Enchantment

The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions

By: Guy Kawasaki

Narrated by: Dan John Miller

Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

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

I judged a book by it's cover-story

I ordered this book after reading articles and watching video clips about how great is was, but it turned out to be a random collection of general knowledge, peppered with drooling Apple product advocation and anti-(Adobe)Flash statements about how a web site home page should appear. I really was hoping that this would provide some insight into the psychology of customer motivation and product/service marketing, but it turned out to be (in my opinion) overstatement of the obvious.

Hey, the advertising worked on me, so there must be some magic in there somewhere!

A Meal of Cotton Candy

This book offers a very high-level overview of some of the psychology and research behind the elusive notion of being 'enchanting'. There is very little original content, as Kawasaki borrows from a vast array of other authors, including Malcolm Gladwell and Robert Cialdini. This book is a great jumping off point if you're looking for other sources that will drill down deeper into a particular subject. This book does a good job of explaining 'what to do' but without the critical 'how to do it' part. I found it to be dis-jointed as it jumped from subject to subject. Thrown in are a number of 'real life' stories, which were mildly interesting, but didn't appear to have much to do with the subject matter. As an avid reader of books in this category, reading Enchantment was like sitting down to dinner and being fed only cotton candy.

Just as disappointing as "Art of the Start"

Garden-variety advice, garden-variety prose. Can't argue with the advice, but it's simply the sort of thing anyone's mom tells them. "Be a good person".

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.

Enchanting and well worth it but..

Enchantment is certainly worth the listen. In fact true to form Guy spews out info at the rate of a fire hose and this is good and bad. Good because he makes sure you get value for your hard earned dollar and good because you will walk away with a number of action items you can actually act on right away. However, it is bad because you will never remember all of them. For this reason (and Guy will love this advice) you might want to also buy the actual book for reference.

Having said that I fully understand Dan's review "A Meal of Cotton Candy" (love his title). Almost everything Dan says in the review is correct. But I think Guy does a great job serving up the Cotton Candy. He puts a lot of info into one place and as I said, I at least walked away saying, "I need to do that." OK to be more accurate I should say, "I forgot Cialdini had written about that, I need to go do it". So, while this is certainly negative in one respect it does speak to Dan's point that the book is a good jumping off point for ideas for further reading. The one point in Dan's review that I disagree with is that Guy only addresses the 'what to do' but not the critical 'how to do it'. In some cases Guy does talk about the "how" and in others the "how" is obvious but it is often hard to remember to do it. For example, "do no evil" or I think Guy also borrows the idea of "don't do anything you wouldn't want to see published in your local paper". Well, I suppose Guy could have advised posting this mantra on your desk.

Finally, I have to say that I got a huge chuckle out of the book having recently finished "The Six Figure Second Income" (Jonathan Rozek , David Lindahl) because Guy must have just finished it as well. Although Guy has been at it for awhile so I wouldn't be surprised if he was the inspiration for Rozek and Lindahl. I won't go into the details but if you do listen to "The Six Figure Second Income" you will quickly get my point as well as a good chuckle.

An Enchanted Review

This is my first review on Amazon. And I did it because Guy asked me to. I was enchanted.

He mentioned in the book how he makes a strong effort to respond to emails, so I decided to give it a try. I shared my thoughts with him on the book and he actually responded to me. Now that's enchantment!

As I told Guy, I downloaded it from Audible. The lessons mixed with real life stories were inspiring and insightful. I also believe it helped me to focus and make great first impressions in some recent meetings.

Working in politics and government, I see real value in the book for candidates, campaign managers and anyone already in elected office. I also think it's great for anyone looking to change jobs or even start their own business. I definitely plan on listening to it again and taking a look at some of his previous books too.

Top 1% of all books

I will certainly seek putthis authors other books and recommend this one to all my peers and friends.

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.

Tips, Advice and more

Great book with tips easy to use. Narration was good with the author feathered in.

Excellent book by Guy Kawasaki on enchantment.

Love Guy Kawasaki's perspective on enchantment and how to become enchanting in business or employment. Great tips and every day examples.

Generic

The reviews are right, it's a nice listen but too generic to lead to specific actions. The book is not bad though, it can certainly help build the right mindset, but I didn't find any a-ha moment throughout the book.