Back in 1983, Rich DeVos was on the warpath.

We’re going to put out legally clear tapes that
    give it straight, and that you can rely on, we’re going to put them out at a price we
    think it right, we’ll put a little BV on ’em so that you recover some of the costs,and
    — we have a little hooker in there, by the way — the BV on tapes can never exceed
    twenty percent of your total Business Volume.

The quote above is from Rich Devos’ Directly Speaking Tape. Little did Rich know at the time, he was up against something that he had little control over.

The tools guys, allegedly, Bill Britt and Dexter Yager told Rich to back off and when Rich continued forward, rumor has it, the tools moguls stopped all Amway orders for two months. Rich Devos caved in favor of the company volume and never followed through with correcting the tools problem.

Fast forward to today and things are different. Not with the tools business, (that is the same) but rather with Amway’s business (now known as Alticor).

  1. 80% of Amway’s (Alticor) volume is outside of the U.S.
  2. Amway (Quixtar) has a non-compete clause in place that doesn’t allow the wholesale movement of a downline to another company.

Based on those factors, the Britts, Yagers and Puryears have a lot less influence today than they did in 1983.

If Jim Payne, Executive VP of Alticor, (at the direction of Michigan Governor candidate, Dick DeVos) wanted to clamp down on the problem, he could do it much easier today.

We already know that Quixtar has lost volume over the last year.

Would losing another $500,000 in sales be worth cleaning up a mess that has plagued Amway for 30 years?

Dick Devos, (potential Governor of Michigan), what do you think?