The article below may contain affiliate links from which I may receive some compensation at no extra cost to you. These commissions help keep the site going and can help you on your financial journey. Please read my Disclosure for more info.
Last Updated on August 9, 2021 by Tyler Clark
7 Job Styles, Which One’s Best Overall?
Whether it is or not, read this first. Your income, stress and satisfaction all come into play in any type of job you take on.
Choose well and you could find you’re making great money and living the dream lifestyle you’ve always wanted.
Choose wrong and things can take a different path.
As a fitness consultant, I trained clients with all sorts of different jobs and because I trained them for long periods of time, I got to see how their jobs affected their lifestyles.
This shows you a lot about their overall satisfaction.
For some, their job was great but the pay was low. Others had high paying jobs but really high stress work environments.
There are tradeoffs and different aspects to each job out there and you need to figure out which one is best for you.
It gets really interesting when you’re looking at the different styles of consulting jobs. I feel this is a lesser discussed area of the job market that I want to shed some light on for you.
It may be one of the best dichotomies of good job income and satisfaction that I’ve seen.
There are other job styles I highly suggest you avoid or only work in for short periods of time as well.
We’re going to break it all down for you.Â
Let’s take a look.
Each Job Type also has a:
- Money Potential Rating: $-$$$$$
- Stress Rating: Low to all the way to Extreme
- Satisfaction Rating: Low to Extreme.
In the conclusion, we rank the overall satisfaction potential of each job type as well.
Let’s take a look at some of the options out there starting with the standard employee job.
Job Types
1. Regular Job
You are a standard employee. You work for someone and there might be some advancement but in general, your job is your job and you’re comfortable with that for the most part.
Employees often have some stress but not crazy amounts of it and enjoy a decent living and lifestyle.
Example: I have a friend who works for the city and he’s always felt his job is comfortable, pays him well enough and fulfills his main career aspirations.
Money Potential: $$Â $40,000-85,000+
Stress: Average.
Satisfaction: Average to high.
2. Executive Job
This job type can include:
- Marketing
- Sales
- Accountants
- Human resources
- Logistics
- Management
- Clerical
- CEOs and all other business roles
In this job, you are in a more competitive environment where hard work offers you the chance for advancement and more challenging roles. Executives often like a little more challenge in their careers and are looking to make a bit more money than the average person.
Example: I’ll never forget finding a “bonuses” list in a washroom at a big downtown corporate building. Someone had left it on the counter. It listed bonuses for everyone in the company from the secretaries to some of the higher executives. Even the secretaries were getting $6000 dollar bonuses. Some of the executives where getting well over $50,000+ bonuses.
The executive has the ability to get a higher level job that may offer bonuses and a higher level salary. Fairly straightforward right? Right.
Money Potential: $$$ $75,000-500,000+
Stress: Above average to high. Having to travel, attend many meetings, present in those meetings and work off hours were all contributors.
Satisfaction: Average to high.
Most of the executives I trained were satisfied with their jobs and they felt security for the most part. They felt this security because they’d reached a point where their skills were strong enough that if one company went under or changed approaches, they could move to another company and offer value.
3. Consultant Job (Low and High Capped)
We’re going to include a very broad spectrum of consultants in this category including Doctors, Lawyers, Home Inspectors, Plumbers, Framers, Personal Trainers, Massage Therapists and alike. The one key difference between this category and the next is that all of these consultants are basically capped in their jobs.
This is a super important aspect to the job.
If you want to learn more about Capped and Uncapped Consultants, definitely read my article, The Curse of The Capped Consultant to learn more.
There are two sub categories of capped consultant jobs: Low and High Capped.
Low Capped Consultant
First, there are the lower level capped consultants. These consultants are often capped by industry averages.
This job type can Include:Â
- Home inspectors, plumbers and other trades
- Personal trainers, massage therapists, nutritionists, fitness instructors
- Other self-employed people working independently.
- Business, IT and or Management Consultant etc.
These people are in that dollars for hours category and in most cases, those dollars for hours are between $40-$100. I did know a few massage therapists and trainers that are charging over a hundred an hour but they not the bulk of the industry.
The industry kind of caps you naturally. Even if you’re the best personal trainer out there, there are lots of trainers that will work for less so that brings the industry standard down. I find the capped consultant is getting paid just enough to be willing to do the job and survive on it.
Example: I knew massage therapists that had ruined their hands, trainers who’s gyms had closed, plumbers who got sick and so forth. Everything has to go well in this job for it all to work out so if you’re in this business, be careful. Things can change quickly (Covid) and decimate your job, not to mention entire industries.
I loved being a trainer so my satisfaction was high and my income was good but it was a very volatile industry. Countless gyms would randomly close and I would have to find another place to train my clients. Many trainers and fitness instructors lost their entire clienteles during Covid. But in the end, the industry was volatile before Covid and it will likely remain that way after.
Money Potential: $$ $50,000-$150,000. To make $150,000, you’re going to be running ragged. Just keep that in mind.
Stress: Above average to very high. This can be a very stressful job category. It’s unpredictable as mentioned, you’re location locked (all your clients are in one city)Â and it can take a long time to build a clientele (client by client build).
Satisfaction: Average to slightly above average.
High Capped Consultant
The high capped category can include:
- Doctors
- Lawyers
- Engineers
- Pilots
- Accountants
Though these consultants are capped, they can still make a lot of money because their pay cap is high.
*The only reason accountants are here is because they can often still be independent as often as they are found working as executives. Some jobs like this will cross two job categories.
Example: All the doctors and lawyers I trained were happy with their careers. Some of the doctors had specialized training that took their salaries well above $500,000 and many lawyers had become partners at their firms and were making large sums of income as well.
That being said, many of the doctors and lawyers felt as though they still weren’t making enough money.
I think this may have been because they were often at many events and living in neighborhoods where the millionaires lived and by comparison, they felt as though the millionaires were outpacing them even though they made good money as high cap consultants.
Money Potential: $$$$ $100,000-$1 million+
Stress: High to very high.
Satisfaction: High. I would say slightly higher among the doctors than the lawyers because lawyers work hard at the higher income levels. Really hard.
4. Consultant Job (Low and High Uncapped)
Low Uncapped Consultant
Low uncapped consultants is an interesting category. People in this category can go from nothing to making incredible amounts of money.
This category can include:
- Artists
- Fortune tellers
- Photographers
- Make up artists
- Feng Shui experts and alike
- DJs
These consultants often don’t have huge incomes but they aren’t capped to the extent that their capped counter parts are.
A great artist can be struggling or become a millionaire.
There’s no real cap to their earning potential. The same goes for a sculptor, photographer or an astrology specialist.
Example: I have a friend who makes art full time and sells it online. This labor intensive passion makes them a couple of thousand a month. It’s not enough to live on their own but it’s a wonderful vocation for the time being and they’re very happy with it.
Money Potential: $$ $20,000-$Unlimited.
Stress: Varied.
Satisfaction: Often very high. Many of these people live for their craft and see the craft as the source of value, not the amount of money they make.
High Uncapped Consultant
The high uncapped category, though competitive can be one of the best job categories out there.
This category can include:
- Real estate agents
- Business consultants
- Interior designers
- Life coaches
- Motivational speakers
- World class athletes and coaches
In many top cities, Real Estate Agents can sell 4 houses in a year and make over a $100,000 dollars. The amount of genuine working hours this can take is also low. Though an agent may go to work the entire year, the work can be more pleasant than that of a full time executive who has a boss breathing down their neck and major deadlines to meet.
Example: I have many realtors in my family and know the business very well. It can be a wonderful business to work in and the sky is the limit for income. The hours are also less horrific than many other jobs that have similar pay.
I’ve trained high end Interior Designers who make very large sums of money through hourly fees and percentage of furniture and décor they install. Life coaches and motivational speakers like Tony Robbins can charge incredibly high amounts of money for just a single hour or day of their personal services.
As mentioned, this is a competitive category but if you can do well in it, it can be one of the most lucrative job types in the world.
Money Potential: $$$$$
Stress: Average to High.
Satisfaction: Low to Extremely High.
5. Business Owner / Entrepreneur
This job category is the most consistent breeder of millionaires bar none. If you can play in this uncapped free market, you can afford yourself the best chance at total financial freedom.
This job type can include:
- Entrepreneurs
- Inventors
- Business Owners
- Investors
Other big differences in this category are that we move away from you being the worker to others working for you.
This is also the category with the least amount of training and guidance, the highest risk and the lowest likelihood of success.
The business world is a double edged sword that plunges to the heart if you fail and cuts your way to the top if you succeed.
Some people love these stakes and others dread them.
Example: A close friend of mine has entered into a franchise partnership recently and got a great location for their new food service business. The location has absolutely exploded and they’re since opened another.
The growth of the business in one year alone has bypassed the income of most of the jobs on this page. This is the kind of thing that can happen when business goes well. Now though the locations of my friend are doing well, I’ve been told that other locations of the same business are just doing ok.
This is the kind of game business can offer you.
Can you make it or will you just survive or fail?
All options are on the table.
Money Potential:Â $-$$$$$Â Debt to Unlimited.
Stress: Low to extreme. I had clients who had no stress at all in their business because that’s where they wanted to be. For them, stress would have been working for someone else.
Satisfaction: Varied. Once again, overall satisfaction was very high among those that found success whereas those who struggled had very low satisfaction levels.
Conclusion
When choosing the right job, there are so many things to consider.
Let’s rank the job types on highest overall satisfaction: (Income, stress and satisfaction level are combined).
Higher Overall Satisfaction:Â
Employee Job
High Capped Consultant Job
Business Owner/ Entrepreneur (granted I was seeing the success stories mostly).
Mid Range Overall Satisfaction:
Executive Job
High Uncapped Consultant Job
Lower Overall Satisfaction:Â
Low Uncapped and Low Capped Consultant jobs
Hopefully this article sheds some light on the different job types that are available and some of the dynamics that come with them. In many cases, your overall satisfaction is related to our personal wants and needs as well.
Choosing the right job for you is an involved process to say the least and there’s so much more to it than what we’ve touched on here.
Good luck in your job hunt and with any luck, you’ll find the sweet spot between income, stress and satisfaction that suits you best for your career.
Best of Wealth,
Tyler.
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.