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GUY KAWASAKI
 Guy Kawasaki is a founding partner and entrepreneur-
in-residence at Garage Technology Ventures, and is also the co-founder of Alltop.com, an “online magazine rack” of popular topics on the Web. Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer Inc. Kawasaki is the author of nine books including “Reality Check,” “The Art of the Start,” “Rules for Revolutionaries,” “How to Drive Your Competition Crazy,” “Selling the Dream,” and “The Macintosh Way.” He holds a B.A. from Stanford University, an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles, and an honorary doctorate from Babson College of Babson Park, MA. Kawasaki is also an avid recreational hockey player. |
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 f you’re the kind of person that detests business books because they’re often heavy on buzz words and light on, well, any sort of tangible takeaway, entrepreneurial guru Guy Kawasaki is your kind of author. In his latest book “Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition,” he does away with grand unifying theories and offers relevant nuts-and-bolts advice for achieving undeniable business results.
Housing chapters ranging from “The Art of Branding,” and “The Art of Evangelism,” to “The Art of Surviving,” the book urges readers to ignore fads and foolishness and, instead, stick to common-sense practices. Corporate EVENT spoke with Kawasaki about how the guidelines outlined in his book can be successfully implemented by event professionals, and how they can apply his wake-up-call reality check to their own face-to-face marketing efforts.
Corporate EVENT: What is the “reality check” that you think businesses today are failing to apply to themselves?
Guy Kawasaki: I say this repeatedly in the book, and I’ll say it again here: It all starts with a company’s product or service. If it’s great, why is it great? What’s the innovation? Are you the first to market? Do your differentiators outshine the competition? If so, in what ways? If your answers are true and unmolested by a lot of hype and marketing palaver, then it becomes a matter of how best to communicate the value your product or service represents.
In the context of event marketing, I’m a big fan of the demo. The reality is that a good demo is required no matter what your goals are. You need it to raise money, make sales, grab publicity, and recruit employees. But what makes a good demo? Or, as I like to frame it, how does one become a Demo God? The most important factor — and, ironically, the most overlooked factor — is practice. I’d say it takes about one day of practice to learn a five-minute demo or presentation. Unfortunately, most people simply don’t put enough effort into it. On top of this, they delude themselves into thinking that they are good because their handlers, co-workers, and media trainers candy-coat their critiques. Remember, the emperor is seldom ever wearing any clothes. One last tip is to cut the jargon. It rarely impresses anyone. It’s best to speak simply and succinctly.
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 In the context of event marketing, I’m a big fan of the demo. The reality is that a good demo is required no matter what your goals are. You need it to raise money, make sales, grab publicity, and recruit employees.
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CE: Aside from a well-rehearsed demonstration, what other elements are important components of a successful corporate event?
GK: For starters, create an event that is worth executing. It’s hard to stay motivated and excited about executing crap. The next step is a no-brainer: Set measurable goals for the event. If you don’t have measurable goals (e.g., event attendance, sales leads, contracts signed), it’s unlikely they’ll be achieved. The adage, “What gets measured gets done” is true. But don’t kid yourself. You can’t measure everything, or you’re likely to lose sight of what you primarily hope — and need — to achieve. Three to five goals per event is probably plenty.
In addition, make your goals relevant. If you’re a software company,
for example, the relevant goal might
be the number of downloads of your
demo version. The number of page
views or the amount of site traffic is
not nearly as relevant as hitting that goal of 10,000 downloads.
The last step is to communicate your goals. You’d be surprised how many executive teams set goals but don’t bother to communicate them to the organization. The same holds true for event marketing. For goals to be effective, they have to be communicated up and down the food chain. All members of your event team should wake up in the morning thinking about how they are going to help achieve these goals because they know everyone back at the home office is watching.
CE: Obviously, a primary goal for many event marketers is to develop positive, permeating buzz, whether it’s in the form of news stories, blogs, or consumer word of mouth. What is the trick to capitalizing on that kind of widespread evangelism for a product, service, or brand?
GK: This is a topic that is covered in the book in some detail. The key to great evangelism is great innovation. If the product or service is truly innovative, building an evangelistic approach is straightforward. First, be your own evangelist. Don’t focus on big names or important-sounding titles because the real buzz is always built at the grassroots level. So meet and talk with anyone who gets it and is willing to spread the word.
Most of the time, people either understand and like a product in 10 minutes or they don’t like it and never will. If the light bulb doesn’t come on for them almost immediately, cut your losses and move on. I say this because it’s much more difficult to convert someone to a new religion than it is to convert someone who has no religion in the first place.
Next, it’s all about communicating how your product or service changes people’s lives. One of the first and most important audiences for this message is the people you encounter at your events. And the most effective communicators of this message are event staff who know your product extremely well and understand how to communicate its value.
CE: So thorough product knowledge and effective communication are the keys to generating buzz, but bottom-line results are important as well. What advice do you have for marketers who want to use their events to gain more sales traction?
GK: Simple. Get your prospects talking. Whether it’s adding a Q&A at the end of your demos or making sure you have knowledgeable sales reps from your company on hand at the event, be sure to create multiple opportunities to engage with your target audience. If prospects are open to buying your product or service, they will usually tell you what it will take to close the sale. All you have to do is get them talking about their needs, shut up,
listen, and then explain how your product or service meets their needs. Believe it or not, most salespeople can’t do this because they’re not prepared to ask good questions, they’re too stupid to shut up, and they don’t know their own product or service well enough
to actually explain how it can satisfy
a would-be customer’s needs.
CE: With marketing budgets being nipped and tucked as of late, event professionals are second guessing the value of each and every line item, looking for places to save a few dollars and cents. One line item that often finds itself on the chopping block is the cost of promotional giveaways for event attendees. Do you think this is a logical place for marketers to trim the fat?
GK: Marketers should be careful to never underestimate the power of schwag. I’m not a fan of paying evangelists. However, well-meaning gifts such as T-shirts, bags, mugs, pens, stickers, and other items branded with your corporate logo can go a long way toward maintaining word-of-mouth momentum among your true believers.
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 Whether it’s adding a Q&A at the end of your demos or making sure you have knowledgeable sales reps from your company at your event, be sure to create multiple opportunities to engage with your target audience.
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CE: Too often, companies focus all their energy on the event itself, and fail to actively and strategically communicate with clients, prospects, and attendees before and after the event. What advice do you have regarding those all-important pre- and post-event communiqués?
GK: E-mail done right is the simplest and most cost-effective way of communicating with your market in the run-up to your event as well as afterward. Start with an effective subject line. It’s the window into your message’s soul. First, it must get your message past spam filters, so take out anything about sex and money-saving special offers. Second, it must communicate that your message is highly personalized. For example, “Love your book” and “You skate well for an old man,” always grab my attention. Third, it must entice without over-promising — just enough to compel your recipients to read it.
In terms of e-mail content, keep it short and cut to the chase by saying what you have to say in as brief and plain a manner as possible. The ideal length for an e-mail is five sentences all focused on one central idea. Simply explain who you are in one or two sentences and then get to the “ask.” I’d also add that you should use plain text. I hate HTML e-mail. I tried it for awhile, but it’s not worth the trouble of sending or receiving it. All those wonderful colors and jiggy typefaces and styles make me want to puke. If you can’t say it in plain text, it probably isn’t worth saying.
During your event, I also recommend going on Twitter. It’s the best thing that ever happened to marketing. You can use it to drive attendance, create a community, spice up presentations, and extend the conference beyond its physical and temporal limitations.
CE: Many events — especially formal, traditional corporate events — include the dreaded company speech, often presented by a C-level executive. How can marketers turn that bland and boring mainstay into a powerful event element?
GK: Make sure you have something interesting to say. This is 80 percent of the battle. If you have something interesting to say, then it’s much easier to give a great speech. If you have nothing to say, then why are you giving a speech? It’s better to decline the opportunity so that no one knows you don’t have anything to say than it is to give the speech and prove it. Also, practice, practice, practice. It takes giving a speech at least 20 times before you can do it well. You can recite it to your cat or dog if you like, but it takes practice and repetition if you’re really going to kick butt.
CE: If “Reality Check” were to include a chapter called “The Art of Blowing it at Your Next Big Event,” what would it say?
GK: It would say that the stupidest thing you can possibly do is feature suggestively attired women as brand ambassadors or staffers at your event. If you think babes are the best way to promote your brand, forget the corporate event and go buy a topless bar.e
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