If I were to ask who wants more money, most people would say ?I do!? Let's face it, in our world today, money plays a major role. Beyond survival and basic necessities it can give us pleasurable experiences, enable us to do things for our family, friends and community, and provide us with the freedom to live on our own terms.



One of the best ways to increase your income, whether you own your own business or work for a company, is to find ways to increase and, ultimately, leverage your value. People are paid varying sums of money based on the value they provide. So if you can find ways to leverage whatever value you are providing, or increase your value to society, your customer or your company, you will automatically increase your income.

One of the best examples of this I've ever seen is Tony Robins. When he first started much of his work was based on Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).

While there are thousands of practitioners using NLP working with clients, Tony took it to another level. He used and taught these techniques to rooms filled with people. One of his seminars that I attend years ago had 3,000 people in attendance.

At that time a solo practitioner would see people for about $100 per hour. Assuming they saw four people per day, they would gross $400 per day. While a pretty good business model, it paled by comparison to what Tony did with essentially the same training.

The event I attended had 3,000 people who each paid $200 for the day. That's $600,000 gross plus product sales. Clearly Mr. Robins understood the value of leverage.

If a chef were to sit and explain a recipe to one person, he or she may be able to collect $100 for an hour of consulting. However, if the same chef put the information into a book, CD or DVD or some other ?package? they would be leveraging their time and value and would produce exponential returns.

I charge aspiring authors and publishers $150 an hour consulting. A few years ago I packaged much of the information a beginner needs to know into an audio seminar, "Successful Self-publishing," with an accompany Ebook which I make available for only $27. The author saves $123 while receiving the information that they need.

The really cool thing is, I am able to help more people and, because I can now sell it over and over again, the potential return to me is practically unlimited.

What about you? What are some ways that you can leverage your value?

Could you, for example, add group coaching to your solo coaching practice? Why don't you offer additional products to your existing customers? McDonald's mastered this principal with their, now famous, ?Would you like fries with that?? question.

If your working in a job, what could you do to add more value to your company?

I love the Jim Rohn story about the time he said to his mentor, ?That's all my company pays.? His mentor replied, ?No, that's all they pay you!?

Companies, regardless of size, pay employees based on the value that they bring to the business. This is one reason salespeople and rainmakers (people who can leverage high level connections) are generally very well paid.

Many "Intrapreneurs" - people who work inside a company but create added value, have earned well in excess of their salary by either saving the company money or creating additional income for it.

A good example of this is the "post-it," invented by someone within the 3M organization who received a small override on the sales.

Where could you save money for your company or add to the bottom line? How might you present this in a way that will enable you to share in the income generated from your idea?

My friend, Wayne, spent his first career working at a local community college. Not satisfied with just doing his job, he developed a program for an under-served segment of the population. Being an entrepreneur at heart, he presented it in such a way as to share in the increased revenue to the college. His program became the largest income generator for the school and enabled Wayne to earn well above his base salary.

How might you model a similar idea in your company?