If you’re a small shop, you won’t want to miss Misty’s golden nuggets on compliance and consumer safety laws, especially if you sell goods used by children. As a member of our Profitable & Productive Party, she also shares how she’s seen incredible business growth and an increase in revenue!

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Despite its guarantee to be an out-of-this-world experience, our sticker shock was still astronomical. Listen now to hear how Disney prepared their audience well to buy into this experience, and how you can do the same with your customers.

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Price increases and less perks that we no longer get access to without having to pay even more money? Ew. In this episode we’re discussing the not-so-welcome changes to Disney’s Annual Pass program.

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New rides, limited-edition merchandise, and once-in-a-lifetime fireworks displays await inside! Listen now for tips on building excitement and anticipation with your customers.

Download Episode 49 transcript right here

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Have you ever been to Disney World and wondered why the employees are called “cast members” and, well, not employees? Because Walt Disney started in the movie industry, he used movie industry terms for everything in the parks. 

Park attendees are not called customers, they’re called guests, as in guests of a show or performance. Onstage areas are areas in the park where cast members interact with guests, while offstage areas are employee-only areas. Every Disney term is carefully chosen to create a specific mood or experience — a unique world. You can use the same tactic for your small business and create your own world. 

Attract customers with specific messaging

If you’re a diehard Disney fan like us, you know all those key insider terms. Like “rope drop” is when they physically let people into the parks at opening time. Join a Disney Facebook group or meet another Disney super fan, and you’ll probably both speak the same language.

What does this mean for your business? To attract new customers, you want to use language that they already understand. Avoid using words and phrases that are unclear to the average person. But once a customer is through the door — or through the looking glass — you can use specific, specialized language to create a custom branded experience.

Take your website. You need to clearly communicate what you do and what you offer. This isn’t the place to use jargon or industry speak that a casual reader wouldn’t get. But once you’ve hooked a customer or made a loyal fan, you can start peppering in your own unique language, because they’ll know what you mean. 

Use branded language to create your own world

How can you use specific language to create your own world? Let’s use us as a quick example. If we were explaining Pixie Dust & Profits to someone who has never been to Disney World and isn’t super into Disney (yet), we would avoid saying, “this is your 180 day window to get things done.” They wouldn’t know that that is a Disney-specific phrase.

Instead, we’d say something like, “you have 180 days to take part in this offer.” See the difference? It’s more clearly written for a broader audience. But once this person knows our brand and is a new Disney fan, we can use fun phrases like “it’s your FastPass Day!” It makes sense once they’ve entered your world.

Here’s another example of someone who knows how to create their own world. Reina Pomeroy is an amazing coach for busy creatives who is so easy to connect with. Once you’re “in her world,” you start to speak her language. Like calling networking “social glue,” or using the term “dreamies” instead of clients. Reina’s language is more friendly, fun and creative. It puts her  unique brand on ideas to make them more powerful and memorable. 

Polish the customer experience

We all know that Disney spares no expense when putting on a show for their guests. They clean every inch of the parks every night. They don’t cut corners. They polish everything so that it shines for their guests the next day.

You can use a similar approach to the customer experience for your business. Audit your website to make sure every link works properly, every image loads, or every piece of information is up to date and accurate. Review your customer journey to see what needs tweaking and perfecting.

Look, you’re a small business owner, so don’t feel bad if things need improvement. Sometimes things get lost in the process, or we take shortcuts so things get done. And we think, “I’ll get back to that and fix it soon,” but we never actually take that step to do it.

Think about the show that you’re putting on for your customers, and see where it can be spruced up or fixed. Yes, done is better than perfect, but that doesn’t mean you can’t periodically optimize your customer experience.

View your business from your customers’ perspective

If you’ve ever had the chance to go on a backstage tour at Disney to see what it looks like as a cast member, the experience can be eye-opening. Everything is about form, function, and efficiency. Compare that to the front-facing areas that are bright and shiny and polished, and it’s incredible.

The same goes for your business. While you should look for ways to improve the customer experience, you don’t need to have everything perfectly polished on the backend. The backend operations of your business should be, first and foremost, operational. You can be organized and bare bones, but nothing needs to be fancy. It’s for your eyes only, anyway.

To create your own world, you need to view your biz from your customers’ shoes. You need to look at your business from the perspective of a totally new potential customer and a loyal customer, and tailor your brand messaging to the two audiences. That’s how you attract new customers and keep them around. 

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It’s not always pixie dust and magic, but we can learn a thing or two during the wait (or really, really long hold). In this episode, we’re getting real about one of our biggest Disney frustrations —the phone lines. Listen now to hear about why you should be caring for your current and most loyal customers in your small business.

Download Episode 47 transcript right here

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Spoiler alert! If you haven’t ridden the new Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance ride at Galaxy’s Edge in Disney World, turn back before it’s too late. In this blog, we talk about the importance of customer experience and how it can help your business. We use Rise of the Resistance as an example of how Disney crafted a unique and memorable experience for their customers.

If you haven’t ridden Rise of the Resistance yet, skip ahead to the heading “Getting creative with customer events” so you can still learn about creating a fantastic experience for your customers. 

Ready? Punch it, Chewie! 

A truly unique Star Wars experience

It’s hard to describe Rise of the Resistance as a “ride.” It really is a one-of-a-kind Disney experience that you won’t forget. If you’re not bothered by spoilers or you’re curious what it’s like, keep reading! Otherwise, skip to the next section. It’s your last chance.

As you can expect with any Disney ride, you move through a long outdoors/indoors line to get to the first room. Adorable droid BB-8 is on a pedestal next to a hologram of Rey, who tells you about the mission you’re about to go on. A hologram. It looks so cool.

You leave the room and enter a giant ship waiting outside. After it launches, the Empire begins attacking. Suddenly, the doors that you used to enter open again, and you realize the Empire has boarded your ship. That means the ship has actually moved, and you’re in a totally different place to continue the experience. 

Stormtroopers escort you to the next location, all the while interrogating you and treating you as a rebel spy. You really feel like a character in the story. We won’t completely spoil how the ride ends, but suffice it to say that the Resistance helps you escape in a small ship with an amazing Tower of Terror-esque free fall.

If you get the opportunity to try Rise of the Resistance safely at Disney World, we highly recommend it. It’s so worth your time, even if you’re a casual Star Wars fan or not one at all! The immersive experience and attention to detail can make you think differently about the experience you create for your own customers through your business.

Getting creative with customer events

As you all know by now, we changed our Pixie Dust & Profits live experience in August 2020 to an online event because of the pandemic. We wanted to make sure all of our attendees felt safe. 

Every detail, from the course curriculum to custom gifts to in person events, had to be rethought or shelved after almost two years of planning. When you put that much detail in a face-to-face event and bring it online, you have to consider how to shift the experience so you can still surprise and delight your customers. You can still give them their money’s worth.

First, we ditched the traditional Facebook group mastermind model that’s so popular now and instead used a platform called Mighty Networks to gather attendees. Mighty Networks has a lot of great features, like live chat rooms and open office hours and transcripts of discussions. It was a more personable platform that created the close-knit community feel that we wanted.

Next, we extended the program from four days to the entire month of August. We knew that many of our attendees, like us, were juggling a lot of responsibilities at home already. Four days wasn’t going to cut it. By stretching the program over a month, we allowed people time and space to dive deeper into their work without feeling rushed.

Lastly, we thought of ways we could mail our attendees gifts and items that we had planned on giving them in person. Keeping those “surprise and delight” moments for our attendees was really important to us.  

Think of ways to spruce up customer touch points

Even if you don’t have a big in person or online event coming up, there are lots of ways you can make the customer experience special. Look at a customer’s entire journey with your business and find various touch points that you can spruce up.

For example, if someone just bought a product from you, you know that they’ll be on the lookout for an email confirming their order. What does your email say? Is it the standard “thanks for buying” message with all the basic details? Or do you have a creative, on-brand message that goes the extra mile to make your customer feel special? What about the confirmation page they see immediately after their order is placed?

You can do the same when you ship orders to your customers, too. We’re not suggesting you buy extra gifts or spend too much time customizing every order, because that can take a lot of energy and resources. But think of a way to make their order special, maybe with a handwritten thank you card, confetti, a fun sticker…you get the idea.

Take the extra steps to surprise and delight customers 

Making the customer experience feel special doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming. Behind-the-scenes or production photos are a great way to keep your customers excited about their order. And it builds trust between them and your brand.

What can you do as a service-based business and you’re not sending customers tangible items? Lots of things! Get creative with your communication. Send a welcome video or message to new customers. Thank them for their business and let them know that they made the right choice supporting you. Share links to your social media or other services that they may like.

Whether you’re a product-based business or service-based business, you can and should find ways to go the extra mile for the customer experience. You’ll build up your brand and your brand reputation. Take a page out of Disney’s book and try to jazz up the customer experience wherever you can, because your efforts will pay off. 

Not sure where your customer touchpoints are? Our Customer Ascension Model can help — and you can get it totally for free inside our magical Biz Bundle!

In this episode we’re discussing the latest updates on how Disney is managing COVID-19, their financial losses and how they’re planning to recover as the parks continue to re-open.

Download Episode 34 transcript right here

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Disney cast members are notorious for making a guest’s experience even more magical…because they are trusted and empowered to do so. Listen today to learn from why letting your team members take ownership over their roles will make them more dedicated and help your business soar.

Even Disney, the billion dollar corporation, can have hiccups in customer experience, but that doesn’t mean they abandon even their most loyal fans. Listen now to hear why you should follow their lead and continuously improve the processes to delight your customers.

Download Episode 28 transcript right here

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