When most people think about self-made millionaires they imagine some entrepreneur working around the clock, passionately toiling away in the pursuit of greatness. Yet, 39% of the self-made millionaires in my Rich Habits study became rich working for someone else. How did they do it?
I discovered three ways employees were able to strike it rich:
#1 Save and Invest 20-30% of Income
Saving your way to wealth is the safest way to accumulate wealth. It is also the longest way. It took the average self-made, employee-millionaire in my study 32 years to accumulate their wealth. By assiduously saving 20-30% of their income every year and then investing it diligently they were able to accumulate an average of $3.3 million. Most of their investments were in stocks and real estate.
#2 Work for a Big Publicly-Held Company in a Good Industry
Other employees in my study worked for big, publicly-held companies in an industry where profit margins were very good or in an industry that was growing. Due, in large part, to prodigious profits, these employees were beneficiaries of generous stock option or employee stock purchase plans. Because the stock of the companies they worked for continuously appreciated, the stock they received provided the lion’s share of their compensation packages and made them rich.
#3 Sales Commissions
The salesforce is the engine of growth for most companies. Big companies rely on their sales people to grow their revenue. Salespeople often receive commissions, in addition to their base wage. The best salespeople get the biggest commissions and can become extremely wealthy selling products or services for their employer.
Working for someone else takes most of the risk out of the pursuit of wealth. You don’t have to worry about working capital needs, profitability, meeting payroll or expenses like business owners do. You can focus on one thing – whatever it is you do for your employer. From my research, the key is finding a company to work for in an industry that is prospering and growing. These companies pay their employees generously and are often publicly-held companies whose stock is listed on some stock exchange.
There are many paths to wealth. Not every self-made millionaire got their by running their own business.
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