Tag Archives: LOC

Commentary, LOC, SA8

Amway: Part of the green movement. Before there was one.

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Amway_GreenMovement

One of the regulars on AmwayTalk, MichMan, often passes Amway world headquarters in Ada, Michigan. He sent me this photo of a great billboard that’s up nearby. When he first mentioned it in the AmwayTalk forums, another poster, Deb, mentioned that Amway introduced the word “biodegradable” to the world with it’s first product, L.O.C. – Liquid Organic Concentrate. L.O.C. was one of the first commercially marketed biodegradeable cleaning products, meaning it’s components break down safely without damaging the environment.

I thought that sounded a little hyperbolic, Amway introduced “biodegradable” to the world? I know they’ve been “green” since the beginning, but that seemed a stretch. Then I started digging. I found this source that says the first known use of the word “biodegradable” was in a scientific text in 1961, barely a year or so after the founding of Amway. I then found sources from 1962, 1963, and 1964 (link broken) that all mentioned Amway marketing biodegradable products – that’s within a year of the first known use of the word.  Continue reading Amway: Part of the green movement. Before there was one. →

Amway Australia, Amway North America, Commentary

ABOs – Please stop selling Amway as a way to save money

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Tuesday night I was at an Open Plan, the presenter did a great job, but he did one thing that irritates the heck out of me and in my opinion is problematic and potentially dishonest. What did he do? Well, as is unfortunately not uncommon, when explaining the various benefits of becoming an Amway Business Owner (ABO), one he promoted was the idea that “you’ll save 30% on stuff you’re already buying”. Leaving aside the issue of whether saving money is a sensible way to promote starting a business or not, this is a problem, because for many people sitting in the audience it is at best misleading, and indeed usually completely false. Continue reading ABOs – Please stop selling Amway as a way to save money →

Commentary

The Real Amway Global Transformation

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In his seminal work Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t, Jim Collins reports on some of the research he and his colleagues have done in to what transforms good companies in to great companies. One of the central tenets of the book his the “hedgehog concept”, based upon an ancient Greek parable:

The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

As he explains on his website, jimcollins.com – Continue reading The Real Amway Global Transformation →