What if you could truly love your business and make it feel magical every day? In this episode of the Establish Yourself® Podcast, I share the life-changing lessons I learned from my time working as a storyteller for upcoming movies at The Walt Disney Studios in California—lessons that helped me craft a joyful business and thriving coaching and consulting practice that works for my life.

🎯 You'll Discover:

• The powerful mindset shift that turns branding into storytelling magic
• Why striving for greatness, not perfection, is the key to sustainable success
• How to create your own version of "business magic"

📝 Next Steps Mentioned:

• Check out the Establish Yourself® Action Club: https://www.greateststorycreative.com/actionclub
• Connect with me on LinkedIn + mention your favorite Muppet! ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/anniefranceschi/ )

#businessmagic #Disneystorytelling #entrepreneurialbalance #brandingtips #coachingtips #consultingtips

 Can you love what you do and feel like the happiest entrepreneur on earth? I think I might have cracked the code. And today I'm going to share three lessons I learned working for Disney that helped me to go on to become a very successful, profitable, and pretty dang happy consultant.

Welcome to the Establish Yourself® Podcast, your guide to elevating your brand, offers, and systems as a coach, consultant, or service provider. I'm Annie Franceschi of Greatest Story Creative®. I'm a brand strategist, author, former Disney storyteller, and forever Muppet fan. If you're ready for next level success, we'll get clear on your brand, package your process, and streamline your systems so you can land quality clients, boost profit, and make time for big dreams in your business and beyond. If you're ready for less confusion and more magic, it's time to establish yourself.

 You know, there is something really magical about taking your kid to Disney. I should know- I'm the original Disney kid. I've been going to Walt Disney world since I was eight years old. And I had the opportunity to take my almost five-year-old son, Leo, to Walt Disney World. And we went looking for the real Buzz Lightyear. Leo got it in his head that he really wanted the real Buzz Lightyear.

And suddenly we started looking in gift shops and Buzz was nowhere to be found. We got on a ride called Toy Story Midway Mania at Disney Hollywood Studios. And Leo and I had the most fun shooting and getting points and having this amazing arcade game. We come out of Andy's room. We enter a toy store and there it is- THE Buzz Lightyear. I pull it off the shelf.

I glance at the price, but you know, we're getting it. I go up to the cashier and I pay for Buzz. And without missing a beat, this cast member- she takes Buzz. She takes him out of the package, and she looks at Leo and she says, Hey, what's your name? And he says, Leo. And she gets a Sharpie out. She gets a Sharpie out and she writes "Leo" on Buzz's foot. And she hands Leo the real Buzz Lightyear.

And I feel like that's something that Disney does so incredibly well- that moment, that magical moment, but that's something that I really set out to put more into my life and specifically, into my business as a consultant. So how do we bring more magic into the work we do, whether you are a coach, a consultant, or a service business owner? If Disney magic is real, why can't it be real for us? You know, there's so many lessons that I have learned when I used to work for the company. I used to work for the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California for about five years, prior to being an entrepreneur for 11 years now. So at the start of my career, I had an amazing opportunity to work in California. And my job was to tell the story of upcoming films like Maleficent and the live action Cinderella.

I would have to take the screenplay and concept art and put together a compelling presentation that can be taken by our president of production to places like Comic-Con and D23. It was a dream job, but it wasn't quite a dream life. So over a decade ago, I got myself the courage to quit and give myself permission to try entrepreneurship. I am once and forever a Disney adult. I am so proud of the time that I was a cast member.

And I'll tell you there isn't a day. That goes by that I don't draw on the experiences and the Disney magic of it, all that I learned. Not just being a fan, but also just having worked behind the scenes. And that's what I wanted to share with you today is, you know, how have I built a profitable and super fun to run consulting practice where. I generally work about 30 hours a week.

I don't have meetings on Mondays and Fridays and I sort of famously take the month of December off to work on the business instead of in the day-to-day of client work. You know, I love what I do except for taxes. I mean, let's be real. But what has shaped how I run my business. It's so much of what I learned from the five years I spent working on the franchise team at Disney.

So let's get into it. I want to teach you some of those lessons that you can take into your work today. Whether you consult or you coach, or you have some other kind of online or service business.

So the first truism that I think about all the time- everything is how you tell the story. I teach this all day long when I speak virtually and in person. Everything is how you tell the story. That, what that means is how you show up and talk about the work you do. And how you talk about your experience and what you have to bring to the table that branding that word choice really matters.

You know, I always explain it like Disney doesn't get to control what we think about it. There's not literally a switch in our heads that they get to pull. You might disagree with that, but the power of their branding, right? So what Disney does to brand themselves is to impact and influence how we feel about that company. So, not everybody loves Disney.

You don't get to fully control that, but it is a beloved global billions of dollar brand for that reason. They really focus on that. And something about that, that I always think about too. Is around niching. You know, I hear people go well, company like Disney doesn't niche. Because they're for everybody. And you'd be completely wrong about that. You know, I've sat in meetings with marketers of the Disney marketing team.

And they're saying this movie is coming out and we're going to position it for this audience or for moms or for college students, or for kids 12 to 17. Absolutely. A company like that succeeds because they niche, they just have huge teams, multimillion dollar marketing budgets. They niche by area. They niche by demographic.

They niche by interest. Absolutely. So this whole conversation about whether or not to niche is kind of moot to me because everything is how you tell the story. And how you talk to the people you want to talk to. So I have this conversation a lot about. Do I need. What are the et cetera, we've all niched to some degree.

It's just how specific are we being? You know, we don't have Disney level teams and money to have all these different ways to target all these different people. So I'm always in the camp of be more specific. Be more clear go after the people that you can really connect the most with. So again, everything is how you tell the story.

Um, you know, I think it really, all this is about being clear about what problems you solve. And making sure that everybody in your world knows that. Because if you tell the story, well, people feel invited into it and become a part of it. So that's the first bit, everything is how you tell the story.

The second lesson I get from Disney, I think about a lot is reminding myself to strive for greatness and not perfection. I really struggle with this.

I am a recovering people pleaser. I just want everyone to like me. There is a meme. That's like Alison Wonderland and Alice is looking at the Cheshire cat and the Cheshire tent says, "we're all mad here." And Alice goes, "at me?" And that resonates with me deeply. But it's something that Disney taught me is Disney magic is very fragile. I was reading a book called "Be Our Guest", which is written by The Disney Institute where they do these workshops for customer service. And they're talking about, if you really think about it, Disney magic. Quote unquote, "is very fragile." You know, all it takes is a rude cast member, a mess on the floor, a bathroom that hasn't been cleaned. Some thing happens in the park that's completely beyond most of Disney's control. Right. That happens. And it breaks the Disney magic that you're having. That's why Disney takes care to empower their employees to do what's called pixie dusting- to add a little bit of magic to say, oh my gosh, you had such a hard day.

Let's here's a gift basket. Or let me get you to meet Elsa, whatever the case may be. So when I, when I read about that and I started thinking, well, yeah, Disney magic is really fragile, even though it's so beloved and so huge to their success as a company. I was like, how do I, how do I apply that?

And what does that tell me? What it tells me is that. Even a company as large as Disney cannot be perfect. So why am I trying to be? I reworded this and I have it right up here. I'm in my office and I wrote on the dry erase board, "disney strives for greatness, not perfection". I'll say that again. Disney strives for greatness and not perfection. So I'm going to take a page out of their book and that's the kind of work I try to do as a consultant.

When I work with my clients, as much as I really want to please people, and I want every experience to be perfect. I acknowledge that there's just always going to be things outside our control. And also as I teach my almost five-year-old son, Leo. "It's okay to make mistakes, you know, to quote Daniel Tiger.

Try to learn from them. Try to fix them. And learn from them too. I never thought I would quote Daniel Tiger, but here we are. It's not even a Disney property. I know you're shocked that I listened to something other than that. But that's the thing- strive for greatness and not perfection. I cannot control everything, releasing that a little bit and embracing the opportunity to surprise and delight.

When you have something go wrong, what can you do to make it better? What can you do to add a little bit of magic or pixie dust? You know, something doesn't go the way you wanted it to, or client has something happened. This disappointing. Strive for greatness, not perfection.

My last thing that I really think a lot about coming out of my Disney experience and I use every day. Is to make your own. Magic. Specifically make your own business magic. Obviously, as I've shared, I am a Disney adult.

I am sitting here in a brand new disney sweatshirt. I just did a trip last week. A week ago, I was doing a solo trip Monday through Wednesday at Disney, all by myself, so I own that. The thing here is to do what makes you happy- to build what is magical for you and for your clients into your business.

So I said all that because I know a lot of my clients like to hear about it. They're excited that I went to Disney. They want to know how my trip was. Some of them are going, "when are you going to do a retreat? When are you going to invite us to come with you?"

You know, Disney as a company is never stopped evolving. And they're always announcing they're changing their theme parks.

Sometimes people get upset about that, right? But they call this Walt Disney coined the term plussing like P L U S so plussing. So what they're always doing at their resorts and at the theme parks and in their movies and everything they do as a company is they're looking how they can plus up- make better, make more magic into what they are doing- what little tweak here, what little tweak there. They're getting feedback from their clients. So I think the thing that I try to take from that is what can I do to plus up my work? To plus up how I work to, Hey, I have this batch December when I'm recording this episode. I can do my planning at Wegmans, which is where I like to co-work, which is like a grocery store coffee shop. Or I could take myself to Walt Disney World. You know which one I chose.

I just told you. So, you know, things like, you know, you want to take December off, you heard that I do that. Do it. I'm have a running list of about 10 people that have told me that they've taken off the month of December, the month of July, a week off every quarter.

We'll talk a little bit about that as episodes progress, but you know, you want to take time off, do it. Create the magic that you want to see. Plus up your business on the inside and on the outside. Don't just surprise and delight your clients, surprise and delight yourself. That's kind of the point of entrepreneurship sometimes. I used to think that I had to inherit the Corporate America. You know, Disney's still a corporate company.

Okay. Spoiler alert. And it was still a corporate job with toxic bosses and things I had to deal with. But I came out of that, that situation originally from having that job and to creating a business and I was working all the time. I was working like crazy and I was inheriting some of the things I thought I had to do. Um, but what I have done over time and plussing up my business and making it better, not only for my clients, but for me is I work less than ever and make more money than ever. Yeah, that's, that's what I'm shooting for and that's, what's making me happy.

So, I have used these maxims. Everything is how you tell the story. Strive for greatness, not perfection and make your own magic to build a multiple six-figure business. I've used it to take myself on retreats to Disney world and also on the Disney cruises. I've used it to drive dozens of repeat clients who have worked with me for many, many years.

And I have taught my clients to use this kind of thinking to step into their authority, to share their new offers, to plan their ideal weeks, and do so many batch Decembers that, you know, I've had to start that note to count. So, you know, if you have been wishing that you loved your business more, I think you should take a page from Disney's playbook.

Remember everything is how you tell the story. Strive for greatness, not perfection. And don't forget to make your own magic.

And if you would like some help and ideas on how to take that kind of action, I lead what's called the Establish Yourself® Action Club. It's inspired by my book, Establish Yourself. This is an expert led community to help you brand, streamline, and grow your greatest and more magical business. And it is opening for the year later this month. You can hop on for early access at greatest story creative.com forward slash action club. But that is the place where I hang out monthly and can share with you ways to plus up your business. And if you want to learn more about what it was like to work for Disney and some of the lessons I use as a consultant to do some of the things I talked about today, that is a great place to come and ask me questions every month.

You also get access to what I call the Vault, and that is full of on-demand trainings, tools, and templates that I use every day to build a six-figure business that I love that actually loves me back. So I hope you'll check it out- Action Club's gonna be a lot of fun. We only open doors once a year and it's actually happening very shortly, so be sure to check it out at greatest story creative.com/action club.

Until then, I want you to know I'm thinking about you and supporting you in any magic you want to add to your business. I'm going to send you some pixie dust. I'll see ya real soon.

   Hey, do you like surprises? Here comes the show's credits, but just like a Marvel movie, stay to the end so you don't miss something fun I put in just for you. Thanks for tuning in to the Establish Yourself® podcast. I'm Annie Franceschi and I want to hear from you. Follow me on LinkedIn. Share your favorite takeaway from today's episode as a comment on my latest post.

Mention your favorite Muppet in your message so I know you're a fan of the show. And for expert branding help, a free consultation and more resources, visit greateststorycreative. com / slash podcast. Now here it is your moment of magic.  

Okay. So in case you need to know, I think the best ever Disney snack is a churro waffle. Yes, it is not Dole whip or a Turkey leg or a Mickey pretzel. It is what's called a churro waffle. These are especially rare. You can only get them on certain cruises on Disney cruise line and at Crystal Palace in Magic Kingdom. These things taste like amazing donuts that are like crusted and cinnamon sugar.

They're a Mickey shape. I may have taken several from the buffet on one of my more recent Disney cruises. These are light years ahead of your average Mickey waffle, and they should be on your goals list. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.