New Models

The real estate industry is one of the oldest industries around. As long as people have been around, there has been a need for them to have shelter. In an industry as "old" as this, it is tough to come up with anything new. Sometimes we have to look outside of our industry for inspiration.

Over the years I have become fascinated with business models. Each industry has its own model that follows a line of thinking and most people and companies line up behind that mode of thinking and go out and do business the same way. There is nothing wrong with that, in fact, it is a very smart and safe way to grow your business. Like I said, each industry has its own model, so it is always interesting to me to look at how different industries make money.

Every once in a while, I find a business-model nugget that I can apply to a situation in our own business that let's me address a problem that my old model couldn't or wouldn't address. As you explore different models and challenge the models of other industries you begin to learn a new language of problem solving and business modeling.

There is a company that I am quite fond of that has a unique approach to their own highly-competitive market, that company is Morgan-James Publishing. If you think real estate is brutal, you should take a look at the publishing industry...NO THANKS! Anyway, the founder of the company, David Hancock, does things differently. His company is known as The Entrepreneurial Publisher and they have created their own model that will no doubt serve as the new model for many companies. You see, they have dared to try something new...something that hasn't been done before. It is worth checking out their websiteto see what they are doing.
www.MorganJamesPublishing.com



My point is that we cannot expect to get better results by doing what we have done for years. We have to aggressively search for new ways to conduct business. We have to dare to try some things and understand that not everything is going to work. There are no guarantees, so we have to keep reinventing ourselves and look for inspiration outside of our industry if that is what it takes.

My suggestion would be to do some research on what IT, web and computer companies were successful after the dot com bust, to find out how the industry as a whole responded to the down turn in the economy and the market. We can learn from other industries and other mistakes as if they were our own if we pull our heads out of the daily grind and look around. There are golden lessons to be learned and they are your for the taking. By reviewing other models, we gain deeper insight into how we might move forward in a given situation where we otherwise might have be prone to make snap judgments that tend to make things worse.

We have our challenges, but the answers are out there! It is time to reinvent our businesses and in the mean time, reinvent the real estate industry.

We would love to know what you are doing different in the new economy.

Regards,

Rob

http://www.LocalRealEstateDeals.com