Business & Tech

LIVE BLOG: Guy Kawasaki 'Enchants' at Founders Conference

Here's a live blog with the motivational speaker and former chief evangelist of Apple.

Author Guy Kawasaki stopped by Mountain View Tuesday to participate in The Founders Conference. He spoke about his new book, Enchantment. "You have to enchant people to come to work for you, investors, people to buy from you, partners," he said.

Here's what he had to say: 

9:27 a.m.: Enchantment: How to create delightful, long-lasting deep and voluntary relationship.

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9:28 a.m.: To Enchant is to become likable and it starts with (1) a great smile. Dress for the time; you can under-dress and it makes people think you don't respect them, and if you over-dress you come off as pretentious. Dress as equal.

9:32 a.m.: (2) Achieve trustworthiness. The key is to achieve a series of events. Help your customer. Become a baker not an eater. Don't try to grab as much of the pie as possible. Bakers try to make the pie bigger.

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9:34 a.m. (3) Default to a "yes" attitude. Be likable. Richard Branson and Virgin Airway personify the highest in likability. Branson even polished Kawasaki’s shoes to prove what he would do to get him to fly Virgin.

9:39 a.m.: (4) Great products are DICEE (Deep Intelligent Complete Empowering Elegant); describe your product, short, sweet and swallowable. It’s not a mission statement; it’s a mantra. No acronyms. 

9:43 a.m. (5) Overcome resistance. The more innovative your product, the more resistance you’ll encounter. In the '70s, Nintendo introduced a robot that wasn't likable until they called it a toy. Provide social proof. Apple used the white earbuds to provide proof that the iPod was catching on. Find a bright spot. Try to fix areas of resistance. "I believe in God, because there is no other explanation of Apple’s success," he said. Enchant all the influencers. "The problem that I found in this business is that the higher you go in a business organization, the greater the opportunity of the thin air ... talk to people in the middle and the bottom."

"Everyone should watch 'Never, Say Never' by Justin Bieber," he said. "It’s a great example of marketing." Bieber has the market share in the segment of 9- to 16-year-olds. "Do you have that market segment? If you don’t like it, send me an email. I’ll refund your money."

9: 52 p.m. (6) Endure. Grateful Dead encourages the pirating of its music, to record its concerts. That’s why the band endures. Don’t rely on money.

9:57 a.m. (7) Sell your dreams. Steve Jobs sells a dream about what $188 worth of parts can do. Use only 10 slides, which is the optimal number of slides in a PowerPoint. Talk for 20 minutes and use 30-point font. Kawasaki admitted that he's an exception.

10:02 a.m. (8) Use technology to enchant people. Remove the speed bumps. Kawasaki showed a Captcha image with the Hebrew word for obstacle. Point taken, a challenge indeed. Provide value, like information (what happened), insights (what does it means) and assistance (how you can make it happen for you). Engage fast, many and often.

10:05 a.m. (9) Enchant your boss. Drop everything when your boss asks you to do something. Prototype fast—it shows that you did drop everything. Deliver bad news early. Never go into an investor meeting with bad news. Good news—spring it on whenever you want.

10:07 a.m. (10) Enchant down: Provide a MAP: Mastery, Autonomy and Purpose. Empower action and suck it up. The key to the enchantment of Mike Rowe in Dirty Jobs is because he’s willing to do it. You have to communicate that there is nothing you won’t do for your company.

“Resisting you is futile” is what Kawasaki signs on the cover of his book. It's faster and it’s a cool thing to show off that you met the author. If you are going to show off, go for it.

10:16 a.m. "That's it in a nutshell, in one hour, is how to be enchanting. I hope this enables you to enchant all these people and change the world."


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