Owning vs. Renting

Call me old-fashioned, but I still believe that private ownership of property is one of the best ideas around.

People tend to care about the stuff they own more so than they care about the property of others. Ask any landlord, and you'll probably get confirmation of this.

But, these days, too many people have a renter's mindset, and that's a possible reason they may be struggling.

If you own something, no one can take it away from you (unless it's stolen or the government confiscates it for whatever reason). But, for the most part, if you own something, it's yours for keeps.

Consider, though, what happens when you rent. When you rent, you generally have a lease. You may have a lease term, maybe a year, two years, three years, etc. Then you have to sign a new lease, unless you have an auto-renew clause.

But, in the terms of the lease, there's usually a termination clause. This spells out the conditions under which your lease may be terminated and you might be kicked out of your home or business.

This could be with as little as 30 days notice (or more or less).

So, imagine you find a prime location for your business. It's a great spot. Plenty of traffic coming by. A visible spot. Easy to get to. Plenty of parking. It's perfect!

You rent a spot and merrily go about your business.

Then, one day, perhaps the landlord wants to start his own business or has a son that wants to start one. At any rate, he decides not to renew your lease. Or, maybe he finds a way that allows him to terminate your lease sooner.

At any rate, you're out of luck. Goodbye prime location! Goodbye traffic! Goodbye visibility! Goodbye available parking!

Maybe you'll find another good spot. Maybe even a better spot. In the meantime, you've got the expense of moving and notifying customers where you are now and so on.

That wouldn't have happened if you had owned your spot. You wouldn't have been forced out by a landlord whose son wanted to open a disco bar. You'd be happily going about your business and you'd only have to move if you made the decision to do so, because you wanted a bigger or better spot or whatever.

Of course, owning a building can be expensive. It could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy one. It could cost hundreds a month to maintain.

It's not something everyone can afford.

However, owning your own website is much more economical. You could build it yourself for next to nothing. You can get hosting for less than a cup of coffee a day. Even the more expensive websites out there are cheap compared to owning a bricks and mortar shop.

Yet, people get stuck in that renter mentality. Instead of investing in improvements in their own business, on their own website, they decide to become "renters" on third-party sites.

And then, when those third-parties pull the rugs out from under them, they are shocked and appalled.

It's not unlike a renter getting kicked out of their spot. "I paid them $2,000 a month for 5 years and THIS is how they treat me!?"

Very similar to the reaction you see from people who have had their pages removed on various content sites lately.

Of course, these same people might have no problem removing user-generated content from their own websites or blogs if they felt it hurt them in the search engines or whatnot.

The bottom line is that the only thing you really have control over is the stuff you own. Always make those things the focal point of your marketing efforts. Use third-parties as tools for your promotions and don't let yourself become their tool.

Or, do you think it's better to be a renter in the online world?