Network marketing provides business opportunities to anyone who wants to get involved. Whether or not you pay any attention to the negativity that sometimes surrounds this line of work, it remains a fact that many people achieve success beyond their wildest dreams thanks to network marketing. There are some companies that have more people earning over $100,000 a year than any other company in the world.

So how do they work? All legitimate network marketing companies have products to sell. Rather than hiring sales people and offering up a 10% commission with a low basic salary, for example, they instead allow people to “join” as partners. They handle all of the sales themselves, work for themselves, and get a much larger commission, sometimes as high as 50%. Those people can then invite their customers, friends, or even strangers to join the business too, if they are interested in experiencing similar financial and time freedoms.

The person who invited them, the “sponsor”, receives a percentage, generally around 5% of their sales as commission from the company. They do not take a share of their down-line’s earnings, but rather from the company. Over time, by recruiting many people to join your down-line, and teaching them all to create sales of the product efficiently, the original partner can be receiving a large sum of money from their own sales, but more importantly from commissions they earned from their downline. Essentially, once the foundations have been laid the earning potential is endless.

Some people perceive this business method as a pyramid scheme, but it is perfectly legitimate and ethical. The pyramid schemes that are illegal actually pretend they are network marketing companies to try to look legitimate, but they have one major difference. The product. A real, legitimate network marketing company will offer products with value that can sometimes massively improve people’s lives, and are always something that people want or even need.

No fees are received by actually recruiting somebody, just when they sell products. A pyramid scheme, however, will not have a product, or it will pretend to have a product, but will really just be selling the business opportunity, and people will be recruiting people based on making money recruiting people. There are many companies like this out there, and unfortunately they give legitimate network marketing companies a bad name.

Due to the fact that recruitment and growing a downline is a numbers game, there is rarely a situation where somebody is refused entry into the company. As long as they have somebody to sponsor them, they are good to go. This has its good and bad sides. The good side is, that it really means absolutely anybody has the opportunity to grow a real business and achieve success, without the need to put out a lot of start-up capital or experience.

Good network marketing companies provide plenty of training, and successful partners are always offering insight to their downline to help everybody grow. The bad side is, that all sorts of scammers and “get rich quick” people end up joining and behaving unethically, again giving those companies a bad name. Even after they are removed, the damage has already been done.

In the end, network marketing is a unique opportunity that anybody can achieve success with. Make sure you do your research before joining any company to ensure that it is legitimate, put forth your best effort and enjoy the process.

This article was written by Rachel E. Spencer. For more information go to dreamlifestylesolutions.com