How to Communicate Better

Foreign.

Good morning, everybody. I'm Guy Kawasaki. I'm in Santa Cruz, California. I am joined by Pig Fitzpatrick and Jeff C. This is the remarkable team, the remarkable axis of power. Jeff is in Texas. Jeff is in Texas. Peggy is in the land of the free. New Hampshire. And I am in California. Same thing.

Is that really your motto? Live free or die?

Our motto is Live free or die.

That's pretty intense right there. Well, we're. Don't mess with Texas. That's the. No, it's a little shoot.

And our state motto is whatever. Should we get some business done before we devolve into our random. So, a few hours ago, we released this week's podcast. It's Erica Dwan, and she is a digital communications expert. I have to say that one of the unintended consequences of me conducting this episode is I'm a little paranoid about all my digital communications because I had no idea that every comma, every colon, every sign off, every salutation, length, subject line, everything impacts people. And it would be easy if it impacted everybody the same way. But you kind of have to tailor your. Your messages for each person. And I don't know how you do that. So it's Erica Dwan. And, you know, here's the icebreaker. So you know, for you, what is your preferred method of communication? I'll give you my answer. My answer is email. So there you go. So send us. Send us your preferred answer. And before we go too far, remember that we are sponsored by Restream. This enables you to have a live feed on up to 30 platforms at once. We're only using four or five because our heads would explode at 30. And it has a killer new feature where not only can the guests. Not only can your followers see you live, but the followers of your guests can see you live. So wrap your head around that for a while. And Jeff, do we have any comments or questions?

We do. First of all, some people are saying text, and we want to make sure that we do not forget that you have a special text, even for your group. So explain that for the folks watching.

So we have a texting system as opposed to simply using email. We have mailchimp for that and we have subtext for text. And you can join that by texting. 831609, 0628 wait and you'll be signed up. Unfortunately, I have to tell you up front, it's only for Canada and the US That's. I guess it's so hard to offer tech services for a lot of countries because of A lot of the privacy legalities in each country. So there's that and. Okay, what else?

So one of the questions from Armand, he goes, why? Because you said yours is email. And he goes, why email? Why is that your preferred way of communication?

It's my preferred communication because of the quality of the email clients I can use. So I am not particularly great with a phone keyboard and my thumbs. So I need to type. Now, obviously I can use imessages on my computer so I can type. But then it becomes a whole thing when I want to add attachments, when I want to put in a picture, when I want to do a lot of stuff. Uh, when I want to, you know, Ever try to select text and cut, copy or paste on a. On an iPhone? I mean, just basically random, you know, when does it say copy and when does it say select All? I don't know about you, but I can't figure that out. And how long do you press and how hard do you press and how fast do you press to get that? All that kind of stuff just. It hurts my brain. And oftentimes I send several megabyte files that are in Dropbox. So how do I send that With a message? You know, text message. It's all those kinds of things.

Yeah.

I think a lot of people, a lot of companies are moving away from email, though, and moving to Slack. So there's less email for a lot of people. But I think it depends on what you do and who you are and like, definitely your age, because I think younger people hate email more than email. To them is like voicemail or, you know, like they're younger people just have a lot of different ways that they like their communication. They. They do not want any voicemail at all. They like text messaging the best. And then as we learned. Well, we'll talk about it later. We'll talk about emojis later when it comes up in the questions. But there's a lot to know. And as different generations are working together, this is one of the areas that I think is one of the biggest things is communication. Like, are you reaching your team the right way? Are you giving people tasks the right way? We use something called Privy for our team, which guy is on their board, I believe. But here's the thing with Privy, that is not my favorite. I like Slack better because you can find things. The problem with Privy is it's like this one big continuous conversation and stuff gets lost in there. And Slack, I actually do like. So. So does anybody like Slack? Is anybody a Slack user? Let Me know what you think about.

Slack, all my clients.

Yeah, but may I point out that with Slack, somebody has to put somebody into your Slack group. Right. So you can't just start communicating with somebody. So if you're. Yeah. So, I mean, internally within a company, I can see the beauty of Slack, but not as a, you know, a public figure.

Right. So there's different use. There's different use cases for email, if you're like cold emailing someone, for sure.

So that's. That's what I was gonna bring up because, you know, if you guys are just joining us, the question was, what is your preferred method of communication? And we're getting all sorts of answers, like WhatsApp, we've had somebody who said, you know, that's their preferred medium. And Elizabeth says phone call is her. And I think it depends on. So, like, here's the deal. What is that? Who doesn't know? I think it depends on the relationship. And the podcast talks about this, that it depends on the power structure, you know, where you fall inside the organization, all that stuff. So, like, for Peg and I, we do a lot of stuff with Messenger. Like, hey, I'll say, hey, the new podcast episode is up. You know, double check it, all this stuff. But then she'll also call me. Yeah, we do.

You never. I'm never included in this.

You said you don't care. You said you don't. Like, you're done.

Those are the.

Yeah, those are the things that you need to be involved in.

And we also have a group.

We have a group text too.

But we also.

Our team problem is we have too many communication things.

But my point was is that is also. You call. We call and talk to each other too. Because sometimes it's just easier than like, hey, we're thinking about, we got this new opportunity. Should we do this? What's the processes we need to put to place before we even tell guy? Because we want to get it all worked out before we tell him.

So.

And Erica says that on the podcast, she said a phone. Sometimes a phone call is worth a thousand emails. So even if phone calls aren't your favorite, there are some times when it's just easier to call. And sometimes I call a guy with those two. Like, it's. Sometimes you're just like, I just need to know, like, right away.

Right.

But you know what? You know what's interesting for me is I almost never have a telephonic conference anymore. Every conference is zoom. And I just think that you get so much more information with a Zoom than a phone call, I. E. Facial expression, you know, all that kind of stuff. I never do a straight phone call, you know, even. Especially if it's multiple people. I can't remember the last time I had a phone business call.

I called you yesterday.

A lot of people say they freaking forgot about it already, but a lot of people are saying face to face is their favorite method. And what guy was saying is that's the true with. With like zoom. And that's why we like Restream and being able to do live video is because even if we can't, we can bring. And we can bring you up in the chat, which is kind of almost. We can see your avatar and what you look like for the most case. So that's really cool as well. So I love live video and like I said, having the live conference things. I still think it's one of the. I think we're all trained to do that now after coming Covid but.

Right.

So you know, the, the thing with live video and we just discovered something that I don't know why Jeff didn't tell us about earlier, but we, we found this, this tool called Plexicam and Erica is the one who told me about it. And then I told Jeff and Peg and then Jeff says, yeah, I use it all the time. Well, thank you very much. How long have I known you, Jeff? So anyway, so. So it is this. It's. When I describe it, you're going to think guy, you know, what is the big deal? So it is a Plexiglas contraption that you hang over the top edge of your computer. And it gives you a little platform for you to put your webcam, or in my case, I put a Sony A6100 on it. And it is a beautiful thing. And, and it. Then you adjust the height so that the camera lens is roughly where the eyes are of your audience. Because there's such a, such a temptation to look into the eyes of the video, thinking you're looking into their eyes in virtuality, but in fact you're looking down because the camera is above. So now what I'm looking, I'm looking, you know, in my mind right into your eyes because I'm staring at Plexicam. Position of the camera lens on top of the window that has our faces in it.

It's also important for live streaming. If people are on their phone, people miss all the time. They're always looking at themselves. And sometimes I send people a message and say, you got to look up at your Camera because they're always looking at themselves and then they're looking, like, in a weird spot when they're going live. So no matter what device you're using, you got to look in the camera. And that's what the Plexicam, which is, by the way, not a sponsor. Yeah, it's great. Imacs, especially, because in imac, the camera is so high. Or, you know, you're on your laptop and you're like, we've all put stacks of books underneath when we need to get it at the right level, which then you're typing up here if you need to set it up, and it's just awkward. So. Yeah, I actually really like this a lot, too.

Yeah. And yeah, you're talking about, like, on the phones, like, Instagram lives really hard because you're, like, at the bottom and the camera's at the top, and it's really weird. But Rose has this, and she talked about this in the podcast. She says a phone call is too much invasive. Oh, I hit the wrong button. Here, let me put. There it is. Phone call. It's too much invasive. And so a lot of, like, my kids think that way. They're, you know, we think, you know, like, get on the phone and call the mechanic and find out when your car is going to be ready. They want to text or they want to go to some app where they can find it. So, you know, it's pretty interesting.

Well, but they like when you call.

Oh, yeah.

When. When you call Peg, she literally never answers the phone. I think she has do not disturb on permanently. So the only reason I call Peg is that. So she picks up her phone and says, oh, guy called. I call him back. You never, ever talk to Peg directly. It's always a call back. It's like, that's boundaries.

Friday night at 9 o' clock or Saturday morning at 10 o'? Clock. You might not.

Details, details.

Hey, weekend, weekend.

Wait, wait. How many. How many times have I ever called you and you answered?

I could go back and look.

Okay, we're having a little spat. Let me go to the next question.

So this is actually speaking of that, though. You called me right before this and I was doing my hair and I called you right back. Yeah, but I was doing my hair, so I understand.

I'm not saying you don't call me back. I'm saying you never pick up. Up when it's ringing.

I always. I have all my notifications, everything off. So my f. My phone isn't like, making a lot of noise because it causes me a lot of anxiety. Now, like, 10 years into social media, any notification noises, like. Like, even talking about it makes me feel like I missed something or forgot something. So for me, like, to stay sane, I have stuff off.

But have you ever noticed we're getting really deep in the weeds?

Have you ever.

Have you ever noticed that when you make someone an emergency contact, even if you have do not disturb, the emergency contact pierces that and your phone will ring.

You can set that. There's settings in there too. Like, I have it set. So if my. I have it on. Like, right now, my phone is on do not disturb, so nobody can interrupt. But if my kids call and then hang back and call again, then it will go through. I have that set up.

Are they emergency contacts?

I don't think they're emergency, but I have it. They're. They're in my. Like, there's some level that I put them in so that if they call and hang up and call back, it'll go through.

Wait, now let me. Let me try to repeat this. Do you want me to tell my wife to talk to me? You have to call me twice. That's gonna really go over big, Jeff.

Well, why don't you tell her, Guy, you gotta understand, she's got, you know, she's. You can call back.

Doesn't she just text you and say.

Guy, I have everything. When I have notifications on, everything's off. When I have silent mode on, it's dead.

So, yeah, the other day I was interviewing. Interviewing John M. Chu, the director of Crazy Rich Asians and Into the Heights. And like, my wife called. I said, john, you know, sorry, I know you're a director. I know you're crazy rich Asians. I know you're the hottest director in Hollywood, but I got to take this call.

There you go. Points for God for that.

Yeah. If I was talking to John Chu, Rich would get a call back.

Or if it was Ryan Reynolds, she would just leave. Totally.

Yeah, totally.

So our next question is this is, do you answer every email.

That one was for? So that was a conversation that Guy has with Eric on the podcast about email. And I'll say, I used to answer every email, but now I changed a few things on my website, on my contact form, because I get a lot of the same requests, like they want to have a guest post on my blog, or they want me to edit a blog post to add their tool to it, which I'm not going to do. So I just say nicely, like, I'm sorry, I'm not accepting blog posts and I do not add links to tools that I haven't used or, you know, I research my articles and try all the tools and include them. So three years later, no, I'm not adding your tool. So I, and then I don't feel bad about not answering those because I was upfront and I said I'm not accepting guest posts. So those are the two biggest emails I get all the time.

Wait, do you have an automatic answer that says I'm not accepting guest posts or you triggered that manually. The first response.

I actually, I do have, I do have one, but I, I don't always even send it. Sometimes I just ignore it if I'm, if I'm super swamped. Like this week I was like, I had so many, we have a lot of extra projects going on. So I, I don't feel bad if I don't answer it because I was, I said right above the contact form that I'm not accepting guest posts. I'm sorry. So I'm not, I say I'm not going to email back if you request that.

Do you think I'm a bad when I, when I get those kinds of, you know, I love your site and I have SEO optimization. Do you accept guest posts? Will you do a guest post? When I see those now, I have like so little patience. I just mark them as spam.

Yeah, I do because. And they didn't. You know, like, you have to be respectful of people's communication. Right? I mean, if you're saying I'm not accepting them, like, why would you edit your article? That's obviously doing well in search, which is why they're reaching out to you to add something that you have no idea who they are. Or I've been getting some lately that are like, hey, I wrote this great article. I thought you'd like to share it with your audience, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, I don't even know who you are.

Right. You know, I don't think anybody answered yes to do the answer every email. We've got tons of no's, Marilyn, but I try.

I really do.

I think sometimes I think you should listen to Erica's advice on that guy. I think you answer some that you don't need to.

I think you said or text expander.

Free yourself from that email like it's a monkey on your back.

What gets me is the ones not.

A monkey, it's a freaking gorilla. 900 pound gorilla. I wish it was just a monkey.

What's interesting is how many Times you get things that like, I get, like, be on the podcast. Come. You know, we'd love to be a guest on your podcast. And they tell. Say that first of all, they say they love the podcast. And then you read it and you're like, you've never listened to my podcast, idiot. I mean. Or like, why would Guy want you on his podcast? Because, you know, you're. I don't even know if I don't know. I'm not going to be ugly. But you know what I'm saying? It's like not remarkable.

So the ones that are clearly. They're clearly a form email. And they're just. And they don't even have like, hi, I love your site. And then it says like in a different font, Guy kawasaki.com We would love. You know, and you're like, no, like, that's an automatic. So you. Those don't even need a response. So those are just like, market as spam, delete it, whatever. But it. And then the other thing I try to do is remove myself from as many email lists as I can unless I'm really interested in it. If I'm. If I love their email, I'm all about it. But just like taking that time to like even read it, sort it, file it, delete it, even. That takes time, you know.

Well, my favorites are the one to say, I love the rich dad, poor dad. That'll get a response every time.

Do you get a lot of stuff from your forms on your website that spam that you have to mess with? That's the thing that I. Is your spam filters pretty good on yours? Because that's where I get.

I don't know. I mean, I got.

Not getting them. Then yes, they are good, right?

Yeah, I guess. Yeah.

Need to look into that.

I get some, I get some. But how many people have like a slush email that they use? That's what I call mine. Like, I have one that's like. And then sometimes people say, what's your best email to send things to? But then you have your other one that sometimes stuff goes through.

Oh, you mean email address?

Yeah, yeah. Like you have one really good one. And then like we'll say one Outlook and one Gmail, for example.

I. I have three or four email addresses, but they all auto forward to Guy Kawasaki at Gmail. I can't handle multiple places.

Yeah, but see, then I can ignore those other ones and I know that they're not important.

Well, here's a power tip for everybody. Do you know that anything after A plus sign in a Gmail email address doesn't matter. So, for example, I could put my email address as Guy Kawasaki plus. You know, I don't know CNET because I signed up for CNET. So. So I tell CNET my email address is Guy Kawasaki +CNET gmail.com. it'll work completely normally. Except now I know that if. If all of a sudden, you know, Clorox is sending me email to Guy Kawasaki/CNET gmail.com. i know that CNET sold my email address to Clorox.

Oh, got it.

I'll give you another power tip. Did you know that the.in your Gmail address is not functional? Think of all the people who say, oh, my name is John smithmail, and everybody's writing down the dot. It doesn't matter. You can take that dot out. It won't change.

Things that make you go, hmm. So what will be interesting is, like, how many email addresses, these slush email addresses you have. So we've got some people who said, like, blissagosh, she's got five. She's got, like, five of these extra emails. So do you have that many? What's like, what's the count? Who has the highest? I bet Peg does. I bet Peg does.

No, I really only use those two. I definitely probably still have a Yahoo email that I never, ever check. And if I did, it would have, like, the maximum amount of. That was like, one of my first, you know, way back in the. I don't even know what the email.

Address is, but do you guys ever check your, you know, Mac doc at your Apple? You know, Guy kawasaki@Mac.com?

No, I hope I have no email.

I never checked that. No.

Yeah, but I think going back to the, like, did you learn anything, though, Guy? Like, did you change any of your email practices after your conversation with Erica?

He got freaked out a little bit by all the. A little nervous.

Did you change anything?

Yeah, I mark more people as spam. Like, Erica has emancipated me. She's like, set me free. She says, you know, you don't have to answer everything.

Right. Good. That's good. I actually ordered the book. We have to stop having authors on because my address with books. But I really. Her message was great. Like, anybody who. If you. This is everybody. Because everybody digitally communicates. The things that Erica talked about in the podcast are so. Wow. Eric has eight emails.

Winner so far. Yeah.

Yeah, Eric's the winner. You get the most email because you get them everywhere. Erica's messages about how to Digitally communicate are so important for everybody because this is how we do all of our communication now, now that we're home. And then with Hybrid and everything else, even if we weren't. Even if you go back to the office, it's like, all these things are so important. If you're communicating with your team, right. If you're communicating with your spouse, right. If you're. You know, I send rich texts. Honestly, he does not read a darn thing. I text him nothing. I'm like, why do I. I'm like, did you look at it? No. I'm like, but I never text you anything. You can't even look. Look at. Nope. I'm like, least favorite from me, I guess.

My. My wife has her own unique text tone. She's the only person who has that text tone. So when that thing goes off and it's very unusual sound, I know it's her.

Yep, that's a good idea.

She's got the little bell. She's like, Guy.

So mine, mine, we used to play the Emperor's Death March from Star wars, and she didn't like that much. I had to change it. So what's our next. Our next question is, do you ever set up autoresponders for, like, we've been talking about email, all that kind of thing. So I know some people. My friend Eric has, like. He's got this whole, like, flowchart of how these autoresponders work. I use. Oh, I think Guy uses it too. What is that service that does it for you? Kind of. Oh, I can't think of it. Anyway, smarter. Not smarter Queue. Oh, gosh.

Sanebox.

Yes, sanebox. That's it.

Oh, I saw sanebox because it always.

Tells me that, you know, it always says Guy. And I know there gives you, like, your friends and your contacts. Like, he saved this many hours this month. And I saw that Guy's on there.

So I did see SaneBox. That actually looked like a cool solution. The thing I want, though is, like, there's no service that I checked and I asked on Twitter and I've been looking for it. Like, your email box should just be able to set up with, like, your work hours and then say, like, I'll respond after this or after the weekend instead of having to go in and do a vacation responder for the weekend.

Yeah.

Because even though you might work on the weekends, you know, you should get a break from email responding. But none of the services have that built in, and Germany has it. Like, it's like, illegal to, like, it's in their laws that you can't email after work hours and on weekends. And it's it. They have very strict laws and our country's just like, pile it on your employees. I feel like they. I feel like that should be something that the tech companies should just bake right in there, like help people with their work life balance, you know?

Okay, I have to answer a text message right now because. Because there's this box spring in my front driveway that I got to get rid of and Junk king is asking me for the address. So I got to take care of this right now.

Just talking with yourselves.

So unless there's someone in Santa Cruz who wants a free box spring, come on down. But right now I'm going to get rid of that.

So sanebox is a lot. I think it's pretty much like autoresponders that it does kind of behind the scenes. I really like it. I heard Michael Hyatt talk about it and I started using it. So I've been using it for a while and it's really helped.

Does it help organize your email? What does it do?

Yeah, so what it does, you can put things like in a black hole. Like if you get stuff, it kind of puts it in this so you'll never see it again. I get a email that says, you know, your sanebox, and it only does it so many hours and I go and check it and I just go down it and I either put things in the black hole, I put it to my inbox, or I, you know, delete it and I'll never see it again. And so it's really helpful for seeing what's important. Like I can just go to that box every day. And it's pretty much like this, I guess, super inbox that I use. So I like it.

And you. And you've never had anything that you missed because that I worry that how does it know? Is it AI that's deciding what's important for you?

Yeah, but I've never missed anything. And you can still go back and search, like if I need like an invoice or something somewhere that somehow didn't see it. But it's never really messed up for me because you're always telling it, like everything that I get from, you know, this person, I never want to see Nigeria. Yeah, it's gone. So.

Every once in a while the ones that get lost for me are speaking requests where somebody wants me to come and speak. And it's like a different. Yeah, yeah. And so then I have to, you know, you because you want to answer right away.

So we've got a great question because this pertains right to the podcast. So Ali asked this question. What are your thoughts on when somebody ccs more people on an email than is needed? You know, just in case. And Erica talked about this a lot in the podcast. So if you haven't listened to this one, make sure you guys go to remarkable people.com and download it, listen to it, review rate it, share it with all your friends. Everything you think of, do it. But it's. It was. She talks about it at length, about when that's appropriate, when it's not, you know, and it was really eye opening.

I thought, well, I, I know when I'm on the CC list, I just ignore it.

You don't answer I.

It means somebody else is responsible.

Yeah, that's true. I thought her, her BCC was interesting too. She said companies where people are using the B bcc, there's a very low level of trust in the employees with like, that's an eye opener. But yeah, the CC is weird. Like, it's weird. And then sometimes you get the email where a couple people are the top line and then three people are in the cc and then you're like, where is this going? It's confusing.

Yeah, yeah.

So you answer it, Guy. If you're in the. If there's two people in the top, say somebody emails you and I, and then three people are cc, do you answer that one or not answer that one?

Well, I like to just respond to the twos, not the ccs, so that if the ccs really needed it, the recipient has to go make a manual act and forward my response.

But what about if there's two people that are on the two?

You mean like you and I?

Yep.

Well, you and I, we're of equal importance, so I understand that.

But then do you answer it or do I answer it or do we both answer it?

Whoever gets first.

I mean, the thing is, this happens for us a lot. Like something, something an opportunity to come about the podcast. And Guy will put both of us in the conversation. And I'm like, I see it as way like he's letting us know that this is happening. Not so much that he wants. Unless he asks what. Because then he'll. Sometimes he'll go back and say, what do you guys think? Other times it's just like, this is, for your information, like, well, I must.

Admit we're going deep into the weeds now. But I must admit, many times I. CC and bcc, you guys it's for your amusement. It's like when some dumbass says that I'm Joe Blow of Blow, Inc. And I saw Jane Goodall or I heard Jane Goodall, and, you know, Margaret Atwood and Wozniak and Angela Duckworth, and I think I'd be a very valuable guest. And when I blow those people off, I just CC and BCC you guys, just to bring you a little happiness in your day, because that's when.

That's when Peg calls me and goes, well, what is he thinking about bringing this guy on?

I do that. Then we'll call that FYA for your amusement. And then there's the other one that you and Erica talked about, which is that no response needed. Is that the one?

That's a good.

Yeah, that's a tricky one.

That is a tricky one, and I think that is interesting. Like, are you sending it to someone just so they know? I guess an FYI. Even an FYI. I guess the thing is, if you respond to someone, you send them something with only. Only an acronym. It could be read so many different ways. Like, FYI, you're in trouble. FYI, take a look at this. FYI, you suck. Like, what is.

What does that mean?

FYI, I'm buying a new Porsche. It's too late. No sense getting involved.

I. I think that that's what you said to Beth. I don't care if you buy it. I'm like, cool.

So I don't use acronyms. But I think the idea that she was getting on, too is letting people off the hook. Like, a lot of times, because I have other teammates in Slack that I'll talk to, and I'll be going, like, on a Friday. I'll say, don't worry about answering this weekend. We can talk about this Monday. But I'm putting this here, and I have it shorter than that, but I'm essentially saying I'm putting this here so you guys can see it. Don't freak out about it or worry about it on, like, three on Friday. But, you know, I want to drop it here.

That makes me think we should be on slack instead of texting Jeff, because I texted you this morning really early, and it was just because you were waiting for something, and I would have said slacked that, and then, you see, it would go there. So the benefit of slack versus texting is then you're. Then if people don't check it at night or on the weekends, you don't have to worry about bothering them where a text message, they get it. Like, it would even be nice if there's a text that had a time where you could send a text later, like you can with email.

Sending a text later would be useful. Yes.

Because we have two things that people need to invent.

Well, I know because. Okay, you guys can tell me. I've often thought I should ask you. So sometimes I text you at Pacific time, you know, 10pm And I'm thinking, I wonder if this is going off in Keene, New Hampshire right now. Or she just puts do not disturb at night, but, you know, disturb after 7pm plus, your phone is always perpetual do not disturb.

So I have mine on a timer that goes on at 9 o'.

Clock.

It goes do not disturb every night, 9 o' clock automatically.

So I don't need to hesitate. Then.

Why don't they have that feature, though? Isn't that like a common sense, like send this text at 9am or something? That would be so good.

It's because Tim Cook has someone who's a personal texter for him. He doesn't have to worry about that.

I think maybe all these tools weren't necessarily created for work instead of. And now we just have this 24 7, like work communication, which I. I don't know if Erica got into that in the book, but, like, that is a problem. You know, you want to. You're doing. You're working at a weird time and then you want to share it with your team, but you. You're not going to remember to share it in the morning, so you need to share it then.

Right?

You know what I mean? Like, there's some things like it that makes sense. You know, it's like, okay, I'm looking at this thing now because we should.

We schedule, we schedule text for the podcast. So I know it works. I mean, we could. They could have a system that does it. So we have those scheduled to go out at a certain time for letting people know there's a new podcast. So it's. It's not hard. They just need to build it into the app.

One of the questions, both of those things would be so easy. There's already vacation responders, so just set a schedule so you can just automatically like accept or, you know. Totally.

So is. Is the schedule on the recipient side or the sender side?

So you. So you send one, you set it up for your own email saying, you know, I'm not that like you guy. You were out of, like, you're gonna be on vacation, so you're on vacation. That one's set up. But why not just to work one that says you work from nine to five and then other times, you know, they'll get a message, right?

So. So it should be on for text. It should be on the recipient side, right? You should say, I don't want any text messages from 7pm to 7am Just hold them all.

You can do that already with do not disturb.

But do you get it later?

Yeah, when you turn. You don't miss your text. When you turn it back on, you get them all.

You have to turn it back on. Or it just has to be 7:01.

Well, or you could leave it. You can do it either way. You can either turn it back on, you get them all, or you turn it. Or you get 7:01. And you all start. Because with me, all of a sudden, I see my stuff start scrolling by after seven. I'm like, oh, Peg has been busy. So one of the couple questions is Carolyn goes, what was the super inbox called? It was sanebox. That's what we're talking about. And then another question. Oh, this is from Tracy. She goes, I just turned mine off when I sleep. Or on airplane mode, which is a good idea. If important texts come in when I turn on my phone, sleep is queen king. And before I want to make sure.

We get to this question, I've done that.

But is it really bad? I mean, if it. I'm just like. A little bit of peace is okay.

Well, what if it's. What if it's the, you know, Texas Hurricane center saying, you got to evacuate. Jeff.

Those come through. Those come through.

I have.

Anyway.

Yeah. So this is a question. No, this isn't it. I want to go to this one so we have time, because I think this is the one I want to know more than anything else. And I'm in control, so I'm going to do it. Do you use emojis at work? And this has been going on. I mean, I think, Peg, you were on a show with me a long time ago where we talked about this. But it's still a question. Do you use emojis at work? Is it appropriate? What are your thoughts?

So it used to be that emojis were not appropriate at all in email when they came out. But now there was just an article in the Wall Street Journal, which Erica was quoted in, but I couldn't read it all because I don't have a Wall Street Journal subscription. But the article was about exactly this topic, about how people that are 21 use emojis different than people in their 30s. 40s and beyond. And they mean different things. The Gen Z are adding different things. So even just a smiley face to them is. Means something different. So now. And Erica talked about this how using the emojis just, it depends and they mean different things.

But I, I have to confess that I only understand two emojis, smiley face and unhappy face and all the other ones, I don't know what they're saying. I literally, I have no idea what.

You know, I, I even social media posts I always struggled with. Should I put those in there? I do them more now than I did at first, but it was really hard and I still, I have to be just like she talked about all through the podcast. It's the levels of relationship you have where you're going to put these emojis or what kind of, you know, signature you're going to put on all that stuff. I only do it with friends or people that I know. You know, I usually don't do that unless we've met before is. I guess. But it's still. And there's, there's a lot of, there's a, there's a lot of people going. Yeah, according to me, emojis at work is not professional, so a lot of people feel that way.

My wife just sent me a text message and it pierced the do not disturb.

So, so she.

That's because Beth has bath rules. Yeah, she can, she can get through anything.

That's right.

So I think emojis, you know, I think people do use them a lot at work. I think especially if you're using like Slack, those kind of things. And gifts. I love gifts so much.

How good do you think the assumption is that all recipients of your emoji know what the emoji is? Because I'm telling you, I only know two.

I think sometimes you can't see them when I send them to you too. Like they're too small in email. Sometimes it doesn't matter if I can see them.

I don't know what it means.

So George says it depends on the type of email. Yeah, I agree. The thing about when we're going back to Slack is that even the companies that I'm part of and work with and communicate with, we use the gifly because there's a gifly, a GIF plugin that you can use inside of Slack that's almost better than, like you were saying, peg emojis. Because you can have some, add some humor or like the eye roll or, you know, all sorts of stuff. I think communicates a lot Better inside of there.

So, yeah, they're a little bit more clear than just the little thing.

Right. And you got to be careful because sometimes emojis get appropriated from other things and you're like, oh, can't use that one again.

So no more. I can't even.

I can't even wear an aloha shirt anymore.

No, no.

Can't wear an aloha shirt anymore. That means you're part of white nationalist QAnon, you know, whatever.

Yeah, the.

They took Hawaii shirts.

Yeah, the groups did. Yeah. Yeah.

And then I used to have aloha shirts, and I used to wear my, you know, carry my AR15 with me. And that really just doesn't work anymore.

No, you didn't. That's a joke, everybody.

That's a joke. Put the joke emoji up on screen. So somebody asked earlier, what makes. I gotta find it. But I'll just. I'll remember it because it was really good. What was. What makes a good subject line? Yeah, there it is. Jonathan asked that question. What makes a good subject line? An email. What makes you open it? And there's. There's a whole bunch of, like, copywriting stuff, and even people put emojis in subject lines. So what makes you open a email? What makes a good subject subject line? Well, go ahead.

For me, for me, it's. I love your podcast. That's the one that gets opened every.

Sending that right now.

Then I'll open it.

Right. I think it's interesting. One of the tips that Erica said is if you put people's names in the subject line, and that is something that I've never done, but it seems like a really great tip because that is one of the things that I learned from Guy in Enchantment when I read Enchantment was that the subject line is so important, and then I would spend forever, you know, like, making sure it was, like, clever, smart, not too long. Like, there's a lot of pressure you put on yourself. You gotta, like, balance all that with how much time are you gonna spend crafting one email subject line. You got to get actually into the body. But the subject line, you know, if it sucks, then maybe no one looks at it.

Erica would also point out, it depends who the email is going to. Right. So if I send an email to you with the subject line, hey, that's good enough. But I can't send that to, you know, Michelle Obama's handler.

Right?

Yeah. The trust factor and how well, you know, someone matters in every single form of communication, whether it's Emojis, gifts, or email. And length. I mean, sometimes when you. When you're working with someone for a really long time, you don't even have greetings or closings because, you know, at some point in the communication, it's just. You're like, okay. You know that they're like, hey, Happy Monday. It's just implied. It's tough.

What's interesting, too, is about the subject line. I know what. There's some. A lot of the email software lets you put an email from your list. You know their first name in that subject line, but you got to be careful because you don't like it to say, hey, first name. You know, where they. You can tell that they're AI jacked up or something. So you got to be really careful when you use that.

But if you're sending a personal email, if you're writing a pitch to someone or you want to, like, work with someone on a collaboration, putting their name in there seems like it would be really smart. If you're writing a personal email, if you're cutting and pasting Tracy, if you're cutting and pasting, like, a form thing, personalizing the header is not going to help.

I hope everybody noticed that we put Tracy's comment on. Because she said it's a great podcast.

Yeah, we should probably just leave that up.

There you go.

See, she's a super fan. She's been here quite a bit. So thanks, Tracy, for always coming and supporting our live shows.

And what are those three graphic things after her text?

Those were emojis.

Like I said, it's not a smiley face. I don't know what it is. What are those things?

She really loves it. Love, love, love.

So this is interesting. Subject line would be summary of email. Clearly, clearly setting the context for people you're sending the email to. That's. She kind of mentioned that in the podcast. Erica did. Yeah. So, yeah. All right. So what was the other question we had the last one?

I tell you one thing that I think is an instant subject line killer is some kind of subject line that. It sounds like direct mail, right? Like, offer you can't refuse or save $99 if you act now, that just goes straight to spam.

Do you ever put exclamation points?

One of my companies that I like, sometimes. You want those sale ones?

Yeah.

So she mentioned even exclamation points and punctuation in the podcast as well. So do you think it's okay to put exclamation points in the subject line of an email? Like, if you Were saying like for download my new small business guide now like kind of thing. Peg, in yours, would you put exclamation points in your subject line?

I wouldn't.

I don't think I use. Rarely will I do a question. But I think if you have a good question that that can be a really good opener. Like Jeff, do you need to learn how to use question marks?

I do.

But I mean I think if you use them wisely, I think. I don't know if I would do exclamation points on a subject line. I always have to be careful because I'm one of the kind of. I use too many. I use way too many exclamation points in all my writing. So I am very careful to remove a lot of them.

I do too. But I'm very excited all the time.

I really am. I'm always like, yes, yes. Then I'm like, what? Take those out? Unless it's a. Sometimes that they're appropriate. But I think exclamation points are used sparingly at the top of the food pyramid. To me.

That'S a good way to put it. So are we spending a lot of times looking at screens? So you know, that was one of.

The things that Erica talked about right.

Like in Zoom meetings. Like. And I would. I was worked for a company that he'd make us on meetings when we have these Zoom meetings is turn on our cameras and I hate it. And it wasn't like you were supposed to talk or anything. He just wanted to make sure that everybody was paying attention. And you know, I would. I recorded a loop of me just doing this. No, but that seriously. Oh yeah. No, just because I don't. It made me mad. So that's what I did.

You really did that?

Yeah. You never knew.

I think sounds like a Mission Impossible movie.

I think it's. I think it's nice if companies. If you have your camera on at the beginning so everybody can say hi and then give people the option to turn it off if they want to. Maybe.

Yeah. I thought that she mentioned that in the podcast too. That that's a. That's a good way to do it because there's that. And then you could do a wrap up at the end as everybody turn up your things and we can have a discussion or whatever. But it is just. I mean it's distracting when you have people looking at your least and guy talked about this in there too is it's kind of distracting when somebody is looking at your. Your phone while you're asking the Questions. And that's why you, you know, you have your remarkable tablet that you use. Yeah, thanks.

But even that, I think, I think if you just look at how many screens we're looking at overall, like, yikes, you know.

Yeah.

That blue light. We all need to wear sunblock for the screen blocking blue light.

That's okay. Well, glaucoma.

So Jonathan says this. When I send guy emails, I use things like top picks of guy surfing. Does that trigger.

Check out this guy surfing.

I guarantee you.

I guarantee you he would look at that one surfing. Let's surf later. Key to open that one.

Yes. So Tracy's excitable too. She goes, I excitable. So I use them. I'm certainly not perfect and I know others may see my exclamations as annoying, but that is me. I speak to those who are at the same level. So we would, we would.

I think the differences between men and women communicating, even in digital stuff is very interesting too, how women have to tone things differently. And you don't want to be too aggressive. So we would put things like emojis or softer, I'll say closings and things. So you're not seen as too aggressive.

Yeah, I've seen that.

I saw an email from Peg recently that said we don't want their affiliate code. That was it. That was the whole email.

And I meant that.

Yeah, but some people would put. So that's a good example.

The brand. We're top of the brand. We're tofu guy. Just remember that.

But that's a good point because. Because if you were. You could have put that same email and you could have. If you didn't feel like the power structure like she talked about in the interview, you could have put a smiley face emoji after that if you wanted to soften it, which you. I know.

She has more power than I.

Right, I know. But I'm just saying that was one of the examples she used and it's not. And what you were saying, Peg, that some women feel like they have to do that all the time.

Because I have to say, I did soften that one. It was going to have a WTF at the beginning.

That's after softening.

Oh, yeah, that was after softening. I was like.

So this is a great question. Do we recommend any email providers to use and not to use Yahoo, Gmail, Firefox, Apple, Comcast?

I would say don't use Yahoo if you want to be taken seriously anymore. Oh, no, no. There goes AOL social media scheduling. It doesn't Exist.

Yeah, exactly. No, I. Way back when I was with a company that wrote the perfect email client called Claris Emailer. But so I tell you one. I tell you one thing that just is a necessary feature for me that not a lot of email clients have is the ability to send a response and archive the incoming message that it's responding to in one step. So if your client can't send an archive, don't even show up at the, at the, you know, at the dance.

That is annoying. It's like all these extra steps. It's so frustrating when you're trying to be efficient with email.

And another thing I don't understand about email clients is that, you know, one of the most common things you do is mark something as spam. So why do they put that in a submenu? I mean, they got this whole top bar menu empty. Why don't they just put it there, you know, mark as spam. No, I got to go to a semi. I mean, a sub menu to go do this. Like, so stupid. I swear, these people don't. The engineers who design email clients should get email. It would be really helpful if they understood what it's like.

Yeah, so email your engineer friends today.

Folks, because I'll give you my biggest peeve of all. And maybe I'm incorrect because I just don't know how to use it, but when you access Gmail with a browser, why can't you change what you're sorting on? Because I have found one of the easiest way to clean up your inbox is to sort by sender. Because, you know, There may be 10 emails in your inbox from the same sender about the same thing, you know, just going back and forth. And you just didn't happen to delete or archive them. So there are lots of times, you know, I can look, I can sort by sender and I see, okay, peg has like 10 in my inbox, but I know seven of those are resolved. I can just take them all and archive them as opposed to dealing with them one at a time when I'm looking at my inbox by date. So why Gmail in a browser cannot do that, as far as I know, is just besides me, it's because.

I don't know why, but why do you. I file things versus archive them. Like when we're done, we're in a conversation. Because I just did this this morning and I was getting rid of ones where it was like a part of a thread. I file them into your folder versus archive. What's the why? What's the benefit?

Archive disappears after a certain amount of time. No, but then when you need to.

What if you search for that email.

Archives, I think, let you search for it. So do folders. I think it would be the same thing. Unless there's a time limit on the archive.

Well, my assumption is that if you're using Gmail from a company called Google, who truly understands search, surely they can find that E. I mean, anybody can find that email. It's Google. Right. So I just archive one big, you know, folder in the sky.

You know, that's true. But also, we know we've been emailing each other for ten, I don't know, nine years, eight, a million years for. And, And I think searching in our email is hard because we have so many.

But the searching in the folder would be hard too, then. No.

Right, that's what I'm saying. Either way you look at it, like with search, but with that many email, it's like, they're just like, sorry, we can't help you. Because a lot of times it's the same topic. Like, what's the best email client? Or something like that. You know what I mean? Like, we've had the same conversations about different tools or whatever.

This is a good question. How many of you have ever recalled a message? I never ever recall a text.

I mean, I have. Yeah, yeah.

Because usually I get a pretty short time.

Yeah. It's not. It's got. You gotta jump on it. You can't like, go in the house, have a cup of coffee and go like, oh, yeah, I shouldn't have cursed that bag out like that.

I shouldn't have told Guy not to get the affiliate code. Oops, it's too late.

No, I did one the other day. Remember we were texting and I sent the email and you were like, wait, add this. And I was like, sorry, because I sent it. I was like, Speedy Gonzalez. It was gone.

So, so what? I. You know, the thing with. With that is I only do it for, like, misspelling. I'm like, I hit. I accidentally hit enter too fast or it's for some reason in Gmail, there's the delete button. Or one of them is right by. I hit the wrong button. Like, instead of delete, I hit the. I'm like, crap. And I had to go back and fix it. But anyway, one guy, somebody says, LinkedIn says, don't archive if you have not looked at anything in a year. It's not worth it. It's good. It's not worth it. Just let it go. So that's an interesting way. Well, some stuff goes over a year, though.

Yeah, but I mean, then now you have the pressure of trying to decide if it should be archived. Why not just archive everything and forget about it? Yeah, what do I care about the size of it?

I think after a while it fills up. But I mean, don't you feel. Doesn't archive take space in your Gmail account or whatever?

You know, on the other hand, I will tell you that there have been many times where years later, let's say, you know, 10 years ago, I had a. An interaction with someone at Nike and I typed Nike into Gmail and it finds that conversation from 10 years ago and I can reconnect with that person. So that happens many times.

I think it depends on the level of communication. If it's someone that. Yeah, I have looked up things too, like contacts that we did something with a couple years ago. And I don't know, does it work the same as folders and archives? That's what I don't know. That's why I put them in folders.

You have to manually put them in folders. Do you write a filter that automatically puts all of Guy's correspondence in the Guy folder?

No, I read it. I do whatever I need to do with it. I don't put it in the folder till I'm done with whatever it is.

So do you guys remember this feature? I don't remember this. In Mac Mail, the bounce back feature to send it back to the sender.

Like it never got there correctly.

I guess. I don't remember the.

I remember that. That was a good feature. I wish. I mean, well, as I recall, the way it worked is you had. Your email address was good. It's just that the asshole that you're trying to blow off gets it back, saying, you know, don't do this. That sent, that recipient is no longer found. So that they don't keep bugging you by saying, oh, you know, I just want to bring this email back to the top of your inbox that I'm Joe Blow and I should be on your podcast because I'm as important as Jane Goodall.

Right?

So those kind of people, I'd love to. For them to think, oh, Guy Kawasaki Gmail no longer works.

See, nobody would believe that because you constantly give your email out.

But you know what? Okay, here's another thing. So I constantly give my email out. I also constantly give my cell phone out. It's not a problem. At least, you know, well, it's not like women are going to stalk a 67 year old man. If I were a woman, I maybe I wouldn't have this policy. But you know, stalking is not exactly one of my top priority problems.

That's like the, it makes me nervous though when you say stuff like that because remember like the lifelock guy who put his, like his Social Security number all across the billboards, like hack me, I don't care.

But guy, you get stocked and you get the same request all the time for. Will you look at my pitch deck?

Yeah, but you know what? I, I have a text expander response. So tell me if you think this is wrong. But I figure if somebody sends me an email with something like, you know, do you accept blog posts or whatever, you know, something that's just barely above spam, I send them back an email using text expander. So it's typing three letters that basically says, no, this is not my focus right now. You know, whatever, blah, blah, blah. But I'm sure you'd love my podcast. And then I give them a whole blurb about my podcast. So I, you spam me, I'm going to spam you back. And you know what? But I got to tell you. Okay, wait, wait, there's more. But the best part of this is many times I send what I consider, you know, a revenge spam response and the person writes back and says, I looked at your podcast. It's really great. I'm gonna start listening to it from now on. So spam works well. They're just paying attention to be less of an asshole. Let me put it this way, that I think there is so little response and interactivity that even getting a negative is a positive. Just the fact that you responded at all will make them try the link and look at your podcast. Because, you know, I'm sure if you just sent one of those to Seth Godin and Gary V and Ijustine, you probably won't get a response that says, oh, go look at my YouTube channel.

Maybe that's maybe a good point. Anyway, we have been doing this for an hour. This is probably our longest live stream ever and we would want to make sure that you guys really go and check out. This was a really good podcast. Especially if you're really wanting to up your communication game. Things that maybe you hadn't thought about before that you probably need to start thinking about. So make sure you guys go to remarkable people.com or to your favorite Apple Stitcher, all those places where you listen to podcasts. Download it. We would love for you give us a five star rating in review. That helps get it out and also share it with your friends. If people do not know how to subscribe to a podcast, show them how. Because a lot of people still, it's really amazing. I look at stats the other week that people still think podcasts cost money with the subscribe thing. It's totally free. You can subscribe and listen to some amazing guests over@markipeopeople.com so I have a.

Question for you two experts. So you know I love reading reviews of the podcast and the most recent one on Apple is June. And do you. Is there some is like some kind of magic. It cannot be that no one has reviewed our podcast for three months.

There's been a bug. There's been bugs on Apple with some of their new updates that I read some in the news that they were having some. So you're not the only one.

So, so, so, so what happens? Do people write reviews and they just never appear? I mean, is Tim Cook backlogged? He hasn't had a chance to read all the reviews to approve.

I don't know. But let's, let's do a test. So if you have not left a rating review, good idea. On, on guys podcast, go to Apple. And if you just go to your Apple podcast app on your desktop or on your phone phone on Google or an iPhone and just do a search for remarkable people, you'll see guys face. Click on that and there's a place where you can subscribe which we'd love for you to do. But also leave a rating review. And you can, we'd love five stars but we'll take anything but leave us a rating review. Say that and say, hey, I saw you today on a live stream. We're doing it so we can do this test. So guys go check that out and.

Then we'll read it next week on the live show.

Yeah, that would be fun.

But I predict there's not one new one. Not because people didn't try. I, I think that Tim Cook is backlogged and he hasn't had a chance to read all the reviews before he lets them through. I really think that's the problem that.

Stresses me out because you know, they make it so reviews count so much and then that section is broken.

And then here's the, here's the thing from Edison Research, did a great study on podcasts. And we'll wrap up with this, but they're saying that Spotify and Apple are neck and neck right now. Apple's not the front owner as the way it was. And so Spotify is becoming more and more important. So we can talk offline, but there's a lot of stuff that is happening in the podcast industry.

I know you want to go, but does our analytics indicate that? Because isn't it usually like 70% is iOS for us?

Right. But it's also what counts as a download. And there's a lot of stuff that's happening. People are finding it on YouTube, they're finding it other places, they're watching it, you know, different ways and people are discovering them in different ways. But Spotify is going fast.

Maybe it's just Joe Rogan single handedly.

It's probably. But James has this great comment I want to end on. He goes, guy, you are great app. Appreciate your insight. You once came in and helped us strategize a bit years back at Virgin America. Appreciate you, James.

Oh. Oh, I love Virgin America. Oh my God, that was such a great airline. Freaking good wi fi, good food, funny flight attendants.

Yeah.

And now it's part of Alaska.

Yeah. Is it? They bought Virgin.

Yeah. Virgin America. Not. I don't know about Virgin. Virgin, but Virgin America is no longer. Yeah, they had those cool planes.

Yep.

And do not forget about Guy's ohana group. It's just family. So text him at 831-609-0628 so that you can get reminded about the new podcast that comes out and also these live streams. So that's 831-609-0906.

We'll be looking for your reviews.

What'd you say?

I said I think Jeff wants us to wrap up.

No, we've been going for an over an hour. We've never done this before.

Okay, okay. Like Guy said, leave us a review and we'll read it next week. That's really important for. We are testing that.

Yes. Okay. And I do some surprise. Is he surfing right now? We just can't tell. I mean it. Why is. I mean, this is amazing.

Are you surfing, Guy?

There's no waves right now. That's why we're going an hour. If it was good waves, I'd be gone. I'd be telling you. Oh, I got a virtual keynote to give. I gotta go.

Do you have an alert on your watch when the waves are good?

No, I have a. If you really want to know, 10 of us got together and installed a $5,000 camera to look just where we surf and only 10 of us can access that camera. So. Yeah.

Are you renting it from somebody? Like, is it like, on a tower somewhere?

No, it's one. It's one guy's house. And we, you know, we sold lifetime memberships for $500 if. If you surf at 38th street in Santa Cruz, California. And in particular, if you go right most of the time, and if you have $500 sitting in your pocket that you don't care about. We're selling memberships to that camera.

That's a great idea.

Forget the reviews. Forget the telling your friends about the podcast. Send us 500 bucks. Yeah.

No, we want reviews.

Yes. Steve, thank you so much for saying it was very useful. We appreciate a review as well. We're just gonna thank you, so.

But thank you for the good comments. Take care, everybody. Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Oh, I forgot to hit boom.