Intro (00:01):
Pixie Dust and 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.

Yasmine (00:26):
Hello, and welcome to another episode of pixie dust and profits. I’m Yasmine and I’m Nicole and we are two business strategists who love business planning and love Disney. So every week on our podcast, we talk to you about something cool that we learn from Disney and break down how you can apply those same lessons to your small business. So today we’re gonna be talking about something from our most recent Disney experience at pixie dust and profits live. And that is that both Nicole and I went on TUI rise of the resistance, and I’m gonna throw in Mickey and mini’s runaway railway in there. Now Nicole’s been on rise of the assistant and Mickey and minis run away. Really. These three were a brand new experience for me because I had been held back from crossing the border because I’m Canadian. So we finally got to go to Disney and I finally got to reconnect with Nicole in person after like two years.

Yasmine (01:19):
And we went on those rides and what was really, really, really cool is that all three of these rides use Disney’s brand new. Mm. I shouldn’t say brand new cause it’s been around for a while actually, but they use Disney’s newer trackless ride system where they basically use cars and magnets to move you around in all sorts of direct and create this like incredible experience. And when we went to go to RTU, so that was the first time Nicole and I both wrote that, cuz it just opened, we got off the ride and I was like, that was brilliant. That blew my mind. I hadn’t experience anything like that at Disney before. And Nicole was like, I was all right. And I’m like, are you crazy? Did you, did we go on the same ride? Did we experience the same thing? Like with the heat and the feet and everything. And Nicole’s like, well go on rise with the resistance and then tell me what you think. So we did that. We went on rise with the resistance and I’m like, okay, I get it. That is an insane experience and completely different. But what was interesting is like bright two was great. Don’t get me wrong. 10 of 10 would go on it again. Rise of the resistance was like 20 out of 10. And like when we got off we a whole episode

Nicole (02:33):
About that, that I went off about how I was a 20 out of a 10 and you hadn’t even been on it. So I’m glad you agree

Yasmine (02:39):
Whole hardly. And like that was just, I still think, think about that ride and I can’t wait to go back and go on it, but what’s really cool is that Disney actually created that sort of trackless ride system for TUI in Disneyland Paris and brought that ride over to Disney World. So the ride that we went on, even though it was new at the park, it wasn’t new technology or a brand new experience from Disney. But what Disney did was they took sort of the mechanics and what they built for rat and enhanced it for the rise of the resistance experience, which is like a 20 minute long experience. That’s fricking incredible like moment you get in line. You’re like

Nicole (03:19):
You’re in it. Well, I just looked it up and TUI opened a Disneyland Paris in 2014, which wow was seven years ago. And I didn’t even realize it was seven years ago. So when we went on RA TUI, it was a new ride just opened at Epcot and Disney world, not a new ride because it was done seven years ago in Disneyland Paris. So we are on this ride, like Aspen said enjoyable. She was so excited after, I don’t know that I had high hopes for the ride, but I, I definitely had some, oh this screen is really big and it feels like it’s in my face. And you know, the more modern rides the Mickey minis run away and it rides with the resistance, do a much better job with like the perspective while you’re in this motion, the trackless car. And so it was hard when I got off the ride, cause I was like, that’s a new ride.

Nicole (04:08):
I’m supposed to love new rides. So I had all these mixed feelings of like, I liked it, but I would not wait for that. I’d rather spend the three hours waiting for ride the resistance, which I wouldn’t wait, cuz I would get to the really early to not wait three hours. But it was just a very, very clear example in us being operations business people like we went from like the ride being enjoyable as an experience in the movie. And do we like the movie or not? We were talking about it throughout the line to, well, Hey look like this is seven years old and rise of the resistance is, you know, they’ve probably been planning it for a really long time, but opening wise it’s one year old. And so you could very clearly see that they used one of these technologies to create the other and it, they didn’t stop there.

Nicole (04:56):
I mean, if you’ve seen the behind the scenes special on star wars and rise of the resistance and how they created it, they kind of reveal like all the bits and pieces that Disney imagine years have learned over the years with all of the inventions they’ve made and how they used all of those things in, in building rise. But it was rare. It was just one of those things that I knew that they built on old technologies to make new technologies, but you could see it because you’re like, oh, the screen is really big. You are right in front of it. And you’re supposed to be a little mouse. It makes sense in a lot of ways. but when you go on rise, there’s a part where you’re actually in this chamber that is derived from something from tower of terror, you know, the elevator from tower of terror.

Nicole (05:38):
Like, you know, there’s other things in that ride that are influenced by. So what we really wanna talk about today is using things you already have to influence your next decisions, right? Building on things and making them better instead of starting brand new with something that you haven’t done before. If you have a proven audience, a trusted product and you were like, what do I do next? It could be what’s the next best experience using the technology or content or process or system you already have if Jasmine and I never adjusted our strategic frameworks or the way that wet each people to think about their business, when they do their yearly planning every year they wouldn’t evolve. And if they don’t evolve, then are they really good tools? So mm-hmm, look at the things that you’re putting out there. And we actually have a workbook. It’s the squirrel syndrome workbook. It talks about our six pillars in there. It talks about how product development is one of them. So if you are looking at like, what are my goals for 2022, you might wanna take a look at that book so it can help you think about, okay, what focus areas do I want to have before you start thinking about all the projects you could do, product development is one of them. There’s five others you can choose from. You can find that@pixiedustandprofits.com slash core. So use that to inform your 20, 22 goals.

Yasmine (07:01):
Yeah. And like this, isn’t something new that we’re talking about. We’ve brought up the concept of looking at what you have to create something new multiple times before. But the reason why we keep honing in on this is, and you’ll find that when you go through our squirrel syndrome workbook is that I as entrepreneurs, we’re almost like trained to chase something new and shiny and ignore what we have that’s working or that could be improved to work even better. And like, don’t get me wrong. Shiny new is fun. Those things are exciting, but shiny and new take so much more work. And if you are a times strapped entrepreneur, if you are a solo business owner, doing all the things or have a small team, we think you need to use your time wisely to grow your business. And of course you can carve out time for shining in new, but don’t overlook what you have that you can build upon that can improve your business. And it doesn’t

Nicole (07:58):
It’s for all our clients and mean it doesn’t just come to like the products either. So for example, we have a community, the profitable and protective party, and inside someone was recently asking you about if they should change email service providers, if they should move everything from whatever system they were on. I think it was convert kit to flow desk, which is a different email management system. And so they’re evaluating these pros and, and cons. It’s like, well, what’s not working about what you have. How can you improve upon what you already have? Do you need to take on a project where you’re uplifting your entire email system to something else because you think it’s better or because you’re not using what you have to it’s fullest potential. So it’s, it doesn’t mean right or wrong. Always stay with the thing you have. There are instances where we would tell you to move, but it’s not just about the content and the product creation.

Nicole (08:42):
It also comes into play in your operations, in any other part of your business. Mm-Hmm are you using all of the features? Are you using them to their fullest potential? When I think about rise of the resistance, I can’t even imagine what the next level of potential is for this technology that they’ve created. But when I ride read too I know what it is because I’ve been on rise and it’s like, okay, wow. In seven years they developed that and it’s one of those things that I think it, it doesn’t just have to be your content. Another example where they’ve done this at Disney world is with tower of terror at Disney world it’s terror of terror at Disneyland, it’s actually guardians of the galaxy. And when they looked at how terror of terror operates, they couldn’t change the ride inside the building.

Nicole (09:28):
They, they couldn’t change what the ride was or how it functioned, but what they could change was the pull system that pulls the elevator up and down from the free fall. So Disney world, it’s a scary terror ride where you drop in free fall Disneyland. It’s a funny ride with upbeat music to the tuna guardians of the galaxy. And you’re kind of bouncing and hopping around same exact internal mechanics, same exact stuff. You just change the tension rods or what ever it is. I am not a mechanical engineer to make the, the drop sequence different. And now it’s a funny ride. It’s a fun ride. People are laughing. They’re not screaming with terror. Same exact.

Yasmine (10:07):
I have fun on tower of terror. Speak for yourself.

Nicole (10:09):
I love terror terror. I, I don’t know what my favorite ride is at Disney World, but that it’s one of them because I get scared

Yasmine (10:16):
Oh, I just it’s it’s the best.

Nicole (10:18):
Oh, the last time I was on, there were two little kids next to me and I was like, okay, I can’t scream. Like I normally do, cuz I don’t wanna frighten those little kids. That’s sweet. Oh my God. And I ended up getting the one that bounces up and down. If you don’t know, Tara, Tara has different drop sequences. Mm-Hmm so the one I got with the one that kind of bounces a bit and I was sad cuz I really one of that one that just like drops you all 13 stories

Yasmine (10:39):
Yeah. It’s super fun. Yeah. So I lost my train of thought. I was thinking about tower of terror that happens it’s it’s it’s a joyful thrill that’s for sure. All right. So now that we’re back on track, I want you to do one thing and one thing only really there’s gonna be two things, but I’m gonna start off with the most important one. And that is looking at what you have and see where there’s opportunities for improvement. Do you have a product that’s doing well that you can enhance in some way? Or do you have a product that, you know, you put a lot of time and effort into and it’s, it’s not quite there. How can you optimize it to turn it into something that really wows your audience? You know, we’re so quick to give up and like scrap things when the potential is there. So look at it from that lens, what’s the potential of this product and what can you do

Nicole (11:27):
To get it there? It’s also a good reminder to go look at your Instagram insights. What posts are people actually commenting on? Do more of those, what posts are reaching new audiences do of those? I know we’re kind of getting into using metrics to inform your decisions, but it’s along the same lines of amplify. The things that are working, bring new technology to those things that you have that are doing great on their own.

Yasmine (11:53):
Awesome. And I’m gonna go into the second thing that I want you to do and that’s to follow us on Instagram. We are @pixiedustandprofits and we would love to know what are you gonna look at in your business and prove upon you can just send us a DM. We’d love to chat with you about that kind of thing.

Nicole (12:10):
If you didn’t already. I mentioned it earlier in this episode to go download our pixiedustandprofits.com/Squirrel. That’s our kick squirrel syndrome to the curb workbook that has all those different pillars and places that you can work on in your business in 2022.

Yasmine (12:26):
Thanks so much for joining us again and we’ll see you real soon.