I’ve been on a 10-day, road-trip vacation through the Midwest with my wife and five kids. We saw 10 states, a ton of interesting sites and more corn than I care to mention. With the exception of three 10-minute glances at my Blackberry, I left work completely alone. It was great and my family LOVED it. My oldest son said on the last day of the trip, “This is the best vacation we’ve ever had!” Success.
Last Monday, we went to an amusement park. The roller coasters were great, the games stole a bunch of my money and the stuffed animals I won were, well, cheap. But we had a good time because my kids and I love riding roller coasters. The interesting thing was a comment my wife made as we left. I thought the day was a huge success, but she said, “Well, it’s certainly not Disneyland.” I thought the rides were more fun than Disneyland’s. But she was annoyed that the grounds weren’t clean. I started asking her questions about what she loves about Disneyland. It all came down to cleanliness, familiar characters and happy, cheerful employees.
Truth is, I think the characters were the least important part to my wife. She spreads word-of-mouth wildfire about Disneyland because of clean grounds and happy employees. She won’t tell anyone about the amusement park we went to the other day. Considering the cost of acquiring new customers, this was a great lesson for me.
Clate,
I’m very happy for you!
Vacation is an important part on being able to grow you business, more importantly it’s a must if you are growing a family :).
See my article about vacation
http://www.steadyelevation.net/index.php?act=page&pid=152
Take care,
Meny Hoffman
Comment by Meny Hoffman — July 13, 2008 @ 11:42 am
Nice post about vacations, Meny. I agree completely that we entrepreneurs usually unwisely hold ourselves back from taking vacations. I’ve observed a few reasons for this:
- Fear. Fear that the fort will burn down while we’re away.
- Reward thinking. We think a vacation should be a reward (which it can be, but it can also be a great way to get out of a rut and unleash creativity)
- Habit. We get into the grind sometimes and we just can’t get out of it.
- Martyrdom. I’ve noticed some business owners play the part of the martyr and subject themselves to slave-like labor to the business… because that’s what the “hardest-working” guy/gal is supposed to do.
These are all silly reasons to delay or refrain from a vacation. I tell business owners: if you can’t take a vacation for yourself, at least do it for your loved ones… or the people who work for you. They’ll love the new you when you come back. And they’ll get along just fine without you.
Comment by Clate — July 28, 2008 @ 10:22 pm
Everyone can take a page from Disney’s book. I worked at Disney for a summer and learned more about customer service in 3 months than I did in 4 years prior working in various retail establishments.
Did you know that at Walt Disney World, ANY staff member is empowered to make a bad situation good? I was a “CP” or “College Program” employee - strictly speaking, the LOWEST rung on the ladder of employment. I had these forms that I could use (forgetting the name of the form) that if some kid spilled ice cream on him/herself, I could write (on the BLANK line) “Free T-Shirt” that they could redeem at any store in the park.
Of course, these forms were audited to ensure people weren’t abusing it, but I could even offer a guest a free nights hotel stay at a resort if I wanted to. Now THAT was empowerment.
As for cleanliness, they actually did a study to see how far someone would walk with trash in their hand before they would throw it on the street. Walk into Magic Kingdom and see the streets lined with garbage cans. They’re about every 20 feet. This was definitely on purpose.
Good luck emulating this, as they seem to have some formula there to keep minimum wage employees happy. Not sure how they do this, but as evidenced by your wife, they sure do a good job.
Comment by Joel — September 9, 2008 @ 1:09 pm