Entrepreneur or Employee? Survey Says Employees Earn at Least 50% Less

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Most of us were taught go to school, get a job, work hard, you’ll be rewarded.

The mere thought about doing anything else is so foreign to us, that we often shun those that have chosen another path, despite their success.

However, that latest statistics are in, and if you stay with the same employer for over two-years, you’ll earn an whopping fifty percent less in your lifetime than you would if you had job-hopped to bigger bucks, every year – which isn’t always possible – or – gulp – had you made your own wealth as an entrepreneur.

That figure – fifty percent less in your employment lifetime – is a conservative number, based on average annual three percent wage increases employers give their full-time employees.

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However, looking at current rates of inflation based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), that average annual raise is actually less than one percent.

That’s an alarming wake-up call to anyone sitting in their corporate cubicle, thinking that their employer actually values their work.

Put another way, it’s like renting versus owning your home.

If you rent, you don’t own the land and anything built on the land, so you don’t have any equity. And you are at the mercy of the landlord, in terms of what is and is not acceptable use of that land and anything built on it.

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If you own your home, you OWN it – you can spruce it up to add value to it. Use it as you please. Even sell it when it’s worth more than you purchased it, and have more money in your pocket.

You can start with a small home. Fix it up, add some landscaping, maybe a deck, even a fresh coat of paint. That increases it’s value, so you can sell it for more than you originally paid.

Then, you can “flip” it – sell it at the new, higher value price – and purchase a bigger, and better home. Fix that up, maybe add an addition, widen the driveway, whatever – it increases it’s value.

Then you flip that house, and get another one, this one even bigger and better than the previous two.

Being an employee is like renting – you don’t have a say in the business, and you certainly don’t have any equity in the business.

Being an entrepreneur is like owning your home. You have a say in every aspect of the business – from the initial vision, to how you treat your customers, your staff, and your suppliers.

 

You can build up a great business, until it’s at the right “sweet spot” where it’s earning substantial revenues, or starting to actually catch the eyes of your competitors. So, you sell it, at a higher valuation than what it was worth when you started it.

In a way, you can flip businesses just like you flip houses.

So, you take all the money you made from selling your business, and build another one.

You take that business to the right sweet spot, and eventually sell that too.

Or, you can keep growing the same business – so long as it is a growing business.

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Either way, being an entrepreneur is so much more rewarding than being an employee.

Entrepreneurs shape their companies, much like home owners personalize their homes. Entrepreneurs add value to their businesses, much as home owners do by renovations.

Employees are just renting their jobs from their entrepreneurial employers – and losing fifty percent – or more – of their wages as a result.

Don’t rent your career, make it your own.

Be an entrepreneur.