Turning Corporate Experience Into a Speaking Business

Welcome to the Jody Mayberry Show. I'm so excited this episode to introduce to you a new friend of mine, feels like an old friend by now just by hanging out with him a little bit, and that is Dennis Snow. I'll tell you about Dennis, but first, I just wanna welcome him to the show. Dennis, I'm so glad you're here. Yeah. Thanks, Jody. I'm honored to be on the show with you. Well, Dennis, I had heard about you for

years until we finally met. So what a treat for me it was when I host a workshop at UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management, and in the audience is Dennis Snow. And so I wanna get in I I will talk more about that, Dennis, but I wanna tell you that people were telling me when you were there, people would say, you know and hopefully, you take this as a compliment. They would say, next to Lee Cockrell, Dennis Snow is like the Disney speaker. I do take that as a as

a compliment. Yeah. Yeah. Lee is fantastic, of course. But but, yeah, I learned a lot in that workshop. I mean, I took three pages of notes. That was a that was a fabulous workshop that you all put on. Well, thank you. And we talked about you afterwards because I was so impressed. We had never met. I knew you who you were. We had never met. And in the at the end of this workshop, we had the talk back session, the question and answer. Right. And Dennis asked us a question

about using stories. And afterwards, I was like, guys, can you believe it? Dennis Snow asked us a question about using stories in his presentations when he's known as one of the best Disney speakers. And Bob Allen said, oh, you just gotta

know that's Dennis. That's how he is. He's just always trying to get better. Yeah. Well, you guys did a great job. And like I said, I I learned a lot and made me question some of the things that I'm doing. I'm making tweaks on things. So that's when you know you have a great workshop when people actually do what you talked about. You know? Yeah. I love it that someone like you can go, and it's not just entertaining, and hopefully it was, but it's good enough to

write down three pages of notes. Yeah. It was it was great. So and I knew everybody that was teaching the workshop too, so that was fun. I knew you from a distance, but, you know, I knew everybody else pretty well from my my Disney days. Yeah. That's right. And I don't think I've talked about it on this show. So I'll just mention that workshop was called Stories That Work, and Lee Cockrell gave an opening talk. And then Dwan Rivers and myself, we gave a talk

together followed by Rick and Bob Allen, gave a talk together. It was so much fun, and the room was full of the audience was just great. The questions we had, the feedback, a lot of smiling faces. And I know you understand that, Dennis. It it makes it so much easier when you look out and people are smiling at you. Yeah. Well, you had a full room too, and that that was great. The room was full. And it really did look like you guys were having fun up there. So, I appreciated

that because that makes a difference too. Yes. Well, it made a difference for us. It felt like it made a difference for the audience. And I wanna talk about speaking because that's what you're known for. That's the first time we met in person. I was one of the speakers, and you built such a great reputation as a speaker, but I think it goes back for years. When I was going through your history with Disney, and I saw what you did with

Disney University, Disney Institute. I'm like, oh my goodness. This was no wonder Dennis ended up such a great speaker. It's almost like your Disney career set you up for that. And that wasn't by design. It really it really wasn't. I just I feel very fortunate. I feel very, very fortunate. I was, I I grew up in Vermont, and I was on a break from college. And I was looking for something to do for a summer job. And my dad reminded me that when I was young, we went on a vacation to Florida, went

to Disney World. He said, you love Disney World. Why don't you try and get a summer job down there? Alright. Why not? So I came down. I was 19, and, I got a summer job working. The the ride isn't there anymore, but it was called 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It was a, you know, simulated

submarine ride based on the based on the movie. And I just fell in love with the place. You know, I just thought this is the greatest thing ever. So I ended up transferring to school down here in Orlando, And, what was gonna be a three month job turned into a twenty year career, did the the attractions as an attraction operator, then got into management as a supervisor, and, then, as you said, went to the Disney University. And that's where I really

fell in love with the whole public speaking thing. It was just I felt like I'd found my purpose in life, you know, doing that. And we spun off a division called the Disney Institute, which I know you're familiar with, where companies would come down to benchmark with us. And my last several years with Disney, that's what I did, teaching programs. And so at twenty years, I thought, well, that's a good round number. I I've always wanted to have my own company, so I decided to go out on my own.

And when I left, I made sure I didn't burn any bridges because if I needed to come back, I wanted to be able to come back easily and, just fell in love with doing my own thing. But it really all goes back to that Disney foundation. I learned so much in that twenty year career, and and, like I said, I feel very fortunate. I know when we just we say it so casually, twenty years at Disney, and it lumps so much into one small statement like that. But twenty years is such a long time. And

I It is. Yeah. And I'm sure we focused on the Disney Institute, Disney University. What are some other roles you had at Disney or times at Disney that come to mind? Yeah. Well, certainly that 20,000 leagues under the sea. It was just cool. You know? It was just a fun thing to work on the rides. Now after that, they did send me to work at It's a Small World, you know, and I heard that song eight hours a

day. And I can't you know, I have grandkids now. I can't even walk by the place, you know, and and without hearing that song and getting a little twitch. So I did that, and I think the benefit of that frontline position is you really learned how to deal with people. You know, you really learn the ins and outs of dealing with people with very high expectations. Doesn't take a lot to screw up a vacation. Right? I can't tell you how many times I was held accountable for the

rain, all kinds of things. But that's the deal. That's the job. So learning that as a at a young age, those lessons stayed with me. And and as you know, Disney has some pretty strict rules and regulations about how you are going to treat the guests and keep the park clean and all of those things. So learning that at you know, as a teenager and in my young twenties was great. And then when I got into management supervisor, my first management position was the greatest title

I ever had. I was the supervisor of Fantasyland. You know? That that title doesn't get better than that. So then it was about, okay, taking what I learned as that frontline cast member. Now as a leader, you know, keeping that going in terms of, you know, how do you make sure those things are happening every day and keeping your people engaged? And then taking that learning, you know, from went over to EPCOT and worked over there in a leadership in a

supervisory position. So it just kept going. And it like I said, it wasn't by design. When I went to the Disney University, now it was teaching those things. So it was a logical next step. And then with the Disney Institute, it was another logical next step of how do you get other organizations to buy into it. So I would like to say it was all by design and look how smart I am, but it really wasn't. You know? It was it was I was very,

very fortunate. And I was lucky to have some terrific leaders along the way that were real role models for me, of which Lee was one of them, of course. We worked together for a short time when, when I was with the Disney Institute. He was a leader or that that included the Disney Institute. And, so I learned a lot from him, but I had some great leaders that I would you know, they did not necessarily take me under my under their wing. But just by observation, you can see

the elements of what it took to be a strong leader. So yeah. Yeah. I'm a I'm a fortunate I'm I'm, you know, I'm getting older and older, and I look back and I say, I'm a really fortunate guy. Well, we already mentioned how the roles that you had set you up perfectly for your post Disney career. So you said 20 was a good round number. I've always wanted to have my own business. I'm gonna go for it. Did

you take so so much of what Dennis talks about is Disney related because twenty years is a long time. Dennis learned a lot. Dennis learned how to teach that. So now, Dennis, you teach to organizations. You're a great speaker. When you knew you were gonna start your own business, I'm kinda curious of that. You have twenty years of wonderful experience, all this knowledge. Tell us a little bit about taking the twenty years and transforming

it into these are going to be my presentations. This is what I can teach to organizations because it's it is not easy to take twenty years of experience and Yeah. Make it teachable. You're absolutely right. And I I you know, it started out really as a consulting business. I was going to do long term consulting with organizations. But what happened was the first few clients that I was working with, they asked me if I could

speak at various conferences and do some training and so forth. And that's what I really fell in love with, was that part of the job. But one of the first things I did was what were the core learnings from that twenty years? What are the things that really had the biggest impact on me? And how can I translate those those for other companies? And, of course, the Disney Institute experience helped with that. But what really got it going for me was when I wrote a book called Lessons from the Mouse.

And I wrote 10 lessons, 10 things that I really had to think out. Because when you write a book, I mean, you're thinking about every single word. I think everybody should write a book, by the way, because it really does make you solidify your thought process around whatever your passion is, and that's what it did. So it made me really think through these 10 very specific lessons. Like, never let backstage come on stage. And as you know from your experience with Disney, that's a

big deal. You know? The onstage is onstage and backstage is backstage. So I thought about, okay. What does that mean? Then how does that translate to other organizations, you know, like a hospital or a law firm or, you know, just about any other organization? And what I found is it really does translate. You know, there there's nuances based on the industry, but I found that people really could

latch on to those Disney principles. You know? That most of them you know, most people have been there before, or at least they know about it, and they really latch on to those Disney principles. And if you can help them make that bridge between Disney and what they do, you know, they feel like, okay. We can do this. You know, we we can do this. So I guess it was a a transition from thinking about it from a consulting standpoint to more of a

principle and delivery standpoint. And then as, you know, as you know as a speaker yourself, you refine your message. Right? Every time you do it, you refine your message. So trust me, I made many mistakes along the way. And, you know, there was these times I came off stage, and I think, well, that part didn't go real well. But that's the career. Right? That's how you get better

at what you do. And that's why you go to programs like you all did on the storytelling session because you could always get better. Again, I know I've said it, but I I was just so impressed that you were there for one, and then to find out you're taking notes. And I've seen that with Lee Cockrell as well. As long as he's been doing it, the positions he's had and his age, he still thinks I've got so much to learn. And he still goes to

workshops. He goes to presentations. He just was this week telling me about one that he was at, and the guy had said some things he hadn't thought about. Maybe we should do some changes based on what he'd just learned, and I thought and this yes. It it creates a little more work for me. Also, it is wonderful that Lee's done what he's done, and he's still out there learning and making changes. And I see that in you, and it it's so

encouraging. Yeah. It's a fun career. Yeah. I see Lee in the coffee shop pretty regularly, and it's always good to catch up with him. Here's what here what he's up to. So yeah. Yeah. Well, that that is great. Now one of the things you you were talking about, you have these Disney principles, and now you help bridge when you understand what the other organization

does. What that made me think about, I was lucky enough to partner with Dan Cockrell in the five and a half years between his career at Disney and Tilly took this newer role in Australia. And when one of the questions or comments or pushbacks he got quite often was, yeah, that works at Disney. You've got all that staff. You've got all that money. You've got all that pixie dust, but I don't know if that would work here. Have you Right. Heard that over the years? Yeah. I hear that all the time.

And, you know, the the answer that I wouldn't say to somebody because it's kind of a smart mouth answer is Disney doesn't

do those things because they're Disney. You know? They're Disney because they did those things. So they did those things during the hard times. You know, when Disneyland first opened, you know, it was a struggle. And because of the experience that they were creating, that's why it became Disneyland, you know, Disneyland that everybody knows, and the same thing with Disney World.

So, you know, you have to have the discipline to recognize this is the right thing to do if you're gonna differentiate yourselves. And one of the things that I try and stress with organizations is the principles are universal. So my belief is we all want three things. As customers, we would want three things. We want you to do the job right. We want you to be efficient while you're doing it, and we want you to be nice to

us. Those are the three things. If you do what you said you were going to do and you do it very well, you make it easy to do business with you and you're nice to me, I'm gonna be loyal to your company. I don't care if you're a law firm, a hospital, or a grocery store.

Those apply to everybody. Now the way Disney does it is through shows and events, you know, and putting entertainment in the lines and with the different technology so you don't have to wait in line to make it as long to make it efficient, being nice, you know, the Disney courtesy, the park being clean for the accuracy, you know, doing the job right. You know, that's how Disney does it. Now how you might do it as a hospital,

the small details might be different, but the principles don't change. And so when you start talking that way, people say, you know what? You're right. You're right. This you know, if if I'm in a hospital, we need to do the job right. You know? We need to be easy to deal with. And people are in their most vulnerable state when they're in a hospital, so it is important for us to be nice to people and treat them well. So now let's talk about what is the what do those things mean

in a hospital? So when someone hears what you do or well, let me come up with a a hypothetical. So there's a small business owner. Let's say they own a corner drugstore because I live in a small town. I love going to Don's Pharmacy. It's just a drugstore that's been downtown forever. So they find out what you do and maybe they did a customer survey or overheard people talking and realize, gosh, our customer experience is underwhelming. Yeah. And they happen to sit next to

you on the bus. And they say, Dennis, I've read your two books. I've heard you talk. My customer experience is underwhelming. What can I do right now to improve that? So I'm a big believer in bringing our team together. You know? I think our frontline people, they deal with our customers every day. They know what the issues are. They know what the challenges are, and they have fabulous ideas. So what I would say is

bring your team together and ask this question. What are three things we would want our customers to say about their experience with us? Because that makes you zero in on what you want your differentiator to be. So what are three things you would want them to say about us? So if I were to ask this at Disney, they might say something like, it was a magical experience. You know, we want guests to say that. They paid attention to every detail.

They made us feel special. Okay? So what are the three things in a drugstore? It may be the place was immaculate, the employees were very helpful, and they cared about me. But let's just say that. So those are the three things that we want our customers to say. So what you've really just done is define what you want your brand to be. Right? Because your brand is what people say and think about you. So

you've defined what you want your brand to be. Now once you've defined those three things, so what has to happen in our drugstore in order for people to say those things? So if we want people to say, wow. They were really helpful, then we need to greet them when they come in the door. We need to try and remember things about them with repeat customers. We need to help them find things in the drugstore rather than pointing to where the item

is. So all those behaviors now start falling into place once you've defined what do we want the experience to be. So that's something that you can do tomorrow in your organization just to have that. All you need is really a flip chart, you know, or or a piece of paper to brainstorm all this stuff on. And what you've done is you've defined your culture, but you've also engaged your people in defining that culture.

So we're all in this together now, and, you know, that's a great great launching pad for just raising the bar of the experience. I like how you put that because your team can get behind that. Rather than just say, look. We can do better. To be able to say this, I like that almost creates the purpose of why we're doing what we do. Because if you know these are the three things we want our customers to say, well, now you know what you can do to get there. And I think that

maybe that's a missing piece sometimes is just saying, hey. We can do better. There's like, you can't define that. We can do better than this. Right. Yeah. We need to do better, but what does that mean? You know, behaviorally, what does that mean? And, again, I think our people know the answers. If you say, you know, what if we want our customers to say the place was immaculate, you know, the store was immaculate, what do we need to do

that lead them to say that? Your people will know. They'll come up with the answers on, what needs to happen. So you've got the buy in. You know? You've got the energy behind it. You know, we talk about employee engagement all the time. And I think sometimes we turn it into a

program instead of a a real tool. And the way to turn it into a real tool is engage your people in how do we get better. That's employee engagement. You know, that's real employee engagement and and engaging them in how we get better at what we do. Well, to tie what you're talking in now into speaking, you talked about coming to the workshop, taking three pages of notes, and reevaluating. So I know that happens. People come see your presentations.

They take notes. They say we need to do these things. What do you do if you're just giving a one time talk instead of ongoing consultation? What's the key if someone comes to one of your talks, takes three pages of notes, find some areas they need to work on, how do you take that excitement, that motivation from being at a Dennis Snow talk and then actually implementing it in the workplace? Right. Well, you know, some of it is just follow-up too.

You know, some folks, they wanna do a follow-up call with the leadership team. But one of the things I always try and do to help with what you're talking about is to provide tools that they can take away from the presentation and apply as soon as they get back. So I try and give them,

you know, tangible things. So when I talk about the concept of looking at everything through the lens of the customer, you know, and how do you do that, I provide them a service mapping tool that I walk them through during the session that they can take back and implement it with their teams. For each of the key principles, I provide those tools. Now, ultimately, it is up to them, right, to actually do it. But I try to make it as easy as possible

to make that happen. As I said, I don't do that much consulting anymore because I'm getting old. You know? So I don't do that that that much consulting anymore. So that would be the ideal, you know, if then you go in with a company and you do ongoing consulting. But I do try to set them up for success with what they need. And the other thing I try and do and not everybody takes advantage of it, but I say, you know, if you ever wanna call me, feel

free to reach out to me. I'm I'm happy to talk about this stuff all day long with somebody. So I I do try to set them up for success. Yeah. That's wonderful. Okay. So you started your speaking career. You wrote lessons from the mouse. That really helped. That was, like, the tipping point for you. And then just a few years ago, you wrote unleashing excellence. So tell us about how did you realize, okay. One book wasn't enough. I've got more in me. Talk

about that process. Yeah. So it actually goes back to your question about what do you do afterwards. So it goes back to that. I actually cowrote, Unleashing Excellence with a colleague, named Terry Janovich. I don't know if you know Terry, but, I I cowrote it with her. But it helped to answer that question of what what do we do now. So it's more of a how to book, a how to manual of okay. If this is what we want the experience to be, how do we hire people that are wired to deliver that? How do we

communicate how do we onboard people and train them? How do we communicate relentlessly? What are some accountability processes that we can put into place? How do we identify obstacles and do something about them? So what we tried to do with the book was give a blueprint. If you follow this model consistently and don't leave any of the pieces out because they're all important, you're going to have a culture of service excellence. So it was it was really, again, going back to your question of of

how do we set them up for success. That was one of the ways was through through that book, Unleashing Excellence. So I don't like to call it a textbook because that sounds really boring, you know, but I I think it's an engaging book. But it really is a here's the manual of if you do these things, you're going to

have that service culture. And what a great compliment to the other work you're doing that you can be on stage, talk about the bigger picture, and then that they can have this book to take back and actually work through it. Right. It does highlight the hard work, though. You know? So

when people start reading it, sometimes they're thinking, oh my god. This is there's a lot to do. But that's where the discipline comes into play. Right? You know, if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. And that's why just a handful of companies really stand out to most people that they're really, really loyal to. It's because those are the companies that have put in the hard work. They've got the discipline. They've engaged their employees, and,

the payoff doesn't necessarily come immediately. You have to be in it for the long term. You know? So and I'm I know you've seen this too. So many organizations, they'll have flavor of the month programs. K. This year, we're focused on service. You know? Well, you've gotta be focused on it always. You know? It's not a one year program. It's it's the type of thing that has to be ongoing.

Yeah. Well, Dennis, this has been great. I'm so glad we were able to meet in person at the workshop, which led to us talking today. And I know when people hear you talk, they're very interested in learning more. So where can we go to find out more about you and what you're up to? Yeah. The best thing that we we try and use our website as the hub for everything. So it's www.snowassociates.com. Snow associates, all 1 word, Com. And that links

to yeah. I mean, they could see videos of of me in action, but we also have articles up there. We have a a YouTube channel that you can link to from there with you know, we try to put out regular videos about different topics that are pertinent, usually five minutes long. You know, five minute videos, blog posts, and so forth. I have an online training program, a virtual training program that they can link to, But we try to use the the

website as the hub. But my phone number, if, people ever wanna call, because, again, I'm always happy to talk about these things, is (407) 294-1855. And that's, here in Orlando, Florida. That's so wonderful that you do that. You and Lee Cockrell are the only two people I know that are bold enough to put your phone number in a book, say your phone number on a podcast, and encourage people to call. But maybe you have found this. Lee has told me very few people actually do

it. He's absolutely right. I don't know why, but he's absolutely right. I know Lee is a very generous person, and I like to think I am too. So I love it when people call, and they say, hey. I just wanna pick your brain. Okay. Now sometimes that might turn into business. Many times, it does not. But those are the types of of moments of giving back that again, going back to what I said earlier about how fortunate I feel that the way things have played out for

me, that's just a way of giving back. And I'm not saying my point of view and and what I share is always correct, and I always say, no. I'm talking about this from my perspective. But that's the way I try and give back from where I came from. Yeah. Well, it's wonderful. It's been a great talk with you. And go check out Dennis's website. Check out the books. I I know you won't be disappointed. His short five minute videos are

wonderful. I'm I'm glad you put those out there, Dennis. It's been great talking with you. Great talking with you. Thank you so much again. It's been an honor, to be on the show. Alright. Thank you, Dennis, and thank you for listening to the Jody Mayberry Show. He's always up for a chinwag when you've got somewhere to be. It's Sugar Jay.