but have not lost any of my customers.
Always found the Melville’s extremely likeable and decent people. They tried their very best to make the business honorable and transparent - it is not their fault that a bunch of sharks caused the current crisis.
October 9th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
it seems that everytime amway comes up against questions or problems they blame a bunch of sharks (see link) http://www.amquix.info/amway_sunday_world.html
i never said that any of these people were not nice people , they were and they were very helpful
October 9th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Dickie…I dont understand the purpose of your last post. Are you for Amway ?? or against Amway ??. Are you in Amway ??..or an ex-IBO??
I am an in Amway ..and proud of it. We have made a very good life style through building this business. We have been very lucky as we have met every Diamond in the UK/ROI.We have found each one of them to be very good people who have worked very very hard to build their businesses.
There is no doubt that some individual IBOs have caused a lot of negative about this business due to their activities with regards the .system. But that does not mean the Amway business is bad.
Sport, Government,Churces,Music, Actors.Police…all have bad people in them ..but you cant tar everyone with the same stick