The Mouse That Can Teach You Everything You Need to Know About Business
Entrepreneur Office Hours - Issue #226
I’m at a conference in Orlando this week. My family is with me, and, as you read this, there’s a good chance I’ll be in Disney World.
Are you jealous? You shouldn’t be. I’m probably standing in a line.
As I stand in these absurd Disney lines for hours on end, I’ll almost certainly be thinking about a funny exchange I witnessed between my 5-year-old daughter and a couple of older ladies. They were in my hotel’s lobby chatting with her in a grandmotherly sort of way when one of the women kindly asked: “If you could spend $10 dollars on anything in Disney, what would it be?”
In my head, I laughed. $10 in Disney? My daughter would be lucky to buy a bottle of water.
And therein lies the real magic of the Disney empire. As the father of two little girls — five and eight — everything about Disney feels like it’s explicitly designed to extract every dollar from my wallet. But the amazing thing is that it does so in the most magical way possible by making me happy to do it.
To be clear, I’m not happy to do it because I personally get value from wearing princess ball gowns and standing in hour-long lines. Instead, I’m happy to do it because spending money at Disney for my daughters feels like I’m making happy memories for people I love.
At the end of the day, an ability to create positive emotions is the most powerful force in business and entrepreneurship. Creating something that makes your customers feel great about buying from you is how to build a lasting business empire. For proof, look no father than the Mouse.
-Aaron
This week’s new articles…
The Only Customer Acquisition Strategy That Always Works for New Startups
Getting your first customers is going to be hard, but it gets easier when you understand how to target the rights types of people.
Are You Prepared to Pay the Real Price of Startup Success?
Every founder wants to build successful companies, but very few of them realize what they’re actually hoping for.
Office Hours Q&A
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QUESTION:
Dear Mr. Dinin –
I discovered you on Instagram and have since been enjoying your wonderful newsletter. I wish you had been my professor in college, and I am genuinely envious of students who get to take your classes.
Seeing everything you post online has made me curious about you. What motivates you to post to social media? It is very unusual for someone in your position to be so vocal on these platforms. I am considering pursuing my Ph.D. as well, so I wonder whether or not I should consider a similar approach for myself if I ultimately decide to become a professor.
In any case, I don’t expect you will respond, and that’s OK. More than anything, I just wanted to thank you for all you do posting so much on these platforms.
Sincerely,
Frederico
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I appreciate the kind words. I’m glad you find my posts valuable.
Regarding your messages, I’m reading your question as two questions: 1) what motivates me to post on social media; and 2) should someone pursuing an academic career bother with it?
Let’s take them in order, starting with what motivates me to post.
I actually have the answer to this question in my Instagram bio:
I know the “posting here because it’s the best way to reach my students at 1am on a Tuesday night” line seems like a cheeky joke. And, of course, to some extent, it is. But there’s also a lot of truth in it.
The bottom line is young people today are learning in a completely different way. We can’t make them learn how we want them to learn. Instead, we have to adapt to them and their preferences.
Posting on social media is me adapting. It’s the best way to reach my students wherever they are.
As for whether or not you should post on social media as an academic, I believe that the number one purpose of colleges and universities is to create knowledge and share it with the world. What’s the best way to share something with the world?
Social marketing, of course!
From there, it’s just simple logic. If your personal goal, as an academic, is to create and disseminate knowledge into the world, then your best option is social media.
By the way, the same is roughly true for entrepreneurs. If the purpose of entrepreneurship is to create things that have genuine value for people out in the world, then the best way to reach those people you’re trying to help is probably via social media. In other words, if you’re an entrepreneur not leveraging social media, what’s wrong with you?????
Got startup questions of your own? Reply to this email with whatever you want to know, and I’ll do my best to answer!
