1. The affiliate program has a great payment structure. For me, a high commission that is also a high percentage of purchase price is essential. Nothing under 25% commission.

2. Make sure affiliate program you are joining has a good looking site. You do not want to be sending visitors to a site that you do not like yourself.

3. Make sure they offer a comprehensive affiliate statistics page that lists number of click throughs, number of sales and amount earned. This should be broken down per month.

4. Also make sure that affiliate statistics are updated automatically and immediately. You do not want to find out today about a sale you made a week ago.

5. Ensure they give a wide variety of text links, banners and graphics to put on your web page. Although I prefer text links, certain types of banners and graphics still work well.

It's not as difficult as it sounds. I've used following 5 step system many times to successfully find new prospects and close sales -- fast. It's inexpensive to use and works for building a business on Internet or in traditional ways. You can copy this same system to build your MLM business.

STEP 1. TARGET A NICHE MARKET

Maybe everybody can use what you offer. But that doesn't mean everybody will take time to consider it. You'll get largest number of sign-ups with least amount of effort and at lowest cost by targeting a niche market.

A niche market is a group of potential customers who share common characteristics making them especially receptive to what you offer.

I recently met a distributor for an MLM company selling health and nutritional products. She found a list of health club members who also subscribe to a magazine about starting a business. The combination of these 2 special interests created a good niche market for her. It's her primary source of new distributors.

STEP 2. GENERATE LOW COST INQUIRIES (LEADS)

Use small ads, postcards and other low cost methods to generate inquiries (or web site traffic) from prospects in your targeted niche market. Prospects in your niche market are very interested in what you offer. Therefore, you'll be able to sign-up a higher than average percentage of inquiries from them.

Generating leads also enables you to collect contact information you can use to follow up with prospects who don't take action first time they see your offer. For example, you can direct inquiries to your web site where you also offer a free report or newsletter by email. Once you have prospect's email address you can follow up periodically with new offers.