Our agencies are bound by a set of values or beliefs. But I don’t think we often think about how we make sure that we are really transparent about how we’re living those beliefs. I’m wondering how you visibly live out those values, to show to your team and your clients that those values are something that are really meaningful to you and that you’ve made a commitment. By the way — that’s regardless of the inconvenience or the cost to honor that and to be true to that.
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Hey, everybody. Drew McLellan here from Agency Management Institute this week coming to you from Walt Disney World down in Florida. If you know me at all or you've been following AMI at all, you know that I am a huge fan of Disney and there are a lot of reasons for it. I could do a 50 minute video on just that. But one of the reasons I love Disney so much is I appreciate and value the way they lean into their values.
When they believe something is important, they go all in. So since 2018, they've made a commitment to try and be a part of the fight against human trafficking. And so since 2018, they instituted a new rule, which quite honestly is a guest in one of their hotels, is kind of a pain in the rear end. And I know it cost them a ton of money.
But the rule is that every hotel room on Disney property must be entered by a staff member. Security, housekeeping, maintenance. Someone has to be in every room every single day. So they literally are going to check in with you and find out what time you would like them to come into the room or they just pop in unexpectedly,
they knock on the door. And their goal is to make sure that no one is harboring a minor in a room that isn't with them or isn't a family member isn't meant to be with them. So I have incredible respect for the fact that they have made that commitment, both in terms of knowing that they're going to annoy their guests a little bit and also the expense of staffing that I mean, they have dozens of hotels with thousands and thousands of rooms on property.
And so that's not a small ask for them to make sure that they can keep that commitment. And they've done it consistently since they decided to start it in 2018. Got me thinking about how do we demonstrate to our audience that we live our values. Most agencies have a set of core values, whether they're implied and you've never talked about them or they're posted on a wall somewhere and you talk about them every day.
But we we are all bound by a set of values or beliefs. But I don't think we often think about how do we make sure that we are really transparent about how we're living those beliefs. And so I'm wondering, what's your version of knocking on the hotel room every day to live out that value, to show that to your team and your clients that those values are something that are really meaningful to you and that you've made a commitment. Again, regardless of the inconvenience or the cost to honor that and to be true to that.
So just a little bit of food for thought as we approach the holiday season and the New Year. New Year would be a great time to talk to your team about how you can make your values come more alive and how you can make sure that they are very front and center for all the audiences that matter to you.
All right. I'll see you next week.
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