Well, I was cleaning out my wallet when I came across the business card of this guy I met last week. Let me ask you, what is it about me that attracts all of these stinkin’ Amway salesmen??? For some reason I have met way more than my fair share of these people in the last couple of years.

[For those of you who are not familiar, Amway is a complicated pyramid scheme – do a Google search on "Amway" an you will come up with many sites that will explain it better than I can (obviously, skip the first link that comes up to the Amway site itself, you won’t get any useful information there!)]

Let’s analyze my interactions so far…

When	Where	Who approached me
November 21, 2001	Unbelievable, the guy calls me up at home (I can’t believe that I gave him my home number!) and wants to know if I’ll spend part of my thanksgiving weekend meeting with him	Either Raja or Rajesh below (can’t remember)
August 24, 2001	Palo Alto Fry’s, I was looking at mice, minding my own business	Raja, president of RM International
Mid 2000	Sunnyvale Fry’s, I was checking out the new flat panel monitors, minding my own business	Rajesh, Bizonet
Mid-1998, on 2-3 separate occasions	Sapient’s Perimeter Atlanta office, in the elevator	Random dude in the elevator
Early 1998	San Bruno Comp USA, I was looking for a parallel port splitter, minding my own business	Jukka, JCM Enterprises

Based on my experiences, there are many common traits that these people all have. You can recognize an Amway salesman if:

• they use phrases like: "own your own company", "part-time job", "supplement your income", "utilizing e-commerce/the internet", "internet enabled business". Now that the bubble had burst, my most recent guy steered away from internet buzzwords and used phrases like "creating business plans for enterprises" etc. These phrases are very standard and with practice you will recognize them in their various forms very quickly
• they are quick to hand you business cards with fictional companies [cards printed on cheap paper, the company name is the person’s initials, the company URL takes you to a place similar to the links above, sports presumptuous titles
• they are vague when pressed for details and then try to get you to come to an informational session at a nearby hotel or someone’s house
• they always feel it necessary to give you some contact information that is not printed on the card (usually a home/cell/pager number)
• they absolutely deny any affiliation with Amway or Quixtar

Some of these guys are better at the spiel than others. A good Amway salesman will introduce their "opportunity" very casually into the conversation. If they are less experienced it will be clear that it is being forced into the conversation. I was alone at the time I was approached by each of my Away salesmen.

For those of you that know me, what is it about me that attracts these people???