Are You An Income Generator?
I was talking to someone the other day about work in general and how safe (or not) most people’s jobs are and she said that in this global economy, your stability at work all comes down to one question:
Are you an income generator?
if the answer to that question is no, then your job is not safe and you should not pin your hopes on it. The only exception we could think of was if you worked for a non-profit organization, but even then, aren’t people who work at non-profits constantly under pressure to bring in more and more grant money? and isn’t grant writing really a form of income generation?
I should have gone into sales earlier on in my life. Sales people are real income generator’s. Who is going to fire you if you’re bringing in a significant portion of a companies revenues?
Do you agree or disagree with this conception of the global economy?
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
-Winston Churchill
KE, correction, income generators and protectors probably have safe jobs. But its all relative because a company can always a better income generator/protector.
Mainat:
Let me give you an example:
Company X has revenues of $10 million dollars. They hire me as a salesperson and I end up bringing in$4 million dollars in sales, which would mean that I am responsible for almost 40% of their revenue. Do you think they’ll ever get rid of me by saying that they’ll try someone new who promises to bring them $5 million in sales? I highly doubt it.
This only works in the sales department. What if you are the other departemtns.
The lesson I learned is to do the hardest unliked job that nobody else wants to do (no i’m not talking about menial jobs)… And then excell in it. Second, make sure your work touches about 10 different departments.
An example, in a software company. An engineer decides to lead bug fixing of the “old version” of the technology. I don’t have to tell you that engineers like working only on the latest sexiest technology. Needless to say, he is now a manager with a very nice budget under his belt and a comfortable position.
At this point, replacing you becomes a very difficult prospect.
don:
You’ve have raised an interesting point about “skilled” workers. The only problem I see with your example is that India and China have plenty of hardworking engineers who will willingly do those non-sexy jobs at a fraction of the cost.
So, if the CEO from this software company is under pressure from his shareholders to cut costs…guess what? it doesn’t matter how hard you worked. If you are not an income generator and if you don’t contribute to the bottom line…your job will be shipped off to a cheaper software engineer in China or India.
So, my example just doesn’t apply to sales jobs. It applies to all businesses that depend on paying clients for their revenue. Look at law firms — you do not become a partner (i.e. a person who actually gets a % of the profits of the firm) unless you can bring in clients that the firm can charge. That’s why the attrition rates at these firms are so high — they’re not going to pay you $200,000 dollars a year to warm the seat. Eventually, if you want to become an “equity” partner (notice the word “equity” – that means you get a cut of the total profits of the firm), you better income generate. And I would think that this is true at investment banks, consulting companies, etc, etc…since they all charge hourly fee’s.
So the CEO IS underpressure cut costs and he is actually building a branch in India to do both new development as well as maintentance work, but guess who is going to run the maintenance divison of the offshore branch? At some point, there must be US manager incharge of all the indians.
In my case, the equation is not how much you bring in, but how much it would cost to replace you.
I first heard about this idea in a seminar where a 30 somthing had actually been able to get himself to VP in a bank and was able to survive layoff after layoff during the tech crash (he was black and you know how that goes). Well, we were all wondering how he did it.
Another way to think about it. Warren buffet is retiring, it will take 3 different CEO’s to replace him. Get yourself to the point where it will take 3 different people for you to get replaced and your sitting pretty; even with outsourcing.
KE, a company will always hire who it requries for a particular environment/situation. So the issue is not so much whether you are an income generator but how versatile you are to the company and its environment. Also as Don mentioned how much of an impact does what you do have on the company. Companies have been known to fire income generators and replace them with cost cutters. Case in pt John Mack aka MAck the Knife brought into steady Morgan Stanley.
Don:
Did that VP have a list of clients that brought in fee’s for the bank?
Mainat:
Why on earth would any CEO get rid of an income generator? how would you make money if you did that? I have never heard of a company that fires it’s best income generators in order to replace them with cost cutters (CEO’s are really income generators – at the end of the day, they are salesmen and as you know, they are constantly looking for new markets in which to sell their products. You have to sell, sell, sell.
I have no idea, but the answer to the question posed to him, was to be do the hardest, most unwanted job… and do it well.
I would imagine that as long as the market is not saturated, the income generators are in high demand as costs are less of a issue. But in a saturated market, or in price wars you need the cost cutters.
I guess every CEO needs to get a good balance. If you are customer facing, you better be an income generator. If you your not customer facing, you better be responsible for a whole lot of cost cutting and efficiencies.
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