The Syndrome Effect

When my kids were growing up, one of their favorite movies, I liked it too, was The Incredibles. In that movie, Syndrome was the villain and Syndrome’s evil plan was to sell his technology to the general public and in his words, make everyone special. And when everyone is special – [evil laugh] – no one will be.

The syndrome effect is actually an important dynamic for your business when it comes to your marketing. It’s so easy to be tempted by these amazing technologies and new applications available that look like they could totally transform your, your marketing Chat GPT and AI is the newest example of that. The problem is everyone has access to Chat GPT, and if everyone is using that same amazing tool, it’s no longer amazing when it comes to your customers and clients experiencing it. What makes it work is when it helps you tell your special story in a special way.

So, I’d like to share a three-step process you can use to take full advantage of this new, exciting technology, but preserve your unique message and your unique identity.

What makes you special?

So, the first step is to start with what it is that you have that’s special. What’s your special sauce that’s going to motivate your prospects and your clients to work with you? You want to be make sure you’ve really understood what it is that you do, that no one else can do the way you do it, and that it’s valuable to your prospects.

How can your prospects experience it?

Once you have that well-defined, the next step before you start applying your amazing technologies, is to think about how those customers and clients can experience that in a way that will sink in. What is it they see? What is it they hear? What is it they they feel or touch? Right? That gets them to notice you and be drawn to you because you do something special that for them, nobody else can do. You wanna craft that first.

How can you scale that?

If you’ve done that, then you can look at the amazing tools that are available to scale that effort. But if you do that at the end rather than the beginning, you’re able to preserve, use it as a way to help you tell your unique story rather than have it get lost in the technology. In other words, when you start with Chat GPT, instead of what your message is, they are seeing this commodity experience. But when you start with what your unique value is and then just use these tools to amplify it, you’re able to maintain that special position in the market and get noticed.