Five Ways to Become RICH

If you are really serious about becoming wealthy, there are five primary ways that fortunes are made. The number one road to riches, at the head of the list and on the top of the hit parade throughout the history of the world, is entrepreneurship, starting and building a successful business. Entrepreneurship includes every kind of business, from farming and transport to real estate and computers to coaching. Seventy-four percent of self-made millionaires in the world, going back 200 years, come from self-owned businesses. An individual started with an idea for a product or service, turned it into a business, built it up from the ground floor, and as a result, he became wealthy. People like Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, Jacob van Astor, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Ross Perot, Sam Walton, Bill Gates, Michael Dell and Larry Ellison Odutola, Henry Fajemiroku, Dantata, MKO Abiola, Sir Louis Ojukwu, Dangote, Otedola, Tony Egba (don’t laugh! just watch out for me!) etc, are all people that we recognize who started with little or nothing and built their businesses from scratch. And there are millions of others. Work Your Way Up The second way to become rich in is as a highly paid executive of a successful company, or as an employee of a company that awards stock options that become valuable. Ten percent of the self-made millionaires are men or women who have joined large corporations, or companies that became large, and worked for these companies for many years. Christopher Kolade, Felix Ohiewri, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to mention but few examples. They usually worked hard ( I mean real hard but they usually enjoy what they do!), were promoted and paid increasingly well, earned stock options, bonuses and profit sharing, and as a result of holding onto that money, became millionaires and multi-millionaires. Paul Allen started Microsoft with Bill Gates, sold out when he became ill, took much of his share of the company in stock, and is now a multi-billionaire. The Seattle area is famous for having so many Microsoft millionaires,. People who went to work for Microsoft in the 1970’s and 1980’s, sometimes as secretaries and programmers, received stock options and became wealthy when they exercised them. Many senior executives receive bonuses and profit-sharing worth many millions in a single year. Working for a large company that grows, pays well and shares its profits is a major source of wealth. Many executives have stayed with those corporations for many years, have risen to positions of seniority, are paid extremely well, and are given stock options, profit sharing and bonuses, and as a result of holding on to the money, they became millionaires. Not so long enough, Lee Iacocca, the chairman of Chrysler Corporation, was paid 26.7 million dollars for one year. Michael Eisner of Disney earned a $150 million dollar bonus. It’s not too hard to become a self-made millionaire if you’re making that kind of money in a year. Become a Professional. The third major source of self-made millionaires consists of professional people - doctors, dentists, lawyers, architects, engineers, herbalists and other people with advanced degrees who can charge substantial amounts for their services. These people earn their degrees, dedicate themselves to becoming very good at what they do, rise to the top of their professions, earn high fees and then hold on to the money. Ten percent of self-made millionaires in world fall into this category. Get Into Sales The fourth source of self-made millionaires is salespeople and sales consultants. Fully five percent of self-made millionaires are men and women who are experts and at the top of their fields in selling. They never started their own businesses. Very few of them went to college or earned professional degrees. Instead, they became very good at selling their product or service, and were paid well for doing it( example of these group of people abound in Aba, Onitsha, Kano and Alaba in Lagos). In addition, they managed their money well, invested it intelligently, and took good care of it until they were millionaires or better. Fully 99% of self made millionaires come from these four categories. 1. Self-owned businesses, 74%; 2. Senior executive positions, 10%; 3. Doctors, lawyers and other professionals10%; 4. Salespeople and sales consultants, 5%: The final 1% of self made millionaires includes all the people who have made their money in the stock market, with inventions, in show business, through the authorship of books and songs, as lottery winners, and all other sources. In this article, I will concentrate on teaching you how to become a money magnet and how to move toward financial independence by starting your own business, by investing in real estate, by getting onto the fast track in your current job, or a combination of two or more of these. You’ll learn how to spot opportunities and how to get started. You will learn how to get the money you need, and how to maximize your talents and abilities. You will learn how to learn what you need to know in order to succeed financially. The Definition of Wealth Let’s start off with the best definition of wealth. Wealth is cash flow from other sources. You are not wealthy just because you earn a lot of money. You are only wealthy when your money works for you. To become wealthy, your job is to acquire money and then put it to work making more money. The key to wealth building is a simple one. It is called adding value. Successful people are those who can find ways to add value in some way to a person or business, a product or a service. Let me give you an example of adding value. MTN, GLO, AIRTEL, etc, for instance, added value to telephoning by rapid delivery andMr Biggs, Chicken republic, Mamakas, Tanterlizer and values to Mama-Puts, “akwuku” and puff-puff and as a result, they created a multi-million Naira success story. Another example of adding value is buying something in one place at one price and making it available in another place at another price. For instance, buying a product or service manufactured in Hong Kong, China or Taiwan or Japan or West Germany, importing it to Nigeria and selling it at a higher price is a way of adding value. All importation and distribution is based on this principle. You can add value with services. You can perform a service that enhances the life or work of another person which enables someone to achieve a goal faster, easier, cheaper or more conveniently( like what I am trying to do with this article). This is another way to add value. A dentist who takes away pain is adding value. An accountant who saves client money on taxes is adding value. A salesperson who introduces a new product or service to a customer is adding value. A Herbalist who give you Bitter-melon and Ogunta to control your sugar level is also adding value! Find a Need and Fill It All financial success, especially business success, is based on the old adage, find a need and fill it. The subjective theory of value says that all value is in the eye of the beholder. Something is worth only what someone else will pay for it. All successful business is based on someone bringing together the factors of production, labor, capital, raw materials and management, and creating a product or service that a customer will pay for at a price that is in excess of the cost of producing it. This is a way of adding value to the combination of ingredients that come together to create a product or service. This difference between what it costs to produce and deliver, and the price a customer is willing to pay for it, is called profit, or added value. Profit is the stuff out of which fortunes are made. Whenever you see an opportunity to give people what they want at a price greater than it costs you to produce it, you see an opportunity to make a profit. If you can create a profit making system, you can build a business, and begin moving toward financial success. Almost any profitable business or occupation can make you financially independent if you manage it intelligently. Big Fortunes from Small Ideas Surprisingly enough, the businesses owned by self-made millionaires are usually quite ordinary. People become rich in construction, and in sub-trades like dry walling and roofing. They become rich running dry cleaning establishments and cafes. Some of them are truck drivers and auctioneers, farmers and crane operators, computer software designers and machine tool manufacturers. Virtually any field that offers an opportunity to excel and earn high profits can serve as a springboard to riches. The key is to do the work better and more efficiently than others, and then to hold on to the profits and excess cash that you earn as a result. People often ask me what field they should go into if they want to make a lot of money. The answer to this question is constantly changing, just as the wants, needs, demands and desires of consumers is constantly changing. During the 1990’s boom in technology, and the explosion of the Internet-based companies, millionaires were being created at the rate of 10,000 per week in developed world where internet was working then! When these stock options fueled companies collapsed, most of these new wealth disappeared, only to reemerge in the booming home and real estate markets. No one knows for sure where the rapid growth opportunities of tomorrow will occur, but they will continue to rise and fall as long as customer wants continue to change and create opportunities for ambitious entrepreneurial minded people. Big Fortunes from Small Ideas Gadafi (Shit Business is a serious Business) is a famous success story. He started off the Mobile Public Toilet business in Lagos. Soon other un-serviced neighborhoods and municipalities asked him if he would haul their “shit” as well. He became wealthy by standardizing the Public toilet industry locally, and then nationwide in Nigeria, something that had never been done before. By introducing mass productions methods and new efficiencies, he made shit business an extremely profitable business and became one of the rich entrepreneurs in the country. No “leftover” turn moimoi business to extremely profitable business in Lagos and Iyadunni of “rush e” turn beans cake” Akara” business to gold mine in Osu in osun state Nigeria. I can go on and on. You too with a little creativity can turn that fashion business of your into a million Naira Business. With God on my side, apart from my engineering business, I have been able to make millions of Naira from talking and writing! This you also can do as well! I call it talk and grow rich! Or write and grow rich! Of course you know that all these stems from “Think and grow rich! Maximize Your Assets The logical question then comes up, .What do wealthy people do or have that enables them to accomplish so much more than the average? I believe that these people are successful as a result of what I call leverage. Leverage is the key to maximizing and multiplying your potential for success and financial achievement. Leverage enables you to accomplish vastly more than you could if you just relied on your own physical and mental efforts, as most people do. Leverage is the key to getting RICH. Here are examples of leverage that you can develop and use to achieve financial independence. Specialized Knowledge The first type of leverage is knowledge. Specialized knowledge gives you leverage because it makes you worth more, and makes your contribution more valuable. Engineers, Herbalists, Doctors, lawyers, accountants, experienced sales people, all have practical knowledge that is of value to others. This superior knowledge enables them to get better results faster. As a result, people prefer to use their services and are willing to pay them more. Here are three ways to develop leverage through knowledge. First, resolve to become an expert in your chosen field. Make a decision today to join the top ten percent. Set it as a goal, make a plan and work on becoming better every day. Read the best books in your field; take every course and seminar you can find that will help you, even if you have to travel to attend. Listen to audio programs in your car. Become an ongoing do-it-to-yourself Project. Second, specialize in those areas that of greatest importance and value to your company or to your customers. Apply the 80/20 rule and focus on the 20% of activities in your work that contribute the most value to yourself and to other people. Specialize in excelling at those areas of specialized knowledge that customers care about the most. Third, know your product or service inside out. Aim to be recognized as the industry expert in your field. Remember the person who has the expert knowledge can make a far more valuable contribution than the person whose knowledge is just average. Master Your Craft. The other type of leverage is skill. The better you are at your job, the more you will be paid. The top 20 percent of salespeople earn as much as ten and fifteen times the average earnings of the bottom 80 percent. The top engineers, herbalist, doctors, mechanics, lawyers, technical specialists and leaders in every field earn vastly more than the average performer. You can become the best in your field today! Get up and go forth! I am Happy, Rich and Healthy! And so are! Thank God! Tony Egba 08038037674 08088568887