Jesse Cole Podcast
===
Evan: [00:00:00] You are listening to the refine network podcast. We're so excited that you press play and you are jumping on. You can't get time back. So thank you for taking the time to listen to this today. You are in for a treat. We are doing a throwback all the way to 2021. I reached out to five people and to see if they would be on the podcast, two of them said yes.
And one of them actually followed up with it. And it was Jesse Cole from the Savannah bananas. Now, if you don't know what the Savannah bananas are, they're a minor league team out of Savannah, Georgia, Jesse Cole bought the team. And when he bought the team, he realized nobody was coming to the baseball games.
And so he did a poll. People said baseball was too long. It was too slow, too boring. So his mentors Our Walt Disney and PT Barnum, he gets into this on the episode. How can we make baseball fun where people [00:01:00] are not getting nickel and dime at the concessions they're coming in? He's creating an experience.
His company is called fans first entertainment. It is all about the guests. It's all about the fans and today we're doing a throwback from 2021. This is my conversation with Jesse Cole.
Thanks so much for saying yes and being a part. Of touch the line podcast. How are you today?
Jesse: I am fantastic and fired up to be with you
Evan: Well, I have to say if you're listening to this on the podcast, I highly recommend going to check it out on youtube Because you are decked out in a yellow tux Which we'll talk about here in a second, but you got this book, find your yellow tux, which is a really, really great book.
I mean, I [00:02:00] went in and I was just like, okay, like, this is cool. Let's just read this book. And I'm trying to do, it was really, really good. It was very exceptional.
Jesse: Well, that's very kind. I heard it helps people sleep at night. So I'm glad.
Evan: That's awesome. Hey, give us, give our listeners a snapshot of. Who you are and how you became to wearing this yellow tux with a yellow top hat.
Jesse: Well, I'm the owner of the Savannah bananas, uh, and really how it started with is a bunch of failures. And I know you hear that story from a lot of entrepreneurs, but you know, I was a guy who played baseball my whole life, fell in love with the game and then tore my shoulder that ended my career.
And then I realized something that I loved playing baseball, but hated watching baseball because the game was so long, so slow, so boring, uh, that I just couldn't watch it. And I had an opportunity to take over a team when I was a GM at 23 years old, and the opportunity to get that job was because it was the worst team in the country.
That's the only way you get a job as a GM at 23. And fortunately, there was [00:03:00] only one way to go, and it was up. And I had a great owner who let me experiment, and we tried things like just, you know, Dancing players and grandma beauty pageants and flatulence fun nights and salute to underwear nights We tried it all and I really realized very importantly that we're not in the baseball business We're in the entertainment business and I think that's so key for most people to realize what business are you in?
But what business are you really in and once we knew we were 1000 percent in the entertainment business. We started building that so Fortunately 10 years of experimenting failing trying doing things with that team in gastonia My wife and I We bought a team in Savannah and proceeded to fail even more miserably, went to Savannah and sold only two tickets in our first three months, and then overdrafted our account, ran out of money, had to sell our house, emptied our savings account, we were sleeping on an airbed, really struggling, and this was just, you know, six years ago.
And at that point we just realized we had to make it dramatically different. Again, we couldn't try to fit in. We came into Savannah and we wanted to fit in. We had to go different. So yes, I, I channeled and embodied my P. T. Barnum, who I was one of my biggest mentors and Walt Disney got a yellow tux [00:04:00] and said, we're going to be the bananas.
We're going to have a senior citizen dance team called the banana nanas, a male cheerleading team called the mananas, a banana babies, banana band, breakdancing coaches. We made it into a circus and we went all in on the fans fan experience and we call it fans first. Yeah. Fortunately, six years later, every single game is sold out.
The wait list is now over 12, 000 and now we're actually changing the game with banana ball and taking that all over the country. So it's a wild story and we're just getting started.
Evan: It's, it's an amazing story, really. I mean, I've never heard anything like this. So you bought the Savannah bananas. Did you know at that point you were going to do.
All this circus stuff, or were you trying to do it the old traditional way, I guess.
Jesse: So for 10 years, we experimented in Gastonia. That's where we first had our dancing players. And fans really took to that. They were like, this is not baseball, it's a show. So they really took to that. But when we came to Savannah, see, we didn't buy the Savannah Bananas.
We bought an expansion franchise. My wife and I went from zero debt to 1. 8 million in debt. Just like that, from buying the team, we bought the other Gastonia team. We had to put money into the [00:05:00] teams. And we tried to fit in. We were trying to market like everyone else because we were scared. We were these new kids.
I mean, our president was 24 years old. We had three 22 year olds out of college. I was 31 at the time, and my wife was 28. Like, we were just kids coming into this big city, Savannah, you know, with a ton of tourism. And we were just trying to cut, hey, we're here. Hey, guys, we're here. And people had nothing to do with it.
Like, they were not interested. And so when we were down to our last dollar in the airbag, we said, we just got to go crazy. We got to name the team The Bananas. We got to go all out. We got to make every ticket all inclusive. We got to just turn it into an absolute circus. It's the only way people will pay attention.
And so we tried it, rolled the dice, and there were a lot of failures along the way, but luckily, uh, the fans came out and they said, we've never seen anything like this before. And they told everyone about it.
Evan: And I love that your experience starts in the parking lot. Tell people how Aren't there people dressed up in the parking lot?
Jesse: Yeah. Well, you know, the new book that's coming out in 2022 is called Fans First, and that's the name of our company. And the, uh, the, the, the head, the subtitle is change the game, break the rules, create an unforgettable [00:06:00] experience. And, you know, first we had to change the game. So when everyone thinks about, you know, a baseball game, and they think about, you know, hey, we're going to a game, but there's a lot of friction points.
Long, slow, boring, you get nickel and dimed, all those different pieces. So we said, how do we eliminate all the friction? That was our starting point. And he said, alright. Well, what if every ticket's all inclusive for 15? Includes all your burgers, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, soda, water, popcorn, dessert, everything.
What if there's no ticket fees? No convenient fees, which are the most inconvenient fees. What if when people come in the ballpark, they don't have to pay for parking, and they're parked by penguins? And we actually, yeah, stress up our staff like penguins, and they're our parking penguins. And they actually pass out Freezy Pops and say, stay cool tonight, as they walk into the building.
And so it was about just mapping those, those pieces. So what do people see? What do they feel? What do they touch? What do they smell? And so when we were trying to limit the friction, we just literally mapped every single touch point. And it's why when people buy a ticket, they don't get a payment confirmation.
They get a special video sent to them, and then they get a thank you call. And then they get a playlist of music to listen to, including can't stop the peeling [00:07:00] and holler back girl with a banana song. It's all a part of the touch points. And we didn't do that in the beginning. Yeah. But as we started to realize our fans responded to it, we said, all right, we have to go all in on every touch point to make this experience fun.
Evan: Well, you're doing an amazing job because I, I love sports, but I just don't watch baseball because of the same things you said. It's slow. It's long. Like, you know, I guess I would consider myself an Atlanta Braves fan because I could name every player on the 1994, 95. Uh, roster, but I didn't watch any of the world series.
Did you watch any of the world series?
Jesse: I would be thrown out of the baseball community, uh, when I say this, but no, I did not watch any of the world series now. Now also I'm going to preface. Yes, I do not love baseball in its traditional form. But I'm also going to preface this, uh, we just, uh, brought in our, our second, uh, foster daughter.
So she was only two weeks old or six days old and we took her. So she's three weeks now. So we have three kids of the family, all under three. So there's a lot going on at the Cole household. So there's, uh, the watching [00:08:00] regular baseball games, even if it's a world series, it was not on the high prior.
Evan: So you're a foster parent as well.
Jesse: Yes, we have two, we have two, uh, foster children.
Evan: We foster and adopted both of our children.
Jesse: Oh, that's amazing. It's amazing.
Evan: We
Jesse: love that.
Evan: We both didn't watch the World Series. We both foster parents. Oh, yeah,
Jesse: we're linking up right
Evan: now. I like this. So that's awesome. I love that you're, you're doing that.
And it's not an easy, um, it's very rewarding, but it's not an easy task. And so we have a heart. Our salon has actually helped the foster care community. In our town, and it's something that's near and dear to our hearts. That's really awesome.
Jesse: Oh, I love that. I love that. Yeah, we'll have to link up after with my wife and I.
I mean, that's been her big dream. 500, 000 kids in the U. S. that still don't have a home. And, you know, uh, yeah, at one point we're going to start Bananas Foster. And so that'll be a non profit. We got some opportunities there we're working on. So we've already started putting that. Yeah, we're definitely going to fight that battle.
And again, it goes into synergy of what we try to do. We try to bring families together. And if you think about everything that a lot of people do, we're bringing families together. And, uh, in the foster world, [00:09:00] that's obviously how your family got brought together because it was best for the kids, which is great.
Evan: Yeah, that, that, that's amazing. And what I was, I was saying before you mentioned that is that you, you're creating a game for like, I want to come, I want to experience that. If somebody gave me a ticket to the world series, I'd be like, no, I'm good. Which is like the, You know, the biggest event in baseball, but I'm like, yeah, in
Jesse: the world series is different because there is a better atmosphere.
If you go to a baseball game in September and there's 500 people there, I mean, it is, you know, an atmosphere can be built by a sold out crowd. A hundred percent, but yeah, yeah, it's, it's baseball games are getting slower. The stats are staggering. Baseball games now are over three hours and 10 minutes. The games are getting longer.
The viewership is down. Attendance is down. We're in a tick tock world. Everybody gets 10 entertainment and attention just like this. You can get the best entertainment in your fingertips in seconds. And yet to watch a full baseball game is going to take you three plus hours. Something has to change.
That's why we developed banana ball
Evan: and [00:10:00] what's banana ball.
Jesse: So again, you know, again, I think the starting point of all innovation for every business is to eliminate the friction for your customers. Put yourself in your customer's shoes and what would make you a fan? So friends, every night at our ballpark, we go undercover.
I go undercover, someone on our staff goes undercover, we literally park with the fans, we walk in with the fans, we sit with the fans, we eat with the fans, we go through the experience. So just like we were saying, we can't watch a World Series game. So if I'm a fan right now, what is something that I would watch?
So the way we created Bannerball three years ago, we started practicing a game, um, behind closed doors, just testing it with players. And we said, what are all the friction points, the frustration points, the boring parts of baseball? And let's do the exact opposite. And that's how we think of everything.
Whatever's normal, do the exact opposite. So baseball's too long. Alright, three hours. What's the right time? We said, let's just do a two hour time limit. Hmm, okay. Alright, what about what's also bad about baseball? Like those long innings where teams score lots of runs. Those are very, very, just goes on and on.
So we said, could every inning [00:11:00] count? And if you win the inning, you get a point. So it's like match play. The visiting team doesn't score, but the home team scores a run that first inning, inning over walk off celebration. All right. There's no walks instead of walks, which are so boring. Think about this, Evan, the most boring play in sports.
All right. Like athletic, like here, we're playing an athletic sport. Now it's time to walk to first base. Are you kidding me? Like that's part of the game. So we turned it into a sprint. So now in the fourth ball, uh, the umpire goes sprint and the hitter has to run as far as he can go while the defense team throws the ball to every position player before it's live.
All right? So that's like, it's, it's crazy. It's a double or triple. There's no bunting. If fans catch a foul ball, it's an out. There's, uh, if you steal first, you can steal first. We developed all these rules. We've been playing it for years and now we're taking it on the road. And because you create something different, people are intrigued.
So we have fans traveling from all over the country to see banana ball and it's just, it's crazy. Simply, we try to design a game we want to do, and I think every business owner designs something that you want to be a part of, that you want to scream from on top of [00:12:00] mountaintops, This is what I do, and this is why you should be a part of that.
And that's what banana ball and our bananas experience is about.
Evan: Wow. It's changing the game, changing the game. I love that. Are all these ideas coming out of your head or do you have people around you? Like what's this look like when you're developing banana ball? You said that you brought the players together.
Jesse: Yeah, you build, you build a culture, you build a culture of ideas. It's like building your own. Like Evan, do you, do you work out? Do you run? Do you exercise? Do you do on a regular basis?
Evan: Uh, don't ask me that.
Jesse: All right. That was for most people. All right. So some, so for people that do exercise, right? For instance, I'm a runner.
I was never a runner, but I run every morning. All right. So if I don't run, I literally feel it because I'm that muscle. Like I'm so used to it. It's a part of my body. It's a part of my habit. You work that muscle every day, every day, every day. If you just go do one big workout, it has no impact. If you just say, I'm going to have a brainstorming session once, that's going to do nothing for five years.
Every morning, I write down 10 ideas. 10 ideas every single morning with a theme [00:13:00] and we've built that into our team. Now I do it with our director of entertainment. We do it from marketing team. We build our IP. If you want to grow a business, build your IP, not your intellectual property, your ideas and your promotion.
How do you build ideas every day and what you're going to do and how do you promote them? If you do that, you will keep your business going, going, going. So we build it. We, every day I practice ideas. So what happens is when I drive down the road, my idea muscle is always working. I see things. When I was in Tybee Island, just to give you an example, I was in Tybee Island, we have a house that's right next to the lighthouse.
And I was sitting watching people line up to walk up the lighthouse and walk down. Walk up and walk down. I was watching this and the line kept getting bigger and bigger. I was like, I can't take this anymore. So I walked over and I said, I said, sir, uh, he goes, would you like one ticket? I go, no. What? To climb up?
No, I'm not interested. He goes, it's 10. I go, no, it's 10. I go, no. 10. 10. I go out of curiosity, how many people climb up this lighthouse? And he goes, well, today we'll have, it'll be small night. We'll have about 800. And I go, they all pay 10. He goes, yeah. I go, what's a bad day. He goes, well, yesterday we had a huge [00:14:00] lightning storm and we had to shut it down for six hours.
So we only had 250. I go, you still 250 in the rain. He goes, yeah. Oh my gosh. And I looked at, I was like this, there's a million dollars of people climbing up a lighthouse. So because my idea muscle is always working. You want to know what I thought of? I immediately reached out to our architect. I said, can we build the world's largest banana at our stadium?
And people climb up to the top. So literally the world's largest banana, 300 feet in the air, a big, huge 360 balcony that on the top that looks out all over Savannah and people climb up, climb down. I wouldn't have thought of that if I didn't keep working my idea muscle every single day. And that's why it's easy.
And right now my architect is doing the world's largest banana, or trying to. I have no idea how to do it, but it sounds like fun.
Evan: Yeah. The world's largest banana. I don't know. Do you know what the largest banana is right now?
Jesse: No idea, but we're going after it.
Evan: It can be like seven feet tall, you know? And you're going to try to
Jesse: build them 200 feet in the air.
That's really a huge destination. That's part of banana land. And, and again, I think that's, You have to open yourself up to ideas every day. What are the ideas? You have to write it down. You have to make it a habit. And so our entire [00:15:00] culture is ideas. That's what drives this company.
Evan: That that's incredible.
Do you, do you stress your staff out with all these ideas or is it just part of the culture?
Jesse: Um, I would say probably a lot more in the beginning, you know, now, now there's, there's. You know, there's a structure to it. You know, we have idea paloozas. We have idea sessions. So yesterday we just had one on how are we going to promote banana ball more.
So everyone brings three ideas to the meeting and then we pitch them. Then we share them. We all pitch them. What do we like? And then we choose what are we going to do and what are we going to own today? I have an idea session right after this with our, uh, our director of entertainment. And we're talking about 10 ways to plus our pregame march.
So we're actually have a pregame march with our band, our players, our guy on stilts, our confetti, how to plus it. That's a Walt Disney world. So. When everyone's ready for an idea session, we're great. If I just come in like you as an owner or whatever, Hey, let's do this. Let's do this. Like anyone, everyone shuts down, you know?
So you have to have, you have to have a format and have it set. I think that's, that's best for our team.
Evan: That's great. If you started a salon, [00:16:00] because a lot of our listeners are in the salon industry, what's some of the thoughts that come to mind that you would do in a salon? Like, take the Savannah Bananas and how you revolutionized baseball, what would you do in the salon world?
What's some things that come to mind?
Jesse: Well, I think, you know, it's a framework. So, what's the normal salon experience? So, I'd write down all the normal parts of a salon experience and then I'd write what's remarkable. What's the opposite? So then I'd also look at what are the friction points from a customer coming to a salon experience.
Is it the weight? Is it the length? Is it how you pay? You pay a la carte for everything. This, this, this, this. What's the all inclusive spa experience? I would, I would ask, you know, um, when you first come up, you know, I'd, I'd reimagine the experience. You know, you think about some great brands and you think about Ritz Carlton and you think about the best spas in the world and the five star, you know, the question really comes down to what do you want to be known for?
And what's the biggest problem in the spot industry and how do you own the differentiator in that? So the biggest problem in the baseball industry, in my opinion, is it's long, slow and boring and they're losing fans every day. [00:17:00] So we're owning the most fun team in baseball. So when you look at Savannah Bands, they say we make baseball fun.
So every single thing that we do, Is guided by we make baseball fun, our marketing, our promotion, our touch points, everything we do with our fans. So what do you want to be known for and how is it different than everyone else in the industry? So it's a lot of soul searching, a lot of questions, a lot of looking in the mirror.
And I think that's, I'm not going to give you specific examples because I don't know exactly what fires you up and what's the difference in the industry.
Evan: And I asked you, how do you stress your staff out? Because sometimes I do, because I have all these ideas. And when you're changing a lot, sometimes it can stress people out.
So I slow roll things. I give the why. We're changing our inventory right now. And we started this about a month, month and a half ago. And I said, this, if we do this, it won't start till January. Because I want to get all the bugs out. I want to make sure it works.
Jesse: Well, it changed within your vision. Is, is right change just for [00:18:00] change sake.
So, you know, for instance, you know, if we know we specifically want to be the most fun team in baseball, here's our vision where we're going to take the show all over the world and we're making changes within that, but it's not changing where we're going. So, for instance, where your vision is, where do you want to go in the next 5 years, 10 years, there may be if you're going trying to go from, you know, South Carolina to California.
There may be detours where you have to, but you're still always going towards that direction towards California. So changing on the way the actual how can change, but the where never changes. And I think that's, that's the key for us and knowing that vision is, is knowing the destination.
Evan: Yeah, we're getting together in January of next year to, and we're bringing our staff who wants to be a part of it.
Our lead team will be there, but looking at our vision and our, Uh, values and see, I know they need to be adjusted because our vision was, um, to make, make people feel better about themselves, not just do [00:19:00] hair. Well, you know, we're talking about launching a boutique. We're talking, you know, we're doing lashes now.
So it's like we're evolving more than hair. So that's, um, that's something we're going to reevaluate in January and see what's our vision. It's just like getting on a plane. Donald Miller does a great, uh, analogy of this. He talks about when you get on a plane, the pilot tells you where you're going. If leaders in the company are not telling you this is the destination, then you've got staff that are in an airplane flying around and they're going, what are we doing?
Where are we going? What's going on?
Jesse: And is it inspiring enough? Is it compelling? Is it not? It's not just about when people say, I want to be a hundred million dollar company. To me, that's, you know, Walt Disney said, money doesn't excite me. My ideas excite me. I'm the same way. Ideas are what we're trying to do.
And the impact we're trying to make, not how much money we're trying to. So I think that's a key point. But yeah, I love Don Miller. He had his whole team took a bus down to a Savannah Bananas game from Nashville. And so I, I know, I know Don very well. And uh, yeah.
Evan: Hey, let's stop that. I didn't even have this plan.
What are some celebrities that [00:20:00] spin the Savannah Bananas? I mean, to me, Donald Miller would be that person. You know?
Jesse: Oh, geez. I mean, yeah. It's funny. I don't really look at celebrities. I look at we're all the same people. You know, we're all the same people. And, uh, you know, yeah. But, yeah, I mean, we obviously have lots of authors.
But, you know, Joe Jonas was out there. And, you know, we've had Cain Brown and Luke Combs. And, uh, a lot of the country stars have been out to the ballpark. But, yeah, some other Some movie guys, but a lot of authors and just, just people. Yeah, they're normal
Evan: people, but it is cool when you create an environment where, you know, where a celebrity, because you know, when they go out, you know, it's got to be like, oh my gosh, like I'm going to have all these people talking to me.
It's going to be annoying. So they pick and choose where they go very carefully. So that's awesome that they,
Jesse: yeah. And I think that's what's, what's so interesting. I'm so glad that we've been able to create, you know, whether you're a celebrity, whether you're two years old, whether you're 82 years old.
Yeah. It's really where the world goes bananas. When you come to banana land, we're all going to dance. We're all going to sing. The pep band is going to do a [00:21:00] parade. We're going to be throwing out, you know, Mardi Gras beads and banana moon pies into the crowd. And it's just, the players, when we score our first run, they all run into the crowd celebrating with the grandstand and the fans.
So literally, after we score a run, you can look in the dugout and there's no players in the dugout because they're all in the grandstand high fiving every fan. And again, that's the environment. Like, anything goes. That's fun. And so it's so easy for us to make those decisions to have players come up and introduce themselves now batting for the bananas myself to do that stuff because that fits with who we are.
And so that's where it's like really easy to scale and grow because we're just continuing to push the gas on what we are and what we stand for. And I think that's, that's kind of the secret sauce of all this every day. I think of ideas of more fun things we can do at the ballpark every day.
Evan: I watched an, uh, another interview and you talk about, you have no advertisement in the stadium.
Jesse: Yeah, because it's a friction point is a, it's very easy for us to eliminate. Now it was very dumb and the worst business decision we could [00:22:00] ever make on February 25th, 2020, two weeks before they announced the global pandemic. Uh, we threw away hundreds of thousands of dollars, but again, Create something that you will love.
And for me, my three year old son, when he's watching Lion Guard on YouTube, and he goes, Daddy, Daddy, skip the ads. I don't like ads. I don't like ads. My three year old, nobody likes ads. Yet you go to a ballpark, it looks like the Yellow Pages. And every promotion is sponsored by so and so car dealership or so and so orthodontics.
This is not something that I get proud of, that I want to share. It takes away from the fan experience. A lot of people say, oh, that doesn't bother me. Well, here's the deal. Sponsorship is such a huge revenue source for so many teams. Who do you think the teams work for, the sponsors or the fans?
Evan: The fans.
Jesse: And so when, well, you'd hope so. Oh yeah. And that's who we work for, but a lot of them, if a sponsor is paying them a million dollars or four hundred thousand, they say, hey, [00:23:00] can you pass out some more flyers to the fans? Can you make another announcement for me during the games? Can you do this? What are they going to say?
Generally, yes. For us, there's no conflict. We work for the fans every single day, and we're not going to have our fans advertised to
Evan: so that's who we are. That's amazing. Like, hearing you elaborate on that and the why behind it, it's It's almost like a no brainer. Now, I don't know the financial side, I know the financial side, you might be like
Jesse: No other team will ever be dumb enough to do it.
No, see, see, here's, I'm actually, I'm going to give you the science of it as a business owner. Here is the science of it. Ticket, tickets are our lifeblood. So, when we sell out our stadium, which fortunately we sell out every game, then that drives the fans, which drives merchandise. Our sponsorship, most teams, it's 30, 40, 50 percent of their total revenue.
It was only 10 percent of our total revenue. So I said, worst case scenario, we throw away 10 percent of our revenue. We'll be okay, we'll figure out, we'll find a way. But what happened was we [00:24:00] get rid of that, and now more of our fans buy more merchandise, they invest in us more, they're there for the Merchandise is now triple what we did in sponsorship.
Triple! It's a multi million dollars in merchandise because our fans believe who we are, they like what we do, and they like what we stand for. So, that's who we work for. So we were able to make that decision and we rolled the dice. But now I don't have to think every day, who am I selling sponsorship? I have to think about what am I doing today to create fans?
And that's a better conversation, not how are we trying to chase customers? How are you creating fans? Have that conversation, have that meeting every day with yourself.
Evan: What a mindset. I mean, it changes how you lead and how you make decisions. . That's, that's amazing. Uh, I love that. What, I know you said your ment mentors are PT Barnum and Walt Disney.
What is it about those two that fascinate you? What are some things that you took away from them too that you are now doing
Jesse: That's another hour, two hour podcast, but, uh, we to, to, to sum it up, you know, I, I, I have the [00:25:00] two custom posters writing in my office, and PT Barnum says showmanship. Without promotion, something terrible happens.
Nothing. With his quote. And then right next to him I have, uh, Walt Disney. It says, Vision. It's kind of fun to do the impossible. Now, P. T. Barnum was the master of promotion. He was the master showman. He was the master of creating attention. Nothing happens until you first create attention. airbed with my wife.
We had a great intention. We were going to make it a show. We were going to make it fun. We were going to do all these things. But no one knew who we were. You can't get the hearts of your customers or your fans until you first have the eyes and the ears. That's so key. So I learned that with, with, with PT with Walt, it's the vision.
It's the ability to plus it's the ability to, uh, you know, literally be curious and, and open new doors and create new paths that he says, you know, all of our dreams can come true. If we have the courage to pursue them, Walt just had a passion. A passion for creating something that's never been built before.[00:26:00]
And obviously, my last podcast of season four, I did a whole hour on the power of plussing. And that's something that Walt Disney, every single experience he plussed. I learned undercover fan from him. He had an apartment above Disneyland, above Main Street on Disneyland, and every day he would come out, undercover, He would walk in with the fan, walk in with the customers, he would stand in line, and he said, whenever I go on a ride, I'm always asking, what's wrong with this thing and how can it be improved?
He was obsessed with plussing and improving and creating a better experience. And that's what I try to do every day at the ballpark.
Evan: Hmm. Hmm. That's powerful. Uh, I love us. I don't know much about P. T. Barnum. I need to research him.
Jesse: Joe Vitale, um, the customer rules, the 10 rings of power. That's, that's, you know, his biographies are tough.
They're written in the 1800s, you know, it's, it's, it's tougher to read, but Joe Vitale, I did a podcast with him as well. And he talked about the best business rules. Um, you can learn from P. T. Barnum. That's the best one on him. In my opinion,
Evan: I remember that podcast and your podcast, what's the name of your [00:27:00] podcast?
Business differently. Yeah, it's a great podcast. Highly recommend. All right, so we're closing in here. I want to ask you some rapid fire questions. What are, I love to read. What are two books you highly recommend other than Find Your Yellow Tux?
Jesse: Oh, geez. I would not, like I said, that helps sleep. Uh, this is the toughest question.
It's like, uh, your kids. Who is your favorite kid? It depends on the day. Depends on who wakes up in a good mood. Uh, so. For me, I go very, very deep. I go deep on subjects. Um, so like for Walt Disney, uh, you know, uh, the wisdom of Walt, Walt Disney's way and how to be like Walt are my three favorites on Walt Disney.
They make a huge impact. Um, books that I always come back to, not good to great by Jim Collins, built to last by Jim Collins. That one still remains true. I come back to Onward by Howard Schultz. I mean, I'm looking at my library right now. It's very, very tough. Whatever I do is I try to go very, [00:28:00] very deep on an author or a subject.
So once I find something, I will read everything I can on them and listen to every podcast. And like, that's, that's how you really immerse yourself in that mindset.
Evan: That, that's great. I have, I have built to last, but I haven't read it yet. So.
Jesse: Oh, it's just, it's 30 years old, but it still stays, it stays unbelievable true.
I mean, it talks 30 years old. Oh, geez. I 94.
Evan: Well, I guess that is 30. I'm getting close to it.
Jesse: Yeah.
Evan: If you, uh, all right. So I live in a town called Powdersville. If we started a baseball team and I was like, Hey, Jesse, I want you to come run it. What would you name the baseball team?
Jesse: It's called Powdersville.
Evan: Yes.
Jesse: Oh,
Evan: jeez.
Jesse: Why did the Powdersville baby powder actually stick on my head? Um, no, I, you know, the funny thing, naming, I've had a lot of people ask me about naming and a lot of people think like, all right, you know, you're gonna name a team, just name something fun. People don't realize when we name the Savannah bananas, [00:29:00] We have things planned out for 10 years that we haven't even announced yet.
So when you think of a brand, you don't just think, Oh, that's fun. We'll call them the, you know, gorillas or whatever we want to call them. You know, a sports team. We'll call them the sailors, the anchors. Oh, it rhymes. It looks good. There's alliteration or whatever. It wasn't just the Savannah bananas rhyme.
We thought of this brand. I mean, we haven't built banana land at our ballpark yet. There's still so many things that we have. We have banana cream soda. We're going to do Savannah banana bread. We have all these things that we can do, but it's all fun. And it all fits with our theme. I mean, we have our, I mean, literally our Dolce and banana underwear.
I mean, are you kidding me? Like we have a giant banana on the crotch, like it's extend the brand. So I'd have to do some research on Powdersville and also how can you extend it to be something, um, really, really unique. What makes you different because most teams they have a bang when they name The team is like, Oh, look at this team.
That's funny. They're the so and so and then they disappear and most teams merchandise goes like this. It starts off high and goes straight down. I mean, I've seen teams go down over a million dollars, [00:30:00] 500, 000 every two, three, four years to there at this bottom plateau.
Evan: Our sports
Jesse: has tripled the last three years because we keep coming up with new things that fit the brand.
So
Evan: yeah,
Jesse: that's more in depth answer Sorry, I couldn't give you the exact name. I'd have to think
Evan: about you're good. We're not starting a baseball team. So Might be a challenging
Jesse: town we'd have to be the Yeah, the smallest capacity in sports you have like a 50 seat stadium and it's like unbelievable. It sells out every night You should be one of the 50 anyways,
Evan: um Did I I heard that you were trying to do a halftime show?
Jesse: Oh, that was a great failure. Yeah. Thank you for bringing up that. Yes. Did you
Evan: really do
Jesse: it? Oh, yeah. And we're going to do it regularly. Yeah. We had to fail first to figure out why it was so bad and how to make it better. Um, you know, do and then learn. I love this. Like, I'll get into this quickly, but, but Herb Kelleher was asked two years after he started Southwest Airlines by a reporter.
They go, what's your business strategy for Southwest Airlines? And he goes, it's called doing things. That was his entire [00:31:00] business strategy, but the reality is, it's brilliant. You don't learn by thinking and just talking about what you might do. You learn by doing it and seeing how your customers and your fans respond.
So, you know, for us, like, that's everything. So. You had a question in here. My mind just went in a whole nother tangent. What was the question? Oh, halftime. Oh, halftime. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. But yeah, so halftime we want to do it. Baseball is long, slow and boring. If we said we have a halftime show in a baseball, it might intrigue people.
So yes, we had a St. Patrick's day. We brought in a Savannah pipe and drum band. Unfortunately we didn't, they didn't rehearse and with us and they were all in their sixties and seventies. And when we announced them coming out of the dugout, it was the slowest. Building halftime show ever. They slowly made their way out to the field.
They faced each other instead of facing the crowd. It was outrageously slow. The fans laughed there ridiculously. And so we'll get better. But yeah, so
Evan: yeah, if you could pick anybody, who would you have performed?
Jesse: Um, you know, this is [00:32:00] controversial, but I go back to, and he's not alive, but I go back to, in my opinion, the best performer of, of all time.
And that was MJ, Michael Jackson. So I know there's controversy. I'm, I'm staying away from that. But as a kid, I was obsessed. With what he would do and how he performed one person, you know, everyone, it was unbelievable. Um, so that would be the, the halftime show.
Evan: Yeah. I remember seeing videos of like people passing out and I'm crying.
Jesse: I mean, yeah, really? What's going on here? I mean, he could stand in a pose. For one whole minute and build up all the anticipation from the entire crowd. I mean, he had stage presence, like no one that ever has, and we're trying to build that with our breakdancing coaches and all of our characters, like build the stage presence.
So anyways, that's who I would have gone with.
Evan: That's awesome. Favorite TV show to binge? Is there something that you're binging now or that you would go back to? I don't, I
Jesse: don't, I don't binge. I don't, I don't, I don't binge. Um, I, I, I don't in a while. I haven't [00:33:00] watched the show in a while. I mean, my wife loves all the, the, uh, she likes all the, uh, you know, designated survivor, madam secretary, likes all those, uh, west wings and, uh, all those, uh, you know, political special.
I, I, I'm, I'm good with those, but I'm trying to think one that we binged recently. Um, I, I, I got to pass. I got to do a hard pass on that.
Evan: Okay. No, no worries. I just saw the
Jesse: I watched Scattered Bastards of Baseball. That documentary probably 30 times. I'm watching the Grateful Dead, uh, uh, Strange Long Trip.
That docu I enjoy documentaries because I can learn a lot from those.
Evan: Yeah, documentaries are I just saw one. There's on one on Tom Brady coming out in November.
Jesse: Oh, that'd be great. Oh, another one. My favorite by far is, uh, imagine, uh, imagineering, um, on, on Disney, six episodes and starts with Walt Disney walking the orange groves and saying, I want to put Disneyland here.
And it talks about how they've built all the parks and everything goes into it for that. It was amazing. Six to six episodes. It's, it's unbelievable.
Evan: Uh, yeah, I'm, I'm writing that now because I'm going to watch that.
Jesse: Imagineering.
Evan: And last question, if you could go [00:34:00] back, uh, 10 years and talk to yourself, what would you tell yourself?
Jesse: Keep going. Keep going. I think a lot of people want to have advice on what to change. Now you learn by effort. You learn by every experience you learn by doing, uh, just keep going. Just keep going. So I think what was that in, uh, in, uh, finding Nemo? Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.
I think that's the, uh, I think that's what I would tell myself. Just keep rolling and play the long game. You know, thinking in quarter centuries, not quarters. You know, I think about the next hundred years and, uh, try to regret them, try to minimize the regrets you'll have in your life. And I don't think you're going to regret what you did.
You're going to regret what you didn't do. And my dad told me as a kid, when I used to come up to the plate as a five year old, he said, Jesse, swing hard in case you hit it. So keep swinging, keep coming to bat. Just keep going, baby.
Evan: Jesse, you're an inspiration. Uh, I think I said this, but I don't think we were recording.
But like you're, you're a unicorn. Like you, I mean, you have a freaking yellow tux [00:35:00] on with a yellow top hat. So, uh, That's what my
Jesse: wife was called at my wedding, a unicorn, by the way. I found my unicorn. So I take that very high, high.
Evan: But I mean, you've been an inspiration to me and we've never even met. Um, I listened to your podcast.
Uh, I've read your book. I saw your ESPN story that was on, was it on Was it on, it was on SportsCenter in the past? SportsCenter,
Jesse: almost two straight days. Yeah.
Evan: And I was like, oh my gosh. I was like, I know that guy. Well, I don't know him. I listened to his podcast and then I reached out to you about doing this and you're like, let's do it.
So, I love what you're about. You're very inspiring. You're already doing amazing things and I can't wait to see what you come up with for the next 10 years. And we're going to get down to a Savannah bananas game. We have a staff member. She's been trying to get tickets and she was like, we need to go for a team fun day.
And I was like, I was like, that might be harder than it looks, but I love that you are selling out in Savannah, doing the [00:36:00] craziest things and putting fans first. So thank you for giving us your time because you'll never get time back. So thanks for giving us your time to do the podcast and we appreciate all you do.
Jesse: Thank you. It's a lot of fun. Really enjoyed it tremendously.
