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• 0:00:08 Kris Murray: Welcome to Child Care Rockstar Radio. I am your host, Kris Murray. Child care leaders around the globe are breaking through challenges, leading the way in innovation, testing new best practices and impacting children and families in a much more powerful and positive way than ever before. Each week, join me for interviews with early childhood leaders and experts that will leave you inspired to become the next Child Care Rockstar.
• 0:00:34 Kris Murray: Now let’s go. This is episode 215 of Childcare Rockstar Radio featuring Vance Morris. Hey guys, it’s Kris Murray here back with you. I am your host of Child Care Rockstar Radio and thanks for tuning in to today’s episode. I’m excited to interview Vance. I have known this gentleman for the last eight or nine years and about eight years ago we hosted two back to back retreat groups of about 30 or 35 childcare owners and we took y’ all to Disney and we did the Disney Underground tour and we worked on our service values inspired by Disney. And so today’s episode, diving back in and getting reconnected and updated with Vance Morris and what he’s up to. Mr. Disney is the the title of the episode is how Disney’s service values can wow your customer. And in the next 45 minutes you’re going to hear amazing non stop examples of what you can do in your child care business to wow your customer and give them untold customer delight, which is going to not only keep them with you for life until it’s time for their children to graduate your program, it’s also going to result in tons of word of mouth referrals and lots of community buzz about your school. And who doesn’t want that?
• 0:02:08 Kris Murray: So we’re diving in with Vance. We’re going to learn about the untold secrets of Disney and he’s going to give us an update on what he’s up to. If you stick with us to the end, he’s got a very valuable free PDF that he gives you to go download so that you can have 52 ways to wow your customer. We’re going to learn about changes at Disney recently post Covid. What’s been going on at Disney and how has that impacted the customer experience, what we should be modeling, what we might not want to be modeling, but we’re going to learn about what to do, how to do it and why we do it.
• 0:02:49 Kris Murray: At the core, that’s what Disney does is they share with their employees, they train and then train and train again, their team members, their cast members, how to put on the show, what do we do, how we do it and why we do it. Most importantly, the why guys. So I want to bring you back to these essences of leadership for excellent and exceptional customer service in a childcare setting or any kind of business.
• 0:03:18 Kris Murray: Vance talks about it from a carpet cleaner perspective because that’s what business he owns in addition to doing coaching Disney style for his Mastermind members. We talk about linertainment. So if you have people who are waiting in your lobby to take a tour or waiting for something in your school, you can learn how to do line entertainment. And also we talk about how to make it fun when you’re doing operations and operational consistency.
• 0:03:48 Kris Murray: So making it fun, using video to teach and to inspire your parents. So many examples in this episode. I just can’t wait to share it with you. But before we do, let me thank our sponsors for this episode who are Illumen. This episode is brought to you by Illumen, the world’s first AI powered childcare management software trusted by over 3,000 childcare centers around the world. Tim Selden, president of the Montessori foundation, said, if there’s a childcare software as reliable as my Mac, it’s Illumen.
• 0:04:24 Kris Murray: So if you’re ready to grow your operations, increase parent engagement, and be future ready with AI, check out Illumen. You can find them at Illumen App I L L U M I N E App. Thanks, guys. All right, let’s just dive in. We’re going to learn about mapping out your customer journey. We’re going to learn about the seven steps to Disney fy your business and the power of the Mastermind and how to avoid loneliness since you’re at the top as a CEO or executive director. All of this and more coming up right now here at Child Care Rockstar Radio. Enjoy it.
• 0:05:14 Kris Murray: Welcome back, folks. I’m very excited today. I’ve got an old friend in the house here at Child Care Rockstar Radio, Vance Morris. I’ve worked with Vance many years ago and he’s doing great things, building a career out of turning ordinary customer service into memorable, lasting experiences. Vance, welcome to the show. How are you?
• 0:05:35 Vance Morris: The crowd goes wild. Thanks, Chris. I appreciate you having me. Hopefully we’ll have a have a little fun today.
• 0:05:44 Kris Murray: Absolutely. Absolutely. Where are you sitting right now? Where are you located?
• 0:05:49 Vance Morris: I am on the far eastern shore of Maryland. So we’re just a couple minutes from the Chesapeake Bay.
• 0:05:56 Kris Murray: Nice. Very good.
• 0:05:58 Vance Morris: Take my paddle board out. Well, not anymore. It’s a little cold, but. Yeah, yeah, no, paddle boarding is kind of my. There’s no cell phones out on the bay, so that’s right.
• 0:06:10 Kris Murray: That’s right. And people. And I go, the people that take their cell phones in those waterproof cases on their paddle board deserve to lose them.
• 0:06:18 Vance Morris: Yes, they do. Oh, 100.
• 0:06:21 Kris Murray: That’s how I feel.
• 0:06:21 Vance Morris: 100. I used to do it just for the music. Well, yeah, really want to have the phone, but it came with it. So then I said, you know, to hell with it.
• 0:06:30 Kris Murray: Yeah, let’s just enjoy the sounds of nature and be present.
• 0:06:34 Vance Morris: Exactly.
• 0:06:35 Kris Murray: So cool. Well, it’s great to see you. Those of our listeners who have been with me for seven years plus, and there are lots of them, got to go on a very cool excursion down to Orlando with you. And we had one of the most successful trips in child care success history, taking 30 or 40 people, two groups to Disney together. So wanted to catch up with Vance today on the podcast. Tell me what you’ve been up to.
• 0:07:10 Kris Murray: Any highlights that you want to share with the audience?
• 0:07:13 Vance Morris: Yeah, things have been going, you know, there have been a lot of changes at Disney, not all of them good. And I stay out of the politics of it, but, you know, there has. Has been some slippage and, you know, in. In the service, in the. The amount of no’s that you get, and just out and out snark, which, you know, which is. Which is unfortunate. And I mean, real quickly, I mean, we. I had a group there last week, and one of our group, there was nobody in line for the monorail, but one of them ducked under, you know, the, the queue rope.
• 0:07:53 Vance Morris: And one of the employees, like, that rope’s there for a reason, like, gee whiz. And I’m like, certainly things have changed a lot. And honestly, I just think it is. It’s becoming diluted because it is now so far removed from Walt and his story and his influence. And when Eisner was in charge in the 80s and 90s. And, you know, I mean, I mean, that was the huge growth of the company, but it was still a huge focus on the customer experience and customer service.
• 0:08:32 Vance Morris: And now I just, I mean, when I was there, it was 33,000 employees, which seems like a lot. Now there’s 80.
• 0:08:39 Kris Murray: Wow.
• 0:08:40 Vance Morris: And I don’t know if you have to reduce your standards to get that many people in the front door to work or what, but, I mean, there’s still, don’t get me wrong, I mean, it was still over the top. You know, I ran into people that, you know, oh, my God, yeah, we’ll get you this. And, you know, somebody wanted ketchup with their eggs. And, you know, on the buffet and server was like, yep, be right back.
• 0:09:05 Kris Murray: Right.
• 0:09:05 Vance Morris: And then the next day there was ketchup on the buffet and they had remembered it. So this stuff’s still going on, but. And there’s still the gold standard, I think, you know, resort entertainment, family entertainment kind of stuff.
• 0:09:20 Kris Murray: Yeah. So with that in mind, I’m glad that you brought that up right out of, out of the gate with the slippage. And I think it’s fascinating to look at that as a case study from 33,000 to 80,000 and you know, the whole post Covid, the impacts of COVID little bit of a different world that we’re in now. Certainly generationally Gen Z is different than you and I grew up as Gen Xers. And it’s just reflecting on all of.
• 0:09:50 Vance Morris: That.
• 0:09:53 Kris Murray: Is interesting from a business perspective. So in terms of clients that you’re helping, I know that you mentioned in your bio that you’ve got big companies you’ve been working with and helping them with customer service like Tyson and Legal Seafoods and Rainforest Cafe and even NASA. But talk to me about kind of what is your sweet spot in terms of who you serve with clients and kind of what is your method of helping them.
• 0:10:19 Vance Morris: Yeah, sweet. So those are, I mean those were obviously big companies and a lot of it was like a half day workshop or a full day workshop and wasn’t able really to affect change the way I like to. I much prefer to work with the mom and pop main street business where we can have a immediate noticeable impact not only on, you know, the experience, but on the finances and how profitable, you know, customer experience can be.
• 0:10:57 Vance Morris: You know, one, you know, right now, I mean, I, I think I’ve told you I own carpet cleaning business is one of the businesses I have. And we’re still 40% higher than our closest competitor. And I’d love to say that we clean carpet 40% better than everybody, but that’s probably not true. But it’s the experiences that we provide in and around that service that, that justify the price. And I think. And if you use Disney as a model because I mean, you could go to your, you know, your local county fair and pay 25 bucks to get on the rickety rides and the know the X cons that run the, you know, run the rides.
• 0:11:37 Vance Morris: Right. Well, you get, you get what’s 25 bucks? I mean, you get what you pay for and then you could go, you know, another tier up to like a Six Flags kind of park, Knott’s Berry Farms, that kind of thing. You probably pay 75, 80 bucks for the day. And they’re great rides, they’re safe, probably no ex cons, but that’s it. There’s no story behind it. There’s no, you know, like feeling of memories and feeling of, you know, emotions.
• 0:12:08 Vance Morris: Right. And you go to Disney and by the way, they just announced the new ticket prices in 2026. They are crossing the $200 mark.
• 0:12:18 Kris Murray: Wow. For a day. Yeah.
• 0:12:20 Vance Morris: But the place is still busy and so you, there’s different. So if you’re in a commodity business, you know, dentists, child care centers, there is price elasticity in being able to provide an experience and be able to command that premium price. Right. And so when I’m working with Main street businesses, you know, it’s that immediate. I mean we’ll put stuff into place. I had a client last week, they had trouble finding the business because she’s in an office tower, 50 other tenants and things like that.
• 0:13:01 Vance Morris: And she would, from phone call, initial phone call to first meeting, she was only getting like a 30% show up rate, let alone anything else. And, and these are people that committed to a meeting. I was like, well that’s, that’s rough. Why do you think that is? And she goes, I really don’t know. I said, well, I can give you one reason. I had a hard time finding your office. The signage in your building, I get it, it’s not in your control, but it’s not good.
• 0:13:30 Vance Morris: So we created a video of somebody driving into the parking lot, parking in their space with their sign on it, walking in the front door, pushing the button on the elevator, pushing the right floor, walking all the way around. And you’re greeted by a hostess at their front desk with a menu that’s got six different still and sparkling waters and a coffee menu.
• 0:13:57 Kris Murray: Yep.
• 0:13:57 Vance Morris: We increased her, her show up rate is now over 50% just by implementing that video in the pre the reminder email sequence.
• 0:14:10 Kris Murray: Well, and that’s right there as a writer downer for people who, with child care center processes getting people to show up for the tour. A lot of them have a 15, 20% no show rate. I talked about this all the time, Vance, is what are the little leaky holes in your business bucket where business is. Money’s flowing through the bucket. And one of them is what you just said. And I don’t know anybody that’s actually gone to the lengths of. And it doesn’t take that much time make a video of a parent driving up to the center, going in, pressing the button, getting let in because there’s security, you know, and then getting a coffee because there’s usually coffee stations or like nice water stations with the fruit or whatever. Yeah, with the child. Without the child. But yeah, that’s like, that’s going to improve your show up rate and probably your tour close rate because people are like, wow, these guys have it together.
• 0:15:06 Kris Murray: Right.
• 0:15:06 Vance Morris: And what we did too, she’s financial advisor and one, we created a second tier of that. So if you have X dollars in assets under management, instead of going up the elevator by yourself, your financial advisor will come down to the lobby and escort you the rest of the way once you get into the front door. So I mean you can even take that and tier it, you know, I mean, does somebody have four kids in one of your centers?
• 0:15:35 Vance Morris: You know, I think they should probably be treated just a smidge differently than the person who has won because they are, you know, they’re kicking in a lot of, a lot of money for that. And not everybody is equal, as much as people would like us to think.
• 0:15:52 Kris Murray: Right.
• 0:15:52 Vance Morris: Well.
• 0:15:52 Kris Murray: And I had recently had an experience with excellent customer service in a restaurant in San Francisco, of all places, where I asked for where the restroom was and instead of going take two rights, this person left their station and actually escorted me to the ladies room, which in today’s service level barely ever happens. I was so impressed.
• 0:16:16 Vance Morris: I know it, it doesn’t take. The bar is set very low, Chris. It doesn’t take much to get to get above the bar.
• 0:16:23 Kris Murray: I know. So I came back to my fiancee and I was like, you’re not going to believe what just happened. This is, this place is amazing. So let’s talk a little bit about that. You started out as a restaurateur with Disney at Chef Mickey’s. Talk a little bit about some of the things that you would do to deliver a wow experience.
• 0:16:40 Vance Morris: Sure. Well, I mean, first and foremost at Disney you wait a lot. And Disney knows this. So we come up with. Disney actually has a term for it. It’s called linertainment. They entertain you while you’re in line. And so we had to come up with, I mean, sometimes our wait. If you didn’t have a reservation, you would be waiting two hours to have breakfast or two hours to have dinner. And so we created interactive stations.
• 0:17:14 Vance Morris: We had a lounge that was closed for breakfast. And so we created interactive stations for the kids to go and play. There was one place had videos, one place had, you know, you know, one of those player organs where you can just push the buttons and play along and so we’re trying to enter. We had a coffee station set up. So you’re not waiting two hours for your first cup of coffee. You’re actually able to get it before you have a headache, thank God, you know, so, you know, entertaining people while they’re waiting. All our businesses people are waiting for something.
• 0:17:53 Vance Morris: You know, you’re waiting for a proposal, you’re waiting to be accepted. What is the company doing to entertain you during that wait period and make it not feel so bad? Certainly that being one. And then really, the magic, the secret sauce behind all of the experience stuff at Disney is that Disney runs on systems and literally runs on three words. What to do, how to do it, and why do we do it that way.
• 0:18:25 Vance Morris: And everything has a what, how, why behind it. And the reason for this. And I mean, when I opened up the Yacht and Beach Club Resort, this was 1990. This is before computers and handheld phones and all that stuff. We walked into one of the training rooms and there’s just stacks and stacks of three ring binders everywhere. And I asked my boss, I said, what, what is all this? Because, well, these are all the OJTs and SOPs on how to open a Disney resort.
• 0:18:53 Vance Morris: I was just, like, blown away. I said, isn’t this, like, overkill? He goes, no. If one of our cast members knows the system inside and out, like it says rote, it’s muscle memory that gives them the freedom to be able to do all the nice things that we are known for, like stopping to take a picture, like escorting you to the bathroom, as opposed to, you know, pointing or telling you to take a couple of rights.
• 0:19:21 Vance Morris: And I found that true. And I mean, I’ve taken that systems and processes, I put them in my home service businesses. And when I hired my general manager first one six years ago, like my only one, I said, just run the systems. Don’t screw with anything. Just run the system. Run the marketing system, the operation system, the delivery system, et cetera. And if you have an idea and you want to change something, great, you know, we’ll do it at our weekly meeting.
• 0:19:50 Vance Morris: And that’s given me freedom from that business. So systems give you freedom. It’s not. You’re not locking down creativity. You’re not locking down, you know, somebody’s ability to do their job. It’s, here’s how we do it and here’s why we do it this way. Yes, that’s the important part, is the why. If you want really good engagement with your employees, they gotta understand the why. And so both had Given.
• 0:20:18 Vance Morris: Given us the freedom. So my guys know that, you know, they have the get in the house system. You know, we have it completely scripted out on how they get into the house, and it allows them to do other nice things because it’s okay, well, I got to do this. I knock on the door, I don’t ring the bell. I got to lay the mat down, wipe my feet. Okay. I got to put the booties on. You know, all this stuff, it’s just second nature to them. And now they’re able to talk to the customer and say, hi, my name’s Josh. I’m here to create your healthy home. May I come in?
• 0:20:51 Vance Morris: And then we present them with a gift. I mean, how many home service businesses do, you know, give you a gift before they do any work?
• 0:20:58 Kris Murray: None. I don’t know one except yours.
• 0:21:01 Vance Morris: You know, so that’s. And it’s not a big deal. Custom box. It’s got a bottle, our spot remover, a little bag of intimates, cookies, and a note from me saying, thanks for letting us into your home. So many businesses can take that gift idea.
• 0:21:18 Kris Murray: Yes.
• 0:21:18 Vance Morris: And. And apply it. And certainly in childcare, you know, you got, you know, new people coming in. You know, one, can you mail it to them and get it to them fast, or do you have it when they show up to a meeting or to, you know, an open house or something?
• 0:21:34 Kris Murray: Right.
• 0:21:34 Vance Morris: Because gifting, well, one separates you from everybody else, but two, it starts reciprocity.
• 0:21:40 Kris Murray: That’s right.
• 0:21:41 Vance Morris: You. You feel compelled to give something back to me.
• 0:21:45 Kris Murray: Yeah. So I instituted that exact idea in our tour process and protocol that we teach all of our clients, which is that you give a gift or goodie bag of gifts, preferably branded with your logo. So you can. People can wear those around town or have a water bottle that they take to the store right before you ask for the business, because it activates the law of reciprocity. So. And even better if it’s personalized.
• 0:22:12 Vance Morris: Right?
• 0:22:12 Kris Murray: So love that, and I’m a huge fan of that. I love what you said about the why, Because I think a lot of folks that are putting their SOPs in place, they do the what to do and how to do it, but oftentimes we forget about why do we do it that way, which is, like you said, it’s the most important piece.
• 0:22:33 Vance Morris: And that’s where you. I mean, if you want engaged employees. Now, Disney tried to do this back when I was there, tried to give us the ownership mentality. And I’m like, dude, I got like 30 shares of Disney stock. I’m never going to be an owner or even a big owner. And they slowly changed it to engagement. So if you and engaged employees. One, lower turnover. Two, process improvement is huge because a, they understand why they’re doing something.
• 0:23:06 Vance Morris: And now that could trigger something in their brain to say, you know, what if we tried this? And, you know, so the process, it’s just iterations. The process just keeps getting better and better all the time. That why is vital.
• 0:23:23 Kris Murray: Yeah, so talk a little bit about that. When you were at Disney and you were doing all these extra things, line retainment and other strategies for excellent customer service, how do you get employees to embrace? I mean, yes, you give them the why, but how do you keep them excited to continue doing the things we want them to do?
• 0:23:42 Vance Morris: I mean, it’s like starting up a big giant, you know, train or, you know, you know, Navy ship or something. It starts slow, and it, you know, takes a while for you to build up momentum. But once you do. So I always recommend. Do you recognize employees who bring up things that are wrong and, or broken in the business? Do you incentivize that? Because a lot of people don’t like going to the boss and saying, you know, hey, something’s broken, or, you know, this the way we do. It’s not cool.
• 0:24:23 Kris Murray: Right?
• 0:24:24 Vance Morris: So we, we, we incentivize them to, to say something. And then two, we asked the question, what would you do? You know, how would you make this better? So when we were at Disney, one of the, one of the ways you can get into the Magic Kingdom is by those big paddle, paddle boats, right? And years ago, you just walked down a ramp on the concrete and you walked in the front of the boat, and half the people went, you know, somewhere on the first floor, and the other half had to go upstairs to, to the second floor.
• 0:25:02 Kris Murray: Right?
• 0:25:02 Vance Morris: And an employee had the idea. They knew that efficiency is one of the key Disney principles. He says, why don’t we just load the first and second floor at the same time? Nobody had even thought about that. So they designed this gang plank where they can load people on the first floor, people on the second floor at identically the same time, and they get like three and a half more trips of the paddle boat every day.
• 0:25:33 Kris Murray: Wow.
• 0:25:34 Vance Morris: You know, that’s. So if you have your priorities, Disney, again, efficiency being one of them, and your, your employees understand that. And to know that, you know, the boss doesn’t always have the answers, and asking your employee, well, what would you do? And a lot you’ll be Surprised a lot of times because, you know, they’re. They’re pretty smart.
• 0:26:01 Kris Murray: Yeah. And in addition to the efficiency component, the operational consistency is a key. For some reason, the TSA keeps coming in my head about the lack of efficiency oftentimes and the lack of consistency. You go to all these different airports, you’ve got TSA doing things completely differently at all the airports around the United States. Anyways, I don’t want to get on my side.
• 0:26:26 Vance Morris: But it is true, though. I mean, you know, it’s. It’s why McDonald’s is so successful is because it’s got a system, and you follow the system. And the hamburger tastes the same on the east coast as it does on the West Coast.
• 0:26:38 Kris Murray: Yes.
• 0:26:38 Vance Morris: So that’s a great system.
• 0:26:41 Kris Murray: Yes.
• 0:26:42 Vance Morris: On the other hand. Yeah, you know, whatever.
• 0:26:46 Kris Murray: I think it’s getting better, but anyways.
• 0:26:48 Vance Morris: Oh, it certainly is. You know, they’re actually nice now, right? Well, some of them are, yes.
• 0:26:52 Kris Murray: I’ve had more courtesy and niceness and like, little, like, you know, oh, your outfit is nice, or something like this, you know, that’s nice. Let’s talk about empowering people. So you talked about having engaged team. And I know there was a thing in the old days that. I don’t know if this is still a Disney thing, but any employee was empowered to spend up to $100 to fix a customer issue. If they could fix it and spend a hundred bucks.
• 0:27:23 Kris Murray: Go fix it. You’re. You’ve got it. You’ve got the Disney wallet. So talk to me about that. Is that still a thing? And how do we employer empower our employees better?
• 0:27:32 Vance Morris: Sure, it is a thing. The hundred dollars is probably a little old. It’s. It’s not unlimited, but, you know, if you need to, you know, there’s a wedding on the floor above you, and they’re stomping on the floor. You know, the front desk person has the authority to comp that night. And you know, that room night at Disney, heck, that’s, you know, eight or nine hundred dollars.
• 0:28:02 Kris Murray: Right.
• 0:28:02 Vance Morris: So, you know, it’s whatever you need to do to make the guest happy. Ritz Carlton has the same thing. They have a $2,000 limit on making the guest happy. And you can spend it however you want. You might get questioned. I mean, did you really need to spend 1500 because the, you know, the ice cream was melting? You know, you got to put it in proportion.
• 0:28:27 Kris Murray: Right.
• 0:28:28 Vance Morris: But to have your line level, frontline employees, giving them the authority and the empowerment to take care of a problem before it gets bigger, because that phrase we all love to hear, let me get my manager, just drives everybody batty, right? And what happens when a problem persists or a problem goes for an extended period of time? It just gets worse and worse. Like cutting your finger. You know, you cut your finger, you put a little ointment and a band aid on it and your finger’s better in a couple of days.
• 0:29:05 Vance Morris: But if you got a cut in your finger and then you go rub some dirt in it and then don’t do anything with it, well, now it’s going to become infected and then it’s going to gangrene. Then they got a lop off your finger, right? Same thing with customer problems. If you can nip it in the bud and immediately solve that customer’s issue, you don’t have to go to huge lengths. Because by the time it gets to a manager, the amount of money that you are going to invest to turn this situation around has gone up exponentially.
• 0:29:37 Kris Murray: Yes.
• 0:29:38 Vance Morris: Where they might have been satisfied with some coupons for some ice cream cones down in a little shop. Now they’re like, well, we want tickets to the park and fast passes and yeah, I want my night compromise. So I have a lot of dentists as clients, and we all know that they are notorious for being late. Even the first appointment of the day. Somehow they managed to get there late for that one too. I always go at 7am and I don’t see the dentist till 7:15. I said, where the hell have you been?
• 0:30:12 Vance Morris: Oh, well, you know, the car, I got to drop the kid. I’m like, well, just keep working for 7:15. Don’t.
• 0:30:17 Kris Murray: Right?
• 0:30:17 Vance Morris: Anyway, so a lot of my clients, what I’ll do is we’ll get the front desk person will empower them to take care of that problem. So Marge at the front desk will be given a stack of coffee coupons or coffee gift cards. And they anticipate that being a problem. And so when you walk in, instead of saying, oh, you know, doctors late, you know, go sit down, it’s going to be some time. Now they say, hey, you know, glad you came into the office. We know your time is valuable to you. The doc’s running a little bit behind.
• 0:30:56 Vance Morris: But when you’re done here, why don’t you take this gift certificate and go get yourself a nice coffee at one of the stores downtown. Now that’s a heck of a lot better than being told you’re going to wait 20 more minutes or 30 more minutes and nothing happens. Now you just sit there and stew by the way. When you do that enough, the doctor will change his behavior. Because when we sit down and do the P and L review at the end of 30 days, he’s like, what is this line item for $2,000 in promotional items?
• 0:31:26 Vance Morris: Because, well, if you divide that by five, that’s the number of times you were late in the last 30 days. We had to give out a coffee coupon, freaked out.
• 0:31:35 Kris Murray: He’s like, okay, I’ll be on time for now. Yeah, yeah, I love that. Well, and there is a very similar. There’s a lot of similarities between dentist office and childcare centers, especially at that front desk component, booking the tour, making the connection with the person that’s walking in for the very first time to see if they can get a tour or just get more information. So that component, like, really, guys who are listening to this, you need to be walking through and really choreographing all the steps that. And all the things that could go wrong. And then what are your gifts or your.
• 0:32:14 Kris Murray: We’re sorry that you had to wait for your tour for 10 minutes. Our director’s running late. What’s. What’s happening with that? Are you giving anything? Are you building trust? Are you building, you know, that reciprocity with a gift or what? You know, what are you doing if the child’s present? How are you entertaining? It’s linear tainment. We’re back to that 100.
• 0:32:32 Vance Morris: You know, and. And certainly in child care, I mean, there’s, you know, one. You’re entrusting the center with your kid’s life, essentially. And if Marge at the front desk is having a bad day and she’s grumpy, well, you know, she just. She’s your sales prevention department. You know, she just. Because, you know, nobody wants to be around grumpy Marge. It’s just.
• 0:32:55 Kris Murray: That’s right.
• 0:32:56 Vance Morris: So, you know, that front desk person has to understand, and this is something I teach as well, is you have to perform a role in the show. So that’s what Disney does. They have cast members, not employees. And they don’t work. They perform. And their workplace is the show. And if you get that mindset that I’m here to perform, I mean, think about it. If you went to the, you know, the Broadway show Hamilton, and the lead character had a fight with his wife or girlfriend or something and gave a crappy show, it’d be 6, 700 people wanting their money back.
• 0:33:35 Kris Murray: Right.
• 0:33:35 Vance Morris: You know, Hamilton can’t afford to have a bad night.
• 0:33:38 Kris Murray: Right. You know what?
• 0:33:39 Vance Morris: You can’t afford to Have a bad hour or day in your business either, because it will affect your sales. There’s no doubt about it.
• 0:33:49 Kris Murray: Yeah. So I love that idea of teachers. These are early education teachers, preschool teachers. They are cast members because they’re on stage entertaining children. I mean, yes, you’re teaching children or facilitating learning, however you want, if it’s child director versus teacher directed, whatever. But certainly out on the playground and certainly at times in the classroom, you are a cast, you are entertainment, you know, so that’s edutainment. I think we talked about that when we were.
• 0:34:17 Vance Morris: Oh, yeah, that’s great.
• 0:34:18 Kris Murray: Yeah. What else. What other tips do you want to share for the child care audience? Anything else that’s coming to mind for how Disney’s secrets or their secret sauce, Anything that could apply to the child care experience?
• 0:34:34 Vance Morris: Yeah, I think remembering that at the end of the day, we are in business to make money. Disney is a storytelling company, but they’re in business to make money. But Disney knows its product. And this is where universal falls down. SeaWorld falls down. Certainly your county fair will fall down. Is that Disney knows it’s selling memories. That’s what they say. I mean, grandma’s getting ready to die. Everybody goes to density. They plop grandma in a chair and they take pictures of her all around the whole vacation. Right. So that they have something to remember.
• 0:35:19 Vance Morris: Yes, he knows that. And so if you are in the business of, you know, creating maybe not memories, certainly, there’s certainly some formative memories, especially with childcare. You know, you’ll notice. So my home service business, we actually sell healthy homes. We do it by cleaning. But our goal is for you to have a healthier home. My employees can all wrap their brain around that. So, I mean, it’s not this big mission statement that’s sitting on a wall and nobody knows what the heck it is.
• 0:35:55 Vance Morris: It’s, you know, we deliver healthy homes, we create memories. You know, so what does. You know, I’m again, dental client. You know, we. We sell confidence. Because if you’re a salesperson and you got crooked teeth and you never smile, you’re probably not selling much because you look grumpy all the time. But if you got your teeth straightened out, maybe got a little whitener put in there, and all of a sudden you’re smiling, now you feel confident. So the dentist knows exactly what he’s selling.
• 0:36:27 Vance Morris: And I think for center owners to really understand what it is they’re selling, that will also help in their marketing, because now it’s a larger purpose.
• 0:36:41 Kris Murray: Yeah, we. We deliver Happy children that are ready for kindergarten. Well, socialized and confident children that are lifelong learners or whatever.
• 0:36:55 Vance Morris: But yes, any one of those, you know, we, you know, we create lifelong learners.
• 0:37:00 Kris Murray: Right.
• 0:37:01 Vance Morris: He’s my kids too. Right.
• 0:37:04 Kris Murray: This is where it starts.
• 0:37:05 Vance Morris: It’s where it starts.
• 0:37:06 Kris Murray: Yeah. Yeah. Good. I like it. You talked a little bit about working with Dennis and working with Main street businesses. Tell us a little bit about. You’ve got some mastermind groups, you’ve got some stuff that you’re doing. So how have you taken these principles and how do you work with Main street businesses in an ongoing way?
• 0:37:26 Vance Morris: Sure. So I do have a coaching program, and we get together weekly. And really it’s. There’s. They go through my entire system, which is called systematic magic. And we go over what I call the seven magic keys to Disney Find your business, and we map out the customer journey. And if you, if your listeners have not gone through that exercise, I strongly recommend find where your customer starts and where it doesn’t really end, but because it’s continuous. But what’s the first point of contact?
• 0:38:02 Vance Morris: You know, is it an ad? Is it a phone call? Is it a visit? And what does that experience look like? And can it be improved or should it be improved? Or maybe it should be improved, but no, we need to do something else before we do that. You won’t know that unless you’ve mapped out the entire customer journey.
• 0:38:24 Kris Murray: Right.
• 0:38:25 Vance Morris: And so this is what I work with, with folks, is, you know, okay, we got to get this customer journey thing down so that we can identify and prioritize what needs to be worked on. So we go through that whole system and then it becomes weekly coaching. And, you know, they almost like mini masterminds every week because the, you know, I’m, I mean, I’m creative, but I mean, some people, they just get, they’re just, they’re just born with this creative gene.
• 0:38:55 Kris Murray: Yes.
• 0:38:56 Vance Morris: And they’ll come up with ideas like, oh, yeah, you should do this or do that. And so it becomes, you know, a really valuable time. And one of the things I’ve been working with. That’s not a problem. Well, it is a problem. Ideas is that isolation kills entrepreneurs.
• 0:39:18 Kris Murray: Yes.
• 0:39:19 Vance Morris: They can’t be alone. They can’t be with what we call, or Lee Miltier calls civilians because they just don’t understand us.
• 0:39:30 Kris Murray: Right.
• 0:39:31 Vance Morris: So having this place where entrepreneurs can go every week and be around other entrepreneurs, not W2 employees or, you know, anything like that, but I mean, true, honest to goodness entrepreneurs, it’s a great. Everybody gets them they know exactly what they’re going through. So that, you know, and I’ve had people in that now. Geez. My. I still have, I still have somebody at the $72 a month range when I started this like 10 years ago.
• 0:40:00 Kris Murray: Wow.
• 0:40:01 Vance Morris: Worth $400 a month now. But still, I’m grandfathered him in. Oh, he’s a great guy. He runs a physical therapy place up in Canada. Then I also, you know, similar to you have Mastermind. I just have the one. And we’ve got 14 supercharged entrepreneurs in that.
• 0:40:21 Kris Murray: Nice.
• 0:40:22 Vance Morris: And we’re realizing some huge, huge gains not only in revenue, but time saved. One of the guys is an AI Matt Nut. I mean just AI everything. And you know, he has deployed some dashboards for a couple of the Mastermind members that have saved them, you know, two and three hours a day.
• 0:40:46 Kris Murray: Right.
• 0:40:47 Vance Morris: Repetitive stuff that they had to do.
• 0:40:48 Kris Murray: Yeah.
• 0:40:50 Vance Morris: And then I have the whole Disney event business. As I said earlier, I made some tweaks to it. Really created an opening experience now that you can’t get anywhere else. Nine course wine pairing dinner outside in front of with Cinderella Castle in one direction and the sun setting behind you.
• 0:41:18 Kris Murray: Wow.
• 0:41:18 Vance Morris: Just it sets the scene for the entire, you know, three day event.
• 0:41:22 Kris Murray: Yeah.
• 0:41:23 Vance Morris: And it’s designed to wow. You know, like, I mean, how many people have gone to a nine course wine pairing dinner? You know, not many.
• 0:41:31 Kris Murray: Not me. And I’m even like engaged to a chef and sommelier. And I don’t think we’ve done nine courses. We’ve probably done six courses, but nine. I did not eat all day before that.
• 0:41:41 Vance Morris: Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, sorbet is considered a course.
• 0:41:44 Kris Murray: Right. It’s small, it’s tasting menu. Yeah, I got it. I got it.
• 0:41:48 Vance Morris: Cool. Yeah. I mean. And the chef coming out and the chef is describing the meal and the chef also is a sommier like your fiance. And he’ll say why this wine pairs well. Great with this. And then. But he’s smart, he’s brief. Because nobody wants to listen to the guy drone on. They just want to get into it starting.
• 0:42:08 Kris Murray: Exactly, exactly.
• 0:42:10 Vance Morris: But so we spend the three days and at the end of the three days, the goal is, is for you to have a blueprint on how you’re going to Disney your business when you get back home Monday morning. So I mean, you know me, I’m I’m a rubber hits the road kind of guy. I’m not a. Yeah, you know, foo foo woo woo. You know, here’s some nice strategies. Good luck. You know, I’m Tactics, you know.
• 0:42:33 Kris Murray: Yes.
• 0:42:33 Vance Morris: Here’s what I’m doing in my businesses, here’s why it’s working, here’s why it didn’t work. You know, maybe, I mean I’ve had ideas that just sucked in home services but have been home runs other places. So.
• 0:42:46 Kris Murray: Right.
• 0:42:48 Vance Morris: You know, I think just my, you know, my. And I have no filter so sometimes it works against me but most of the times it works for me because if somebody asked my opinion, I’m going to tell them.
• 0:42:59 Kris Murray: Right.
• 0:43:00 Vance Morris: Well that’s why I got fired from my jobs because I. People would ask my opinion. Okay. I’m telling you, yes, I make a lousy employee. Just Right.
• 0:43:09 Kris Murray: Those of us entrepreneurs have discovered that we’re probably not employable. You include advanced. That’s right. That’s right. But I love what you said about avoiding loneliness and we’ve talked about that many times in our mastermind groups as well because there’s no lonelier place to be than sitting at the top of a company as an entrepreneur, business owner and like what are you going to do? Go home and tell your spouse about all these issues and you can’t tell the quote, unquote, civilians. I love that Lee Milt here says that.
• 0:43:38 Kris Murray: Yeah. So those groups that you. We have a weekly Q and A as well every Tuesday at 1:00 clock Eastern and probably 150 people all in the childcare academy come in there. But it gives them a lifeline to both be able to vent if they need to vent or talk about a problem or an issue, a challenge, as well as share what’s working. It’s a beautiful place. So I love doing that.
• 0:44:02 Vance Morris: Yeah. And you know, and then I mean I don’t include any accountability in what I do. I just think, well you’re an adult, you should go do this stuff. But they also get account, you know, can get accountability partners. And I’ve seen, and I’ve seen 2 and 3 because I have, you know, a vast array of businesses, you know, people doing business because of the introductions we made during the coaching meetings.
• 0:44:28 Vance Morris: So yeah, I mean they’re, they’re, you’re right. I cannot talk to my wife about payroll. Don’t, don’t, you know, I, you know, now I’ve gotten out of having to go to parties with my wife because they all have jobs and you know, they’re like, oh you, you know, it’s, we had a hard day at work today. I said, yeah, did your day, you know, how hard you work today that it determine how much money you Made or not.
• 0:44:58 Vance Morris: Well, I guess I could have done anything. I still get the same page. Exactly.
• 0:45:01 Kris Murray: That’s right.
• 0:45:03 Vance Morris: So I just start saying I’m unemployed. And. And. And the civilians, they scatter like cockroaches. They don’t want to talk to somebody who’s unemployed. That’s funny. And so my wife said, just. Just stop coming.
• 0:45:15 Kris Murray: Just don’t come to the parties anymore, honey. I also love what you said about mapping out your customer journey, because I think that’s something that a lot of our childcare folks still have. There’s still some work to do there. Like, I think they kind of, you know, they understand it, but in terms of actually putting pen to paper and mapping it out and then looking for those points again, the leaky bucket, where your profits are through the sieve, discovering those and discovering these amazing points that in the journey, you didn’t even realize that XYZ employee was doing this level of service and making everybody so happy.
• 0:45:54 Kris Murray: And you want to multiply that, you know, so 100%.
• 0:45:58 Vance Morris: And when you identify it, though, that’s leaky bucket, definitely. And you know, all of your friction points. So when we did that parking thing for the financial advisor, we did it from the point of view of the prospect. So the prospect drives into the parking lot. Then what does the prospect do? Well, they’re looking for a place to park. Okay, great. So they’re looking. Then what do they do? Well, they park. Great. Then what do they do? They walk to the front door. Great. Then what do they do?
• 0:46:29 Vance Morris: And when you break it down into those. Those small chunks, you can really see where you’re. Where. The roadblock.
• 0:46:39 Kris Murray: Yes.
• 0:46:40 Vance Morris: Roadblocks are. Because it is, you know, one. Finding the parking space because they have four assigned to them. And, you know, there’s signs on them, but the signs face that way, and you’re driving in this way, so you don’t really see the sign. You know, just eliminating that sales or service prevention department.
• 0:47:00 Kris Murray: Yes.
• 0:47:01 Vance Morris: But you won’t do it unless you really map out each individual point.
• 0:47:05 Kris Murray: Yeah. So just a couple things on that first two minutes we’ve had clients discover and fix is that, for one thing, they pull in and then the playground’s in the back. So they park and they look up and they see all the kids playing, and they see the teachers talking to each other and gossiping and not watching the kids at all. And they start up their car and they leave. So that’s one. The second thing is. And just. I’m telling this for the audience, you go to get into the building and it’s not secure. Everybody’s holding the door open for the parent behind them and it’s like a stream of just general humans coming in.
• 0:47:41 Kris Murray: Who’s going to be protecting my child from, you know, so. So security measures are not followed. That’s another one. But yeah, there’s many, many. I could go on for days about this, but I love that you’re just taking it chunk by chunk by chunk. So thank you, Vance. This has been great. So with regard to Disney and it’s been seven years since we’ve been together at a Disney group with childcare clients.
• 0:48:09 Vance Morris: We haven’t aged either.
• 0:48:11 Kris Murray: We haven’t aged at all. We looked exact same.
• 0:48:14 Vance Morris: Yeah, we look great.
• 0:48:16 Kris Murray: Yeah, we haven’t aged a touch. No more wrinkles, no gray hair. We need to go on another Disney trip, I’m feeling, and I think we should make that happen. So if you’re listening to this podcast and you’re a childcare owner and you want to go to Disney with us and have a nine course meal, send me an email. Chrisildcare success.com I’m taking the temperature of the audience and the group and I think it’s time to go to Disney again. What do you think?
• 0:48:44 Vance Morris: I think it would be amazing. And even for people that might still be with you that were on it before, it’s about 40% different. I say better, but different. So even if you were there before, you would still get a lot of benefit and you’re around other people who get you.
• 0:49:04 Kris Murray: Yes. And your business has probably changed and evolved quite a bit in that time. And it’s never. You always learn new things. Like even us, we would listen to Dan Kennedy talk and it would be the same talk, but something new would always land. And that’s the thing is like every time, even though you might have done it before and the world is different and Disney’s different, so I love it. Are you still going underground and seeing the.
• 0:49:31 Vance Morris: Yeah, they finally brought it back this year. So during COVID they had eliminated all of the tours and they’ve been slowly bringing them back. So I had to do the tours. Oh my God. That’s a story for another day. But Disney police pull me over with my gaggle of 30 people behind me saying, what in the heck are you doing? I mean, I have a contract with Disney, so I mean, it’s not like. But it’s just funny how protective Disney is of their brand.
• 0:50:03 Vance Morris: They see a guy walking around with 30 people with headsets following them.
• 0:50:07 Kris Murray: Right.
• 0:50:08 Vance Morris: They can’t be up to any good. Right.
• 0:50:09 Kris Murray: Yeah.
• 0:50:12 Vance Morris: But. Yeah, so, but so now I’m very happy that the Magic Kingdom can take over the tour from me again. So.
• 0:50:20 Kris Murray: Right. Great. Well, I love that you came here to the podcast today, Vance Morris. We could talk all day about this stuff. I didn’t even get to your personal story and your fun fact and all of that because it was just too good. But thanks for being here. I’ve loved this conversation and I know the audience is writing down lots of stuff and I can feel it. So thank you so much. Oh, and give your if you have anything you want to give in terms of how people can find you, contact you, websites, your offers, anything like that.
• 0:50:51 Vance Morris: Yeah, so I have a a Download. It’s called 52 Ways to Wow your customer without breaking the bank. So it’s one wow a week. Like I told you, I’m a tactics guy. Not just here give you woo woo stuff. So if you’re not creative and you want to, you know, wow your customers, well, here’s 52 ways to do it. And you can get that at wow. Five two ways. Com.
• 0:51:15 Kris Murray: Cool.
• 0:51:16 Vance Morris: W. It’ll keep you busy for a year.
• 0:51:20 Kris Murray: 52 is the numbers. 52ways.com yeah.
• 0:51:24 Vance Morris: Wow. 52ways.com.
• 0:51:26 Kris Murray: Got it. We’ll put that in the show notes too. Vance Morris, thank you so much for being here. Raving fans for Life and the Deliver ServiceNow Institute. The untold secrets of Disney. Can’t get enough of it. Thanks so much and I really appreciate you.
• 0:51:43 Vance Morris: Thank you, Chris. I appreciate you having me on.
• 0:51:45 Kris Murray: All right, take care everybody. Thanks for tuning in. This was an amazing one and we’ll see you next time. Take care and God bless. Bye bye. I hope you liked this episode of Child Care Rockstar Radio. If you did, please leave a review and share it with someone you know to help spread the word to friends in our area industry and on social media. Child care business success is my passion and I’m honored to be on this journey with you.
• 0:52:11 Kris Murray: As a thank you for listening, I’ve got a new video training that shows you how to add six figures or more of new revenue to your program in the next 60 days by improving your hiring and your enrollment systems. To watch my new video, just go to www.fixmystschool.com. that’s fixmyschool.com. thanks. Take care and God bless.