Steal Disney’s Customer Experience Strategy & Watch Your Business Boom

What if your clients didn’t just buy from you… but felt something unforgettable?

In this episode of The Secret Sauce Podcast, Lacey Moores and Chad Trease break down how The Walt Disney Company intentionally designs every single touchpoint of the customer journey.

Disney doesn’t just create transactions, they engineer emotions.

From the moment guests arrive to the moment they leave, every detail is designed around how people feel. And the best part? You can apply these same principles to your real estate business, brand, or team.

If you’re a real estate agent, loan officer, entrepreneur, business owner, or team leader, this episode will change the way you think about customer experience forever.

👉 Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share if you’re ready to build a brand people feel.

Transcript

The Disney Hug Rule

SPEAKER_00 0:00

That they will never let go of a hug first.

Lacey 0:02

They have to hold on to that kid until the kid lets you go.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Think about the last time that you felt rushed during a really important conversation. Now imagine if that moment had been designed differently on purpose. Disney designs for that moment, almost no one else does. And today we're taking a case study in Disney and how to apply it to our own businesses and our own lives. And I'm excited for this one because I love Disney. My family does too. And I've experienced this in real time. And once you hear some of this, I think you'll be like, oh, that makes sense. I I understand that. Like I've experienced that, but you didn't realize it was very much by design. So that's what we're talking about today.

A Park Injury Turns Into Magic

Lacey 0:40

Yes. You know, you said the word Disney and I instantly like two, three moments come rushing to my head and experiences that we had there. I mean, we've done cruises and stuff, but can I share a small one really fast? This is totally off script, Jen.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

I love it. Go for it.

Lacey 0:54

When my uh son Austin was five or six, we went to Disneyland with some friends. We were riding rides. He uh we were in line for a ride and he slipped back. He was kind of sitting on a fence that he wasn't supposed to, and he slipped back and hit his head and split it open pretty good. And it started bleeding everywhere. And as a mom, I don't know what to do. I put my hand on the back of it. And when there's uh hundreds of people in front of us, hundreds of people behind us. Yeah. We rush, people are like, go to the front. We rush to the front and they're like, stay here. We're gonna bring a doctor to you. We don't want you to have to, you know, go out there in this madness. They bring somebody to us and we get it all cleaned up. It wasn't that big. The blood was a lot, but it wasn't that big of a cut. And then the doctor said, You can either take him to the hospital and get a stitch or two, or we can wrap it real good and you guys can stay. It's up to you. Well, of course, me, I'm like, we're staying.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Yeah, you paid a lot of money to be there.

Lacey 1:45

And it's a lot to get in and out of the park, right? And so they wrap his head up with this goss. So he really, I mean, it it changed the whole rest of the trip. Everybody there thought we were there like as a make-a-wish.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

I remember you telling me this actually.

Lacey 2:03

But but um they went all out after this to make sure that we enjoyed the rest of our experience. I mean all out. I mean passes to the back of every, like the front of every line, the handicap, like all of it for our entire group for the rest of the day. And every time we passed a character, they all went straight to Austin and and gave them hugs. And you know, so we were talking about that hug straight. I'll let you tell that. But like so, the second you say Disney and the experience, like, and I think everybody probably has those magic moments or those things that they can remember, those feelings.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

The way that Disney made them feel.

Lacey 2:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Yeah. And that's what it's all about for me. And and that's why I'm kind of exploring this. Is like I'm obsessed with the way that we make people feel.

Lacey 2:50

It's become well, tell them about the hug rule. So this is this one. I didn't know this. You just shared this with me, and I I can feel this when you said it.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Yeah, so m maybe some people know this, maybe they don't. Um, it was news to me when I heard it after I'd been to Disney multiple times.

Lacey 3:03

I never heard it until you just told me.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Um, but it is a hard and fast rule, and Disney lore and and uh all the cast members or you know, the princesses and and um, you know, Mickey and Minnie, like as they're walking around the park, all of the cast members are instructed that they will never let go of a hug first.

Lacey 3:20

So a kid goes up to them and hugs them and they hug back. They have to hold on to that kid until the kid lets go. Until the kid lets go.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Sounds really like kind of insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but it's such an intentional, uh awesome thing if you really think about it, because what it really means is that uh the experience that that child is having, it's up to them. Like they decide when that experience ends, not the cast member.

Lacey 3:47

And like it's a lot I even think about too when you know, when you give I'm a hugger, so I love hugging people, but when people give long hugs, it just feels different.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

I'll tell you what, try this at home. It feels different. Try the Disney rule at home with your spouse, uh, with your kids. If you're gonna adopt one thing from this episode, just you can stop here and adopt that one. The hug rule. It's so good. Yeah, there we go. It's what two-minute episode. Uh, but no, that I mean, literally adopt this and then think about okay, how do we in the mortgage industry or realtors, we may not have an opportunity to hug our guests. It's not, we're not Disneyland. Uh how much we wish that we were. Yeah, right.

Lacey 4:27

Yeah, it might be weird to do a real long hug first time you meet a client.

Translating Disney To Client Meetings

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Right. And we don't meet clients uh a ton of times. We might see them at the at uh our our buyer strategy session, which you and I are unique, that we're even doing it in person anymore. A lot of a lot of lenders are never meeting their customers because they're not doing it up front, they're not going to closings. So we have a couple of opportunities, maybe where we see them, and then after closing, obviously, you know, um, you know, client events and stuff. But beginning, we're not in a hugging stage. Yep. Right. So if we're looking at this from a small business aspect, is how do we take that concept and we look at how does how do we integrate the customer deciding when the experience with us ends? So I looked at it from the perspective of our buyer consultation, our buyer strategy meeting when we meet with them. How do we integrate this so they decide when that meeting ends? Because typically what I'd always done for the longest time is I would give them all the information that I thought they would need to go out in the world and be a very confident and courageous buyer.

Lacey 5:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

That's still the goal. And so I tell them up front clarity is my goal with this meeting. And because I think if I can get you to an eight or a nine out of 10 on the clarity scale, you're gonna leave here with a super high sense of confidence and a healthy dose of courage. And I think that's what you deserve as a buyer in this market or any market, right? And they uh they nod their head, they agree with that, they they like that, and then I get their buy-in, you know, is that fair? And then I tell them I'm gonna check in with you as we go. And we're not done until you tell me that you're at least an eight or a nine. I think 10 is pushing it. Like to get to a 10, you've got to process all this information, try to get there. I think you is ambitious. But if we can get to an eight or nine, I'm really happy. Uh, so where are you right now? And then as we go, I check in one or two more times throughout that process as I'm going through payments and cash to close and credit and all of those things. And I ask a couple times, how are you feeling? Like, where's your clarity meter now? Yeah, right? Honest, give me honesty. And typically they're not there yet. They're not an eight or nine yet, and that's fair. But by the end, you know, when I'm done, I don't just say, well, that's it. Like, here's your pre-approval letter. Go out in the world. I'm bringing that full circle and saying, Are you where are you now? Right. Right. And if they're not an eight or nine, then I honor that and I say, okay, what can we do right now that can get you to an eight or nine? What questions can I answer? And they're the ones deciding when that experience ends. So it's not an exact parallel, but it's the closest I could think of in our business, how we can give them agency over when that that interaction ends.

Lacey 6:56

Yeah. I think I I love that analogy. I for a simple, I think it's we have to make sure that the client is good on whatever that is, and it and and not rush them, right? Now, on the other side of that, I think it's very important. And I always try to ask this with clients, how much time do you have for me?

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Yeah, that's fair. Because you want to honor their their time too.

Measuring Clarity And Ending Rights

Lacey 7:18

Um, and so how much time do you have allotted for this? But I really want to make sure we're not rushing through this and you're not feeling like I'm pushing you, like, hurry up, let's let's move through this. So feel free. I want you to to feel comfortable in this. I love that. I love that analogy. You know, like when we take it back to Disney, you know, they don't just rely on nice people or nice service, like they really rely on designed moments.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Yeah.

Lacey 7:42

You know, that's their choreograph game.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Yep. That is Disney by design. Um, and so they're an awesome case study if you're looking at your your client experience. How can you level that up? Disney is an awesome one to check out. I think, you know, it just anxiety drops when there isn't uh a feel of control. Yes, right, when they have agency in that another great example is just restaurants. Like, think about the difference of your experience. When you go to a restaurant, you can tell they're trying to get you cleared out of air. Like they drop off the check and you can tell they're rushing you to get out because they want somebody else to sit down. Versus a restaurant, you know, Will Ghidara's book on reasonable hospitality talks about how he created dropping off the check as a signature part of their experience. That he would drop off a bottle of um, a bottle of booze, basically, and say, drink as much as you like, take as much time as you like. And you're taking a friction point, like dropping off a check. They're a very expensive restaurant. So it could definitely be an anxious time in the experience. And instead of rushing them out of there, it they acknowledge hey, this is a tension point. They get out in front of it and they drop a bottle of alcohol and say, drink as much as you like, stay as long as you like, the table's yours until you want to leave, and they just create an experience out of that. And they that's another one giving agency over the the rest, the diners having agency over when that experience ends.

Agency At Tension Points

Lacey 9:01

Well, so a couple things, and you were explaining this to me about Disney, how Disney they they obsess over certain moments, like your first impression moment, your moments of confusion and your moments of stress, right? And and then your final moment. And so obviously in real estate and mortgage, there's lots of moments of confusion and and moments of stress. So when I when you just explain that about the dropping off the bottle at the time of the check, that would be the maybe the small moment of confusion or stress for that. We can identify several of those in our industry. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

I'm sure any industry can. If you think about your client experience, like where is the anx anxiety? Where is anxiety peaking?

Lacey 9:43

Right. Right. And so they they take those times though, and they figure out how to make it more enjoyable, you know, that that exact piece. And they've studied that. And that's where I think the magic is is, you know, and and one of my mentors always says, Man, problems are great. When we have problems, they're great because they can turn into so much opportunity depending on how you handle the problem.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Yeah.

Lacey 10:08

But Disney doesn't just handle the problem. They've thought through the problem ahead of time.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

They've gotten out in front of those things and said this could be a problem.

Lacey 10:16

And here's how we're gonna handle it ahead of time. And here, not that we're not gonna have the problem because life they know it's gonna happen. They know it's gonna happen. And and I'm sorry, guys, but life would be really boring without problems. It just would.

Mapping The Customer Journey

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Well, your example is perfect, right? It was Wyatt, right? Yeah.

Lacey 10:31

Austin.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

It was Austin, sorry. With Austin, like that example, they had thought ahead. When somebody gets injured at the park, here's how here's what we do, here's how we spring into action. That was not just off the cuff how they dealt with it. They'd been trained. Sure. These moments they knew would come up.

Lacey 10:46

Well, it makes sense, right? Who wants a mom and a screaming kid with the walking all through? But that's for everybody else. But then for us, like we're already heightened, we're already stressed. Where do we go? How do we find the place? This place is massive, it's busy, it's chaotic. No, you just sit here, we're come, we're gonna bring somebody to you to fix this right now. Yep. You just sit here and breathe. And by the time the actual doctor got there, um, Austin was finally calmed down. You know, I mean, he's five and there's blood everywhere. He's screaming bloody murder. He was okay, but it calmed him down too. Like it, yes, it they those things. And we, I mean, as long as we've done it, but even if you haven't done it and been in this industry long, you can identify quickly the moments of stress, the moments of things that can happen. Inspections can go bad, appraisal can come in low, like all of those things and really talk through and have more of a game plan on this is how we handle it. This is how we calm people down. I love certain referral partners, and I am not so in love with other referral partners.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Yeah.

Lacey 11:47

And this is on how they respond in time of panic.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Yeah.

Lacey 11:52

And do they heighten the panic or do they calm the panic?

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Right. And we need to be the calm.

Lacey 11:58

Calm. And and and doing this so long, man, it's so hard. I don't, I hate to say this. I don't want to work with people that high that fuel that. Like it makes it worse for everybody. Everybody.

Everyone Is A Cast Member

SPEAKER_00 12:10

So, yeah, how do we, what would be your takeaway on that? Like, how would somebody in our industry or a small business, solo entrepreneur, like, how do you take that Disney philosophy of like getting out in front of where will anxiety peak? Will it, where will excitement fade? Like, think about people's key emotional states through their journey, through their experience, and you can get out in front of that. Like, any suggestions?

Lacey 12:34

Well, let me um, and I know our viewers can't see this, but I'm actually gonna just I'm gonna talk about what you have just done right here. So I know you guys can't see this, but Chad has a big, beautiful whiteboard, and his whole team has mapped out the entire process from even before anybody would even think the process starts and but way after it even ends. And there's all these sticky notes, and they have literally gone through and talked about the process and where things can go great, and those are good moments. And and Disney, Disney does things on the good moments too, but where it can go wrong, and here's and it's it's all in. So one of the things you said about Disney is uh every everyone's a cast member. Everyone's a cast member.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

It's another key piece of of their lore.

Lacey 13:15

Every person there is part of this story. Every person on my team is part of this story, every person on your team is part of that story, and you don't know when these things are gonna happen, but everybody's part of it, right? And so the whole team needs to be involved in thinking through. And and this is real easy for you and I because we've done it so long. Like we've seen about everything that can go wrong.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

It still is a fun exercise, though, to go through that. I will say uh we did this one day and spent one whole day just going through the client experience. And it's like, oh no, no, no, there's another piece there. There's another piece in between that and that. No, there's another piece there. Like as we really break through. There's, I don't know, 40, 50 sticky notes. Each one is an interaction with a client, and then each one has what is their core emotional state in that like what is what are they feeling emotionally? Is it positive or negative?

Solo Pros Can Choreograph Too

Lacey 14:01

So this is intentionality. This is taking something like this and making it very, very intentional with your whole team involved.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

So being a- If you're a solepreneur, do it yourself, like sure think through it, right? You don't need to have a team to do this. Everybody can do this exercise. Yes. And I think it's an amazing one that I guarantee Disney, like I didn't yet.

Lacey 14:19

But let's say you're a soul, let's let's actually, it's not true. Let's say you're a soul, like, let's say you're at an individual real estate agent or an individual loan officer and you have nobody helping you with this process. Like if you're an individual real estate, you know, you can really take a hold of this process up front. When you're co-oping with another real estate agent, hey, I'm so and so, and I want you to know, like, here's this is very important to me. I want to be collaborative. I want to work through problems if problems arise. Like, I don't want to fuel them. I want us to figure out how we defuse them quickly. I want to be able to have that communication. Like, I even think as solo, if you really have intentionality around what this is that you want to create, you can do it as a one-man show or as an all-in show, you know, wherever you're at.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

A client experience is a client experience. Their journey is their journey, whether you are solo or you're at a huge corporation like Disney. Yeah. Right.

Lacey 15:11

But even when you're that big, what's great about Disney is they make you feel very important no matter what.

Intent Beats Budget

Action: Design, Test, Refine

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Yeah. And I think the key takeaway as we wrap this thing up is like you don't need Disney's budget. Yeah. Right. And this is my the best reminder that I can give. You don't need Disney's budget. You just need their intention. Yes. Right? Their intent. And their intent is to design and choreograph a customer journey, a guest experience that is unlike any other. And why not? Why can't you do that for real estate? Why can't you do that for lending? Right. We just we don't think about that stuff enough. And so, like, that's my kind of my challenge, I guess, to everybody is why not you to design something like this and to think through it and get out in front of it and make sure that the customer experience is one that they will remember forever. They're gonna remember how they felt in that moment. And like you will go back, even though it costs a ton and you're waiting in line and you're sweating, and there's like Disney can be a very traumatic experience for some people, but you will go back because of the way that they made you feel. And everybody has a story like that with Disney. I know I do as well. My daughter actually hugging Goofy, and like I'll put up a picture of it during this episode, but like I still get tear-eyed every time I see it. And Goofy's just holding her hands and looking at her in the eye, and like she was in this just like bewilderment, just like of wonder, just like childlike wonder that I can will never not forget. And they created that moment for her because of their intentionality around it. So, like, why not us? Right? Why not you? So let's go, let's go do it. Design your client experience, figure out that journey, be more like Disney.

Lacey 16:47

Yeah, find your find your pain points, f work through all of the stuff, you know. Be the you you did say be intentional.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Yeah.

Lacey 16:54

But the other thing you said on our last podcast, which I love, is it's not just about intentions, right? Because intentions only get us so far.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Like action.

Lacey 17:02

Action, and your action was a day to break this down. Like you have to spend a little bit of time really thinking about what it is you want, what it is you want to build, yeah, and design it.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Design it and go, do it, right? Yes. Uh, this is what takes a business from good to great.

Lacey 17:19

Yes.

unknown 17:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

I hope you take your business from good to great with this. I hope you got something from it. If you did, please share it. Thanks for being here. Thank you guys. We'll see you soon.