Not all business are equal.

Some businesses are better than others.

What I mean by better is that it will be easier and easier to run the business as the business grows.

'Better' businesses have one thing in common - they are in the business of building 'Assets'.

A good example is McDonalds.

I think it was in Robert Kiyosaki's Cashflow Quadrant where I read that McDonalds is not in the business of selling burgers.

It is in property business.

Selling burgers is just a way for it to fund its property acquisition.

For McDonalds, the asset that it is building is properties.

You may ask,

"What kinds of business are not building an asset?"

Too many.
(See my sig na ture)

One example is a kiosk in a shopping mall selling tidbits and cookies.

Yes, the owner may make money, but he needs to rely on the mall traffic to make money. If the mall increases the rental, his bottomline will suffer. If traffic in the mall shrinks, his business will also be affected.

He doesn't really own anything at the end of the day.

What he could have done is to take down the contacts of the customers and prospects who visit his kiosk and create an online ecommerce site, so that he can directly reach out to them and introduce new products to them. Who knows, his online sales may eventually be more than his offline sales, and he no longer has to depend on the mall for sales.

The same idea applies to online marketing.

Many affiliate marketers are simply promoting their affiliated links.

They are like the kiosk owner in the example above. They don't really own anything other than making some money.

Smarter affiliate marketers will build a list first, before promoting affiliated products.

Look around you and see which business is building an asset and which is not. This will improve your business acumen.

More importantly, if you are in online marketing, ask yourself, are you building an asset in your business?

If you are not, you should start thinking how to restructure your business to do so.

Mind your business