Network marketing is about making a lot of money AND a lot of difference.

Do you admire people who do the same thing you do... only better? I do. And when they do it much, much better... I idolize them for that. Former partner and "oldest living friend" (outside of my mother) John David Mann is my "writer's writer." He edited Upline and made it great. He's got a marvelous mind. Heart & spirit to match. And "The Mann" is a real, card-carrying (done it twice with different companies in different decades) network marketing leader.

Which is why, when John David speaks, we ALL should listen. What's below is one of my all-time favorite pieces from JDM's keyboard. A classic classic.

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Residual Income, Residual Impact
The Reason This Business Works
One of the great promises of network marketing is something called “residual income.” What does this arcane phrase mean, and why does this business give it to us?

The word residual means “left over.”

Residual income is that income which is the residue of one’s initial efforts, the results that are left behind after the doing is done.

A more familiar expression of this concept is royalties.

The concept of residual income originated with the monarchy. Kings and queens were paid in residue for a variety of things: land they owned, use of resources under their control, services they provided (armies, for instance) . . . or, hey, just for being the monarchy.

In these democratic days, royalties are a bit less high-handed. A “royalty” is income paid for a duplicated effort. Authors, inventors, actors and performers of many kinds earn ongoing residuals from their work. Create a popular song, and every time a CD is sold or your song is publicly performed, you’ll receive a royalty payment. Even long after your initial effort in creating the song is expended, so long as it’s being sold — through performance, CD sales, use on movie sound tracks or TV commercials, you name it — you earn the royalty.

RESIDUAL INCOME: FREE AT LAST
The residual income in network marketing is income you continue to earn based on the productivity of your initial business-building efforts. In a legitimate network marketing program, this income is a reflection of (i.e., commission on) actual sales of products or services generated by the network organization you helped create and develop.

In a sense, it is a royalty — and you’re the king or queen who’s being compensated for the profits of your far-flung king- or queendom.

Residual income is desirable because, like the songwriter’s or author’s earnings, it is an income stream that continues flowing long after you’ve completed your initial efforts. In other words, you no longer have to do anything new to generate it. As long as sales are being made, the checks keep coming.

In a word: freedom.

Of course, there are some conditions that must exist in order for you to actually enter such a blissful state of residual keep. First and foremost, the company that issues your “royalty” checks must remain in business. (As the ancient knight says in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, “Choose wisely.”)

What’s more, the products or services must be of a sort that will continuously generate repeat sales. Historically, the favored choice for residual income in network marketing is a consumable product of exceptional quality and in great demand. (I use the word “product” to include services, which are every bit as much a product as a skin cream or nutritional beverage.)

Understand this distinction: we are not compensated for the sheer act of recruiting. It doesn’t work to try to build your future income stream on more and more new people coming into the program. An unhealthily focused emphasis on recruiting (especially with hefty buy-ins or high-commission “startup packages”) and large-volume purchases (the infamous “front-loading” ploy) are classic symptoms of poor repeat-sales potential. Neither dodge works, at least not for long.

Genuine residual income comes from the legitimate purchase and repeat consumption of products by the men and women in your group.

A third condition upon which your royalties rely is the strength — that is, the enduring strength — of the network you build. This is a function of leadership . . . which brings us to residual impact.

RESIDUAL IMPACT: MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Residual impact is just like the residual income that writers, artists, inventors and performers have, except here we’re talking about the impact their work creates rather than the income it generates.

To have an impact, one must influence with power and velocity. The impact of the industrial revolution is an example. The influence of the Internet is another. The impact of a Gandhi, a Schweitzer or a Chaplin is yet another.

Residual impact is impact that reverberates long after your initial efforts have ceased.

For a writer, it would be authoring a best-selling book or even a classic. Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and the Beatles have all given us the residual impact of their music. There are numerous examples of great performances (Bogart and Bergman in Casablanca) and great inventions (the light bulb and the home computer) that have had and will continue to have an enduring residual impact on billions of people.

You create residual impact the same way you earn residual income: investing your time, energy and effort in other people.

What’s the primary benefit of network marketing over conventional sales channels? Residual income. The same is true of residual impact. By enrolling, training and leading a network of men and women to success, you have a direct residual impact on their lives, the lives of their families and friends, the lives of countless consumers who benefit from the product, and the lives of all the future generations of men and women they will sponsor — and those whose lives they will influence, and so on.

Residual impact takes many forms. Each one serves by making a positive, sometimes even life-changing difference in people’s lives. What’s more, as the network marketing industry expands and prospers, you are playing a part in bringing to light a major shift in the way of life and work in our world.

Imagine the powerful model of “can-do-ness” President Kennedy thrust into the American consciousness when he declared the country’s intention to put a man on the moon within ten years. Everybody enrolled in that dream; the entire nation watched its progress with interest and ownership. When the deed was done, we felt the pride of our own accomplishment.

That’s residual impact on a national, even global scale.

Showing the world how network marketing honors people’s values and purpose as no other business model in history has, proving that ordinary people can live extraordinary lives, offering the world a formula for personal and financial freedom, smashing the “glass ceiling” once and for all, providing much-needed leadership for the future — these are all powerful pieces of a model of possibility for a world in great need of all that is good and true about our profession.

Again, residual impact — on a very big scale.

TURN TIME INTO MONEY, MONEY INTO TIME
Benjamin Franklin once observed that he had spent his first forty years turning his time into money and his second forty years turning his money back into time. Franklin built a large enough asset base in his first four decades to supply sufficient residual income to allow him to spend his next four decades doing whatever he wanted to do.

And it’s a good thing for all of us that he did.

We all know of the remarkable contributions Franklin made that still affect our lives today. If Ben hadn’t been free to mess with his kites, would I be typing on a Macintosh® laptop at a coffee shop right now? And what about his role in drafting the United States’ Declaration of Independence?

What would your life and my life be like right now if Franklin hadn’t created four decades worth of residual income? Imagine what residual impact America and the world would have lost!

Now, imagine this one: where will our grandchildren’s lives be tomorrow because you and I have created residual income today? Where will our grandchildren’s lives be because you and I are free to play with our own kites — to discover, invent, create, refine, improve and play to our hearts’ content on the world stage?

When the ledgers are all totaled, what kind of impact will we have had?

What kind of legacy?

Residual impact generates residual income, which allows you to generate greater residual impact, which gives you more residual income . . .

To some people, network marketing is about making a lot of money.

To some people, network marketing is about making a lot of a difference.

But the truth is, it is impossible to separate the two: they’re front and back of the same coin. Both are legal tender in network marketing. Both are your reason and your reward.
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If you like or love what you read above, there's more where that came from, free, sharable and very good. Go to John David's page for his book (click the link) The Zen of MLM and go for the "extras."

And, please let me know what you like best about the article above..

Thanks.
I appreciate you.

 

 

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