M-Theory Podcast: “Enchantment” Interview with Guy Kawasaki

Mogul Media Group President Ryan Hattaway interviews Business Guru, Best Selling Author and Former Chief Evangelist of Apple, Guy Kawasaki, and discusses business trends and his newest book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions.

To hear the interview, click the link below.

RYAN HATTAWAY: Tell us, Guy, what is enchantment? We’ve got a lot of business owners and also a lot of everyday people who would like to hear firsthand what your definition is.

GUY KAWASAKI: So my definition of enchantment is the state where you can actually influence and change peoples’ hearts, minds and actions. It comes about because you’re a likable person, a trustworthy person and you have a great product or service or idea. A good analogy would be that Tom Peters raised the expectation of business from surviving to excellence and I wanted to raise the expectations of relationships from engagement to Enchantment. Because when you’re at an enchanted state it’s delightful, it’s mutually beneficial and it’s long-lasting.

RYAN HATTAWAY: And I certainly think in today’s economic environment, not only is trust a big factor but like you said, long lasting. I think sustainability is a huge factor with regards to business today. It’s a very timely message and I commend you for that.

RYAN HATTAWAY: What initially inspired you to write this book?

GUY KAWASAKI: I wanted to make my mark on this genre of books about influence and persuasion. My heroes are people like Robert Cialdini and Dale Carnegie. I have the benefit of writing 80 years after Dale Carnegie so I have Twitter and Facebook and decades of social psychology that I wanted to add to it and create a really significant work that would help people make the world a better place.

RYAN HATTAWAY: I certainly think you’ve succeeded in that. And having read Dale Carnegie’s book, as well as several others including Trust Agents, I think you did a great job of touching on a lot of the points that have been covered in business books over the years. But like you mentioned, in the modern day digital age, you’ve got a different set of platforms through social media. A lot of this has come upon us so quickly with the decline of print media that businesses are really confused as to how and leverage it to grow their business. I think your book touches nicely on a lot of those things.

RYAN HATTAWAY: Backing up to your previous experience at Apple, in your book you describe your role there as Chief Evangelist,

GUY KAWASAKI: Yes

RYAN HATTAWAY: So tell us, what exactly does a Chief Evangelist do?

GUY KAWASAKI: So my job was to make sure that the Macintosh cult remained healthy and active and happy. So my job was to make sure that Apple’s most religious lovers stuck around. So I evangelized the Macintosh.

RYAN HATTAWAY: I think everyone would agree out there that Apple has done a better job of almost anybody that I can think of in terms of building this religious following. It really transcends the typical relationship of a transaction between a company and an individual and they’ve really turned it into a lifestyle.

RYAN HATTAWAY: What do you think are the attributes of Apple’s success? What are the characteristics they’ve done so well that they’ve left everyone else behind?

GUY KAWASAKI: There’s two huge factors right, so of course it’s Steve Jobs and his understanding and perception of what people want in gadgets. So number one factor in Apple’s enchantment, is that it creates such great stuff. And number two in Apple’s enchantment, I would say are the employees in the Apple store. It is a very different experience buying an Apple anything than buying any other gadget in any other store. And it’s not just the salespeople, it’s also the people at the Genius Bar. I say the three pillars are likability, trustworthiness and a great product. Well a great product is from Cupertino, but the likability and trustworthiness, that’s from these employees and these Apple stores all over the world. To many people, they know who Steve Jobs is, right. But to many people, Apple is an employee at an Apple store. And those people do a phenomenal job.

RYAN HATTAWAY: They really do. And every time you go by there, there’s a huge mob and of course with the iPad 2 recently coming out, there were people camping out overnight to try and get their hands on one.

RYAN HATTAWAY: What are your top three tips for marketers out there that want to make their companies and products more enchanting?

GUY KAWASAKI: Well first of all, the thing to do is called Guy’s Golden Touch, is not whatever I touch turns to gold. Guy’s Golden Touch for marketers is whatever is gold, Guy touches. So what I’m trying to communicate here is that it is much easier to be enchanting with something great than a piece of crap.

1. So if you’re a marketing person, go work for a company with great stuff or create great stuff. That’s number one.

2. Number two, I think you should plant many seeds. You shouldn’t rely on just the A-listers and the few key opinion leaders of an industry.

Because of Twitter and Facebook, I think the world is now inverted and the LonelyBoy15 on Twitter may be the person that makes your product or service tip. God bless you. Suck up to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Maybe they’ll bless you with a recommendation. But the odds of that are very low. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of thousands of people who are the real users of your product and arguably they can make you more successful than somebody saying “go try this product.”

RYAN HATTAWAY: Absolutely. And I know that you are one of the early adopters of Twitter and you talk about Twitter in your book. It’s one of the best marketing tools around today. What is it that turned you on to Twitter with all the social media options out there? I think people have picked one or two [options] and went with it. What is it that attracted you to Twitter?

GUY KAWASAKI: First of all, when I first tried Twitter I thought it was the stupidest thing I had ever seen. I mean, I go to the Twitter homepage and I see all these messages scrolling by, “my cat rolls over,” “the line at Starbucks is long,” “Virgin America has WI-FI on the airplane.” And this is from LonelyBoy16 and Tiffany65 and I’m like, who cares about those people, who cares if their cat rolls over? So for me, the light went on Twitter when I figured out you could search. You can search for your name, your products’ name, your company’s name, your competitors’ name, your competitor’s products’ name and I just saw Twitter as an amazing way to find people that are interested in the things you do. It’s like being George W. Bush or Dick Cheney except legal. So it is a great way to find people.

RYAN HATTAWAY: I actually just read the other day that one of Twitter’s aims is to become more useful to the average person. Jack Dorsey’s challenge as he returned to the company is trying to help people get more use out of it. If you were in his position, what types of features or functionality or direction would you advise taking it in?

GUY KAWASAKI: I would first of all, tell people to think of Twitter as a mechanism to foster greater knowledge. And I don’t mean greater knowledge of your cat rolling over. I mean that if you found an interesting story and I follow you, it’s a great service that you did for me if you found the story or you found tips or you found this cool video about how to do something. Let’s say you’re an expert in cars, so you’re the car guy on Twitter. And then you send me a link that says “J.D. Power just came out with the 2011 rankings of quality.” And this is the link so you can go right to it. I find that very useful. So, I follow you because you have good stuff. I think it’s all about, not so much the cat rolling over as much as what kind of information or analysis or assistance you can provide with Twitter.

RYAN HATTAWAY: Another thing that you talk about in your book is the importance of embracing “nobodies.” Explain to us what you mean by that.

GUY KAWASAKI: Yes, that’s getting back to LonelyBoy15. So LonelyBoy15 is a nobody, right. He doesn’t write for the Wall Street Journal, he doesn’t have three million followers, he isn’t this rich famous person. He’s just LonelyBoy15. I tell you what, there’s enough LonelyBoy15’s that like your Twitter service, like your book, like your computer, they all add up and then next thing you know, the Wall Street Journal has to write about you because you’re so successful. So in this scenario, the Wall Street Journal didn’t cause your success, the Wall Street Journal is reporting on your success. So the key here, is get all the “LonelyBoys” to love your product, be successful and then the Wall Street Journal has to write about you and then it gets a lot easier because then it becomes enough where it’s viral.

RYAN HATTAWAY: Well I agree 100 percent and that’s what social media has done to the landscape. It’s really shifted the power of players in the industry and really given everybody a voice and given everybody an opportunity to build an audience and everybody has their own circle of influence that they represent. And your book really is applicable to any industry. It’s anybody out there who owns a business or who wants to build a community or who wants to build trust.

GUY KAWASAKI: I couldn’t have said it better myself.

RYAN HATTAWAY: With regards to the book, not only does it summarize a lot of the age-old proven methodologies, like we mentioned it combines them with modern day insights on the digital age. Building relationships, building ecosystems and then you also examine using push verses pull technology to build an audience. Explain how companies are using those technologies today.

GUY KAWASAKI: Ok, so first let me say what push verses pull is. So push technology is something where you control when the thing goes out. This would be a tweet, an email. A pull technology is where you basically have to do your best to make something so attractive that people are pulled in. They’re coming back to it. That would be, for example, a website. Now you can’t push a website at a person, you have to make it so great that it pulls people in. And there are places for both. Twitter and email are great mechanisms to push out announcements and Facebook and websites are places where if you have enough action, you’ll pull people in. Both are necessary to do marketing today.

RYAN HATTAWAY: I know many people look to you as a business mentor and you’ve built a huge following over the years. Who are some of the leaders in business today who have inspired you?

GUY KAWASAKI: Well certainly Steve Jobs where his design understanding. Richard Branson for his likability. When I met him for the first time, I told him I didn’t fly on Virgin so he got on his knees and started polishing my shoes with his coat. Those are two of my heros and I love the writing of Peter Drucker, when he was alive. And there’s a writing instructor from Minnesota named Brenda Ueland. Her writing emancipated me for doing things that you dream in and you want to create.

RYAN HATTAWAY: I know with this book, you’ve got a lot of excitement right now and I know you’re very busy. What, with all these people out here who are very interested in reading your book, where would you like them to go to learn more about the book and to learn more about you specifically?

GUY KAWASAKI: They can go to my fan page at Facebook, they can also go to www.guykawasaki.com. Or they can just save a lot of time and go to Amazon and buy that book.

RYAN HATTAWAY: Again, it’s a pleasure to have you here and I’m thankful to be given the opportunity to review your book and we look forward to seeing more great things from you very soon. So definitely keep in touch.

GUY KAWASAKI: Thank you, buddy. See you later.