Surely by now you've heard of network marketing and its promises to generate for you an unlimited income from the luxury of your own home without the stress of a fixed workday schedule.

You might wonder what magic this network marketing is. It's really quite simple, and when successful, you really can makes lots of money. Of course, it's not as easy as the ads make it to be.

Some manufacturers use another route to sell their products other than the standard manufacturer-warehouse-wholesaler-retailer-customer path. This alternative route is known as network marketing.

You buy the products from someone who is already a member of a network marketing company. He recruits you and becomes your sponsor.

You, in turn, will be selling products too. Upon joining the network, you will become a part of your sponsor's downline, which just means all of his recruits and his recruits' recruits (and so on).

Your sponsor benefits from his downline because he will get a small percentage of profit for every item sold by every member.

However, aside from selling, you are also expected to get recruits and create your own downline.

The bigger your downline is, the better chances for you to earn big. Suppose you recruit ten people, and each one of them recruits another ten. You'll get a hundred people already at just the second level.

If all these members are active sellers and recruiters then you'll have around more than a thousand people from which you can get profit from.

There's monetary investment involved in network marketing. Some ask for membership fees, while most require you to buy a set of all the products offered upon joining.

Either way, it's still money out of your pocket. If you're willing to risk joining a startup company, you will not be dealing with sponsors because you'll be a pioneer member.

If the company becomes successful, you'll have more members in your downline than you've ever dreamed of, and if all of them do their job well, maybe you can afford to sit back and wait while the money goes straight to your pocket, and not out of, for a change.

If you're not comfortable with risking your money, you can join an established network company.

The downside of this is that you may have a harder time getting recruits because many people are already members.

Of course, you can choose not to build a downline and just sell the products, but you'll be alone in working. You only earn form what you sold. In network marketing, your downline will work with and for you.

You earn not only from what you sold but also from what your members sold.

Be reminded that in reality, recruiting people can be difficult in the first place, let alone keeping those already recruited interested enough to be active.

You must use all your salesman skills when joining a network marketing company.

If you want to try out network marketing, here are some tips to remember:

1.) As a member, you will get big discounts on the products the company is selling. Join one whose products you can use and love.

2.) Choose a company that focuses on the quality of their products, not on the networking, which should be secondary.

3.) When choosing a sponsor, make sure that he is efficient. He should be able to answer your questions. He should also treat his immediate recruits as a team.

He should be a good motivator so you won't get bored or frustrated

4.) Find out exactly where your money is going.

5.) Gather all information you can on the company you've chosen.

If you're looking for get-rich-quick schemes, forget about networking. This will entail work, both in selling and getting recruits.

There are also marketing scams which you have to watch out for. Some companies only want your initial investment. Others are focused on recruitment and not on the products.

When the products aren't good, no one will buy them, and as a consequence, you and your downline will not earn anything. In the end, it still boils down to working for the money.

Sean Felker is the publisher of the very successful and popular Work at Home and Making Money on the Internet blog:

http://making-money-online.blogspot.com