[UPDATE: More recent messages from Andy Willoughby are here and here.]

Well hush my puppies and call me cornpone, this is by far the most interesting thing to happen thus far in the short, 2.5 year life span of the Alpaca Burger Forum. The posts we wrote about Andy Willoughby generate a huge percentage of the traffic to this site, and maybe he has just managed to turn this into a positive for him.

[This comment could be a hoax but I don't think it is.]

Andy Willoughby, who I first castigated here and later in the post linked above, has written back via our comments. He writes as a stand-up guy, so I'm going to let him speak his peace without fisking or other derision:

Hi, how in the world are you anyway? Yeah, it's me. And I suppose I really am that folksy. I have to work hard not too address groups with comments like "Hi, folks". That is just me. Some people make fun of my folksy approach and I guess I deserve it. Maybe I turn off the really cool and sophisticated.

The truth about me is that I try to be just what I sound like. I am not preacher, an angel or a super saint, but I am a born again Christian. I married my high school sweet heart 37 years ago, we get on each others nerves sometimes, but we still love each other. I have 3 grown children and 9 grand children that I spend a lot of time with. We just watched Bambi 2 this morning. I have a good credit rating but not as much savings as I should for a guy my age.

I have never been in jail or accused of stealing and I have no criminal record, but I have gotten two speeding tickets this year.

I love Starbucks, play bad golf and eat a lot of popcorn. I am not overweight or muscular.

We advertise for the same reason that McDonalds and Hallmark do, to find customers. It also means that our members don't have to try to talk their friends or relatives into anything.

We advertise on Christian radio because we can achieve two very important goals. Reach nice people with our advertising message and support Christian radio. We realize that some people don't like our advertising approach and assume they will not call. That's OK, nothing is for everyone.

Besides if I used some really cool sophisticated approach and then people found out they had to work with folksy old Andy, they might be disappointed. At least this way, people know what they are getting ahead of time.

We all don't have to be cool or the same or agree about everything. But I think we should be nice to each other.

Most of our members have been with us for years. Since we have no long time contracts with our members and do not collect big upfront fees, I assume they would quit if they did not feel the 3-Step Plan was helping them. After many years in business, our program continues to grow. Not dramatically, but consistently.

I hope that all goes well with you and your family and that your work gives you a sense of achievement and positive contribution to others.

Sincerely

Andy Willoughby
Posted by: Andy Willoughby | March 13, 2006 12:32 PM

Andy seems to have zeroed in the primary reason for my earliest posts (which I'm not going to link because they were just silly): I found the radio commercials irritating. He addresses that aspect with the only substantial defensive part of his comment. I think he acquits himself well - and not in any manner I'd care to argue about.

By the same token, he seems to grant me the liberty to find his commercial annoying. Fair enough.

I don't find Andy's justification of his business particularly difficult either. As I noted early on in the only post I really did any work on, 'network marketing' works for some people. Giving Andy the benefit of the doubt again, from his telling of the story I'll admit his three step plan could also be one of the ones that works.

Most significantly, Andy does not bother to address my objection that the entire network marketing/MLM business model is problematic for me. Of course it is problematic or else everyone would be doing it and no one would make any money. Of course it can be viewed as giving license for semi-sleazy behavior. But it's a job which some people do. Andy does not argue network marketing is 'noble' work, just that it's work.

OK, Andy, if it is really you. You addressed the issue well enough for me without any line of BS and without telling me I should not be annoyed at your commercials or feel warm and fuzzy about network marketing.

As far as my 'sense of achievement and positive contribution to others' goes: If selling mangosteen juice is a scam and your business model capitalized on the latent trust you get from people who listen to Christian radio - and screwed up their lives like the lives I know which Amway has screwed up - then I would feel good about having said the things I said about your business.

If, however, you are on the up and up, even if your business strikes me as squirrely, I would not feel a sense of achievement at all. I would still say I find the commercials annoying, but I would not paint your work as a scam.

If you are on the up and up, Andy, then my earlier posts were unjustified in some respects, and I apologize. I am going to link this new post in the others to encourage people who arrive here by the search engines to give you a look. The work isn't for me, but it could be for others: Here is the link to Andy's site. If you really want to learn about his program, look into it yourself rather than taking my word for it.

Thanks for the gentlemanly comment, Andy.