The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 676: Jesse Cole (Owner, Savannah Bananas) - The Beauty of Obsession, Building a Fans First World, Walt Disney, Mr. Beast, Radical Transparency (Opening the Books), Do the Opposite of Normal, Turning a $6M Mistake Into a Moment, and Creating Banana World

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Go to LearningLeader.com for show notes of this and all podcast episodes. Go to LearningLeader.com. Now on to tonight's featured leader, Jesse Cole, is the owner of the Savannah Bananas. He went from $1.8 million in debt sleeping on an air mattress and his built a business that is worth more than a billion dollars. I flew down to Savannah, spent

Starting point is 00:00:36 half a day with Jesse watching practice, and he gave me a personal tour of their entire operation. It was an incredible day. I was exhausted by the end of it because Jesse has so much energy. It's obvious that he loves it. During our conversation, we discussed why Jesse sacrificed $6 million in revenue after a $7 million. system error and what that decision compounded into. Then how the bananas, I noticed this when I was watching them, they practice trick plays on every single rep, the back flips, the behind the back catches. Why? Because they want this to become the default setting on game day. It happens every rep and every practice. Then Jesse talked about why he just released his full P&L as a private

Starting point is 00:01:27 company. That's revenue, expenses, player salaries, everything. Most private businesses guard this information with their lives and Jesse just gives it out so that all the fans could see. And he talks deeply about why he does it. Then I loved hearing about him spending time with Mr. Beast to talk about YouTube. Jesse regularly puts himself in rooms with people who are the best in the world at what they do. I think there's a lot we all can learn from that. We talk about that and so much more. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with Jesse Cole. This episode is brought to you by my friends at Insight Global.

Starting point is 00:02:12 Insight Global is a staffing and professional services company dedicated to being the light to the world around them. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business. business through talent or technical services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Hiring can be tough, but hiring the right person can be magic. Visit Insightglobal.com slash learning leader today to learn more. That's Insightglobal.com slash learning leader. Dude, so we first recorded, When was that? 2019.

Starting point is 00:02:59 Okay. So it's been seven years. Yes. You have all of your people write these five year in advance resumes, right? This is a part of the hiring. Future resume. Future resume. We talked about it in 2019.

Starting point is 00:03:11 It's one of the things you said we have them right. Your future resume, not your past or your current. Dude, could you have ever imagined that we would be sitting here seven years later and you are, you and Emily are the 100% owner of a business worth a billion dollars, probably more than that now, that delights millions and millions of fans all the time, puts giant smiles on their faces. Could you ever even thought of that on that future resume? Well, that's the part. It excites me. It's the fans. And so you mentioned billion. I cringe hearing that number. Like, I cringe. But when you talk about fans, that's what really excites me.

Starting point is 00:03:48 In the beginning, the answer may have been no. But now the answer is yes, as far as imagine this. we had to see things that other people couldn't see. And so if you asked people on our team and our staff, I think it was six years ago, I said, we're going to sell at Fenway Park. And they're looking at me like, what is wrong with you? What do you mean sell at Fenway Park?

Starting point is 00:04:05 With what? We have a college summer baseball team. We're not even doing tour. What is this? You have to believe something before you actually achieve something. And so, like, most people, they say, you know, they might talk about something,

Starting point is 00:04:16 but they don't truly believe in it. We believed that we had something that could be more fun, more different, and a better fan experience. and then we just had to execute it. And we weren't going to be great in the beginning, Ryan. I mean, we were brutal in the beginning. Our first one city world tour was brutal.

Starting point is 00:04:30 I mean, the sound was terrible. The show was terrible. The game finished in the seventh inning because we didn't have a rule to make sure it goes all nine innings. Like, it was messy. But you have to get through the messy to get to the grade.

Starting point is 00:04:39 So now I see things in two, three years that people would never imagine, but I believe truly we'll do it. And it's going to be messy and it's going to be hard, but we'll get there. And then when you spread that and you share that with other people

Starting point is 00:04:51 becomes contagious. And when you've got a bunch of people believe in they can do something, you can find a way to do it. What are some of those things? Two, three, like, what are you thinking, crazy things? Well, everything starts with the fans. So again, you have to. And I learned this from Walt Disney. There was no one better in seeing the future, and not what was best for the business, but what was best for his guest at Disneyland or best for the people watching his movies. And, you know, he realized that he was the first one to go into, you know, full-length animation film. He was the first one to go into color, the sound. He was so far-headed. He was so far-haired of his time with Fantasia. It wasn't even close. And people at first were like, it was too much.

Starting point is 00:05:26 And then it became, obviously, this is where we need to go. And then with Disneyland, there were just terrible amusement parks. You know, multiple entrances, barkers trying to get as much money out of the people as possible. They all had the same rides. He was like, no, I'm going to focus on one entrance. I'm going to control the experience. I'm going to have custom rides. I'm going to invest in a castle and landscaping, which makes no money. I'm going to invest in cleanliness. He saw what would be a better experience. So when you look at what we're thinking about, there's a multitude of areas where the fan experience can be better. You know, when you think about the ticketing experience, and we're already starting to do that.

Starting point is 00:06:00 We're building a secondary ticket market because right now people are paying thousands of dollars. They're getting ripped off. There's fees. It's crazy. We're going to work on figuring that out. And we're already starting right now. It's going to be messy. That's one area. The youth banana ball, there's a challenge with youth sports. We know it. People are paying how parents are feeling. The accessibility, it's brutal. We're going to work on trying to try to, address that. And then when you think about places that we can play, go where others won't go. I learned this from Sam Walton. You know, everyone was like, you're going to go to the big cities. You know, the Kmartz. They're like, you're going to go to the big cities. It's like, no, I'm going to go to the small towns.

Starting point is 00:06:34 We're going to win the small towns. And everyone thought it was crazy. They didn't even pay attention to him the first five or ten years. And people still really aren't paying attention. I'm like, oh, there's just a circus baseball team. And that's fine. Our competitors don't need to pay attention to us. We're going to pay attention to our fans more than anyone else. And so we'll bring this show and game to places that are people would never imagine. And we're already starting this. I mean, we're doing 45 states this year. It doesn't make sense on paper to go to Billings, Montana. I mean, like, and I'm not saying against Billings, Montana or North Dakota, but that's

Starting point is 00:07:03 3,000 fans. We're bringing 150 plus people flying them there and putting on a show for 3,000 fans. But it's one fan at a time. And that's what we're obsessed with. And that's what we're going to try to create. It's also, that sign back there we just walked past reminds me of Michael Jordan. known. Like now players, they take nights off. They have load management. Jordan just played every game. It seems like you had a similar feeling that you put up on the wall. This is somebody's

Starting point is 00:07:28 first time every night. And I love that that's your approach. You live that way and all of your players, coaches, everyone associated with the bananas and the whole league, it seems this mentality of it's always somebody's first time. Yeah. Well, it's a responsibility, especially now. You know, we hear constantly, we have fans that wait three years on a wait list and they get to come. And I don't care if you're having a bad day. That's their first time. How are they greeted? What happens when they come to the parking lot, when they walk in, every single concession stand, every single place they go. That's the biggest challenge for us. What Walt did better than anyone else is he controlled the experience. He learned that he couldn't control the experience when people

Starting point is 00:08:04 watch one of his movies at a theater. It could be dirty. People couldn't be that nice. And so right now, 95% plus of our shows are at other stadiums. And that's the concessions, that's the ushers, that's the security who's trying to get fans to leave early when we want to sign every autograph to the last fan leaves. So if you were to look into the future, we would follow the same footsteps as Walt and say, how do you control the entire experience? And so that's something we'll be thinking about as well. Is there going to be a banana world? Banana land. Banana land, with amusement park and rides and players dancing and music.

Starting point is 00:08:46 That's a pretty good vision there. Right now, we're done twice a banana land at Sea Cruise. And so what people don't realize is I've learned the greatest leaders, the entrepreneurs, they're not just thinking about their next move. The great show, the Queen's Gambit, and it showed she was playing chess, and she could always see the whole chess sport. And so a lot of people, they might see one move ahead and another move. Sometimes moves take years.

Starting point is 00:09:11 This banana land at Sea Cruise, which we've done twice now, it's four to five days with no banana ball. We're having to entertain fans for four to five days from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. With no banana ball. What do you think we're learning? We're learning how to entertain nonstop and it not just be a show. Do people want this? Are they engaged by all the entertainment?

Starting point is 00:09:35 Are they engaged by our players? All of that we learn. And it takes years. And so, yeah, there's a world where there's a banana land and it's unlike any sports and entertainment experience in the world. And we will build that at some point. you recently opened your books. You're a private company. So I just want to set the stage.

Starting point is 00:09:54 I actually get a text message from you. Early. Early. It's a video and it's always a little bit jarring because you're, it's always after you work out, right? And you're not wearing this. You're wearing your workout clothes. And you're just like, hey man, doing something kind of cool.

Starting point is 00:10:10 It's new. We're opening up the books. We're sharing. We should talk about it. We should do something. And my immediately thought was I literally want undone. Delta, my Delta have to look for a flight to come down here. But the thought was, why are you doing this? You don't have to do this. This transparency is with public companies because you have shareholders.

Starting point is 00:10:27 You don't have that. You and Emily own the team completely yourself. And yet you just completely open the books, numbers, player salary, merch sale. I mean, everything. Why? Why do it? Who do we work for? The fans. Yeah. So we have a responsibility. And I think if we want to be truly who we are and what we stand for and the fans, then we have responsibility to share to them. And also, we have accountability, accountability to them and accountability to our own team and our staff. When we put this all out, which took weeks, weeks to write, because, you know, really, again, every intentionality of every word and what we're saying and why we're saying was thought of, we have that responsibility to now deliver. Often people don't share what they're going to do or how

Starting point is 00:11:07 they're going to do it because if they don't do it, they don't look good. Yeah. I'm not afraid of that, because there's a lot of things that we're going to try to do that we may fail. But that's part of who we are. But if we have this aspiration, this goal, this is what, hey, these are the areas we need to get better. We need to get better with our ticket experience. We need to get better with our merch experience. Our broadcast has to improve. And here's where we're going to go with our shows.

Starting point is 00:11:28 When they go out to bigger stadiums, we are going to obsess over winning the upper deck. Because when we play in front 100,000 fans, I want the fans sitting the furthest away of the best experience they've ever had at any sporting event. When you put that out, put it down on paper, put it in a video and share with your team, it's a responsibility. We better deliver. And fans may call us out. I was sitting in Section 405, and I didn't see a cast member.

Starting point is 00:11:47 Well, that's on us. We've got to be better. And you better believe we'll make it up to them. And I shared what we did last year when we messed up and we sent a wrong email to 44,000 fans and we're supposed to send it to 4,000. It cost us $6 million to take care of those fans with tickets. We will do that, again, if we don't hit what we believe we're responsible to do and make sure the fans feel something and have an unforgettable experience.

Starting point is 00:12:07 I was going to ask you about that because you didn't have to take that big of a financial hit and you did. I feel like I don't hear a lot about I'm following everything you guys do. I love it. I've been to game. You know, when I come to more games, my family is a massive fan of you and everything going on. You were in a March, by the way, which not many people get to be in an actual March.

Starting point is 00:12:26 Dude, my 11-year-old daughter is with stilts. She loves stilts. Now I just took a picture of his locker and I sent it to her. I mean, she's in school. Yeah, you've more than taken care of us. But just the idea of, wait a second, we're going to give away $6 million is a lot of money. what happened and why did you do that? That was more than the company brought in our first five years.

Starting point is 00:12:48 Yeah. I mean, literally, we were only playing 30 games. We were a college summer team. That was ridiculous. We messed up. Most companies, they mess up. You're lucky to get an apology. We messed up.

Starting point is 00:12:58 We have to feel that. Our team has to feel that. They need to know that, hey, we messed up and we're going to make it right to our fans. Now, our staff, like, hey, we talked to them. We said, we figured it out. We're going to have bigger failures and bigger mistakes that cost us a lot more in the future. If we don't, we're not trying things big enough. We need to have bigger failures. And so I remember vividly as I was flying and I see Twitter and emails blowing up, you told we could get

Starting point is 00:13:22 tickets for Savannah and it shut down and what happened? I immediately called Jared our president. And remember, he said, wow, what just happened? So he said, we got to apologize. And Jared, who's been with us since day one, 24 year old team president, now older, he said, I want to write this apology. So he wrote the letter and we realized that wasn't enough. And how do you go to the next step. And so we said, well, we got to take care of them as much as it's going to hurt. And so we offered, you know, the best seats to the biggest stadiums anywhere in the country, football stadiums, Fenway Park, you name it. And I remember, I was like, we need to turn this into more than just, hey, we're doing this. So we set up, we're all over the country traveling at that point.

Starting point is 00:13:57 I said, let's do a Zoom call with everybody. And I told everyone to turn their cameras on. And I wanted everyone to see. I wanted to see everyone on everyone to feel like, hey, this is a moment. I want you to remember where we were in this moment and what we're going to do to make sure we always make it right for our fans. And so, you know, it's probably one of the best $6 million lessons you could ever ask for. God, that's wild. Hiring, we talked a little bit about, you talked about the five-year future resume. You went through your values when you were doing the tour and how, that is, I think to do something like this, this special, you have to be, I mean, you're fanatical about everything, but fanatical about the who, the people. How involved are you in

Starting point is 00:14:33 that? And what is that process? I know there's, it depends on the role, depends on the players, coaches, but I was asking you earlier about players, coaches, how you choose them, very intentional. I think this could be applicable to lots of people who are trying to lead businesses is how you choose the people and the process to bring people in. Well, I think it's important, you know, a lot of times you join a company and you really, you've heard of the company, you may know what they sell, you know their product, but you don't know really who they are and what they stand for. You can see some policy things and letters.

Starting point is 00:15:03 Bob Iger learned this from, and we've been close with the Disney company, and, you know, obviously I've learned so much from them, and especially Walt. In Bob's book, he said, you know, he would often lead by press release. He would share the vision of the company where I'm going to say, have thousands of employees. And so myself, I'm very open on who we are and what we stand for, and I share it constantly. And because as we've grown out hundreds of employees, I want them to hear it. I want them to see it. And it can't always be in front of us.

Starting point is 00:15:27 I can't always be in front of them. And so that's intentional. And then we have our team. Marie's been with us since day one. She leads our people department. Day one. She was right out of college, 22 years. old. And so, and then with Emily, Emily's the heart of our business. As much as I want to grow and

Starting point is 00:15:41 create more fans, Emily, wants to make sure that our biggest fans, our people, are taking care of. And so every day, Emily is checking with people and connecting with them and seeing and hiring. I mean, she did hundreds of interviews. She's still doing hundreds of interviews constantly. And I mean, as an owner, Emily is doing that because it matters so much who comes into our team, who joins our team. So again, it's intentionality. I think the reality is it's not like it. We go through a long process of hiring people. We hire a lot of people. And fortunately, we've had probably less than five people have intentionally left our company in the last 10 years. When they come here, they want to be here. Because we're so clear on who we are and what we stand for in the hiring

Starting point is 00:16:17 process. And then when you join it, you know, you're not just walking into a company and filling up paperwork. We're going to welcome you. We're going to make you feel a part of this. And, you know, like the players example. And the players showed up. We spent weeks crafting and designing every second of their experience. And so when they showed up, we had them go to a lot right across the street. We had a DJ out there. We had music playing. It's 8.30 in the morning. And then all of a sudden, three buses show up. They get into the buses. There's balloons and bunch of things celebrate. There's DJs in each bus. And then all of a sudden, two police cars show up in front of them. Turn the sirens on. Do a police escort to the stadium, which it's

Starting point is 00:16:54 a quarter of a mile. You're literally going like 300 yards. And so police escort, as they make their police escort, our entire staff is lying the streets. Hundreds of people line the streets, encouraged them. They show up. Then all of a sudden, we put on a show for them. So we have a big opening. We have walking around. Our man-a-annas are walking around literally with munchkins on silver platters. Our dad bought cheerleader squad serving them. We put on a full show. They're dancing and they're singing. We welcome them in. Then we have the whole staff again lining them up in a tunnel. They walk to the field. Then we have a brand new custom hype video created with moments from there when they got drafted, when they joined us. And then as soon as that finishes, all of a sudden,

Starting point is 00:17:29 video camera goes in on our young professor, who's our host, ladies, gentlemen, boys and girls, girls, he's on the roof. He does an entire hype intro from on top of the roof. So they turn around, he's on the roof. Then each coach gets introduced. And we have music going off. Then fireworks going off on top of the field. And then we get in, we do one big, hey baby, streamers go over. That's how they're welcomed. And so the intentionality. And then we had five star. We had carving stations. We had food for each team. We had a whole carnival set up for lunch. It's all intentional. And so do leaders put the time into creating a custom designed intentional, meaningful, experience for their own team members is it always just about their customer. And so that sets

Starting point is 00:18:09 the tone. So that first day, I think the players know what's important. They know what a first class experience looks like. They know what being a fan feels like. And so if you deliver that to them, okay, I got to deliver that to the fans. That's what I was reading and watching some videos about leading up to this is that intentionality with taking care of your people. You leading with enthusiasm and all this juice and obsession and excitement, it radiates to me. And I I don't even work here. And I'm like, I'm going to go do this and do this. It honestly makes me think a lot bigger and we've just been hanging out for an hour.

Starting point is 00:18:41 I can't even imagine what that feels like for your players. How do you have the juice and the energy to bring it? You're not really ever in a bad mood. You know what I'm saying? Like, this is wild to me. I'm not a robot. I do have moments where obviously, but again, it's what you surround yourself with. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:18:58 You know, at the end of every day, me and Emily do are rose, rose and bud. Rose, great thing that happened today. And a bud you're looking forward to. We do it with our kids. And so what's the lens you see things every day? And so, like, that is very, very intentional and how we see things and how we view things. So, yeah, when it comes to the players, for us, it's just,

Starting point is 00:19:13 you got to set the tone. You got to bring the energy. You got to bring the fun. But I put myself in their shoes. Yeah. You know, you were an athlete. Yeah. I was barely an athlete, but I played baseball back of the day.

Starting point is 00:19:22 Yeah. And, you know, I had the big dreams of playing Major League baseball. And I had that dream of playing at Fenway Park. And, you know, I was fortunate that some scouts were talking to me, and I was getting letters. And then all of a sudden, I tore my shoulder and that ended it. I was told I wasn't good enough because of an injury and I just never performed up to my ability. And the reason why I didn't perform to my ability is I put so much pressure on myself.

Starting point is 00:19:42 I was a big scholarship guy at Wofford as big as anyone the program had ever had up to that point. And I had to perform. And it wasn't about having fun. We played the game as kids to have fun. So every night I'm putting so much pressure on myself not having fun. Career ends and I'm done. Not good enough. Can't play anymore.

Starting point is 00:19:59 Every one of our players, they've played, they've been drafted or they've been a top college player. and at some point they've all been told they're not good enough. They've been rejected. They've been cut. This didn't exist. They were about to hang them up. And then we built this and now I can put myself in their shoes and saying, you've got this second chance.

Starting point is 00:20:18 You've got this chance now to play the game the way you used to do as a kid and go out and just have fun and play it for the right reasons. You're not competing against the other outfielder to try to get called up to the next level. You are competing to create fans and we're all doing that together. And so this is what I wish I could have built for myself, and I'd still be playing and having the time in my life. And so when you build something for yourself, something that you would truly love, you can feel it with them. And you can every day try to make it better for them. And so now they play with heart.

Starting point is 00:20:48 They play with fun. They play with passion. And they play the way when they were five years old and they went out just to go have fun and nothing more. That I want to build all over because that's what it's all about. One of the things I've been studying a lot lately, Jesse, is obsession. Yeah. And that's why I love you. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:21:06 I love what you do is because when you feel a leader who is obsessed with the thing that they do and it's about other people and serving other people, it is as contagious as anything gets in the world. And it seems like you're doing a really good job also of surrounding yourself with other people who are obsessed. Jimmy Donald's, Mr. Beast, some of the guys you're with this week with what you're doing. I'd love to hear your mindset and your thoughts on not only being obsessed with what you do, but all. also surrounding yourself with others who are. Yeah, obsession's got such a bad word. It does. Oh, you're obsessed.

Starting point is 00:21:38 It's bad. It's tremendous. It's awesome. Yeah. If you can find something you're obsessed with so few people in the world get to have that. Yeah. You are lucky to find that. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:21:45 And so I feel I was truly lucky to get the opportunity to have something I'm truly obsessed with. And so, yeah, I think it's, you know, it starts, everyone's like, you know, the average of the five people you surround yourself. Well, it's a cop out sometimes. It's like, well, I don't have those people around me right now. We've got more access than we've ever had in the hands. history to be able to have every book at our fingertips, to have every podcast at our fingertips for free.

Starting point is 00:22:10 Yep. We can listen and hear from the greatest leaders, entrepreneurs, business owners, you name it, for free every single day. And if you're not taking advantage of that, you're missing out. And so I've had the opportunity to surround myself with Walt Disney probably as much as anyone in the world, with Jeff Bezos, probably more than anyone in the world. Steve Jobs, Grateful Dead, W.W.E., Circa Sillet. And I get to get in that world by reading.

Starting point is 00:22:37 I mean, I've read some of these books over and over and over again. I literally can know that page will go to this. I literally can feel it. So that's who I've surrounded myself with. And now, you know, because we've been able to have a little bit more success, we have more people reaching out. You know, being around the best of the best. You know, Derek Huff is an example.

Starting point is 00:22:55 So he reached out, one of the greatest dancers. And he reached out and danced with us. and I watched his obsession on every part of the dance moves. And he wasn't just focusing on the dance. He was focusing on how it was captured. You know, with our camera crew, which we have a very young but unbelievably passion and talented video crew. He's like, no, you come around here, hit me at this moment,

Starting point is 00:23:14 then I'm going to hit here. I'll wink right here. Then you go around, spin here, and then I'll do it. He's producing while thinking about dancing. When you're around the best of the best, one of the best dancers in the world, and he's obviously around some of the best dancers in the world, you see everything and you see the attention to detail.

Starting point is 00:23:29 That's what Walt Disney had. And so now I'm so fortunate that some of these people are reaching out to us. You know, John Sina was another one. John Sina, when he came out with us, I watched his attention to detail on how he came out, what he did, his moments, what he said. He was thinking about all those. He understood production.

Starting point is 00:23:44 He understood where the lighting hits. He understood when to look here. That attention to detail, not many people think about. They think about, oh, here's what I'm going to do, and I'm going to do it. What I'm so grateful that I get to see now is when I'm on the field during the show, I'm thinking about the live crowd, number one. I'm thinking about digital, broadcast, social media.

Starting point is 00:24:01 I'm thinking about every upper deck. I'm thinking about all of that and saying. And so now our team, we can look at each other. My director of entertainment, Zach, we just look. And he goes, oh, yep, got it. We don't have to say a word because we've worked together five years. It's energy here, music, get a song here, and just start to realize those things. And so once you're around it, it just starts growing.

Starting point is 00:24:18 The obsession and attention to details, an intentionality, a commonality among leaders I've found over the past 11 years at 11 years interesting. I've been doing this 11 years. It's a big number. The hold music. Yes. Your invoices. Yes. There's nothing that's just going to be normal. Nothing that's going to be, oh, yeah, you just get an invoice or the hold music is normal. Everything, everything. Everything. You talk to me about that, like how crazy, stupid, not stupid, how crazy, awesome. We heard stupid. You know, but how like crazy cool your invoicing process is and what it sounds like, oh my God, it's pay day. You get to pay out, you know, all that stuff. Well, again, all of us to an extent, we're chasing moments.

Starting point is 00:24:55 Yeah. You know, we want to have these special moments in our life. I think more now than ever because of, you know, the phones and the screens, I think people want to feel alive. Yeah. We're both music guys, Dave Matthews band. When I go to a show, and I get there, our coaches we've gone the last few years, I'm nowhere else.

Starting point is 00:25:09 I'm in the show. As soon as Jeff Coffin starts ripping a saxophone solo, I'm there. I'm in it. I think people need those now more than ever. And so I think about those moments and how to create those moments with everything. And so it's just, to go back for the point you were making, I'm talking about hold music. Yes. See, I just got lost in the moment.

Starting point is 00:25:32 I was just literally picturing myself in the moment. Yeah. So the intention. Well, I'm thinking of a Dave concert. I was thinking about going to Deer Creek or somewhere to listen to. 100%. So I don't think anyone goes home and says, ah, I just had a really normal experience tonight. It was, you know, I went to a show and it was normal.

Starting point is 00:25:50 That restaurant, you know, that restaurant I was talking about? It was really normal. But I got to tell you about how normal it was. The waiter served it the same way. The food was pretty normal. And then when I left, you know, no one really said goodbye. It was really normal. The parking lot was a normal experience.

Starting point is 00:26:01 No one gets excited for normal. So true. It seems so obvious, but it's so true. It's so excited. So if you want to create a life that has special moments where you feel part of something, you feel excited about something, then you try to eliminate everything that is normal. And so normal gets normal results. If you do things that are normal, good luck.

Starting point is 00:26:17 And there's a lot of normal out there in the world. But there's not a lot of extraordinary. And to do extraordinary, you've got to think of, every single little thing that is normal and do the exact opposite. One of our fans' first principles is whatever is normal to the exact opposite. So yes, for years, we had just regular payment confirmations when you bought tickets. We had regular invoices. We had all of that. And we got to keep pushing. But the reality is right now people will still find lots of things that we still do. That's normal. Our broadcast is still normal right now. We're not even close to what we can

Starting point is 00:26:44 touch. You've mentioned that multiple times. So what is that? It seems like this would be something you'd be on the cutting edge of. Yes. So it's very hard in a lot of. And a lot of of things and it takes time. And also, where's your focus go and energy go? I have put almost all of my focus on the live show because that is where our fans are there in person. The broadcast is very hard for me. And to be honest, like, I love live shows. I can go to a theater show. I can go anywhere. I have concerts. I can go to live show. I don't watch a lot of TV. I'm not the prime audience right now. So I can't picture myself. I don't even watch much sports on TV. It's all, you know, it is what it is. Team wins. A team loses. Whatever. You know, there's some cool moments that are done.

Starting point is 00:27:23 am not the right audience. So I haven't really been able to put the right energy or time into trying to create something that I love. What I want people to do, I want to disrupt our business and say it's better on TV than a live show, which is almost impossible because our live show is so immersive. So I challenge our broadcast team, what could we do there? So yeah, I think it's still normal at broadcast. And we had to figure it out ourselves. We do it all ourselves. One of the things that's not normal, though, is that you've negotiated and probably given up money, I'm assuming, when ESPN or other networks want to broadcast your games, you say, yes, that's great. And it's still going to be free on YouTube.

Starting point is 00:27:56 So I don't know anyone else who's been able to do that. It's very hard. Right. You probably had to make some financial concessions, I'm guessing, and pay for. Everything. Yeah, everything. But, you know, again, I assume it's a fan's first. And that's why you would do this, right?

Starting point is 00:28:10 Instead of saying, wait a second, this is an opportunity, really. Yeah. I say it all the time. It sounds simple. But the starting point of all innovation is just put yourself in the customer's shoes and eliminate the friction points. What are the things that you don't like? as a customer and eliminate it.

Starting point is 00:28:25 Where's the football game tonight? Is it on Amazon? It's on Peacogs. It's CBS. Is it NBC? They're making billions. I think it was like 18 billion, 20, whatever it is.

Starting point is 00:28:33 They're maximized. They're the most valuable sports league in the world. I don't want to be the most valuable sports league in the world. I want to be the most fans first company in the world. And so that makes your decision making very easy. So that's a friction point.

Starting point is 00:28:45 Where's the game? Or, oh, I don't have Amazon. I don't have Netflix. I don't have Peacock. Oh, I got to do a subscription. to get this. So we were willing to throw away millions. Literally, I have some of the biggest networks that we're not working with because they said, no, we can't do this. No one does this. But here's millions of dollars. That's not what gets me excited. What gets me excited is our fans

Starting point is 00:29:07 being excited to be able to see our show for free at all times. And so yes, ESPN at first, they never did it. They were like, we're not going to pay you for this. I was like, well, no. And so it's like, all right, now they do. And then again, they came back this year. We're going to do more games. Now I'm not going to do this. All the other ones. We're not going to do it. And I said, well, we want to work with you. Look at what your ratings are. You know, ESPN averaged over a half million viewers this past year while having our games on YouTube.

Starting point is 00:29:31 Yeah. You know, CW Roku monster numbers. So I'm like, your advertisers are getting exactly what they want. They're getting lots of eyeballs. So who cares if it's on YouTube? So, you know, you've got to be firm in what you believe in. You know, yeah, we would have a lot more money if we did it the exclusive way, but it'd be not fans first and we'll never do that.

Starting point is 00:29:47 In order to have a business, though, you do have to make money. Yes. So is your mentality of, we focus on the fans, we focus on our people, internally, the money will come. Yeah, our fans reward us more than, it's unbelievable. I mean, yeah, I shared. I mean, we sold over $1.9 million merch items last year. So when you think of $1.9.

Starting point is 00:30:03 The merch is everywhere. Everywhere. Well, you build something that people are proud of that people want to wear. Yeah. You know, I make a joke off. And I get a chance just like you, I get a chance to speak to a lot of companies. And, you know, I get in front of the stage. And I said, you know, what does a fan look like?

Starting point is 00:30:15 And I said, we have one fan that every year we have a new team, he gets a new tattoo. And so he's got six tattoos of our team's logos on his leg. And he goes, dude, you got to stop adding teams. I go, that's a you problem. Like, that's you, my man. I'm like, you don't have to get the tattoos. But you think about this, no matter what company you have, if you are loved, people want to wear their merch.

Starting point is 00:30:38 Like, just like you have an unbelievable podcast. I want to wear a learning leader because it is awesome. You know what I'm saying? If people don't want to wear your merch or rep you, you haven't made them feel something yet. You haven't been so obsessed with them and create an experience that they want to show it off to everyone. So the more things we do, like keep all our games free on YouTube,

Starting point is 00:30:55 have no ads at our stadium, do these things to go to places that don't make sense on paper, we create more fans and people are proud to wear us. We spend $0 on traditional marketing, but we invest everything in the experience. If we make the experience so good, our fans will share with everyone that this is something they haven't experienced anywhere.

Starting point is 00:31:11 When you go to one of the games, there's so many kids. I brought mine. I want to bring more of them to the future games. Certainly want to come down here. This place is magical. truly is. You think a lot that stems from your social media growth and how focused you guys have been on TikTok and others and you just absolutely crushed it there. Was that intentional?

Starting point is 00:31:30 Did you stumble into it? Like, how did that go? I mean, we say a lot of things we have like some vision and we do it and then we stumble into the learning that happens. But you're willing to try a bunch of stuff. Right. So I'll never forget. It's our first year. And again, we had a, we had interns. We didn't think to hire. We were college summer baseball. This is in 2016. So we had interns. You know, you help out with tickets. You help out with merch. But like, we didn't have any idea to help out with video because teams didn't have videographers back in 2016. Didn't it make sense? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:31:55 And so we had one guy and he was with us and he's like, you know, I can create some videos. I was like, oh, really cool. And then all of a sudden they can't stop the feeling. We call it Can't Stop the Peeling, but by Justin Timberlake. That song came out that summer and it was a banger and everyone was playing it. And I was like, let's just do a music video. So we had our staff, like, we would lip sync and it was so low level produced. We never done a video.

Starting point is 00:32:14 So we're just having lip sync. The players I remember sitting in this corner were like do lip syncing, but like they weren't even into it. It was just like, it was like so, like half. But we put it out. And I remember I was driving in from our house and I'm looking at Facebook and it's like 10,000 views every few minutes. And Facebook was where we put everything. It was like 100,000 views, 200,000 views.

Starting point is 00:32:34 And our fans were just like, yes. Like they were so excited. And from I was like, guys, so we hired him as a videographer. And we said, like, let's just show us having fun. And so that's how we stumbled on that. And then when TikTok came along in 2020, we were like, let's just start posting. And the big question for our team was, what are we going to post? I go, I don't know.

Starting point is 00:32:52 Just something that makes baseball fun. And our first video was our group's director dressed up like Cupid, you know, the Cupid of like the heart. And he was doing the Cupid shuffle. It made no sense, Ryan. And it got 12 views. And so like, all right, let's not do that again. And then so the next day you'd another video.

Starting point is 00:33:06 And then we realized, oh, what can we show the players doing that they don't normally do? Singing, dancing, things on the field. Again, get away from normal. Walk up with a bat on fire or whatever. Exactly. What are things you've never seen before in a baseball field? And so we said, that's the last.

Starting point is 00:33:19 lens. Make baseball fun. Anything that makes baseball fun and shows our players, our cast, our staff, doing things that you normally want to do. And then we said, we're going to post every day. And we committed to post every day. It's like, hey, a podcast, I'm going to post every way. I'm going to get it out there every week. Because you learn by doing. This is one of the biggest things. You don't learn by talking about it. You've got to do it. And so now you've gone since TikTok in 2020, we've posted every single day. So you're talking about thousands of posts. And so now you look at the party animals, our second team. They have more followers than every major league baseball team on TikTok. And they're selling out Major League Stames because we committed to just putting something out every single day.

Starting point is 00:33:52 And I think that's, it's not always just creativity. It's putting out so you can learn and being willing to try things that might not work. Yeah. So you're brought in to speak now whenever you can in between all the other stuff you're doing. And so there's people in corporate America who say, well, what can we learn from Jesse Cole? What can we learn from the Savannah bananas to bring into our business? Like, what are some of the ways? Like, what are some of the potentially portable lessons for a random Fortune 500 company that

Starting point is 00:34:17 is boring that is normal, right? What are some of the things they could say, well, we could do that. We don't have a baseball team and we don't put on shows, but we have a company and we want to make it better for our people. We want to make it better for our customers slash fans. What are some of the things that you say to them? I'm fortunate now. Before no one, I had to like beg a Kiwanis group or a rotary group to let me speak. And it was hard, but now a lot more fortunate. But a couple weeks ago, I was speaking to the National Asphalt and Pavement Convention, their annual meeting. And so, exactly where you think I would be. Like, this is it.

Starting point is 00:34:49 And I told them, I opened. I go, when I was a kid, I dreamed I'd get the opportunity to be here. And now that I'm with you guys, you've made my dreams come true. Fortunately, they laughed at that. But it was very hard because they work with governments. They work, it's B to B. It's not B to C. But what I said is we're all age to age, human to human. And we're all, how do we connect with humans?

Starting point is 00:35:05 And they're like, well, we can't do things with the government because it's a bid process. I go, okay. But what can you do to create fans? How can you work on the experience every step of the way? Most the way, most companies, this is the process that they do it. Hey, for them, you do a bid process, you hope they say yes, and then you deliver the road, the street, the parking lot, whatever it is.

Starting point is 00:35:23 But how intentionally could you look at every step of the experience from when you first interact with them for what happens with when that day you show up? Can you show videos? Hey, this is what we're doing today and show the process because everyone's asking, are things getting done? They're working with the community. And so, for instance, people in the community are like, how long is this row going to take? You're making it.

Starting point is 00:35:41 You're making it inconvenient to me. And what if you actually show what you're doing in the progress and how you're making, you actually do things for the community and put social media sharing that, there's all opportunities. Change the lens on how do you grow customers, on how you chase customers, but how do you create fans? And so if you look at everything and say, if you meet with the business and it's like, all right, what are ideas that we can bring in an extra million dollars, $2 million?

Starting point is 00:36:01 You'll get a bunch of ideas. If you ask the same question, say, how can we create a million fans? They're different ideas, almost always. Most people chase how do you create an extra million dollars, not how can you create a million fans. And so if you do that, that's how we start with everything. It's like, okay, what does this experience look like? How can the upper deck experience at every stadium be the best sporting event experience ever? I don't care if you're sitting behind home plate. How can we make it even better than sitting behind home plate? And when you ask those questions, then all of a sudden the business will

Starting point is 00:36:29 take off because people will invest in because they believe in you. So whatever the business is, the question is, how do you create fans? And what are the steps? And, you know, I've shared in my first fans first, eliminate friction, entertain always, which means it's not entertain. The definition of entertain is to enjoy. So, like, to entertain, enjoy. So can you make every step of the process filled with enjoyment? And then next, experiment constantly. You've got to try new things. You never try before. How do you engage deeply? How do you do for one what you wish you could do for many? You can't do everything for everyone, but can you create a moment? Can you listen carefully and respond creatively to what your guests are wanting or what are your customers wanting? And then finally,

Starting point is 00:37:04 how do you empower yourself to do things that scare you, that are hard, that are uncomfortable, that would say you shouldn't be doing and do what others won't do. And if you do any level of those, you'll start creating more fans. We obsess overall five of those. You're one of the most grateful people I know. I think I got my first yellow thank you note handwritten. It was like this long from you eight years ago now. You made such an impact. Which is wild to think. It's been eight years since I got that in the mail. I'm like, what is this yellow thank you card? You send those videos to me all the time after you work out about, hey, I listen to this episode. It was great. And so I imagine you do this to everybody. I am.

Starting point is 00:37:39 Not everybody, Ryan. Well, but I mean, towards lots of people, but the idea of being perpetually grateful and then telling other people by sending them those videos or writing them those notes, what your, do you have a process for that or just whenever you feel like it, you're just saying, hey, I should send him a video because I like that podcast or I should write him a note or her a note because she impacted me in this way. I'd be curious to hear how you think about gratitude. Put yourself in their shoes.

Starting point is 00:38:04 It comes down to empathy. Again, it means so much. that after a night that I've worked from all day, and it's 11 o'clock in signing autographs, and a fan will come up or a kid will come up, and the best are the kids. The kids, thank you for creating this. You know, this is the best day.

Starting point is 00:38:20 This is the best day. I love your teams. Thank you for, the way I feel when someone tells me that. On the first cruise, a woman came up to me, and she was emotional, it just came up to me and said, I'm here on this cruise because of you. Can I give you a hug? And I said, yes.

Starting point is 00:38:34 And I go, what do you mean? You're here. She's like, I'll never forget. I went to a game in Sacramento, and I was kind of wandering around aimlessly, and you came up and asked to be okay, and you're like, I'm okay, just kind of going through something. And you said, can I give you a hug? And I gave her a hug. She lost her sister the day before. And her sister was a big fan and wanted to go to the game. And instead, she said, she lost her sister. She's like, I'm going to go and tribute to my sister. And she was just walking around aimless. She didn't know what to do. And I guess I saw her in that moment.

Starting point is 00:39:02 I don't really unbelievably vividly remember that. And she said, you gave me that hug. And I came on the crew so I could give you a hug back. And so when you think about those moments, you think about those, which happened to every one of our players, every one of our staff, there's moments like that. It feels so good. It feels like you have such purpose and meaning that if I can find a way, if I see something, whether it is just a podcast or something, and just send a quick video and say, man, thank you.

Starting point is 00:39:28 Like, that was awesome. That inspired me. You've made my day. I'm pumped. You try to give it back. And so, again, because of how powerful it feels for me, how much joy, how much you know, energy it gives me, I want to just give it back. And I can do a lot more. Be honestly, I can do a lot more. And I think about that. Like, I'm doing a lot more videos

Starting point is 00:39:45 than I used to do letters. You know, videos are the one I do because I don't want people to feel the tone and the energy and they don't always get my letters. Like, I can send a letter and you never, you never hear back. I like to try to hear that immediate like, hey, I hopefully made your day because you made my day. Yeah. It's contagious too. It makes me want to do it for others. I love that. One more question. Let's fast forward one year from now. You're, again, a forward resume type guy. So it's 2027. You and Emily are hanging out maybe after a long day of work. What month are we in?

Starting point is 00:40:13 We're in February, 2027. Okay. And I don't know if you drink champagne, but for the purpose of the question, I'm going to use it. Okay, the Jason Gaynard champagne question. Okay. What are you and Emily celebrating? What are you celebrating a year from now? I know exactly where we're going to be.

Starting point is 00:40:32 And I can't. You can't say? Do you know, Taylor? She has an idea. I will love for you to share. Why not? Because everything we do is very intentional. And how we announce things and how we share things is very intentional and to be right for the fans.

Starting point is 00:40:49 I know you don't want a political answer, but we will have just done something that we've never done in history. And it will be one of the biggest things we've ever done in the most challenging and the hardest. And it's been years in the making and fans have been asking us this for years. And in February of next year, we will look around after doing it. And we will say, look at what we just did. And we will celebrate it. And it'll be something that shows that we can do anything. Wow.

Starting point is 00:41:14 Thank you, man. Thank you for having us, man. Thank you for being so accommodating in the tour, the whole deal. I love you, man. You're super, super inspirational for me and make me think bigger. And there's not a ton of people in the world who do that. So I really, really appreciate the way that you make others like, it's contagious, your enthusiasm.

Starting point is 00:41:30 So I appreciate it, man. And this was the third time. So the third time's a charm here in Savannah. It won't be the last. It won't be the last. I appreciate that, brother. Thanks so much. It is the end of the podcast club.

Starting point is 00:41:45 Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a note, Ryan at learning leader.com, let me know where you learn from this great conversation with Jesse Cole. A few takeaways from my notes. Actually, go to YouTube. YouTube.com slash Ryan Hawk to see this one in person. We filmed it in the new Savannah Bananas Lockroom. It was so cool.

Starting point is 00:42:08 will also be releasing a vlog soon of the tour that Jesse gave me. We want all over Savannah, and it was so cool to see them talk through it. A few takeaways from my notes. I loved watching them practice. Every single repetition, they practice some sort of trick, a backflip, bouncing the ball through their legs, a behind the back catch. Why do they do this so that on game day, it is just their default setting. They don't even think they automatically do trick plays.

Starting point is 00:42:40 It's all about entertaining the fans. And I love also they make their values visible. They are all over the place in the locker room. The sign fans first is on every single player's locker. It's leading out to the field. It also says tonight is someone's first time seeing our show. Not game, not a game. It's a show.

Starting point is 00:43:02 Jesse was adamant that it says that. Your team cannot execute on principles. They cannot see. I think it's worth it to put the reminders where the work actually happens. And I thought it was really cool about being so transparent with their profit and loss statements. Revenue expenses, player salaries, when I asked why, he said, quickly, fans first. They deserve to know everything. Transparency builds trust faster than any marketing campaign.

Starting point is 00:43:30 And then we talked a lot both on air and off about his time spent with Mr. Beas, Jimmy Donaldson trying to learn everything he can about YouTube. Jesse regularly puts himself in the rooms with people who are the best in the world at what they do. Also, Bob Iger at Disney, he spent quite a bit of time with him to learn how he's built that business. So I think that that's inspiring for all of us to learn. How can we put ourselves in the rooms with people who are the best in the world at what they do, or at least who are excellent at what they do? I think that will make. us all better. Once again, I would say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message

Starting point is 00:44:09 and telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leaders Show with Jesse Cole. I think it'll help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that and you also go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, subscribe to the show, rated, hopefully five stars, write a thoughtful review by doing all of that. You are giving me the opportunity to take these amazing trips to Savannah, learn from the best in the world, and do what I love on a daily-based And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talking soon, can't wait.

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 676: Jesse Cole (Owner, Savannah Bananas) - The Beauty of Obsession, Building a Fans First World, Walt Disney, Mr. Beast, Radical Transparency (Opening the Books), Do the Opposite of Normal, Turning a $6M Mistake Into a Moment, and Creating Banana World

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