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.

Nicole (00:26):
Hello everyone. And welcome to this week’s episode of pixie dust and profits. I’m Nicole

Yasmine (00:32):
And I’m Yasin.

Nicole (00:33):
And we can’t wait to break down some Disney magic for your small business this week. We’re talking about making things sticky and you know, what really inspired this is actually some, some stickers at the airport in Orlando. I was there recently for pixie dust, live intensive with Yas and a couple of women and walking through the airport. I just saw how they have themed so much around the 50th Ann of our at Disney world. So if you have not seen pictures or traveled to Disney since the 50th, as soon as you get off the plane and you head to the people mover, there’s probably a real name for that, but I will forever think of it as the people mover or monorail of some sort,

Yasmine (01:18):
The Orlando airport people mover.

Nicole (01:20):
Right, right. It’s not fun. But you get to hear the mayor tell you the, the same little speech about welcome to Orlando. And that’s always like the first interaction you have when you land. Right? So there’s like strong excitement around I’m on vacation. I’m here. When you’re from the north, you’re instantly like, oh, it is warmer in here. It is more humid here. And your first view of these monorails is all of these decals. They have across the entire siding of the windows of all the 50th anniversary statues, there’s, you know, Simba and Bo pee. And they have all these beautiful things showing how important the 50th is. Now, mind you, Disney is not the only thing in the Orlando area, but it totally seems that way when you get off the plane. And so this is all about being sticky and it didn’t stop there. After I left the airport, I was on the road, cuz I got a rental car and I’m driving to our resort and there were 50th anniversary license plates all over the cars on my way to Disney. There’s just, it, it was just this feeling of like it’s everywhere. They’re making it seem so important.

Yasmine (02:33):
And, and those are locals who are getting the special 50th anniversary edition because they love Disney that much. So like not only is it sticky in the sense that like you can’t quite escape. The fact that Disney has turned 50 years old, people are promoting it and they’re excited to.

Nicole (02:49):
Yeah. And you know, it doesn’t even stop there. Right? So I have a Disney visa credit card because why wouldn’t I earn Disney rewards every time I go to the grocery store? Ya unfortunately cannot because she’s in Canada, but they,

Yasmine (03:02):
I was about to say, you, you wouldn’t, if you’re Canadian.

Nicole (03:05):
So they sent a letter in the mail probably two months ago, that was like, Hey, did you know that you could change your card? Like the graphic on your card anytime you want. And by the way, here’s the near 50th anniversary version of the card. And I, I said, yeah, I want that because my card had a picture of Disneyland and I always felt a little off because I have never actually been to Disneyland. But that, it’s just the stickiness of that same logo, those same colors, which don’t even get me started in the colors. I love the colors for the 50th, but it just keeps reappearing in all these different facets of life and in your surroundings, which gives you the importance of it. Right? So they’re pushing this hard. They’re making sure you know, that it’s a special education event. They’re making sure it sticks in your head. And especially where it says the 50th, even though most Disney people know that this is an 18 month long celebration. It’s not just for the year. You are, you are told, get here, get here. Now this is limited time. These special gold, you know, elements everywhere, the 50th stuff everywhere it’s gonna be gone

Yasmine (04:15):
And you don’t wanna miss it. And the reason like why Disney extends it so long and celebrates for a year and a a half is because they have to really accommodate all people’s like times to attend. If they just did it, you know, the month of October in 2021, a lot of us would’ve missed out, but like they’re encouraging you to take it home with you. As we were talking, I held up my phone case that I got at Disney world for Nicole to see and sure enough, it has a 50th auto key on it. Is that what they’re called Otter box and a 50th anniversary pop socket that I got. That’s like glittery. It has the castle, the number 50 there’s like rhinestones totally up my alley. But like I took it home with me, the spirit jerseys we got in a call, those were 50th edition and, and there wanted to take a piece of, yes, it’s really convenient for us. That Disney took inspiration from pixie dust and profits broke palette for the 50th anniversary.

Nicole (05:10):
Oh, well, and it was just my birthday. So my husband is always looking for new things for me and many ears are a great, safe bet. So he went to go see what was out there and surprised me with these 50th anniversary years that are like leather gold. They’re, they’re gorgeous. I don’t know if I can wear them in the parks because I worry about losing them, but you know, their 50th anniversary ears. So if

Yasmine (05:38):
You worry lounge,

Nicole (05:39):
Yeah. I mean, if you wear them outside of this year, is it cool or is it not like, you know, now then

Yasmine (05:44):
It’s vintage,

Nicole (05:45):
Right? It’s vintage. So, you know, they are totally capitalizing on all of this. We have been to Disney and we went in October with pixie dustslive. We went in January just for a day with the pixie dusts live intensive. And in October, when all of us had first launched, they were really struggling with the supply chain of having all of these things in stock. So they built up all of this demand and did not have the supply, which is not a great not a great way to handle anything. They ran out of the light up ears. I think they still don’t have those in stock. And it’s February, March now. So it’s great to make things sticky, but make sure you can deliver on it.

Yasmine (06:25):
So Nicole, why don’t we talk a little bit about how everyone at home can make things in their business a little bit more sticky? Well, one way right off the bat is Disney’s theme across the board is consistent. So they’re delivering what I just said, a consistent brand identity. So everywhere you go, if you see the air quotes, iridescence color palette, you know, it’s 50th related and you kind of want some of that consistency with your brand. I mean, the products that you create, if you’re a product maker, are they uniquely, you does your brand or your aesthetic come through and everything that you put out there, the content and marketing that you put out again, does it align with your brand aesthetic or are you kind of all over the place when you’re not recognizable? It makes it harder for people to find you again. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been scrolling for through saw like a pair of ears or something that I like from a small shop or even a service provider. And if their brand or something unique about them, didn’t stick out to me. Sometimes. I just forget when I wanna go back and well, they potentially lost me as a customer, so right.

Nicole (07:36):
You start digging through the section you spoke that says ads you clicked on. Yes. I’m hoping, trying to find it. You can find it. Yeah. But I hate that feeling when you’re like, I know that case I wanted, I don’t remember the maker. How did I find her before? Yeah, it’s really important to be consistent. And the look at Disney Disney has so many things that can be promoting. They have a new cruise ship. They have the gala Dick star cruiser, which we previously talked about. There are so many things they could be promoting, but above all of that, there one message is the 50th, the 50th, the 50th, you hear it over and over again. And so when you think about the fact that you have subbrands or multiple products, it’s still, what’s the overarching thing above that, that P people will remember you for. What’s the tagline, what’s the slogan. What’s, you know what, what’s that one thing, because they’re gonna remember that when they need the product, they remember you talking about and they’ll be like, oh, who’s that person that says, you know, humans first business, second, who’s that person

Yasmine (08:36):
Who says you need a uniquely new business, Nicole. That is that us? I think so. Yeah. So the other way that you can be stickies is through the customer experience that you deliver, when you create a lasting impression on people, they come back and we’ve experienced it in our businesses. We’ve had clients refer us out time and time again. I mean, I don’t think Nicole, you and I haven’t actually like sought out clients in the past couple years. Everyone has come through referrals essentially. Right?

Nicole (09:07):
Yeah. And I mean, my longest clients I’ve been with for four or five years and we can do some amazing things together because we know the business so well that it’s okay. We’re not like starting from the ground up. We know what works, we know what doesn’t. We have processes in place to revisit the goods, the bads, the inspirations, the dreams and goals every year. So it feels easier and easier to redo the things that work or relaunch the products that do well and go from there. So, you know, when you keep getting good results and you’re really consistent, you get the referrals and then you build another relationship with another client that goes on. And I mean, that’s part of the reason why we love pixie dust and the party membership that we have because we get to build relationships with people in a different four. That’s not necessarily us implementing these huge strategies, but it is informing people directly knowing what their business is, knowing their audiences. We can give them much better information than possibly following a course somewhere that probably costs the same amount as the party.

Yasmine (10:13):
Yeah. Other ways that you can deliver that really positive experience for your customers is in the after purchase experience. So we talked about having a great post purchase sequence when someone buys a product, whether if it’s a service from you or like a digital product, and if you’re a product maker creating that really great experience when they open up their package, when you mails something that’s super duper important, too. For example, I have started a product based business recently I’ll share the details at some point in the future, what it works within an episode, but I’ve had one customer literally buy from me 10 times in the past, like two and a half months. And it’s because she loves the experience. She, how I work with her when she comes to me for recommendations, I’ve given her an amazing customer experience in her words. And that I put thought and care into everything that I deliver to her.

Yasmine (11:07):
And she just loves opening up the packages. And to me, that’s literally the greatest compliment that I could get, because that’s the experience that I want people to have and to get some, to buy 10 times in like two and a half months, that’s a huge win for any product based businesses. So I look to the feedback that she’s given me and try to think, okay, how can I really build and extrapolate this across the board for every single customer that purchases for my business. And you know, it’s not always easy, but paying attention to the things have impact is so key in every business, because that’s how you can scale more effectively or like increase the, I wanna say the impact, but like not the impact, like the, should I say the return? Yeah, yeah. Increase the return that you have in your business based on the effort that you put into it,

Nicole (11:57):
We can have, we probably already have another episode entirely on that, those relationships and, and treating each customer like they’re your only customer and the difference that that makes, and it does leave a lasting impression. When you think about Disney, you’re thinking about a scale of how do they leave a lasting impression on the thousands of people that come every day and they can’t do that personalized experience really. And it’s little things like you, you guys know how many trips we have taken, but you know, just going to see VECO and the sphere is glowing into different colors that match the 50th. That’s a completely different experience. It’s lasting to me like that looks different than the last trip. This is special. The new firework shows all of those things make it special and every trip is completely different. So it’s leaving those lasting impressions. Even something as simple as the art festival that we went to, the dishes are different. So they’re different from when I went to the art festival last year, we enjoyed some of our old favorites, but we brought in new things and there were things themed for the 50th. It’s, it’s a lot of fun and that’s how they continually impressed.

Yasmine (13:09):
But like the other interesting thing that Disney does is there are so many unique experiences to the 50th that it makes you want to try it all because once it’s gone, it’s gone. So there’s a scarcity as well that they’re able to push through this, which I mean, it’s worked on us.

Nicole (13:30):
All right. So in your business, the one thing that you can do is a takeaway from this is to talk about your stuff five times more than you think you should put it inside your planner. Talk about one of my products or my overarching tagline this week, like Tuesday what’s today is Tuesday. So pick Thursday, you know, go and put that in your planner, put it on your Asana, wherever you keep yourself on track. Talk about one of your products, your services, your overarching, like philosophy around things. And then do it again on Monday. And then do it again on Wednesday. Talk about your stuff, because we don’t talk about it enough. We are guilty of this as well. We’re telling you this and we it’s something that we’re working on. So talk about your things.

Yasmine (14:18):
Speaking of not talking about our stuff we have something really cool coming up.

Nicole (14:27):
All right. You’ve probably heard that you can create more impact by doing less, but how exactly do you do that? We’ll let you know. We have a masterclass coming up on March 24th, and we want you to join us for it. We’ll help you stop spinning your wheels and find some focus so you can decide on your next right move.

Yasmine (14:48):
So if you wanna join us live, sign up at pixiedustandprofits.com/masterclass.

Nicole (14:55):
Can’t wait to see you there.

Nicole (14:59):
All right. So make sure you join that masterclass. If you’re looking for support and focus. Now, this is the last episode of this season, which I don’t know how it’s come that quickly, but it, you can keep in touch with us on Patreon. And that’s where you’re gonna get some behind-the-scenes content. Even when the season is over, you can find us at pixiedustandprofits.com/patreon. They’ll also be in the show notes. We will do a summer series, which will have fast tidbits for you for your business, just to make sure you’re keeping up with everything as your business goes through the summer, which sometimes can be slower, but for other audiences maybe a little bit busier. So thank you so much for joining us. And don’t forget to follow us on Instagram @pixiedustandprofits. We’ll see you real soon.