3 Things We Can Learn From Disneyland
By Ryan Chipperfield
I have been fortunate enough in my lifetime to have been able to visit Disneyland, those who know me well, know I am actually a little obsessed and have spent over 12 days in the two parks in California across 6 different trips! Perfectly marketed as ‘The Happiest Place on Earth’. Disneyland is special because you cannot pinpoint exactly why you are enjoying yourself so much, but it is just an overall feeling that comes over you and it is driven from their exceptional eye for detail. Disney is a 180-billion-dollar company. Amazingly, despite all the major blockbuster movies and merchandise, the parks division comprises over 33% of the company’s revenue annually. It just shows the importance of the ‘experience’ and how we are all talking still about the move to online, better yet one of the biggest businesses in the world is showing us that the real time experience matters more than ever.
The ‘experience’ is what I am trying to build my business around. Blue Chip Talent is an experience business, because without our Talent’s happiness, matched by the brands we serve and their happiness we don’t have an experience at all. That is what a service business is like, a consistent battle between taking care of people in the way you want them to be treated, all whilst trying to earn your keep in the process.
So, what else can we learn from Disneyland? How can I apply this to my own business?
The word ‘staff’ does not exist within Disneyland
Disney refer to their team as a ‘Cast’. They believe that everyone contributes to the overall production and they want that production group to feel like they are part of it all. Each day thousands of cast members are transported for free from their cast parking on the free cast shuttle bus to be part of the show. It doesn’t matter if you are the cleaner or the actress playing Cinderella – you are a cast member.
Disneyland wants every single person to get on their favourite attraction at least once
Disney invented a ‘Fast Pass’ which essentially eliminates the pressure of the line-up system. Everyone knows how waiting in theme park lines can be debilitating. The Fast Pass is a free service included in your ticket price which allows you to pre-book the ride you want and jump the cue at your nominated return time. You truly can get on every ride at least once by using this effective tool. The parallel in business to this feature is by making sure you address the customer’s needs and give them what they want. Too many brands tell the customers what they want and not look at the analytics to see what the actual behaviour of the customer is.
Think retail is dead? Head to Downtown Disneyland’s merchandise store
Every week I read more and more about the slow death of brick and mortar retail. Brands blaming the economy for the lack of adaption to what was changing in front of their eyes. Yet relevant, modern brands are selling better than ever. Content is king, not only for social media but for your merchandise. Disney makes high quality apparel with graphics people want to see and it literally is flying off the shelves. Try make a sharp turn in a Disney store, it is impossible. The place is packed from 9am in the morning to midnight with people who have just had the best day of their year and want to commemorate that experience with something they can keep. If you make something of quality, keep it in the realms of normal pricing, give people an experience to remember and make it accessible to everyone – it will sell, no matter the economy.
Why I put my businesses through the ‘Moneyball’ test
By Ryan Chipperfield
I often get asked what books, podcasts and movies I turn to for inspiration in business and no sooner than the question is finished I have the word Moneyball coming out of my mouth.
I am sure 90% of the population believe Moneyball to be just about Baseball and this is fair enough, but really it is about the business of Baseball and the beautiful thing about business is, in a lot of cases it is totally universal with an array of similarities. Some of my best learnings and inner resilience comes from what I saw in this movie and broadly speaking it is not one commonly mentioned by entrepreneurs. Here is what I took from it specifically:
“Do we believe in this thing or not”
When things are all going south after implementing their new structure, the two implementers in the movie look at each other and ask this question. It is a simple question, but one all new business owners should ask themselves. Because if the answer is anything but ‘hell yes!’ then you haven’t got yourself into the right business and you either need to look elsewhere or pivot, quickly! What I loved about this point in time is they then go on to realise that if they believe in it so much, then what do other opinions matter? They are doing something no one else has done before and it is irrelevant what others think. Everyone in your family, friends and networks are going to doubt you at times in your business – so the question is, do you believe in your thing or not?
“If we play like the Yankees in here, we are going to lose to them out there”
I cannot stress the importance of doing your own thing. The amount of businesses that try to replicate their way to success and fail are too many to count. When you are taking someone else’s vision, ideas and initiatives you are going to be late to the party. If you try to do what they do only, your inspiration will always be the chase and when you are the chaser it becomes impossibly hard to lead. You hear a lot of businesses say: “all you need is 1% of China”. This implies that if they can just get some market share of the bigger fish, they will be successful. The problem is the modern consumer demands ownership and authenticity of what you do, they go to the source of the inspiration and don’t just buy from the challenger brand. The perfect example we have of this in recent times in Australia was Masters. They tried to take on Bunnings by doing it all the same, the problem was that we already knew and loved Bunnings and everyone knew it was an imitation. 2 billion dollars in write-downs later, Masters exited the market never to be seen again.
“I pay you to get on first, not to get thrown out at second”
To the non-baseball fans out there, this is the GM asking his player to just get on first base. Play to the statistics and work hard at their craft. The issue on the team was everyone was trying to make moonshot high risk plays and hit home runs, when the reality about how you win baseball games is by getting on base. Business is very much the same, we are all obsessed with the big, shiny new accounts but quite simply, consistent, long term accounts can be the most valuable. You win sport by throwing plenty of jabs and not just going for the KO all the time and you should treat your business the same way. I recently drove past a brand-new drive thru fast food restaurant, they had a line up of cars around the block and clearly were at capacity – but they still paid a guy to stand on the side of the road, trying to wave down more cars. You are never too good to keep marketing, keep pitching, keep servicing your customers, keep fighting for every dollar and keep being good to your people. These things are always going to be the things that drive you forward for growth, so just remember – there is nothing wrong with getting on first base and it is a hell of a lot better than getting struck out!
So, if you haven’t already, put your TV on and get Moneyball on your screen. There is so much a business owner can learn from it and something I truly recommend to you all.
Enjoy!
Ryan Chipperfield
Managing Director – Blue Chip Talent
Setting your rates for Social Media
By Ryan Chipperfield
One of the most common questions we experience as a Talent Agency is ‘what do I charge?’. Whilst I would love to write you an article that clearly articulates this - there are too many things to consider. At the end of the day, it is all about choosing a rate that works for you rather than receiving a cookie cutter answer from us at Blue Chip Talent.
Article Ends.
Just kidding, let’s help you figure out a rate! The best way to start this is by looking at a rate guide which shows the market trends for what Influencers are charging. For example:
Less than 10k following: Up to 100 dollars per post
10-40k following: 400 – 1200 dollars per post
40-100k following: 1200-3500 dollars per post
100-250k following: 3500 - 7000 dollars per post
However, these numbers are purely a guideline of what industry rates are at the moment and much more needs to be factored into your quoting for brands. Consider the following:
Are you comfortable with that amount of money? Will receiving it make you feel happy and satisfied with the work you have done and not make you feel like you received under your value? If you believe you are worth much more, then simply charge that – if brands choose not to pay that is their decision. The flip side is you will just have to be comfortable in the fact you will miss out on a few campaigns with brands that are not able to finance that rate sufficiently or do not believe that the pricing is fair market value. The positive to missing out on some campaigns is you will not have ‘polluted’ your feed as much for other brands and less partnerships makes them feel more genuine to your followers.
Is Social Media your primary place of notoriety? If you’re an Athlete, the reality is for most, that Social Media is not your primary place of influence. Rather, your fame comes above the line in Print/Radio/TV etc. As a result your audience on Socials may not reflect your actual audience. Consequently, you need to be charging higher rates because you will have sponsors that are paying more and out of respect to them you must keep your pricing structures fair for those that are backing you in for success. Athletes tend to always have high engagement rates also due to the nature of their lifestyle and professional images so this can be factored in when explaining a price to your lead. A lot of the time new athletes’ sponsorships get picked up by the media and this can be mentioned as an added, non-guaranteed bonus for your customer.
What is the workload required to produce this content? If the brand stipulates that you must do several things, examples including travelling to a shopping centre, sending drafts for approvals, attending an event etc. Then your pricing structure needs to value you for your time as well. The best way to work this out, is by having a ‘day-rate’ in your head for what you would expect to earn in a day over 8 hours and then by doing a pro-rata of how much time from that is required and adding that to your quote for the post itself. You should be paid for your time.
If you are looking for more long-term relationships and less one post stands, then you need to reward loyalty. This can be done by offering a discount if the brand you work with opts to share multiple posts. For example, $300 per post or $250 dollars per post for 3, if booked in advance. Producing content for a regular brand customer is much easier and by you rewarding loyalty, your brand you work for will see benefits also as your followers will build familiarity with them. Three posts are the perfect way to get them more traction with your audience and guarantee more success in a return on investment capacity.
Finally, is the product/service an actual fit for your following? If you know something could be seen as a paid promotion by your following, then you want to make sure you are getting well rewarded for it. The posts where people know it is a sponsored one always effect your analytics, so it is important you are compensated for this. The more ‘salesy’ the post is the more your rate should increase. To do this, put up your rate by 50-100% and being prepared to sit it out if they do not meet the rate is the best way to be.
As an agency, we take care of the ugly side of negotiation for our Talents so that they can sit back and relax whilst hustle. We always paint them in the best light, so we can play bad cop and make sure they get the right deal whilst respecting that we have two key customers: the talent and the brand. 20% is a small price to pay when you are getting what you are worth and having someone else take care of the hassle for you. From a brand perspective paying an agency gives you the comfort in knowing 1.) you will get the work you paid for 2.) it will be delivered on time and 3.) it will fit to the specified brief. As an influencer it also gives you peace of mind that you are not going to face any adversity in the contracts/paperwork etc. As an agency we also invoice for our Talents and take care of the financials, so they can just sit back and get the money straight into their account. If you do work with an agency, make sure you stipulate with them what their expectations are about being paid for deals that didn’t come through them - all agencies have different views on this. Ours is that if we didn’t do the work, we cannot expect the rewards. But we respectfully ask our talents to pass on their incoming correspondence to make sure it is handled the right way and if they do, they get a much lower commission rate from us as a thank you, we also pay a commission to them if other Blue Chip Talent’s get selected as a thank you! Some of our talents earn hundreds of dollars each month passively for just passing their correspondence on to us.
Be brave and know your worth. Get what you deserve for your troubles on Social Media and remember that the worst thing that can happen in a brand discussion is that they pass on the rate you have set. Truly a first world problem so keep calm and back yourself in to get the right result.
Good luck,
Ryan Chipperfield
Managing Director – Blue Chip Talent