Nathan’s Famous stand on Coney Island held it’s first ever hot dog eating contest on July 4, 1916. The event has been held almost every year since.

On July 4, 2010 Joey Chestnut, three-time defending champion, defended his title by consuming 54 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes. I don’t think I would ever want to do what Joey Chestnut did because in my case there would be an ambulance and several doctors involved.

You may ask, "What does Joey get out of this deal?"

He gets around $200,000 a year in endorsements and appearance fees, and in the past year was awarded at least one new automobile.

Only in America could a guy eat hot dogs for a living and make close to a quarter million dollars doing it.

If a guy can eat hot dogs and make that much money, don’t you think you can create a $100,000 a year income with your product or service?

What is keeping you from attaining your income goals and reaching a six-figure income in your business?

Here are five questions to ask yourself:

1. Is my product or service needed in the marketplace?

2. If it is needed, what do I have to do to make sure everybody knows my product or service is available?

3. How much time and effort am I willing to put into creating a six-figure income from my business, and what am I willing to sacrifice?

4. Are my products or services priced in a way I can realistically generate a six-figure income? Do the math. What does it take to generate a six-figure income? $8333 a month will gross $100,000 a year. That is around $50 an hour for a 40-hour work week.

So if you charge $100 per hour, you only have to bill 4 hours a day or 20 hours a week to reach your goal. If you charge $200 an hour, you only have to bill 10 hours per week. You can spend your remaining time marketing and developing other products or services that will generate more income and put you in the top 1% of wage earners in the country, which is around $200,000 per year. If you spend 80 hours creating a great keynote speech that you can use over and over again and get paid $3000 per speech, how would that contribute to you reaching your six-figure income goal? Or you can create a product you sell over and over again. In these two scenarios, you do the work one time and generate income from your efforts for years to come. The possibilities are endless. You can run different scenarios with different numbers and see what you come up with for your business.

5. How can I make better use of my time to make sure I get the most out of every day? The person making a six-figure income is very careful how they spend their time, and they are very protective of their time. You generally won’t see them “having coffee” with “prospective" clients.

If you just answer the few questions above, you will be doing something most people in business never do. As surprising as this sounds, I run across business owners and professionals all the time who have not answered these questions and have not done the math to see what it would take to generate the income they need to live the lifestyle they want to live.

The alternative to answering the five questions above is you can eat hot dogs and try to beat Joey Chestnut’s record next year. We live in America and you do have a choice.

To Your Success,