Co-Hosts Mateo Bradford and John Stokinger welcome Jesse Cole, theOwner of Savannah Bananas, Author of Find Your Yellow Tux, Keynote Speaker, and Host of Business Done Differently Podcast. Get ready to be blown away by Jesse’s story! Approaching things differently with a positive mindset while putting fans first is a recipe for success! Jesse and his wife, Emily, also own four vacation rentals on Tybee Island. The Yellow Tux Guy” brings so much energy and enthusiasm to the conversation around putting fans first and how that applies to the short-term rental space. This is not a tips and tricks podcast by nature, but you’d be hard-pressed to come away from this episode without picking up knowledge that will help you be a better person and whatever you do in life. The No BS Short Term Rental Podcast brings the right people to the table at the right time giving their audience an inside view and real take on the industry like no other.
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Turning Guests Into Fans With Featured Guest Jesse Cole
Good morning, Mateo. How are you?
I had a crazy weekend. I’m good though.
That’s good. Is it a crazy weekend that you could talk about on the show?
Yes. We’re going to a boutique hotel in Portland. Everything’s been going well and operationally strong, booked all weekend. I get a call on Friday at about 6:00 PM or 3:00 PM Portland time. “I’m here for the wedding party. We reserve lots of rooms. We need to know how to check in.”
No wedding party?
“We’re not even fully open. The previous manager didn’t shut down a booking window.” It’s a wedding party, we’re packed, and we have no rooms. There’s nothing we could do. That was fun. I felt bad for them. I was like, “Somebody needs to do the chronicles when shit goes bad in STR.” That was one of them. The guy was cool at the end of the day. He knew that we were the new management company. It wasn’t on us. We helped them to get somewhere else. It was like twelve people. I felt bad. I hope my head-on ops was okay. That was an interesting part of my weekend.
Mine was relatively uneventful, which is great. I like that. As you can tell, I’m a little geeked up. I’m excited. I’m a huge fan of our guest. I want to go ahead and introduce Jesse Cole. He is the Owner of Savannah Bananas. He is the author of Find Your Yellow Tux. He’s always in a yellow tux. Rumor has it, he has a minimum of seven yellow tuxes. He’s the host of the Business Done Differently podcast. He’s been a guest on over 500 podcasts. Mr. Jesse Cole, thank you so much for joining us.
What’s up? I’m pumped to be right here.
Welcome. It’s great to have you. Seven suits like that? I just need some socks. I would love some. Can we get some Savannah Bananas? Underwear is going to be interesting.
I can get you the Dolce and Banana underwear. I can get you the Savannah Bananas Dolce and Banana underwear, but no socks, just underwear.
I’ll take that. Welcome to the show, brother. Thanks for coming out.
Thanks.
Those who are reading and do not know much about Jesse and what he brings, first of all, you’re probably living under a rock. Second of all, it’s going to be a great episode. We’re going to be talking a lot about the similarities between what Jesse does and what we all do in the short-term rental space, and how we could bring energy and put fans first.
I’ll let him describe exactly what he does and brings. I’m a huge baseball fan, so I’m super excited to have you. Before we dive into Jesse’s story, I quickly want to touch on a couple of things in the news, because that is what we do, news and then culture. Two big things happened. First of all, too, Jesse and his wife are owners of recently four short-term rentals themselves. Are they all on Tybee, Jesse?
That’s correct.
Airbnb and Vrbo announced that they’re going to be working together, not as enemies. This is like the classic Red Sox and Yankees, or Bananas and Macon Bacon. I’m not sure. What’s Savannah Bananas’ arch nemesis, Jesse?
We have Macon Bacon urinal cakes that our fans pee on every night, and we have Macon Bacon toilet paper, so we would say they are.
That’s incredible. I love that.
I thought it was pretty cool. As much as Vrbo and Airbnb are direct competitors, they’re in the same space. They’re talking to a lot of the same people, a little bit different culture around it, but it’s cool they’re coming together to squash the party atmosphere and come up with a game plan on how to go ahead and combat these party homes. What are your thoughts?
It’s necessary because one of the things we still face as an industry together united is regulatory issues. It’s a huge risk depending on where you’re at. At the core of those issues like housing issues, it’s the party houses. It’s uncontrolled listings and unmanaged. I won’t call them professionals because I don’t think professionals allow it to happen, but it’s the people who refuse to adhere to a standard that the rest and most of the industry adhere to. We saw it a lot when we were working through the regulation. We’re still working through it here in Atlanta, and most of the issues were party house issues.
They passed a party house ordinance. Even with the party house ordinance in place, it was still the crux of the issue that they wanted to discuss when it came to talking about the regulatory framework and what they didn’t want. That’s what everybody fears. To be able to band together, it’s going to take that. It’s going to take the industry to band together, not just Airbnb and Vrbo. It’s going to take all of us to get together to set and hold a standard that’s going to allow us to live and operate.
I agree. The unified front is where we need to come in with it. Jesse, as a short-term rental owner, have you experienced any of your properties being used in a way that is unbecoming to what you as an owner would like to see your properties used at?
We were unintentionally strategic in buying two small, falling apart, really bad, ugliest, worst places ever, and then fixing them up. They’re so tiny that I don’t think you can have a party. They’re fine, but it’s always couples and small families. We were very strategic not to get a big potential party house.
The last thing that I want to touch because I wanted to dive into Jesse here and what he brings is, I feel for Europe, again, like when we were talking about Canada, and how different provinces are opening and some are not, and the borders are closed. Europe was getting all excited and ready to go ahead and open. I’m speaking very generally.
There are different regions that are more open, but overall, it’s been pushed back another month to where there are some spikes and COVID over there, and there are some different things. I feel for the owners, travelers, and everyone on the side that they were again, getting excited to reopen and put some livelihood into their business here. It’s safety first, but where is that line? Is that month going to make a big difference? I’m not sure.
The other thing, too, John, you got to understand is when we were talking to Noelia weeks ago, she brought out something that I hadn’t thought about. We live in the US. Whatever you feel about the vaccine, you had access to it. You could go drive somewhere and get it. You could go to your doctor and get it. There were masks. Mercedes-Benz here was a supercenter. They opened up arenas. When we were talking to Noelia, they did it in age blocks. You had an appointment. People’s access to being able to get what is needed to open and open safely, plus with new variants coming out, I don’t think we fully understand how different that is.
We talked with Canada. Canada still can’t come down. That has a major lasting effect on her, as a business owner on her life. Think about it. you are, too. That’s the same way, but that’s something that if we’re smart, we have to think about because if it can shut down, again, people have to think. I’m not saying it’s going to happen. I don’t know. If you’re smart, you’re thinking in these ways. It’s not out of the realm of possibility.
To bring it back here to the US, the COVID epidemic made things a little difficult. Always thinking outside the box, you invented Banana Ball. I voted heavily to bring it to Fort Wayne, and it didn’t happen. I’m waiting to see that come. Tell us your story, Jesse. Tell us about you. Bring that energy you said you’re going to bring.
We’re coming off talking about COVID, and how it affected. It affected our team. It affected our Airbnb. Tybee Island was shut down. Again, it’s all your mindset. Your mindset’s everything. You focus on your inputs. Your input affects your output. For instance, I wasn’t watching the news and all that stuff, I was focused on what we needed to do, so that affected us in a positive way.
I woke up every morning optimistic. My word for the year was optimistic. My wife’s word was grateful. Every morning, we wrote thank you letters, we were optimistic, and it changed everything. Airbnbs at Tybee Island was shut down. They didn’t allow any Airbnbs for almost six weeks, yet still had a better year in 2020 than we did the previous year.
You look at it and say, “The world struggles. What are we going to do?” or say, “How are we going to make it better?” How are you going to make a better experience? It’s not how you are going to charge more, but make a better experience. We used that same approach for our Airbnbs that we did with our team. It was just, “Now, what?” That was the mindset. For us, going back quickly last 2020, we couldn’t play full capacity.
For the readers who don’t know the full story, it’s like, “This guy’s in a yellow tuxedo. He is a circus for running a baseball team and doing some Airbnbs on the side. Why should I listen to this guy?” I don’t blame you. I had no idea what I was doing with the baseball team and with Airbnbs, but we figured it out. The best way is to get experience, try, test, and experiment with things.
Here’s what happened to us. I was a baseball guy my whole life. John, like you, I loved baseball. I was fortunate to get a full college scholarship, D1 baseball. I was starting every Friday night, a two-way guy. By my sophomore year, I was getting letters. I remember I got Christmas cards every year from the New York Mets, Padres, and Braves. I was like, “I’m going to have a chance to do this.”
Even though I didn’t play that well in college, I put so much pressure on myself. I took the game way too serious because I was the scholarship guy. I had to deliver. I didn’t play as well, but I still had the opportunity until my senior year, I tore my shoulder. Just like that, it tore everything. It ended my career, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I thought I was going to go into coaching, and I sat in the dugout coaching in the Cape Cod League with the best players in the country, and I was bored out of my mind. I was in the best seat in the house, bored out of my mind. I was like, “This game is long.” I would be counting down the minutes until it was over.
I was like, “When is this game going to be over? It’s a big difference from playing.” I got an opportunity to become a GM of a team right out of college, right after that coaching opportunity. How do you get offered the job as a GM? It’s the worst team in the entire country. No one wanted the job. It was in Gastonia, North Carolina.
The first day I showed up, there was $268 in the bank account. That’s not a joke. I’ve said it numerous times. I looked to the bank and I said, “$268.” We had three full-time employees, and payroll was on Friday. I found out that only 200 fans were coming to the games and the team had lost $150,000 the previous year. When your total revenue is only $100,000, and you’re losing $150,000, this is not a good business.
We’re going in the wrong direction.
I said, “There’s no other option. I took this job as GM. I got to find a way.” I read every book from P. T. Barnum, and Walt Disney, marketing, and creating attention I could. I read more books in a month than I read in my entire high school and college career because I had no other options. I couldn’t pay myself. I went for three months, so I’ll pay for myself. Finally, I realized that no one liked baseball. Sorry, John. Very few people liked baseball.
I was like, “We can’t be a baseball team.” I called the owner of the team and said, “We’re no longer going to be a baseball team.” He goes, “What are you talking about?” I go, “It’s going to be a circus and a baseball game, we’re going to break out.” He goes, “What are you talking about, Jesse?” I go, “Our players are going to do choreographed dances every single game.” He goes, “What?”
I go, “We’re going to have grandma beauty pageants, flatulence fun night, and salute to underwear nights. I’m going to get in the dunk tank every game. We’re going to serve garbage can nachos on top of a garbage can lid. It will be a circus. You never know what to expect.” He goes, ” Jesse, whatever you say. I don’t think it’s going to work.”
I go, “Do we have any other options?” He goes, “No.” We start trying it. All of a sudden, we went to 1,000, 1,500, and 2,000 fans a game. Until 2014, we were 4th in the entire country in attendance and turned it into a million-dollar franchise. My wife and I met in the industry. She’s the one girl who will literally dress up in a hotdog costume all game and doesn’t care what anybody thinks. I love this girl. This girl’s amazing.
In 2014, the last game of the year sold out crowd in Gastonia, I stopped the game in the sixth inning. I had a ring inside a baseball. I thanked everyone in the field. I said, “Last but not least, our Director of Fun, Emily McDonald,” and I gave a soliloquy. She was like, “What are you doing?” I was like, “Nobody knows but we met right here for the first time on this field. In front of my family, your family, and our entire baseball family, will you make me the luckiest guy in the world?”
I dropped to a knee, opened up the baseball, and had a ring. She ran over and hugged me, surprised firework show in the sixth inning of the game. We stopped the game literally. The umpires are like, “Are we going to play?” I’m like, “No. This is our moment.” Thank goodness she said yes. That night, I didn’t realize, after I fell asleep, that long game, and crazy night, she planned a trip to Savannah, Georgia. I’ve never been, and we’ve heard great things.
We went to Savannah, Georgia the next weekend, came to the city, and went to this ballpark, which I’m underneath the stadium and the battles of the stadium right now. 1926 ballpark, we showed up, it was a beautiful Saturday night, 80 degrees. The New York Mets, an ironic affiliate, was playing the minor league team. We walk in, and I see the big brick call. You could feel a history coming out of the ballpark. I walk up the steps to the grandstand. It’s almost game time. I look around, there were less than 100 people in the crowd. I was like, “What is going on?” I sat down.
You could almost picture the scene of a movie with a tumbleweed going through. It was bad. I called the commissioner that night and said, “If this team leaves, we’re coming to this stadium. We’re calling this market.” He’s like, “Sure, Jesse, whatever you say.” Lo and behold, they wanted a brand-new stadium. The city said no. We convinced the city to let us come to Savannah. That’s when we proceeded to fail miserably, and then eventually, turned it around. That’s the spark notes of how we got to where we are in this story.
For those that have been reading, this is only our ninth episode in how we’ve differentiated ourselves in coming into this space. Mateo and I wanted to differentiate and not be a tips and tricks type of show. With that said, we’re a little slight pivot here because there are so much amazing tidbits of knowledge and nuggets that you can take out of this that our tips and tricks could be applied to everything in the short-term rental space from the homeowners that are reading to the property managers and all our vendor friends that are in this space. Teo and I work for specific vendors. We’re not necessarily property manager. There is so much we’re going to be able to pull out of this interview now. We appreciate you coming here. Jesse owns how many short-term rentals now?
I own three rentals. We just bought our fourth. I went under contract.
Talk about fans first. What’s up?
Long story short, bring it all back together. We came to Savannah and acted like everyone else. We tried to fit in and market like everyone else. We were nervous. We were the new kid on the block. We weren’t crazy enough. I wasn’t wearing the yellow tuxedo. We sold two tickets in our first three months.
I heard you were wearing the yellow tuxedo though when you dropped in one knee.
I was in Gastonia. I came to see Savannah, and I was scared because it was a bigger market. They had professional baseball. I didn’t want to wear it right away. I tried to fit in, and it failed miserably. We sold 2 tickets for the first 3 months. We marketed like everyone else. We were trying to be like everyone else. So bad, on January of 2016, phone call, we overdrafted our account. We were completely out of money.
My wife turns to me and says we have to sell our house. We had our dream house in Charlotte next to our team in Gastonia, perfect backyard, fire pit, and hot tub. It was like a dream house. We just got married, we sold it. We went down to Tybee, and I went down to Savannah, we had to find pretty much a dump that we could live in to invest in the team. We found one place in Tybee that was on the market for four years. It went down over $150,000. It was like nothing. I walked in and said, “Nope. No way.” We bought it.
Weren’t you sleeping on air mattresses for the first few months?
We had an airbed, and I had to sleep with socks because there were cockroaches every night. The floor was so disgusting. It was the nastiest place I’ve ever seen. We had to go grocery shopping for $30 a week. Between us, that’s 42 meals, 21 meals a week, $30 at Walmart, which is not even real food. That’s how bad it was. It was until we changed our whole mindset. We’re going to go all in on fans first and attention. We’re going to get the eyes and ears first, and then we’re going to get the hearts. When you think about even the short-term rental, first you’re going to get the eyes and ears. You could be the best short-term rental in the world, but if you’re not getting in front of people, good luck.
Get in front of people first. When they experience you, game over if you go all in. We named the team after a fruit and became the first team called the Savannah Bananas. We came up with a senior citizen dance team called the Banana Nanas. We came up with a male cheerleading team called the Man-Nanas. We named our mascot Split. We have Dolce and Banana underwear, frozen banana, banana beer, and Slippery Banana drinks. We went all in on being crazy. More than anything, we went all in on what a fan’s first experience is. This was the biggest game changer.
The future of business, short-term rentals, or any type of business is not based on how many customers you have, it’s based on how many fans you have. Customers are transactional, they come and go, but fans never leave. The biggest difference is right now, so many people are chasing followers and likes. Love is better than like. It’s better to have 100 people that love you than 1,000 who like you. That is how you go out of business.
That’s a difference in our space as someone that’s a repeat booker, a return booker, as of someone that’s just going to go and book, and then go check. You want to keep it. It’s that retention.
Emily on her rentals, Banana Properties, we got the Blue Banana, Breezy Banana, and Banana Teal. We got all banana names, Banana Properties. She’s got 200 to 300 five stars, and I would say about 50 return that text her, “We’re coming back.” It’s because she use the same mindset that we use here. Again, it’s the mindset to how you deliver a fan’s first experience. What we realized is that the number one starting point is to eliminate the friction and frustrations. We have the five Es that I share in a lot of keynote, and I share with a lot of real estate and realtors. Number one, eliminate friction. We realize that in baseball, it’s too long, too slow, and too boring. You get nickel dime to the ballpark, etc.
What did we do? That’s where we brought in a full pep band, a break dancing first base coach, and the senior citizen dance team. It’s nonstop entertainment. We have five stages in our ballpark, the parking lot where we have entertainment, the plaza, the concourse, the grand stands, seating, and the field. We have a cast of over 50 people. We changed that. We then said, “You get nickel-and-dimed.”
Think about this. This is what is brutal about Airbnb and Vrbo. This is the challenge we have. How many times before COVID you would buy tickets on Ticketmaster or whatever, and it’s a $50 ticket to a concert, and you’re like, “How is this $67.50?” You look, and they have ticket fees and convenience fees, which are the most inconvenient fee in the world.
Convenient fees, eliminate them. It’s everywhere. We had the decision to go with Ticketmaster, TicketReturn, and do all these ticket fees. They said, “You just put it on your customer.” I go, “That is not fans first.” We found our own ticket company, and we said, “We’re going to do no ticket fees and no convenience fees.” An $18 ticket gets all of your burgers, hotdogs, chicken sandwiches, soda, water, popcorn, and dessert all night long. We don’t shut it off early. We don’t stop it at certain times. It’s all night long. That fan’s first mentality that we kept building with our team.
Now, no shipping fees. Not only do you get when you get a shirt. You get a custom yellow box that is delivered fresh stamp, a free koozie, a free decal, and a yellow custom paper with a little note that says, “It’s been sprinkled with potassium.” It’s layered out. You get a video sent to you. Now, our merchandise has become a seven-figure business. What’s happened is because of all these fans-first experiences that we’ve delivered, we’ve sold every single game from just selling two tickets to now there’s a waitlist over 8,000. Every night, people come in from all over the country.
We had a family that came to me after a game last year during COVID and said, “This was so much fun.” I go, “Thank you. Where did you guys come from?” They said, “We drove 40 hours from Utah for this game. We’re driving 40 hours back tomorrow.” It was everything we hoped it would be. I go, “That is crazy, and I love you.” That’s a different stuff that’s better than like.
Emily’s built that into our short-term rentals. If we change the mindset from customers, clients, and even guests to fans, that’s how you’ll put all those things. How do you create fans? It’s a different conversation. How do you create more revenue this year? How do you not increase your wages? How do you create fans? The fans take care of the revenue. Sorry, that was a rampage.
That’s where I was going. When you mentioned that earlier, that’s a stroke of genius. People need to believe in you. Everyone was talking about, “Choose who’s going to win between Airbnb and Vrbo?” My answer to that is always the same, whomever the guests love more, like more, and repeatedly use.
It’s whoever delivers a better experience. It’s as simple as that. It’s whoever makes it easier and more enjoyable. Mateo, here’s a big thing. Most people say, “We’re in the entertainment business.” Everyone’s like, “You’re in the baseball.” I’m like, “We’re in the entertainment business. Everyone’s in the entertainment business.” They’re like, “We can’t wear a yellow tux.”
I go, “No. I’m not smart enough. I had to look up the definition. The definition of entertain is to provide enjoyment and to provide amusement. Aren’t we all in that business?” I would argue every single host and property manager is in the entertainment business. How do you entertain every step of the way? When you do that, that’s how you create fans.
[bctt tweet=”Every single host and property manager is in the entertainment business. How do you entertain every step of the way? That’s how you create fans.” via=”no”]
What intrigued me about your story, I can’t remember what article I was reading, but it was talking about your five stages. The second that someone would come into your parking lot, the experience starts. It starts beforehand. The experience starts before they even get there. The experience starts on the website, listening on the radio, or however. The second they come into the parking lot, that experience starts until the second they leave. The team you’ve built around you is super important to go ahead and to make this happen. It’s the same in our space when you have your team members, your cheerleaders, and your Man-Nanas that are willing to go ahead.
The Man-Nanas, the dad bod cheerleaders.
They’re cheering until the last person leaves the parking lot and goes home. That’s astonishing, and no one else does it.
It’s hard. It’s taken us many years. Here’s the deal. The last impression leaves a lasting impression. Often, people sometimes get the first impression right. The last impression is, “They’ve already paid. We’re good.” That’s where you make fans. You make fans when things go wrong, too. If you look at our reviews with people, I often see, “We went to a game. It poured rain. They didn’t throw a pitch, but it was the most fun we’ve ever had at a baseball game.” We have a three-page rain delay script where we literally have entertainment decked out for two hours to entertain in the grandstand. That didn’t happen the first several years. That’s happened now because we put ourselves in our customer’s shoes.
[bctt tweet=”The last impression leaves a lasting impression. ” via=”no”]
John, you talked about the first impressions. We have parking penguins that parked your car, which doesn’t make any sense, but we think it’s funny. You’re right. It happens before that. For us, we realize when people go on our website and they buy. Most times, you buy something, a ticket, and you get a boring payment confirmation. We said, “That is not fans first.” That’s not entertaining. That doesn’t provide enjoyment and amusement. Every year, we record a new video that as soon as they buy, they get a video sent to them.
They did a new one this year, but the one I was a part of opens with me at my desk, saying, “Congrats. You just made the best decision in your day. Right now, as your ticket order came in, a high priority siren went off in our stadium. Our Bananiacs rushed to the ticket laboratory to produce your tickets. A Banana Nana slowly walked in and hand-selected your tickets, and placed them on a silk pillow, and we raised the silk pillow up in the air and sang, ‘Nants ingonyama,’ to celebrate the birth of a new fan. We walked our tickets down to our vault where they’re in maximum security waiting for you to go bananas.” That’s the first impression. After they get that, they get a thank you call from one of our team members saying, “Thank you. We can’t wait to have you go bananas.”
We send a playlist of music to listen to on the way to the game with banana-themed songs to pump you up for the game. We didn’t do this in the beginning. Right now, you think about, if someone is booking with you, I understand it’s different if they’re booking through Airbnb or Vrbo, what happens next? The text message, the message you send them, what do they get? That’s such a great opportunity. One of the best lessons I learned was from Magic Castle Hotel, who teaches, “Listen carefully, respond creatively.”
If they’re staying at your house, you know things about them. Who’s coming? Do they have a dog? What are they doing? Are they celebrating something? That’s an opportunity to really wow when you ask those questions. We’ve learned that. Emily knows so much about people. We have all these gifts ready based on what they’re selling, whether they have kids coming in, whether it’s an anniversary, and that’s how you really wow by listening and responding creatively. That can happen on that first impression if you listen and ask the right questions.
This is what interests me all the time. You mentioned something before, consumers get nickel-and-dime to death. What’s brilliant about your experience is you provide something that gives them what they expect, the maximum value for your dollar. If I look at my cell phone bill, AT&T is not throwing a magic script about how I paid my cell phone bill or bought this new phone. I’m getting nickel-and-dimed to death. I try not to look at the bill. Every time I look at the bill, there’s $1 million charges. That’s AT&T. They’re not in hospitality. They don’t care at the end of the day. As hospitality scales and grows, one of the challenges we face in this industry is how you keep that touch.
Vacation rentals starts with a very small touch creating that small feel. When you grow to 2,000 to 3,000 homes, you grow into a space. How do you keep that? How do you not lose that? At a certain point, traditional business has made it just about revenue at the end of the day, and the guest experience becomes less and less of a priority. Not that it doesn’t have to be good, because you got to keep the guest, but not really capturing the guest and building that, “I want to come back to this feeling.”
First of all, there’s a good thing, you talk about expectations. People always ask, “You don’t have competition in Savannah.” I start laughing. I go, “We compete against ourselves. There’s no direct sports teams yet.” We’re competing against Amazon, Chick-Fil-A, Netflix, and Ritz-Carlton. Every single day, you’re competing on the expectations. When I’m working with my bank or mortgage and they say, “It’ll be $15 to fax that to you,” I start laughing because someone corporate made a decision to say, “If we charge fax, we could make another $100 million, $500 million, or whatever it is.” They didn’t say, “Could we create fans?” Mateo, I don’t have hundreds of properties. We have four properties, but we do have hundreds of thousands of fans.
Right now, it’s funny. We have more TikTok followers than every single major league baseball team, which is hilarious that a little college summer team, but we have 100,000 fans. Control what you can control. I learned this from Walt Disney. When he was getting ready to open Disneyland, he visited every single theme park. Every theme park had a system. They said, “Why would you build a castle? Why would you spend so much in landscaping? That doesn’t bring any money. You’re going to have 1 entrance instead of 5 or 6 entrances? That doesn’t make sense.” He said, “No. I want to have one entrance because just like a movie, I want to control the opening and the final shot.”
When they walk in, he had everything so intentional where the popcorn would be, where they’d be walking under the tunnel, where they would see the railroad tracks, where they would see the landscaping, and then they’d see the castle. It was so intentional. What I challenge people is, “Control what you can control.” For our 100,000 fans, we control the opening shot, the email, and call they get, and how they show up to our ballpark. We have one entrance. You better believe at 5:25, we have our march where a pep band leads out all the players, and leads our Banana Nanas. We see camera after camera, phone after phone taking video because they’re getting that opening experience.
As you build out, this is how the process starts. When you buy, when you book, this is what happens. Go one thing at a time. Win the beginning. Win the first step. Get people excited. When people come to our ballpark, they have an anticipation because we’ve already set the tone of what to expect. Set the tone that you guys will be different than anyone else. That’s how you start to win the experience. They will give you the benefit of the doubt if something was missed in the cleaning, something wasn’t right, or the AC’s gone down, which has happened numerous times, because Emily already set the tone in the beginning that she cares, and we’re not like everyone else.
[bctt tweet=”Set the tone that you guys will be different than anyone else. That’s how you start to win the experience.” via=”no”]
The nice thing about our space, too, is they’re in the vendors, and for everyone that’s working in our space, there’s so much amazing tech that’s getting developed and enhanced every day. Every year, there’s a new amazing tech thing that comes out that allows this touch and experience to be built from the beginning as long as it’s being adopted, maintained, and continued. Everyone gets excited. I work for one of these tech companies. This is where the part I come from. It’s interesting to see these property managers, and our property managers range from 50 to 4,000 properties, that come in with our tech stack that we sell.
The ones that don’t adopt it, use it, and maintain it, they get all excited about the bells and whistles, and they purchase it, but then they don’t use it to its fullest potential, and then they’re like, “Why isn’t this working?” You got to maintain. You have to go ahead and use it as best practices. Not only maintain the best practices, make it your own. If you’re using tech on your end, the welcome emails and phone calls, a big part in all spaces, tech can’t go ahead and replace personal touch, but it has to be there. There has to be a nice even meld of the two to make it personable. Would you agree with that?
We will always be hungry for human connection. We learned that the last couple of years during COVID, as much as anything. We will need human connection. The number one thing now is that people want things easier. Jeff Bezos got asked the question, “What’s going to change in ten years?” He goes, “That’s the wrong question. What’s not going to change?” He goes, “People are going to want a wider selection at better prices and that are more convenient.” That’s how they build Amazon’s business by focusing on what’s not going to change. People are going to still want a human connection to an extent.
Ease is number one because how much human connection do we have with Amazon? Amazon is dominating the world because people want things easier, faster, and quicker. That’ll also drive people in their life to have more human connections. If you marry the two, it’s game over. I don’t want to go to a restaurant where there’s no waiter, no waitress, and I just do a touchscreen. I don’t want that. I want to be around people, be together. That’s where an Airbnb can be a lot different than a hotel because I don’t think hotels have that. Hotels try to, “We can save money here by eliminating this position. We just automate this.” You’re going to automate yourself out of business if you keep doing that.
It’s interesting, too, that Disney had it. When you look at scaling something to a global scale of something that people love, I love Disneyland. Every time I think about walking into Disneyland, it makes me feel good. I remember much. I’ll still want to go back as an adult. That was a gem right there because hospitality can learn a lot from Walt Disney in terms of how he created that lasting effect, and what they can do at scale because he didn’t do things small. He did it big.
It all started with steps. You got to go back. He started with just small pictures, then animations, then a full-length animation with Snow White, then the park, then Disney World. He kept building. It starts somewhere. One big thing that helped us is we realized what word mattered most to us, and how do you want to make people feel. For Disney, it was the happiest place on earth. That was Disney. For us, we’re guided. It’s on our website. We make baseball fun. That’s why our bathrooms had the urinal cakes of our rival, Macon Bacon. We don’t want to have chandeliers because we’re not elegant, we’re fun. That’s why we have our pep band literally do walkup entrances for the players coming up to the plate.
I love that. I wanted to ask you that. If you’re walking up to the plate and you have your pep band, what would your walkup song be?
When I played baseball, I came out to Jessie’s Girl, Black or White by MJ, and then the Halo theme song, which was very weird, the Gregorian chant. When you go to a band, it’s a hard question because the band, you want to be the full band sound. I’m not sure. What’s yours, John?
The funny thing is you said MJ. Mine’s MJ, too, but it’s Smooth Criminal. It might be more Alien Ant Farm full band Smooth Criminal. How about you, Teo?
If we’re going full pep band, it’s either got to be Outkast, Bombs Over Baghdad, the band version, or some Earth, Wind & Fire because they are just killing the horns of the band. You can’t beat it. Mix it up.
Good tangent there, but the reality is, for us, when you’re guided by a word, when you’re guided by how you want to make people feel, it makes every decision easier. Our decisions aren’t guided by how do we make more money, it’s how do we create more fans and fun. That guides everything. It makes it easy to do all these big wild things. It’s why I have an idea book. Every day I do ten ideas because I’m guided by, “How do you make the ballpark and the experience more fun?”
Specifically, for the short-term rental space, vacation rental space, small homeowner, and the ones that have 100 plus properties, property management companies, outside of fans first, do you have like a nugget that you’d like to go ahead and leave us with?
If you want better answers in business life, you got to ask better questions. One question that I ask most business owners that I work with and difficult for them to answer, “What makes you different?” I’m going to ask that question. Can you answer it in a way that people want to share it? For instance, I’ll give you some tips. If you go to our website, on our About Us, we have all the things that make us different from our break dancing first base coaches, to our grandma coaches, to the fact that we play in kilt, to the fact that we have no sponsorship at all in our stadium, we limited all sponsorship. These are all talking points that make people want to experience a Bananas game.
[bctt tweet=”If you want better answers in business life, the best way is to ask better questions.” via=”no”]
With the short-term rentals, what makes you different? What are those special touches? What are you known for? A lot of times it’s like, “We have a cool property. We’re on the beach.” There’s lots of cool properties on the beach. What’s that little extra touch that they get with you that they don’t get with anyone else? We’ve had special banana beer. We’ve had special custom cookies.
We have banana cream soda. We have magnets. We’re going to do banana jacuzzis. There’s always a little nice touch. You can do for one what you wish you could do for many, as Andy Stanley says, and that’s when you listen carefully, respond creatively. You hear they’re coming in. It’s their first time as a whole family coming together since COVID. They’re excited to celebrate this. Invest that money. Our team, Savannah Bananas, we spend 1% of our top-line revenue on our own people. We spend even probably more on our fans, but 1% on our people as just special. We send our people to Ireland. We do cruises. We go shopping for them. We do shopping sprees, all that stuff.
What if you spent 5%, 2%, or 3%, I don’t care what the number is, to wow your guests and turn them into fans? Create fan budget for 3%. If you’re going to do $100,000 or $50,000, can you spend $3,000, $5,000, or $7,000 on doing things that create fans? It doesn’t care what you charge in the next year. They want to come back because you care about them, and the ROI is outrageous. What makes you different? What do you want to be known for? Start making plans to do that.
It’s great information. You’re a great guest. I love having the energy. Thank you so much for joining us. We’re excited. We’re trying to be different. We’re trying to not be what everyone else is. I think, if you were to ask either Mateo now, we’d have a good answer for that. We do have a good answer for that question.
I’m not trying, we’re doing it.
It’s news and culture, not tips and tricks. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel here. We have a lot to learn. We’re excited to keep learning. We’re super stoked that you were able to join us, Jesse. Thank you so much.
I had so much fun. I love what you guys are doing.
Thank you.
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