This is post exceeds the MLM Blog – A.D.D. mandate for length, but it is a worthy read.
From The Baboon Brief Forum via Mo:
Mo’s Comments:
Why would a company with 30 years of brand recognition change its name? Same plan, same business model, same lines of IBOs, same products. Then why change the name? Just because it’s moving online? A lot of business moved online. They didn’t change their name.
QBlog explained it very well. And I have the same question, why Randy Haugen is so much favourite of Quixtar corp that he is awarded business of other ppl when they lose arbitration? He screwed them big time, yet he’s rewarded big time?
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QBlog’s Post:
To put it simply, Randy Haugen is the reason Quixtar exists today. Without Randy’s stupid mistake (being recorded as he spread the P&G Satanism rumor) we’d still be calling the business Amway in North America.
Here’s what happened.
1. Rumors start up in the 1980s about P&G being a bunch of Satanists. Coincidentally, P&G was the “boogeyman” that Amway reps used in their recruitment pitches. “You don’t want your money for soap going to P&G when you could be spending it on your business.” As an aside, what company has replaced P&G as the “monolithic corporate boogeyman” in Quixtar recruitment pitches today?
2. There was no clear evidence that Amway started the Satanism rumor but for years P&G suspected that Amway was behind it and both companies “worked” together to stop the rumor.
3. Randy Haugen sent an AmVox message clearly spreading the Satanism rumor in the late 1990s (check the date on that). Now P&G had their proof and the lawsuits began. Remember that discovery and expert opinion are often part of such lawsuits.
4. At about the same time, Sydney Schwartz and Ashley Wilkes were running sites and participating in discussion boards that were not only critical of Amway but started taking a close look at the tool businesses. Remember that until the late ’90s and early 2000, there was no system-wide admission that tool money constituted any portion of the leadership revenue. It was all described as “covering costs” with a very modest kickback.
5. As the P&G lawsuit progressed, information became publicly available that proved what Schwartz and Wilkes had been saying all along — The real money is in the tools, not Amway.
6. Two important documents came out of the Lawsuits: 1. Blakey Report and 2. Postma Memo.
7. Others dissatisfied with Amway were now beginning to turn to the Internet to tell their story (Jeff Probant for example) and people like Schwartz and Wilkes gained credibility as their information was detailed and factual. Amway realized it had a problem and began an aggressive campaign to shut down the growing numbers of websites through legal manipulation and intimidation. Some of that worked but as you know, once something hits the Internet it can’t be removed… ever!
8. Amway starts to see a significant decline in revenue and the so-called kingpins demand action. There had been talk about tapping into the “e-commerce” boom and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to make a clean break from the Amway baggage and reinvent the business. Around the same time the BSMAA was drafted and shoved down the IBOs throats to provide protection to the tool distributors as more and more of the rank and file became aware of the real money involved with tools.
There are some details missing, feel free to fill them in. The main point is that Randy Haugen started a chain reaction that resulted in the formation of Quixtar (at least in part), the drafting of the BSMAA and an overall admission that the tool business is where the real money comes from. If Randy had never made those recorded comments P&G would never have had the ammo to sue Amway and much of the documentation and admission would never have surfaced to give Schwartz and Wilkes the data they needed to give their sites credibility.
So, thank you Randy.
What’s amazed me is that after such a boneheaded act, Randy is still very much in the fold. A business that seemingly discards its trouble-makers with ease (anyone remember Team in Focus?) has held onto Randy Haugen through thick and thin. Why? My only guess is that he’s personally protected by Dexter or Britt.
