What the Top 20% Really Make

You know how big I am on the 80/20 rule in sales. I see it in every company and industry I work in, and, as many of you know, I’ve dedicated myself to helping sales reps and companies elevate their skills and techniques, so they can start producing sales and income like the top 20% of sales reps do. Often I get asked just what the top 20% make in actual income, and today I can tell you…

The Associated Press, quoting figures released from the recent Census Bureau report, published an article last week revealing what the top-earning 20% of Americans make in income. They found that the top 20% of all Americans earn over $100,000 in income. While that’s interesting in and of itself, what even more important is that the top 20% are also receiving over 50% of all the income earned in the country.

Now that’s BIG. Obviously, what this means is that the other 80% of income earners are splitting up the remaining 50%. That’s a big disparity and it tells us that the top 20% not only make most of the money in the country, but that they have a much bigger piece of the pie to split up.

While being a top 20% producer and income earner is obviously a nice place to be, the next question I get is, “How do I get there?” The answer to that question might surprise you. Most sales reps I ask about this usually point to all the wrong things. They point to outside things like:

If the leads were better, or

If the economy was better, or

If I had a better product, or price, or company or training….

Here’s the real truth – the only thing that is holding you back, or will ever hold you back, is your own belief in what you think you deserve. In other words, your consciousness or comfort zone. The real cause of your income, your health, your outside anything, is the image or picture you hold of them in your consciousness.

The universal truth is that: What you hold in your mind’s eye is always manifested out. One of my favorite authors, Dr. Robert Anthony puts it perfectly in his book, “The Advanced Formula for Total Success":

"Your ability to accept (financial success) is determined by your consciousness. We all know people who have more money than they know what to do with, and we all know many people who never have enough. Why the difference? If a person who has virtually nothing is given a large sum of money, within a very short time that person will have nothing again. If we divided all the money in the world equally, in a short time the rich would be rich again, and the poor would be poor.

Many people think that if they could just get their hands on a large sum of money, they would be set for the rest of their lives. This is absolutely not true. Surveys have shown that people who receive large sums of money without working for them -- those who won lotteries, or inherited wealth, for example -- almost always find themselves back to their original financial level within two years of their windfall. They think that if they had money, they would pay their bills, get out of debt and start anew. But that very seldom happens. Over ninety percent of the people who win large sums of money eventually end up with no more money than they had before their winnings. Their standard of life does not increase and it is in many cases lowered because of their excess spending. The point here is that if you have a poverty consciousness or a consciousness of lack and limitation, you will literally spend yourself into poverty. If you find yourself with too much money, you will spend whenever you have in order to get back to your comfort zone.

Take all the money away from a person, who is a millionaire -- one who has the consciousness of the millionaire today -- and within a short time he or she will be a millionaire again. Riches start from the mind, not your pocketbook, bank account or investment. The bank account and investments are the effects, not the cause. The cause is always an idea or belief. A person is not rich because they have money. They have money because they are rich in consciousness. They believe that they are rich. Again, this is the reason that the rich will always get richer and the poor will always stay poor until they change their consciousness.”

So if you would like to become one of the top 20% earners in America, then you don’t need to change jobs, careers, or anything else “outside” of you. You just have to change the image you have of yourself and become rich in your consciousness first. That is the real secret to your success.