Minds and Actions, The Art of Changing Hearts

I bought this book with the intention of using the tips for my side business. The info in the book extends far beyond business. You could put many of the recommendations into practice in your personal and every day life. A great read!

A well expressed. clearly based on real-world experience, instructive and usable set of principles and tools towards better communication, better results in many areas of endeavor. "Enchantment" is also an enjoyable read. My caveat is that I am just half way through the book, I suspect it will keep up the same level of benefit or exceed it to the last page

A VERY disappointing read to say the least! The content was unoriginal, uninspiring and the book seemed like a compilation of other peoples ideas rather than the authors own. In summary, my expectations for this book weren't even close to being met! I recommend reading YES! by Robert Cialdini over this one - you'll find Kawasaki makes reference to it in most of his chapters anyway...

I might be biased because I love Guy Kawasaki, but I reckon Enchantment teaches and enlightens quite a lot on some basic techniques of networking. By enchanting people, you get them on your side and thus supporting you. Loved reading the book, no bull shiitake involved ;)

This book was marketed as being in new condition; however, the dust jacket was covered in splashes of some gooey, sticky substance and ink marks. I felt instantly compelled to wipe it down in Clorox disinfectant and wash my hands, which isn't a reaction I expect when purchasing a "new" book.

Marketing and leadership books are strange animals. Some are great and others make you want to stab yourself in the eye with a fork. Almost all, though, usually fall into one of two categories:

1. How to develop a large and successful business; and
2. Why all marketers are liars

Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki is neither of these; instead, it's a book about one thing:

Influence.

"How can I influence others without moral compromise?" is the question at the heart of Enchantment. And it's an important one. There are a number of easy cheats to convince people to follow your leadership (carrots and sticks) or to buy your product or join your cause (incentives), but eventually those things always fail.

Why? Because they're disingenuous. They don't tap into people's passions. They don't move the heart.

And without that happening, whatever impact you have is fleeting at best.

The "pillars of enchantment" Kawasaki puts forward ones you'd be hard pressed to disagree with:

1. Be likeable
2. Be trustworthy
3. Have a great cause

In other words, be someone you'd actually want to spend time with and offer something that matters. These seem like concepts that should be met with a resounding, "well, I should hope so." I mean, this seems to be common sense, doesn't it? That's thing about common sense, though. To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, it's not that common sense has been tried and found lacking, it's that it's been found difficult and left untried.

Unless you're likeable, it's extremely difficult to be found trustworthy. And unless you're trustworthy, no one will rally around your cause, no matter how good it is.

Whether you're in the for-profit or non-profit world, whether you're in some form of vocational ministry or working for a huge conglomerate, who you are impacts everything you're involved with. Our character can be the scent of life or the stench of death, and we would all do well to remember that.

The rest of the book tackles the implications of being enchanting, from launching your cause, overcoming resistance, using technology, how it plays out with employees and employers, how to make enchantment endure--and even how to resist it.

A key principle that resonated with me is that of endurance. Even if you have the greatest cause, it's essential to remember that "enchantment is a process, not an event." You're working to build a relationship, not just get a sale or get someone to do something for you. And relationships take effort. This is something that is not easy for many in marketing and even in leadership positions to remember. The truth is, though, for many of us, it's easier to try to squeeze whatever we can out of our market today, and not think about the long-term consequences (like having no market in the future).

This is where social media comes in handy, especially Facebook and Twitter (two resources that Kawasaki highly recommends). These two tools allow organizations and individuals to connect in ways that previously weren't possible. And used well, they can allow you to truly enchant your customer or supporter base by engaging on their terms. Dell, among other organizations, fields support questions via Twitter (I know because an associate contacted me once after I complained about my previous laptop). This gives people a great experience with the company, even if they don't like the product.

One of the challenges with social media, though, is finding the right mix of promotion vs. conversation. Kawasaki suggests that if around 5% of your content is promotional, you should be in good shape, but he's also quick to point out that if people aren't complaining, you're probably not promoting enough (p. 115).

(Does this mean my Twitter followers will be seeing a shift in my updates? Probably, and hopefully for the better.)

Principles aside, the thing that caught my attention about this book is that it brought to mind people I know who are naturally good at this. They just seem to "get" that this is the kind of person you need to be in order to be successful. Take some time and look around your office, your school or whatever context you spend most of your day in, and I suspect you'll see at least one or two people who are naturally "enchanting" as well.

So here's the big question: Will this book help you to be "enchanting" in your sphere of influence?

Possibly. This isn't a book that guarantees that if you follow these 8 easy steps, you'll have more friends, better posture and piles of candy. What it does remind readers, though, is that the only way to really make a lasting impact on people is to act with integrity. That's a big deal and advice we would all do well to heed.

If you have a chance, do pick up a copy of Enchantment. It's definitely a worthwhile investment and just might challenge you in a few places where you won't expect it.

"They are joined one to another,
They stick together and cannot be parted." -- Job 41:17 (NKJV)

Enchantment is Guy Kawasaki's extension of Robert Cialdini's classic, Influence, in trying to integrate lessons from behavioral psychology to the level of creating a marketing program that makes enough of a lasting impression with a superior offering to make people change their habits. The book is mostly based on summarizing research done by others, with examples drawn either from the research methods or Mr. Kawasaki's personal experiences as a consumer. For someone who wants to understand how to be more influential in encouraging engagement and stickiness, the book is a decent summary that will save reading a lot of other sources and assembling them into a program. However, the book doesn't add much beyond being a digest of that research.

I mainly disagree that the book lays out a program for creating "enchantment," a psychological state that captures how people behave when they are doing something they love, just for the joy of it . . . such as finger painting with a child and not caring about the mess while having a giggling good time. Now a book with a title like "Enchantment" is going to sell a lot more copies than one about "Engagement and Stickiness" so I don't blame him for using it . . . but I think he's overselling his contents.

I appreciate that Mr. Kawasaki clearly states that he is on the side of ethical "enchantment." I found that the advice didn't always seem to match up with that standard. One glaring example is calculating how much swearing to do and when to make the best possible impression on listeners. To me, that seems more manipulative than enchanting.

A lot of behavior is also defined so narrowly that it will create an impression, but one that may well be forced . . . rather than free flowing. Smiling is a good example. Study the smiling countenance of some celebrity you like. Chances are you'll feel that you are in the same room with the person, and that you are being looked upon as if you were the celebrity's favorite person in the world. That can be enchanting for brief periods of time until you realize that the celebrity is really just putting on a practiced smile for a camera. It's an act.

Personally, I have been much more impressed in my business career by people who expressed actual interest in talking to me, acted with the absolutely highest integrity in every little thing, and honestly told me their innermost thoughts about what was good and not-so-good about their offerings. I didn't quite get that sense here. It was more like being prepared to put lipstick on a pig and present the pig as the greatest thing ever.

I think the lessons and the storytelling would have gone a lot better if they had been applied to a recent launch of an offering that Mr. Kawasaki helped with. Then, the practical problems would have been more obvious, and some good advice could have been presented about how to apply the research. But perhaps Mr. Kawasaki is more of a speaker than a marketing consultant. It was hard to tell from reading the book.

There's a quiz at the end that emphasizes remembering factoids from the book, rather than how to integrate the pieces together. That's emblematic of the book's overall limitations: It's more a pile of pieces than an integrated whole. It's easy to put the pieces of so many little rules together in a way that creates a Frankenstein monster clumping along looking for love rather than an enchanting engagement.

One particular weakness is that the book is probably an attempt to describe now to work with the early triers in a new offering category. These people are intrigued by anything new that offers advantages. Geoffrey Moore has written well on the subject. But most offerings must shift their appeal to meat-and-potatoes advantages if they are to reach a mass market. All of that is mixed up together as though all customers were the same. That's always a mistake.

Read, remember, and apply very cautiously.

This is a business book for people who really want practical advice on how to become a better, more successful, happier business person.

Unlike many business books, it's neither a relentlessly detailed case study that wears you out trying to absorb lots of detail that may or may not be relevant to your industry and organization, nor a light'n'fluffy "how I inspire everyone around me with platitudes" book. Instead, Guy Kawasaki focuses on practical advice on how to sell your "cause" and how to be someone people want to do business with--how to be "enchanting" to customers, investors, employees. He's a former jeweler who joined Apple in 1983, when he got an early demo of the first Macintosh and was, in his chosen word, enchanted. He uses his own experience and well-chosen anecdotes from others to flesh out his message and illustrate the practical application of his advice.

The ten-cent version of that advice, after "have a product, service, or cause that's really worthwhile," can be summed up as: 1. Be likable. 2. Be trustworthy. 3. Be a mensch. Some of the specifics: Smile--a real smile, that moves the eye muscles and not just your lips. Approach people you meet with a goal of helping them first. Tell the truth. Don't shade it to downplay perceived weakness of your position. Instead, address those weaknesses and find a way to meet the real needs of the person you're dealing with. Do that, and you can make a loyal customer for life, not just one sale. Deliver bad news first--because the people you want to work for or do business with want to know the bad news so they can deal with it effectively. Someone who only wants good news is someone to be avoided, in business and in life.

Much of this book is applicable to almost any setting, including, as he points out in a few comments, marriage and parenting. The last third of the book is focused more specifically on working inside a corporate or organizational structure, on how to be a good employee and how to be a good boss. There's a short and helpful section dealing particularly with managing volunteers in a non-profit setting.

All of which covers the basics of the book, but doesn't capture the experience of reading it. Enchantment really is enchanting to read, enjoyable, enlightening, surprisingly practical, and a book you won't want to put aside until you're finished.

Highly recommended.

I received a free copy of Enchantment for review, from the author.

Entrepreneurs and visionaries want to make a difference and share their visions of a better (or bettered) world. They want to withstand cynicism, skepticism, and resignation. A modern-day Dale Carnegie, Guy Kawasaki guides you on how to win the hearts of people, build up your influence in both the real and the digital worlds, and become an effective enchanter. In this book, Kawasaki analyzes the mechanisms behind the process of enchantment and guides you in honing your enchantment skills as well as construct your MAGIC, which consists in five key components:

' Mastery: If you have ever seen Steve Jobs on stage, you will agree that he is incredible. This is not necessarily because he has the charisma of an actor, but because he is prepared beyond anything you can imagine.
' Authority: An enchanter knows what he is talking about; he is competent and strong. He captures the attention of his audience and to instill confidence because of his credibility, knowledge, and moral competence.
' Generosity: An enchanter is able to convey a likeable image because his goal is above to give to his audience, and not to find self-validation or to force people to love and admire him/her. Instead, he transfers his own power to his public.
' Imagination: An enchanter sees and understands the environment of the people listening to him in order to overcome their reticence or skepticism, and to open their eyes to greater possibilities.
' Commitment: Enchantment entails a human relationship, either face to face, or by means of technology. Every enchanter dreams of making a lasting connection, or one whose echo is still present in the people he has reached, either because they still use the product he has showed them years ago, or because they still remember it fondly.

Reality Check was a sequel to The Art of the Start. Enchantment is simultaneously a third installment in the series and a sort of prequel. Honestly, if you have no desire to charm anyone, how are you ever going to successfully start a company? From where will you draw enthusiasm for the day-to-day realities of your corporation if you do not see that you must win over and connect with your employees, co-workers, and clients? If you do not let yourself be won over by them in order to renew your own energy and drive? (For it is as much work to create enchantment in oneself as it is to create it in others!).

Guy Kawasaki knows what he's talking about. He is not a university professor orating conceptually on the art of influence or a psychologist dissecting the behavior of human test subjects, although he does draw from such research. He is a practitioner in the art of enchantment. I first met him in 1986 when he was the Macintosh evangelist. Back then already, I noticed that he had made story-telling an art form, that he was not trying to impress for the sake of impressing. The focus, although on him, seemed to be guided toward all those who were listening. Real enchanters don't need to impose their power and renown; they own them and keep them through the elegance of their humility. This is this experience that he communicates in Enchantment.

As a marketing professional, I talk about creating love affairs with your customers a lot. Why? Let's look at how people behave when they're in the bloom of a new love.

~ They find the other person intoxicating -- they crave more.
~ They can't help themselves. They talk about their new love all the time. To everyone and anyone who will listen.
~ They are very forgiving of missteps or mistakes.
~ They want to be good and helpful to their new love -- what matters to that person suddenly matters to them as well.

Now translate that back to a customer, donor, employee, volunteer, boss or vendor. What organization wouldn't want those very important people to feel that way towards them?

And keep in mind...this isn't a one way street. You have to genuinely treat them the same way. Or the love is very short lived. At my agency, we call it creating a love affair. Guy Kawasaki calls it being Enchanting. And lucky for all of us -- he wrote a "how to" manual for getting it done.

The book's basic premise is this: "enchantment is not about manipulating people. It transforms situations and relationships. It converts hostility into civility and civility into affinity. It changes skeptics and cynics into believers and the undecided into the loyal."

Again I ask the same question -- what organization wouldn't want to be able to inspire and instill that spirit?

But as you know, I'm not into books that get us fired up to do/be something without telling us how. (The former is just mean teasing) Guy's books pushes past the why and gets to the how before page 10. In fact, chapters 2-12 all start with the word "how." That's the sign of a book I can use.

You really need to read this book with a note pad and pen at hand, because you're going to get a lot of fresh ideas that you want to capture.

An Interesting insight of the word "Enchantment" maybe pushed a little too far when Kawasaki tries to build a system around it. I think that the term is not very well explained (or explained contradictory) throughout the book and it appears in some passages a simple synonymous of "Manipulation" or "Inspiration". I didn't find the suggestions in the book on how to "enchant" people particularly groundbreaking or original, but overall the book is interesting thanks to a collection of anecdotes and side stories that contribute to enrich the book and to give it authenticity and credibility.

I've personally found similar books by Michael Hyatt and Seth Godin to be much more interesting and inspiring that Enchantment. Nevertheless, Kawasaki's book is a compelling read and one that I suggest if you like marketing books in general.

The author’s previous work "Reality Check" enchanted me. This book did not. IMHO, he had tried to satisfy too many different audience in one volume and failed to deliver something insightful and practical which he is capable of. A bit disappointed!

p.s. If it were not for the excellent quotes and the following passages, I might have rated it a two star.
The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds. – John Maynard Keynes pgxvii
You have first to experience what you want to express. – Vincent van Gogh pg1
When Karin Muller, filmmaker and author, was in the Peace Corps from 1987 to 1989, she dug wells and built schools in a village in the Philippine. One night, 12 members of the New People’s Army, came to her hut to interrogate her….When the NPA arrived, she exclaimed, “Thank God you’re here. I’ve been waiting all day. Please have some coffee. Leave your guns at the door. “Her reaction baffled the leader of the group, but he took off his gun and sat down for a cup of coffee. She avoided an interrogation or something worse because, according to Muller, “you cant interrogate someone you’re having coffee with.” Muller did not react with anger, indignation or panic (which is how I would have reached). Instead, she touched an emotion in the leader of the group and transformed the situation from brute force and intimidation to conversation and communication. She delighted him wither unexpected hospitality and changed his heart, his mind, and his actions. In short, she enchanted him. Pg1-2
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go. – Oscar Wilde pg9
Communicate a cause in an “easy to swallow, easy to follow” manner. Pg45
There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality. – Pablo Picasso pg55
Explaining your cause in terms of something familiar (anchoring) but then giving it a different meaning (twist). This is a favorite technique of movie producers and book authors: “It’s like Dirty Harry but set in the year 2100” or “it’s How to win friends and influence people brought up to date. “ pg59
“Priming the pump”, a research by University of Leicester – The market sold forty bottles of French wine and eight bottles of German wine to French music. With German background music, it sold twenty two bottles of German wine and twelve bottles of French wine. The researchers interpreted these results to mean that music can “prime related knowledge and the selection of certain causes if they fit with that knowledge.“ Pg61
To fly we have to have resistance. – Maya Lin pg70
Diplomacy is the art of letting somebody have your way. – Daniele Vare pg81
Richard Branson polishes my shoe and makes me a Virgin America customer for life. pg102
The function of muscle is to pull and not to push, except in the case of the genitals and the tongue. – Leonardo da Vinci pg135
So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work. – Peter Drucker pg154
Priority is a function of context. – Stephen Covey pg166
The plural of anecdote is not data. – Ben Gold acre pg177

I enjoyed this book, and came to regard the author as authoritative and likeable. He seemed generous being willing to credit ideas to others, and to use many different people's stories to illustrate his points.

He makes big claims for his book, and the title "Enchantment" is a challenge. So for readers the question will be, "Does the enchantment last as you read this book?"

I think it mostly does. I had not read Kawasaki before so I do not know to what extent this book overlaps with his previous work. In this book Kawasaki is providing a brief primer about certain key bits of behaviour that we need to show if we want to achieve personal and corporate success. The answer is that we achieve to the extent that we help others. There is little in here that is entirely new. What is useful here is that it pulls a lot of material about business life together into one place. The new bit for me was the section on social media and how to use it well.

The book is brief, and I think this reflects that the author has thought clearly about what he wanted to say, and how he wanted to say it. The text is sufficient to explain the ideas. Overall this book does succeed in getting you to buy into its ideas. Which is what enchantment is all about- so it does justify its title

This is a book that will be useful to many in business and other professions. I suspect it would be particularly useful to young people looking to move into companies by giving them some idea what their interviewers may be looking for.

Guy Kawasaki is the legendary evangelist behind Apple's original rise to fame, as well as a seasoned Silicon Valley executive. In this book, Guy tackles the sticky issue of creating "enchantment": the feelings aroused by products from BMW, Apple, Sephora, Nike and Zappos. Written as a sales and marketing book, Guy's advice takes the reader through the "three pillars of enchantment":

1. Be likeable
2. Be trustworthy
3. Have a great cause

By being a technology expert, Guy is heavily invested in social media and describes in detail how to leverage new media to your advantage. Guy also wisely peppers other's stories in his narrative to show how various points of his have been successful with others in real, live situations.

The weakness of this book is that Guy spends far too much time on points one and two, and not nearly enough on the third. The topics of "likeability" and "trust" have been written on ad nauseum, and there really is little need for Guy to explain, for example, how to shake hands correctly.

In the end, it is worth the read, but not nearly as "enchanting" as I would have hoped.

If you read this book without expecting breathtaking new insights but instead looking for an excellent, user friendly compilation of ideas of influence other researchers/authors have written about, you won't be disappointed.

The most compelling ideas of the book are available free on Guy Kawasaki's website - especially useful is his 1 hour address at Stanford. [the store won't let me post the URL here - you would need to google it]

If you are interested in reading the books that Guy refers to, see these excellent books I wholeheartedly recommend:

(a) Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials) - This is one of the best books on the subject by Robert Cialdini. Guy uses the principle of reciprocity and Cialdini's examples on the topic.
(b) Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive - Guy uses some examples from this follow on work by Cialdini
(c) Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us - Guy uses Dan Pink's ideas of what really motivates us - Autonomy, Mastery & Purpose
(d) Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose - Guy refers to Zappos as an example of an enchanting company more than once in his book and uses the stories from this book by Tony Hsieh

Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions
by Guy Kawasaki
Reviewed by Phil Russell

I just finished reading Guy Kawasaki's tenth book, "Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions."
Guy Kawasaki was the Evangelist for the Macintosh, hired to interest developers in writing software for the Macintosh. He also created alltop.com, a search engine site for magazine content. He works as a venture capitalist.
Enchantment is a fascinating book, filled with ideas on how to create a company -- or project -- and succeed. Enchantment is the idea that you can fill people with great delight, and that this helps you succeed. What filled Kawasaki with great delight? The Macintosh! Before seeing the Macintosh for the first time, Kawasaki was a jewelry salesman. The Macintosh was his personal enchantment.
* Hepatic touch refers to the sense of touch. In an example Kawasaki notes that a heavy clipboard produced feelings of importance and seriousness. When you apply for a job, if you are given a cheap light plastic clipboard to hold a form you are filling out, it will give you a bad feeling, consciously or unconsciously, about the company.
* Premortems. In medicine postmortems are held to determine the cause of death. Kawasaki thinks you should hold a premortem because it will help prevent the death of your project. So at the beginning of a company or a project, gather the principals and have them assume the project has failed and come up with possible reasons for the failure.
* Reciprocation. During the 2001 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, students from the White Knoll Middle School in Columbia, SC, sent $447,265 to New York City to replace a fire truck destroyed during 9/11. This was a reciprocation to New Yorkers who bought Columbia a fire wagon 134 years earlier. In fact the first fire wagon sunk on the way, down and New Yorkers raised more money and sent a second fire wagon down.
* "I know you would do the same for me" is a better response to a thank you for a favor than "You're welcome."
* Unexpected giving. Kawasaki met Richard Branson (Virgin Group) and Branson asked if he had ever flown Virgin. Kawasaki said he had not, and was a United customer. Branson got on his knees and shined Kawasaki's shoes,using his own coat to polish. Kawasaki now always flies Virgin when it flies to his destination.
* User Groups. Many excellent companies have user groups. Apple, Harley Davison, Porsche and Cisco are examples. Macintosh user groups kept Macintosh alive when Apple could not or would not do that. Starting user groups is one part of establishing an ecosystem to foster endurance of the company or project.
* She. Much of the time authors refer to unnamed persons with the personal pronoun "he." Kawasaki uses she in Enchantment for unnamed persons who are successful . What a great idea! You will really notice how Kawasaki uses personal pronouns.
* Promoting spreadability. The Grateful Dead encourage taping of their programs. In fact they provide special seating for tapers. There is even a section for tapers on their Web site. Compare this with Metallica, which goes after anyone who tries to download their music on the Internet. The Grateful Dead has been around long enough to suspect that their generosity is good for business. I have not bought a Metallica tune since they started railing about downloading.
* Quotations. There are wonderful quotations at the start of each section or chapter. Here are a few I liked:
+ Diplomacy is the art of letting someone have your way. -- Daniele Varé.
+ You have first to experience what you want to express - Pablo Picasso.
+ Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust. -- Zig Ziglar.
+ Create like a god. Command like a king. Work like a slave. Constantine Brancusi.
+ So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work. -- Peter Drucker.
* Positioning. A real estate office increased sales by 16 percent by altering the script the receptionist used. Instead of just saying "Let me connect you to Sandra," they added " She has 20 years of experience in renting properties in this area.
This is a book that will be valuable to anyone entering a leadership position. Many already in such jobs will find the book valuable, too.

Guy Kawasaki's Enchantment is like an updated version of Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. In less than 12 Chapters and 200 pages, you will learn how to make your customers fall in love with you.

If you don't have a lot of time to read the latest business books, Enchantment will be a great turbo lesson in persuasion, how people choose, social media and marketing. Kawasaki's bibliography includes 20 of the most popular and authoritative books on the subject. I'd read about half of the books in the bibliography and found that Kawasaki did a great job of integrating the information in a usable, practical and easy to understand format.

In addition to practical how-to advice and examples there are also sidebars and callouts that contain personal stories from everyday people who responded to a request that Guy made for people to provide their own personal examples of enchantment.

If you're already a fan of Guy Kawasaki's you won't be surprised to see that there are all kinds of pictures that he included throughout the book. Many of them look like they come from his own camera of iPhone.
Everything about the book speaks to enchantment as it can occur if we would only let it. Instead of some overly designed web site, you can experience the book Enchantment via it's Facebook Fan Page. It's an extension of the book where readers, reviewers and fans post pictures, examples and stories. So while you can read the book, you can experience the daily evolution of its principles in practice.

My favorite chapter is actually "How to Use Pull Technology". In it, you will find a super easy and practical primer on how to integrate all the social media tools that you have into a cohesive purpose and campaign.
This is really a great book if you're looking for a summary and an integration of a lot of more intense and academic books. I'd recommend it to any business owner, sales and marketing person or Guy Kawasaki fan.

I read "Enchantment" expecting to learn how to become a better marketer. Instead I became immersed in something deeper: a discussion on how to be a better person, with more effective marketing being a by-product. "Enchantment" focuses on the embrace of personal and corporate values such as likability and trustworthiness. Get rooted in the right values and personal behaviors, Guy asserts, and you'll not only become a better marketer, but you just might change the world.

He establishes his ethos in the introduction: "This book is for people who see life for what it can be rather than what it can't. They are bringing to market a cause - that is, a product, service, organization, or idea - that can make the world a better place. They realize that in a world of mass media, social media, and advertising media, it takes more than instant, shallow, and temporary relationships to get the job done."

The difference between marketing to achieve a transaction and marketing to build valuable relationships is enchantment - defined as the delighting people with a product, service, organization, or idea.

Guy anchors the first few chapters in the book with a discussion of the personal and corporate values needed to become an enchanter. In the world of "Enchantment," self-puffery is out - becoming likable by connecting with other people through their personal passions is in.

Squeezing revenue from customers is not enchanting; gaining trust by sharing goodwill and giving your customers the benefit of the doubt is enchanting, as Zappos does with its money-back guarantee and free shipping in both directions.

Throughout the 211-page book, Guy also emphasizes behaviors to avoid, like snobbery. Example: when launching a product or service, don't focus your attention on the superstar influencers whose blogs have high readership levels. Focus on a larger group of people whose interests overlap with yours - and might be more open to lending their time.

"Nobodies are the new somebodies," he asserts.

What makes the book more useful is the way Guy relates enchanting behavior to all relationships that should matter to you. He devotes two chapters to enchanting your boss and your employees. Why? Because Guy wants you to change the world, not just sell widgets. Your boss, employees, friends, and family comprise a network of people who can help you do that.

You can certainly benefit from "Enchantment" by cherry picking the chapters that focus on tactical marketing and communications, especially the sections on enchanting others by using social media such as YouTube and owned media such as your website. (Want to enchant through a video? Make sure you capture attention within the first 10 seconds or don't bother.)

But "Enchantment" is a book best read from start to finish. Otherwise you might miss a subtlety in Guy's thinking: communicating with clarity and brevity is not just good marketing but also reflects deeper values of respecting other people and their time.

"Enchantment" is easy to read. Guy's style is humorous and engaging, punctuated with examples of personal and corporate enchantment drawn from everyday people who agreed to tell their own stories. The testimonies include the incredible tale of a waitress at Disney World Animal Kingdom Lodge who turned a family into lifelong Disney loyalists with a surprising gesture of goodwill.

So is "Enchantment" for you? Let this quote from the book help you decide: "Enchanters don't sell products, services, or companies. They don't think in terms of cost of goods sold or glass, silicon, steel, leather, and rubber. Steve Jobs isn't thinking, How can I get people to buy $188 worth of parts with a two-year contract from AT&T? Enchanters sell their dreams for a better future - cooler social interactions, a cleaner environment, a heart-stirring driving experience, or the future of publishing."

I would recommend giving "Enchantment" a shot.

Enchantment is the culmination of Mr. Kawasaki's life work. Between the covers of the book you will find the methods he used to help market the Macintosh. You will find what helps him launch new companies. You'll see how ideas are taken from a person's head into the "collective consciousness."

You'll find the heart and soul of Guy Kawasaki.

From achieving "likability" to using technology to how to enchant your boss, Mr. Kawasaki leaves no stone unturned as he details for you how, as Steve Wozniak is quoted on the cover of the book, "to create a company as enchanting as Apple."

In Enchantment, Mr. Kawasaki makes frequent reference to two books: Influence by Robert Cialdini and How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. The latter is about making and keeping relationships with people and the former is about persuading people so that you get what you want.

By using those two "ingredients" and adding his own special flavoring, Mr. Kawasaki creates "enchantment" -- that state of having people interested in you, your company, and what you're doing. It's more than winning a friend and it's not as immediate as persuasion. It's a long-term relationship built on trust.

In short, it's marketing in an age when just one dissatisfied customer can use the power of the Internet to air grievances and voice complaints -- and those will echo far and wide (and perhaps forever) in the online world.

That very same power can make a company great. It can also give the "little guy" an opportunity to go head-to-head with the "big guys." The act of enchanting oftentimes goes beyond the product or service because, when done properly, it hits the heart and mind simultaneously. Thus, a computer is not merely a computer; it's a "Mac." An airline flight is more than a mode of transportation; in the hands of Virgin (Sir Richard Branson's company), it's an "experience." A simple bed and breakfast when practicing enchantment becomes someone's "romantic weekend getaway."

In our digital world when businesses either "churn and burn" or "coddle and caress" in their marketing methods, Mr. Kawasaki extolls the virtues of creating magic by what can be best summarized as being "nice." It's not a one-way push in either direction; it's a delicate balance of listening to what your customers want and delivering what you have in a way that they not only understand, but embrace.

MORE THAN MARKETING
Enchantment is a business book. It's a book about getting new clients and/or customers and keeping the ones you have. It will more than likely be labeled as a marketing book.

That's unfortunate.

It's unfortunate because overall, Enchantment is more than that.

More than the marketing methods and greater than the business ideas is the overarching meaning of Enchantment. In some ways it's a modern day, business world version of Emily Post's Etiquette. It explains how we should act toward each other as we reach for business connections and present our ideas and products and services to the world.

That's only scratching the surface, though.

Yes, the methods and actions and ideas are important, but it's the "soul" underlying them that is more important. It's about being nice; looking for and striving for the win-win; it's about making the world a better place.

Those things don't come from mere actions. Like good manners, when done hollowly, they come off as cold, distant, and fake.

Therein is the reason many will fail as they try to enchant their market. Instead of using Mr. Kawasaki's methods like a well-stated compliment or an endearing politeness, some will wield these methods like a club and come off like a smarmy huckster.

Luckily, Mr. Kawasaki provides many real-world examples of enchantment in action throughout the book and even has a chapter about how one can resist enchantment, that is how to see through fake attempts at enchantment.

This "soul" is also what makes Enchantment timeless. Because it's a book about getting your message to your audience, Mr. Kawasaki discusses the technology and services that we are using now, such as Facebook and Twitter. Will these technologies be around in five years? Ten years? Who knows?

It doesn't matter, though, because the ideas in Enchantment transcend them. No matter what is coming around the corner, the technical details may vary but the ideology will remain the same. It's not the tools that are important, but the person using them.

A GIFT AND A CURSE
One of the charms of Enchantment is that it contains the ideology and the methods of Mr. Kawasaki. It's as if the contents of his brain were dumped onto the printed page.

That is, as Adrian Monk from the television show "Monk" would say, a gift and a curse.

It's a gift because a person can literally turn to any page in Enchantment randomly and find a useful idea or method that he or she can, more often than not, apply immediately. For example, while writing this I opened the book and it fell to page 151. That is the first page of Chapter 10, "How to Enchant Employees." On that page is the idea "Provide a MAP."

Providing an opportunity for employees to achieve mastery, autonomy, and purpose (MAP) is more important than money.

Whether you're in business or not, that's a good piece of information to know. It makes sense. A person can use that both in the boardroom and on Main Street. It works.

Enchantment is chock full of information like that.

That's also it's curse.

There is an awful lot of information in this book. There are also an awful lot of methods. I think that there needed to be a section in the book that tied them all together into some sort of action plan that one could follow.

What should a small business do first to begin creating enchantment? Is there a way to enact these methods systematically?

It's a minor quibble, but I think this addition to the book would have proven invaluable to many readers.

A FEW WORDS TO THE PUBLISHER
The publisher of Enchantment is Portfolio/Penguin Group. As a fellow publisher, I must say that they did an excellent job on the book. The design and layout of the interior is beautiful. While the size of the text is small (there is, after all, a lot of information in the book), it's still very readable.

I also love the size of the book. It's smaller than the usual trade hardcover size and that makes it very easy to hold when reading while laying in bed or lounging on a hammock.

My kudos to the publishing team that edited and designed the book. Great job! Keep up the good work!

SHOULD YOU BECOME ENCHANTING
Should you buy this book? More precisely, if you buy Enchantment, will the ideas and methods outlined in the book be of service to you?

The short answer is a resounding YES.

If you're a person who wants to make a change in the world -- whether through a business or through a personal mission -- then Mr. Kawasaki's information and lessons will help you to accomplish that. Think of it this way: If it helped Guy Kawasaki achieve what he did, then it most certainly will help you.

As an addition to a businessperson's library, this will be a well-thumbed tome. No one will be able to implement everything after just one reading. Over time, though, you can take what you need from the book and use it when you're ready. Over time, Enchantment will change the way you do some -- perhaps most -- of your marketing. It may even change the way you approach and do business.

I just hosted a live teleseminar with Guy.Once again, his books hit the mark for business owners and leaders who have a dream, but struggle to turn their good ideas into revenue.

Guy's three part enchantment formula is not for wimps.You must bring your most honest, authentic self to every business and social interaction. And you must be ready to take action.

The tool and ideas in this book will not only help your live meetings sing; they will make your social media efforts SOAR.

The countless stories, photos, and illustrations make this book fun to read and very human. On his Facebook page and website, he also offers a robust collection of online learning tools, slide shows, videos, and surveys.Guy has raised the bar for his fellow authors when it comes to providing value added reader bonuses.

As a two time member of Guy's review "tribe," I am honored to be part of this seminal book project.Once again, Guy is on a mission to change the world.

Be enchanting and go buy his book now.

Lisa Nirell
author, EnergizeGrowth NOW: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company
[...]

I always like it when non-fiction books are written in a way that is:

(1) engaging
(2) easy to read/understand

Throughout the book, Guy's style is personal, more informal than formal, and is 100% focused on delivering indispensable advice to the reader. I especially enjoyed the chapters on how to use both 'push' and 'pull' technologies, as the overall core of Guy's advice is focused on positivity (for instance, the emphasis is on "providing value to others," not "how to manipulate people via social media/technology/whatever"). I thought this was the most valuable aspect of the book, and am very appreciative of the wealth of knowledge Guy Kawasaki has shared (as I feel with several of Donald Trump's books, which I own also!).

As an independent author/artist/non-conformist, branding image and brand identity are two business aspects I've always had a great interest in. ENCHANTMENT is certainly a great guide for anyone wanting to know about "the art of changing hearts, minds, and actions."

Guy Kawasaki enchanted me many years ago. At first, through his books. And then, through his interaction, conversation and inspiration. So when he sent me a copy of ENCHANTMENT to review, I was blown away by the note he penned: "Mani, resisting you is futile".

That's exactly how I feel about Guy Kawasaki. And in his book ENCHANTMENT I found the reasons why he is such an enchanter. It's a formula anyone can follow, broken down into a step-by-step gameplan to go through.

And there's something for everyone - a non-profit volunteer seeking enchantment for his cause, a hard-working employee wanting to enchant her boss, the energetic entrepreneur looking to enchant his team, workers and investors - even the harried husband who dreams of enchanting his wife!

A pleasant, easy, yet value-packed read, ENCHANTMENT ranks among one of the best 3 books I've read this year - and if it works even one-third as well as I expect it to, I'll become like the 'Pied Piper of Hamelin' - and enchant donors and supporters of my non-profit work with children battling congenital heart defects (the story is in 47 Hearts).

Guy Kawasaki's new book Enchantment is already a best seller, and it's very good - typical Kawasaki in its wit, irreverence and relevance. And it's really all about communication!

Example chapters:

* How to Achieve Likability
* How to Achieve Trustworthiness
* How to Prepare - and much more.

The Kirkus Review is a publishing world power that rarely gives great reviews - so these comments should motivate you to go out and get it:

"The entrepreneur's entrepreneur is back with his ninth book, this time tackling the tricky art of influence and persuasion. Kawasaki (Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging and Outmarketing Your Competition, 2011, etc.) transforms the otherwise exhausted and overwrought tropes of how to win friends and influence people with a complete makeover here, whether he's talking about wardrobe choice or tips for effective swearing. The author, a modern-day Dale Carnegie, offers explanations on how to wield the most influence in the digital age: Push Technologies like presentations, e-mails and Twitter are discussed as active means of enchanting others, while Pull Technologies like Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn passively draw them in. The author's suggestions for achieving likeability and trustworthiness, as well as overcoming resistance, are thoroughly explained and can easily translate from the workplace to the real world. Kawasaki makes good use of subheads and bullet points, rendering information in a searchable format. He ends each chapter with an anecdote that illuminates the effectiveness of his techniques-while it's not original, it's effective. The author's trademark light and airy style is on display, but it's his humor and empathy that makes the heavy use of BusinessSpeak and buzzwords more easily palatable.
Informative, concise guide from one of America's most influential and, yes, enchanting entrepreneurs."

I couldn't have said it better. Buy it here!

In this work Guy Kawasaki manages to take basic truths about business, sprinkle in a little bit of useful information about the latest social media technologies, stretches it all into book length and emerges with a book that will underwhelm anyone who has read other business books related to marketing, branding and/or customer satisfaction.

That is not to say the book does not have an audience.

If you are a young entrepreneur or new to business management then this is a good book that will teach you the basic generalities of how to create useful products that people want and appreciate. You'll gain a better understanding of why it is important to be truthful in your marketing, why it is important to create realistic expectations for customers and why delivering on promises (and making the right promises) will help you build your brand. You'll gain a better idea, conceptually, of how to create products that stand out and are different in a crowded marketplace.

For those who have read other books on business management or basic marketing the triteness of this work will envelop you in a familiar fog of vague, basic truths about how to deal with people in the manner or style of Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill and Zig Ziglar. If you are looking for meatier nuggets than "be likeable, "be trustworthy" and "be prepared" then you'll want to pass on this work unless you are seeking a breezy refresher or looking to renew your commitment to The Boy Scout Law.

The later chapters that provide some useful and actionable information on how to most effectively produce online marketing videos and how to leverage push/pull technologies earn it three stars from me, but I was hoping for much deeper insights, more current case studies and more actionable information.

~~ Review by The Marketing Guy Who Drives Sales, author of the e-book, "How to Build and Manage Your Brand (in sickness and in health)."

Guy Kawasaki lassoes so many terrific thoughts with "Enchantment"...it would take longer to summarize them than it would take to simply say, "If you are in advertising, branding or product management...If you are in marketing or communications...If you are in sales or sales promotion...If you are an entrepreneur...Then simply click "Buy Now" and set yourself on the path of challenging your understanding of what it takes to elevate your game."
I wish I knew Guy personally. He would be a joy to trade ideas with. If you have sit at the feet of luminaries like Seth Godin or Harry Beckwith, you will love this book.
One of the most over-used words in marketing these days is "engagement". Guy blows past that to look at what it takes to "enchant" your customers or consumers. The book is short on data and long on stories. Guy makes his points like a machine gun, firing provocations at you in staccato, and leaving you to either rethink your current direction or forewarned that the competition may be about to leapfrog you.
I will keep this book nearby, to jog my thinking and sharpen my focus, for years to come. This is 2011's "Purple Cow". Thank you, Guy, for another terrific, groundbreaking work.
Rick S. Pulito
[...]

I've read many, many business / leadership books over the years and something you come to expect is that the basic message is going to be the same in most cases. Aim to create a good first impression. Care about what the person you're talking to wants out of life. Be clear and understandable. Do something with your time that you honestly care about. It's hard to knock a new book for providing the same information again - after all, these basics haven't changed. What's important is how clearly this current book presents the information to a new audience of readers. I feel Guy Kawasaki does a reasonably good job with Enchantment.

Yes, it can seem sometimes that the items are common sense. Aim to change hostility into civility. Create a positive impression with short, simple, meaningful messages. Be patient with people - they may be dealing with an autistic child or an abusive spouse. Yes, we can say these are common sense - but how many times have we seen people be irritable or lack patience in situations where they could have done better? I think all of us could use to perfect our ability to take in a deep breath and deal with a "troublesome" person in a more serene manner.

I wish Kawasaki had come up with fresh examples. I literally had read about both his "hospital checklist saves lives" and his "Vietnamese mothers find ways to beat malnutrition" examples in the previous management book I read the day before. If he had chosen examples from his own past then they would have been fresh and interesting. Similarly. I'd read about the "offering few jam options encourages people to choose one, offering too many options overloads peoples' brains and they don't buy any at all" experiment more times than I can count.

Kawasaki offers commonly repeated advice. When meeting someone, look for any common interests you might share, even if it's a common dislike of a topic. Respect people, offer thanks, provide value, accept diversity, don't tolerate abusive / hostile behavior, and disclose any conflicts. This last one is curious though. I believe strongly that a person SHOULD disclose any conflicts they might have, including stating when a review copy is received for free. (Disclaimer - I paid for this book with my own money!) But even while Kawasaki promotes this, he uses as one of his examples in his book that a reviewer got upset when prodded that he should have disclosed that he got a rare gadget he was reviewing for free. Kawasaki supports him! This even though the FTC requires web reviews to state how a review item was acquired. The discrepancy bothered me.

Kawasaki offers interesting ideas. Money rewards can be harmful to behavior - it reduces how helpful people are to others in a direct connection. Employees tend to want mastery, autonomy, and purpose. It's not just money that motivates them. He recommends keeping a journal about your experiences to learn from both the successful results and the hurdles. He points out that the number of searches on YouTube are second only to Google, so it's good to create videos! He recommends we investigate our competition, to determine what both you and they do, what they do better, and what you do better. You need that basic understanding in order to improve.

All fair enough advice, and while it's been said many times before, he does have a style in his delivery that many will find easy to understand. However, I can't give this five stars for the reasons mentioned above plus a few more troubling ones.

First, he presents a checklist for bosses to print and use - and it's chock full of negative words about the boss. I would hope someone so well read on motivation and encouragement would avoid this type of a negative-word-laden list. That's not how to encourage anybody.

He mentions several times how an iPod should, instead of saying "80 gig iPod", should say "Holds xxxxxx songs". But how could that possibly be calculated? Songs are wildly different lengths and sizes depending on a wide range of factors. That's like saying on a crayon, "This crayon can draw an 8" pumpkin". Sure, but how about all the other things it could do? I disagree with this idea wholeheartedly.

Finally, and this one bothers me on a very visceral level, he's talking about how he adores his daughter and how he loves to take her out for candy as a special treat. That part alone bugged me a lot, that he's training her to equate candy with affection and he can't take her out for something healthy instead. But he goes on to say as his ultimate praise - and I quote - "I'll never deny her if she GIVES me grandchildren." WHAT??? He's already putting pressure on his daughter to kick out grandchildren for him? What if she's infertile? What if she simply chooses not to have children? I'm a mother myself, so this isn't me extrapolating my own life onto her. This is me saying that, for a guy who claims to support women's rights several times in his book, that he's already deciding that his daughter must GIVE him grandchildren to be his ultimate achievement. If she's president of the US, or a Nobel prize winner, or anything else, it won't matter. She has to kick out some kids. I feel she should be able to do whatever SHE wants to do and he should be proud of whatever route she takes, whatever path she takes to get there. His love should not be contingent on her producing babies for him to play with.

So again, to summarize - nothing new. It's all been said before, and his examples are occasionally quite old and tired. However, for a group of people who haven't read these messages before, they are presented fairly cleanly, and the messages do need to be heard. So for people who might not have read the many previous books that covered this ground, this is a fresh new approach. It just needs some polishing - in my opinion - to be a five star book.

Note - I paid for this book with my own funds, from a bookstore. I admit that I initially picked it up because I love origami and I liked the cover :)

Guy Kawasaki is one smart cookie. Don't believe us? Just ask him.

Kawasaki's book, "The Art of the Start," literally became the bible of startup entrepreneurs looking for buy-in along Silicon Valley's Sand Hill Road VC set, while catapulting Kawasaki to essential speaker status at many of the Bay Area's high-tech conferences of the last half decade.

In this, his tenth book, the author, speaker and former evangelist for Apple computer, takes us on a journey to "Enchantment"; that special quality that takes companies from necessary to can't live without status. Steve Jobs' company is, of course, at the top of the enchantment list, but others like internet shoe emporium Zappos and even Queen Latifah qualify, too.

Along the way, Kawasaki points out rules, guideposts, axioms and techniques all designed to help your company increase its engagement, reputation and success in being the top-of-mind, go-to company in its unique product or marketing space. "Enchantment" quickly covers a wide array of methods to help insure success; from how to dress, to Tweeting parameters (tweet often, repeat your tweets, did I tell you I run Alltop?) to learning how to present (shorten, rehearse, repeat). Most of Kawasaki's techniques make perfect sense and he sometimes takes both sides of the argument to show just how rules have exceptions to themselves as well.

The problem may just be Kawasaki himself. At times, it seems like the author is just trying too hard to cement his reputation as a "high-tech guru." He continues to use his trademarked phrases from previous efforts ("bull shiitake," "10-20-30') as gives us "Guy's rules" for nearly everything. Unlike contemporaries such as Seth Godin or David Meerman Scott, Kawasaki seems unable to proffer advice without a heavy dose of self-promotion (Did I tell you I met Richard Branson?)

If there is one lesson that the author dispenses that would also serve him well, it might just be humility. If you can get past that, this is otherwise a good book.

"Enchantment" is a superior self-help book. There are trillions of books out there for people who want to get serious about their lives, about creating a business, a company, a presence, a successful future.

Guy, Kawasaki, former "chief evangelist of Apple," co-founder of Alltop.com, a founding partner at Garage Technology Ventures, and a prolific author, details how to change the world by changing your ability to interact with and inspire others to hop on your success bandwagon and ride it to the stars.

What impressed me most about this book is that it covers every angle, every aspect of growth and change, every aspect of influencing others from harnessing technology and social media to re-forming ourselves in the myriad ways that, when all put together, spell out accomplishment and success.

Some of the topics in his book include: "How to Achieve Likability," "Create Win-Win Situations," "Be a Mensch," "Be a Hero," "Set Yourself Up for Success," "How To Overcome Resistance," "Position Yourself," "Catalyze Commitment and Consistency," "How to Use Push Technology," "Look Far into the Future," "Know Your Limitations," "Beware of Pseudo Salience, Data and Experts," and "Underpromise, Overdeliver." I could go on and on. This book does not waste words.

I perceive myself as a superior quotemeister. When I first started tweeting a couple of years ago i gleaned some of the finest quotes out there to inspire and motivate others, to encourage them to think and challenge their presumptions and biases.

So it is no small thing when I tell you that the quotes Guy Kawasaki peppers throughout his book, which is packed full of massively valuable information guaranteed to advance your career and improve your life, are incredibly brilliant and powerful, possibly worth the price of the book all by themselves if taken to heart.

I leave you with one of his quotes I particularly enjoyed: "Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way." ~ Daniele Vare.

I suppose the problem with publishing a book entitled "Enchantment" is that it sets very high expectations for the reader. It had better be enchanting! Alas for the author, this book is only quite good.

After a slow start and a chapter or two on being likable and trustworthy, the book picked up steam and was quite good on topics such as launching, overcoming resistance, and using push and pull technologies. The last chapters on enchanting your employees and your boss and how to resist being enchanted by the unscrupulous (a surprising choice for a chapter in this book!) were, dare I say it, quite enchanting.

My copy of the book is autographed and Kawasaki choose to autograph the cover with the reminder "Resisting you is futile!" - which I thought was a great touch.

Maybe it's my personal situation that makes Guy Kawasaki's Enchanted so enchanting, or maybe it's all about the book. Regardless, Enchanted made me take action.
My situation may be like many people who will be drawn to this book: I'm looking to inspire and persuade people about ideas. I've just finished my own book (watch for The Plugged-In Manager this Fall) and am constantly working to find better ways to make the ideas sing across types of organizations and levels within organizations. The first thing Enchanted did for me was to help me create my personal position statement: Help people work with technology. That positioning statement is over twice as long as Guy's "Empower People," but that's the hand I've been dealt.

Guy defines enchantment as "the process of delighting people with a product, service, organization, or idea" where the "outcome of enchantment is voluntary and long-lasting support that is mutually beneficial" (p. xix) -- but I think there must be a bit of spell-casting in there somewhere. If you've seen Guy talk you'll know what I mean.

My first action took place on p. 35. I was so compelled to save the positioning statement in Evernote that I violated the flight attendant's admonishment to turn off all electrical devices.The rest of the book is equally compelling. Guy tends to use a Top Ten approach in his talks, but I'll stick to a Top Two in this instance.

One - he invites you take an active role in working with the ideas:

He gives an Enchantment Hall of Fame on p. 41 -- but leaves space for you to add your own examples.
There is an excellent opportunity for a reality check on how you treat your employees on p. 156.
The conclusion is a self-check of the ideas of Enchantment.

Two - he doesn't go it alone in building the story:

He clearly identifies all the people who helped him in the process of writing the book, including an enchanting story about the cover.
He notes that to be enchanting you should build an ecosystem/community rather than thinking that you can go it alone.
Every chapter ends with a story of enchantment told by someone else.
Finally, and very importantly for an academic, he cites his sources and describes the underlying research with an even hand. Robert Cialdini's work on influence appropriately gets plenty of use and the only source I felt was missing is Everett Rogers' work on innovations.

Should you go to one of Guy's talks? Yes.
Should you watch one of his talks as a video? Yes.
Should you read Enchantment? Absolutely.

Over 60 reviews have noted that Enchanted is enchanting. We can't help ourselves. It is.

I give thanks to Santa Clara University's Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship as they arranged for Guy to speak this week and surprised us by giving us all copies of the book. I also need to note that I've seen Guy speak several times and urge you to do so too. Sometimes I haven't been as engaged with the topic, but he is always inspiring in a value-added way. As you'll see in the book, he puts in his time and it shows. Thanks for that, Guy.

As a small business owner, I'm continually looking for ways to promote and grow my company. My desire is to create fantastic products so that existing customers will share their experience with others who might also like my products. In a nut shell, I want them to be enchanted with my company.

I employ a variety of marketing approaches, but walking the tightrope between promotion and sales is hard to do and is fraught with danger. Push customers too hard and they are immediately turned off. Don't push hard enough and my business becomes lost in the jungle of other businesses who are doing it better.

Enter Guy Kawasaki's new book called Enchantment, The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions. His book is filled to the brim with practical and concrete ways you can make your business enchanting. Kawasaki worked for one of the most enchanting companies out there: Apple. He uses his experience from Apple, as well as from his other successful ventures, to show the reader how they can do the same thing.

The book isn't just theoretical; rather, it is stuffed with great ideas that you can implement today. Right now. His approach is don't wait, just go for it. Provide customers something amazing, treat them with respect, solve their problems and enable them.

Kawasaki pulls examples from business luminaries such as Richard Branson and Steve Jobs, all the way to individuals that you've never heard of. In fact, one of the things I really like about Enchantment is how Guy strongly encourages working with "nobodies." In fact, he says, "nobodies are the new somebodies." What he means is that in this world of Twitter and Facebook, everybody has the ability to promote, recommend and encourage others to buy your product. Treat every person you come across as if they are the most important person in your marketing plan. You never know what value they might bring to your company.

There are a few companies in this world that are truly enchanting and Guy has outlined a straightforward path for us to do the same. Our task is to take his sage advice and get crackin'. As he says in chapter 8, engage fast, engage many and engage often. Now, it's time for me to stop writing this review and start enchanting my customers!

Mike Hagen
Out There Images, Inc.
[...]

This is a great book for small business owners. I like that Guy gives readers every trick and good idea that he knows from how to make a great impression, and how to get customers behind your cause, and even how to resist enchantment. He says that enchantment is a process, not an event. It's all about nurturing the long-term relationship that will create repeat business. I love the amount of research that is behind this book. It's not just a bunch of war stories. There's real science in here. If you follow his roadmap your business will be better for it. Grab this book today. I loved reading it.

Melinda F. Emerson "Smallbizlady"
Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months: A Month-by-Month Guide to a Business that Works

We've all encountered them: recent college graduates, hogging the sidewalk corners with their big activist binders, desperately trying to guilt us into donating $5 to save the world.

"Spare a minute for the environment?" "For gay rights?" "For baby sea otters?" If you say yes, you do so begrudgingly. If, like most of us, you say no, you feel like one of the bad guys from old Captain Planet episodes: "Muah-ha-ha! I'm going to throw oil in the ocean!" It's a lose-lose scenario.

Obviously, those street canvassers have yet to read Guy Kawasaki's latest gem of a book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions. Kawasaki's mission is nothing but ambitious: to pass on his knowledge "so you can change the world." The toolkit he presents in the book? Likability and trustworthiness, the fundamental characteristics of truly enchanting people.

The book's primarily written for a for-profit audience, but those of us in the nonprofit world can still take a heaping handful of core lessons to heart. For example, how many of us have thrillingly launched a new program or campaign, only to watch it fizzle out shortly thereafter? Kawasaki's suggestion: conduct a "premortem," anticipating the program's eventual cause of death and thereby preventing a catastrophe before it starts.

Or, for the marketing and communications folks among us, how often have we overwhelmed people with too much information about our work? As Kawasaki makes clear, it's much better for an audience member to leave a presentation or webinar curious about your work than to bore them to death with too many details. He offers the 10-20-30 rule for PowerPoint presentations: "make a ten-slide presentation in twenty minutes with no font smaller than thirty points."

As someone who spends most of her working hours on Facebook and Twitter (or creating strategies to best leverage Facebook and Twitter), I personally got the most out of Chapters 8 and 9, which focus on using push and pull technologies. Push technologies (like email and Twitter) broadcast your message to people's online homes, from their inboxes to their Twitter accounts. Pull technologies (like Facebook and websites), on the other hand, invite people into your online home and let you use larger quantities of information (more than 140 characters) to get your point across. As Kawasaki neatly explains, "Push technology brings your story to people. Pull technology brings people to your story."

The content in these two chapters was simple but game-changing. Keep your emails to six sentences? Talk about a shift in writing style for most of us in the nonprofit world. Review people's Twitter profiles before responding to their tweets? Basic, yet most of us social media users rarely take the time to do it. While small, these types of concrete changes make us more powerful and engaging communicators.

To see Kawasaki in full enchantment action, check out the Facebook page he created for Enchantment. The book isn't released until tomorrow, March 8, yet his page already has over 17,000 friends. A whopping 12 tabs adorn its left-hand side. Soon-to-be readers are enticed with multiple interactive tools, from a quiz ("Guy's Realistic Enchantment Aptitude Test," or GREAT) to a photo contest. (I'll admit, I submitted a photo of my grumpy pet rabbit into the "pets" category.)

Most notably, Kawasaki himself interacts with almost all the commenters on his page's wall. To repeat, the page has 17,000 friends. That's a lot of interaction.

But it looks like it's paying off. As of right now, Enchantment's the number one bestselling book on the store.com in the Marketing category. It's obvious that Kawasaki has something meaningful to say about how to enchant an audience. Nonprofit communicators should start listening.

THE CHANT: Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki

From the start up, kick start maestro, a new book.

I've studied the strategies of Guy Kawasaki for a couple of decades. Working at Apple, during the early years as a design consultant, Guy swung into play just after my efforts designing for Steve Jobs and the product development team on Macintosh.

But in the emerging years, Guy had a way of channeling the spectacular creative energy of the organization to build insanely great, filtered and channeled examination of what really worked, during the heyday years into a kind of epistle of evangelism. Guy's real enthusiasm is perhaps the most infectious -- it's the drive of magnetic leadership and teams that are committed, equally passionate and on fire that will mobilize the continued links to the vitality of brand evolution. And the building of community.

The notion of community -- and enchantment -- is the heart fire of Kawasaki's principles. Not only has he formulated the right audience engagement methodology in the launching of his book concept, which has surged to the top of the chain of bestseller weeks in the opening sales of his first boost into the market. In a note, he offers in his typically ebullient manner, "I had a very happy moment this week because Enchantment made it to the New York Times bestseller list in the category of Advice, How-To, and Miscellaneous. This happened in the first week that the book was available to the public." This is an achievement.

More so, it points to how well he knows how to make it work. There's something to be said for the proverbial strategist that has plenty of theories, but rarely seems to mobilize them in actuality. Kawasaki's theories of conceptual innovation and audience embracement. Guy's search reveals a lot of giving (try Google, his name, to see what pops) -- which is at the heart of the strategy: (create) and give something thoughtfully amazing; people will be captivated (captured) and sing the chant of connection, spreading the word (and the world).

The idea of enchantment is really about that -- creating something remarkable, but then more importantly, building the internal teams, the motivations and connectedness, and finally how to get that proposition out there in a manner that people listen, respond, engage and respond. Significantly, it's a lot more complicated than planners often think. "Sure, it's a great idea, people will buy it." But where is, as Apple puts it, the magic. That idea of magic is surely part of the equation -- these days, we all need magic to be enchanted. Chanting is about magic and focused attention. Attention, as we all know from grade school, is where it's at. The more attention and commitment (by a guest, consumer, customer, experiencer) the more attention the originator can lavish on the teams that are supporting the brand, the story, and how that gets out to the rippling communities.

In Guy's worldly visioning, the drop of one pebble can be a beautiful gesture -- perhaps Zen-like in character, the contemplative sensation of total engagement -- and the vibration of that rippling, rolling out, like the watered movement of that expansion, sound waves, energy spreading the epiphany of surprise, amazement, wonderment and enchantment to the wild, wide and beautiful world.

Kawasaki's choice - enchantment, it's a long legacy back, perhaps 4,000 years to the seed sounds of ancient languages. To etymology? I go back:
chant: the last bridge to the present era, from the late 14th century, from Old French chanter "to sing, celebrate" (12c.), from there, the Latin cantare, frequentative of canere "sing," from the ancient linguistic vortex, the Proto Indo European base *kan- "to sing" (cf. Greek: eikanos "cock," Old English hana "cock," both lit. "bird who sings for sunrise;" Old Irish caniaid "sings," and the Welsh canu "sing"). The frequentative quality of the word was no longer felt in Latin, and by the time French emerged the word had entirely displaced canere. Related words? Chanted; chanting. The noun is recorded from 1670s, from French, derived from Latin cantus, from past participle stem of canere.

Enchantment -- surely, do you sing the song? Guy's book is a detailed orchestration of that principle -- it's not a superficial personal branded marketing enterprise, it's a tool book to make it happen.

Sing, now, the chant and be enchanted.
Buy it, here.

t i m
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CREATING BRANDS THAT ARE LOVED:
[...]

Enchantment started off weakly, or so I thought, because I didn't yet appreciate the full picture Guy was painting. Chapter 2, for example, is How to Achieve Likability, and includes sections like "Perfect Your Handshake" (complete with a mathematical formula for handshake excellence,) "Use the Right Words," "Accept Others," "Don't Impose Your Values," and "Create Win-Win Situations." C'mon... how Self-Help 101 can you get? Actually, this is Self-Help 001... the remedial course. But I greatly admire Guy's body of work, so I soldiered on... to the part where it says "don't use war analogies" so... umm... I guess I plodded on. And there were several other things that kept me going in the early chapters:

First, the book has a regular stream of very useful checklists, none of which I'd ever seen before, even though Guy credits others for some of them. The book is worth the read just for the checklists. I've been a fan of checklists for years, but especially after reading The Checklist Manifesto recently, but that's another review for another day.

Next, the book is full of useful quotes, most of which I hadn't seen, even though many were from some of my favorite quotable people. A good quote is what proverbs have been for ages, and what Twitter occasionally rises to today: the encapsulation of an important truth into a concise and sticky statement. We should all aspire to articulating things this way.

Guy also has some hilarious phrases peppered through the book. Things like "group-groping" (the work of a committee,) "helicopter parents" (hover around their kids,) "fiefdumbs," (like fiefdoms, and just as stupid as a fiefdom would be today) and the "Dopeler Effect" (stupid ideas that sound smarter when they come at you faster.) Granted, I'm a Phrase Freak, but I'm sure you'll also find many of them either useful, amusing, or both.

Chapter 3, How to Achieve Trustworthiness, sounds equally elementary to the previous chapter, but the sophistication of the material is warming up at this point, and Chapter 4, How to Prepare, is getting seriously useful. The "Qualities of Enchanting Causes" are very good, as is the checklist in "Make It Short, Simple, and Swallowable." Have the discipline to do each exercise in the book; you'll be glad you did. For example, Guy gives you one line to write your positioning statement. His is "Empower people." Mine was much longer... until now.

Chapter 5, How to Launch, contains a highly instructive discussion of whether we should decrease choice or increase choice. At first, Guy sounds like he's also illustrating high levels of cognitive dissonance, but if you read closely, he outlines conditions under which each approach can work. Chapter 6, How to Overcome Resistance, includes a parallel discussion of the virtues of ubiquity alongside the virtues of scarcity.

Guy really hits his stride in Chapter 7, How to Make Enchantment Endure. The discussion on building an ecosystem and the next on diversifying the team are worth the purchase price of the book, IMO. Full disclosure: I was sent a free review copy of the book.

Chapter 8, How to Use Push Technology, is chock-full of the stuff we expect Guy to know best, and he doesn't disappoint. From the general principles at the beginning of the chapter, he takes us on a tour de force of the best ways to use the tech that's out there to get a message out, from presentations to email to twitter. Here's another chapter that's worth the price of the book.

Chapter 9 is the counterpoint: How to Use Pull Technology, and it's equally valuable. Repeatedly through the discussions on websites, blogs, facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube, I found myself saying "I hadn't thought of that"... and I really like thinking about these things.

The book is a bit like a workout, beginning with a slow warm-up, building into a crescendo of usefulness in the middle chapters, and then easing into the cool-down of the latter chapters. But by the time I got to the final chapters, I was enchanted, and happily read through How to Enchant Your Employees, How to Enchant Your Boss, and How to Resist Enchantment (from those who use enchantment unscrupulously.) At the end, the wisdom of the early elementary chapters is obvious, because those things are a necessary part of the process of enchantment. Well worth the read... see for yourself... and make sure you read to the end.

This review and other useful stuff[...]

Just finished this enchanting book. As an entrepreneur I've read many business and marketing books, in this book Guy Kawasaki does a great job of explaining the details involved in marketing strategies, these details help avoid unnecessary mistakes. Essentially, Guy helps the reader think through new ideas and/or improve on old ideas, bringing them into the Internet age.

One great piece of advice in the book that represents the book well, I think, is this thought, found on page 145. Provide intrinsic value: Inspiration, entertainment, enlightenment, education - used over time 'enchants' people. Keep it short. Keep all communications as short as possible - from emails to conversations. The recommended length for an enchanting YouTube videos is 60 seconds.

Guy Kawasaki is one of my favorite business book authors because he knows how to inspire and educate with wit and charm. As a native Californian born and raised in the Silicon Valley, I appreciate people who provide no-nonsense tips to aspiring entrepreneurs, impresarios and innovators, both public and private. Guy's newest book "Enchantment" distills all the hard-won lessons that he's learned into a handy how-to manual, complete with personal stories to reinforce his tips with real flesh-and-blood experiences.

For those who haven't read Guy's previous books, definitely get copies of "The Art of the Start" and "Reality Check", which are great primers for his latest book. Although some of the material is repeated, his advice cannot be repeated enough because so much is at stake -- the reputations, trust and careers of your friends and colleagues -- when you build new ventures, build organizations or pursue your dreams.

What I enjoyed most were his tips for achieving likability and trustworthiness. The section on "Be a Mensch" says it all since, for Guy, being a decent person is more important than being famous or rich. My kudos to him for that in this age of financial meltdowns. In Silicon Valleys, managers and venture capitalists all look for talented, driven people with integrity.

If you're trying to use social media to promote your cause or company, Guy's tips on push and pull technologies alone are worth the price of the book. And as a Japanophile, I love Garr Reynolds' list of ten Japanese aesthetic principles.

Disclaimer: Guy wrote a forward to my upcoming book "In the Valley of Digital Dreams" about my 30 years of professional experiences in Silicon Valley, but even if he didn't I would still encourage you to buy "Enchantment" and his other books. Guy has a wonderful way of inspiring people and cutting through the "bull shiitake." With our world seriously short of jobs, we desperately need more entrepreneurs with the vision, integrity and drive that he advocates. Guy is not just talking about making money, but making meaning and making our world a whole better place for all of us. For that, I'm totally enchanted.

I read Enchantment on the recommendation of a friend and was truly enchanted - by Mr. Kawasaki himself! He came as a guest to an online book club that I hosted for Enchantment and was fabulous! He tweeted responses to my questions with all the guests. He embodies each of the warm, smart and funny things that he teaches in this book. The lessons are for business but are also practical for your life as well.

One of the ideals that Guy talks about is "embracing the nobodies" not the A-listers. And I am here to tell you that is what he does himself. Another lesson is plant many seeds which is perfect for Social Media. Everyday you plant many, many seeds. I learned so many things that I use everyday.

I will definitely re-read Enchantment and highly recommend that you read it as well.

Enchantment is sort of an organizational "How to Win Friends and Influence People" for people doing business in this digital age.

The book's basic theme is that we need to win people relationally, if they are going to join with us. Guy then gives tons of practical insights on developing positive winsomeness.

I really appreciate Guy's user friendly and down to earth persective, which applies well to any organization or business, including churches and other non-profits.

I suppose you could call it a handy guide for common sense and being likeable. Good stuff, and I know a few of people who could definitely use that!