Guy Kawasaki Enchants Audience in Recent Keynote

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Photo credit: @nathaneide

Guy Kawasaki recently keynoted at a regional interactive event, the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association Summit, where at least 1,000 attendees learned the art of enchanting customers, peers, and even their bosses.

Kawasaki is author of "Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions." He was a software evangelist for Apple from 1983 to 1987 and learned first-hand the secrets to changing hearts, minds, and actions through the meteoric rise of Apple. He talks about the concept of "enchanting" as influencing people or customers with the best ethical practices. He believes that in today's business environment you must enchant your customers, not just service them.

Kawasaki presented 10 to-do's to become enchanting and influence your audience during his keynote address:

1. Be likeable. To be more likeable, smile, accept others, and think about how you can help people, not just get something from them.
2. Be trustworthy. You can be liked without being trusted. Gaining trust is imperative to influencing your audience. Trust others first and they will come to trust you. An example Kawasaki mentioned is having a customer return policy that encourages trust, like paying shipping for sales and returns.
3. Create great stuff. Products created with deep and intelligent thought that are complete, empowering, and elegant show that the creator cared about the consumer.
4. Great launch. The secret to a perfect launch is to tell a great story and plant many seeds in the minds of consumers. Be sure the story includes salient points. Describe the way the consumer would see it without industry buzz terms.
5. Overcome resistance. At times, resistance is inevitable, but there are ways to break down resistance, such as showing social proof that others are adopters. It also helps to use an animated dataset that shows how a product's or idea's impact can serve to change a mindset.
6. Making enchantment endure. Build an ecosystem of reciprocation like a website, user groups, or conferences. Invoke reciprocation by enabling people who owe you a favor to pay you back.
7. Great presentation. A great presentation is the key to selling your dream. Customize the introduction when delivering the same presentation to different audiences. Use local photos to engage the audience.
8. Use technology. Technology can help to enchant people. For example, social media can be used to touch people, and it's fast, free, and ubiquitous. Make technology easy-to-use and remove the speed bumps.
9. Enchant up. Treat bosses and decision-makers like they are the only thing that matters.
10. Enchant down. People at the bottom of the organization chart are important too and are oftentimes influencers themselves. Provide a map on how to take people to the next level and empower action. Allow people to make decisions. And suck it up - doing the dirty work makes you more enchanting.

How does a company continue to enchant? As Kawasaki says, "Companies continue to enchant by continuing to innovate." Innovation is the key to influencing audiences and customers.