The most rewarding part about being involved in a network marketing company is that once you succeed you will never have to do a job search, career search or have to go to a job finder ever again! You can kiss your alarm clock goodbye too!

Network marketing is a business model that is based on a company that distributes products and serrvices through a network of independent contractors. Network marketing is also more popularly known as multi-level marketing (MLM), affiliate marketing, and tiered marketing. Some of the more commonly known network marketing companies are USANA Health Sciences, Amway, and Mary Kay. Personally, I like to refer to network marketing as a relationship marketing.

To better understand how network marketing works, think of it as a business model that most people are familiar with, franchising. In a franchise, a new business owner pays the company for the right to do business using the company's name, products and services. The parent company agrees to provide the owner with training, development, advertising and marketing support. While the name on  the outside of the building is that of the parent company and the actual location is privately owned by an indendent business owner. You can also think of network marketing as having your own "virtual franchise". You can still make the same amount of money as a traditional franshise owner such as Mcdonalds or even more money without the large upfront investment and high overheads of a traditional franchise.

While network marketing is not an actual franchise business model, it does work in a similar fashion. A network marketing company creates a sales force of distributors that can purchase products or services at wholesale and then sell retail to consumers just like any traditional business. These distributors would then have the option to leverage themselves by training other individuals to do the same.

This is commonly known as "sponsoring" in the MLM industry. Sponsoring others allows you to make a profit on not only what you sell, but on the total group sales of the people that you sponsoring and on any products that they purchase. This creates leverage. It's been known to the top 10% of the wealthiest people on earth that to become rich,  you need to leverage yourself through other people's efforts.

The main difference between traditional businesses is that most network marketing has very little or no back end headaches. Such as manufacturing, shipping and administration work leaving network marketing professionals to focus on what's most important, marketing.

Because of the structure of a network marketing business, many people mistakently believe that all MLM companies are illegal pyramids. In actuality, most network companies are not illegal pyramids. The belief that MLM companies are illegal pyramid schemes may have popularly taken root in 1975, when the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accused Amway Corporation of being an illegal pyramid. However in 1979 a US Federal Judge determined that the networking marketing plan used by Amway was indeed a legitimate business model. This decision in turn helped to legitimize other MLM companies.

All you have to ask yourself when researching any company is that is it a legal or an illegal entity? Most successful companies have a track record of success or third party reviews to give it credibility. Also, think of all the other industries out there? There are scams in the stock market, real estate industry, car industry and every other industry that you can think of. The last penny stock I invested in didn't even give me one penny return on my investment, they just ran with my money. Isn't that a scam. Or how about purchasing a car which is a lemon and you're not able to get your money back. Would you claim to make the car industry an illegal pyramid?

Finally, think of our government for example. How many prime ministers or president's do you have for your country? 1 person right? Would it be fair to say that the president of your country makes more money then the office clerk at the bottom of the pyramid? Or how about a CEO of a corporation? Do you think that he makes more money then the vice presidents, and the the vice presidents make more money then the middle managers and the middle managers make more money then the subordinates? This is called an organization chart in traditional business. The only difference between a true network marketing company and a regular company that most people work for is that you can be at the bottom of the pyramid and still make more money then the person on top if you are with an MLM company with a fair compensation plan which rewards you based on performance and not based on where you are on the pyramid.

Go to the section Best MLM Companies to find out which is the #1 rated company that allows you to surpass people in terms of income even though they have started over 17 years ago!