Network marketing is now over 50 years old and accounts for a total of about 100 billion dollars in retail sales annually. There are now approximately 40 million network marketing distributors worldwide, 14 million of whom are in the U.S.

Although legitimate network marketing is still often confused with illegal "pyramid schemes," it is, in fact, totally legal in all 50 states and in about 125 countries.

An estimated 50,000 people currently enroll in network marketing companies every week. According to a recent article in Entrepreneur Magazine, literally thousands of people in this industry are realizing annual incomes in excess of $100,000.

As transportation costs continue to escalate and increasing numbers of people are down-sized or outsourced, it is highly likely that this trend will continue to escalate.

Business Startup Magazine recently rated network marketing as one of it's 100 best businesses to get involved in. Similarly, Robert Kiyosaki, best-selling author of numerous books on wealth generation, strongly promotes network marketing as the optimal way for average people to achieve financial independence.

Some of the world's highest quality products are available only through various network marketing companies, many of which have enjoyed outstanding growth. Amway, for example,one of the oldest network marketing companies, was recently ranked as number four in a list of the most successful of U.S. Household and Personal Product companies. The top three on this list were: Proctor & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive, and S.C. Johnson--all household names.

As a means to achieving financial independence, network marketing offers many outstanding advantages and benefits to ordinary people of very modest financial means. The startup costs are generally very low. Moreover--unlike with expensive franchises--there is no expense for buying property, constructing buildings, hiring and firing employees, etc. Most network marketers start on a part-time basis and gradually transition to a full-time basis as their business builds.

Having a home business also has some very attractive tax benefits. It's generally estimated that the average savings in taxes per year by having a home business is around $5,000

While all of this sounds very positive and attractive, the downside is that--as with all new businesses--a very high percentage of network marketers fail in this type of enterprise. A commonly cited estimate, in fact, is that only around 5% are highly successful.

Although there are many reasons for this high failure rate, one of the most common consists in the challenges entailed in recruiting a team of distributors. After exhausting their "warm market," a large percentage of new network marketers are at a loss for how to continue building their distributional teams. Almost universally, success in this arena entails some form of "selling" to strangers. A large proportion of network marketers lack the skills and/or the motivation to develop success in this area. Quite commonly, they then become discouraged and quit.

With the rapid evolution of e-commerce, however, an entirely new breed of network marketers is rapidly evolving, and a brand new paradigm for building a highly successful network marketing business is well within reach of an average person. This new, outside-the-box approach, requires absolutely none of the traditional direct person-to-person recruitment tactics that previously have been a basic necessary condition for success in this industry. Anyone equipped with basic computer skills, internet access, and the willingness to learn how to utilize the rapidly-exploding advertising resources available on the internet to find and recruit customers and business partners can now enjoy a high degree of success over a relatively short period of time.

Although there are already many variations on this new theme, one of the most exciting is called a Funded Sponsoring Franchise system. Since it is basically a "business-in-a-box," it's highly analogous to the hundreds of bricks and mortar franchises that are now available. Whereas these latter franchises require an initial investment, however, from around $60,000 at the low end to around $500,000 at the high end, most of the new paradigm network marketing franchises are very low cost or actually free.

An effective Funded Sponsoring Franchise includes a very specific, detailed, and highly-duplicable business plan for developing a primary network marketing business of your choice. Further, it entails the rapid generation of multiple streams of income through a group of carefully-chosen of other income-generating programs. The income generated through these programs is then systematically re-invested into additional online advertising to continue promoting one's primary business. By using this carefully-designed bootstraps approach, a diligent business owner--simply by following the detailed business plan provided and by investing $500 or less--can quickly develop a profitable system and then go on to utilize these profits to build a massive long-term residual income with the company of her/his choice.

Anyone interested in exploring a particularly effective example of this new approach can do so by accessing the website below. ------------------------------------