The upline said we must hold a “grand opening” as soon as possible after getting started in our Amway business so everyone would know that we were Amway distributors and could order products from us. This was also the time to sign up new IBO’s who were interested in starting their own business.
We chose a date and decided to hold a BBQ in our yard. Amway does not sell the typical stuff people would have at a BBQ - hamburgers, buns, condiments, salad, cake, ice cream, etc. Seeing as how Ambot had high expectations of a huge crowd off we went to Costco to stock up for the BBQ.
Grocery bill tally for the BBQ Grand Opening - about $150.
We used our computer to print up invitations and gave them out to a lot of people including all neighbors within a block of our house. Ambot actually knocked on doors and spoke with the neighbors and handed them an invitation. He also sniped a few people who lived further away who happened to be walking past our house while we were outside gardening.
The grand opening was an afternoon event from 1pm to 5pm. Our first guest showed up around 1. He had other plans so was just planning to grab a burger, take a look at some of the Amway products, and hear a little bit about the business.
Actually this fellow was about as close as we ever got to signing up a downline with the exception of the one friend who signed up and then quit a couple of weeks later. This fellow came to a board plan and was interested and liked the IBO’s and their fakey nicey nice act. Then a mutual friend told him Amway was a scam and he backed off. Ambot was pissed off at our friend who had the gall to say Amway is a scam.
Funny how he agrees with that statement now!
Then the backyard got quiet for a couple of hours. Ambot went into the house and watched TV. Things picked up closer to 4pm. Some of our hungry elderly neighbors were happy to come over for free food. One of them even noticed some of the products displayed on a table and triumphantly, disgustedly declared “this is Amway”. A neighbor and his two young sons came over too. The fellow had never heard of Amway so Ambot gave him a good run down on the business. He was sure he’d found a prospect. Wrong.
Bottom line is as far as promoting the Amway business the grand opening was useless. A total bust. Fortunately most of the food we bought could be frozen or had a good enough shelf life that we were able to consume them later.
Some of the upline dropped by that evening and when they heard that the grand opening resulted in no prospects or customers they tried to get us to hold another grand opening as soon as possible. Nope. Never happened. We could have held a million grand openings and the attendance and results wouldn’t have changed. This was exactly the same thing as happened when we were involved in Amway several years earlier. We invited everyone we knew and lot of people we didn’t know too and maybe a handful showed up for the free food and never resulted in any sales or signing up new IBO’s.
Unfortunately Ambot didn’t learn his lesson the first time around. How’s that quote go? Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.