Of course there are plenty of people who have become reasonably ‘well off’ the traditional way: they went to university, studied hard, got a good job, spent and saved sensibly, bought their property at the right time etc.  However, the digital economy, social media and the Internet have given rise to far more opportunities to become financially better off without many of the traditional skills, values or mindset.

According to Eric Worre, income streams can be broken down into five categories.

1. Blue-Collar Workers

Typically this would refer to a working class person who performs manual labour, fixing, making, building or servicing something.  The advantages of this are that you may have a high job satisfaction rate in doing a job well and seeing the results, but it is still a time-for-money job rather than something that will earn you an income.  In fact, these people re often at risk of becoming a victim of their own success:  The better they become at their job, the more in demand they are and the less quality time they have for themselves.  Longer working hours may bring in more money, but they lower your quality of life.

2. White Collar Workers

Usually, white collar workers would perform a professional or managerial role, or high level administrative work, typically in an office.  They are employed by someone and are therefore always vulnerable to the decisions of the employer regarding promotion, redundancy, office culture etc.  Working harder does not necessarily mean earning more money, as income is usually fixed.  Many people work harder to try to become indispensable to the company for fear of redundancy, so often contractual hours do not reflect the actual number of hours worked.  Income is set at whatever the employer chooses and whilst it cannot go down in pay-cheque terms, if it does not rise in line with inflation, then there is in effect a pay cut from year to year.

For some reason, since the industrial revolution, this has become one of the more ‘socially acceptable’ ways of earning an income and has typically been regarded as being more stable and secure than other jobs. Many people are lured into the trap of believing that if they work hard, they will advance up the career ladder and while this may be true for some, or may be true for a period of time, the long-term reality is that once you stop working, your income stops.  Your employer effectively ‘owns’ your life and your lifestyle and when they take that away from you, you are left with nothing but your savings and investments, which may or may not sustain you until you find another employer to take the reins.

3. Sales

This is a broad category but the majority of sales people earn their worth according to the amount of sales they make.  This works well for the company that employs them, but offers no security if the employer decides they are under-performing.  To some degree, it is also a time-for-money business because they may spend long hours on the road or socialising with potential clients which may or may not lead to a deal being closed.  The challenge with a sales job is that when everything is going well, a certain lifestyle is adopted but if there is a sudden economic downturn, or financial scare in the sector or market, then sales dry up and the salesman suddenly has to find more hours in the day to maintain the same income.

4. Business Owner

This sounds like it should be the perfect solution: you own the business therefore you get to decide the hours you work, the salary you pay yourself, the people who work with you.  Sounds perfect!  However, the reality is that many small business owners put all their own money into getting the business started, they may need to take out a business loan or get into debt to keep the cash flow going while the business gets set up, Worst of all, owning your own business means that you only get to spend a fraction of your time doing the profession that you love and instead you spend more time on marketing, advertising, doing the accounts or finding someone to do it for you, working with agencies for PR, designs, logos, legal documents, maybe employment law and personnel matters if you take on someone else… before you know it you have ‘promoted’ yourself way out of your comfort zone and probably a long way away from what you were trained to do. You end up working very long hours across all disciplines and get home to find you still have no money until your business becomes profitable in (typically) 3-5 years, though the majority of small businesses fail in their first year due to cash flow issues.

5. Investor

The first pre-requisite to being an investor is to have significant amounts of money in the first place! Seconly, you need to have a lot of skill and training to ensure that you become an investor rather than a philanthropist! You could try the stock markets (posh gambling) or in a small business that you believe will grow.  The bottom line to being an investor is that on occasion, things will be taken out of your hands, either by the businesses you are investing in or by the stock market etc.  so no matter how good you are at prospecting, there is also an element of luck associated with it.

The NEW  business model

Network Marketing offers the best that each of these ways of earning money has to offer.

• All the benefits of being self-employed, but with the backing of a large organisation to do all the branding and provide you with all the marketing, video and promotional material you need to get started.
• An unlimited income potential for an investment equivalent to a dinner for two.
• Work hours to suit you, your family and your lifestyle.
• No prior experience necessary as all training is available FREE from your team and your sponsor.
• No need to ‘sell’ the products, just share the videos, show people the research and share your own experiences and let people make their minds up themselves!
• No sales targets, no pressure to achieve - you earn your worth according to the effort you put in.
• You cannot be ‘demoted’ once you reach a certain commission level. 
• Generous bonuses and commissions paid into your account automatically the month after they are earned.
• No daily commute.
• No ‘glass ceiling’ - if you work harder than your sponsor then you have every opportunity to earn more than them and get promoted to a higher level than them.
• Finally, this models works extremely successfully and efficiently for the company as well because they do not waste money on shops, heating, lighting, utilities, corporation taxes etc.  The people who have the franchise use, know, understand and like the products so they speak from experience which is far more authentic than a skilled sales team trained to work in a shop with careful product placement!   Even if someone only likes network marketing as a business model, there are so many thousands of multinational MLMs nowadays, that they are free to shop around until they find a product or company they like best, so again, the company knows that its ‘salesteam’ are its happy customers.

So now the question is: Which business model suits you best and what are you going to do about ensuring your waking hours are spent with the best work-life balance possible?