Bob Firestone Exercises In Extreme Lifestyle Engineering - Latest Comments

Re: The Corporate World Hates You

Karen Wilson Wehrle — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 02:43:47 -0000

Excellent point. This is precisely why smart people form their own online home business blog. An entrepreneur controls his or her own small business--the real engine of American enterprise.

A blog as home base of your new business provides content that gives readers good information toward solving their problem, attracts targeted traffic with keyword phrases, lets readers know, like and trust you, establishes you as an expert and brands your name and your business. There's no better way to turn readers into raving fans, then customers.

Best of all, with an independent income all your own, you can thumb your nose at the corporate world. Sweet!

Re: Gyms Have A 95% Failure Rate: Do You Blame The Gym?

tex2 — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:02:02 -0000

Seriously. You obviously tried to use the "gym analogy" improperly. I told you that it is NOT a good analogy when applied to Amway.

Time will tell whether I'm Don Quixote or more similar to the Time magazine 2002 people of the year.

I believe there are FAR greater injustices in the world, but this is the biggest one I can do something about.

The "top producers" are dropping like flies, no thanks.

I am doing plenty of real and tangible things to fix it, this site is a minor diversion.

I guess this means you're too scared to make a phone call and get educated, aren't you?

Re: Gyms Have A 95% Failure Rate: Do You Blame The Gym?

BobFirestone — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:01:15 -0000

"Not being part of Amway, you should have backed off your Amway opinions LONG ago."

Seriously? YOU ARE THE ONE WHO IS TRYING TO MAKE THIS CONVERSATION ABOUT AMWAY & THE TOOLS.
Nowhere in the body of the post or any other posts on this site is AMWAY mentioned and I DO NOT care about the "Amway Tool Scam"

You are Don Quixote chasing windmills. Have you ever considered that after 5+ years your strategy to get AMWAY to change is flawed. You are trying to be influential with out any influence. Thread jacking peoples blogs and forums does not get you any closer to fixing what you believe to be the greatest injustice in the world.

Who do you think has more pull a top producer who makes the company a lot of money or someone who is does no sales volume? If you want to change AMWAY stop waiting for other people to do it and lead by example. Make your own tools, give them away for free and build a large group.

Quit talking about the problem to people who do not care and go do something real and tangible to fix it!

Re: Gyms Have A 95% Failure Rate: Do You Blame The Gym?

tex2 — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:32:30 -0000

Just to make something clear I have nothing to do with AMWAY. Zip, Zero, Nada, Nothing. ---- It shows.

The gym membership analogy is solid because the comparison is results are proportional to effort. ---- The gym membership analogy is solid for a narrow interpretation, and using it to compare effort in a gym, effort with other activities, and results. It has NOTHING to do with the Amway tool scam, as I have shown.

The gym owner comparison is not a valid analogy because on a cost basis you are trying to compare $50-150/mo vs $15,000-$50,000/mo. You are comparing apples and gold bars. ---- You can't follow the Amway tool scam system and have $50-$150/month overhead. Can't be done. As I said above, the analogy falls apart when you try to apply it outside the narrow applicability. That doesn't make it a bad analogy, just a very limited one.

Second the assumption is that everyone in MLM is trying to make a full time living in my experience is flawed. I have found most people are looking to make $500-$1,000 a month. That is hardly enough to live on. ---- You can't follow the Amway tool scam system and make $500-$1000/month until you reach the break even point, which is at about the Platinum level.

If gym owners operated the way most people run their MLM businesses the failure rate would be sky high. But for that to happen the gym owner would have to invest the money in buying the gym then do no marketing, no sales, not have a sign on the front door so people going past would know what is inside and lock the door just incase someone accidently tried to walked through. ---- You (again) tried to misuse the analogy.

Why do no gyms operate this way? Because the owners investment level is one they can't walk away from. Most people can walk away from $500 not many can walk away from $100,000. ---- Ditto.

I just read your blog post from today and I think it gets to the heart of the issue... ---- We'll soon find out....

"I hear Amway supporters often mention that you will have a real business if you treat it like one. It is my observation that most IBOs do not treat their businesses like a real one." ---- This is the issue for SOME IBOs, not most of them.

-This is the entire point I was making, people get out of life what they put into it. ---- They CAN'T get out of Amway what they put in when the playing field is tilted into a cliff!

"It is also my opinion that the Amway business itself is flawed"
-Not being part of Amway I will not speak to the flaws that they have. But is MLM perfect? No nothing is. For the people that do the work there is more good than bad. ---- Not being part of Amway, you should have backed off your Amway opinions LONG ago. I'm not looking for perfection, just a reasonable level of honesty. YOU CAN'T LIE ABOUT THE SOURCE OF THE VAST MAJORITY OF PROFIT AND CALL THAT MORE GOOD THAN BAD!

" and many IBOs, in their zeal to sponsor downline, do crazy things at times, such as tricking people into meetings."
-Tricking people into coming to a meeting is just plain wrong. My biggest issue with MLM as an industry and profession is the idea that it is healthy to only recruit people. For the model to work product needs to be sold to end users (people who want to use it). The entire recruiting mentality is someone else will sell the products to end users, I don't have to and that is wrong. When you remove all the fluff and window dressing the money is made by selling products. ---- Again, you're NOT talking about Amway, because not only does most of the profit come from the tools, the upline encourages the "buy from yourself and teach others to do the same" mantra.

"Many IBOs do not bother to qualify their prospects. They will sponsor anyone who is breathing."
-This is why the gym owner analogy fails because the only qualification to get into a network marketing business is a credit card that you can charge a couple hundred dollars to. The plus side is it opens the doors to anyone who wants to try the negative is you get a lot of people who want to believe that there is no work required. ---- Again, you are attempting to cover up the real problem, the Amway tool scam, with a minor issue.

As far as training and training materials are concerned I do believe that it is the companies responsibility to offer training as part of being a distributor. With digital distribution, e-books, streaming video and webinars, companies can create and distribute training materials at little to no cost the the entire network of distributors. ---- The company or upline could do this, that is the minor point. The major point is it isn't being done, and the upline LCKs are raking in the big bucks from the Amway tool scam, and the little bucks from the Amway products. The downline, generally the 99% below Platinum, operate at a net loss.

Re: Gyms Have A 95% Failure Rate: Do You Blame The Gym?

BobFirestone — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:45:21 -0000

Just to make something clear I have nothing to do with AMWAY. Zip, Zero, Nada, Nothing.

The gym membership analogy is solid because the comparison is results are proportional to effort.

The gym owner comparison is not a valid analogy because on a cost basis you are trying to compare $50-150/mo vs $15,000-$50,000/mo. You are comparing apples and gold bars.

Why do no gyms operate this way? Because the owners investment level is one they can't walk away from. Most people can walk away from $500 not many can walk away from $100,000.

I just read your blog post from today and I think it gets to the heart of the issue...
"I hear Amway supporters often mention that you will have a real business if you treat it like one. It is my observation that most IBOs do not treat their businesses like a real one."
-This is the entire point I was making, people get out of life what they put into it.

Re: Gyms Have A 95% Failure Rate: Do You Blame The Gym?

Joecool — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:43:20 -0000

One of the defenses I have heard from Amway apologists is a comparison of the Amway opportunity to a gym membership. The defense is that you have to do something to get results. On that point, I agree. Except the comparison is ridiculous as a gym is not a business opportunity. A gym membership is a product/service that one can purchase. It seems that many Amway defenders so deperately want to justify their positions that they come up with silly comparisons.

If the Amway oportunity was compared to a gym owner, wouldn't that be a better comparion? On that point, if you were recruited to be a gym owner, wouldn't you demand to know how other gyms are doing financially? Wouldn't you want to know the likelihood of success if you were to open a gym? Wouldn't you need to know about operating expenses and potential income before you even thinking about buying a gym?

What if you were told that maybe only 9 or 10 out of 10,000 gym owners make enough income to live on? If more than half of the gyms went out of business in their first year, would you still be interested? If the greater majority of gym owners lost money, would you still be interested? If the majority of gym owners lost money, and many lost lots of money, would that interest you?

Wouldn't any investor with an ounce of business savvy look at this gym opportunity and run in the opposite direction?

Re: Gyms Have A 95% Failure Rate: Do You Blame The Gym?

tex2 — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 07:47:16 -0000

The reason why you don't understand my motivation starts with not answering my questions. I know the old "trick" of the person asking the questions is in control of the conversation. Answer mine.

We could do it on the phone much more effectively, here is a link to a conference call number, you can keep your phone number confidential by following the directions posted. All you have to do is propose a couple of days/times, I live in the Central time zone. The ball is in your court: http://texsquixtarblog.blog...

Re: Gyms Have A 95% Failure Rate: Do You Blame The Gym?

BobFirestone — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 01:01:52 -0000

I would like to understand your motivation but after reading a dozen posts on your blog I have not gotten any closer to figuring out why you spend so much time doing something that to me appears to be tremendously unproductive.

Please tell me your story (not why the people making the tools are bad people). Obviously you were or are still in Amway and spent a bunch of money on tools. How about some details. How long were you with Amway? How much have you spent on tools? How big of a group did you have? Monthly sales volume?

In your first blog post you say " I do NOT hate the "tool systems", I hate the high prices that result in MA$$IVE secret profits for the lying cowardly "kingpins". I find no issue with the CONTENT of the tools,". If the high prices is all that is preventing people from being successful why have you not created your own set of tools and given them away for free?

Re: Gyms Have A 95% Failure Rate: Do You Blame The Gym?

tex2 — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:52:18 -0000

Good job, you get schooled, so you don't answer the questions and try to change the subject. You don't have a clue about the culture of the Amway tool scam, and it shows. You are being ridiculous about having a gun held to someone's head. Nobody held a gun to any Bernie Madoff investor's head either, so what's your point? I decided a long time ago it isn't about me, maybe when you grow up you'll understand what I get out of it. But I'll be the one who's NOT holding my breath waiting for that to happen. LOL

Re: Gyms Have A 95% Failure Rate: Do You Blame The Gym?

BobFirestone — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:23:19 -0000

Being an adult I say no to people when they try and sell me stuff I don't want.

At an Amway meeting has anyone ever have a gun held to their head and told to buy the tools or they would be shot? Didn't think so. No one has ever made anyone buy a seminar or training tool.

I have a question for you... What are you getting out of the time you spend preaching the evil of Amway? How does this time benefit you? I looked at your site and it looks like you are spending a lot of time doing this.

Re: Gyms Have A 95% Failure Rate: Do You Blame The Gym?

tex2 — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:10:07 -0000

Really?

1. Did the gym heavily promote the workout clothes, accessories, supplements, and juice bar as the "shortcut to body transformation success", and "if you don't buy the workout clothes, accessories, supplements, and juice bar products, and use them exactly as prescribed, you shouldn't expect to see any results to your fat content, muscle growth, etc.", or did they say to you "Nobody has ever succeeded without using the workout clothes, accessories, supplements, and juice bar"?

2. See above, combine it with extremely complex rules, including a rule that anything you put in front of a prospect has to be Amway approved, then tell me what your adult mind would do.

3. I pass judgment based on the FACT the Amway tool scam systems can be shown to keep the IBOs losing money (Amway profit minus overhead, including tool scam costs) until about the Platinum level. IBOs show the GROSS Amway profit, and are silent on the NEGATIVE net profit. By the time the new IBO figures this out, they are broke, so the upline looks for a new "mark" to replace them, and the Amway tool scam worm turns, on and on....It is an insult to say me and many others don't succeed at Amway because we didn't read the entire book (I've read dozens from cover to cover), when the REAL issue is the Amway tool scam, which tilts the playing field.

4. Where the training comes from is secondary to the issue of the INCENTIVE of the training. Since the Amway Emeralds and above make several times more from the tool scam than Amway, where do you think their incentive is?

Re: Gyms Have A 95% Failure Rate: Do You Blame The Gym?

BobFirestone — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:35:56 -0000

The last gym I belonged to also sold workout clothes, accessories, supplements and had a juice bar. Those are tools for working out.

Second... The last time I checked no one in Amway is required to buy the tools that the up-line is selling. If you don't like the tools that they are selling channel Nancy Reagan and "just say no". You have to be an adult to join a Network Marketing company so you are old enough to make up your own mind about where to invest your time and money.

Third... Who are you or I to pass judgement on the tools that are being sold? I don't know if they are any good or if the people buying them are actually applying the training or if they are doing the same thing they are doing with the primary business and that would be nothing. Tony Robbins talks about how most people never read past the first chapter of a personal development book, that is why things never change because they never do anything to change them.

Fourth... In my opinion the training should be organized by the company at the corporate level. For a consistent corporate message everyone in a company should be getting the exact same training. It shouldn't matter if you are talking to a distributor in Hawaii or Maine the prospect should get the same pitch. With webinars and the ability to download tools (videos, audio, PDF) the cost is minimal to the company and should be minimal cost (preferably free/included as part of the enrollment).

Re: Gyms Have A 95% Failure Rate: Do You Blame The Gym?

tex2 — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:59:20 -0000

Bob,

As far as I know, the gyms don't have the equivalent of the Amway tool scam:

Amway is a scam, and here's why: Amway wants to pay out as little money as they can get away with, so they support the higher level IBOs ripping off their downline via the tool scam. As a result, about 99% of IBOs operate at a net loss, while the top 1% make several TIMES more from their Amway tool scam than from the Amway products. Read about it on my blog, I suggest you start here: http://tiny.cc/D5oJh and forward the information to everyone you know, so they don't get scammed.

Do you see how you're talking apples and oranges?

Re: Do Your Customers Have Customers?

Rob — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:55:59 -0000

Cool post and really nice blog. It looks really clean.

Thinking about your customers customers is a good way to come up with what you need to be distributing. Again, great point!

Re: The Biggest Detractors Of Network Marketing

BobFirestone — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:56:08 -0000

Earlier this year the first time I read that mens journal article I was extremely surprised by how poorly monavie scored on the test. I had always personally thought it was over priced and under performed but never thought it was that bad. Talking about monavie in particular I am not a rep & have no reason to defend their products but I am not going to go out of my way and talk negatively about them. Negativity rarely makes sales.

For the product I represent there are several important distinctions about the anti-oxidant sources.
# 1 is ECE Kelp extract. ECE has a longer chemical structure and is 40% fat soluble making it between 100 and 1000 times more potent than the same quantity of a land based fruit sources. There is along list of benefits that have been linked to consuming ECE on a regular basis including improvements with coronary artery disease, hyper tension, arthritis, brain function and erectile dysfunction.
According to research done in here in the US and in South Korea to get the beneficial effects of ECE a person needs to consume of between 1 and 10 mg per KG. For a 180 pound person that is between 81 mg & 810 mg. Our flagship product has 250 mg in a 2 oz shot (it is on the back of the bottle).

The Allergy Research Group did a good summary paper on ECE in 2007 you can read it at http://www.allergyresearchg...

Re: The Biggest Detractors Of Network Marketing

Lazy Mand and Money — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:21:16 -0000

And what happens when someone points out that the anti-oxidants are even greater in a $4 bottle of grape juice (http://www.mensjournal.com/... - and you get twice as much of it.

Re: Arguing With Stupid People Will Kill You

Anne Guillot — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:22:49 -0000

Hi Bob, completely agree, social media is great but stupid people will always shout louder...and I make it as a number one rule to NEVER ever argue with anyone on the internet. Not worth it.

Re: The Blog Will Be Back Up Soon

BobFirestone — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:31:32 -0000

***Update***

I have recovered quite a bit of old content and found a bunch of half written stuff that I need to finish.

Over the next week I should be posting a bunch of content and be back up and running.

Re: 40 Pounds Of Fat

Weight Loss Colon Cleanse — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:07:36 -0000

Definitely right about the calorie deficit warning. Weight gain and loss both have to be a graduate process. Someone that is trying to starve themselves into shock-loss is going to end up doing more harm to their body than good. Slow and steady is the way.