It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you first start your online business.
It looks like there are so many options and easy options at that. All of the big online social media sites offer a place to park your business. Which option will you pick?
It is easy to fall prey to this type of thinking with the virtual smorgasbord out there.
Some who think they know, say you don’t need a website for your business. You just need a “ready in 5 minutes” solution on their platform.
It’s free! It’s quick! It’s cheap!
Yeah and it’s not yours and it can be dangerous for your business.
Here is why…
Renting your business space and spending your resources to build that space is really putting the money in the landlords pocket. Working hard to send folks to your rented space is sending folks to your landlords place. In the online world, you don’t even have the advantage of renting your space. It is their space to do with your business what is in their best interest.
They make the rules and they change those rules often. Especially when you have so much into it that is is near impossible to leave or worse they lose the traffic you depended on much like Yahoo, Myspace and Digg have. The cost of their space, you use, increases their value and goes up for you every time you put your time, money and effort into it.
Own your own
When you own your online business property the cost is much less over time. It is your asset that you own and control. The increases in value as you put the correct type of time, money and effort into it goes directly to you – THE OWNER.
Isn’t it better to work for yourself and not Facebook or Google.
If Google is the place you spend your treasure to gather your business clients from, you work for Google.
If you spend all of your time driving “your customers” to your Facebook page, you work for Facebook.
They change their terms of service without asking you and whenever they want. Often requiring you to pay ever increasing amounts to keep your customers in the loop. Worse, what happens when they delete your page. They can and have done this. They do not care about your problems. They are too big to worry about you.
If most of your customers come from any one source, you have all of your eggs in one basket and you work for them.
Don’t you think it is better to rely on yourself? Use the social networks to drive folks to the business you own.
Don’t be an online sharecropper.
If you do, you do the work and take all of the risk. Your landlord rakes in the wealth and benefit.
The other problem with putting all of your eggs in one basket is that the landlord may or may not be here next year.
Individual online sharecroppers in the past put hundreds even thousands of hours into a site like Digg or MySpace. Their efforts literally went down the tubes following the fortunes of those landlords.
Any landlords property can become less valuable over time, even while you work the property your business is built on hard. Even worse, you can completely lose it at the whim of your landlord.
Instead, build your OWN ASSETS!
Here are three of the most important assets you should build:
- A well thought out and modern website.
- An opt-in email list where you provide value
- A reputation for providing fascinating information
These things are not that hard are like buying your own building instead of renting it.
Fortunately, it is easier than ever to own your online business. It is so worth it.
Leave a Reply