By Tim Turner

Summer is a great time to pause and refresh by taking a vacation. My wife Melissa and I have been so blessed to be able to go on an annual anniversary trip.  Well to rewind, the first few years were just dinner out, not a trip.  We have over the years as the kids gotten older worked our way up to bigger trips like Quebec, Napa, and St. Lucia.  Our in-laws come to spend time with their grand-kids while we go on our trip.

This year for our 24th anniversary we took a trip to Italy and Greece. I could fill pages telling you about the incredible food, beautiful views, and all the historical sites.  For this article, I want to focus on the idea of what it means to “pause and refresh”… and slow down.

As a coffee drinker, I love going to Europe because there is a cafe ready to serve you top quality coffee about every 25 feet. You think Starbucks is everywhere… go to Italy and count the number of places you can get espresso and cappuccino. Even if you stop at a “rest area” by the highway, they have no coffee “to go” cups.  Instead they have a $30,000 coffee machine just like in the cafes with a real person making high quality espressos and cappuccinos. In a gas station, people were 15 deep to belly up to the “bar” to get an espresso before continuing on their way. There were no instant press-a-button coffee machines there to quickly fill a cup and run… No, they paid a skilled person to be there and run a high end espresso machine. In a gas station.

One tidbit you might not know is that in Italy they don’t ever serve coffee in a “to go” cup. In fact, they don’t even have “to go” cups.  Trust me.  I asked. I asked at many places. I asked at small cafes. I asked at espresso bars and street carts. I asked at high end hotel restaurants. “No no no” I kept being told. This was very odd to me. We had a rental car and needed to hit the road. I need my

Hotel Grande Fasano in Lake Garda area of northern Italy

coffee for the trip. “No no no Senore”.

Our rental car was an Audi and i

t had no cup holders. Let me repeat that… NO cup holders.   Why? because Italians don’t drink coffee to go and they don’t drink anything while driving. I think because it takes too much focus to drive over there. Having lived through Atlanta traffic for 18 years, though, I held my own pretty good against the Italian drivers. Contrast this with America where my new son-in-law, who sells cars for Toyota is most frequently asked “how many cup holders does this car have” as a major buying criteria.

One of the hotels we stayed at was the Hotel Grande Fasano on Lake Garda. It was a historical palace converted into a hotel with glorious views of the massive lake. Before we were to leave one night to go to Verona, I asked one of the ladies working there if I could get some coffee to go. She said “sure you can take the china up to your room”. I said, “No I meant a paper cup to take in the car.” She said “no no no we don’t have any. You are in such a hurry. If you want coffee you need to slow down and take the time to enjoy it, even if it’s 5 minutes.”

View of harbor in Rapallo while sipping capuccino…

OK at first I was annoyed by this, but as our trip went on I realized that it was definitely better to have high quality coffee while pausing to enjoy it, rather than running out the door with a “to go” cup. Even when we went to a cafe for lunch, we saw people popping in at all times of the day for an espresso. They stayed for a few minutes and were off. But for those few minutes they stopped to pause and refresh… and slow down.

Besides the coffee though my wife and I found plenty of places to stop and pause and refresh. In Rappallo, a city near Portofino on the Italian riviera, we would take a daily walk through and around town for our exercise, and also to see the town on foot. We found a guy with a coffee stand by the harbor and would get a cappuccino every day and just sit by the harbor… and pause for just a few minutes. We enjoyed the view of the boats and the people walking by…the morning sunshine warming our faces…while enjoying our cappuccinos… and fancy that it was served in a real china cup….from a guy running a “coffee stand” down by the water.

The Italians are definitely onto something. Taking the time to enjoy a cappuccino or espresso is the perfect way to “pause and refresh” so that you are ready to face the rest of your day…

Opera in Verona inside the Roman Arena right before the start of “Don Giovanni”

Gondola ride in Venice

View from hotel in Rapallo

The most perfect and delicious cappuccino ever… or at least on that particular day!

Cappuccino at Hotel Excelsior in Rapallo on fine china with the logo of the hotel on every piece.

The azure water of the mediterranean. Lots of rocks and no beaches in Rapallo.

By Tim Turner

As a follow-up to my article about the Disney® cruise, I wanted to share with you some experiences with the Universal resort in Orlando. We visited there after our cruise because our kids just love it.  In fact, they love it more than Disney’s Magic Kingdom, mainly because the rides are so much better.

Green eggs & Ham Building in Dr. Seuss Land

Genius point #1:  Universal provides unique rides and experiences that no other park offers.  Sure they have roller coasters, but no other park has Dr. Seuss land.  This section of the park is totally customized to make you feel like you are inside a Dr. Seuss book.  I have been there many times and I am still in awe of the trees, the Caroseussel, and the building shaped like green eggs and ham.

Our favorite ride there is just a small train that rides above Dr. Seuss land giving you a view of the entire Dr. Seuss experience but from above. What can you do in your business that is totally unique to you?   If you say “nothing”, you need to spend a lot more time thinking about it.

Genius point #2:  Universal capitalizes on megatrends.  They don’t sit on their laurels.  They have jumped all over the Harry Potter craze and it has skyrocketed ticket sales.  The newest Gringotts ride had a 7 hour wait when it opened.  Absolutely unheard of!  What demographic trend can you take advantage of?  It might just be a specific niche like baby boomers, millennials, or seniors.

A Wand shop in Diagon Alley at Universal Orlando

Genius point #3: This one is not as applicable to the financial industry, because it has to do with “upselling” a product or service.  In the new Harry Potter section called Diagon Alley, they sell magical wands just like in the other section of the park.  These wands sell for $36.95 each – for essentially a piece of plastic.  Now some genius figured out they could embed a chip into the wand and then hide the receiver’s around Diagon Alley.  You can then go around to different spots on a map to waive your wand, cast a “spell” and make things happen like making lights turn on or curtains in a window open.  Not only does that make people want a wand itself when they see kids doing this, but it makes kids want the “interactive wand” that costs $44.95 – a 20% premium.   As a business person I found all of this tied together as pure business “genius”.  (I won’t comment on my thoughts about trying to do “magic”…)

The incredible pool at The Hard Rock Hotel in Orlando

Genius point #4:  If you stay at one of their onsite hotels, you get additional perks like early admission and free “fast passes” for almost every ride.  The Hard Rock Hotel, for example, is a family friendly place, unlike the Vegas one.  It has a sand pool, volleyball, dive-in movies, video game arcade, and a 2-story slide for kids.  More importantly it is within walking distance of the park AND all the shops in City Walk.

The genius here is to keep you and your dollars captive for your stay.  If I am at the Hard Rock, how likely am I to get in my car and drive somewhere else to eat, to swim, to shop.  Not likely, which means Universal captures all of my vacation dollars, except the gas I buy to get home afterwards.

Hope you’ve enjoyed learning about some of the business smarts behind “Universal Studios” in Orlando.  I think you’ll agree it really is “genius”…