Enchantment is a guide to developing a charming personality and improving one’s social skills. In “Enchantment” Guy Kawasaki, the author provides a good overview of people’s skills.
Bullet Summary
- Find your passion and live it
- When you meet people, look for commonalities
- Find your 1.000 screaming fans (enthusiasts)
Enchantment Summary
Enchanting is the art of charming people, and there two crucial components to enchanting:
- Being liked
- Being trusted
The author then also talks about enchanting to sell, so he adds how to launch, sell and manage social media.
Find Your Passion
Enchanting people are passionate people.
They know what they love, they pursue what they love and they share what they love.
Find Their Passion
Enchanting people also talk to other people about what they love.
As Dale Carnegie says in How to Win Friends and Influence People, the secrete to being interesting is being interested.
And if the people you talk to don’t have a passion?
Always assume they do!
It’s the best way to find it (or to help them find it).
And if they really don’t, Kawasaki wonders if they are really worth enchanting :).
Find Common Passion
As Robert Cialdini says in Influence, people like people who are like them.
To stress how you are similar, always look for commonalities you have. Ideally, those commonalities will be common passions.
Create Win-Win
Similar to Covey in The 7 Habits of Effective People, Kawasaki says that likable people focus on adding value and finding solutions where both people profit.
Also read:
Trust to Be Trusted
Guy Kawasaki mentions Tony Hsieh, author of Delivering Happiness. He says that Tony’s company, Zappos, is based fully on trust.
And it works because Tony first trusted customers. And in return, customers don’t take advantage of Zappos and its free returns.
My Note:
In reality, there is little to take advantage of free returns.
Returning products is so time-consuming that I’m pretty sure there is a huge number of people who keep products they’re not too happy with to avoid having to go return them.
Plus: you are paying the returns of others on the shoes you’re buying.
Enchantment also says you should assume people have good intentions and give them the benefit of the doubt.
Someone might even do something bad but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re bad people and there might be circumstances you’re not aware of.
Always Reveal Your Conflict of Interest
Most people won’t even care about your interests in promoting a product… As long as you state it very clearly.
Failing to disclose your interests and being found out will erode your trust faster than snow in an oven.
And there is also little to be embarrassed in most conflicts: if you behave honestly and only endorse products you like, then you have no conflicts to be ashamed of.
Build People Up Before Introducing Them
Guy Kawasaki mentions a simple and neat technique he learned from the author of “Yes: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways of Getting to Yes“.
The technique, which significantly increased sales, was simply to tell customers something positive about the colleague you were about to pass them to.
For example:
I’m going now to pass you to Miss. Pitt, she has over 20 years of experience in real estate.
Beat Resistance With Positioning
Sometimes people can resist an idea only because of preconceived notions.
Nintendo was having trouble penetrating the US market because Americans had turned hostile towards games and console.
Nintendo called its new game “robot” instead, and it was a smash hit.
Acquire Early Adopters
People resist change.
And a great way to overcome that resistance is by getting a few early adopters that will function as social proof.
Especially if the early adopters are the hip kids, then everyone else can look up to them and will be happy to follow.
That’s why gaining early traction is so crucial.
Also read:
An experiment divided students into three groups and gave three types of different feedback:
- You know the material really well, you tried really hard, keep at it
- You should do well, you should be doing better
- I am proud of your work, you are doing excellent
The feedback that worked the most is the first one.
My Note: This is growth mindset
The first feedback worked best because students internalize the methodology of working hard and they tend to develop a growth mindset (also read “how to develop a growth mindset“).
On Competition
I like what Kawasaki says about the competition:
If you do something worthwhile you’ll have competition. If you don’t have any competition,, you should wonder if you’re doing something worthwhile
Albeit Peter Thiel in Zero to One says that the really great companies operate as a monopoly with little to no competition.
On Marketing
Around 5% of your messages should be promotional.
And if nobody complains, you’re not promoting enough.
The rule of thumb, says Guy Kawasaki, is that “the more value you give, the more you can promote”.
On Career & Enchanting Your Boss
- Always prioritize your boss.
If your boss asks you something, drop whatever else you were doing and serve him first.
- Ask for feedback as you go
You give the impression of being proactive.
- Demonstrate progress
- Deliver bad news early (and add how to fix it whenever you can)
Bad bosses only want good news but you should avoid those bosses.
Real Life Applications
- Swear… But Don’t Swear Too Much
People who swear from time to time come across as more passionate and more real.
A swear word can be used strategically to wake people up. But don’t overdo it. On top of coming across as boorish, swearing loses its effect if it’s continuous.
- Little New & Original Ideas
Enchantment is a good overview, but there is little new and original wisdom.
CONS
- Correlation presented as evidence
God, sometimes I wonder how many times I have repeated this one in my reviews :).
Guy Kawasaki says that if you don’t believe that names impact the success of a product, “just look at Tata in India, which has been so successful because the name reminds people of the word grandfather.. “.
Of course, that doesn’t say anything because it’s a correlation, not causation.
Maybe Tata would have been even more successful had it been called “Caca”.
Who knows… (also read read “Fooled by Randomness“)
- Do whatever your wife tells your first
LOL, that might be a joke but some guys might take it seriously, so I’m raising a flag here (and read “how women control men and relationships“).
PROS
Good information, interesting stories, and a very good narrating voice make Enchantment a real fast and worthwhile read.
- Good advice on “working” your boss 🙂
Read a full article on that: how to manage your boss to get ahead.
Enchantment – Review
Enchantment is not meant to break much new ground.
But it’s a good book and provides a good overview of social skills and marketing as well.
Check the:
- Best social skills books to learn how to get good with people
