Perhaps easier said then done. You hear it all time, "I can't afford to join a whole bunch of companies now" or "It's to hard to promote several companies at once".

Remember old riddle about how do you eat an elephant. You know answer, "one bite at a time."

Lets use one bite at a time principle to create multiple streams of residual income. We will use network marketing companies to do so.

Residual income is income that you create once, and then it keeps coming to you on a regular basis. It is a way you can leverage your time and investment. You work to build income, which takes marketing time. It may take a monetary investment, depending on whether you are using free or paid marketing methods.

Here we are defining network marketing companies as those programs that have a monthly cost on which they pay a monthly commission. It is this monthly commission that will provide you with long term residual income.

Affiliate programs are not same. They are usually a one time sale. Some do offer multiple products, but you cannot count on continued sales for residual income.

This is not to say that you can't make money with affiliate programs. You can make money with them. They just don't fit real well with one bite at a time principle.

Most network marketing companies pay their highest percents on lower levels, like levels five and lower. They pay quite low percents on levels one and two. They justify this by saying you have very few members on level one and two and a great many (eventually) on lower levels, so their program is maximizing your income. That might well be true, but only after you have built a very large organization. That could take months or years.

Other network marketing companies pay a high percentage on level one or two. Their philosophy is to help you get a decent check fairly soon. A few pay around 33% of selling price on level one. If you receive 33% for everyone on your first level you will be breaking even with just three members on your first level.

A MLAP is an affiliate program that is free to join, and pays affiliates a commission when they make a sale, as well as when subaffiliates under them make sales.

How is a MLAP better than basic affiliate programs for webmasters, ezine publishers, and forum owners?

When affiliates promote products using their affiliate links on their sites,only a small percentage of visitors/members/subscribers will end up buying products.The other "impressions" are wasted. Because MLAPs are free to join, a proportion of these "wasted" visitors will sign up as subaffiliates to sell products to their freinds and contacts. As a result, when they subsequently make sales (or recruit further subaffiliates), original affiliate member gets paid a leveraged, passive income through no further effort on his part. Depending on number of levels MLAP incorporates, potential for profit could be HUGE, at no risk!

How is a MLAP better for merchants than traditional affiliate programs?

While basic affiliate programs are a wonderful no risk, cost per action way for merchants to make sales, their popularity has resulted in a huge abundance of different programs, each competing for same, limited number of affiliates to promote their products.In fact, recruiting affiliates has become almost as hard as making sales for many merchants. MLAPs offer merchants a way to make their programs and products stand out from crowd, to recruit new affiliates much more quickly and effectively, thereby boosting their "sales force" and eventual sales and profits.

How is a MLAP better than MLM for affiliates?