We’re talking about SUPERGODS
How are they are created? Specifically, how do you transform yourself to have such incredible status with prospects and clients?
To be clear, there are Imitators, and Innovators – which are you?
The answer requires an in-depth look at Superman, and early comic book history.
Superman first appeared in June 1938, however, his creation started 7 years earlier. That’s how long his creators, Jerry Siegel and Joseph Shuster, spent tinkering with their Superman concept before it was ready to take on the world.
This superman was unable to fly.
He resorted instead to tremendous single bounds. He could neither orbit the world at the speed of light nor stop the flow of time. That would come later. Superman made his position plain: He was a hero of the people. Truth, Justice and the American way.
He was a ray of hope to Depression-era fears (remember, the year was 1938).
By the time the first Superman story concluded, just thirteen pages in a comic book, Siegel and Shuster had given the world the first superhero.
The Superhero concept caught on immediately with the public.
The Superman Fan Club soon had hundreds of thousands of members.
After all those years of frustrated false starts and countless rejections, Siegel and Shuster had struck gold. Naturally, the obvious thing to do was to sell the rights. And they did, for a whopping $130, with no royalty or any share of back-end revenue.
Superman is now a billion dollar asset.
Why would anybody sell the rights to Superman for $130 bucks?
Bat-shit crazy?
My guess, Siegel and Shuster imagined they’d create other, better characters. They thought that, Superman, was just their first big hit. That there’d be many more. However, Siegel failed to ever create another character that rivaled the same primal impact of Superman.
He and Shuster, though, had done something spectacular. They established the rules (and foundation) upon which new universes could be built.
The challenge now…
Where would the next hit Superhero come from?
How do you follow-up the success of Superman without copying him – which many tried – triggering many lawsuits. It took seven years of tinkering to create Superman, to get him perfect, so how do you now start over, and create a superhero capable of his kind of mass appeal and success?
How do you create the next “big hit”, but not create, copy, or clone Superman directly?
I find this is THE challenge of most business people.
Most entrepreneurs.
Most marketers and copywriters
Most real estate agents.
They see something working, so they try to copy it as close as humanly possible. Changing “it” only the barest minimum to avoid out-right theft, plagiarism, copyright infringement, legal battles, etc. – which usually doesn’t work.
Just ask the many who tried to copy Superman “too closely.” They found themselves in DC’s doghouse, punished, and looking like fools.
Real estate agents are amongst the worst offenders, most blatant and “criminal” about this. Just look at your competitors…
They see an ad or USP, or anything for that matter, that they like. Done by any competitor or peer in their marketplace (or from afar) that… they think is working… and now “rip it off” for use in their own business.
Incidentally, this is why real estate is a giant cesspool of “same-as-ness.”
Zero-differentiation among agents and peers.
Just as every early comic book creator attempted to clone Superman, too closely, every agent attempts to copy the “Superman” in his or her marketplace – whatever “that thing” is, he or she is doing…
End result = zero differentiation, zero competitive advantage.
Hopefully, it’s obvious to you how poor of an approach most agents take to Innovation and for success in business. Just like trying to clone Michael Jordan, you can’t, you just end up with his retarded cousin, the effect of severe dilution.
INCREMENTAL vs. TRANSFORMATION.
Most people are incremental-ists. Most only ever try to do things “incrementally” better. Most never try to grow by leaps and bounds, just inches. And people wonder why experiencing breakthroughs is so difficult…
To experience breakthroughs, you must think in terms of transformation, doing things entirely different. Not copying. But being a slave to Innovation.
Innovation often requires re-invention of how you operate. I suspect this is probably the reason most choose the path of incremental-ism; it’s easier.
Less taxing intellectually….
So, how do you follow-up the success of Superman without copying him directly?
How do you start over, and create a superhero capable of Superman’s kind of appeal and success?
But not create, copy, or clone him directly?
We’re just talking about Mega-Agents here, aren’t we?
How do you replicate their success, but not get labeled as a follower?… as a lemming.
(You do want to be seen as a Leader, don’t you?)
Here is the answer…
Don’t speak to the “Religious,” speak to the UN-Churched.
This is how the next great superhero was born.
Batman creator, Bob Kane, looked at Superman… broke him down on every level, right down to his moral and philosophical code… then built from the ground up, his polar opposite. The Batman.
Batman was born from the the ‘deliberate reversal’ of everything in the Superman dynamic: Superman was an alien with incredible powers; Batman was a human with no superhuman abilities.
Superman’s costume was brightly colored; Batman’s was gray-scale and somber with mocking flashes of yellow.
In his secret Clark Kent identity, Superman was a hardworking farmer’s son who grew up in small-tow Kansas, while Batman’s Bruce Wayne enjoyed life as a wealthy playboy – an East Coast sophisticate descended from old money.
Clark had a boss; Bruce had a butler.
Clark lusted after Lois; Bruce burned through a string of debutantes and leading ladies.
Superman worked alone; Batman had a boy partner, Robin.
Superman was of the day: Batman was of the night and the shadows.
Superman was rational, Apollonian; Batman as Dionysian (concepts of Greek mythology).
Etc., etc., etc.
The only thing Superman and Batman agree on, is that killing is wrong!
So, how to do you start over?
How do you create a superhero capable of Superman kind-of-appeal-and-success, but not create or clone him directly?
It seems obvious now.
The answer was to reverse the polarity. Do the opposite.
Superman was a hero of the day, bright and gaudy and ultimately optimistic… the Tim Tebow of 1938…
What about a hero of the night?
By simply doing the opposite, Kane, cracked a second “code” for creating superheroes.
This fascinating new hero was horned like the Devil and most at home in the darkness; a terrifying, demonic presence who worked on the side of the angels.
It’s (extremely) rare for people to be fans of both, Batman and Superman, because each character was built to appeal to, engineered strategically, and fundamentally, to two very different types of people.
You are either a “Superman-type”, or a “Batman-type.”
Inside the Syndicate, we speak to the “UN-Churched.”
Like Bob Kane, we’ve chosen to deliberately reverse the polarity of how the other 99% of real estate agents operate.
Other agents do listing presentations, we don’t.
They make cold-calls and deal with rejection, we don’t.
They do unbranded advertising, we don’t.
They focus on the “size” of their team, and expensive websites, we don’t.
They beg and plead for business, we don’t.
They chase prospects, we don’t.
They beg family and friends for referrals, we don’t.
They work nights and weekends and neglect their families, we don’t.
They advertise free list homes, we don’t.
They do free home evaluations, we don’t.
They use gimmicks and misleading USPs, we don’t.
They focus on their ego, and everything is (always) about them, we don’t.
They have scripts and dialogues, we don’t.
They pride themselves in being “strong closers”, we don’t.
In fact, we believe if you must “close” strong, you are failing. When you Open Strong as an ‘Authority’ and as ‘A Someone’, closing is just the natural next step… this a key difference between Lead generation (as most gurus and trainers teach) and Love generation, aimed at earning impermeable trust.
Inside the Syndicate, we’ve taken to Innovation like Bob Kane – deliberate reversal of “Superman,” and mega-agents to create Batman…
Why be like your competitors, when you can be their polar opposite? … and even more successful.
Why be a follower, when you can be a Leader?
Discussed in the video series offered on this site, I discuss the ‘Three Pillars’ we lean on inside the Syndicate for constant and never-ending innovation.
These ‘Three Pillars’ put forth a path, anyone can walk and travel…
-RYAN FLETCHER
