The following video was post on Amway UK’s public video website this week. It’s a short but interesting insight into the values of Amway’s founding families and what they wish promoted through the Amway business opportunity – Freedom, Family, Hope, Reward.
Leave a Comment below or discuss this on Amway Talk
thanks for the chance ,l’ll try as well as l can to be diamon as fast as possible
I’ve been in the business since 1990. Haven’t ‘moved’ much, if at all, because my own business took precedent. Then I got into some severe medical issues that essentially cramped my ability to earn much more then enough to keep me housed, fed, and keep the health insurance. Not much left over to “build” the Amway/Quixtar business. Still, I have a few retail customers.
I worked for them back in the late ’70s and early ’80s when they were ‘family’ and practiced ‘family values’ in the Amway business culture in Ada. Then they had to pay a hefty fine to Canada because of some bad legal advice they received. Well, the ‘family’ concept went away and I was part of a second wave of people to get laid off. I had a nice income then, although I took nearly a $12,000 pay cut to go back into the real world. At the time I was bitter and found they were quite flawed in thinking ‘family’ was the only way they could survive the Canadian ordeal. Yet, they abandoned the concepts of ‘family’ to survive. I didn’t understand all these issues until I got a degree in business, started my own business, and found that some ideals for the ‘foundation’ of the business sometimes have to be compromised. Does this mean that the compromises are permanent? No! My business is built upon a set of ideals that form the foundations of both of my businesses today (I own two corporations). Plus, being a distributor of Quixtar products, it gives me opportunities and insights that I’ve never had before.
While business people really abhor having to compromise their foundation ideals, sometimes it is absolutely necessary to remain competitive to stay in business. Like anything else, ideals change with time while the foundations always remain steady.
I agree that these were great founding principles for Rich & Jay, but are these statements by Steve Van Andel “these are the foundation of the second generation, the foundation of Doug and I” really true or just a marketing ploy?
Read for yourself here:
http://orrinwoodward.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2008/8/19/3845754.html
Great video! Its great to see Doug and Steve take pride in what their fathers started, and are obviously passionate and committed to carrying on those principles. Even when both of them are more than financially set, they still work as hard as they do for the future of this business. Of course they’re not perfect, and this business, Amway Global, isn’t perfect, but to think of all the positive things they’ve accomplished. If people want to find something to criticize, they’ll find it. I choose to look for the good in people/things.