If you have the right products or programs a work at home business is an excellent way to create residual income. In this article we will talk about how you can start a real home business and make money in the future for the work you are doing today.

1. Network Marketing. This business model has been around for 50 years now. However today it is much more realistic to develop a walk away income than it was in the past.

The key is to represent products that are somewhat unique and are Internet-based. This means that you do not have to ship the product for your potential customer or distributor to receive it.

Examples of Internet based network marketing companies include success training, sending out postcards, discount shopping carts, domain names, and so on. You can join and build a worldwide business from all of these are opportunities.

Today the Internet makes it possible to sponsor people all around the world without ever meeting with them. It also makes it easier to train your new distributors to help them succeed.

It is also possible to develop your own leads for your business. No longer do you have to prospect in person or call your friends or relatives. Now you can use the Internet and an autoresponder to build a mailing list and follow up with for future business.

The network marketing compensation plan is still strong in most companies. You can earn money on retail sales and set your customers up on autoship. This is a good way to make money every month without doing any more work.

You can also enroll distributors and build a large downline much faster thanks to the Internet. This is really where your large residual income will come from. The more people you have in your group purchasing and selling products the more money you make.

2. Start a membership site. If you have an area of expertise you can turn that into a profitable monthly income.

Membership sites are great because people are looking for information on various things. Once you have your site developed you can spend the majority of your time marketing it.

These are an excellent source of future income as people renew their memberships. They are also a great way to sell products on the backend.

The good thing is you can use the Internet and automate the whole process. Once you have your system in place it is pretty much hands off and a very good source of residual income.

These are two examples of how you can start a real work at home business using the Internet to create residual income. Network marketing and membership sites are working very well for many people online today.