What Can We Learn From Disney?

Think about your business. When you boil it down, you have employees, customers and best practices/processes. Which are most important?

We always hear, “Your Customer is #1. Your Customer is Never Wrong.” According to the Disney Institute we attended, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Your employee is #1. Once we create a culture that breeds employee satisfaction, employee retention and employee productivity and performance, then we get customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and, ultimately, revenue, growth and profitability.

So what does this have to do with marketing? We spent a day at the Disney Institute to see what we could learn from a world-class brand. The key to Disney’s success isn’t just a marketing strategy, it’s a business strategy: be intentional where others are unintentional.

Last time you logged 30,000 steps on your FitBit with kids in tow on a 90-degree day while maxing your credit card all in the name of family fun at Disney, did you notice the janitor that led the impromptu parade at Magic Kingdom? Did you appreciate the FastPass that allowed you to slide past the hours long line at Tower of Terror? Did you notice the hidden Mickeys placed all around the park to add an extra level of detail and entertainment? When you turned to your spouse and neither of you could remember where the car was, did your jaw drop when a cast member could tell you down to two rows where your car was? Thirty days after your magical trip when you ripped open your credit card bill, were you reminded of the great memories . . . after you dried your tears from the shock of the bill, that is?

Many of these tiny details that make Disney a repeatable magical experience for thousands of people each and every day came from the employees.

We all have rock star employees at our business. If we made them #1, could we be a little more like Disney?