Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions

Guy Kawasaki

Mar 2011 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

Enchantment, as defined by bestselling business guru Guy Kawasaki, is not about manipulating people. It transforms situations and relationships. It converts hostility into civility and civility into affinity. It changes the skeptics and cynics into the believers and the undecided into the loyal. Enchantment can happen during a retail transaction, a high-level corporate negotiation, or a Facebook update. And when done right, it's more powerful than traditional persuasion, influence, or marketing techniques.

Kawasaki argues that in business and personal interactions, your goal is not merely to get what you want but to bring about a voluntary, enduring, and delightful change in other people. By enlisting their own goals and desires, by being likable and trustworthy, and by framing a cause that others can embrace, you can change hearts, minds, and actions. For instance, enchantment is what enabled . . .
   •  A Peace Corps volunteer to finesse a potentially violent confrontation with armed guerrillas.
   •  A small cable channel (E!) to win the TV broadcast rights to radio superstar Howard Stern.
   •  A seemingly crazy new running shoe (Vibram Five Fingers) to methodically build a passionate customer base.
   •  A Canadian crystal maker (Nova Scotian Crystal) to turn observers into buyers. 
This book explains all the tactics you need to prepare and launch an enchantment campaign; to get the most from both push and pull technologies; and to enchant your customers, your employees, and even your boss. It shows how enchantment can turn difficult decisions your way, at times when intangibles mean more than hard facts. It will help you overcome other people's entrenched habits and defy the not-always-wise "wisdom of the crowd."

Kawasaki's lessons are drawn from his tenure at one of the most enchanting organizations of all time, Apple, as well as his decades of experience as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist. There are few people in the world more qualified to teach you how to enchant people.

As Kawasaki writes, "Want to change the world? Change caterpillars into butterflies? This takes more than run-of-the-mill relationships. You need to convince people to dream the same dream that you do." That's a big goal, but one that's possible for all of us.

Ratings and reviews

I live my life by the credo "If it's worth doing at all, then do it with passion." Guy's latest book offers numerous insights and practical tips about how to apply that passion for a worthy cause and truly enchant the people that you meet along the way. I've previously attended Guy's live presentations, and I'll always remember his engaging smile and sincere persona. He knows how to inspire people - to demonstrate how you too can strive to apply your strengths, to be the best at your chosen craft. This book offers meaningful suggestions on how to enchant your customers, your employees and any other key stakeholder that shares a common-cause with you. The basic point of Guy's guidance is this: authentic impassioned communication is more powerful than traditional attempts at persuasion (such as trite advertising which often demonstrates contempt for the people that it's intended to attract), influence, or other legacy marketing techniques. Beleaguered legacy marketers will learn how to achieve Likability, and how to achieve Trustworthiness - apparently, these are fundamental qualities that people in mainstream marketing organizations need to rediscover. Frankly, some might view this perspective as an indictment of all that is inherently wrong with old-school manipulative marketing practices, and therefore what must change to reform and redirect the efforts of this profession.

Easy to read, but powerful. Kawasaki’s book is filled with practical advice on how to not just know your customers, but to enchant them. The most directly applicable chapters, though, are the ones that feature real examples of successful, intentional acts of enchantment. Descriptions of how much Steve Jobs rehearses before giving one of his well-known “and one more thing” presentations that send the online world abuzz. Details and directions for how to effectively use both push and pull marketing (i.e. Twitter and Facebook) to reach and engage your customers. There is no magic formula for launching a product, seizing the market, or gaining mindshare in the market. But Enchantment is a fantastic way to start changing your behavior and the culture of your company such that you’ll be more attractive and likable to the people that matter. Marketing is all about creating relationships, and there is no better or more effective way to build a good relationship with a stranger than to enchant them from the start and deliver on the promise of your character.

I had the honor of beta testing this book, and received a signed hardcover from Guy Kawasaki, but bought it here so I could have it on my phone. It is a pretty quick and enjoyable read. Parts of the manuscript have served as a pre-delivery checklist for my own products and projects for the past 5 months or so. It is really easy to deliberately apply the concepts and principals Guy preaches in this book. You don't even need a brand like Apple or a product like personal foot massages from Sir Richard Branson, er, Virgin Airlines. Perhaps the biggest pleasant surprise for me was his account of meeting another one of my favorite all-time authors, Robert Cialdini. Upon reading it, I immediately wrote to Guy and told him he had absolutely sold me on his book with that. And isn't that what we're all trying to do in our own little ways? Sell people on our ideas, get them to use and love our products, stamp our positive influence on the world. Go out and be awesome today! But if you read Enchantment first, you'll go out and be even more awesome!

About the author

Guy Kawasaki is the former chief evangelist of Apple. He is also the cofounder of Alltop.com and a founding partner at Garage Technology Venture. His nine previous books include the international bestseller The Art of the Start, as well as Reality Check and The Macintosh Way. He lives in Silicon Valley with his wife and four children.