Make your business go bananas
July 26, 2022
By Jerry Bellune
Here’s a challenge for you owners and managers: Consider how you can make your business more entertaining for your customers.
Why? Because it will build your fan base and attract more customers.
Collegiate league team Savannah Bananas owner Jesse Cole admits P.T. Barnum is his inspiration. He wears a yellow fedora and tuxedo to team games.
As a 23-year-old coach of a Carolinas minor-league team, he told Patrik Jonsson of the Christian Science Monitor, he sat bored in the dugout, waiting for games to end so he could go home.
Could he change games to end fan boredom and make them more entertaining?
He could.
As an innovative owner he gave his games two-hour time limits.
Fans catch fly balls for outs.
Players steal first base.
A dancing first-base coach admittedly knows more about backflips than baseball. The janitor became a dugout coach during last year’s championship season.
The slowest race in the world features crawling toddlers.
Snacks and drinks are included with your ticket.
The Bananas, he says, combine the joy and ragtag of early baseball with today’s short attention spans. The team’s spontaneity creates excitement.
Each game is scripted. Miscues, misfires, and mistakes are valued.
Grayson Stadium, where Jackie Robinson once played, is free of advertising billboards. Fans have covered its walls with signatures.
Despite their antics, the Bananas are Coastal Plain League champions.
OK. This is a baseball team doing crazy things to pack 60,000 fans into its stadium and has more social media fans than even the New York Yankees.
Here is your challenge:
What can you do with your electrical, plumbing or any kind of business that would draw a crowd, ring your phones and fatten your bank account?
Think about it.
