During my many years as a financial planner, I ran into Lawrence and Debbie's of world more often than you might think. From outside it looked like they had it all. Money, prestige, a large home, nice cars, etc. But in truth, they had no real nest egg. Nothing set aside for retirement. At least, not enough to continue their current lifestyle.

Had they simply put away 10 - 15 Percent of their Net Income into a good index mutual fund when they first started working, they would have had over 2 million dollars saved up.

Now what does this have to do with your Networking enterprise?

I've told many families to invest in mutual funds, mostly because they did not have desire or time to learn how to invest in real estate or individual stocks.

Mutual funds were originally designed to be long-term investments. Find a few good funds, dollar-cost-average into them, and in 25-40 years you would have a large nest egg. Enough to retire on.

Yet today, many "experts" are advising that this "buy and hold" approach to mutual fund investing doesn't work. Yet, time and time again long-term studies have proven otherwise.

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Your Network Market^ing enterprise is just like that. It is your mutual fund where a bunch of people get together and pool their resources. They pool their money, time, expertise, and effort for that thing called "growing residual income."

Just like a mutual fund, it takes consistency and TIME, before you begin to see results. Seriously, your first year in networking is about planting seeds, learning, and refining your marketing approach. It's not about who can bring in 10 people this month.

Yet, by taking this approach, it won't take you 25-40 years. You won't have to work 30-40 years before you retire. Your Network Market^ing Mutual Fund (NMMF) should only take a fraction of that time frame.

Some of us even use it ourselves.

But do we really know what it is?

I spent sometime looking it up. Here are some definitions of word Scam:

From Cambridge International Dictionary of English: scam, noun [C] INFORMAL, a plan or action for making money which is dishonest, illegal and often clever. He burnt his own house down so that he could claim insurance money - what a scam!

From Merriam-Webster Dictionary: scam Main Entry: Pronunciation: 'skam Function: noun Etymology: origin unknown Date: 1963 : a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation (an insurance scam)

From The American Heritage® Dictionary of English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000: scam ...Slang A fraudulent business scheme; a swindle. Inflected forms: scammed, scam·ming, scams To defraud; swindle. Origin unknown. scammer -NOUN...

From The Newbury House Online Dictionary: scam n. a plan to make money by deception or fraud, (syn.) a swindle: They ran a scam where they burned cars and collected insurance money.

From yourdictionary.com: scam (skm) Slang n. A fraudulent business scheme; a swindle.

From Dictionary of Slang: scam Noun. A trick or con.

As you can see there are very specific definitions for word.

A scam is something that is set up to rip people off. To take their money.

It is not, as we sometimes think, a company that is having problems with their systems. All companies have problems. Look at AOL. They have lots of problems with their systems. But they are not a scam.

Just because we loose money or don't make money, doesn't make company a scam. Just because a company is having problems getting their members paid on time, does not make them a scam.

Companies do have problems that are beyond their control.

It's how they handle them that tells you a lot about kind of company that they are. If they are honest and up front about problem, that is a good thing. If they hide problem with a lot of double talk or no talk at all, that is a bad thing. It doesn't make them a scam, but it does say a lot about how they can be expected to do business.

When you look at companies, really look at them.

What is first thing they say about themselves? Do they talk about product or service they offer? Or do they just launch into how much money you can make? If first thing you read is all about money to be made. Watch out. It might not be a scam, but it tells you that is all they are about. To them it doesn't matter what product or service is, it's all about pay plan.

These companies, may not be scams, but they maybe illegal. There has to be a real product or service being offered. If there is no product, if it is just passing money from ones below to ones above, it is illegal.

How many of you have seen this kind of thing?