A lesson learned at the mall

Retailers that spend on real estate, win.

The most expensive real estate in my county is a mall filled with stores. And those stores are jammed with shoppers. Almost none of them fold, none of them appear to be struggling. Almost all of them are expensive.

Two blocks away, independent stores, stores that cheaped-out on their real estate investment, those guys are struggling.

Well, you're not in retail, maybe, or you're virtual, so what difference does this make to you?

Question: what's your "real estate"?

For most of us, it's people.

Expensive people are just like expensive real estate. If you invest in them, you may just find they pay off. Some businesses work as hard as they can to pay people as little as they can (witness the fights over the minimum wage). What sort of growing business wants the minimum wage? If your business is people-based, as opposed to machine-based, why wouldn't you want people who command more than the minimum?