Marc Silber: Guy thanks for inviting us here for my show on Inspiration Innovation Creativity. You've got all three by the way.
Guy Kawasaki: My pleasure, and honor actually
Marc: Okay Guy, Where are we and what the heck are we doing here?
Guy: We are at the Ice Oasis rink, it's in Redwood City, California, and you see public session going on so there's figure skaters out there and in another few minutes they're gonna cut the ice and then there'll be hockey in about 15 minutes there.
Marc: And you might be out there at some point?
Guy: I might, I don't know, I played last night, if we do this interview fast enough maybe I'll be
Marc: We'll see if we can follow you out there with the camera.
Guy: Yeah
Marc: I can't guarantee the skating and camera shooting.
Guy: No, yeah it's going to take a lot to make me look good.
Marc: I don't know about that but let's talk about your book "Enchantment"
Guy: Okay
Marc: Okay, What's the story, what is Enchantment?
Guy: Enchantment is this great process where you have a mutually beneficial, deeper, voluntarily relationship with people. It's more delight, that simple engagement, in affect I want to take people from engagement to enchantment. Just like Tom Peters' took us from surviving to excellence, enchantment is the new engagement.
Marc: Okay, we're going to talk about some of the specifics.
Guy: Okay.
Marc: But first of all there's a butterfly.
Guy: Butterfly
Marc: You tell a story about the butterfly?
Guy: Yes
Marc: And you got the butterfly.
Guy: I have the butterfly, the butterfly is right here.
Marc: All right, what's the story of this?
Guy: This is the butterfly
Marc: There it is.
Guy: So I came up with an idea for
crowd sourcing the cover design, and it was a Blue Morpho [butterfly] stock photo on a red background. I showed it to the publisher, the publisher hated it, it was too feminine, too self helped, too woo woo, to Boulder, too Marin County, too everything. So I thought, well, you know Japanese, look at origami, so I typed in origami butterfly, I find this origami master, I contacted him I asked him to fold me a special butterfly that's not feminine looking and this is the result.
Marc: You got a macho butterfly.
Guy: I got, this is, think of, if a Blue Morpho had sex with the B1 Bomber this is what you would get.
Marc: There you go, Alright so let's dive into the concept here, so first of all I'm guessing your native tongue isn't Yiddish?
Guy: No
Marc: But you use the term "Mensch."
Guy: Yes.
Marc: What's a Mensch and how can you be one?
Guy: A Mensch is this person who's trustworthy, who has the big picture, which is looking out for the interest of other people. Actually it's very hard to define a Mensch in English terms because it is a German word, but the context in which I use it is more of a Jewish society.
Marc: Okay
Guy: And so, in a Mensch, it's the highest form of praise
Marc: It's a great human, right?
Guy: Yes, it is a great human, indeed. In the history of Politics, maybe Nelson Mandela was perhaps the only Politician who's a Mencsh.
Marc: A real Mensch, How can you be Mensch?
Guy: Well, it is all about trustworthiness and likeability. A trustworthiness meaning that you have a positive attitude, a yes attitude, you're defaulting to wanting to help people, that you have other people's best interest at heart not solely your own. Likeability is very basic it starts with your smile and your handshake and the level of dress, the appropriateness of how you're dressing. Much of Enchantment is very fundamental stuff, likeability, trustworthiness and high quality.
Marc: Okay, so I'm trying to get my cause or my brand up to that next level, what are some key things that I can do?
Guy: Well, to get your cause, your brand into that level, first it starts with the people about likeability and trustworthiness. On the quality side it's all about getting something that's deep, lots of teachers, it's intelligent, you've perceived a problem you're solving a problem, it's complete it's not just the software, the software and the string of enhancement. It's the vars [value-added reseller], the developers, the conferences, the documentation all that stuff makes something complete. It's also empowering it makes people feel more creative and more productive and finally it's elegant, you know that you cared about the design. So the acronym is dicee, D- I- C- E- E
Marc: Sounds like you're describing a Macintosh.
Guy: Ah what can I say?
Marc: All right so let's dive into Apple, specifically Steve Jobs
Guy: Yes
Marc: What are some really deep examples of how he was able to enchant his audiences?
Guy: I think the success of Apple is the success of Steve Jobs, and the success of Steve Jobs is all about quality of product, that is an engineering company and they make great stuff. However, many people don't know Steve Jobs personally and to them you see as the CEO, but really where they got their impression of Apple, their sort of positioning of apple in their mind is the Apple store.
Marc: Right
Guy: And the Apple store has completely nailed it, the trustworthiness and the likeability of those people is off the scale, I mean compared to what other retailer. And so for many people, it's you know, Steve Jobs vision is the product but they're gut overall reaction to Apple is because of the Apple store and the Genius bar.
Marc: Right, you worked with Apple so is that all coming from him?
Guy: Yes, at some level, you know, one way of describing the Apple work chart is, I don't know, I don't know how many employees they have 25 thousand or whatever it is. It's 25 thousand reporting directly to Steve, flat organization.
Marc: Yeah.
Guy: So yes, it is about the sensibilities and tastes and goals of Steve Jobs.
Marc: Okay, Alright now I grew up with the Grateful Dead,
Guy: Yah
Marc: They used to play at the Tangent, in Palo Alto
Guy: You're dating yourself, but Okay.
Marc: Gerry Garcia used to teach guitar at the local music store and my best friend's best friend was Bobby Weir, but I'd never thought I'd hear about them as marketing gurus.
Guy: yeah, but you know, some of the best marketing is accidental, and one of the principles that I talk about in the chapter about making your enchantment endure, is that the Grateful Dead created a space at all their concerts for what they call tapers and what tapers do, not that they use tape anymore, is they record the music and they share it with their friends, non commercially. So I felt that was just a stunning example of counterintuitive way to make your enchantment endure. They encourage people to tape their music and share it, not a lot of bands were saying pirate our music and share it. You know, so I think that is a great example how a company can do something sort of counterintuitive and it will make them endure.
Marc: Yeah, you talk about using push and pull technology.
Guy: Yes.
Marc: What are some of the key things especially using twitter?
Guy: First let me define, push technology is something like email or twitter, where you're pushing stuff out, and people are not expecting it they are just getting it, it's flowing at them. Pull technology is where somehow you're creating something that is so compelling that you pull people to your website, you pull people to your FaceBook fan page. Both have a place in enchantment. The advantage of pushing technology is you can send stuff at people or to people quickly, cheaply and too many people that is a very big advantage. The advantage of pulling people is, once you get them to some place you have their attention for a longer time. So the two work in concert and it's basically Twitter is push, FaceBook is pull, it's one way of looking at it.
Marc: So I guess the thing is, you know we're trying to get our message out, we're trying to get our brand out, whatever.
Guy: Yeah.
Marc: But the fine line between self promoting, over promoting and still remaining engaging.
Guy: Well, you know, well you mean enchanting right?
Marc: Enchanting, yes.
Guy: Listen I'll be the first to admit that some people think I cross that line. My logic is, that in social media you have to provide value and I guess if you're a celebrity and you say your cat rolled over, people may find it interesting. But generally speaking
Marc: Brittany Spears is stuck at a traffic light
Guy: At a stoplight, Brittany Spears just failed a breathalyzer, you know whatever, okay so that's interesting, but you and I are not Brittany Spears.
Marc: Right.
Guy: And so basically, what I think you need to do is provide value, so what's value at social media? It's probably that you found a story, a photo, a movie; you know a video; found this something that other people have not found yet. So in a sense you're fulfilling a creation function and by filling this creation function you've helped people and so people will re-tweet your tweet they will forward your information become better known as a great curator, a great finder of information and then it becomes a great upward spiral. So I think the key to social media is to provide value and when you provide value you get more followers, you get more followers you provide more value, it's an upward spiral.
Marc: Okay, and then, I think you set the limit at 5 percent of them
Guy: That's a theoretical limit; you know 1 out of 20 things should be a promotional tweet. Um the model that I think, mental model is NPR, where NPR, you spend a lot time with great stuff from NPR, wait, wait, don't tell me, this American life, fresh air and all that good stuff, right? Click and clack, and then every once in a while they run a telethon, and the reason why you put up with the telethon, and even if you donate to the money to the telethon is because you know that 95% of the time, they're finding all this great content, they have earned the right to promote their telethon, to promote fundraising.
Marc: Yeah.
Guy: That's my model
Marc: Okay, and again we're all trying to learn from you
Guy: Scary thought
Marc: It's a scary thought, but listen you've been there for so many years and I think you're staying power and the fact that you've been there.
Guy: I just outlasted them, yeah.
Marc: So what are some of the key points that we should really pay attention to when we're promoting?
Guy: You know, first of all it's called Guy's golden touch is not whatever I touch turns to gold, Guy's golden touch is whatever's gold Guy touches. So part of being an enchanting person is being affiliated with good stuff. You could either make the good stuff or you could find the good stuff or you know it can find you but it's very hard to be enchanted with crap, that's just unavoidable so find good stuff. And then it's like I said it's a grind, it's a process, you have to be likable, you have to be trustworthy, you have to be thinking of the other person's best interest, not your own and then you just have to grind it out, you have to be willing to pay the price. It's that simple.
Marc: I notice you're not afraid to say ABC always be closing, get your call to action into the message, right:
Guy: Yes.
Marc: Otherwise, you're just wasting everybody's time.
Guy: And you know what? I mean one of the messages of enchantment is that, you will not enchant everybody every time and so to just try to be this, you know middle of the road average kind of non emotional, non motive kind of thing is failure. You should strive to enchant some people a lot and let the chips fall where they may with the rest.
Marc: So put an edge on your marketing
Guy: Yeah, and you know close, it's okay, that's what people in business do, they close you. Apple computer is not just out there, you know trying to make the world a better place and live in perfect harmony, they're trying to sell you an IPod and IPad an IPhone and a Macintosh, its okay.
Marc: And they're doing it by engaging.
Guy: And you know Richard Branson, he's trying to get you on Virgin, he's not trying to be a nice guy, he wants you to fly on Virgin American, Virgin Atlantic. And Zappos wants you to order shoes their not just trying to like Democratize the shoe business, its okay to close.
Marc: Speaking of shoes and Richard Branson, I love the story about, well tell us the story about your photo
Guy: We were in Moscow and I met him and asked me if I flew Virgin, I said no and he got on his hands and knees he started shining my shoes with his coat, and that's, I said wow that guys a likable guy, so
Marc: This is a billionaire that doesn't need one more seat sold.
Guy: No he doesn't need me at all, no, no quite the contrary
Marc: Why did he do that?
Guy: Because he's a likable guy, that's in his ROM, I think
Marc: So it's a general enchanting part of his way
Guy: I think so
Marc: Of whom he is. Okay Guy so what final advise do you have for viewers who do want to take their cause or their brand to that next level.
Guy: You mean to besides read the book?
Marc: Besides read the book, we're going to have them read the book first.
Guy: Yeah, I guess if there's one single thing, it would be, well I'll give you digital and analog. The digital answer is, answer your email, one single thing you can do to be more enchanting in the digital world answer your email. On the analog side always default to a yes attitude, always be thinking how I can help the other person.
Marc: And that's why we're here
Guy: Well, the irony is the truth be told, just so I'm not accused of being a hypocrite, it took me quite a while to answer your email
Marc: Took a while but I noticed you did
Guy: I got to it, I did get to it.
Marc: I knew you were going to answer it, but you do walk the walk and talk the talk
Guy: Sometimes slower than others but yeah.
Marc: You got a lot on your plate
Guy: All right, Thank you
Marc: Hey listen, thanks for joining us and inviting us, awesome
Guy: See you later.
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