Network marketing has been around for a very long time, but now with the amazing technology of the Internet at our fingertips we have new and more powerful ways of turning network marketing methods into abundant wealth and personal freedom.

Yet, the sad truth is that most people who get started in network marketing on the Internet fail, and they have to go back to their dismal, closed-ended j-o-b. Now why do people fail trying to capitalize on this golden opportunity? It's because network marketing is not about working harder--it's about working smarter. And, while nobody plans to fail, a great many people fail to plan.

What are the essentials that you need to plan for in order to make network marketing your golden egg laying goose and your ticket to personal freedom and fulfillment?

First of all, you'll need to get the word out about your business, and give people a way, and a reason, to find your website(s). You can have the best product on the Internet and, if you don't constantly promote your business, very few people will buy from you--for most won't know you exist. People in sales-dependent businesses like the insurance business have long since known about the great importance of promotion. How can you apply this to the age of the Internet?

Here are some ways of promoting your business online that you can learn about and use:

Autoresponder-driven opt-in e-mail newsletter

Writing articles and using social bookmarking to distribute them around the Net

Creating promotional videos and placing them on YouTube, Video Jug, and Meta Cafe, as well as at your own website

Making use of Twitter

Create and maintain a Squidoo lens about topics concerning or related to your business

Do a weekly podcast

Participate in forums that get traffic from people who are in your target market

Give monthly teleseminars

Now, what more do you need to know? You need to understand persistence. You will build a downline, then after a while you may find out that many of your downline people are do-nothings. They aren't doing any work to promote the product or the service or the opportunity, at least not in any active, meaningful way. This is where you really cannot give up, as you may be tempted to when you find this out.

One way of avoiding this is by properly qualifying people before you bring them into your business, and not just accepting anyone. Only bring people in who you can see are determined and like-minded.

Once you have a clearer picture of who is working actively and avidly, focus all of your attention on them. Let the others die on the vine. Keep doing what you're doing to bring in others and know that, at best, only 10 out of every 100 who think they want the opportunity really do. Tend to these few and they will make it all worth your while.

This is where training on how to speak to people and qualify them is so important. Make sure the organisation you join provides excellent training, and also that the compensation plan can provide you with income from day one, whilst you are working to build your long term residual income.

Make sure your organisation has an exit strategy, whereby you can retire 2 - 5 years down the line on a massive residual income.

But most of all, you have to be patient. Lack of patience is probably what sinks most Internet network marketing failures. You should not expect to see significant money until after a full year of promoting and building your business. You might need to keep your "day job" during this time, as much as you want to break away from it. Build and promote tirelessly for a year before you begin expecting to see the big bucks.