World Wide Property Sales
Five Keys to Building Wealth
by Mark Sumpter
Anyone can get rich. You don't have to be a genius, and you don't have to be
lucky. People who build wealth make certain decisions and practice certain
skills - none of which are difficult or 4) complicated. You can do it, too. You
can acquire a multimillion-dollar net worth by doing just five things:
1) Get to work an hour early.
2) Develop and perfect a financially valuable skill.
3) Use that skill to earn an above-average income.
4) Spend less than you earn.
5) Invest your savings smartly.
By practicing these five simple behaviors you can build real wealth. Let's take
a look at each one.
Get to Work an Hour Early
You have to give yourself an edge over everyone else. The best way I know to do
that is to get to work early. By getting to work early, you can do all the
little things that put you ahead of the pack. You can make extra contacts, learn
useful skills, take time to write an impressive memo, polish off a report, etc.
There's no better time to collect your thoughts and plan your day than early in
the morning when the office is quiet. And if you do it right, it will be the
most productive part of your day. Start it with your weekly to-do list. On a
sheet of paper, jot down anything you need to get done. Make sure you give
primary attention to your top goal that day, and get it done. Use your extra
time to get at least one positive thing done before you start doing all the
"regular" things. The "regular" things will give you a "regular" life. The extra
things will give you all the extras - including the extra millions.
Develop and Perfect a Financially Valued Skill
To make more money than the person next to you, you have to be able to do
something that is worth more money to someone else - your boss, your business,
or your customers. Selling is a financially valued skill. So is producing
profits. So is creating growth. Other skills - making things run smoothly,
eliminating mistakes, balancing books, etc. - are certainly valuable to a
business, but not as highly valued when it comes to dividing up the money pie.
What successful businesses mostly need - and value the most - are employees who
stimulate sales, increase customer retention, boost customer spending, and bring
in a bigger profit. The marketing jobs, sales jobs, and the merchandising jobs
are the ones that most visibly contribute to the bottom line. You can add to the
bottom line and become a financially valued employee or business owner by
gradually developing sales, marketing, and profit-building skills. Study sales
and marketing programs that are currently working. Learn from existing masters.
Keep at it until you are confident you know how to create more wealth for your
business.
Make an Above-Average Income
You don't have to earn a ton of money to become a millionaire, but you do need a
higher-than-average income. To get wealthy while you're young enough to enjoy
it, you need to make about $75,000 or more. If you are making less than $75,000
a year now, it's almost certainly because you have not perfected a financially
valued skill. Plying a financially valued skill toward a business you work for
or a business you own (or both) will definitely produce wealth. Part of that
wealth should go to you. If you're an employee, ask for your share – ask for a
raise, backed up by the results you're producing.
Spend Less Than You Earn
It isn't easy to make a lot of money, but it's very, very easy to spend it. The
book The Millionaire Next Door made and proved the point clearly: most
millionaires become wealthy not by making a ton of money, but by saving and
investing modest amounts over time. That's precisely why I believe you can
become wealthy when you earn as little as $75,000 a year. To make sure you spend
less than you earn, use this powerful money-management trick. It's something I
began doing many years ago. It has allowed me to get richer in good times and
bad, when my ideas were working and when they were not, when the economy boomed
and when it stalled.
One day, I took out a sheet of paper and tallied up my net worth. Despite
earning $50,000 more than I had the previous year, my net worth was less than
$10,000. I made myself a simple promise. I said that from then on I'd
recalculate my net worth once a month and that I'd do everything I possibly
could to make sure that each month's total would be larger than the month
before. It was as easy as that. I decided simply to get richer one month at a
time.
By calculating my net worth, I saw that many of my habits (including some of my
spending habits) were financially unwise. It also gave me, at times, the energy
I needed to do something drastic - to start something new or end something that
had gone wrong. Plus, it gave me an underlying determination to get a little bit
richer every day. Don't dismiss this little technique because it's simple. All
the best and most powerful things in life are simple. This will make a
difference. Do it.
Invest Wisely - Creating a Second Income
Investing wisely means doing two things:
1) Create a second, active income, and keep it growing.
2) Invest your passive income in a sensible, conservative fashion.
Start out slowly and learning about a side business while you have the safe and
steady income of your main job. By a "side business", I mean something you can
run on weekends or weekday evenings that won't take your attention away from
your full-time job. It should be something you enjoy and are willing to stick
with. Start with your financially valued skill. You are using that to create
your first income, and now use it to create the second. Just stick with your
strengths and you'll succeed.
Investing Your Second Income
Finally, take the extra money you make from your main business and the extra
money from your side business (by extra, I mean the money you can't reinvest in
that business because you simply don't need it) and put it into an investing
program that is reliable, safe and productive.
So here's what you'll do:
1) Set your alarm an hour earlier.
2) Identify the financially valued skill you are going to develop.
3) Commit to spending less than you earn.
4) Think about a second stream of income.
5) Start now - don't wait a year or two and wish you'd started today.
Bio:
Mark E. Sumpter who has been dubbed, the "Short Sale Expert", is a sought after
national speaker on how to buy and sell pre-foreclosure properties and teaching
his wealth building strategies at an array of real estate investor events that
create an interactive learning environment for both seasoned real estate
professionals and novice investors.
Mark E. Sumpter was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He attended
Central Missouri State University, where he received a degree in Criminal
Justice and was eventually hired as a police officer by the Kansas City,
Missouri Police Department.
While Mark enjoyed being a police officer, the long hours associated with his
assignments didn�t allow him to live the quality of life he wanted for himself
and his family. So he made a decision to change his life through real estate
pre-foreclosures. In his first year investing in pre-foreclosures, Mark acquired
$496,000 in pre-foreclosures within the first 90 days, using none of his own
money. Although Mark holds property for great cash flow, his passion is short
sales in the pre-foreclosure and short sale arena.
Since then, Mark founded The Wealth College Inc, and has developed the most
comprehensive, systematic approach to buying and selling pre-foreclosures
available today. Using his Secrets of Short Sales system and employing only one
full-time assistant, he has perfected the art of short sales like no one else
has. At one time, Mark Sumpter and his assistant were simultaneously handling 88
different short sales deals.