Five best-selling authors, Speaker Hall of Fame recipients, internationally-acclaimed business consultants and best buddies give their insights on business and life.

From Scott McKain:

Employees should remember EVERYONE is replaceable – those who aren’t distinctive get replaced first.

Steve Jobs died in 2011.  Apple just reported their most profitable quarter ever. Tim Cook is good, too. McDonald’s just replaced their CEO – made zero difference to the taste of a Big Mac. Think you’re more important to your company than they were to theirs?

Unless you find a way to change, grow, stand out, and create distinction – why shouldn’t your company replace you with someone who has more desire and fewer demands?

The purpose of any business is to create customers – not employees.  Don’t misunderstand; I believe companies perform optimally when they build a culture that cares about their employee’s satisfaction, happiness, and encourages the professional growth and development of everyone on the team.

However, I recently heard this interesting remark:  “We’re wrong about Darwin. He wasn’t about ‘survival of the fittest’ as much as that the surviving species are the ones most willing to adapt and change.”

Unless you are willing to invest personal effort to change, grow, and separate yourself from the pack – why should any company that desires to create distinction allow you to survive as their employee?

Scott McKain teaches how organizations and individual professionals can create distinction in their marketplace, and deliver the “Ultimate Customer Experience ®.” For more information: www.ScottMcKain.com

From Larry Winget:

You are paid to work: not make personal calls, do your social media or any other personal activity.  Every employee should stop and ask themselves, “Is this what I was hired to do and am being paid to do?” If not, you are stealing from your employer and should stop.

You are an expense.  If the cost to have you employed exceeds your value, then there is no reason for the company to employ you.  Always be adding to your value.

No one likes a whiner, complainer, gossip or trouble-maker, but everyone loves a person who will do what it takes to get it done, is willing to be of service to anyone and can be counted on.

Businesses don’t exist to make employees happy.  They want their employees to be happy, but that is not the reason they are in business.  They are in business to be profitable.  They do that by having products and services their customers want and by serving those customers well. It’s a simple equation. Employees need to understand it and contribute to the profitability of the company in order to have job security.

Yep, I’m a hardass.

Larry Winget, the Pitbull of Personal Development®, is a six-time NYT/WSJ bestselling author, social commentator and appears regularly on many national television news shows. To find out more, go to www.LarryWinget.com.

From Joe Calloway:

Employees should remember that they should never have to work for a jerk who is disrespectful or takes advantage of them or anyone else.  If you are getting less than you deserve, you should remember Johnny Paycheck, who took his job and…quit.

The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you start a pattern that’s hard to change.  The question is, what do you deserve?  Not as a human being, but as an employee in a competitive job market.

Employees should endeavor to place themselves in a position where they command the maximum they can possibly get.

There’s one way to do that:  be valuable. Produce results so impressive and compelling that you can’t be denied.  Be in a position to replace the job you have with a better one because any employer would be crazy not to want you – to bid up the price for you.

Be so valuable that when you say “I quit,” your employer will say “You can’t.  We won’t let you. What will it take for you to stay?”

Be that valuable, and you can call the shots.

Joe Calloway helps great companies get even better. www.JoeCalloway.com.

From Randy Pennington:

Do you feel richer than you did a year ago? I didn’t think so.

Salaries increased an average of 3 percent across all jobs in 2014. Average wages for hourly employees actually dropped 1.7 percent last year. Health care premiums were up an average of 4.7 percent.

Here is what you need to know about getting paid what you want:

• Your economic value is based on the importance, complexity, and urgency of the problems you can solve. Your salary is based on the cost of acquiring your job at a fully competent level from the marketplace. You will receive some bonus points if you are a superior performer, but not much and not a promotion based on longevity.
• It is your responsibility to make yourself more valuable. Your employer—at least the good ones—will help you develop in the job you hold. The exceptional ones will offer career advancement opportunities. But for the majority of employers, it is up to you.

There is a reason doctors earn more than nurses. There is a reason that the go-to person in your company earns more than you. Increase your skills. Become that go-to person. That is how you get ahead.

Randy Pennington helps leaders deliver positive results in a world of accelerating change. To find out more, go to www.penningtongroup.com.

From Mark Sanborn:

You give your work dignity.

Politicians remind us that work gives people dignity, and it does.

But how you do your job determines the importance and impact of it. B.C. Forbes said, “There is more credit and satisfaction in being a first-rate truck driver than a tenth-rate executive.”

Martin Luther King said it well, “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

As an employee you might feel you have a redundant job that is dead end. Continue to look for better work, but in the meantime, why not accept the challenge of doing your job as well as you can and perhaps even recreating it to be more fulfilling?

Having a job helps give you dignity. How you do it gives dignity to the job.

Mark Sanborn is president of Sanborn & Associates, Inc., an idea studio for leadership development. He is an award-winning speaker bestselling author of books including, The Fred Factor. For more information and free resources, visit www.marksanborn.com.