Why Profit Generators Make A Lot More Money

Basically, there are three kinds of jobs in the business world: technical, administrative, and profit-generating.

• Technical jobs include most positions in information technology and engineering, and some positions in legal, financial, and accounting fields.
• Administrative jobs include most positions in corporate management, product fulfillment, operations, and customer service, as well as some positions in finance and accounting.
• Profit-generating jobs are those that are directly involved in producing profits for the company. Profit generators include marketers, salespeople, copywriters, people who create new products, and the people who manage all of these employees. In most companies, the leading profit generator is the CEO, because the CEO's main job is to deliver a bottom line.

Administrative workers, on the average, are the poorest-paid group. Generalists by training, they compete against a large pool of other generalists in jobs that require no special skills or talents. If you are an administrator,and a very good one, you can expect to see your income rise as your performance improves. But more likely than not, it will be at the 4 percent or 6 percent level - probably not enough to meet your medium-term (7-to-15-year) wealth-builder goal.

Technical workers are usually better paid than their administrative counterparts. This is especially true at the beginning of their careers, at which point even an entry-level position requires a high degree of specialized knowledge. Computer engineers,information technology people, and certified public accountants (CPAs) typically start at higher salaries than do fulfillment managers and customer service clerks, but the difference tends to diminish over time. Top engineers often make more than operational vice presidents, but not much more.

Profit generators are usually the highest-paid employees. More important, they have the greatest potential for income growth.

If you work for a small or medium-sized company and fall into one of the first two job categories, you'll reach the $130,000 level only by rising to the top of your division - and then only if the business you work for is profitable and growing. With larger companies, you might achieve a salary of more than $130,000 as a technical specialist, or a manager of technicians and administrators.

But even if you can hit that kind of number, your upside potential will be limited. That's because regardless of how good you are at what you do, what you are doing is usually seen as a necessary expense, not a part of the secret process of making money.

I'll have much more to say about this later. For now, you have to ask yourself a simple question:"If I work harder and better at what I am doing now, are the chances good that I can reach at least the $130,000 income level in the next two to three years?"

If the answer is yes, fine. If the answer is no, you must be prepared to make some radical changes.

So, let's talk about that now: how to develop the skills and convert your job into one that merits the $130,000-plus level of compensation.

Put Yourself into Your Company's Cash Flow

If you merely do a good job in a technical or administrative position, you can expect only modest pay increases. Become very good, and you'll get relatively very good raises. But if your objective is to skyrocket your salary, you will have to become a key profit generator. It's as simple as that.

How big of a contribution must you make to the company?

A good rule of thumb is this: If you want to get a raise that's $1,000 more than ordinary,make sure you've been a major contributor to an idea that will generate at least $10,000 to $20,000 in additional net profits for your company.

This is an absolute minimum. For larger companies your impact will have to be much more than that - 20 to 50 times.

If you want to increase your current income by, say, $25,000, you are going to have to find a way to increase business profits by $250,000 or more. And your idea can't be a one-time deal. The $250,000 extra your work has to contribute must be generated again and again in the future.

To maintain a much-higher-than-average salary, you need to have a very substantial effect on your company's growth in income.

This rule of thumb is true for most growing companies. It may not be true for a business that is large and static. Large businesses, as a rule, offer stability of employment and predictability of income in place of high salary curves. It stands to reason if you think about it. Big companies attract smart, hardworking but sometimes conservative people. There is sometimes more good talent than is needed.

In general, you'll have the best chance of radically increasing your income if you work for a business that has

• Significant sales (in the millions or, preferably, tens of millions of dollars)
• Reasonable profits (what 'reasonable" means depends on the industry)
• A recent history of growth (both sales and profits)
• A vision of further growth

And as I suggested, a small number of employees (so your contributions will stand out).

If the business that you are working for meets none or few of these criteria, start looking elsewhere. Unless you can single-handedly turn such a business around, there won't be enough financial resources available to meet your financial objectives.

Your ideal situation would be to position yourself as an invaluable profit producer in a small, fast-growing, and highly profitable company. If you can do that, great. If not, don't worry. There are plenty of other ways to dramatically boost your income.$

[Ed. Note: If you're not happy with your financial situation, you're in the perfect position to change it for the better – right now. Ray has just released a special video that covers an online business opportunity that you can use to start growing your wealth. To watch this short video, click the following link: http://www.raybuckner.com]