When people are confronted with a choice to create an extra income, many believe starting their own business as a side hustle is the solution. Most believe doing what you love will bring in the money. It is often the case for a short while but in the long run scaling your business brings activities that you don’t expect! Therefore, if your goal is only to exchange 1 or 2 hours per day for a few Rands every month, this could be a solution. However, if you consider to replace your salary with a full-time business, you should learn the skills necessary for a business!
Often when asked what is an ideal business opportunity, one gets wild fantasy answers:
- Work for yourself – not accountable to anyone
- A larger than large income
- Working hours that suit you
- Going on vacation as and when you want
- Not having disloyal personnel
Now in “traditional” business as most people understands it, that is really a dream. Certain sectors are busier when everybody else are on holiday. The retail sector stays open so that the office workers can do shopping when it is convenient for them. And so the list goes on.
Being a small entrepreneur is often even worse. You dance to the music of your customer!
Therefore, I looked into the network marketing field and found that you could have your bread buttered on both sides:
- Work for yourself, and not totally by yourself
- Have an unlimited income potential
- Working the hours that suit you – it can be as little as 1 hour per day
- Going on vacation as and when you choose
- Have no personnel
- Have the ability to leverage from other’s effort – which gives more productivity in your business than your own productivity
- Create a recurring income (make money while you sleep)
- Leave a legacy
My personal list why I love network marketing is much longer and includes:
- Great products and product development – keep adding to the list
- Systems that are in place that I don’t need to create
- No qualification or experience needed
- Cannot get retrenched
- Don’t have to retire
- In the company I am involved in, there are no out-of-stock or wrong product issues
- The company do customer services
- Training as I earn coupled with an incredible reward system
- Learning skills that I can apply in other fields – personal and other businesses
- Personal development
- Work anywhere in the world
- Start up cost is very low and therefore no/low risk
- Able to become a leader and develop leaders
- Able to serve others with my knowledge
- Be significant
There are even more personal benefits and it differs from person to person, like donating to charities, travel or study.
And often when I offer people this opportunity, they are not interested because they perceive it as a scam. When convinced it is not a scam, the very same people are despondent after only three months because they don’t make the money they were dreaming of. Is that not wishing for a get-rich-quick-scheme?
So, network marketing has all the qualities of an ideal business. Plus the benefit to do it on a flexi-time scale. Like any other business, it requires a lot of hard work, planning and revising of activities to acquire the huge income and freedom of time that so many people desire. Only the consistent persistent people reach that – in network marketing and in “traditional” business. I choose network marketing because the risk is so much less. It is going to take time. I choose to increase my income more regularly than the once a year so many hope for in their jobs. I choose to work in an environment where I can grow more than what is possible at a job. And above all I choose an opportunity that I can still increase my income at the age of 100! Because I have a system and I am building an asset.