If you've been exposed to a network marketing presentation, the chances are that you have heard that, "all you have to do is to find five people and when they each find five....". When I first heard this way back in 1969 I couldn't believe my luck. All I had to do was find five people. The fact that very few other people were in it, just persuaded me that the concept of network marketing was so new in my country that the world was my oyster.

I was smitten by the concept. I am a network marketing information junkie. I never used to be but I put that down to the inconveniences of the off-line world. I used to travel to crowded meetings where, after standing in a long queue just to register, I would sit for hours at a time hoping to hear that one snippet of information that would fill my flagging network marketing business with super grade rocket fuel and transform it into a personal cash machine on steroids.

Time and time again, I would hear that, " All you have to do is find 5..." and now I find it on the internet. I spend copious amounts of time surfing the internet reading network marketing blogs, articles and forum posts. But the difference on the internet is that the internet offers people anonymity and we now have the detractors of network marketing attempting to use that, "All you have to do is find five..." as a weapon of mass destruction against anyone who has the temerity to be a network marketer. But is there any truth in that, "All you have to do is find five.."?

At the risk of rattling the cages of network marketing detractors even more vigorously, I say emphatically, "Yes!" Now you lot, before you start deploying your missile launchers, let me put some filling in that sandwich.

When prospective distributors attend a presentation, positive gloss is normally in evidence - carefully brushed into every nook and cranny. This is not peculiar to the network marketing industry. Every presentation in every industry makes use of positive gloss. Telling prospects that all they have to do is, "find five people.." is correct, but the positive gloss camouflages the fact that, to find those five people, you may need to sort through hundreds, possibly thousands.

Those five people are not your average network marketer. They are the "creme de la creme" of network marketers. Let's for a moment or two, roll up our sleeves and get down to the nitty-gritty that may help you understand what finding one of those five actually involves.

When you look at network marketing industry as a whole, you will find that only about four in every hundred people actually make a full time living out of network marketing. There are many more who make a part-time income, but let's remain focused on identifying those five.

Only 4% of those four in every hundred will build a massive network marketing business and be earning the sort of incomes that resemble telephone numbers. These are the "first amongst equals", the "Alpha males and females" of the network marketing industry. Every time you find one of these, you have found one of the five people. Why? Because these people will in turn find five of the same, who in turn will each find five of the same, and so on. In the A-list of groups in network marketing the five finding five, finding five often penetrates to generations far deeper than the fifth level.

In summary then, the five by five animal does exist and will continue to be replicated as long as people aspire and pay the price, to join those at the very pinnacle of the network marketing industry.