This is ‘Recession Proofing Your Income with Network Marketing’, an interview with Ken Maxwell.

Having multiple streams of income is definitely important. Why have you chose network marketing as your vehicle?

Ken: Many years ago, I had a business, a brick and mortar business and there’s so many of them out there. I got to the conclusion before I opened that business that I was being underpaid by the employer that I was working for at the time. I thought I was worth a lot more than that. So what do you do about it? You go out and do your own thing, right? And a lot of people feel the same way. So I go out, I open up a brick and mortar business, and I say great, now I’m going to earn a lot more money, I’m going to work a lot less hours and things are going to be fantastic. It never happens that way. Let me tell you, it never happens that way. You ended working much, much, much longer hours for a lot less money than what you really expect. Now, I did that for a long time. Six years, in fact. It was a very successful business but it was long hours. Sixty, seventy hours a week. I was stressed, I was under constant pressure and it goes on and on from there.

An opportunity came my way, to get involved in network marketing and I looked  at it from, first of all, what it can actually do for my health, because at that stage my health was absolutely appalling. It was terrible. And the product that was offered to me literally made a significant difference to my health. Whether you call it a coincidence or whatever you like, but it happened at the same time, so I reckon it’s the product. And I haven’t been sick since, so it must be. But what it also delivered me was an extra stream of income. So I started doing some homework on this multiple streams of income thing, what’s that all about? I hadn’t heard about this before. So I looked around and I realized that each one of us makes our own choices in life. We all have the ability to do whatever we want. It’s an equal playing field. Now, you can make excuses, or you can make money. You choose which way you want to go. ‘I haven’t got enough time, I can’t do that, I got this, I got that’. You can make excuses or you can make money. I chose to make the latter. So what I did was, I was able to find that network marketing offered the opportunity to work in the cracks. For example, if I’m driving to a client’s appointment, I can be talking to somebody on the phone about my network marketing business, or following up someone that I had spoken to the day before and things like that. I can fit it into the cracks of my day and it only took probably an hour a day to build a significant business and to build a significant income.

Now that was in the early days. Now, it’s my full-time income because I’ve built up a residual income through network marketing that affords me the lifestyle of my choice, every single day. So now I’ve sold my brick and mortar business, literally work 4 or 5 hours a week and my income is substantially higher. Now with the extra income that comes from my network marketing business, I’m able to invest that in other streams of income. So I’ve become recession proof. And people are saying when do you think the financial situation is going to be improved? And I say, well that’s up to you, isn’t it? Because it’s your financial situation that’s the most important. I really don’t care what’s happening in the world because I’ve set myself up for the lifestyle that I want and I can afford to do whatever I want, whenever I want. What happens out there in the brick and mortar world, doesn’t really affect me. So it’s very smart to have multiple streams of income.

If you look at the guys out there like Donald Trump, Robert Kiyosaki, Warren Buffett and there are hundreds and hundreds of names out there, do they have one business, or do they have several businesses? Every one of them, the secret to their success, the top 5% in the world, their secret is multiple streams of income. Now, are they doing the work? No. other people are doing the world for them or with them. And that’s how they generate their sustainability and they solidify themselves in the world in the top 5%. But that same opportunity is open to every single person and I don’t care if you only earn $50 hours a week, with a network marketing opportunity, you can start with just that, build it up, it’s up to you and you can take it wherever you want it to go.

Part 2: What are the misconceptions of network marketing?

Part 3: What is the difference between multi-level marketing, network marketing and direct selling?

Part 4: How to choose a network marketing company?

Part 5: Do you have to quit your job to do network marketing?