Intro (00:01):
Pixie Dust & Profits is a podcast for small business owners who love Disney and want to sprinkle some of that magic onto their own businesses. Join your host, Nicole Boucher, and Yasmine Spencer. As they explore the mouse’s $12.6 billion operation and break down exactly how you can apply these big scale concepts to your own business.

Nicole (00:26):
Hey everyone, happy new year and welcome to this week’s episode of pixie dust and profits. Today, we’re talking a little bit about the steep learning curve that it is to go on a Disney vacation. So we recently had on our pixie dust and profits live event where we hosted six women and masterminded with them while we were waiting in line for rides and just had an overall really good time when we talked about our business, but also had a little bit of pixie dust on the personal side too. So one thing about that is that we have a whole variety of women on this trip. We had a couple women who had ever been to Disney world before, and we had women who had annual passes to Disney world. So we had every type of Disney fan with us and it really made for a unique experience because we wanted them to have a really awesome time.

Nicole (01:14):
So my personal highlight is that we went to Hollywood studios and we got on rise of the resistance, millennium, Falcon toy story, mania, slinky, dog, tower of tower rock and roller coaster. We, we did almost every headliner and I think we still ended up back at our room by two 30 in the afternoon. It was in all of my wildest dreams of knowing how to plan a Disney trip. I wouldn’t have anticipated that. We actually nailed what we really wanted to do. So a lot of that has to do with ya. So I’m just gonna like send it over to ya because she was the master planner of making sure that we had every time we needed for everything. So ya, can you to share some of the really long hold times and other things that you went through to make this magic happen? Of

Yasmine (02:02):
Course, of course. So that, that’s an interesting thing about a Disney trip. It doesn’t come together magically, and if you use a Disney vacation planner, you gotta appreciate those women and men because they will spend hours on the phone trying to create that magic for you. Like Nicole said and I put on my Disney vacation planner hat for this trip. So it, it part a couple things. One was we ended up gang tickets to boob Ash, which was

Nicole (02:29):
It wasn’t originally planned when we planned this event. It wasn’t something that was happening.

Yasmine (02:34):
No, it was just that Disney announced it. And we realized the dates overlapped with our trip. And it’s an after hours party, which means that there’s limited access. You pay a premium for it, which we talked about in previous episodes, but the park is pretty empty. Like I unfortunately ended up bailing a little bit early cuz I had the worst blisters known to man and just couldn’t walk anymore. But I know Nicole and the rest of the ladies stayed and they pretty much hit up like every ride and some of like the headliner rides twice. Like how many times did you guys go on mine train?

Nicole (03:04):
I think we only went on mine train once because we did have to wait a whole 10 minutes for that, but space. It was just, it took longer to walk from the entrance to space mountain, to the seat that it took to get on because it was just walk on, which is amazing. And we really appreciated that. We went on rides that we had waited for the day before. So after our events pricey, but if you wanna ride rides, it’s a great time to get around.

Yasmine (03:32):
especially if you have like older kids because they do start late and run until midnight. So I think official hours were nine to midnight, but you could get in at seven. But everyone else is still in the park. So that was one of the reasons why we had such a great time with you know, crossing off all of the headliners at magic kingdom. Then the other thing that happened was genie came out and Disney genie plus specific came out. So we knew that this was coming, we knew it was gonna happen the fall. And it just so happened to start on the very first day that we were there. So Nicole and I flew in a day early. And if you’re planning some sort of like Disney event or even just going, like give yourself some time to settle before you really start day because Disney trips are intense and being able to sort of ease into things was super helpful for us. So we got there the day before and we got to like test it out and, you know, came across some little glitches because they had just launched it. We had actually like gotten, oh, sorry, what was it? Not lightning past virtual queue. I,

Nicole (04:40):
I think there was a virtual pass for rat.

Yasmine (04:42):
Yeah. Yeah. So we got a free like virtual pass for rati. I was gonna try to buy the lightning password, but then I realized, oh, Hey, it’s like the virtual pass just released at the same time. So I got that for Nicole and I, and it somehow disappeared from our, my Disney experience app. Thankfully the cat members got assorted, they have access to everything. It got deleted somehow. So the next day before everyone came to join us, Nicole and I went to animal kingdom for just the morning. We were only there for a few hours, but it really let us try out the lightning lane feature, which is Disney’s paid fast pass edition. It applies to two rides in each park and at animal kingdom, avatar was one of them and we thought it was worth paying the $15 or so to you know, jump in front of the line and get access. So Nicole thankfully got us the passes because my Disney experience app was just like not working the entire,

Nicole (05:38):
Your phone just didn’t

Yasmine (05:40):
Yeah, I could upgrade anything. Yeah. I couldn’t upgrade to anything. So Nicole ended up taking over that piece, but we were able to, you know, cross off a few of our favorite rides in animal kingdom pretty quickly. And then when it came to the ladies who joined us on the retreat arriving, we were able to basically secure the key rides that we wanted to every day. So for magic kingdom, we decided not to invest in lightning lane. We just got genie plus because we knew we were gonna come back for Boash and we would get access to all of those rides anyway. But for a Hollywood studios, we ended up getting lightning passes for both rise of the resistance and Mickey and mini’s runaway railway and so worth it. We didn’t have to wait super long in line. It allowed us to

Nicole (06:31):
It made us plan to the rest of our day, right? Because so in testing everything earlier, we discovered you have to sign up for it at midnight mm-hmm and at 7:00 AM, you need to do the purchase thing. So there was a whole strategy to this, right? We were standing in the kitchen making tea or something at 7:00 AM. I said, okay, I have to buy rise of the resistance first for everybody and then buy Mickey and minis because one of these is gonna go before the other. And so the nice thing about it was that we had a time slot. Once we had a time slot for those two rides, we knew what path we needed to run to get to the other rides. Now Yamen and I have a lot of experience with Disney world. And I have been very often in the last few years. I know while the border was closed, Yasin couldn’t come quite as often to see some of the new Hollywood studio stuff, but we keep up to date on it. We’re reading articles all the time. We’re messaging each other saying, Hey, did you hear about this? And into this trip, we were like, okay, we have a group of eight. So how do we make sure we get on everything we wanna get on with a large party where, you know, people have different walking speeds, we, which is important at Disney world to know ,

Yasmine (07:41):
I’m a slow Walker. Nicole’s fast,

Nicole (07:43):
I’m a super fast Walker. And I tried really, really hard to stay behind. And I’m sorry if I stepped on anyone’s feet doing that.

Yasmine (07:50):
No, no, not at all. I had terrible blisters though. So that added to my slowness

Yasmine (07:56):
Be careful shoes. Yeah, go ahead.

Nicole (07:58):
Sorry. The thing is we know all of those things going in because we have a learned history of it, right? Mm-Hmm we have experience with Disney world. We knew going in that we were going to have to have a park strategy side note. If you do not know these things and do not wanna spend hours and hours at rating websites and blogs and all of that, go see wish upon a planner.com. They have everything that you need to learn all of these things. So that plug aside, basically what we’re getting at here is that the learning curve from someone who has not been to Disney, I’d say in the last four years, because I mean, in the last two years, a lot has changed. And someone who doesn’t even know about the fast pass system that used exist is going to have a really different experience at the parks than someone who does have that research done.

Nicole (08:47):
Because if you don’t know you’re gonna come into the park and you’re going to act like it’s like six flags or Cedar point or something like that, where you walk in, you’re like, okay, which rollercoaster are we going on first? And then you kind of just decide based on the one that’s tallest in your area or your field of view or what you’re closest to you can’t do that at Disney world, the very popular rides, the low capacity rides, they fill up really fast. There’s a whole strategy around getting to the, a park before it opens. And we’re not talking about like 10 minutes before it opens. I went to magic kingdom alone a few weeks ago. And the posted opening time was nine o’clock, but eight 30 was the time if you’re staying at the resort. So I got there at 7 45. I was in the first like five rides of the mine train because I had got on there so early. And I was ahead of the whole pack. That is not something that someone who has never been to Disney before is going to know that the park actually starts walking guests through it before the official opening time. So how, you know,

Yasmine (09:47):
That’s the thing, Nicole, like, there’s so much about planning a Disney vacation that you have to actually seek out yourself. Like we had another, I don’t wanna say it was an issue, but something that we discovered, which was a good thing, which was our room reservation. So when we had planned out the trip, obviously like we booked the rooms months and months in advance before we even knew who was coming. So I had everything in my name. I had a, I had a call with someone from member services, from Disney vacation clubs, our service team. And they were like, oh, like you’re on all these retreats or you’re on all these reservations. You know, it’s a good thing that we’re chatting because it, our system will occasionally go through and delete duplicate reservations if you have them for the same time and same date, basically, and the same person on the lead reservations.

Yasmine (10:35):
So they, thankfully at that point we knew who was coming and I was planning on updating the reservations anyway. So I did it at that time, but we could have potentially lost our reservations. And I would’ve had no idea because I was just holding rooms for an upcoming trip. So there’s like so many things that like aren’t published and out there, which can create like a frustrating customer service experience. It doesn’t really does try to onboard you with, I would say the basics, like they start using their language. As soon as you sign up for a vacation, they send you emails and stuff. But if you want to Disney, like we Disney or like most, you know, diehard, Disney fans of Disney, you gotta do a lot of digging on your own.

Nicole (11:14):
We actually ran into that situation with canceled two rooms in the same name issue. We thought we ran into it with the group event I went to in November where room just disappeared and we couldn’t find it. And my client was on one room and they thought maybe she canceled the other one because her name was on two rooms and ended up being fine. But if we hadn’t have had that situation earlier, I wouldn’t have known that I should add my name to it immediately to have a second name on the reservation. And I’m glad I did because they might have canceled. So really what we’re getting at is when you book a Disney vacation, you get your order confirmation email, maybe like, I wanna say, two, three weeks later, you might get something in the mail that kind of walks you through like, oh, here’s all the pretty like Disney pixie dust things.

Nicole (12:04):
But in that guide, it’s more about like, here are things you can do. And it te it tells you about certain rides and it is customized to the ages of people, your group. So it, it does show different things in the book based on who you’re traveling with, but it doesn’t give you this information about parks open a little bit early. Here are the rides you should run to first. It doesn’t give you that. And so the difference in customer experience between someone who’s getting the marketing materials from Disney who say, buy this to upgrade your trip. That’s what a lot of the, an emails come to be versus someone who’s like, Hey, if you really wanna make this vacation magical, you need to think about, you know, make a plan for your favorite rides. Like they don’t need to come out and advertise things that they do for crowd control, like the parks opening earlier or anything, but they could suggest for people who plan their days, right?

Nicole (12:55):
Which part of the park do you wanna go in first, if you’re an adventurer, you might wanna go do these things. And so what we’re really getting at is that you, as a business owner, as a digital business owner, as a service provider, as a product seller, when someone purchases from you the most open email is their order confirmation. In that order confirmation, you should have something that helps them use the thing they just bought. It helps reduce buyers remorse. It helps them get right into using whatever it is. If it’s a product, maybe it’s a, Hey, we know you don’t have this in your hands yet, but you know, here’s a video of how to use it when you do have it in your hand. So just thinking about these things, because the better the experience is the less likely they will be unhappy with their purchase. The more likely they’ll know how to use it when they get it. And the more likely they are to share it with somebody else, like, Hey, this was actually really useful because they know how to use that thing. And you can’t make assumptions about how, how much people know.

Yasmine (13:56):
Yes. And I have great examples of that. So I have one client whose audience tends to like, err on like a little older side. And, you know, when we set up a lot of her programs, I made sure to pick, you know, the most user friendly layouts for things made sure that everything was re really easy to follow yet. Early on, I still got questions about, you know, where to find downloads or where to find certain things. And it made me realize that just because like, I can look at this, someone who grew up with the internet and technology, like I was, I was coding websites and HTML when I was 17, I thought it was so cool. Those days, my back year boys

Nicole (14:36):
For and pages on, oh my gosh,

Yasmine (14:37):
I did end sync I did sync. Yeah. Are you tired of throwing spaghetti at the wall or chasing every shiny new trend in the business world because you think it’s gonna completely overhaul your business, but ends up going

Nicole (14:55):
If you are, or if you’re trying to be more focused in 2022 as one of your goals this year, and you wanna stop squirrel syndrome from good then and go to pixiedustinandprofits.com/squirrel, where we’ll teach you all about how you can get more focused in your business, but focusing on six areas that are all completely different and you can focus on them one at a time, we walk you through what they are, how to check in with where you are right now, how to brainstorm the things that you should be working on. And also we hold you accountable to it with a little Hmm. Pledge . And so if that sounds good to you go download our squirrel syndrome workbook at pixiedustinandprofits.com/squirrel

Yasmine (15:38):
Yeah. So like we had we had like, I have the skillset and it’s really dumb. And frankly, ignorant to me to assume that like everyone else views, you know, the internet the same way that I do. So what we ended doing was creating a little like welcome video. And it’s me like Yasin because I’m the person who you know, is in the inbox, answering all the emails and helping them out, walking them through how to use their program. And we’ve gotten few requests in the inbox. In fact, I think like the last time I got a request was like one, a couple months ago, but people are just able to navigate it. You, cause I just created a two minute, little tutorial video about where they can find everything and those little things help people use a product more. And the more that they use it, a the more satisfied they’re gonna be and B the more likely that they’re gonna purchase more from you. So the things that you can do to help facilitate use of your product with your customer are definitely backend business operation items that you should invest time in.

Nicole (16:39):
Yeah. The difference between someone who arrives at Disney world with a magic band already on their arm, able to get right into their room without having to navigate the app, to figure out how to open the door and the person who’s at the front desk saying, I got a text that my room is pretty, but I don’t know how this works. Mm-Hmm, completely different experiences. Someone who walks into the park and knows to hit that magic band on the turn style mm-hmm versus the one who, you know, has a carded ticket or has to go to the guest experience building to turn in their piece of paper, to convert their tickets into things they can use. Time is experience at Disney. If you are waiting in line for customer service, you are not on a ride. So just thinking about that in terms of your products, your purchase sequence, your welcome sequence, how can you help people use your things easier?

Nicole (17:37):
Can you look at maybe your lead magnets and think reread them? How long ago did you put them up and set them up, reread them, see if they make sense, see if someone can actually put pen to paper and do the thing you’ve explained to them. I can give an example of, I think the best way to do this when you have a really complicated product or a very expensive product is to have a whole sequence of emails that go to them after purchase. So the, and my goal is always in every email you teach one thing, don’t put everything in one email, or it’s a super long chain. Yes. You can do that at the end. After you have explained each individual piece, and you can say, Hey, here’s a recap of all four things we’ve already taught. You just keep this one email.

Nicole (18:20):
So you have them all handy. You can do that, that at the end, but don’t do it at the beginning because you’re gonna completely overwhelm them one thing at a time. The first thing it’s just like, think about it in kindergarten when you’re teaching kids how to do their papers, right? What’s the first thing. Write your name at the top. That’s one email. The next one is, oh, you need to draw a picture that you want to just share in your story. We’re just drawing the picture. We’re not writing the words. That’s the second email. Draw your picture. 30 email. Okay. Let’s think about what we wanna write. Fourth email, write it. Fifth, email typo, edit it. You know, so think about breaking things down in that kindergarten level. And it’s not because your audience is just doesn’t understand or they’re stupid or anything like that.

Nicole (19:07):
They’re encountering a new product. They’re in a different brain space. They just spent money. There’s different parts of our brains working when we’re in these transaction modes. So talk to them one thing at a time, teach someone one thing. Don’t try to throw everything at them at once. And you’ll see like Yasmine said, the customers inboxing for you start going down. We actually get emails saying, wow, I thought I was just buying this. And you guys taught me so much more. Your onboarding experience is amazing. I’ve recommended you to my friend because now they know how to do, like, I know how to do this. I can help them with it. And I know that I don’t even have to because you’ve already done the work for me. So those things matter. They’re not things that are sexy. They are not Instagram posts. They’re not, you know, another sale coming in. People don’t buy something. And then sometimes they do go buy something else immediately after if you have like a coupon code in your order confirmation. But you know, those things matter. They build brand loyalty. They build confidence. You want someone feel confident after they buy your product from you, right? Because that confidence, they feel internally translates into how they feel about your product. So this is a no-brainer to us. Make sure that you walk your people through the experience of using your service or your product. Well,

Yasmine (20:27):
We hope you learn from our sort of crazy experience with planning a Disney vacation and about what you can do with your business to really ease the onboarding experience for your customer and really create a positive impact. So they keep coming back. If you don’t follow us on Instagram, we’re @pixiedustandprofits and send us a DM and let us know what you thought about today’s episode. We’d love to hear your feedback, and we’d just love to know what you are doing in your business to improve your onboarding experience.

Nicole (20:59):
And if you want even more insightful tips, or even maybe an outline of what your onboard experience should be like, you should join us on Patreon. You can join us for as little as $5 a month and you get some stickers that are really, really cool. So like that is pixiedustandprofits.com/patreon we’ll link to it on our website. So you should be able to get there. No problem. Thanks so much for joining us and we’ll see you real soon.