To hear people go on and on about their MLM opportunities, you'd think making money online is as easy as using an ATM. You hear about the success stories and it gives you the impression that building your business happens overnight. I'm here to burst that bubble and tell you that although you can make a lot money from MLM, it's not going to happen unless you put in the time and lots of work.

Before you get into an MLM business, it's a good idea to know what you're getting yourself into. Here's more or less what you can expect:

You'll be referred to as distributors (or associates, independent business owners, dealers, franchise owners, sales consultants, consultants, independent agents), but basically it's the same thing. You'll represent a company that produces a product or provides a service and get a commission based on the volume of products you and your downline sell.

Compensation plans will differ from company to company, but no matter how attractive it may look like on paper, it will still take 3-5 years of building your business to get to the kind of numbers that produce enough passive income from your residuals. You're building a business and while the programs available to you might be marketed as an "out-of-the-box" solution, there's no getting around that incubation period for your business to mature. I don't mean to discourage anyone. I just want to make a simple but important point--If you set out in MLM with realistic expectations of how long it will take and how much work is actually involved, you'll have a better chance of actually lasting in this industry and being a top earner.

Why will it take so long to see significant passive income? The reality of MLM is that you'll be spending a considerable amount of time just building your network. By that, I'm not just talking about adding as many people as possible. Your time is better spent offering your business opportunity to motivated people who won't give up the first few times they encounter a problem. Fighting attrition is an ongoing concern for any MLM business and you'd do well to ensure that your network is as well trained and committed to reaching targets as you are, to keep them from wandering off into MLM limbo.

That's where your personal leadership comes in. Passive residual income is every online entrepreneur's dream, but it takes active leadership while you're building your business to earn your reward.

So a word to the wise -- don't quit your day job while you're building your MLM business just yet. Take your time and let yourself grow into it. The beauty of MLM is that a small investment can yield tremendous benefits down the road for those willing to stick it out for those 3-5 years. There's also the possibility that as you become more confident with MLM, you'll want to explore other income streams that yield bigger and more immediate residual income like a Top Tier Direct Selling program. In fact, you'll be able to use the skills you picked up from MLM and use them in any type of business.

You'll find that as you progress in MLM, your values shift from thinking of yourself as a "distributor" of a product to thinking of yourself as a "business owner" with the practical experience and training to build more and more businesses that add up to massive residuals. That's about the time when quitting your day job will make perfect sense. That's the point where you realize your financial freedom is well within your grasp.