We Reveal The Humble Beginnings With Small Time Dogs

There is no guaranteed path to getting rich–but choosing certain jobs in the early years of your career can help. Sociologist and historian Rainer Zitelmann interviewed 45 millionaires and billionaires for his new book, “The Wealth Elite,” and asked them what they did when they were younger.

“Zitelmann interviewed 45 individuals, whose net worth ranged, on the low end, from 10 million to 30 million euros (roughly $11.4 to $34.2 million) to, on the upper end, several billion euros (more than $3 billion), and whose wealth was either entirely self-made or built on inheritances that were later multiplied,” Catey Hill of Market Watch wrote. Many of today’s self-made billionaires and multimillionaires held a sales job, or jobs, when they were younger — a fact they consider crucial to their current success.

Zitelmann told Market Watch that sales skills are crucial to wealth-building. Unfortunately, he said, many researchers ignore this factor when studying the issue.

“Indeed, roughly two in three said that their talents as salespeople had been a ‘significant’ factor in their financial success. More than one in three said they owed 70% or more of their success to their sales talents,” Hill reports. So what sales jobs did they have early on? They sold everything from costume jewelry and cosmetics to used car radios and wheel rims–and even old egg cartons that could be used as noise insulation.

The bottom line: many self-made millionaires start small but think big. And that sounds like a career choice any of us can make.