Guy Kawasaki is speaking in Mountain View on August 20, so I am reading his latest book, Art of the Start 2.0.
It’s a fantastic and practical book for anyone starting anything whether it s a new company product or service, or generating a change internally within a larger organization.
Since this describes so much of what we do here at ThinkResults, I’m finding myself taking notes and generating new ideas to implement with clients throughout the book. If you’ve never read a Guy Kawasaki book, you are in for a treat. His style is honest, irreverent and very, very funny. And SPOT ON with my experience here in Silicon Valley with both tiny startups and large multinationals.
Guy never fails to tell you like it is. His “Top Ten Lies of Venture Capitalists” is a classic, the “Good Boss Manifesto” is an amazing set of leadership mantras, and his positioning example by Wile. E. Coyote is brilliant (summed up: “He’s a coyote and he eats rabbits for lunch”).
He challenges each of us to make our positioning as simple as Wile. E. Coyote’s and that’s fabulous advice. Start with answering “What do you do?” because until you make it clear exactly what you do, people have a hard time hearing all the other words you tell them.
Guy artfully uses stories and analogies to get right to the heart of each of the parts you need to start successfully (Launching, Leading, Bootstrapping, Fund-raising, Pitching, Building a Team, Evangelizing, Socializing, Rainmaking, Partnering, Enduring and Being a Mensch).
Positioning Exercise from Guy Kawasaki
I’ll leave you with one of my most favorite exercises of the book (there were so many to choose from), on how to craft clear positioning:
Step 1: Write a one paragraph description of your customer’s experience when she is using your product.
Step 2: Call up a customer and have her write a one paragraph description of using your product.
Step 3: Compare the two descriptions.
Simple. Brilliant. Cuts to the heart of the matter.
Read the book, you won’t be disappointed. And if you are in the Bay Area on Thursday, I have a free ticket for the Guy Kawasaki event that I will give to the first person to leave a comment below. The event is put on by Women in Consulting and being sponsored by ThinkResults.
And it will be sold out very soon. 😉
– Jenn