Enchantment

The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions

By: Guy Kawasaki

Narrated by: Dan John Miller

Enchantment, as defined by best-selling 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."

©2011 Guy Kawasaki (P)2011 Penguin Audiobooks

Actually pretty enchanting.

I truly enjoyed this listen more that I thought I would. I was expecting a snooty designer with Asian superiority complex. But as it turned out it was fun, inspiring, and enchanting. Good show!

A short book that's short on original insights.

I really admire Guy Kawasaki, but I could not offer up the fifth star for this book because too much of this book is recycled material. I've seen it or read much of it in other books. It's a worthwhile read if you are new to marketing or customer service. The term enchantment, may sound enchanting, but it's really just another way of talking about delivering positive experiences.

Excellent!

Would you listen to Enchantment again? Why?

This is a good book with specific steps and examples. It was entertaining to listen to with plenty of meat to apply to your business. Enjoy!

In Depth Common Sense

The book is well written, but it didn't have any take-aways for me. As long as you apply a little common sense, and try to be likeable, then this book doesn't really have to much going for it. If you have trouble being likeable, then this would be a great read.

Learn to win friends and gain influence

I got to meet Guy in June 2015. He shares his social knowledge. Highly recommend you read this book.

Loved it.

Couldn't get through "art of the start" but this one was great. It's now my official bible for any business I start. I'm going out to by the hard-cover version soon.

interesting

Interest look at human nature, and how we caputure attention, of people and or companies

A short version of another book.

Overall a good book. It has some connections to another book of the author: The Art of the Start.

impactful pragmatic recommendable

all those I recommended it to loved it
changed my life
great narration
engaging memorable
concrete
check it out

Not Kawasaki's Best

This is not Kawasaki's best. His "Selling the Dreams" has bee a huge influence on me, and while there are golden nuggets contained within this current text, it failed to capture the magic of his earlier work. The multiple narrators was more disorienting and jarring than anything else. (The author did the chapter introductions, the main narrator did most, and a second voice did stories.) A single voice would have been a more pleasant experience. Perhaps the greatest disappointment is that despite his stated goals not to limit his scope, this is really a book about high tech marketing for a start-up. The examples and the advice were often too limited, in my opinion, to that narrow context. I know that the author disagrees as he makes claims to the contrary in the text, but I think the fact that he has to claim a wider impact is telling. I know the adage is "write what you know," but Kawasaki did a better job in earlier work getting out of his comfort zone to know more to include. My work is about internal change efforts, and it is a stretch to apply what Kawasaki has here to that context. Yes, I have a cause, and I need to recruit others to it, but the techniques here are not a great set of tools for that purpose. Also, again despite Kawasaki's stated goals, the book feels like it will become dated with an empahasis on current technology. I think with more editing and craft, the ideas about using twitter, linkedin, and facebook could have been generalized to universal principles that were then explored in the context of these specific technologies.