Thursday, May 5, 2011

Guy Kawasaki told me how to be enchanting. I don't think I'm fast enough.

During today's webinar to promote his new book, Enchantment, Guy Kawasaki talked about achieving success by being likeable, trustworthy, and great. But during the Q&A, Kawasaki said something that struck me as preposterous. “To enchant your wife, do everything she asks you to do -- and do it quickly.” Okay, maybe it does work for some people, but if you don't have that particular fetish, who's enjoying? So, yeah, that left me wondering ...

Still, Kawasaki is a big deal, being an early Apple and all, so I'll share the following points that came out during the Q&A.

• Stemming from his enchantment advice to "engage quickly, engage many people, and engage them often, Kawasaki says, "Answer your email within 24-48 hours; that separates you from most people."

• Constantly push out links on Twitter. Retweet often and on a range of interesting topics. Facebook is different, he says. The key to Facebook is constantly pushing out pictures.

• How long does it take to enchant someone? “I would say two minutes, or in about that order of magnitude," he says, noting that, like it or not, we have 60 seconds to enchant someone. If we mess up we can enchant them later, but only if we're willing to help them upon request and immediately (why am I smelling leather again?)

• Kawasaki acknowledges that not everyone can be enchanted. "If you are going to be enchanting, you will definitely make some people angry." For example, if someone is transparent, a quality Kawasaki recommends, some people might not like them. Live with it.

• How can we know if we're enchanting someone? "If someone is giving you a smile back, then they are probably enchanted by you. Also, if you ask them to do something, will they do it? If so, they are enchanted." (But how fast will they do it? That seems to be the key; yes, yes, I'm struggling with this. I admit it.).

• Who enchants Guy himself? His Enchantment Hall of Fame includes Andrew Zimmern, Queen Latifah, Istanbul, and the MacIIci. Best book ever? If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland.

• Product development advice? Conduct a pre-mortem exercise wherein you take the collective reason of the group to come up with all the reasons something might fail. You need a formal pre-mortem because an informal invite to “share your opinion” will make people hesitate. And it only works when the boss says, “What are the hypothetical reasons we could fail?” Actually, this sounds fun, although after this exercise, you might have to do quite a few things very quickly to appease the boss.

• In a situation when your boss and client disagree, it's hard, but you're not off the hook. In a situation like this, you have to enchant both of them (Kawasaki never said this would be easy).

Conclusion: a) Please don't do everything I tell you quickly, especially if I've been drinking; b) I had a Mac IIfx and I'm pretty sure that was the best Mac ever; c) You win. I do want to read Ueland's book.

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

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