When thinking of starting a network marketing business, you will need a business plan just as any other type of business if you hope to make it successful. It is more than the often believed three part strategy of starting a business, get rich, retire young. While that may happen one in 100,000 times, you will have to be extremely lucky to see it happen to you.

To begin to create a marketing strategy, you will need to decide on the type of business, or businesses, you hope to market as well as the target market you hope to hit. Knowing the product or service is a great first step in establishing yourself as a knowledgeable force on your way to success.

Write out your plan and what position you want to find yourself in the short and long term as well as how you plan to reach those goals. Since many network marketing efforts involve affiliate marketing you will need to discover which companies will accept pay for performance advertising and how to best leverage yourself as a leader in the market. You will also want to plan on whom to recruit to help you with your efforts.

Desire is a funny thing.

It can drive you to do unthinkable, desperate things when it reaches the tipping point. Your judgment can become clouded, and you can suddenly find yourself doing things normal, sensible people just don’t do.

I found myself in this position a few short years ago as I pursued my career in network marketing. With the “seat-of-my-pants” move to California to work with my up-line. No money, no friends, and no where to live.

As I desperately searched for a way to find prospects and build my network marketing business, I stumbled across a prospecting/lead generation company that showed distributors how to generate local leads using “sizzle cards.”

They were basically bright yellow business cards with a catchy headline and 800 number printed on them. The idea was to just leave them around town, at restaurants, gas stations, banks, car windows, etc, as you went about your day.

People would pick them up. Call your 800 number. Hear a nice 3 minute message full of testimonials, and were then prompted to leave their contact information if they were interested.

The network marketing business is responsible for billions of dollars of sales in goods and services each and every year. You most likely have come in contact with a network marketing company at some point in your lifetime, especially if you have attended a home party at a friend or relatives house. Network marketing is definitely here to stay but the question is “How do YOU choose a network marketing business for yourself?” The choices are endless so here are some ideas for you to consider before jumping in:

1. You want to get in with a company that’s been around at LEAST for 5 years, has solid financial backing, excellent management and a “distributor first” philosophy. The company should also have a long-term goal and not just be out for the quick buck. This may sound a little over-zealous at first but you need to be careful. So many companies have the right intentions but barely make it out of the starting gate. You’re looking for someone who has been through that “first five years” and have proven themselves. So often potential distributors are told to get in on the “ground floor” but often this ground will cave in leaving many people very unhappy. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give these companies a look, just go into it with eyes wide open.

After discovering a network marketing business that offers you great products and a great compensation plan it’s time to build your network marketing team with marketing techniques that have proven to work.

Article marketing is a great way to endorse your network marketing business for free. Write articles that have interesting content and then submit them to numerous article directories. Each time you submit an article you will be given a resource box, this is where you will have links to your website or network marketing business.

For article marketing to work you must be submitting at least 6 articles per month and you should be continuing this for at least 12 months. Article marketing also doubles as a great way to build links to your website. Write useful articles that draw attention to your resource box and this method of advertising will be one of the best ways to build your network marketing business.

Ezine advertising is another good way to promote but you will have to pay and also do some research as well. You should be looking for the online home based business ezines and newsletters to advertise in. These ezines will be the best place to advertise your network marketing business.