You will not disagree with me if I tell you that one of the most important indicators of your corporate success is the amount of money that you earn every year. And precisely for this reason I am taking you through this journey where we are trying to reach an “Eight Figure” salary level.
We have already covered the first point of our Five Point Action Plan in my last blog. In this blog, we are going deep into the second point of our action plan with a clear objective to make definite progress in our journey towards the Crore Club. That is why it is important for you to read the complete blog and try to start implementing the key learnings in your own professional life.
How to Earn One Crore Salary Every Year – [PART 1]
Read More..
Like the previous blog, for the second point also, we will do our analysis in two parts. First, we will try to understand the logic, the fundamentals behind this action plan and then we will look at the implementation of this plan for the 3 experience buckets that we had laid out in the last part of this blog series – 0 to 3 years, 4 to 10 years and 10+ years.
If you remember, while preparing the 5 Point Action Plan, I had told you that in the second point, you need to clearly understand that at what level your organization starts to pay 1 crore salary per annum? In normal course I had told you that it would be the topmost level and sometimes one or two levels below that. You need to clearly mark this out as this is going to be your goal post. This is where you want to reach.
Sometimes, in few organizations, you will find some exceptions where one or two people at lower levels may be earning very high salaries. You must ignore these levels as there is no point running after exceptions. You must target levels where at least 50% of the people are earning an eight-figure salary. That will be your real goal post.
Having defined the goal post, now you need to see where you are today? How far you are from the goal post? In the first point of your action plan, you measured this distance in terms of levels, now you need to measure this distance in terms of monetary gap. Assuming you are earning 10 lakhs per annum salary today, your goal would be to grow it by 10 times to reach the crore club.
The idea of the second point of the action plan is to give you a clear vision of your final destination so that you can plan your journey judiciously. By combining the findings of both point 1 and point 2 of the action plan, you will get a very clear idea with respect to how much time it will take and at what multiple you need to grow your salary to reach the eight-figure mark.
Having understood the core idea behind this part of the action plan, now let’s try to look at how it needs to be implemented for each of the experience buckets.
0 to 3 Years
People in this experience bucket have just started their career. In a way, your example would be very close to the illustration that I had given in Part 2 of this blog series where I have shown the journey from 10 Lakhs per annum to 1 Crore per annum. The idea for you is to clearly figure out two things:
- How far you are from the level at which your company starts paying an eight-figure salary?
- What is the multiple at which you need to grow your current salary to reach there?
Since you are starting early on this action plan, you have a big advantage. While it may take 10, 12 or sometimes even 15 years for you to reach the crore club, you would realise that in the short-term, your salary has started growing at a much faster rate compared to your counterparts. This is the advantage of having a dedicated approach and a clear understanding of the path that you need to take. You would have a better understanding of the salary boosters that you need to use at various stages in your career to grow your salary faster than others.
You start as a winner right from the beginning.
4 to 10 Years
While the implementation process for people in this bucket would be very much on the same lines of what I have already detailed out for the first group, one clear differentiating factor would be your ability to use the Salary Boosters more effectively at this stage of career.
Since you have already spent some decent number of years in the corporate world and have gained valuable experience, your ability to demand a higher increase in salary in case of a promotion or job change would help you move much faster towards the goal post. What will also work in favour is your high salary base as in the corporate world all the salary increases are measured in terms of percentage and not in absolute terms. The same 10% increase for someone with a 10 lakhs salary base versus another one with a 40 lakhs salary base is starkly different in absolute terms. This phenomenon helps you in a big way as you keep spending more time in the corporate world and your salary base keeps growing.
10+ Years
People at this stage in career are in a way masters of this game. While you also need to carry out the basic analysis like the other two groups where you figure out your distance from the level where your company pays an eight-figure salary and define the multiple at which you need to grow your salary to reach there; you need to focus on doing just one or two things which will bring you almost in the striking distance of your goal.
At this stage of career, you need to plan your moves wisely. For example, if you are earning 50 lakhs salary per annum, you just need to plan one career move which probably could give you a 40% bump in salary and you can straightaway reach the 70 lakhs per annum level. That is why I always advise people at this level to focus on just one or two well planned actions rather than the standard way of planning the yearly increase.
And to conclude, you must remember that like the first point of the action plan, the second point of the plan is also very dynamic in nature. It is not about doing this analysis just one time. You need to keep updating it every time when a salary boosting event happens. An increment, a promotion, a job change – all these events must lead to the revision of this analysis. That is how you will be able to keep your action plan real and relevant to the environment around you.
One last thing – while working on this action plan, always keep your eyes and ears open for possibilities or hindrances around you. How well your current company is doing, how the economy is performing, which sectors are doing well, where are more opportunities for salary growth – these are the considerations that should drive your actions while implementing this action plan. Timing is key, plan your salary boosters at the right time and don’t ever keep waiting for others to make things happen for you.
Take charge of your career!