SIMPLY RICH: A MEMOIR
Life and Lessons from the Cofounder of Amway
Rich DeVos
Howard Books (Simon & Schuster)
284 + XIII pages; $16
Who can doubt that Rich DeVos has everything it takes to write a great book. He has an extraordinary story to tell: how did a rank outsider - Mr DeVos was born to second-generation Dutch immigrants in rural Michigan during the Depression - make it to the top of the plutocratic world of American business? What did it take for this guy - who, at the age of 10, joined the ranks of "ill-housed, ill-clothed, ill-fed" Americans because his father lost his job - to build a company that is counted among the top three multi-level marketing companies in the world, with operations in more than 30 countries and sales of $11.8 billion? Indeed how did a man from a two-bit mid-Western state become a globally celebrated speaker?
Unfortunately, Simply Rich is far from being great, or even particularly good. The book by Amway's co-founder is so tedious and disorganised that the sundry good bits are lost in a verbal maze. The publisher should be ticked off for not holding a celebrity author to higher standards. As it is, Simply Rich is destined to find a place among the cornucopia of self-help books, aimlessly thumbed through and, as quickly, shoved back on the shelf.
That's what makes this autobiography - though Mr DeVos says in the introduction that "this book is not a full-blown autobiography containing every detail of my life" - such a missed opportunity. In writing the book, Mr DeVos had nothing to lose. Had he been both open and introspective he could have changed many perceptions about how multi-level marketing companies really operate and why they seem to get into scraps with authorities in all kinds of places. Instead, he's largely defensive, offering a sort of CliffsNotes for self-help books with generous helpings of motivational tips.
All of this would be tolerable were it not for the slightly self-congratulatory air with which Mr DeVos' life and professional struggle are presented. Actually Simply Rich doesn't convey much of Mr DeVos' professional struggles at all. It is all about how Mr DeVos and his friend and business partner, Jay Van Andel, go from strength to strength professionally, and how if you put your heart into something and have faith in God every project will be a triumph.
If only the formula (to get rich?) were so simple.
That said, the book has quite a few things going for it. For one, Mr DeVos has an admirably well-stocked mind: this book is full of details about people met and places visited. And his narrative is rich in local colour. The author doesn't write like a fourth grader but manages to offer clear and easy reading. He attributes his positive traits to his Dutch heritage.
The book opens with Mr DeVos' childhood memories of his family and the place where he was brought up, and traces his journey from rags to riches, from a small start-up to a global conglomerate, and from niggling self-doubt to dreams come true. He speaks at length of his friendship with Mr Van Andel and how they started many ventures together - from Wolverine Air Service, a restaurant, selling the air service and buying a sailboat that sank, travelling in South America, forming a toy company, and getting involved in the distribution of health supplement Nutrilite. (Nutrilite was started by Carl F Rehnborg, who was employed at different times by Carnation and Colgate in China, where he conducted studies on the impact of diets on the health of Chinese people.)
When the enlisting of sales associates and the marketing of Nutrilite became difficult, they decided to start their own multi-level marketing company, the American Way Association. They threw in an all-purpose cleaner, and then a host of home-care products. When they felt the need to have some control over the quality of products they were selling, they became manufacturers as well. And Amway took off.
At that time, multi-level marketing was a new concept and, to attract sales people, Messrs DeVos and Van Andel developed a commission system that would percolate down the line to as many people as they could enlist. That sales plan became the model for their direct-selling businesses. The concept was not always well-understood and Mr DeVos talks about his problem with the United States Federal Trade Commission and Revenue Canada at various points.
If there's a single overriding point of this entire book, it's this: seeing the best in people and getting to know them as individuals and believing in them has been a key to success in Amway. The challenge is to "Be a Life Enricher" and knowing "You can do it".
Amen. That's a great point, but it belongs on page one, not page 284. Putting that right upfront and then referring to it over the next 200 pages could have helped the reader parse the pile of life lessons in Simply Rich. Though I must say there was something simply intoxicating about someone promising that all my dreams would come true if I just believed hard enough.
