Recursive nature of businesses
Dreaming
Have you ever waked up and after a while realized that you are actually sleeping? Then you wake up again, wonder what happened and start doing normal morning routines… something is still wrong, things are not on their original places. Then you realize that you are still sleeping! Usually fake awakening happens only once or twice, but sometimes you seem to fall to an endless like loop.
Programming
When you design and write web applications like project management system or unit testing framework, it is very likely that on some point you will use your own tool to manage current projects or handle tests. It is very usual on automation process to use program, that creates programs, that creates programs. Programmers talk about recursive functions, which simply means that function or procedure calls itself. They are regarded as little hard to understand, resource eating and dangerous by their infinite loop nature, but as well recursive functions are handy and powerful method implemented on paradigm state on LISP like languages.
Marketing
After second time, when I was involved with Multi Level Marketing company (GNLD & AMWAY) I realized same things that I found from sleeping loop and with making software tool, that was meant to create other similar tools. Many of the business opportunities are based on selling the very same opportunity to the new prospects. The law on majority of countries prevents this sort of activity and that’s why MLM companies has to have hard consumer products for sale too. While it is debatable, if study courses and DVDs are immaterial or hard products, because they could be delivered in digital format anyway, it is clear that this sort of business is on spotlight of business investigators.
Now what I want to say here is that majority of Internet business models follow the same idea. It has really made me think of longevity and also reliability and ethical base of such businesses. What we can surely conclude is, that relatively new to own business start up or Internet business are easily trapped to these recursive marketing products. Reason for this attraction might come from various reasons like: 1) lack of knowledge 2) hope for quick money 3) our natural tendency to recursive thinking and acting!
In fact, many people seem to realize it quite soon, if all the hype of the product is toward selling the opportunity or selling knowledge and tools, which can be used on any market and product promoting. It is definitely good idea to promote high converting products on their highest demand, but Joint Venture programs and product launches are very seasonal in their nature. I would never put all the effort on them, but invest and promote products and services, that has strong history, that rely on durable evolution and which has timeless benefit for the user. From such point of view you are more like making the business, not just quick money. Many has realized that nowadays and actually trend on Internet at the moment is on continuity products or membership sites in other words.
Now I don’t know, if you can benefit from these observations itself, but what I am sure, is that being aware of commonalities between different subjects in life can help you to understand bigger picture; how we act, why we act and when we act. Understanding these kind of things is always an advantage for marketer.
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I’ve had similar musings based on a similar set of ideas. I did design for web marketing for multilevels… and how you slice the idea of “what is a pyramid”, “what is a multi-level”, “what is a franchise”, and even “what is religion”…
Humans make decisions based on social relationships and immediate needs. If someone you know or trust or like or admire says something is a good idea, you’re hugely more likely to buy in.. vs. seeing an impersonal presentation of the decision-shaping but impersonal ‘facts’ about a product.
Multilevels leverage that one-to-one sales pressure. The internet is more impersonal, and it’s harder to leverage that personal pressure. Celebrities are useful. But that is where the power of Facebook marketing comes in… people can become ‘fans’ of a product or service thereby endorsing it to their ‘friends’ or social network. But as soon as they can make money doing it, to some extent it discredits that person and that product.
So, the opportunity to become a fan should be put out there, and people need to be reminded they have that option, but as soon as there’s an incentive added, then the ‘fan’ becomes an agent of the seller, not the ‘friends’ and therefor it weakens the message of fandom.