Guy Kawasaki Interview

[John Scott]

Today I had the great pleasure of interviewing on of the best marketing & business thinkers alive, Guy Kawasaki:

Guy Kawasaki Interview

[Ferre]

The man is an excellent observer. I didn't know anything about him untill I read this interview but he's the kind of man that I like instantly after reading it.

It's a good interview, it makes me go and read some of his works.

[sitetutor]

Never ask people to do something that you yourself wouldn't do. This applies to sales, marketing, evangelism, product design, pricing, support, whatever.

I really like this part

[John Scott]

The interview really gives you an idea of the quality of human he is.

He also did a great job of defining brand.

Originally Posted by Guy Kawasaki

"Branding" has taken on too much of a role as a specialized craft performed by voodoo artists.

A good brand is created through the actions of dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of people. It starts with the product itself: Is it good? Because branding crap is hard.

Then there's marketing: explaining the product.

Sales: distributing the product.

Evangelism: spreading the good news of the product.

Service: making sure the product is "whole."

When all of this comes together, then your customers accept and reinforce what you've done, and a brand emerges. Branding is certainly not what occurs when a bunch of marketing MBAs decide late on night in an ad or PR agency.

[Brian]

John Scott: In your latest book, you talk about the importance of being a "Mensch". Please tell us what a "Mensch" is and why I should be one.

Guy Kawasaki: A mensch is an ethical, trustworthy, and kind person who does the right thing the right way. It is the highest form of praise.

One should strive to be a mensch because it is the best way to live: as a person who helps others for the sheer pleasure of helping others.

This is my favorite part. He hit the nail dead on. It's always good to see a man of such high praise and power have such an enlightening and good-natured view on life.

Good interview, John.

[Kalina]

It was very interesting and inspiring to learn a little about Guy Kawasaki. Along with Ferre, I didn't know anything about Guy either.

This part of the interview stands out to me the most:

Guy Kawasaki: A mensch is an ethical, trustworthy, and kind person who does the right thing the right way. It is the highest form of praise.

One should strive to be a mensch because it is the best way to live: as a person who helps others for the sheer pleasure of helping others.

I highly agree. Very good Interview, John. I'm enlightened.

[T0d]

Awesome, going to read now

[Cricket]

WOW! I was already a major fan of Guy Kawasaki, but somewhere along the line I forgot how absolutely motivating it is to read his thoughts. I guess it is time for me to do some book shopping.

Thanks for providing this for us John!

[John Scott]

All thanks to Mr. Kawasaki. It really was too kind of him to do the interview for us.

[Cricket]

I need to add some comments to my blog about this interview. It is well worth the read for anyone serious about building a successful online business.

[Michael Allison]

An excellent, if short, interview, John.

Good work!

[John Scott]

Where's your blog, Cricket?

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by Michael Allison

An excellent, if short, interview, John.

Good work!

Our interview format is seven questions, so they tend to be shorter. Designed for busy folks.

[G10]

Bootstrapping:

It means that you haven't been able to raise $5 million with a PowerPoint presentation, but you still believe in what you're doing. So you live on soy sauce and rice, borrow everything, work out of crappy space, ship right away, and work like a dog.

Amen to that.

It's good to see people of his calibre understand and appreciate what it is like to be in that kind of position.

[Trapper]

"High and to the right, like George W. "

I laughed ou loud at that.

[hulkster]

Guy is a MAJOR heavy - great snag John. BTW, one of the funniest things on his blog was this snippet.

And while we're on the subject of kicking butt, let me tell you a funny story. About six years ago, at the height of the dotcom hype, I owned a Porsche 911 Cabriolet. One day I was at a stoplight in Menlo Park, and a car full of teenage girls in the next next lane were giggling and smiling at me.

I'm thinking, “Guy, you've finally arrived: Even teenage girls know who you are--Macintosh evangelist, venture capitalist, author, speaker. How sweet it is!� Finally, one of the girls motions me to roll down my window.

I put down the window, fully expecting her to tell me how much she loves my writing, speaking, whatever, and she says, “Are you Jackie Chan?�

That incident made me establish a new goal to execute: that someday Jackie Chan will be stopped at a light in Hong Kong, and a car full of teenage girls will ask him to roll down his window. Then one will ask, “Are you Guy Kawasaki?�

By the way, he may do his own stunts, but I do my own blogging.

[Trapper]

I noticed that he refers to all non-gender specific articles as "she" and he even refers to God as a she. I just thought it was interesting.

[Kalina]

Originally Posted by hulkster

Guy is a MAJOR heavy - great snag John. BTW, one of the funniest things on his blog was this snippet.

And while we're on the subject of kicking butt, let me tell you a funny story. About six years ago, at the height of the dotcom hype, I owned a Porsche 911 Cabriolet. One day I was at a stoplight in Menlo Park, and a car full of teenage girls in the next next lane were giggling and smiling at me.

I'm thinking, “Guy, you've finally arrived: Even teenage girls know who you are--Macintosh evangelist, venture capitalist, author, speaker. How sweet it is!” Finally, one of the girls motions me to roll down my window.

I put down the window, fully expecting her to tell me how much she loves my writing, speaking, whatever, and she says, “Are you Jackie Chan?”

That incident made me establish a new goal to execute: that someday Jackie Chan will be stopped at a light in Hong Kong, and a car full of teenage girls will ask him to roll down his window. Then one will ask, “Are you Guy Kawasaki?”

By the way, he may do his own stunts, but I do my own blogging.

haha... that WAS great! He has a lot more to offer than Jackie Chan anyway, actors get far too much credit and recognition.

[Trapper]

Another gem from Guy's blog

Always use the toilet in an airplane after a woman. This is getting a little vertical, or horizontal, depending on how you want to look at it. Simply put, men pee on the seat. Women don't. And if a woman follows a man who peed on the seat, then she will clean it up before she sits down. If you sit down after her, you're good to go--so to speak.

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by JohnScott

Where's your blog, Cricket?

Website Development Training

During a recent move to a dedicated server I decided to bite the bullet and do some reorganizing of my sites. I moved my previous PR5 blog from a subdomain into its own domain, so it doesn't have any PR at the moment. Hopefully with the 301 redirects all in place it will get PR back in the upcoming update. Either way, it gets some decent traffic.

I just posted about the Guy Kawasaki Interview.