The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions |

I read a lot of books on digital marketing and building trust in relationships. I have some favorite authors, but I’m open to anything in the genre so I end up receiving a lot of preview copies for books to review. On February 4, 2011, I received this one…

Now, marketing and leadership books are strange animals. Some are great and others make you want to stab yourself in the eye with a fork. Almost all, though, usually are hypothetical or are recycled mumbo-jumbo. Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki is neither of these; instead, it’s a book about one thing: Influence.

Will this book help you to be “enchanting” in your sphere of influence?

Possibly. No book can guarantee that if you follow these X number of ‘easy’ steps, you’ll have more friends, better posture and piles of candy. What this book does remind readers, though, is that the only way to really make a lasting impact on people is to act with integrity. That’s a big deal and advice we would all do well to heed.

Some of the case studies are humdingers, but I won’t give everything away, just a few bread crumbs to see if this sounds like something you would benefit from:

Some Key Takeaways I Noted

Create a ‘yes’ page instead of an FAQ. Put the answer to the questions at the top: Yes. Then put the questions below it, on the page.
Push our message around trust even harder. Don’t work with clients who can’t trust us. Focus on clients who do, and can turn that into results for themselves.
Always express disagreement by first finding something to agree in.
Conduct a ‘premortem’ on every project: Get the team together. Pretend the project failed. Then talk it out.
Try to develop crow’s feet (you have to read the book to understand).
Reinforce my employees’ autonomy whenever possible.
Prototype everything.
Become a better curator of content. Start on Twitter and expand from there.
Build our marketing on total transparency: Tell people exactly what we’ll do when they sign up for a newsletter. Then deliver just that.

I admit, there’s a lot more than this. If you have a chance, do pick up a copy of Enchantment. It’s definitely a worthwhile investment and just might challenge you in a few places where you won’t expect it.

Was this helpful? Have a take on this subject? I’d love to hear your comments. (Oh, also, please feel free to share below, it’s the ‘enchanting’ thing to do)