Amway - How many hours does it take to build an Amway Business">

You can build the business with 5-10 hours per week

When you consider only the steps involved in just showing the plan, this is probably a good average. If you spend 1-2 hours on the phone making appointments, show the plan 2-3 times per week at one hour per plan for yourself, help one or more growing downlines with 4-5 plans per week and spend three hours at a weekly open, then you are certainly come in around the 5-10 hours per week. Many people think that it's unfair to count the driving time to and from these activities, but it is time spent away from your home. In many cases, you will hear of distributors who will get off work, drive two hours to show the plan to someone, and then spend another two hours getting home. Whether you want to consider this as time spent building the business is up to you.

At some point, you will run out of the people on your original list of names of family, friends and acquaintances. Eventually, you will have to learn how to "prospect." There are many tapes available that teach a person how to do this. Many distributors claim that they do this during the normal course of their life, but in practice, most people make special trips to malls, shopping centers and retail stores striking up conversations with strangers to get their name and phone number. I'll let you decide if this should be counted as time spent "doing the business."

There are many training and motivational seminars that are optional but are also considered by many to be essential to building a successful Amway business. Some, but not all, distributors will not give you the "unlimited help" that is talked about in the plan, unless you fully participate in the system.

Some people consider the functions as educational time to help them build the business better rather than time spent actually building the business. After all, many businesses and occupations require continuing education that is not counted as time spent "on the job" and the same can be said for these seminars. That being said, I think it is only fair that you should know what kind of time commitment that is expected of you.

Here is a list of the "system" in use by the Britt System while I was involved with it. Other distributor organizations may use different systems, so PLEASE check with the person who is showing you the business to determine what is being used.

There is generally a weekly "open", where you can bring new prospects in to meet your associates and let someone very experienced at showing the plan (generally a direct or above). This starts at 8:00 PM and there is generally a training session afterwards for distributors which may last to 10:30 - 11:00 PM. Although no one forces you to be there, it is always stated that if you're a team player, you'll be there even if you were not successful at getting someone to the open. Part of the reason is that if someone has a guest at the meeting with the same occupation as yours, you can be introduced to them and give the business a subtle credibility (Hey - Here's someone that does the same thing you do and he/she is in the "business"). Of course, the hotel room costs money and they want everyone to share in the expense which is generally about $2-$5 per person. There is sometimes a "night-owl" at a local restaurant which may last until 1:00 - 2:00 AM. There is no charge for this, but most people have something to eat during this time. Maybe you are the kind of person who can sit in a restaurant for a couple of hours, with all the food smells, and not eat something, but not me.

There are monthly Seminar/rallies held 8 times per year. They start at 2:00 PM on a Saturday and are generally over around 11 PM, but there normally is a night-owl afterwards which lasts until midnight to 1:00 AM. The cost of these functions are $12 per person for both the seminar and rally.

In the other four months, there are major weekend functions. They start at 8:00 PM Friday and end 5:00 PM Sunday. Tickets for these events generally run around $55 for the entire weekend. But there will also be a hotel bill and meal expenses to consider. Hotel bills can run anywhere from $50-100 on up per night. In most cases, hotels will charge their maximum rates for the weekend when they know that an Amway function is being held because they know they can get it. Hotel bills can be offset some by sharing the room. Only you can decide if sharing a room with four or six people is worth it! I did it once and then never again.

Another factor to consider is that for some of these weekend functions you may have to drive a considerable distance to attend it, which may require you to take a Friday and/or Monday off just to attend everything. From personal experience, I can say that has been several cases where it has been within a 3-4 hour drive. In most cases, it is 8-10 hours or more. And of course, you can't go to the one closest to you. If a Britt diamond is having a spring leadership 1 hour from your home and your own upline diamond is having one a week later 8 hours from your home, guess which one you are expected to go to? The reason I was given for this is so that you are plugged into the information your organization is getting. But isn't that the whole purpose of the Britt system? Everyone in Britt's organization should be sharing the same information! In my opinion, it's more than likely to be the income from the function that's the main reason for which one you attend.

There are other full weekend functions, such as Britt School, 2500 and up weekends, silver and up weekends with upline diamond, Go diamond weekend for silvers and up. There are also one day/evening type functions such as Diamond Attitudes, team meetings, product training and special activities may be planned for those who hit specific sponsoring, personal use, or sales goals. There may also be an occasional "social event" so you can associate with other distributors.

I have almost never heard anybody dictate that you will attend these functions "or else." And most distributors that I know are understanding when the inevitable conflict arises. That doesn't mean that your upline won't tell you that the "Function" is always more important than anything else in life and that if you're serious about building your business, you'll put everything else aside to be there. You will also hear that if you miss a few, they know you're not serious and will find someone else to work with.

Nothing on this page should be construed as trying to imply that the functions and association is not important in building an Amway business. The only point I wanted to make here is that when you start adding up all the time working the business, AND attending functions, AND associating with other distributors, it becomes quite substantial. Most, if not all, of your spare time can be devoted to some aspect of the business.

Main Page