There are many ways to grow income so you can accumulate wealth. The lowest risk way for you to increase your opportunity to save is to is often to earn more doing what you already do. I will go into each of the below income sources in more detail in future weeks.

You only truly earn more as an employee when you increase your value to your employer.

What can one raise set in motion?

Even earning one large raise at work can make a long term impact, IF used wisely.

If you earn $100,000 and get a 10% raise, let’s assume you don’t get another raise at your company again besides 3% merit increases each year for 20 years.

20 years later your salary is $198,675 vs. $180,611 without that raise.

Bigger picture, if you had saved only ½ of that raise amount each year and ½ of those 3% increases over that 20 year period and earned a 7% return on those savings, it’s a difference of $257,177 20 years later.

How can this get real powerful?

The above example is a conservative example, only scratching the surface of what’s possible as an employee.

• Think how your potential wealth changes if you instead earn a 20+% increase here instead of 10%?

• How about if you earn 5-10 of these increases in 20 years instead of 1 that continue this compounding (if saved) effect?

• What if you work well beyond 20 years and continue the value creation for your company and compensation boosting for yourself?

• What if you earn stock compensation from your company and the assumed 7% return is quickly eclipsed by the performance of your company’s stock?

While we hear often on YouTube or the press that starting a business is THE answer for building wealth, being a high value employee that saves consistently can be a predictable way to wealth too.

There’s a lot of considerations in growing your value at work and how it can translate to an increase in compensation. Here are some steps to get started with this week.

1. What are the goals of your team/employer this year?

2. How can your role impact or affect that goal?

3. What can you do to exceed what is expected of you?

4. Get agreement with your boss on what incentive is realistic to obtain if you do exceed expectations? Perhaps it’s a raise, one-time retention bonus, promotion, etc.

5. Plan the how and when of that conversation starting this week. The earlier in the year this occurs the better.

This article by Harvard Business Review provides a solid action plan from experts far more knowledgeable than myself.

If all goes according to plan and you exceed your expectations but the company does not hit the required metrics as an organization, you may be rewarded with a big fat goose egg. Don’t let such an outcome discourage you. Bigger picture, you’ve made yourself a yet more attractive asset for the employment marketplace, which we will dig into in future weeks. If you don’t get what you want this year, you’re getting closer to more wealth building potential.