Episode #214: Bring the Magic of Disney to Any Business with Vance Morris

Vance Morris doesn’t just deliver services—he designs unforgettable experiences. In this episode, he shares how Disney’s obsession with systems shaped his philosophy for building customer loyalty and price elasticity. Morris breaks down his transition from security guard at a birth control factory to Disney executive, then to bankrupt entrepreneur, and finally to the founder of Deliver Service Now. His key insight? Competing on price kills service.

Instead, Morris urges business owners to map every customer touchpoint and turn each one into a moment of delight. He explains how even something as small as baking cookies in a dentist’s office or FedExing a proposal can shift your brand from transactional to relational. Whether you’re in retail, B2B, or professional services, Morris shows how intentional design builds brand loyalty, repels price shoppers, and increases profitability.

Want to learn more about Vance Morris's work? Check out their website at https://vancemorris.com.

Connect with Vance Morris on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/vancemorris/.

Key Points with Timestamps

[00:01:00] Vance’s unorthodox career path: Disney to bankruptcy to entrepreneurship
[00:03:45] Disney's system-driven culture and its impact on his business philosophy
[00:06:00] Starting a premium carpet cleaning business during a recession
[00:07:00] Why customer retention beats acquisition every time
[00:08:55] Turning an oil change shop into a 1950s experience center
[00:10:15] How delight builds brand loyalty and defends against commoditization
[00:13:00] Emotional bonds vs. transactional customers
[00:16:05] The trap of performance-based marketing without branding
[00:20:00] Disney’s obsessive attention to detail and Return on Experience (ROX)
[00:23:00] Profit is in the repeat business—not the first transaction
[00:25:30] How professional service providers can apply experience design
[00:27:00] Why you should FedEx your proposals
[00:29:30] The power of physical touchpoints like binders and boxes
[00:31:00] Leveraging scent and emotion in customer interactions
[00:33:00] Ideation and iteration: how to develop standout experiences
[00:36:35] Vance’s free resource: 52 ways to wow your customers

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment in my career.

00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;10
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on this show.

00;00;51;10 - 00;01;19;22
Craig Andrews
Today I want to welcome Vance Morris. He's founder of Deliver Service Now. Vance helps business owners get serve and keep clients for life through creating experiences and response required marketing. I think this is going to be really, really important. It's I think it's going to just be an amazing episode because he's about creating delight in your entire customer's experience.

00;01;19;25 - 00;01;22;02
Craig Andrews
And guess what delights profitable?

00;01;22;02 - 00;01;37;18
Craig Andrews
Vance is a former birth control factory security guard turned Disney leader turned bankrupt, artwork executive turned carpet cleaner turned successful entrepreneur. So, Vance, welcome.

00;01;37;21 - 00;01;41;09
Vance Morris
And the crowd goes wild.

00;01;41;11 - 00;01;42;01
Craig Andrews
That's,

00;01;42;01 - 00;01;45;20
Craig Andrews
That's quite the that's quite the,

00;01;45;20 - 00;01;47;13
Craig Andrews
the list of things.

00;01;47;16 - 00;01;55;15
Vance Morris
Yeah, it you know, it it stands out. And, you know, I think for all of us that are marketers or,

00;01;55;15 - 00;02;04;28
Vance Morris
you know, business owners, you got not that you need a shtick, but you do need something that helps you stand out from the masses.

00;02;04;28 - 00;02;11;01
Vance Morris
And I only started using the birth control factory thing, you know, about a year and a half ago, because I was.

00;02;11;01 - 00;02;16;28
Vance Morris
I sounded like all the other coaches and consultants out there when I was introducing myself, I got to come up with something.

00;02;16;28 - 00;02;24;02
Vance Morris
And it's true, though I did, it was like summers during college. I was, third shift. I was a,

00;02;24;02 - 00;02;25;01
Vance Morris
ortho,

00;02;25;01 - 00;02;32;01
Vance Morris
plant in new Jersey, and it's where they made ortho know from seven, seven, seven, and they made diaphragms.

00;02;32;03 - 00;02;35;17
Vance Morris
Wow. And so that was my summer job,

00;02;35;17 - 00;02;36;24
Vance Morris
for a couple of years.

00;02;36;27 - 00;02;41;03
Craig Andrews
And midnight theft of the birth control factory was an issue.

00;02;41;05 - 00;02;49;23
Vance Morris
You know, it was. They did a lot of animal testing, and it wasn't so much keeping what we had in. It was keeping all the protesters out.

00;02;49;25 - 00;02;53;21
Craig Andrews
Yeah. When I was in college, I was,

00;02;53;21 - 00;03;00;20
Craig Andrews
I was building amplifiers for cardio cardiac research at UMC hospital. And,

00;03;00;20 - 00;03;08;17
Craig Andrews
when we did experiments over there, they had to kind of block off the windows to the, to the labs for the same reasons.

00;03;08;19 - 00;03;12;21
Vance Morris
Yeah. But, yeah. So it set me up for a great,

00;03;12;21 - 00;03;14;11
Vance Morris
great career.

00;03;14;13 - 00;03;30;12
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So we're, we're we're we're going to get to the Disney part because that's where the magic comes in. But bankrupt artwork executive turned carpet cleaner turned successful entrepreneur went. What happened.

00;03;30;14 - 00;03;31;01
Vance Morris
To her?

00;03;31;01 - 00;03;43;05
Vance Morris
Well, I, touched on the Disney thing just a little bit to set the stage, because that was my real first job, and it really set what I was going to be about for the, well, really for the rest of my career.

00;03;43;05 - 00;03;45;23
Vance Morris
And I spent a little over a decade there,

00;03;45;23 - 00;03;48;10
Vance Morris
in the resort division.

00;03;48;13 - 00;03;55;11
Vance Morris
Luckily I grew with the resorts and was able to be on the development team of some of their,

00;03;55;11 - 00;03;56;28
Vance Morris
restaurants and attractions.

00;03;56;28 - 00;04;07;20
Vance Morris
And then I was on the operations teams for some of them. And the big lesson I learned there was that Disney runs on processes and systems.

00;04;07;20 - 00;04;09;16
Vance Morris
I mean, they got a system for everything.

00;04;09;16 - 00;04;18;11
Vance Morris
I mean, you want to change a bus tire? They got a system for it. You want to carry a tray in a restaurant? They got a system for it. And I carried that everywhere I went.

00;04;18;11 - 00;04;21;00
Vance Morris
And so after I left Disney, people do leave,

00;04;21;00 - 00;04;25;24
Vance Morris
a living proof of that. I mean, I didn't shrivel up and die.

00;04;25;26 - 00;04;27;11
Vance Morris
You know, I had a couple of,

00;04;27;11 - 00;04;30;16
Vance Morris
contracts with some other restaurant companies.

00;04;30;16 - 00;04;36;14
Vance Morris
And then I had a couple of corporate food service jobs. And along the way, I realized I make a lousy employee.

00;04;36;14 - 00;04;38;16
Vance Morris
I just don't like to be told what to do.

00;04;38;16 - 00;04;46;11
Vance Morris
So, you know, I think a lot of us go into business because, well, that's, that's the reason.

00;04;46;13 - 00;04;47;14
Vance Morris
So when I was,

00;04;47;14 - 00;04;55;09
Vance Morris
I looked at starting up a restaurant concept, I was looking more for a franchise or a known concept.

00;04;55;09 - 00;05;01;00
Vance Morris
Wasn't really ready to just start something from the ground up. I was looking for a proof of concept.

00;05;01;00 - 00;05;08;00
Vance Morris
But everybody wanted, you know, 1 or $2 million liquid cash, and. Well, I just didn't have that laying around.

00;05;08;02 - 00;05;16;12
Vance Morris
So I did what every small boy dreams of doing. And I started a carpet cleaning business, and that's, of course, that's what we all do.

00;05;16;12 - 00;05;18;00
Vance Morris
And the week that,

00;05;18;00 - 00;05;19;05
Vance Morris
I was supposed to start,

00;05;19;05 - 00;05;19;08
Vance Morris
the,

00;05;19;08 - 00;05;21;02
Vance Morris
training for this franchise,

00;05;21;02 - 00;05;26;10
Vance Morris
my wife had a cerebral aneurysm and ended up in the neuro ICU,

00;05;26;10 - 00;05;29;14
Vance Morris
in Washington, DC for 11 days.

00;05;30;25 - 00;05;37;04
Vance Morris
So we went from two very nice six figure salaries down to zero overnight.

00;05;37;04 - 00;05;41;12
Vance Morris
Hence the out of work bankrupt portion of everything.

00;05;41;12 - 00;05;42;13
Vance Morris
She was out of work,

00;05;42;13 - 00;05;45;19
Vance Morris
disabled for a good 18, 19 months.

00;05;45;19 - 00;05;46;00
Vance Morris
And,

00;05;46;00 - 00;05;53;26
Vance Morris
I had no income, so I had this carpet cleaning business. Of course, this is 2007, which is a great year to start a business.

00;05;53;28 - 00;06;06;28
Vance Morris
Actually, it was a great year, so I had nowhere to go but up because I was already at zero. I couldn't get any worse. Everybody else was complaining that their sales were down and I'm like, wow, this is great. I'm going up.

00;06;06;28 - 00;06;22;20
Vance Morris
And what I did was I took all my Disney knowledge, all the systems and processes, and I packed it into this carpet cleaning business, and I intentionally positioned it as a premium service for affluent clients.

00;06;22;23 - 00;06;36;07
Vance Morris
I didn't want to be one of those telephone people, you know? I mean, you drive down the street and you see the telephone pole guy staples it up there nine rooms for $37 or something silly like that. And I'm like, I'm not going to be that guy.

00;06;36;07 - 00;06;38;07
Vance Morris
And after a few years, people started saying,

00;06;38;07 - 00;06;40;06
Vance Morris
how do you do that?

00;06;40;08 - 00;06;51;13
Vance Morris
And so I started doing a little coaching on the side and decided, well, I don't want to do that for free. So I started charging for the coaching and just kind of progressed from there.

00;06;51;13 - 00;06;55;21
Vance Morris
Fast forward to today, I've got three home service businesses that I still own.

00;06;55;21 - 00;06;58;03
Vance Morris
I've got a general manager who runs them.

00;06;58;06 - 00;07;01;08
Vance Morris
I spend about 90 minutes a week on those businesses,

00;07;01;08 - 00;07;04;26
Vance Morris
essentially cashing checks, kissing babies, that kind of thing.

00;07;04;26 - 00;07;13;00
Vance Morris
And actually, most of that time is back to a weekly meeting with the GM. And the rest of my time is spent, coaching and consulting with,

00;07;13;00 - 00;07;21;29
Vance Morris
small businesses who are looking really to separate themselves from being viewed as a commodity.

00;07;22;01 - 00;07;49;22
Vance Morris
Give them price elasticity. So being able to command a price that is outside the norm of their industry and most importantly, keep the clients that they have worked so hard to get because I don't know about you, but getting a new client is ridiculously expensive, and right in the client is relatively inexpensive. So why not focus their.

00;07;49;24 - 00;08;01;04
Craig Andrews
Yeah, well, and one of the things that you brought up that I like certainly passionate to me, I don't want to work with anybody who's trying to compete on price. Oh. So,

00;08;01;04 - 00;08;13;12
Craig Andrews
the and one of my mentors just put it very simply, it's like you can't provide customer service. You can't provide if you're competing on price. The one thing that will,

00;08;13;12 - 00;08;15;16
Craig Andrews
suffer is your customer service.

00;08;15;18 - 00;08;22;24
Craig Andrews
And for him, he just wants to work with companies that have excellent customer service because they also tend to be very profitable.

00;08;22;27 - 00;08;23;19
Vance Morris
Yeah. I had a,

00;08;23;19 - 00;08;26;01
Vance Morris
an oil change. I'll give you a quick story.

00;08;26;01 - 00;08;26;09
Vance Morris
That,

00;08;26;09 - 00;08;27;24
Vance Morris
string of oil change,

00;08;27;24 - 00;08;30;28
Vance Morris
stations that kind of like a Jiffy Lube, quick lube. But he was,

00;08;30;28 - 00;08;40;21
Vance Morris
private, and, you know, he was getting coupon clipped to death by, you know, the national chains. And every time they came out with a new price, he had to drop his price.

00;08;40;21 - 00;08;43;17
Vance Morris
And it was just, you know, and there's no, you know, there's no,

00;08;43;17 - 00;08;55;03
Vance Morris
competitive advantage to being second cheapest. So he was like, well, I have to drop my price. I said, all right, I don't even know how we got introduced. But I said, look, you need to go the other direction. You need to go up.

00;08;55;03 - 00;08;59;24
Vance Morris
And you need to provide value that goes along with premium pricing.

00;08;59;26 - 00;09;06;06
Vance Morris
So we did some brainstorming and I'll give you the highlights. So we designed it as a 1950s style,

00;09;06;06 - 00;09;21;25
Vance Morris
service station. You remember when the four guys would run out of the service station, all got white shirts and bow ties on a little white gloves. One guy squeegees your windshield, the other one's checking the air pressure. You tire, and one guy will escort you into the waiting room where there's actually today's newspaper.

00;09;21;27 - 00;09;29;08
Vance Morris
And there's a barista in there making your favorite coffee drink for you and the barista is actually one of the oil change technicians,

00;09;29;08 - 00;09;44;26
Vance Morris
who just happened to rotate in that day from the oil changing every one of his 11 employees knows how to make coffee drinks. He's charging about 60% more than the Jiffy Lube. Literally two storefronts down from him.

00;09;44;28 - 00;09;57;08
Vance Morris
Now, he's done a bunch of things here. One, he's attracting a completely different clientele. One that wants the service, wants that level of experience.

00;09;57;08 - 00;10;00;27
Vance Morris
And he's kicked away a lot of the coupon clippers.

00;10;00;27 - 00;10;11;22
Vance Morris
He's got less wear and tear on his building, less wear and tear on his employees. His customer retention is through the roof. His least tenured person is like 16 months.

00;10;11;25 - 00;10;15;00
Vance Morris
And in that industry is just unheard of.

00;10;15;00 - 00;10;30;05
Vance Morris
And his profitability is through the roof, and we don't want pretty close to three his profitability. And in under six months, just by switching from being a price competitor to going to premium pricing.

00;10;30;07 - 00;10;40;14
Craig Andrews
Yeah, that's. Yeah. And it makes a difference. You know, that as you're telling that story, you know, it came to mind for me is there's

00;10;40;14 - 00;10;42;13
Craig Andrews
you I'm sure you've heard of Bucky's.

00;10;42;13 - 00;10;48;14
Craig Andrews
Oh yeah. The. Yeah. A couple months ago, my, my wife and I were driving,

00;10;48;14 - 00;10;53;14
Craig Andrews
we were driving back from Tennessee, and when we went through temple, Texas, we gassed up there.

00;10;53;16 - 00;11;03;24
Craig Andrews
And I'm sitting at the gas pump, and they have some deal where they say, hey, if you get a car wash, we'll give you a dollar off per gallon. And,

00;11;03;24 - 00;11;11;25
Craig Andrews
and I, I went back in hindsight, I'm like, that was so stupid to even give it to brain cells. The answer should have been yes. But

00;11;11;25 - 00;11;17;03
Craig Andrews
I'm sitting there going back and forth and I'm like, well, basically it's a free car wash.

00;11;17;05 - 00;11;18;01
Craig Andrews
And,

00;11;18;01 - 00;11;36;25
Craig Andrews
and so I go ahead and sign up for it. My wife gets back from the restroom, which of course is immaculate. Their bathrooms are immaculate. And I say, hey, I buy a car wash. She's like, okay. We start going through the car wash and instantly we regret not having our grandkids sit in the back of the car.

00;11;36;27 - 00;11;45;22
Craig Andrews
This I can't do it. Service does describe how different this car wash was. We had a beaver coming across the,

00;11;45;22 - 00;11;49;09
Craig Andrews
the projection of a beaver coming across the windshield. We had,

00;11;49;09 - 00;12;01;28
Craig Andrews
rainbow colored soap. I mean, it was beyond anything. And so since then, you know, we keep telling people you need to find a reason to get your car washed and buggies.

00;12;02;00 - 00;12;13;05
Craig Andrews
And I'm now saying here on on the podcast, but when it does, they created premium experience. I'm sure this low dollar off is just that's that's just the the crack dealer on the corner trying to get you hooked.

00;12;13;08 - 00;12;14;23
Vance Morris
Yeah, exactly.

00;12;14;25 - 00;12;27;20
Craig Andrews
And there eventually be charging for that that car wash. But buggies are massive. They have more gas pump. Same car station, gas station I've ever seen. And they're always full.

00;12;27;22 - 00;12;33;21
Vance Morris
Yeah. They're brilliant. Brilliant marketers. Yeah. And the fact that they have clean restrooms,

00;12;33;21 - 00;12;37;12
Vance Morris
is probably one of the biggest magnets they have.

00;12;37;12 - 00;12;40;09
Vance Morris
I mean, sadly, McDonald's used to use,

00;12;40;09 - 00;12;45;29
Vance Morris
bathroom cleaning was a marketing expense. Sadly, that's been gone for decades.

00;12;45;29 - 00;12;51;17
Vance Morris
But that originated, you know, clean bathrooms was a thing that McDonald's was known for.

00;12;51;19 - 00;12;53;19
Vance Morris
Unfortunately, that's no longer true.

00;12;53;19 - 00;13;12;15
Craig Andrews
But, that is said, I didn't I didn't know that. I know that, but kind of coming back to your central point and instead of going down market, go up market, create, create an exceptional experience. And the money follows.

00;13;12;18 - 00;13;13;13
Vance Morris
Exactly. Does

00;13;13;13 - 00;13;20;07
Vance Morris
it because there's always people out there that are looking for that experience.

00;13;20;07 - 00;13;28;27
Vance Morris
And there are people that will drive or travel greater distances for the experience.

00;13;28;27 - 00;13;42;21
Vance Morris
You know, they become brand loyal, which means they have an emotional attachment to you versus be having a customer loyalty, which means that it's transactional based.

00;13;42;21 - 00;13;50;19
Vance Morris
You know, so if you are customer loyal, that means they're only coming to you based on price or convenience or something like that.

00;13;50;21 - 00;13;55;27
Vance Morris
When they're brand loyal, they're coming because of you, because of how you make them feel.

00;13;55;27 - 00;13;59;16
Vance Morris
And that is a much stronger bond.

00;13;59;16 - 00;14;04;14
Vance Morris
If you can raise prices and dollars to donuts, you probably won't lose people.

00;14;04;14 - 00;14;13;08
Vance Morris
You know, you might be a little further away or, you know, not convenient and people will still travel to you because of how you make them feel.

00;14;13;11 - 00;14;19;15
Vance Morris
That's right. I mean, that's one of the main principles from Disney is how they make people feel.

00;14;19;15 - 00;14;41;24
Vance Morris
I mean, and they know what product they're selling. I mean, they're selling two things happiness and memories. So the only two things Disney sells, they don't sell anything else, you know, and they understand that. And once us as business owners understand what we are truly selling, that's when that price elasticity comes in there.

00;14;41;26 - 00;14;55;05
Vance Morris
And the the true customer retention, where we are literally putting a fence around our customers, keeping them in and our competitors out really comes into play well.

00;14;55;05 - 00;15;10;20
Craig Andrews
And I want us to back up and drive over that land again because as a marketer, people come to me and they're like, Craig, we want you to run ads that get us as many leads as possible. And,

00;15;10;20 - 00;15;24;05
Craig Andrews
and we're going to monitor the some and fortunately, not many of our, our clients usually weed these folks out, but some of them will say, well, we want to see which campaigns are making money and which campaigns or not.

00;15;24;07 - 00;15;50;10
Craig Andrews
And that's fundamentally a transactional mindset. I'm like, guys, we have to run these branding campaigns in parallel because of the way it makes them feel. We're using those to build emotional bonds. And for the reason that you said, do you want transactional customers or do you want relational? Yep. And I think a lot of people feel like I want transactional.

00;15;50;12 - 00;15;53;00
Craig Andrews
They're first passes, I want transactional,

00;15;53;00 - 00;16;05;05
Craig Andrews
I want to run ad and I want to get the money from them. I want to bring a customer in the door, and I want to collect their money. Why is that bad?

00;16;05;08 - 00;16;06;22
Vance Morris
Is that rhetorical, or are you asking?

00;16;06;22 - 00;16;12;10
Craig Andrews
No, I'm asking because there there are some people that aren't tracking with us yet.

00;16;12;13 - 00;16;32;13
Vance Morris
Well, one, you've got no real shot of having them come back. One. I mean, if we said earlier, attracting a new customer is expensive. No, new customer is not cheap to get. And a lot of times on that first sale, you're going to break even or you're going to go negative on,

00;16;32;13 - 00;16;46;17
Vance Morris
on the profitability. And unless you have a robust customer retention system or a and a robust experience that goes along with it, you're not going to see them again because it was just a, you know.

00;16;46;18 - 00;16;50;20
Vance Morris
All right. Well, great. Thanks for that. I mean, it's like going to McDonald's. Okay. Great. Thanks for the burger.

00;16;50;20 - 00;16;53;07
Vance Morris
You know, maybe I'll see you again. Maybe I won't,

00;16;53;07 - 00;16;55;04
Vance Morris
just maybe when I'm driving by,

00;16;55;04 - 00;16;59;17
Vance Morris
you. But when you have that emotional connection,

00;16;59;17 - 00;17;03;06
Vance Morris
it's, you know, we've got a burger joint if we're talking burgers,

00;17;03;06 - 00;17;08;07
Vance Morris
that's, you know, probably we've got probably three McDonald's between my house and this,

00;17;08;07 - 00;17;09;10
Vance Morris
burger joint.

00;17;09;13 - 00;17;25;13
Vance Morris
When I drive past all of them to go to the burger joint because of not only the food quality, but how they make me feel. I mean, there's we got ax throwing in there. The the servers are actually nice. Service is impeccable, etc., etc..

00;17;25;13 - 00;17;33;05
Vance Morris
And they do things to make us feel like we're actually wanted. They're not like we are an imposition on them.

00;17;33;07 - 00;17;35;23
Vance Morris
So I don't know if that's the answer you were looking for, but.

00;17;37;06 - 00;17;59;17
Craig Andrews
No, that's exactly it. I just I think it's a trap that people fall in. I think a lot of people that are listening, they. It's it's not that they intend bad, it's they I call it the spreadsheet mentality. You know, my my wife used to work for a company. I'm not going to say their name here because they were absolutely wonderful to her when,

00;17;59;17 - 00;18;01;21
Craig Andrews
when I was in the hospital.

00;18;01;23 - 00;18;03;22
Craig Andrews
But she said,

00;18;03;22 - 00;18;15;24
Craig Andrews
there's a rumor going around that they're going to get bought by a private equity. And I told her, I said, if that's true, if private equity cuts buys them, the first thing that's getting cut is customer service.

00;18;15;26 - 00;18;21;19
Vance Morris
100%, 100%. We stayed at a resort. I had my,

00;18;21;19 - 00;18;23;04
Vance Morris
mastermind meeting at,

00;18;23;04 - 00;18;24;23
Vance Morris
one of those a brand resort,

00;18;24;23 - 00;18;26;21
Vance Morris
and but it was owned by,

00;18;26;21 - 00;18;39;02
Vance Morris
private equity and it was just, I mean, you would have thought that somebody was literally out there counting the lemon slices and the number of lemon slices we were allowed to have with our estate.

00;18;39;05 - 00;18;48;23
Vance Morris
I mean, it was pathetic. It was just really bad. So. Yeah, once, once P gets a hold of it, it's it's downhill.

00;18;48;25 - 00;19;12;09
Craig Andrews
Right. And unfortunately, there's a lot of business owners. They're sitting there. They maybe there's a part of P that they admire. They see these people with MBAs and they're like hey these are people that manage expenses. For me to be successful, I need to manage expenses, which in part is true. But if you end up if you end up hurting the customer experience, it's going to cost you more in the end.

00;19;12;11 - 00;19;22;27
Vance Morris
Well, you know, and there's a difference. You know, we talked a little bit about numbers and marketing and I get it. I mean I am all about, you know, seeing an ROI on my marketing campaign. I get it.

00;19;22;27 - 00;19;30;16
Vance Morris
Because I want to make sure that that I'm successful, I don't want to be sending out $4,000 worth of postcards and wondering, well, did that work?

00;19;30;19 - 00;19;42;17
Vance Morris
But at the same time, you also you also have what's called rocks. What's return on experience. And it's a little more nebulous, a little bit more difficult to measure.

00;19;42;17 - 00;19;47;10
Vance Morris
Though I, I would argue you can measure it and which is in your,

00;19;47;10 - 00;19;50;22
Vance Morris
NPS scores, which is in your customer retention,

00;19;50;22 - 00;19;54;04
Vance Morris
and in your overall client lifetime

00;19;54;04 - 00;20;00;15
Vance Morris
is that extended or is your lifetime value higher than the industry average?

00;20;00;17 - 00;20;12;11
Vance Morris
So looking at return on experience is all of the things that you invest in to make sure that they have a great experience. For example, Disney

00;20;12;11 - 00;20;18;15
Vance Morris
paints a lot of things in the Magic Kingdom or in a lot of the places every single night of,

00;20;18;15 - 00;20;24;01
Vance Morris
of the week. There's a horse post, in the Magic Kingdom on Main Street, gets post, painted every single night.

00;20;24;01 - 00;20;24;20
Vance Morris
There's little,

00;20;24;20 - 00;20;25;12
Vance Morris
white,

00;20;25;12 - 00;20;42;10
Vance Morris
rope change. They go around the American flag right there on Main Street. They get painted every single night of the week, and they know exactly what time to paint them based on temperature and humidity and rain and whatever, so that the paint is dry and perfect for the first guest when they come in.

00;20;42;13 - 00;20;56;23
Vance Morris
Now, that's a fanatical attention to detail, and a being counter could easily come in and say they're painting it every other night, and then it'll. And then it's going to slip, and then it's gonna be a thing that every three nights,

00;20;56;23 - 00;21;26;14
Vance Morris
paint it once a month and so the operator, the owner, the whoever's running it, there's, you've got to have what is your standard and what are you going to be about and what is, you know, the detail you're going to invest in that is not going to be a detriment to the overall experience, because once you start overlooking those little details, that's when that's when you don't have the experience and you just

00;21;26;14 - 00;21;29;06
Vance Morris
become a widget and you're transactional.

00;21;29;08 - 00;21;35;29
Craig Andrews
Yeah. One thing I want to touch on, you know, you were talking about, you know,

00;21;35;29 - 00;21;54;12
Craig Andrews
loss leaders and what have you. If I heard you correctly, you're not against them. They just have to be used strategically. And like Bucky's car wash, they lost money on washing my car that day. But because they have a formula, they they knew that once they could get me in that car wash, I'd be coming back.

00;21;54;12 - 00;22;03;21
Craig Andrews
And if I had kids in the back seat of the car, every time we drive by, Bucky's, the kids would badger badger me until they say we want to get the car washed.

00;22;03;23 - 00;22;07;04
Vance Morris
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I can tell you, I mean, I got my,

00;22;07;04 - 00;22;22;05
Vance Morris
pay per click numbers for me for my carpet cleaning business, and it was right around $140 to get a new customer in the front door. My minimum charge is 199. So that leaves me at $55 to pay my tech. And,

00;22;22;05 - 00;22;24;22
Vance Morris
insurance van. Gas in the van,

00;22;24;22 - 00;22;25;26
Vance Morris
doesn't leave much,

00;22;25;26 - 00;22;28;00
Vance Morris
and certainly doesn't leave anything for me.

00;22;28;02 - 00;22;31;25
Vance Morris
So if I never clean for them again, I've lost money.

00;22;31;25 - 00;22;52;29
Vance Morris
Certainly haven't broken even. But I know that 71% of all of my customers clean every year with me. So I know on the second cleaning, I don't have to pay that $140 customer acquisition fee again, because I already got them right, and it only cost me $22 a year to market to my existing customers.

00;22;53;07 - 00;22;59;24
Vance Morris
So I'm now already $120 more profitable. The second time I clean, I make it all up on the second cleaning.

00;22;59;24 - 00;23;12;19
Vance Morris
And that's why customer retention, not only is it the right thing to do, but that's why it's so vital, because that's where all the money is, all the profit is in your repeat business. They are. They've already bought from you.

00;23;12;19 - 00;23;21;21
Vance Morris
So they already have the home know, like and trust. They're more susceptible to upsells, cross-sell, new services, new products.

00;23;21;21 - 00;23;32;08
Vance Morris
Because if they're happy with you and, you know, you I mean, when's the best time for, you know, the men store to sell you a tie. You know, when you've just when you're standing there with your new suit, right?

00;23;32;11 - 00;23;37;23
Vance Morris
You know, I mean, the guy who I buy my suits from, I mean, he always sells me two ties and. Oh,

00;23;37;23 - 00;23;44;25
Vance Morris
I don't even need a tie. I don't wear ties. And the guy was like, you know, you know, this tie is going to look good with it. I'm just throw it in the bag. I don't even argue with that anymore.

00;23;44;25 - 00;23;46;24
Vance Morris
Just throw it in the bag.

00;23;46;26 - 00;23;57;26
Craig Andrews
You know, I used to buy my suits at the Men's Warehouse years ago, and I always got a big kick out of it. Was very clear what they were doing is they'd have usually it was a guy. Sometimes they had,

00;23;57;26 - 00;24;11;19
Craig Andrews
you know, women working with you, but right when they had your suit, you know, when you're trying your suit on at the first time, all of a sudden there was always a woman that worked in the store, and she barely fit in the dress she was wearing.

00;24;11;22 - 00;24;14;13
Craig Andrews
And she'd come walking by and,

00;24;14;13 - 00;24;28;27
Craig Andrews
they'd say, hey, what do you think about this? I mean, she would walk by right at the right moment and she's like, oh, that looks really good. And, you know, but it was this feeling, you know, you have this beautiful woman telling you, you look good. And,

00;24;28;27 - 00;24;32;20
Craig Andrews
and I was able to figure out that was like, I still wasn't offended by it.

00;24;32;21 - 00;24;37;05
Craig Andrews
I think it's funny. I wasn't offended that that was part of their sales process.

00;24;37;05 - 00;24;41;09
Vance Morris
You really, you know.

00;24;41;11 - 00;24;56;28
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, and if you think about George Zimmerman's, Zimmerman, Zimmerman has, you know, you're going to love the way you look. So he put somebody in the store that he thought would appeal to me that says, you look good.

00;24;57;00 - 00;25;02;24
Vance Morris
Yeah. No, that's an absolutely brilliant marketing. I can't believe he lost his company. It's just crazy.

00;25;02;24 - 00;25;03;28
Craig Andrews
But

00;25;03;28 - 00;25;04;22
Craig Andrews
the same with

00;25;04;22 - 00;25;09;05
Craig Andrews
Papa John's sale every now.

00;25;09;07 - 00;25;11;02
Vance Morris
And fix everything.

00;25;11;04 - 00;25;32;10
Craig Andrews
So you know what you're talking about. You know it's easy for me to wrap my head around it when I'm thinking about, you know, buc-ee's or carpet cleaning or something like that. What about people that provide professional services? How do how do we take what you do and apply it in that field?

00;25;32;13 - 00;25;43;22
Vance Morris
Yeah, certainly. So, you know, one of the things that well, one of the first steps you have to do is, is map out your client journey. So from the first point your company has,

00;25;43;22 - 00;25;48;01
Vance Morris
connection with, whether it be you, a website, a postcard, a telephone,

00;25;48;01 - 00;25;54;00
Vance Morris
all the way to the last point and every place where your company interacts with the customer, you need to map it out.

00;25;54;02 - 00;26;09;28
Vance Morris
And then you look at each one of those points and you figure out, how do we make an experience out of this? So, like answering the telephone, you know, most people will answer, you know, thank you for calling Dave's Insurance. How may I help you? We've all heard something like that.

00;26;09;28 - 00;26;10;22
Vance Morris
I worked with a,

00;26;10;22 - 00;26;13;14
Vance Morris
a bunch of Allstate guys a number of years ago, and,

00;26;13;14 - 00;26;18;05
Vance Morris
one of them, there were, like, nine Allstate agents in the same, same city.

00;26;18;07 - 00;26;20;19
Vance Morris
And this guy was just having a hard time standing out.

00;26;20;19 - 00;26;22;02
Vance Morris
And we were in his office. He was like,

00;26;22;02 - 00;26;31;01
Vance Morris
loved rock and roll. He had, like, LED Zeppelin posters and autographed guitars and gold records on the wall. And so we were brainstorming how we could do stuff. And,

00;26;31;01 - 00;26;33;05
Vance Morris
the lady who answers was his front desk lady.

00;26;33;05 - 00;26;40;28
Vance Morris
Lady answers phone actually came up with the idea on how to answer the phone. And, you know, I mean, it took a long while to get there, but,

00;26;40;28 - 00;26;54;18
Vance Morris
at the end, they all agreed that they were going to answer the phone. Thank you for calling Dave's Allstate, the agency that rocks. Yeah. So it sounds a little quirky the first 19 times you say it, but it does.

00;26;54;19 - 00;27;08;00
Vance Morris
You know, answering the phone that way does a couple of things. One, it separates you from everybody else out else out there, which is what your marketing is supposed to do. And it also sifts, sorts and screens out anybody who would be a lousy client for you,

00;27;08;00 - 00;27;11;15
Vance Morris
because they'd be like, yeah, I'm not. You know, I don't want to do this with them.

00;27;11;18 - 00;27;17;19
Vance Morris
So you look at all of the different points. So so that's creating an experience out of answering the phone.

00;27;17;19 - 00;27;25;00
Vance Morris
You know, how do you create an experience out of sending a proposal? I mean, I've got that's like the first thing I teach all my clients,

00;27;25;00 - 00;27;37;24
Vance Morris
is if you've got anything worth more than $500, like your service is worth more than $500 string for the $9 Fedex to send it to them.

00;27;37;26 - 00;27;39;10
Vance Morris
I mean, seriously,

00;27;39;10 - 00;27;55;21
Vance Morris
you know, don't just I, I ask how how do you send that proposal? Oh, we email it over. Oh, for God's sakes, print it out, put it in a Fedex show that you care so that this business means something to you. Doesn't even have to be an overnight. Send it two day if you want, but put it in a Fedex envelope and zip it over there.

00;27;55;21 - 00;27;58;15
Vance Morris
It's still got cachet, you know, I'll.

00;27;58;15 - 00;28;08;03
Craig Andrews
Take it one. I'll take it one step further. When we're shipping out a proposal, we put it in a binder that's been professionally printed, a fulfillment house.

00;28;08;06 - 00;28;09;06
Vance Morris
Yeah.

00;28;09;08 - 00;28;13;16
Craig Andrews
And it cost me $100. Put the binder in some hands.

00;28;13;18 - 00;28;15;08
Vance Morris
Yeah.

00;28;15;11 - 00;28;19;09
Craig Andrews
But you have to keep not. You have to keep your focus on the size of the prize.

00;28;19;11 - 00;28;24;06
Vance Morris
100%. I mean, you know, and as it gets bigger, I mean, you know, I've got,

00;28;24;06 - 00;28;33;11
Vance Morris
you know, for me, I mean, I, you know, we I call them shock and all boxes. I don't know if you use the same thing terminology, but essentially it's Vance in a box.

00;28;33;11 - 00;28;35;24
Vance Morris
And, you know, I mean, I've got a,

00;28;35;24 - 00;28;42;07
Vance Morris
card you open up and a video plays, and, you know, I mean, there's all this interactive stuff and it's discovery.

00;28;42;07 - 00;28;48;09
Vance Morris
It's like. It's like a big, giant crackerjack box with a bunch of prizes in the bottom, and you're pulling it out.

00;28;48;09 - 00;29;01;18
Vance Morris
You know, that presentation is is nobody else is doing this stuff, you know, and that's that's the point is that nobody else is doing it. You're the one that's going to stand out, you know, by doing it.

00;29;01;18 - 00;29;05;21
Vance Morris
And I think the the, binder is, you know, is brilliant.

00;29;05;21 - 00;29;11;06
Vance Morris
You know, by doing that, you certainly stand out. Nobody else is going to going to copy that.

00;29;11;09 - 00;29;18;18
Craig Andrews
Well, and when we're sending somebody a binder, we don't do any free proposals. It's always the product of a mini project that they paid for.

00;29;18;20 - 00;29;19;07
Vance Morris
Right.

00;29;19;10 - 00;29;36;00
Craig Andrews
And you know what? Nobody does with a binder that they paid for. They don't throw it away and they don't have a home for it yet. So you know where they put it. They put it on their desk till they figure out what to do with it. And so that binder sits there and does something no sales guy can ever do, or sales lady.

00;29;36;02 - 00;29;42;02
Craig Andrews
It's they're reminding them every day, all day long. Hey, you need to you need to take action on this.

00;29;42;05 - 00;30;01;21
Vance Morris
Yeah. That's fantastic. But again, you look at your, you know, the lifetime value of that client and, you know, what can you afford to spend, spend in order to acquire that? I mean, for you, I mean, if you're if your ticket is 10,000 bucks and you're sending out $100,

00;30;01;21 - 00;30;07;07
Vance Morris
package, and it's like sitting at a slot machine, you put in 100 bucks and 10,000 comes out.

00;30;07;10 - 00;30;24;09
Vance Morris
And if you sat at that slot machine and every time you put in 110 grand would come out, and you do it all day long. So, I mean, that's the way I approach, you know, the marketing of, you know, especially larger clients and customer acquisition is okay to me. Whoever can spend the most wins.

00;30;24;11 - 00;30;30;02
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, here's something we're doing. And by the by the time this episode goes live, hopefully,

00;30;30;02 - 00;30;34;26
Craig Andrews
my house will be under contract. We're selling our house. We haven't listed it yet.

00;30;34;26 - 00;30;37;29
Craig Andrews
But I bought some,

00;30;37;29 - 00;30;44;19
Craig Andrews
some centers. You know, we're not talking, like the little things that you get at Walmart. You know, that you plug in,

00;30;44;19 - 00;30;47;17
Craig Andrews
this is, you know, cold nebulizer,

00;30;47;17 - 00;30;50;20
Craig Andrews
sense that, you know, comes from a diffuser.

00;30;50;23 - 00;30;56;17
Craig Andrews
But something that hotel Stowe, you know, higher end hotels and probably does me does, I don't know.

00;30;56;17 - 00;31;11;23
Craig Andrews
And it's about when somebody walks into the door of this house. The beauty is, I know this is a marketer. The beauty is I'm coming into a part of their brain that they're not expecting. They don't see it coming, and they're just like, it smells nice in here.

00;31;11;26 - 00;31;14;26
Vance Morris
I'm. Yeah.

00;31;14;29 - 00;31;28;03
Craig Andrews
And for me, it was easy making the expense because whatever I spend in the sense I'm going to get a big multiple in, you know, sales price on the house.

00;31;28;05 - 00;31;37;08
Vance Morris
No doubt. No doubt. And I mean this your sense of smell is the number one sense when it for triggering memories.

00;31;37;08 - 00;31;41;29
Vance Morris
And so, you know, when I work, especially when I work with medical professionals,

00;31;41;29 - 00;31;44;16
Vance Morris
you know, one of the first things I get them to do,

00;31;44;16 - 00;31;51;00
Vance Morris
is try to put something in their waiting room that's got a a nice scent to it.

00;31;51;06 - 00;31;59;12
Vance Morris
Typically, it's a little toaster oven and they bake one cookie at a time. And so when you walk into the dentist office, it smells like fresh baked cookies.

00;31;59;12 - 00;32;08;02
Vance Morris
And, you know, so you're not smelling antiseptic or, you know, any, any just the regular dentist smell.

00;32;08;02 - 00;32;17;03
Vance Morris
And it really disarms people. I mean, people are just like, you can just see their shoulders droop and they're, you know, because usually you're uptight when you go into the dentist and then you get in there and you're like, oh,

00;32;17;03 - 00;32;20;05
Vance Morris
this smells smells like grandma's house.

00;32;20;07 - 00;32;24;03
Vance Morris
You know, and because you're reactivating that, that, that memory,

00;32;24;03 - 00;32;31;20
Vance Morris
and so don't don't underestimate that, that power of smell, I think I think you're brilliant putting that in the house. That's perfect.

00;32;31;23 - 00;32;46;20
Craig Andrews
So thinking about this back to what you were talking about. Every step in the customer journey, you know, so somebody walks into the waiting room of the dentist and all of a sudden, you know, they're having happy memories triggered by smell.

00;32;46;22 - 00;32;47;25
Vance Morris
100%.

00;32;47;27 - 00;33;06;06
Craig Andrews
So let me ask this. I mean, so this makes immense sense. You know, you go through you just you map out the entire journey and you just say stage by stage, how can we engineer delight. And it's always easy when you see it in hindsight. You look at like, yeah, of course we're going to bake cookies. You know who, who don't.

00;33;06;08 - 00;33;11;17
Craig Andrews
How do you come up with these ideas? What does ideation look like in terms of finding this?

00;33;11;19 - 00;33;24;23
Vance Morris
Well, first you got to get the whole team involved. It's got to be a group effort because as the boss, you know, if you're the attorney or the dentist or the whoever, you're not going to come up with these ideas on your own.

00;33;24;23 - 00;33;29;13
Vance Morris
I mean, you might come up with 1 or 2, but then you're force feeding it to your team.

00;33;29;16 - 00;33;31;09
Vance Morris
So I when I do it,

00;33;31;09 - 00;33;37;18
Vance Morris
when I do one on one consulting, this is a group effort. We get together and we brainstorm.

00;33;37;18 - 00;33;42;18
Vance Morris
First we do the mapping and then we prioritize. Okay, which one of the,

00;33;42;18 - 00;33;49;18
Vance Morris
points on the map are we going to get our most bang for our buck? So you know what. Which one do we need to work on first.

00;33;49;20 - 00;33;58;26
Vance Morris
And then we look at okay, what are we doing now. So before if we go back to the phone thing we answer the phone. You know thank you for all Dave's all state.

00;33;58;26 - 00;34;09;19
Vance Morris
And we put a big through it saying we're not going to do it that way anymore. And we just brainstorm ways of, you know, of doing things and it's no wrong answer.

00;34;09;22 - 00;34;13;08
Vance Morris
And then it's also iterations,

00;34;13;08 - 00;34;15;07
Vance Morris
you know, so quick example,

00;34;15;07 - 00;34;29;28
Vance Morris
like if you ordered my book from me instead of Amazon, Amazon's going to send it to you in a, in a brown, box or a brown envelope. But if you order it from me, you're going to get it in a nice custom box. Now, I used to send it out in a plain brown box.

00;34;30;00 - 00;34;46;18
Vance Morris
And then I thought to myself, well, I'm the experience guy. I should probably do something with sending out my book. So I got a custom box created and then I'm like, well, I got the box. It's a book. Well, I should probably have a bookmark. Hey, great. So I got a bookmark made and then I'm oh, the bookmark should probably.

00;34;46;20 - 00;34;59;08
Vance Morris
I just fancy that was put a tassel on it. So now there's the tassel on the bookmark. Oh well, it's kind of a workbook, so maybe I should include a pen. So okay, now there's the logo pen in there. I hope they bought something. So I should include a thank you note. Okay great. So I put a thank you note in there.

00;34;59;11 - 00;35;21;26
Vance Morris
Oh wait. You know I'm sending all this crap. I might as well just put a sales letter in there too and talk to them about, you know, my group coaching that box more. And that took like 18 months for that process to go. And so it didn't like start with this great box. It started with a crappy box and just got better over time.

00;35;21;26 - 00;35;35;22
Vance Morris
So when you hear us talking about, you know, these amazing things, I realized that when it started, it wasn't quite so amazing. And it was iteration after iteration after iteration that we just kept adding to it.

00;35;35;22 - 00;35;49;07
Vance Morris
That made it better. But in but the key thing is, if you have a team, if you want your employees on board, they got to be engaged in the whole process.

00;35;49;09 - 00;36;00;12
Craig Andrews
Well in advance. This has just been an amazing discussion. I'd love to go another ten, 20, 30 minutes. I just didn't we we got to wrap. Yep. But,

00;36;00;12 - 00;36;03;08
Craig Andrews
I love this, I love it.

00;36;03;08 - 00;36;11;07
Craig Andrews
I love it. I love what you said about. And don't lock yourself in a room and do it by yourself. Pull your team in.

00;36;11;11 - 00;36;15;06
Craig Andrews
That is so essential because they're going to see things that you don't.

00;36;15;06 - 00;36;26;25
Craig Andrews
But I could see people really needing you to kind of guide them through this process. I my guess is you'll get some what might take somebody else 3 or 4 years to get there. You'll probably get them there in less than a year.

00;36;26;27 - 00;36;29;01
Vance Morris
Yeah. Sometimes in a weekend.

00;36;29;04 - 00;36;30;00
Craig Andrews
Wow.

00;36;30;02 - 00;36;31;07
Vance Morris
Okay.

00;36;31;09 - 00;36;33;06
Craig Andrews
So how should people,

00;36;33;06 - 00;36;35;07
Craig Andrews
how can people contact you?

00;36;35;09 - 00;36;35;25
Vance Morris
Yeah. Well,

00;36;35;25 - 00;36;36;15
Vance Morris
I have,

00;36;36;15 - 00;36;37;11
Vance Morris
I have a gift,

00;36;37;11 - 00;36;38;15
Vance Morris
so to speak, for everybody.

00;36;38;15 - 00;36;39;05
Vance Morris
I've got a,

00;36;39;05 - 00;36;46;08
Vance Morris
what I call a hot sheet. And it is 52 ways to wow your customers without breaking the bank.

00;36;46;08 - 00;36;47;05
Vance Morris
So it's one way

00;36;47;05 - 00;36;51;17
Vance Morris
a week. So if you're not the creative type, I got 52 ways for you to wow them.

00;36;51;20 - 00;36;55;15
Vance Morris
Some of them are free, some of them are ridiculously inexpensive.

00;36;55;15 - 00;36;59;21
Vance Morris
And you can find that at wow, 52 ways.com.

00;36;59;23 - 00;37;05;00
Craig Andrews
Wow. Excellent. And I guess you're on LinkedIn and.

00;37;05;03 - 00;37;08;12
Vance Morris
LinkedIn and my website spans morris.com.

00;37;08;14 - 00;37;12;14
Craig Andrews
That's awesome. Well Vance thanks for coming on leaders and legacies.

00;37;12;16 - 00;37;16;12
Vance Morris
My pleasure Craig. Thank you for having me.

00;37;16;12 - 00;37;43;06
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Ally's for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this

00;37;43;06 - 00;37;45;01
Craig Andrews
episode on social media.

00;37;45;03 - 00;38;08;15
Craig Andrews
Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend, or posted on the socials. If you know someone who would be a great guest. Tag them on social media and let them know about the show, including the hashtag leaders and legacies. I love seeing your posts and suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content to make sure you don't miss anything.

00;38;08;17 - 00;38;16;22
Craig Andrews
Please go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up. Ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show. It means a lot to me.

00;38;16;22 - 00;40;18;25
Craig Andrews
It means a lot to my team. If you want to know more, please go to Ally's for me.com. Or follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.