As I flip through my notes to prepare for the interview at the Oberoi’s Club Bar, in walks a tall American with a luxurious Yosemite Sam moustache. Trailing him is a group of young Indian suit-clad men and women. They sit down at the next table, laughing and chatting. I look back at the entrance and continue waiting for William S. Pinckney, managing director and CEO of Amway India.
Hard sell: Soon after his move to India, Pinckney realized that Indian shoppers are very different from American shoppers. Jayachandran / Mint
But then I turn back. And the group, as one, turns to me.
“Are you?” I ask.
Why, of course they are.
Suddenly I’m in the boisterous group and before I can fire away my questions, Pinckney has managed to get me talking about my life. Somehow we’ve landed on the subject of love lives. All within 5 minutes. Among total strangers. At an interview I’m supposed to be conducting.
But there’s just something about Pinckney. The man gets you talking, comfortable and laughing, as any good salesman should. If he had some of his Amway products with him, I would no doubt have walked out with a bagful of cleansers and vitamin supplements.
When we finally do get down to talking about Pinckney, it’s clear that his easy-going, personable skills have come in handy over the years, working for a company almost entirely based on the great sales pitch.
Amway, accused at various times of being a cult, a pyramid scheme and a get-rich-quick scheme, is essentially all about sales. An Amway business owner—any person with Rs995 for the registration fee—can choose from the 110 products in the Amway catalogue and sell these to friends, family, neighbours.
It’s a booming business. Amway India officially opened in 1998, after three years of preparation. Eleven years later, Pinckney runs a company with 500 employees and 450,000 “business owners”. He says their annual revenue reached Rs1,128 crore in 2008.
Pinckney shrugs off the nasty accusations. “Listen, the US supreme court decided we were not a pyramid scheme in 1979. There are illegal pyramid and ponzi schemes. They are incredibly easy to shut down. A pyramid is where the primary source of income is the sheer recruitment of people into the business.”
Pinckney says Amway institutes strong safety nets for consumers and business owners —money refunds, education classes and no recruitment schemes: “The only way you can make money is by selling the products.”
And sell they do. The top business owners can make about Rs2.5 crore a year, Pinckney says, adding, however, that “most of the really successful people don’t make a lot of money… I’m much more proud of the thousands and thousands who earn the extra Rs10,000-15,000 a month”.