I actually hate the word 'guru' or rather I hate what it's come to mean to most of us today. However, for the purposes of this A to Z, I would urge you to seek out a 'guru' to help you on the road to network marketing enlightenment....

Who will that person be? It might be your immediate sponsor or someone else even further up the business or it might even be a leading light in the industry in general but whoever it is, see what they do, listen to what they do and do what they do.

Network marketing businesses are usually set up as a system which means that success is duplicatable. Copy your guru, become your guru and in time you might find you have some gurees (I know that's not a word but I like it anyway).

So, we rush out there, telling everyone we know about our ace business and some people show an interest and ask for a phone call or for you to set up an appointment and it's all very exciting until, bump, you have to sit down and follow up your leads.

Well, it's all part and parcel of the game - has to be done and is, in fact, one of the most essential part of any sales process - making sure you follow up with your prospects.

This isn't unique to network marketing - Get Clients Now by CJ Hayden is a marketing book aimed at 'professionals, consultants and coaches' but its message applies equally well to anyone whose business it is to get customers and new recruits. I think I'll revisit this one - forgot I had this little onion on my bookshelf!

What do you normally do when you find something you love, that you can get excited about?

You tell everyone!

One of the key concepts of network marketing is to tell everyone you know (and those that don't know they know you yet) what it is you're doing and how it is your business can help them too.

So you can talk to people or hand them some literature or even blog or tweet about your business - the more people that know about it, the bigger your business will eventually be - it's as simple as that.

Network marketing is a business that loves the copycat.

Most of these businesses are run on some kind of success formula - "If you do a, b and c on a regular basis, you can't fail to succeed" goes the mantra. It's when we all start trying to do it our own way that it tends to go 'ape shaped' (as a very cute non native English speaker once put it).

So just do what you're told - very hard when we're the types who are trying to break free of the dreaded man and all he stands for to be told what to do but do so we must if we want the rewards of the business.

I do struggle with this one, having a fair bit of 'creative' in my profile but I am getting better at following the bloody instructions - honest I am!

Ok, I'm only at C and already taking a little bit of a liberty on what C stands for...

But the reason I include it here is so that you make a wise decision when it comes to choosing a network marketing company.

You need to ask yourself, as a minimum, the following questions:

• How financially sound is this company?
• Does it provide something that people need or just want?
• How does the product resonate with me?
• Do I/would I use the product?
• How good is the compensation plan?

This is an important decision to make - you're in a business which requires you to believe in the product in order for others to believe in you and buy it from you - that's the bottom line.

Do your research, ask others, speak to as many people as you can who are/have been in network marketing and ask them 'why this company now?'

And then ask yourself 'For me is his company now?' (or if you're not Yoda - 'Is this company for me now?') Choose wisely and you'll be glad you had that conversation with yourself....

I love baby steps and how we can all take them, every day, to get where we want to be.

Network marketing is all about baby steps - take some every day and over time you'll have a tidy little income pot and a great little business.

Jeff Olson's book The Slight Edge, talks about baby steps; about how the bit of activity we need to do regularly is easy to do and oh so easy not to do.

If we increase our activity by just 1% every day or every week even, how long would it take us to be 100% better than we are now?

Easy to do and easy not to do (on the latter I speak from experience folks, believe you me!)

I've been in network marekting for about a year now and this has been one hell of a learning curve for me, let me tell you. I have picked up lots of little gold macnuggets along the way and wanted to share some of them with you in the form of a little A to Z of network marketing.

Now I don't claim to be a network marketing expert - am still gathering macnuggets all the live-long day but I'm slowly but surely getting there.

So, let's kick off with A, eh?

A is for Ambition. Network marketing is a business. Lots of people come in to it assuming that it's a picnic and they'd be wrong, which is why ambition takes you far in our industry. Those who are most successful in the business have several characteristics in common but ambition seems to be the recurring theme. And I'm not necessarily talking Tom Cruise ambitious. Regardless of their reason for joining the business, they are all striving for something - to provide a better life for their family, to retire well ahead of their peer pack, to see more of their wives and husbands. Nowt wrong with a dose of healthy ambition...

A colleague of mine in my network marketing business was talking about a story he'd read in the paper. It was about a favourite subject of mine, namely what's going to happen to us at retirement.

Now I'm talking here about the official retirement age, which, if the last couple of years is anything to go by could be around 70 by the time I get there (not that I'm planning on going down that route, of course).

So, the story goes like this:

John is a 23 year old university graduate. He's about to start a job and has the privilege of paying about £360 per month into a pension scheme. If he pays that in diligently over the next 40 years, taking into account inflation, he'll end up with today's equivalent of about £140 per week - around £560 per month.

Bear in mind he's working around a 40 hour week in this job too (for forty years).

If you were in my business and you managed to gather about 100 customers over a period of time - let's say it takes you 3 or even 5 years working it part time (although there's nothing at all to stop you from doing it more quickly) - you'd have an average of around what John will have when he retires in 40 years. And that's monthly.

And that's just if you only gather customers and don't make any efforts to have a team of people working with you, doing the same.

What would you rather do? Build your pot, bit by bit and get at it quicker or work for 40 years and get your money then (that's if the pension still exists)?

I find this a bit of a scary prospect for those of us who are already into their 30s, 40s and even 50s. What if we don't have adequate pension provision? Don't forget, John's 23 and has time on his side (and isn't he going to put the time in!?). How much would you have to increase that monthly amount if you were looking at starting a pension fund past the age of 30. Let's not even go there...makes me shudder.

It's great to have all of these big plans to work for ourselves and to escape the rat race once and for all with our amazing ideas, to do what we love, to work to our own timetables and to be our own boss and (hopefully) making loads of cash to boot.

But what happens when it doesn't go to plan?

A fellow escapee of mine, who I'll call Jane Doe, has just announced via a networking post that her business, which she has thrown her heart and soul into for the past few years, just isn't working. She just can't get her target market to buy. Yes they're interested in hearing what she has to say and she has created a good following but they're not buying the product.

I feel completely gutted for her as I've never met anyone with such self belief, passion and drive - she adores her subject matter and her target audience and has shown an amazing amount of tenacity in driving the business forward.

So what will she do now? Well, she recognises that she has learnt an amazing amount from what she's done so far and she's pretty much planning on picking herself up, dusting herself off and starting all over again. Wow, wow and wow.

Does this mean you shouldn't bother even having a go, if someone so focussed and driven can't make a go of it? Not at all. Isn't it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?

Jane is a real go-getter and a pioneer in her field - perhaps it isn't the right time for her market to buy what she's offering them. She's completely original and was sailing in unchartered territory.

I'd say I'm a go-getter but much less risk averse. I prefer the safe route, a tried and tested product with a tried and tested market, following a tried and tested formula. Safe and boring but it's working. And I can run in the park in the middle of the day if I want, take an afternoon off without having to clear it with anyone...

What type of escapee do you plan to be? Do you have an amazing vision like Jane or are you the type who likes to follow in the footsteps of other successful people. Whatever you are, don't let fear stand in the way of following your heart.

Happily I believe that manifesting works and, since yesterday, I believe that I have manifested something for a good friend of mine.

One of my friends has been living in Australia pretty much since we left uni ahem years ago. She's back in the UK now and has decided that she really doesn't want to work for someone else (hooray!) but was feeling a bit lost about what to do.

Now, Clare is PASSIONATE about the environment (this is what she was doing in Australia) and is happy to research it and talk about it and immerse herself in it for hours on end. She's what you might call an expert.

So what better way for her to turn her expertise into cash than learning all about internet marketing. Slight snag though - she's a little short of cash to shell out for the right kind of advice to go about doing this.

About an hour after getting off the phone to her, an email pops into my inbox from my beloved Money Gym - telling me that registration is open for the second of their big charity events, The Really Useful Internet Day

It's a day dedicated to showing people how they can use the internet to escape the rat race and speakers will be The Money Gym's own Nicola Cairncross, Martin Avis and Brett McFall - all experts in making money online. They'll be sharing some extremely useful nuggets of information with us to show us how we can make money online too.

Am so excited and mostly excited because Clare called me whilst I was writing this post to say she'd come.

"Hang on a minute, Sarah!", I can hear you thinking, "Don't these things cost a lot? I thought you said Clare was a bit short of cash?".

This is the best bit. It's only £25 a ticket for a whole day with some of the most knowledgeable internet experts around and the proceeds go to The Big Issue.

What could be better, a day out in London town (well, in a nice hotel in London town), a ridiculous amount of knowledge shared for the price of a cheap meal out and an opportunity to help the homeless. Brilliant.

If you go, come and seek me out - I'll be there.

Check it out here.