Guest post by Stephanie Valentine

I recently acquired a new perspective on the residual income that we earn from our MLM businesses, and I just had to blog about it. It’s a fascinating view of the overlooked value of the monthly MLM check, and definitely worth thinking about!

It Takes How Long to Build an MLM Business?!
When I tell people how long it has taken me to build my online MLM business so that it is truly producing passive residual income, I send a lot of people running screaming for the hills. The usual response goes something like this:

“Five years? You’ve got to be kidding! I don’t have that kind of time. Forget it.”

And yet five years is how long financial guru Robert Kiyosaki gives himself to tackle and solve any sort of business problems. Five years is how long many people take to graduate college with a degree that increases their earning potential. It takes longer than five years to finish the necessary schooling to become a doctor. In the regular world, it takes at least five years of effort before you can earn a decent salary.

So what’s the big deal? Spending five years to build an MLM business that generates a check every single month isn’t all that different from going to college. The problem is that MLM has often been portrayed as a “get rich quick” opportunity, and it’s not. You can get rich, but very few get rich quick.

The Million Dollar Perspective
I recently read a great article in Networking Times by Art Jonak. The article, titled “The True Meaning of Residual Income,” gave me some real perspective on how even the smallest check can be worth a lot. In the article Jonak compares the monthly residual checks we get from our MLM businesses to the interest income you might earn from a savings account.

He uses the example of a person who earns a $200 monthly check from their MLM business. It doesn’t sound like very much money, but check this out:

If you wanted to earn the same amount in interest income, you would need to have $48,000 in the bank at 5% interest.

How long would it take you to earn and save $48,000 in the bank? Do you think it might take you five years or more? Plus, these days you would be hard pressed to find a bank willing to pay you 5% interest.

Let’s take this a step further. Suppose you have been steadily building your MLM business and you now earn $2,500 per month. That equals $30,000 per year of income from your MLM business. At current interest rates of 3% or so, if you wanted to earn the same amount in interest income, you would need $1 million stashed in the bank. Now that’s a chunk of cash.

This million dollar perspective demonstrates the power of residual income. We don’t have to have $1 million in the bank to earn the equivalent of the interest income from that money. With a strong MLM business that is built to be mostly passive, we can earn the same income without having to slave away to build the capital first.

Now What Do You Think?
Given the million dollar perspective, do you still think that investing five years in building a source of passive income is still too long? I think not. In today’s turbulent economic times, when a safe financial harbor is rare, having a regularly-producing asset like my online MLM business is like having a golden goose.

What do you think? Does this give you a new appreciation of your MLM check, even if it is small? If you don’t currently own an MLM business, does the million dollar perspective cause you to consider starting one?