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Introduction

Have you been wondering exactly how so many successful marketers are able to create incredibly profitable sales funnels that generate thousands of dollars with every launch?

The reality is, if you want to maximize your income so you can squeeze every possible dollar from your product launches, you absolutely need to master the art of creating high-converting sales funnels.

And here’s a fun fact: it’s easier than you may think.

This special report was written to provide you with a step-by-step quick start blueprint to creating outstanding sales funnels that not only maximize your profits but are aimed at keeping the money rolling in long after your initial launch phase is over.

Because a well-constructed sales funnel that’s based on proven techniques can take a simple product launch and retain the momentum weeks, even months after the launch.

Are you ready to learn the insider strategies to creating turbo-charged sales funnels that maximize your income?

If so, let’s begin!

Overview of a Successful Funnel

A sales funnel moves leads through a sales process until they make a final purchase.

It introduces people to your brand who may not already be familiar with it and puts you in a position of connecting with your target audience.

It also amplifies a typical marketing strategy so that you’re able to maximize profits and build your tribe. And it extends the life of a product launch.

The key is to create a sales funnel that makes sense to your target audience. Don’t overlook the importance of this because not every niche or industry responds the same way to a sales funnel. It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach!

To begin, you’ll want to spend some time analyzing successful sales funnel in your market. Pay close attention to the price points that you’re introduced to along the way.

What kind of upsells do they offer?

How do they move you from one offer to the next?

Take notes of everything you come across because this information will be helpful to you when you begin constructing your own funnel.

A sales funnel also helps to qualify traffic. It separates the action-takers from the tire-kickers. It works to create awareness of your brand, and to test out different price strategies to find the sweet spot.

In other words, it serves multiple purposes beyond the profitability of the offer itself.

Your sale funnel’s objective is to move traffic, and then convert that traffic along the way. You’re inviting people into your funnel in order to connect with potential customers and provide them with various options so that you’re more likely to get the sale.

Even sales funnels that feature a single front-end product are designed to showcase other backend offers throughout the process.

The one thing that many people overlook is that your funnel doesn’t have to begin with a sale. In fact, you should look at the top of your funnel as the exploratory stage, where customers are first introduced to your brand and are looking for reasons to buy from you.

This means that your funnel may not begin on a sales page at all. It could start by funneling traffic into a mailing list in order to build your subscriber base and connect with your audience.

Your funnel may start with a blog that features high-quality content and later encourages readers to become part of a Facebook group, a masterclass, a newsletter or a free course.

It doesn’t matter where or how your funnel begins. The important thing to keep in mind is that the top of your funnel has one main goal: to raise awareness of your brand and to connect with potential customers.

Your funnel’s entry point (or top of the funnel) can be created in many ways, depending on your overall objective. So, to start, think about what you hope to accomplish.

Do you want to build a mailing list of people who are interested in your niche so that you can introduce them to new offers?

Are you looking to start selling right away by creating a traditional sales funnel that begins with a low-cost front end product?

Do you want to gather important information from prospects through lead magnets, free trials, or free products before introducing them to paid offers?

Identify the main objective of the top of your sales funnel first and then build your funnel around that.

The 3 Stages of a Successful Funnel

We’ve just discussed how the top (entry) of your funnel doesn’t always have to involve selling. In fact, for many this is the last place where they’d even consider doing a hard sale.

Typically, the top of your sales funnel is the introduction phase. As I’ve previously mentioned, it’s where you allow people to get to know your brand, test the waters, and make the decision as to whether you have something valuable to offer.

Here’s how to create the top of your funnel:

Set up a lead-capture page. This can be a responsive squeeze or landing page. The focus needs to be on capturing the lead via an opt-in form that adds the subscriber to your mailing list.

You’ll want to offer something of value in exchange for their email address. Think about the different type of products featured within your funnel and offer them a condensed version of a product, or something else that is relevant to your market.

Don’t overlook the importance of a lead magnet! If you want to maximize conversion rates, you’ll want to offer them something irresistible that instantly attracts attention. A free special report, an email-based course or a series of videos are always great ideas.

If you want to save time by getting your hands on dozens of pre-made lead magnet packages that include high-quality reports, responsive squeeze pages and even autoresponder follow-ups that will help you connect with your subscribers, you’ll want to check out: https://www.swabd.com/monthly-plr-lead-magnets-package

These guys know their stuff. The lead magnet packages come fully bundled with everything you need making it drop-dead easy to get your funnel up and running in a matter of a few minutes.

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Search Engine Manifesto

Search Engines and How They Work

Search Engines are special sites on the Web that are designed to help people find information stored on other sites. There are differences in the ways various Search Engines work, but they all perform three basic tasks:

- They search the Internet - or select pieces of the Internet - based on important words,
- They keep an index of the words they find, and where they find them, and
- They allow users to look for words or combinations of words found in that index.

Early Search Engines held an index of a few hundred thousand pages and documents, and received maybe one or two thousand inquiries each day. Today, a top Search Engine will index hundreds of millions of pages, and respond to tens of millions of queries per day.

Before a Search Engine can tell you where a file or document is, it must be found. To find information on the hundreds of millions of Web pages that exist, a Search Engine employs special software robots, called spiders, to build lists of the words found on Web sites.

When a spider is building its lists, the process is called web crawling.

In order to build and maintain a useful list of words, a Search Engine's spiders have to look at a lot of pages. How does any spider start its travels over the Web? The usual starting points are lists of heavily used servers and very popular pages. The spider will begin with a popular site, indexing the words on its pages and following every link found within the site. In this way, the spidering system quickly begins to travel, spreading out across the most widely used portions of the Web.
Once the spiders have completed the task of finding information on Web pages, the Search Engine must store the information in a way that makes it useful. There are two key components involved in making the gathered data accessible to users:

- The information stored with the data, and
- The method by which the information is indexed.

In the simplest case, a Search Engine could just store the word and the URL where it was found. In reality, this would make for an engine of limited use, since there would be no way of telling whether the word was used in an important or a trivial way on the page, whether the word was used once or many times or whether the page contained links to other pages containing the word. In other words, there would be no way of building the ranking list that tries to present the most useful pages at the top of the list of search results.

To make for more useful results, most Search Engines store more than just the word and URL. A Search Engine might store the number of times that the word appears on a page. The engine might assign a weight to each entry, with increasing values assigned to words as they appear near the top of the document, in sub-headings, in links, in the META tags or in the title of the page. Each commercial Search Engine has a different formula for assigning weight to the words in its index. This is one of the reasons that a search for the same word on different Search Engines will produce different lists, with the pages presented in different orders.

An index has a single purpose: it allows information to be found as quickly as possible. There are quite a few ways for an index to be built, but one of the most effective ways is to build a hash table. In hashing, a formula is applied to attach a numerical value to each word.

The formula is designed to evenly distribute the entries across a predetermined number of divisions. This numerical distribution is different from the distribution of words across the alphabet, and that is the key to a hash table's effectiveness.

When a person requests a search on a keyword or phrase, the Search Engine software searches the index for relevant information. The software then provides a report back to the searcher with the most relevant web pages listed first.

Choosing a SEO Company

A Search Engine Optimization Company can be an invaluable asset in your Internet marketing campaign. They specialize in knowing how to raise your Search Engine positions, monitoring those positions on the regular basis, and adjusting their strategies to account for undesirable results in any given month. Since this takes a lot of time, effort, and specialized knowledge, it can be in your best interest to go to an outside source rather than try to maintain high Search Engine positions on your own.

However, like every business, there are good companies and there are lemons. Knowing the right questions to ask and the criteria to look for will help you in choosing an affordable, effective Search Engine optimization company.

When looking at different companies, begin by considering the approach they employ to raise your Search Engine positions. Steer clear of companies that use cloaked, doorway, or bridge pages to raise your positions. These techniques violate most Search Engine policy, and in the worst case scenario, will only get your website severely penalized, if not removed entirely from a Search Engine's index.

A cloaked page is a page that is created which is invisible to the regular visitor to your website. The cloaked page is coded to detect a Search Engine spider and divert them to this special page, which is set-up to artificially boost your Search Engine position. Doorway or bridge pages utilize the same concept, but often reside on an entirely different server. Google, the largest and most important Search Engine on the Internet, will remove your website from their index if they detect you have cloaked pages. So never, never employ any company that uses this technique!

Another important element is to get a guarantee that the company you hire will not work with your competitors while they are working for you. Obviously, this would seriously compromise the effectiveness of the Search Engine optimization campaign. Be aware that some companies will use the success they achieve for your website to sell their services to your competitors. So get your guarantee in writing, and make sure it is legally binding.

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Protecting Your Computer’s System

Today, more and more people are using their computers for everything from communication to online banking and investing to shopping.

As we do these things on a more regular basis, we open ourselves up to potential hackers, attackers and crackers. While some may be looking to phish your personal information and identity for resale, others simply just want to use your computer as a platform from which to attack other unknowing targets.

Below are a few easy, cost-effective steps you can take to make your computer more secure to begin with:

1. Always make backups of important information and store in a safe place separate from your computer.
2. Update and patch your operating system, web browser and software frequently. If you have a Windows operating system, start by going to www.windowsupdate.microsoft.com and running the update wizard. This program will help you find the latest patches for your Windows computer. Also go to www.officeupdate.microsoft.com and locate possible patches for your Office programs.
3. Install a firewall. Without a good firewall, viruses, worms, Trojans, malware and adware can all easily access your computer from the Internet. Consideration should be given to the benefits and differences between hardware and software based firewall programs.
4. Review your browser and email settings for optimum security. Why should you do this? Active-X and JavaScript are often used by hackers to plant malicious programs into your computers. While cookies are relatively harmless in terms of security concerns, they do still track your movements on the Internet to build a profile of you. At a minimum set your security setting for the “Internet zone” to High, and your “trusted sites zone” to Medium Low.
5. Install anti-virus software and set for automatic updates so that you receive the most current versions.
6. Do not open unknown email attachments. It is simply not enough that you may recognize the address from which it originates because many viruses can spread from a familiar address.
7. Do not run programs from unknown origins. Also, do not send these types of programs to friends and coworkers because they contain funny or amusing stories or jokes. They may contain a Trojans horse waiting to infect a computer.
8. Disable hidden filename extensions. By default, the Windows operating system is set to “hide file extensions for known file types”. Disable this option so that file extensions display in Windows. Some file extensions will, by default, continue to remain hidden, but you are more likely to see any unusual file extensions that do not belong.
9. Turn off your computer and disconnect from the network when not using the computer. A hacker cannot attack your computer when you are disconnected from the network or the computer is off.
10. Consider making a boot disk on a floppy disk in case your computer is damaged or compromised by a malicious program. Obviously, you need to take this step before you experience a hostile breach of your system.

Fighting Spam

How prevalent is Spam? According to Scott McAdams, OMA Public Affairs and Communications Department (www.oma.org):

“Studies show unsolicited or “junk” e-mail, known as spam, accounts for roughly half of all e-mail messages received. Although once regarded as little more than a nuisance, the prevalence of spam has increased to the point where many users have begun to express a general lack of confidence in the effectiveness of e-mail
transmissions, and increased concern over the spread of computer viruses via unsolicited messages.”

In 2003, President Bush signed the “Can Spam” bill, in December of 2003 which is the first national standards around bulk unsolicited commercial e-mail. The bill, approved by the Senate by a vote of 97 to 0, prohibits senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail from using false return addresses to disguise their identity (spoofing) and the use of dictionaries to generate such mailers.

In addition, it prohibits the use of misleading subject lines and requires that emails include and opt-out mechanism. The legislation also prohibits senders from harvesting addresses off Web sites.

Violations constitute a misdemeanor crime subject to up to one year in jail.

One major point that needs to be discussed about this: spam is now coming from other countries in ever-greater numbers. These emails are harder to fight, because they come from outside our country’s laws and regulations. Because the Internet opens borders and thinks globally, these laws are fine and good, but do not stop the problem.

So what do you do about this?

Here are the top 5 rules to do to protect from spam:

Number 1: Do what you can to avoid having your email address out on the net.

There are products called “spam spiders” that search the Internet for email addresses to send email to. If you are interested, do a search on “spam spider” and you will be amazed at what you get back. Interestingly, there is a site, WebPoison.org, which is an open source project geared to fight Internet "spambots" and "spam spiders", by giving them bogus HTML web pages, which contain bogus email addresses.

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Preparing Your Child to Be a Latchkey Kid

All over the US, children are going home after school and spending time alone until their parents get home from work. This is what a latchkey kid is. The term came about because they have their own key, usually on a chain hung from their neck, to unlock their home each day when they’re done with school.

They typically have no adult supervision for two to three hours each evening while they wait for their parents to come home. There are more than four million grade-school-aged latchkey kids because there are a lot of dual-income parents and single parents in the workforce today. But this number is down from its high in the 80s when over half of all children were latchkey kids.

It’s very difficult to find affordable childcare for this age group. However, before you choose to let your child become a latchkey kid, there are many things to consider - such as the laws in your area, whether your child is mature enough, and your own financial and emotional situation.

1. Latchkey Kids and the Law

If you’re considering letting your child become a latchkey kid, then you need to find out what the law is in your state, city, and county. For the most part, allowing a child to stay home before the age of 8 is not recommended or even legal today. It was done in the past with great regularity but now the laws have changed the rules for parents.

Most professionals agree that children between ages 8 and 10 shouldn’t be home alone for more than a couple of hours. Ages 11 to 12 can be home longer but should not be left alone late at night. Kids 13 to 15 can be alone at night, but not all night long. Between 16 and 17 years of age, being left overnight a couple nights is okay. But, keep in mind that your decisions should be made based on the law in your area and the maturity of your child.

2. Dangers of Being Latchkey

Let’s be clear before we continue. There are some inherent dangers in being a latchkey kid. But you can mitigate each of them if you’re honest about it and aware. Sometimes you have no choice but to take risks, but when you know what the true issues are, you can at least get in front of them and help your child come out on top.

Loneliness, Boredom and Fear

Many studies show one of the biggest problems with latchkey kids is that they are often lonely, bored, and even afraid. That’s why it’s so important to set up ways to mitigate these issues. Children who have these problems are more likely to fall for those who seek to prey on children through the internet and other means. Talk to your child about stranger (and even relative) danger, and proper behavior that adults should have around kids.

Problems with Peer Pressure

Children starting about middle-school age who spend more than three hours a day alone tend to fall for peer pressure more. They also tend to be more likely to be involved with drug and alcohol use and even sexual activity, due to not following the rules you set about not having friends over. If you never check in or show up unannounced, they will learn that they can get away with it and since their frontal lobes aren’t closed yet, they may make bad choices.

Sexual Promiscuity and Behavior Problems

Children left alone for long periods of time tend to suffer from sexual promiscuity and even behavior problems more often than children who aren’t. But, many children left alone don’t, so there has to be a way to prevent this issue. Open communication, double checking on your kids, and asking others like a trusted neighbor to tell you what’s going on can help.

Many children who are latchkey kids also seem to have more issues with conduct disorders and have more issues academically. However, some of this is traced to parents not having time to spend with their kids or money to spend on tutors, health experts, and so forth. If you are aware in advance of this problem, you can know what to watch for in your latchkey child.

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Self-improvement & Success – Hand in Hand

Everything that happens to us happens in purpose. And sometimes, one thing leads to another. Instead of locking yourself up in your cage of fears and crying over past heartaches, embarrassment and failures, treat them as your teachers and they will become your tools in both self-improvement and success.

Remember watching Patch Adams? It’s one great film that will help you improve yourself. Hunter “patch” Adams is a medical student who failed to make it through the board exams. After months of suffering in melancholy, depression and suicidal attempts – he decided to seek for medical attention and voluntarily admitted himself in a psychiatric ward. His months of stay in the hospital led him to meeting different kinds of people.

Sick people in that matter. He met a catatonic, a mentally retarded, a schizophrenic and so on. Patch found ways of treating his own ailment and finally realized he has to get back on track. He woke up one morning realizing that after all the failure and pains he has gone through, he still want to become a doctor. He carries with himself a positive attitude that brought him self-improvement and success. He didn’t only improved himself, but also the life of the people around him and the quality of life. Did he succeed? Needless to say, he became the best damn doctor his country has ever known.

So, when does self-improvement become synonymous with success? Where do we start? Take these tips:

- Stop thinking and feeling as if you’re a failure, because you’re not. How can others accept you if YOU can’t accept YOU?

- When you see hunks and models on TV, think more on self-improvement, not self pitying. Self-acceptance is not just about having nice slender legs, or great abs. Concentrate on inner beauty.

- When people feel so down and low about themselves, help them move up. Don’t go down with them. They’ll pull you down further and both of you will end up feeling inferior.

- The world is a large room for lessons, not mistakes. Don’t feel stupid and doomed forever just because you failed on a science quiz. There’s always a next time. Make rooms for self-improvement.

- Take things one at a time. You don’t expect black sheep’s to be goody-two-shoes in just a snap of a finger. Self-improvement is a one day at a time process.

- Self-improvement results to inner stability, personality development and SUCCESS. It comes from self-confidence, self appreciation and self-esteem.

- Set meaningful and achievable goals. Self-improvement doesn’t turn you to be the exact replica of Cameron Diaz or Ralph Fiennes. It hopes and aims to result to an improved and better YOU.

- Little things mean BIG to other people. Sometimes, we don’t realize that the little things that we do like a pat on the back, saying “hi” or “hello”, greeting someone “good day” or telling Mr. Smith something like “hey, I love your tie!” are simple things that mean so much to other people. When we’re being appreciative about beautiful things around us and other people, we also become beautiful to them.

- When you’re willing to accept change and go through the process of self-improvement, it doesn’t mean that everyone else is. The world is a place where people of different values and attitude hang out. Sometimes, even if you think you and your best friend always like to do the same thing together at the same time, she would most likely decline an invitation for self-improvement.

We should always remember that there’s no such thing as ‘over night success’. Its always a wonderful feeling to hold on to the things that you already have now, realizing that those are just one of the things you once wished for. A very nice quote says that, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” We are all here to learn our lessons. Our parents, school teachers, friends, colleagues, officemates, neighbors… they are our teachers. When we open our doors for self-improvement, we increase our chances to head to the road of success.

The Importance of Improving Yourself

Sometimes, when all our doubts, fears and insecurities wrap ourselves up, we always come up with the idea of “I wish I was somebody else.” More often than not, we think and believe that someone or rather, most people are better than us - when in reality, the fact is, most people are more scared than us.

You spot a totally eye-catching girl sitting by herself at a party, casually sipping on a glass of Asti Spumanti. You think to yourself, “she looks so perfectly calm and confident.” But if you could read thru her transparent mind, you would see a bunch of clouds of thoughts and you might just be amazed that she’s thinking “are people talking about why I am seated here alone?... Why don’t guys find me attractive? …I don’t like my ankles, they look too skinny… I wish I was as intelligent as my best friend.”

We look at a young business entrepreneur and say “Wooh… what else could he ask for?” He stares at himself at the mirror and murmur to himself, “I hate my big eyes… I wonder why my friends won’t talk to me… I hope mom and dad would still work things out.”

Isn’t it funny? We look at other people, envy them for looking so outrageously perfect and wish we could trade places with them, while they look at us and thinks of the same thing. We are insecure of other people who themselves are insecure of us. We suffer from low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence and lose hope in self-improvement because we are enveloped in quiet desperation.

Sometimes, you notice that you have an irritating habit like biting off your finger nails, having a foul mouth, and you – of all people, is the last to know.
I have a friend who never gets tired of talking. And in most conversations, she is the only one who seems to be interested in the things she has to say. So all of our other friends tend to avoid the circles whenever she’s around, and she doesn’t notices how badly she became socially handicapped – gradually affecting the people in her environment.

One key to self-improvement is to LISTEN and TALK to a trusted friend. Find someone who you find comfort in opening up with even the most gentle topics
you want to discuss. Ask questions like “do you think I am ill-mannered?”, “Do I always sound so argumentative?”, “Do I talk too loud?”, “Does my breath smell?”, “Do I ever bore you when were together?”. In this way, the other person will obviously know that you are interested in the process of self-improvement. Lend her your ears for comments and criticisms and don’t give her answers like “Don’t exaggerate! That’s just the way I am!” Open up your mind and heart as well. And in return, you may want to help your friend with constructive criticism that will also help her improve her self.

One of Whitney Houston’s songs says “Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.” True enough! In order to love others, you must love yourself too. Remember, you cannot give what you do not have.

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Introduction

What is spyware? What is adware? You’ve probably heard of them because everyone that gets online is either bombarded with information about the products that can help to protect against these two things or get so much spam that they’ve had to remove it from their system.

Spyware and adware are two separate things but can be lumped together for one reason. That is that they are merciless in what they can do to your computer and to you.

- They risk your sanity with pop up ads.

- They risk your computer too, as too many pieces of adware or spyware on your computer and it will no longer work well.

- And, they will risk your personal identity, too.

Yet, there is much you can do for protection from these problems. The solution is twofold. You must get rid of any type of spyware or adware that is lurking in your computer right now. Then, you need to protect yourself from it entering into your system again.
The information and solutions you need, are within this e-book.

Chapter 1: Spyware Can Destroy

Spyware and adware are two different animals. Each has the ability to make your life a mess. If you rely on the internet for anything or you rely on your computer for anything, it is a must that you fully understand what these things are and how they work.

The first key to protecting yourself from these things is to fully understand what they are. That will allow you to know how to not make common mistakes that cause spyware to get into your computer.

What Is Spyware?

According to Microsoft, spyware is a term that describes any type of software that is used for such things as collecting personal information, changing the configuration of your computer, advertising and anything else that can be done. The catch is that spyware is downloaded without your permission. Usually, you won’t know it’s even there when it enters your system.

What Is Adware?

The difference between spyware and adware is just a small one. With spyware, the potential could be leaked personal

information to another source. In other words, someone is spying on you. With adware, though, the software is geared towards displaying advertisements.

Is It All Bad?

Unfortunately, many people have been lead to believe that all types of this software are bad and should be avoided. But, that’s not always the case. The fact is you may want to have certain types of this software to use.

Remember, to make it spyware it has to be downloaded to your computer without your consent.

Why would you want to have spyware that tracks your personal information? Why would you want those advertisements? You may actually sign up for a service online and when you do you may also agree to receive targeted ads.

Companies like this find it helpful to track where you go online and what you do in order to provide you with ads that are targeted to your interests. Instead of seeing ads that don’t have anything to do with you, you’ll see ads that are based on the places you’ve visited online.

In most cases, though, spyware can be something that annoys and even has the potential to do much harm to you and your computer.

Changing Configurations

One problem that often happens with spyware and adware is that they can change your computer’s settings, making it quite annoying for you to even log on. Here, they may change the web browser’s home page. Or, when you search, this page can be changed. Some products even will make other changes to the actual configuration of your computer.

The problem with these things is that they are usually very difficult to change back. You may not have the ability to do this because it can be quite difficult.

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Recurring Income Explained

Recurring Income is another term for residual income. In a nutshell, there are three (3) types of income streams that you may have coming into your business.

1. If you do a one-time job, sale or perform a contract, you get paid once and the income stops there.

2. If you do a normal 9 to 5 job, you will continue to get paid as long you continue to work for your employer—often called a linear income. This is the type of income that the majority of workers “enjoy.” Even if you are a neurosurgeon, lawyer or engineer, you are only paid as long as you continue working. You stop working and the bank account dwindles.

3. The third type of income is the recurring income where you are paid even after you have stopped working. For example, you wrote a book and as long as your book continues to sell, you will continue to receive royalty income for a work done once.

Majority of rich and affluent people created wealth through a form of recurring income stream. Take singer Michael Jackson for example; he still continues to receive royalty from the sales of his records made decades ago. He can even repackage the same oldies and sell them to generate new income. He doesn’t have to spend time in the studio to record new songs in order to have the cash keep flowing in! This is the most ideal situation of the three. We would all like to work once and get paid over and over again. That is the power of recurring income!

The majority of professionals that enjoy this type of income belong to the creative fields such as actors, writers, singers, and inventors.

Unfortunately, not many of us are blessed with the talents Michael Jackson has, let alone the opportunities to be in the lucrative industries. However, there is one budding opportunity for any ordinary individual today to enjoy residual income today in the 21st century.

You’ve guessed it: it’s none other than Network Marketing.

Network Marketing Reviewed

The field of Network Marketing or Multi-level Marketing (MLM) has also been instrumental over the past 60 years or so to make the recurring income concept very popular and attractive.

Here, you can build a network of distributors, referred to as your down line, and generate income outside of your own immediate effort. Working for Network Marketing company is one of the most feasible places where you can generate recurring wealth, and so we will now take a look at the secrets to being a successful network marketer.

Choosing a Network Marketing Company

According to a respected journalist, Richard Poe, in his book Wave4 – Network Marketing in the 21st Century, Network Marketing is responsible for moving over a whopping **$100 billion** of goods and services yearly on the global front. It is therefore very likely that you have already come in contact with some type of Network Marketing product or service. The concept of moving goods through an army of independent distributors has earned its place in the marketing world despite the negative publicity suffered by the industry. Network Marketing is here to stay; the question that remains is, “How do I choose a company?”

Here are some very important pointers that would guide you in the right direction. Any company that you can find passing these criteria will be a great company to line up with.

1. A company that has been in business for at least 5 years and has great financial backing, excellent management and a ‘distributor first’ philosophy. The company should also have a long-term development goal and not just be out for the quick cash.

This may be a pretty tall order to reach but considering that the great majority of start-up Network Marketing companies fail within their first three years you don’t want your income stream to suddenly dry up! It’s no picnic to discover that after you’ve spent time, effort and money to build a solid organization the company closes down because one of those essential elements was missing.

There is the prevalent myth that the best time to join a company is at start-up—the so called ‘ground floor opportunity’—, but if the truth be told, the ground often caves in leaving many people very unhappy. This does not mean that you should wait for five years to see if a company would do well, because logically, this would mean that no Network Marketing company will ever get started. The point here is that you should assess your risk and know that the chance of losing your money is higher with a new company than with a company having a proven track record.

You know the saying that the proof of the pudding is in the eating; just so the proof of the stability of a Network Marketing company is in the duration of survival. In fact, in over 60 years of Network Marketing history and after tens of thousands of Network Marketing start up companies, only around 42 companies have made it to their 5th birthday.

Any business owner would admit that the first years are the toughest. This is the period when the company is just establishing a footing and income is most likely low. If the company does not have the proper financial backing it is not likely to survive these years. You would not want to join a company that is depending too much on the distributors for survival. A Network Marketing company takes time to build momentum by the very nature of the business - word of mouth advertising, people telling people. Before it reaches top momentum it must have the financial backing to survive the early hurdles.

Customer support for the distributors is also a critical part of the company. If their distributors feel neglected then they will simply not stick around. Especially in today’s market where there are thousands of Network Marketing companies beckoning. The distributors are the consumers and salespeople, and to neglect them is to commit certain suicide.

A sad reality of the Network Marketing industry is that there are many scam artists that come along just for the quick cash just before they close shop and disappear. This would require that you do your due diligence such as checking consumer alert websites as FTC.gov and WorldWideScam.com among others. These scam artists will normally emphasize the compensation plan over the actual product—if there really is a product—and apply high pressure sales tactics to persuade you to join the “ground-floor opportunity”. These criminals prey on human greed and have little sympathy for the naïve.