Network Marketing
Getting started with a MLM Home Business Opportunity, also known as MLM, has been one of the best things I’ve done for myself and since beginning, there’s been no looking back. In fact, I sometimes feel like kicking myself for not starting sooner.
There is no legitimate business model besides a MLM home business opportunity that I’m aware of that makes it possible to earn without an income cap or ceiling — and not all accomplished on my own efforts, but on the efforts of others as well.
I quickly discovered I was wrong. It’s old “Industrial Age” marketing concepts simply did not fit what I knew was available to me using the Internet. Not only did Amway not leverage the power of the Internet with Quixtar, they actually forbid any online prospecting and using the global nature of the Internet for building a business. I stuck with it for two years thinking they might actually “see the light” and begin allowing us to use the power of the web. Eventually I realized they remained stuck in old school network marketing and their venture onto the web was merely window dressing – having only the ability to order your products from a web page.
Needless to say, I let my membership in Quixtar to lapse.
My interest in the network marketing business model did not fade, though. I spent a lot of time reading and studying this method of marketing and really started to see the benefits of it.
One HUGE BENEFIT of being self-employed has emerged for me – income security. While many around me are bemoaning the weakening economy and are legitimately worried about having a job in the future. I, on the other hand, am excited and have a very POSITIVE outlook for my future. My home-based business is GROWING — in fact it’s been growing faster in the past six months than it has at any time in the previous year.
It’s important, too, as I move forward to remember my security does not come from an individual company or opportunity. It comes from the education and knowledge that is going into my head. Companies may come and go… but knowledge is forever. Once you learn how to value money and have it work for you – how to manage it, how to save it, how to invest it, how to shield it, and how to share it – that knowledge can never be taken away.
My Internet business and multiple steams of income continued to grow over the next few years and in January, 2000 I quit my full-time job at Douglas Photographic Imaging to pursue my Internet enterprise full time.
Within a short time one of my websites, the Cyberguide to Wichita caught the attention of a local television station and was featured on a TV news report.
I can’t tell you how incredibly fulfilling it is to see other people’s lives changed when they begin to understand and embrace all that a MLM home business opportunity offers. Perhaps my highest point in this business so far was when one of my business partners described how just two years previously her family was facing possible bankruptcy and today they see a hopeful future after paying off their last credit card. She described their financial situation as sort of like being on a road… “before adopting the lifestyle of simple abundance we were headed toward financial destruction at about 60 mph. A couple of years ago we began applying the brakes (began to make a few better financial choices) and eventually began to turn the car around (getting serious about debt freedom). Maybe we are only headed 10 mph right now toward financial freedom… but at least I know we are headed the right direction.”
A MLM home business opportunity is so much more than just an income opportunity. It can really be a “life changing” education in financial literacy. It can be about learning to live a new lifestyle of simple abundance. It should be about becoming a different person. As Zig Ziglar taught me, you’ve got to first BE the right person before you can DO, and you’ve got to DO before you can HAVE. Sadly, many people in our society have that turned around and want to HAVE more before they are willing to DO what they need to do, and certainly few are willing to BE the kind of person that truly attracts success.
Perhaps the most important value a MLM home business opportunity affords me is “freedom” – freedom in all it’s forms: financial, physical, mental, political, spiritual, and especially time freedom. For almost a decade now, I have been fortunate to be able to work full-time from my home-based office. I have been experiencing the exhilaration of working for myself and enjoying the freedom that comes with it.
It hasn’t always been that way, however. For more years than I like to count, I was a W-2 employee working for bosses who really didn’t have my freedom very high on their agenda. Over the years, I’ve had set-backs and I’ve had things happen where I’d take a few steps forward and then get thrown back about a dozen steps. I recall a time about a dozen years ago when I had such huge dreams for what was going to happen next. What did happen next was not what I was expecting and my momentum was killed in its tracks. Fortunate for me, I had a much bigger dream. While my short term plans may have been derailed, my longer term plan of “freedom” and “independence” was only maturing. My setbacks have made me even MORE committed and determined to break free of the shackles of debt and of working my whole life for someone else.
Someone said, “If it’s going to be… it’s up to me.” – So true!
I’ve discovered that if I were to have all the things I wanted in life, it was MY responsibility to make it happen. It has taken a commitment to success and consistent effort every week to get me to where I’m at today.
Today, because of my home based business I am free to choose what I do very day. I wake up in the morning when I’m finished sleeping and go to bed when I want. And, my sleep time is so much better now that I’m not thinking about facing that dead-end job, an uncaring boss, and an endless onslaught of bills. I choose when I work, how hard I work, or if I work at all. When I want to take a trip, I don’t have to ask anybody’s permission. When it’s important to spend time with my mother or other family member, I don’t have to arrange with a boss for time off.
Regardless of whether I ever earned a dime in this business – the time freedom is worth it for me. It’s the time freedom that let’s me live.
Over The Top
Then, I met Zig Ziglar and was introduced to his new business – The Zig Ziglar Network. I knew immediately that was what I was to do. Finally, there was a network marketing company that embraced the power of the Internet and was leveraging it to it’s fullest.
