Your friendly neighborhood salesman
So, Amway has started advertising on TV. With a network of 3 million people across 80 countries*, do they still need more advertising? Or is it to gain credibility as a brand? Whatever be the reason. From what I’ve seen of ‘em so far, you either love ‘em or hate ‘em. There is no middle path here.
I had the first taste of Amway selling when I was in the US. At one of the Walmart stores, there was this guy who walked up to me and said: ‘ You look very familiar. Were you in Bangalore anytime?’. Great opening line - More than 90% chances of a continued conversation, especially considering my prominent South Indian looks and the fact that majority of Indians in US are technies who definitely would have visited Bangalore - the Mecca of software world atleast once in their life time. He was successful in getting me into a conversation, but that was that. His energy would’ve been better spent talking to a log - I had shut off couple minutes into the conversation.
Since then I have seen a lot many agents (for lack of a better term), and I have seen some of my friends getting ‘converted’. The whole network seems to operate so silently, so efficiently - You dont feel the size of it and its fast paced growth, but its out there. You got to give it to them - the agents. The passion is evident, and they seem completely convinced that people would buy a never-before-heard brand of herbal toothpaste paying higher $$s. And they do have a high success rate, mainly because of a) the strong belief in the products they are selling, b) the power of relationship marketing and c) the rewards.
I guess, thanks to Amway and our Insurance companies, we will see a lot more of our family and friends turn into world class salesmen. Well, if this channel supports livelyhood of many, I dont mind buying that herbal toothpaste. And yet another LIC policy.
* Stats from amway site
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2 Responses to “Your friendly neighborhood salesman”
By Sunu on Oct 14, 2007 | Reply
Amway really eats into you . I have a friend who got into the Amway trap because of the fact that he was a kannadiga and the amway person too was a kannadiga. voila ! .
And he struggled to shake them off .
By Ashutosh Sharma on Oct 21, 2007 | Reply
But there is a marked difference between LIC and amway technocrats. LIC guy will give you something which for sure will give you money while our “hey I saw you somewhere amway sucknocrats” think they are the smartest in the world. It’s good to sell but do not try to use the “catch every indian mall” attitude. I hate that