I was going to wait until the 4th of July to write this, but I didn't want to wait. Piggybacking on my time in Amway yesterday, I'll share about what we did every summer for our military men and women.
But before I start. This is my experience. These are the emotions I felt. I used to be the guy that didn't say anything that might hurt others, even if it needed said. I'd just carry that secret, even if it ripped me up inside. So this is me getting it all out.
We were part of a team called DC International. Most of the people we were friends with were really great people. But as soon as your success depends on the success of others, there really can't be a close personal connection. See, it sounds nice. But if you want to succeed and someone else isn't working out, you drop them. Or work past them. You say it's about people, but it's only about people if they help you achieve your success. This "brotherhood" it's all bullshit. It's only brotherhood if you are perfect or in the business. Once you are out, you really are out. Again, there are still a lot of great people that I believe tried to do it right and not buy into the whole brotherhood family stuff and try to run a business. So don't assume everything I say about the whole is always about the individual you may know that's in one of these businesses. This post may even get flagged because I think at one point I heard one of the "leaders" say they had people scouring the internet for negative info about them and had it removed. They didn't say if the information was truthful or not, just negative. I'm sorry, but if you want to be transparent, be transparent.
Anyway...every summer we'd fill shoeboxes full of basic needs for a soldier. A bottle of "perfect" water, sports drinks, energy drinks, food bars, deodorant, toothpaste and toothbrushes etc. I'm pretty sure if I recall correctly it cost $40 to pack and ship each box. Guess where we bought all the product? That's right, our own store. So we made money off of filling these shoeboxes. Let alone the fact we could have filled 2.5x the amount of shoeboxes had we used generic products. But our troops deserved the best! Then why did you profit of them? I loved the fundraisers. This was my jam. Collect and raise money to help someone other than me. I was good at that. Our small team was good at that. And we rallied. It dawned on me that we could take the $15, 000 the 20 or so of us raised and multiply that. How? Whoever got the highest percent bonus should buy all the product and use that to buy even more product. So when we raised that much money, we calculated out how much we'd get back and buy that more more. So the business volume on that $15,000 was about the same, and we'd get 25% back. So...we'd buy $3750 more product. And we did the same thing for that extra too. We turned our $15,000 dollars into $20,000. That's 125 more shoebox's. The numbers may not be exact, but you get the drift. I think at times the whole team raised anywhere from 75-100 thousand dollars.
What if everyone did that? What if everyone sacrificed they money they would make off the fundraiser and use it to but more product that would essentially be free? So I suggested it. And it got turned down. They couldn't suggest what people do with their business's. This disgusted me. It was one of the first nails in the coffin. And then they actually even sold the fundraiser by telling people they would make an extra bonus by buying all the product from your own business. As if we don't already benefit enough from the soldiers who fight for freedom, which they so repeatedly reminded everyone.
Of course, when you are in it you don't see all of this stuff as clearly. Maybe some things have changed, maybe not. This was my experience. And I was one of the more excited ones through this whole thing....
We also did service projects over the Christmas season. Money couldn't be made of off these and we couldn't always incorporate our products into it. So they didn't gain as much steam. I'm happy to report that a lot of my "friends" in the business loved to do these Christmas events regardless. That speaks. Thank you.
Why do I write this? Because I want people to know that things aren't always the way they are sold. And if you see a fundraiser, it's ok to ask questions about it.
I know for every good story, there is a bad one. I think there is just as much to learn from both of them. And it's ok to be transparent.
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