Take a look and see how you can incorporate this idea in to your next opportunity.

Example chapters:

• How to Achieve Likability
• How to Achieve Trustworthiness
• How to Prepare – and much more.

The Kirkus Review is a publishing world power that rarely gives great reviews – so these comments should motivate you to go out and get it:

“The entrepreneur’s entrepreneur is back with his ninth book, this time tackling the tricky art of influence and persuasion. Kawasaki (Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging and Outmarketing Your Competition, 2011, etc.) transforms the otherwise exhausted and overwrought tropes of how to win friends and influence people with a complete makeover here, whether he’s talking about wardrobe choice or tips for effective swearing. The author, a modern-day Dale Carnegie, offers explanations on how to wield the most influence in the digital age: Push Technologies like presentations, e-mails and Twitter are discussed as active means of enchanting others, while Pull Technologies like Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn passively draw them in. The author’s suggestions for achieving likeability and trustworthiness, as well as overcoming resistance, are thoroughly explained and can easily translate from the workplace to the real world. Kawasaki makes good use of subheads and bullet points, rendering information in a searchable format. He ends each chapter with an anecdote that illuminates the effectiveness of his techniques–while it’s not original, it’s effective. The author’s trademark light and airy style is on display, but it’s his humor and empathy that makes the heavy use of BusinessSpeak and buzzwords more easily palatable.
Informative, concise guide from one of America’s most influential and, yes, enchanting entrepreneurs.”

I couldn’t have said it better. Buy it here!

Last week I wrote on various aspects of eye communication. A couple of experiences prompt me to write again – on how eye communication impacts word of mouth marketing.

And how important is word of mouth marketing?

• 80% of reviews are positive…because people want to share things they enjoy. Known as the “J-Curve”
• 90% of people who write reviews do so to help other people.
• In 2007, “Trust in someone like me” tripled, which trust in companies dropped. (Think of what it is today!)

(For more stats, check out Bazaarvoice – the leader in WOMM)

Last week, I became a disgruntled customer at my local market because an order I had placed a week before had yet to be filled, and I was having friends over that night. I went there and the manager looked me directly in the eye throughout our conversation. As a result, I found myself calming down, seeking to work towards resolution. In the end, I left the establishment satisfied and eager once again to recommend the place to others.

Then recently I walked in to a store as a potential new customer, prepared to spend some good money to update a few home furnishings. Rather than engage me while discussing options in the store, the salesperson completely avoided eye contact, looking at my watch, my clothes, and pretty much anywhere else he could other than my eyes.

Combined with a generally unpleasant demeanor, this lack of eye contact cost this business not only a sale but also any positive word of mouth marketing. Being a small, specialty store in my neighborhood my negative experience leads me to give less-than-positive reviews to my friends in the community – bad WOMM.

As communicators, we have a toolbox of behavioral skills we enlist to communicate effectively; of all the skills in our toolbox, eye communication is the most important. As I wrote in You’ve Got to be Believed to be Heard:

“Eye communication ranks first because it has the greatest impact in both one-on-one communications and large group communications. It literally connects mind to mind, since your eyes are the only part of your central nervous system that is in direct contact with another human being. When your eyes meet the eyes of another person, you make a First-Brain-to-First-Brain connection. When you fail to make that connection, it matters very little what you say.”

My point?

With the growth of the Web 2.0 generation – focusing on branding and marketing through social media et al – the significance of powerful, effective interpersonal communication often gets lost in the shuffle.

WOMM reflects the reputation of a brand – a reputation built on communication experiences. Interpersonal communication is still the basis of a reputation. And the primary communication skill that can make or break a positive communication experience (and thus, a reputation) is eye communication.

Remember your eye communication next time you’re trying to make a sale, or just sell yourself; your WOMM is on the line.

"Outliers", "Tribes", "You've Got To Be Believed To Be Heard" – had to have that in there

why single out Guy Kawasaki's "Reality Check" on this Thanksgiving?

Because…

• It's that good.
• It's a big book.
• You can get a multitude of tips and inspiration from it.

It is also easy, fun reading, and you can pick it up and put it down. But you'll want to pick it up again because of Guy's uniquely witty and irreverent style.

Reality Check is all about communicating, in addition to it's chapter 'The Reality of Communicating'. What Guy does is give you great insights and techniques for creating an action oriented communication experience with these other chapter headings (the ones I liked best):

• The Reality of Starting
• The Reality of Raising Money
• The Reality of Planning and Executing (particularly laughed at The Art of the Board Meeting)
• The Reality of Innovating
• The Reality of Marketing
• The Reality of Selling and Evangelizing (powerful ideas for us all)
• The Reality of Communicating (best of course, and not just because I'm mentioned)
• The Reality of Beguiling (laughed again at The Art of Sucking Up, after The Art of Sucking Down)
• The Reality of Competing
• The Reality of Hiring and Firing
• The Reality of Working (don't miss Why Smart People Do Dumb Things)
• The Reality of Doing Good (and to do some good go to the Twitter Red Kettle)

Well, that's actually all of them – couldn't leave any out. Many of the short vignettes in the chapters are from Guy's great blog, cleaned up and expanded it looks like. All have either wisdom, or insight, or just plain fun. Usually all three.

That's Guy. I'm thankful he wrote the book. You will be too when you read it.

Some great blog reviews already received are from Nancy Duarte of Slide:ology fame, Garr Reynolds of Presentation Zen, and John Pearson of Managing Buckets, among others. (Much appreciated.)

In "Believed…" you'll find out:

• Why was George Bush a great communicator – once?
• See the differences between the New Communicators and the Old…
  Steve Jobs vs. Lee Raymond
  Oprah vs. Jeannine Pirro
  Howard Schultz vs. Michael Chertoff
  Bono vs. Mark McGuire
• Avoid the Three Myths of communicating
• Discover the power of the First Brain, and how you can use it
• Why people buy on emotion and justify with fact?
• Use the Six Behavioral Skills to your advantage
• Move your communications from information to influence
• Make the unconscious, conscious
• Reverse the ‘fear of speaking’ to your advantage
• Learn SHARPs to create your own unique communication experience
• Obliterate PowerPoint Abuse
• And much more…

For the first time these two concepts are combined in one book to make the 'complete book of speaking' –

1. The Behavioral Skills of the Decker Method with
2. The Decker Grid – a unique and proven process to create and organize ideas in half the time

Naturally I'd love you to get it right here at Amazon – at 33% off the list price! And I'd thank you for helping it get on the best seller list…