4 Habits of $100K Employees
April 5, 2008 – 4:19 amAccording to the US Dept. of Commerce, 5.6% of business professionals earn $100,000 a year or more. That number rises to 15.8% if you consider household income. Earning a place in the top 5% of US wager earners happens by understanding the keys to career advancement. It has nothing to with being ruthless, selfish, or driven by blind ambition. And having a college degree is no guarantee either. Personally, I was 29 years old (I’m 38 now) when I first joined the $100,000 a year club. I finished just 3 years of college, but that never stopped me from consistently earning the elusive $100K a year. If you’ve ever wondered what’s kept you from earning $100,000 a year it’s likely one or more of these habits hindering your career development.
$100,000 Habit #1 - Make, Keep, and Deliver Really Big Promises
Most employees hate to make commitments, yet alone promise anything. They’re much more content to float through their jobs, do the bare minimum, and collect their checks. The six-figure earner sees promises, and commitments as opportunities to add significant value to their clients, and their company. They look at meeting quotas as failing. Their aim is to shatter and rewrite quota systems by making promises and commitments they can consistently deliver on. As they build a reputation for making and delivering big promises management and competitors take notice and make big promises and commitments to them.
Six-Figure Habit #2 - Acute Problem Awareness
Being aware of the latest gossip is not the problem awareness I’m talking about. Six-Figure Acute Problem awareness is understanding the purpose of your role and what you do. What problems do you help people solve? You might say, “I’m just a ___” and that is why you aren’t earning a six-figure income. Six-figure earners know they must be acutely aware of the problems they help clients, co-workers,and management, solve. They develop their awareness for being problem finders and look to solve them. This is also where they’re likely to find big promises they can make and deliver on.
$100,000 Habit #3 - Bring Innovations To Clients and Company
If you’re not making what you think you’re worth it’s because you’re afraid of mistakes. Chances are you’re a loyal employee who marches lock-step to orders, and would never think to question the inane requests and projects that squander your most precious asset - time. The problem with doing this is that you aren’t free to find the innovations beneath mistakes. Since six-figure professionals are about solving problems that require new approaches, they make a lot of mistakes and stir up the status-quo on the way to the solution. Stale procedures and “we tried that” attitudes just wont cut it. They’re after innovations that make significant contributions in creating new offerings, lowering costs, increasing profits, and increasing good will for clients and the company.
Six-Figure Habit #4 - Agile Decision Making
Just look at the gaggle of meetings you attend each week and you’ll see employees who run from making decisions. The Six-figure professional doesn’t get mire in this. She side steps the wasteland of ineffectiveness by seeking out those who can make things happen. Whether she’s leading or contributing, she skillfully makes decisions with the resources at hand. And can communicate clear rationale to support them. For her, decisions are never filtered through “what’s best for my career”, but instead “what’s best for this problem”. She knows that every decision has a consequence. And that not making a decision does too. Her track record of excellent choices makes her highly prized.
What about your career? Are any of the habits missing, or lacking consistency? How long is your list of Big promises, made, kept and delivered? Only 1 or 2, Find and deliver on 1 every month. What painful problems are your clients and management dying to have solved that you’ve ignored? What mistakes are you afraid to make? Your clients and company are eagerly hiring consultants who they’ll pay 10 times your salary to help them solve their most painful problems, how about they pay you instead? If you want to be highly PAID here’s an acronym to keep nearby: Promise. Awareness. Innovation. Decisions.
Tags: Careers
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