Why I Love Guy Kawasaki

I just had one of the most amazing experiences in my business life a few minutes ago. It was what I call the essence of Seth Godin’s surprise factor. Seth always talks about doing something more than what your customer expects. This was amazing to me.

I just read Everything You Wanted to Know About Getting a Job in Silicon Valley But Didn’t Know Who to Ask by Guy Kawasaki (the original “evangelist” for Apple). I noticed that his Addendum could have included a link to my post on the same subject. So, I took action and found some amazing things:

1. I could actually email Guy Kawasaki! Personally! I’m not making this up. Guy’s email address is located prominently – directly below his photo. Who does that? Talk about willing to take the reward of “customer” (read: reader) over the risk (getting spammed like crazy).
2. I got an email back in 2 minutes and 18 seconds….. from Guy himself! I’m not making this up either. I emailed Guy, and he responded so fast that it blew my mind (wipes the wall off behind my head). Two minutes and 18 seconds?! Isn’t he … busy or something?

So, now I’m going to have to confess. Talking to my wife recently, I told her that whenever you find an opportunity to talk to someone you admire, you should. Email, blog, comment, phone, face to face, whatever. Just talk to them. Tell them you think they are great! If they’re too busy to respond or think to little of you to talk, they’re not worth your time, and you should move on. Don’t take it personally. But, don’t think that highly of them either. Now, there’s always the super busy person who just can’t reply quickly. But, those people hopefully don’t put their email address on their blog either.

But Guy Kawasaki? Yea, I’d keep this guy in the rolodex for life. Especially when he says to you things like this:

Thanks for the feedback. Gald that you liked it. Great minds think alike.

… and then puts his address and phone number on the email.

[tags]guy kawasaki, shitake, garage technology ventures, apple, customer evangelism[/tags]