Inside the Amway Sales Machine

18.02.2012

Holly Chen is a former first-grade teacher, just over 5 feet tall, with a taste for sequins. You wouldn't know it by looking at her, but this 68-year-old grandmother is one of the most prolific salespeople on Earth. Late on this January night, in a cramped casino ballroom, some 1,100 people rise to greet Ms. Chen. Cameras flash as she strides across stage in black patent-leather boots. The mood takes an unexpected turn when she starts by talking about her late mother. Soon she is in tears.

"The most powerful weapon is to move somebody emotionally," she says later, speaking Mandarin throughout. "So if you send out a signal as love, you will receive the same signal back."

Ms. Chen is a kingpin of the emotions business. Over three decades, she and her husband have become the single largest Amway Corp. distributor in the world, motivating a commission-based army of some 300,000 salespeople. As members have recruited new reps, the network has spread from Ms. Chen's base in Taiwan across Hong Kong and mainland China to Chinese immigrant communities in the U.S., France, Spain and Russia.