By Jeff Neil

Did you see movie "Runaway Bride"? If you didn`t, or don`t completely remember, let me bring you up to speed.

Runaway Bride is a story about Maggie. Now Maggie was an intelligent woman, in her thirties, but confused. She was confused about what she really wanted in life because she didn`t really know who she was.

Unfortunately Maggie developed quite a reputation in her small town. She was known as runaway bride.

Through out her life Maggie had fallen in love with several different men. She made plans to marry each of them. But when it came time to say "I do", she ran. Literally.

Then it was back to her normal life working at hardware store until Bob, another potential husband, came along.

Bob was local high school football coach. Bob knew Maggie`s history and reputation. But he wasn`t worried. After all, he was a coach. He could teach Maggie what she needed to do.

"Focus, Maggie". That was Bob`s advice.

Sadly, Bob didn`t get results he was hoping for either. You guessed it. Maggie ran. But Bob sure gave some good advice.

Focus. That`s something we all fail at, at one time or another. And it`s something really important here on net.

Many would be entrepreneurs have a lot in common with Maggie. But they`re not running around looking for perfect man. They are trying to find perfect affiliate program or business opportunity.

They jump from one program to another, looking for that sure thing. Trying to find perfect way to make money and fast.

Ready for bad news?

There is no perfect man. I know. I am one. A man that is. And there is no perfect affiliate program or money making opportunity either. But there are good ones. It`s just a matter of finding it. And making it work.

Now I`m not about to tell you how to choose right man... or woman for that matter. I can`t. I don`t have a clue.

Now before you say "ughhh" to network marketing, let me give you a few facts: ·There are a lot of people who have been made wealthy through network marketing ·There are some very high quality products sold through these companies ·It's much less expensive for a company to use commission-only reps (you!) to sell their products rather than mounting a major advertising campaign and buying shelf space in retail stores ·When franchising first started, many people called it a pyramid scheme, said it should be illegal, and generally thought badly of it. Franchising is now an established way of doing business, and I suspect network marketing soon will be as well. ·You don't have to hassle your family and friends to do network marketing. There are new approaches which use mass media such as classified ads and internet to identify interested people. Your job is just to tell them about opportunity and see if it's right for them. I'll give more detail on this below.

A couple terminology items before we get started: ·Upline: This refers to all people "above" you in hierarchy of company. The person who signs you up for a network marketing opportunity is your primary upline. ·Downline: This refers to all people who sign up "below" you in company - either directly signing up with you, or signing up with those who you brought on board.

Here are some quick facts about way network marketing works: ·You are responsible for selling products and for bringing on others to help sell products. In most programs, emphasis is on bringing on others - since sales can be increased much more quickly by a group than by an individual. ·All orders are sent in to a central location, and company sends products ordered directly to purchaser. (In "old days" people often had to keep a stock of products on hand in their garage, but this isn't usually done anymore.) ·The company provides extensive marketing materials for you to use in selling and recruiting. ·You have a great deal of flexibility in how you run your business and in hours you put in.

Evaluating a network marketing company:

If you think you might be interested in network marketing, your next step will be to start looking at opportunities available and to find right one for you. There are a lot of them, so I would suggest you first define what you want (read info below and you'll be ready to put a list together) and then look for opportunities that match up with it. Here are things to look at:

The Product ------ It is important that you can get excited about product. If it's something you aren't interested in, you will never be successful at it.

In addition, look at use of product. If it's something which is used on an occasional basis, you will need a lot more customers / downline reps to sell a particular amount of product. If it's something which is used on an ongoing basis - vitamins, cleaning products, meal replacement shakes - you will have a higher level of repeat sales and a more stable income stream, since people will order these items on a regular basis. I would strongly suggest you find a product which is consumed on an ongoing basis.

The Company ------ As in any industry, majority of network marketing businesses fail in first five years. Therefore, you need to be extremely careful in selecting a company that will stand test of time. The easiest way to do this is to select only a company that has a track record of increasing sales and profits for at least five years. This narrow field drastically.

On plus side, if company you're researching is public traded, so much better. It will be easy to scan financial statements and quarterly earnings reports. You're looking for a company that is well managed, solvent, with little or no debt, that has reached a critical mass of distributors to sustain growth and that has been around enough to have worked out all beginning bugs.

Compensation ------ The most important consideration when choosing a pay plan is number of people that you must enroll to begin earning income. The lower number better.

There are five or six different and competing systems that network marketing companies use to reward their distributors/associates/affiliates. They are breakaway, unilevel, matrix, two-up, binary, and various hybrid or combination plans. Each of these is described in more detail below.

BREAKAWAY

The stairstep/breakaway compensation plan is without question most common of all compensation plans. It is also responsible for most of really big money being made in network marketing industry. However, this big money is being earned by a small percentage of those distributors involved in breakaway opportunities. What does set breakaway apart from most other plans is that they are definitely geared to a full time effort. As a result, attrition is higher with breakaways as well as expense involved in working and building a distributor base with them

The Breakaway plan generally has 3 or 4 increasing rank positions that can be achieved by meeting progressively higher sales volume requirements over a specified period of time. All distributors under you are considered part of your personal group and their personal sales volume combines with yours to help you to move to these progressively higher rank positions at which point you will breakaway. You will generally earn higher commissions on lower rank distributors under you (in your personal group) and this commission will decrease as they too move up stairsteps to breakaway side.

When you do breakaway, you become your own "organization" - in other words, you are no longer part of your upline's group. Your downline group comes with you as well as their sales volume which combined is called group volume. With most breakaways there is a set/defined personal group volume that has to be met each month in order to qualify for commissions on other breakaways. There is also a personal sales volume requirement that you as an individual have to do each month.