When I was a kid growing up in Santa Monica, California, I would occasionally play with a group of boys that included a boy named Tony Alva. One day Tony decided to ride his skateboard and do tricks inside of a dry swimming pool instead of on the pavement, and the kid literally transformed himself into a skateboarding legend. An entirely new era in skateboarding was born on that day, and all of today's skateboarding parks and competitions evolved from Tony's idea. Today Tony is looked upon as the person responsible for transforming skateboarding into the popular sport that it is today.

You never know when an idea is going to change things in a big way.

I recently read an article in my local newspaper that had me believe there's a huge marketing opportunity for real estate agents and business owners just waiting to explode. The article mentioned that some of the employees at a local movie theater decided to experiment late one night and see if they could connect and play an in-home gaming system within the theater. They finally got everything connected at about 1:00 in the morning after everyone had gone home, and the results were like nothing they had ever imagined...

They found themselves playing video games on the big screen with larger-than-life images, accompanied by the incredible sound of the theater's state-of-the-art sound system. The experience was so overwhelming that they didn't stop playing until 5:00 in the morning!

As a result of this experience, the word has gotten out and people are lining up to rent out individual theaters in the multiplex at $35.00 an hour to do the same. The adults are reserving the theaters to play the games after midnight, and the kids and teenagers are arriving early in the morning on weekends to play for hours before the movies begin. While these local theaters in my area may be the only place this is happening at the moment, being the first to bring this experience to one of your local movie theaters could immediately get you incredible publicity in your real estate business. We all know how much kids and teenagers love playing video games at home, so can you imagine what this experience would be like for them on a far grander scale in a movie theater instead?

You could rent out a movie theater and invite the children and teenagers of people you want to be doing business with. Can you imagine how the parents of these kids will remember you when their children come home beaming with excitement about the experience they've just had? And if you play your cards right, your local newspaper will probably want to interview you about how you came up with this brilliant new idea in the first place. You may even find that it makes good business sense to rent out a theater once a week or once a month for awhile for the kids because it will lead to some really great business for you.

I can't say with 100 percent certainty that playing home video games in movie theaters is sure to catch on in a big way. But with home video games being overwhelmingly popular, combined with how kids and teenagers are always looking for an even more exciting playing experience, I have to believe that there's a potential explosion out there just waiting to happen.

Published: September 30, 2004

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Jim Gillespie, Ph.D., is America's Premier Real Estate Coach℠. He has over 20 years of experience in real estate sales and is a past president of three different real estate companies. His FREE real estate E-newsletter with tips and creative ideas to help agents make more money is now read by over 35,000 agents nationwide. You can subscribe to his FREE E-newsletter by visiting RealEstateSalesCoach.com or contact him at Jim@RealEstateSalesCoach.com.