Last week, my husband Peter brought me on a spontaneous Disneyland day trip.

Of course, like with everything I do, I’m always finding the parallels with business.

There is always something we can learn from these experiences, especially from Disney – which, at the end of the day, is a pretty amazing business to model after, whenever we can.

So, this blog post is all about sharing my observations with you on what I found interesting that Disney does and how we can apply that to our own small businesses.

If you like analogies like this where we analyze other existing businesses and figure out ways to apply their strategies into our own, continue reading below.

Mastering Funnels

The first thing, and I have always given this example when explaining this, is Disney is a master at funnels.

Not funnel cakes, I was actually surprised to not find any there but, I mean funnels as in a guided experience for your customers.

Anytime you go for a ride at Disney, there are these posts called “stanchions” with metal links to keep you in line.

There is nowhere to go but follow the zig zag of these posts.

They create a boundary and make it very easy for people to follow along.

Now, more than that, once you get to the ride, and you’re done with it, there are very clear instructions for where to go next.

Exit to your right, follow the Exit signs, and then you’re out and back in the park again.

This guided flow is easy for people to follow, keeps traffic moving smoothly, and tells you exactly where you need to go, and what you need to do next.

If you think about it, it is just like a funnel. 

Every business online should have a funnel that gives you the exact same experience.

If you sell on your own website, you probably already have a funnel.

It starts with maybe your homepage or product listing page…

Then you have signs pointing to the next step, which is your add to cart button…

Then people go to the cart page, then to the checkout page where they buy.

If any one of these steps is not performing well, then you’re not going to have very many sales.

Imagine if at Disney, those stanchions offered five different paths instead of one.

Or after you finish your ride, it’s not clear where to go and there’s no one telling you what to do next.

It would be havoc, right? And people would not have a good experience.

So if you want sales to flow smoothly on your website, you need to create more boundaries so it’s easy for people to follow along and know exactly what they need to do next. 

Get People to Buy MORE

I noticed there were a lot of carts scattered around the park, selling soda, churros, and all sorts of snacks to eat.

These aren’t very expensive, usually just a few dollars here and there.

But did you know that in one year, one park can make millions of dollars from selling just their churros?

So to scale this back down to our online businesses, these are what we call add on sales, and they can be cross sells, upsells or downsells.

Basically, once someone has already decided they want to buy something from you then getting them to buy another thing from you is so much easier and increases how much money you make from that same person.

So if you haven’t yet, you definitely want to look into how you can install some upsell or cross sell app on your site to get people to buy more from you.

But another lesson from this, is that those snacks are relatively affordable.

I mean, a Disney ticket is upwards of a hundred bucks per person, but you can get a churro for five bucks.

It’s a no-brainer. Why not spend a few more bucks to complete the experience, right?

This is where you want to have impulse purchase products available in your shop.

If most of your products are $50 to $100, then you might want to introduce a small line of products that are, say $5 to $15. 

Be Creative With Upsells

This other thing that Disney did that I thought was so genius…

The park was to close early at 8pm because they were going to start their After Dark event at that time, which they were doing Valentine’s Sweetheart’s Nite.

Anyone who was already in the park during the day has to leave, and if you want access to the After Dark event, you need to buy a separate ticket for that.

Now what’s genius about that is Disney is basically commanding twice the number of tickets for a single day of admissions.

It’s like saying, they have 30 days in the month to sell tickets, but they’ve just effectively extended that to 38 days’ worth of tickets.

I think this is another great and very creative way for upselling to your customers and getting them to buy more from you. 

Pre-“Cook” Your Products

Let’s go back to those delicious churros…

Churros are deep fried in oil, right?

These churro carts weren’t exactly set up to have those kinds of cooking equipment, so it was really interesting to see that the churros were already pre-cooked and all the staff needed to do was finish cooking it and dip it in sugar and cinnamon.

I also read how their turkey legs are purchased already smoked and pre-cooked.

I thought this is genius, because it helps Disney save on time and cut down on costs.

They’ll be able to sell a whole lot more snacks because they’ve systematized their fulfillment process!

Customers don’t have to wait as long and they can serve more people in the same amount of time.

So how can we apply this to our own business?

What’s a part of your production process that you can do in batches for now, and then finish it up quickly when an order actually comes in?

For example, if you’re a sewer and you make hand sewn bags or clothing, maybe you can pre-cut the fabric ahead of time, and stash them away.

So, when an order comes in, all you need to do is assemble it!

That will help save you space since it’s much easier to store flat pieces of fabric in a stack, than a 3D finished handbag, right?

These are just some ideas to get the brain juices flowing! 

Make Something People Want

Now when we went to Disney, it was raining so hard.

I was surprised to see how many people still went.

Because Disney is known to be a good time, and a good experience for people, that even bad weather can’t keep people away.

And that made me think and reinforce just how important it is for us to have a really great product.

If people love your product, and you make something that people WANT, then marketing and promoting your shop later on becomes so much easier, than if you were trying to promote a product that you’re not sure people want. 

The Power of Branding

Before we went to Disney, it was already raining that morning, right?

So we stopped by CVS to buy some rain ponchos. You can get them there for $3.59.

Now, when we got to Disney, of course they sell their own rain ponchos and a lot of people were wearing them.

They actually looked almost identical, and guess how much they were? $12 at Disney.

Now, that’s not terrible, but it’s 3x more than a generic poncho from the drugstore.

And people were still buying them!

This is the power of putting the Disney brand logo on a generic poncho.

Now I’m not saying to go and put the Disney logo on all of your products now. That would be IP theft.

My point is that it’s important to build up a strong brand for your shop that people can recognize… And this is why selling on Etsy is not a good solution for long term success because your individual shop’s brand is merely an afterthought.

People who shop on Etsy, only remember Etsy’s name, and will rarely remember your own shop name, which means, there’s no customer loyalty and you can’t charge higher prices if you need to.

It is much easier to build a brand on your own website.

Yes, it does take time and you’ll probably even make sales more slowly on your own site than on Etsy, but in the long run, you’re going to have a better business.

Automate Your Process

And, of course, let’s talk about their animatronics.

These probably take a long time to build, right? The paint, the details, the voices and movements…

All the rides we went to were powered by animatronics to deliver the experience.

There was not a single staff member aside from the ones that help you get into and out of your seat.

Disney has essentially completely automated their fulfillment process.

It was so interesting to see how few people were needed to operate an entire ride.

Now of course, you can’t see the people behind the stage and how many technical staff are required to maintain and upkeep the animatronics but that’s a part of any business.

We always have to do certain tasks to maintain it from time to time.

When your sewing machine breaks, you repair it, right?

But it makes me think: how much are we not automating in our business and how can we do it more?

People still loved the rides, so automations didn’t take away their enjoyment of the experience.

So I think we need to lean in more into software and tech to help run our business more smoothly.

That’s what I do and people ask me all the time how I run multiple 6-7 figure online businesses at the same time.

It’s because I use a lot of tech and automations!

So what’s something you do every single day or week that you might be able to automate instead to save you on time? 

Build Up Social Proof

Now let’s talk about social proof because it is so powerful.

So Peter and I, we don’t really care about churros but EVERY ONE was getting churros.

The lines for some of the churro carts were so long.

And people were posing, taking pictures of their churros.

So we were like, “Alright, let’s get one and see what the hype is about.”

And by the end of the day, we had eaten not one, not two… but three churros! It was so good!

And Disney got an extra $16.50 from us that day.

That’s the power of social proof.

When you see other people loving a product, taking pictures of themselves using your product (which is called User Generated Content in the online space), these elements help build incredible trust with your own products and new customers are much more likely to buy from you because of that. 

Tug on People’s Heartstrings

So last Thanksgiving, my brother and his family came to visit.

They have two little kids and we went to Universal Studios.

So having been to another theme park very recently, it was easy for me to compare the experience with Disney.

Universal felt very commercial to us. It didn’t have any spirit to it and the rides were crazy long to wait for and once you got to the ride, you just kind of sit there and watch a show.

It was generally pretty disappointing.

And let me tell you, Disney are masters of art and you can really feel their heart and soul through everything they do.

Their rides were so much fun even if it wasn’t one of those fast, heart dropping rides, and the animatronics they use, the sound design, lighting, music.

Every ride we went on was beautiful.

The Peter Pan one even almost made me cry because they make you feel like you’re flying above the city and you can see all these beautiful city lights beneath you!

Anyway, my point is, put your love into your work and people can see and feel that energy.

When you care, it makes it so much easier for other people to care as well. 

If you’re a Disney fan, tell me what your favorite Disney ride is! So next time we go, I’ll be sure to check that out.

If you enjoyed this blog post and you’re looking for how to drum up more traffic and sales in your online store, check out my free workshop where I show you how we make 6-7 figures every year selling our handmade products across multiple online stores.

It is totally free and worth your time.

The people who’ve come to the workshop have had really amazing takeaways and learned new things that they can apply into their business TODAY.

So here’s the link to the workshop. Go ahead and sign up now!