Nov
30
2007
(22002) Michael Masterson says:
The single most effective way to become wealthy fast is to find a way to dramatically boost your income. In practical terms, achieving this usually means you do at least one of three things:
You find a way to so what you currently so for a living much better
You develop and then harness a new skill that is highly valued from a financial perspective
You augment your income by reinvesting your knowledge and skills in areas outside your current job
Practical Methods for Increasing Your Income
To make some headway in building wealth, you’ll need to earn more than you so at present. In fact, your aim should be to dramatically boost your income. There are logically only three ways you can achieve that:
1. Do what you already do better
Doing what you’re currently doing for a living a whole lot better usually makes you worth a whole lot more to your current employer. Of course, this is only helpful if you then turn around and make certain your employer is paying you what you’re now worth rather than what you previously earned. You may need a strategy for achieving that rather than merely hoping your increase in value will be appropriately rewarded.
2. Develop a new skill or competency
Develop and entirely new skill or competency that will be highly valued financially by your employer. In practical terms, the best way to do this is by learning a new skill that will place you directly in a position where you influence your company’s bottom line profits. For most enterprises, the most highly valued skills are those that have something to do with sales or marketing. If you learn how to sell the products or services your company makes more effectively, you will be well positioned to ask for promotions, salary increases and sizable profit incentives in the future. It’s also very useful if you learn how to sell yourself to others more effectively at the same time. One good skill that is usually well worth developing is copywriting-learning how to write marketing pieces that sell.
3. Supplement your income
Augment and supplement your income. This usually involves turning around and reinvesting what you learn at work into another different application. This may be whatever combination of these kinds of activities that make the most sense:
Consulting with other firms
Starting your own business to be run in your spare time
Entering into joint-marketing alliances with other people
Writing marketing materials for other companies
Networking with people who can help you get ahead
Learning how different industries operate
Becoming an expert in some different line of business
Taking ideas from one industry and applying them in another
Wealth Building Success Stories
Some good examples of these ideas in action:
Example #1–Helping the boss develop new products
Approaches used:
1. Do what you already do better
2. Develop a new skill or competency. In 1983, Michael Masterson was working as an editorial assistant for a printing company. He decided to study how the company marketed itself and got closely involved in helping the owner build his company’s turnover. In recognition of that involvement, Masterson was promoted to head up the editorial department. That meant his salary increased from $35,000 a year to $70,000.Six months later, Michael came up with an idea for a new and better type of financial newsletter. He approached his boss, explained that he’d been working on this new project in his own time and said that if his boss liked it and decided to go ahead with it, Michael wanted to have “a piece of the action.” His boss was reluctant at first, but ultimately agreed to give him a 25-percent stake in the new publishing project.That was fine, but to bring the circulation of the new newsletter up to where it needed to be was going to cost about $2 million in marketing expenses. To support his 25-percent equity stake, Masterson had to mortgage his house, sell his car and put everything he had at risk. Eventually, he owed almost $500,000 before the newsletter started to make any profits.Within a year, however. the newsletter had turned the corner and was starting to do well. Just a few months later, Michael Masterson’s 25-percent stake in the newsletter was worth about $1.5 million.
Example #2–Finding a Partner
Approaches used:
2. Develop a new skill or competency
3. Supplement your income: Alan Silver was a successful self-employed businessman who made a good living selling office supplies in Boca Raton, Florida. When Office Depot and Office Max came into his home market, he decided it was an opportune time to make a career switch. A friend of his named Rick was a newsletter publisher, and Alan teamed up with him to start a joint venture company that would sell natural supplements to the newsletter readers. They formed the company on a handshake and agreed to split any profits that would hopefully be generated 50-50.Alan wrote a 4-page flyer that would be inserted into his partner’s health newsletter. He then arranged to insert it into some other newsletters on a 50/50 basis where he would split the sales revenue generated with the publishers of the other newsletters. The responses to the ads came quickly, and within six months the new company had generated more than a quarter-million dollars in sales. It was only at that stage Alan learned that to allow his business to grow, he had to plow everything back into the business for the first several years at least. In addition, other vitamin supply companies were starting to use the same advertising approaches he had used, so the market was becoming much more competitive. Alan spent a few hours every day learning everything he could about the health supplement industry.In order to differentiate his company from the competition, Alan and Rick teamed up with a doctor and started developing their own high-end, high-quality nutritional supplements. His marketing now emphasized the superior quality of his products and the company started making more sales. Alan also developed an entirely new product–a multivitamin packaged in an aluminum canister. Inside were packets of the five or six vitamins most people take every day. Customers could just open the canister and grab one packet to take in the morning and another packet to take in the evening. It was convenient and unique.Example #3–Branching out into other fields
Approaches used:
1. Do what you already do better
3. Supplement your income: David Keller is a doctor with his own medical practice. While to many people that may sound like a license to print your own money, the reality is that increased government regulations, HMO reporting requirements, malpractice insurance and other administrative obligations now severely restrict the amount doctors can charge for their services. To compensate, Dr. Keller ended up working 10 to 12 hours a day, seeing 90 or more patients during that time.Dr. Keller soon realized he couldn’t grow his business by seeing more people himself. He was already becoming exhausted and had not been able to take a vacation for the five years since he set up his practice. He was interested in some alternative medicine treatments that seemed to be generating better results than the conventional protocols he had learned in medical school. Dr. Keller did some more research on the topic and decided to establish his own consulting company to provide services to the manufacturers of these nutritional supplements and to the marketers who were welling those products. He also began consulting with insurance companies, teaching them how to cut costs by improving the health of the people they were insuring.Although his total income during the first year of consulting was only $20,000, by year five he was generating more than $400,000 from his various consulting activities. He used that revenue to move into real estate investing, publishing a natural health newsletter and selling information products over the Internet. Dr. Keller also worked to provide more education about new services and new lab tests to his patients. That allowed him to gradually increase his charges while at the same time keeping his patients happy because they were receiving better treatment options all the time.As his medical practice grew in sync with his sideline consulting business, Dr. Keller was able to hire and train more staff. He cut back his own workload to five hours a day, three days a week so more time could be devoted to both his consulting business and his family.
Learn more about Michael Masterson’s philosophies from his book Seven Years to Seven Figures.
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