I have meticulously read and taken notes on the landmark books by Napoleon Hill, “The Law of Success” and “Think and Grow Rich.” There is ONE MAJOR ELEMENT missing in his evaluation of what it takes to be a massive success in business. The high numbers of people it takes to make it possible to create enormous wealth has been completely ignored in both books.

I thought I would write my thoughts on this glaring void in his books because it is one of the most important factors in all things successful.

In my opinion, it is the number of people the leaders he talks about in his book that worked for poverty wages building the thirsty growing market for the products they produced for a newly born country at the beginning of the Industrial Age. Those are three big factors completely left out of his books. Let me point them out.

  • New Products that are highly desired in the marketplace.
  • Masses of people working at menial jobs for low wages.
  • Masses of people who want to buy those new products.

The heroes of this early Industrial Age were created by the willingness of an immigrant population to work for low wages, terrible working conditions, ridiculously long hours and no other support than the wage itself. It wasn’t slavery, but it was the next best thing.

I’m willing to bet those workers were very happy to have those jobs and the fact that they went to the factory with thousands of people doing the same thing made it an acceptable situation. After all, it was the only thing they could do. They had little education, no money, and families they created due to ignorance and lack of birth control products in the marketplace.

Over the past 50 years, America has seen companies move their factories overseas and why? Three reasons are:

  • Cheap Labor
  • No Labor Control
  • Tax Breaks

Possibly the biggest paradox in the history of the world is the use of American companies of the Communist system to employ workers in China at a fraction of the cost of what it would cost to have those factories in America. Of course, it isn’t only China and Communism, it is the entire third world that companies have used to escape labor laws and respectable wages.

So, it is still happening today. Instead of immigrants coming to America, we simply immigrate our companies to foreign countries so we can use their cheap workforce to pad the pockets of the shareholders and CEOs of major American corporations.

Today, China’s hybrid Communist/Free Enterprise system is having its way with America. The masses of cheap labor and hungry consumers in China alone is almost 4 times the size of the American market, and that is just China.

I write all of this not necessarily to condemn the practices of corporations taking advantage of its workers but to merely make a point.

The Real Secret to Massive Success is to have as many people working for you for as little as you can get by with paying them as possible.

A person who invests $1.5 million dollars in a corporation as a stockholder making dividends of about 2% will make more money than the employee that makes the products that the corporation sells to the market.

The employee has basically no chance of getting there and whoever has $1.5 million probably has enough money to live on in the first place.

The irony is, that the investor is necessary for the company to get cash to pay for the employee’s wages at a much lower interest rate than if they loaned it from the bank.

Today, there are employee-owned businesses where the corporation rewards its employees with ownership in the company, which I find to be a real step forward in employee compensation and the development of a culture of investing and ownership rather than the entitlement mentality.

At the end of the day though, the most important factor in the success of any type of business is to have as many people working for your wealth as possible, because in order to create products and services it takes a lot of people to do that, even in the coming age of computer automation.

In affiliate and network marketing nothing is more accurate than the notion that success comes with growing numbers, buying your stuff, and selling your stuff. Success in network marketing depends upon the volume of sales you have with your product and the percentage of that volume created by your downline.

IT IS FAIR

Most people in the employee mentality group would say that it isn’t fair to earn income off of the efforts of others because that would give an unfair advantage to those who have the most people in their organization. That would mean that they would have to start by being in someone else’s downline for a while before you could grow your own.

The real truth is that no matter what you do in life you will always do better if you start early, start fast, build your influence over time, make a name for yourself and enlist the power of others towards the fulfillment of your mission. If the mission is a worthy one, people will gladly participate.

In the free enterprise system, everyone has the opportunity to build something special and be the “Top Dog” in an organization developed by you. But, it is essential in my view to make sure you treasure the people who put you there and serve them in any way possible.

The company that serves the most people will be the biggest and most powerful company. The same is true in home businesses.

I guess the reason Napoleon Hill left this out of his books is because of the terrible conditions in which workers for Andrew Carnegie and Henry Fold had to labor. It is a blemish on their crystalline image. But, it is also a major key to their success and leaving it out is, quite frankly, negligent.