Thousands of people become millionaires each year and attribute their success to their profitable business or savvy investments, especially in real estate. "It takes money to make money..." as the old saying goes.

However, is that really the case or is there a way for the average person to elevate themselves from the daily grind of their 9 to 5, and attain financial freedom starting from absolutely nothing?

Take the average Joe Shmoe who works all the hours of the day to provide for his family and in return, receives a paltry pay-check from an unsatisfied ever-demanding employer, and finds himself repeatedly sinking to his overdraft limit as the trickle of bills, direct debits, mortgages and loan repayments take their drain each month.

What hope does the average person starting with a shoe-string budget really have of attaining financial freedom?

Pretty good, dare I say ..

There has never been a better opportunity to make money online than right now!

Millions of people all over the world are actively looking for opportunities on the web, trying to find a way to earn an additional income. Hopefully, an income that will replace their own salaries, to give them the financial freedom that they seek, and hopefully make them instant or even, gradual millionaires.

The vehicle that will take you to your destination already exists in MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) or Network Marketing. Instead of marketing pills, potions and lotions like the pioneers of the industry, these days there is an abundance of companies promoting their online and informational services through the Internet such as internet service providers, web-hosting, web-conferencing, internet marketing and online advertising.

The advantage of these online MLM businesses is that their products are marketed and distributed over the internet seamlessly. There are no unnecessary storage, distribution or transportation costs involved. Products can literally be purchased and accessed by the buyer at the touch of a button.

Now, the majority of these online MLM businesses are structured so that you pay a relatively small monthly subscription or a membership fee in exchange for the online goods and services. Additionally, most of these businesses will also provide you with your own corporate designed marketing or affiliate website. A portion of your subscription fee goes to the person that introduced you to the business (your sponsor) and the rest to company that provides the goods and services.

There are several variations in how the commission structures work, but essentially, the more people you sponsor, the more you'll earn.

More importantly, however, you'll also receive a small commission from the subscriptions of your collective downline (all the people that are sponsored under you and your direct recruits). This is where the residual income element is generated, from the subscriptions of everyone in your downline, and where fortunes are created with MLM and Network Marketing.

The best way to illustrate this point is with an example.

Let's say that you have built up your online business and have 1000 people in your collective downline. Let's assume that the subscription fee is $25 per month, and you receive a small percentage of the monthly subscriptions from everyone in your downline (even those that you have not directly recruited). If your commission happens to be $5 per person, you have built yourself a residual income of $5000 per month! Just to clarify, that is $5000 you will receive every month without any further effort on your part.

The most important thing to remember here is that you can have 1000 people in your collective downline without physically having recruited 1000 people yourself. You may have only ever sponsored 5 people. Let's say that the 5 people you sponsored went on to sponsor 5 others, taught the 5 people they sponsored how to the same, and this continued on down several levels until your downline mushroomed up to the 1000 mark.

With any MLM business, duplication is of paramount importance in building up a large downline. The majority of really successful MLM and network marketers build their fortunes by training a small handful of people and in turn, showing them how to do the same with their direct recruits. By instilling this process of duplication as part of their training system into the hearts and minds of their marketers, large downlines consisting of tens of thousands of people have been created by several organizations.

Duplication is all about leverage, and this is the real power behind Network Marketing. If you can understand this, then you have just learned the number one, and only proven system of building up a huge downline in any MLM or Network Marketing program.

Furthermore, today's technology has simplified and amplified the power of duplication. Most online MLM companies will provide you with an automated turnkey system to assist you in recruiting and sponsoring others online. You just need to plug into these systems by purchasing MLM leads (purchased through the company's list of approved leads vendors) which automatically get uploaded into your auto-responder (a built-in emailing system also kindly supplied as part of your marketing toolkit). These opportunity leads or prospects are periodically emailed a series of marketing letters over a number of weeks or even months, enticing them to join your profitable and rewarding online business opportunity.

It seems that not a day goes by without an invite from someone asking me to evaluate their latest ticket to wealth, their newly found online business. In fact, the problem is no longer a lack of finance or opportunity, it's more a case of selecting a suitable opportunity from the lorry load of online enterprises filling up our Inboxes with their marketing emails.

Therefore, in the case of an average person such as Joe Shmoe, I concur that there has never been a better opportunity of achieving financial freedom starting off on a shoe-string budget.

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Written by Tony Bhachu, webmaster of 'The
Dummies Guide To Financial Freedom', dedicated
to help you make money online and achieve
financial freedom as quickly as possible.
=> http://www.DummiesGuideToFinancialFreedom.com
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