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Education

StreetSmarts SM

The wolf of Sterling Heights, Michigan?

By John Tucker Income divisions top to bottom
1st Capital Loans LLC An individual making $80,000 a year in Sterling Heights
is considered to be upper middle class, and in the top 8
rom networking with industry professionals percent of all individual income earners nationwide,
(newcomers and vets), it appears a significant based on various economic reports, including U.S. Census
amount of the action in our industry occurs statistics.
F in or around New York City, especially in the
financial district of Manhattan. It's in this lower slice of The U.S. individual income earner measurements (based
Manhattan where Wall Street resides. on individual, not household income) for the top 20
percent are as follows:
Since January 2007, I have operated a one-man-show sales
office predominately from my business and home offices • 1 percent of all individual income earners make
in Michigan. I reside in a suburban area called Clinton over $250,000 per year; people in this category are
Township, which is located right next to Sterling Heights. considered to be rich.
I'm often approached to work directly for larger ISOs and • 2 to 4 percent of all individual income earners
other industry players, but they usually want me to move make $100,000 to $220,000 per year; those in this
to or around New York, which in most cases, includes category are considered to be higher class.
working in the lower slice of Manhattan. Is this a good
opportunity or not? • 5 to 15 percent of all individual income earners
make $37,000 to $90,000 per year; people in this
With that question in mind, I think it's time to discuss category are considered to be middle class.
cost of living, purchasing power and recommendations
for new office structuring here in the 21st century.
Through the Internet, we can
"The cost of living is going up and the chance of living communicate with workers across the globe
is going down," said the late Flip Wilson, former host using numerous communication tools – from
of The Flip Wilson Show. One thing that isn't discussed
in our industry is the very high cost of living merchant web-based predictive dialers, to virtual chat
level salespeople (MLSs) contend with when living and rooms, to live web cams. Given this, why
working in an area such as lower Manhattan. An income not do away with the traditional
level that provides a solidly middle class lifestyle just brick-and-mortar sales office and implement
about anywhere else in America, would fall far short in
Manhattan. virtual teams across the board?

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