What we are really doing is working to build residual income streams.

Sometimes people misunderstand the concept of affiliate and network marketing. They think it is about not working at all. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Affiliate and network marketing are about working on building several streams of residual income over the span of your working life. It is a full-time endeavor and a lifelong pursuit.

We then take that income and invest it in assets that are also aimed at creating more cash flow with an increasing net worth.

The principal goal is to create enough cash flow from those assets that will pay for our expenses so that when we can’t work, our money keeps working for us.

All of this is work. But it isn’t a job. It really isn’t a career either. It is actually more of an art than anything else because it requires creativity. It is like being an architect, where you design a way of building something. In this case, you are building a financial factory that produces money.

This is work really worth doing no matter what type of job or career you may want to do. In fact, it is the work that everyone should do, unless you just want to live paycheck to paycheck and risk not earning anything when you don’t want to or can’t go to work for whatever reason there is.

Going to work every day so that you don’t have to go to work every day.

I ask myself what it is that would make affiliate and network marketing compelling to people who don’t understand what it is actually all about. What is it we are actually offering people?

Well, if you think that being an affiliate or network marketer is about selling a product to the marketplace then you are wrong. That isn’t what it is about and anyone who says it is about a product is lying to you.

When you get right down to it, no business is about the product. All businesses are about creating profit. Businesses create products and systems that people want to purchase for whatever reason they have for purchasing it. Nobody asks someone why they are purchasing something. The cashier doesn’t ask you why you are buying that pair of ugly jeans, do they?

All products are designed to do is to create more money than they cost to make so that everyone involved in it can make a little profit. Make the product, multiply it, sell it. Rinse and repeat!

There are several levels of this. There is the creator that pays to build the product. There is a distributor that pays to distribute the product. Then there is the customer that pays for the product for the use of the product that compensates the creator and distributor for getting the product to them.

An affiliate or network marketer is both a customer and a distributor of a product.

Every customer is not just a customer of one thing. People buy food, clothes, transportation, insurance, housing, education, information, and entertainment, etc. As an affiliate or network marketer you aren’t trying to sell everything to everybody, you are trying to sell a few things to an ever-growing customer base or target market.

One of the selling points of products that are promoted through affiliate and network marketing is that the customer can also become a distributor of those products and earn income by helping those companies promote their products.

So a part of the “product” is the possibility for a customer to build automatic residual income streams with those products as well.

People see the affiliate and network marketing business models as if they were built for the associates, affiliates, and the distributors. They are NOT!

The reason companies use the affiliate and network marketing models is that it makes them more money by not wasting money on advertising, and by being able to project the amount of product they have to make because the products are sold before they are distributed, not after, meaning … no retail costs.

The great thing about affiliate and network marketing is that it offers the best way for an individual to build a business at a very low cost.

You can start your own business for as little money as you want. There are products you can resell for as little as $10 a month or as much as $5,000 for a single sale.

The beauty of Internet-based virtual products is that you only have to buy it once and you can sell it as many times as you want. With internet based network marketing products you get paid based on the volume of sales made by you AND your entire team and after reaching certain levels, the entire company.

The basic difference between affiliate and network marketing is the amount of commission money you can make from your own sales. In affiliate marketing, you make a significantly higher percentage of each sale than you do in network marketing. It is actually not even close.

However, in network marketing, you can build a sales organization that helps you increase the volume of sales in your team so that you aren’t doing all of the work yourself.

The truth is that success in both models is dependent upon the personal sales you make.

Always remember the goal of both models!

You are working to build residual streams of income so that when you can’t, don’t want to, or aren’t working, that your income stays consistent.

The important thing to remember is that you can’t ever stop working on your business. You just chose when and where you do it.

Then you separate as much of that income to purchase money making assets like a savings account, retirement accounts, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, real estate and even a little bit for speculation when you have the other’s going.

Making assets out of liabilities.

I have been driving for Uber now for a couple of months and while it is a great thing to do it doesn’t really make much money unless you are living in a large market with larger distances involved. However, you can drive enough to pay for your automobile expenses and when you use your automobile to earn income, those expenses are tax deductible from your income tax, usually calculated by the Per/Mile method, or circa $0.53 per mile, I think.

So let’s say you need to buy a car and the costs are around $500 a month for the payment, taxes, and insurance. Now, making $500 a month is not that difficult even in a small market and all you are doing is driving people around. It is actually fun, most of the time.

How about your home or apartment?

You can sign up for AirBNB and rent a room for $50 to $100 depending, per night. If you rent just for half of the nights you will make the cost of living there back. Admittedly, if you have a family living there, it won’t work. But it is another option if you are just getting started.

The point of all of this is that what we are building ways to earn income that is based on profits, and not on wages. That it is easier to make more profits than it is to make more wages, because of the fact that your time is limited by the clock, and your income is limited by your employer and if you don’t work, you don’t get paid.

So, there is no pay without work with the affiliate and network marketing model. But, you work towards something different.

My final comment about this is a shot of reality.

The most important thing to remember in all of this is that you must adhere to ONE PRINCIPLE.

Make more money than you spend.

Save the rest. Meaning, in the beginning, you won’t be making enough money to support yourself, so you don’t want to quit your employment just yet. This holds true especially if your employer provides benefits like health, vision and dental insurance.

The first thing you have to achieve is independence, meaning, you have to pay your own way and be free of any indebtedness to anyone. First comes independence, then comes savings, then comes freedom. You can never have freedom or independence if you are beholding to someone else.

So, while many may paint a rosy picture of affiliate and network marketing, rest assured it is work and understanding that is the real key to becoming successful.