Reinventing the wheel
Revolutionary ideas have always been the mark of humanity. It is what made us superior to animals and shows that we are the dominant species on this planet. Invention and innovation made life easier and even more complicated. Ironically, technology is making each generation culturally different.
There is an old adage not to reinvent the wheel. Which implies quite a bit that some inventions are perfect as they are. MLM and MLS are two attempts to “Reinvent the wheel” Does technology finally allow drastic changes within the marketing and real estate industry?
It is interesting to see how many internet millionaires get their money from MLM programs. I have not met anyone who has not personally used some type of viral, reseller or MLM solution to earn their first million in cyberspace.
Scalability is rarely an issue for an Internet business, especially a service-oriented business. Physical stores take time to build a larger facility, table space limitations for restaurants, shelf space for boutiques; even garage space is needed for a cutting shop to expand operations. However, cyberspace can add web pages to a site if it takes up very little space. Hosting companies may have hard drive space limitations, but it is very economical to add more. Changing your hosting company doesn’t change the market either. The adage of location, location, location does not apply to an Internet business.
Position and exposure in search engines is the game that location once was. The higher you are in the search engines, the more traffic your business ‘location’ will get. However, traditional MLM has changed this approach. Getting people to market their product and get more and more from these distributors based on a nested commission approach also took a very drastic turn by turning the location into an “I’m everywhere” business. Starbucks can be successful in this approach by using brick and mortar. But who hasn’t been approached by a friend or family member with an MLM business at one point or another? Avon built a successful brand using nothing more than a network of independent distributors. Although MLM is not an approach for everyone, no matter what your friendly Amway distributor says, but there is no denying that it generated millions of dollars for people all over the world.
Real Estate MLS is another way to reinvent the wheel by creating a centralized database for buyers and sellers to come together, which is the complete opposite of the MLM approach. It created a thriving place for business to happen. As a kid, I always wondered why stores that sold the same merchandise would come together in droves to compete with each other for every sale. Then one day I realized the response as a consumer. If I wanted a computer peripheral, I go to a place where there are many computer stores. If I want to buy clothes, I go to a mall where there are many options. Malls, Sotheby’s, Wal-Mart, amazon.com and e-bay created a one-stop shop where people go and shop. A centralized database is cheaper and offers the consumer more options. The flat rate MLS in the real estate industry probably saved millions of sellers in the US.
Is it possible to join these two theorems, extremely different approach to reach the consumer, two attempts to reinvent the wheel of any business? www.4thishouse.com is definitely going to give it a try. You will try to achieve a centralized and fully automated national real estate service that is sold through MLM. It is now possible for anyone with a website to earn income through the real estate industry without being a licensed real estate agent. Someone said that this is a drastic attempt to reinvent the wheel. 4thishouse.com’s answer is simple. We just added revolutionary new rims, rubbers and grooves that have already been proven to work and put them together.
Time will tell if this will work. Affiliate links are no doubt putting www.4thishouse.com at the top. I guess it’s back to location, location, location one more time. This time around, the new wheel has the power of cool, shiny 18-inch chrome rims and lab-tested grooves and rubbers.