With a little persistence, patience, and creativity, making one million dollars can be achievable for a lot of people.  In fact, there is strong evidence that a lot of us come within reach at some point in our lives.  The US is amazing that way!  There is a lot of talk about the 1%, occupy wallstreet, and so on, what is often missed, however, is how often the 1% actually change and are in fact not static.

In many other countries, the top 1% tend to be static, old wealth, corporate CEO’s etc, but in the US there are staggering statistics that say 1 out 3 Americans in their lifetime will reach the top 5% of earners with a portion of those reaching the top 1%.  Wow!  Even more interesting is that 8 or 10 us will at some time be in poverty!  What this says is that while wealth may be accumulating higher in the top tiers of income earners, those earners consistently change.  This is great news for all of us!

So, if you have not made your mark yet what are some secrets?  Well, it involves a bit of luck, some hard work, and proper execution.  Here are 5 ideas to get you started:

1. Sell something (Lets put this into perspective)
Earning $1,000,0000 can be:
250,000 people spending $4
100,000 people spending $10
50,000 people spending $100
10,000 people spending $100
1,000 people spending $1,000

Or 3,333 customers spending $25 per month on something you offer.

2. Start simple, buy something for $1 that you can sell with a 5% markup.  Take those earnings and buy something for $1.05 and sell for a 5% markup.  Keep doing the same and before the year is out you will have your goal.

3. Trade your way up!  Start with the old thing in your garage that has no value to you, but to someone else, it might be a treasure.  Trade for something that has a bit more value and keeps doing that until you reach your goal.  Here is a site to help you get started.

4. Open on an online shop.  Yeah, I know everyone says that and it is not easy.  Well, that may be true if you try to open a shop to sell smartphones.  Sometimes the best success comes from the most simple idea.  The key here is to find an idea that is in a unique niche market where advertising does not cost a lot.  If you find that market, the store is easy.  With sites like shopify, godaddy, wordpress (woocommerce), and many others you can open a store in as little as 1 hour.  Remember, however, to test before you spend the time.  You can test your product ideas by simply listing on ebay, craigslist, or any other low/no cost market places to see demand and profit margins.  If something sticks, upgrade to a simple storefront and test advertising words through sites like google Adwords.  If all is looking good, then build your beautiful site and sell away.  The most important thing to make this a success is understanding your customer’s problem and getting them to act.  Selling flat screen TVs not a chance, unique hand made dog sweaters for runners maybe a win.

5. Sell your expertise.  We are all good at something, find that something and sell it.  There are many ways to do this, but the best place to start and gauge your capability is by starting free seminars or workshops.  If all goes well, offer to speak at community events, write articles in trade magazines, join trade organizations, and show more people that you an expert.  If this all goes well then it is a matter of just finding a way to sell your new found popularity.  Some ideas, paid workshops, books, audio tapes (30-40 minutes), material, consulting, etc.

All these ideas can lead you down a path to make a million dollars.  Getting there will take hard work and persistence, knowing where to take shortcuts, and knowing when to identify something is not working and changing direction.  Try them all, see what works for you and have fun.  There is no reason that you need to be stuck at a job that you don’t like with so many options open to you.  Just try them!  Good Luck!

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One last thing, getting to one million should be achievable for all if you start early and just save.  That’s right, just save on the things you buy, increase your savings each day, week, month and eventually you will reach one million.

How long does it take?  $30 a day for $30 years will get you to one million.  Might sound like a lot, but give up a coffee, skip some dinners, use coupons, rent a room.  Before you know it you will reach that mark, then stay consistent.