Have you ever considered the role of apprenticeship in your journey toward network marketing success? Apprenticeship isn't a word we hear very much anymore actually.

It was once a great system of passing on abilities. A tradesman would bring on an apprentice and teach them their chosen skill. It was how businesses were kept alive, and how business was kept within families for generation upon generation.

Benjamin Franklin had one of the most well-known stories of apprenticeship when he was an apprentice to his brother as a printer. He went on to leave his hometown of Boston and moved to Philadelphia to open his wildly successful printing shop.

So Where Does Apprenticeship Come Into Play With Network Marketing Success...

We've talked over and over on this blog, and my other sites, about mentorship... and why you should be a great mentor.

But to be a great mentor, you need a great student. However, in this case... in the case of your network marketing success...it may be better for you to think of your downline as not just branches of a tree...but as apprentices that will help to keep your business going for generations.

That's after all the goal is it not?  To one day be able to stop working yourself on your business so heavily, and instead earn some nice passive residual income from the efforts of your downline.

But can that really happen unless you've actually trained your downline correctly in all the traits and systems that actually make your business successful? Nope! In fact, it's impossible to see network marketing success without that.

Most people don't realize it, but more than probably anywhere else, apprenticeship is alive and well in the network marketing industry or at least should be for it to work well.

If you, as a sponsor, want to have any chance of your business living on to a point where you don't have to work at it (at least not so hard) MUST teach your craft to your downline. Isn't that in essence apprenticeship? 

It IS when it's done right!

When it's done right, your apprentice goes on to run the business without you having to no longer look over his shoulder and inspect his every move. Eventually, he or she is going on to become mentors to many more apprentices under them, teaching them the same crafts that you taught them.

These craftsmanship traits are the same that make your business successful, make your direct downline members successful, and go on to make generations of downlines below you successful.

This equates to nothing less than massive network marketing success for you while you get to sit back and proudly watch your mentorship at work and watch your line of apprentices carry your business on for generations, just like it's supposed to work.