An Opposite Approach w/ Jesse Cole 371

Today on the podcast Jim and Tyson joined Jesse Cole.  Jesse is known as the PT Barnum of Baseball, Cole is the founder of Fans First Entertainment and Owner of the Savannah Bananas baseball team. The Savannah Bananas have sold out every game since the 2016 season, have a waitlist in the thousands for tickets and have been featured nationally by MSNBC, CNN, CBS and ESPN.  

Cole has turned the games into a circus with dancing players, the Banana Pep Band, the Banana Nanas senior citizen dance team, The Man-Nanas Dad Bod Cheerleading Squad, the Banana Baby, and the famous break dancing first base coach.  

Cole believes "Whatever is normal, do the exact opposite." He is a keynote speaker and author of Find Your Yellow Tux - How to Be Successful by Standing Out. His newest Book Fans First, Change the Game, Break the Rules & Create an Unforgettable Experience launches in January 2022. 

Jim’s Hack: Think real hard before letting someone go back to an old job if they've tried something new. It's not great, but I think you're going to be better off in the long run because it's sort of either up or out. It's as hard to get them to fit back into their old role.

Jesse’s Tip: Walt Disney always said we're always going to plus the show. We're always going to plus this theme park. It's a living breathing thing. And the plus is just continuous improvement. He wanted people to always get more and expect more. And so, we talk to our team, “How are we going to plus the experience today? How are we going to plus this promotion?” And when you look at every area of your business and look at a way to plus it, it's pretty amazing the results that come from it.

Tyson’s Tip: Break down every stage of the process for the firm when it comes to the client. We went through the entire client journey. But we just asked these questions, ”What's the client currently doing at that point in the case? So, what's the client doing? What's the client thinking? What and who do they interact with? What is the client feeling? And then, what needs to be done?” We broke down each of these things. After that, we did opportunities. What can we do that no one else is doing? So, I highly recommend going through that with your team. So, break down the entire process for the client. And then, at each phase, answer those questions. You know, go a long way. And then, ask the question, “How do you plus it?” because we're going to add that to our questions. “How do we then plus it?” Because I really do think that that is the magic question.

Watch the interview here.

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[music]

Run your law firm the right way.

This is The Maximum Lawyer Podcast.

Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson Mutrux.

Let's partner up and maximize your firm.

Welcome to the show.

Jim:                 Welcome back to The Maximum Lawyer Podcast. I'm Jim Hacking.

Tyson:             And I'm Tyson Mutrux. What's up, Jimmy?

Jim:                 Oh, Tyson. I'm really glad that we're recording right now. I just had the unfortunate experience of eating that frog first thing in the morning. I had to let somebody go and I did it more than 20 minutes ago.

So I'm very excited to have our guest today. He's Jesse Cole of the Savannah Bananas. And the reason I'm happy is because Jesse brings joy and happiness wherever he goes. For those of you who can't see on camera, he's wearing a canary yellow hat, shirt, jacket - the whole nine yards and he has fully embraced the Savannah Bananas.

Jesse, welcome to the show.

Jesse:              Excited to be with you guys. Let's have some fun this morning.

Tyson:             All right. So, Jesse, people have to know who the hell you are. Tell people about your journey. How the hell you came to running this freakin’ baseball team. This is amazing. I was so excited when I found out you were coming on. So, this is cool.

Jesse:              Sure.

Well, I guess I used to be a baseball guy. And then I became a circus guy running a baseball team. So, long story short, played baseball my whole life and hurt myself, my shoulder, tore everything in my shoulder. Realized that then watching baseball wasn't as fun as playing baseball and started taking over some baseball teams and trying to do the opposite of what everyone else was doing - really go all out and making it fun.

So, yeah, six years ago, my wife and I went down to Savannah, Georgia bought a brand new expansion franchise and proceeded to fail miserably. Yes, we sold two tickets in our first three months. And, by January of 2016, we had overdrafted our account. We're sleeping on an air bed and had to sell our house and struggling but then we figured a few things out.

And, really, we make baseball fun. And so, at our games, the Bananas, we have a senior citizen dance team, Banana Nana's, breakdancing first base coach. All of our tickets are all inclusive, include all your food. And it's just an absolute circus and a lot of fun. And now, fortunately, we’ve sold out every single game and have a waitlist for tickets in the thousands. So, that's the sparknotes version. I'm just a guy trying to have some fun at the ballpark.

Tyson:             Jim, I've got a follow up, real quick. How in the hell did you convince your wife to let you buy a baseball team? That's mindboggling.

Jesse:              Well, long story short, when we were running our first team, in Gastonia, North Carolina, I was 23 years old. And we did crazy things back then - grandma beauty pageants, salute to underwear nights, flatulence fun nights. And we had a little bit of success after failing initially as well. And I was hosting a conference and I said-- I was talking about all the craziness and she was working for a minor league baseball team at the time, for the Cal Ripken, Ripken Baseball, and her boss was at the conference. Left the conference after hearing me talk and I said, “I met the guy you're going to marry.” And then was like, “What are you talking about?” And lo and behold, we stayed in touch in the industry. She asked how we did our grandma beauty pageants. And she joined us, in Gastonia, became our director of fun. Is the only girl I know that will dress in a hot dog costume, not care what she looks like. And so, I knew we were destined to be together. So, she helped me pursue that dream and went to Savannah. And she was the one that said we need to sell our house and empty our savings account. So that gives you an idea of the kind of person she is.

Jim:                 So, 12 or 13 years ago, we were on vacation in South Carolina, we went down to Savannah to catch a Sand Gnats game. And if I recall, we were one of about 30 people there. I mean, it's the same town, same demographics, same people who love baseball. What is it about the Bananas that has made you have this line out the door, as they say?

Jesse:              I put myself in our fans’ shoes.

And I think, you know, no matter what business you're in, especially if you're in a law firm, put yourself in your client’s shoes. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. And I realized, “Man, baseball was long, slow, and boring for most people,” and I'm the guy that played. I got it. I understand what was happening behind the scenes. And I was bored.

And I realized, you know, I hated being nickel and dimed when I came to the ballpark. And I realized I hate ticket fees and convenient fees. And I hate being advertised to. And I just said, “Well, what type of experience would I create if I was going to be a fan?” And I said, “Well, let's try it.” And we rolled out and said, you know, baseball can't have any dead time. So, we literally have non‑stop music, non‑stop dancing. I mean, we've had dancing umpires. I mean, we give away colon cleansings and Port-A-Johns at our games. Our players play in kilts.

I mean, you know, obviously, we were fortunate to get a lot more attention this year. You know, we had our players introduce themselves, coming to the plate. “Now batting, myself.” And, you know, just ridiculous things. And because, you know, I want to be a fan. I want to enjoy. I want to laugh. I want to bring people together.

And so, we were fortunate, after initial failure, that we got people to come out and dance together, and sing together, and enjoy the Bananas Pep Band and the banana baby that we have before every game. And I think, really, they had spread the word for us. So, we've been very fortunate.

Tyson:             So, what gave you the motivation to keep going? I mean, you said you initially failed at it. So, how did you push through that?

Jesse:              We had no other options. I mean, let's put it this way. So, you sell your house. You're sleeping on an air bed. You're going grocery shopping on $30 a week. This is a true story. Me and my wife, $30 at Walmart which, if you do the math, that's 42 meals. There's no real food in that. Like, we had no other options.

So, we went down there and we said, you know, “We have to create something special. We have to do it.” And we had to get attention. No one was paying attention to us.

And I think that's one of the first keys, you know, you can have the best intentions but, until you get attention, you're in trouble. And so, we had to name the team, The Bananas. We had to come up with the senior citizen dance team, the Banana Nana’s. We had to name our mascot, Split. We had to offer former President Obama an internship with us and we still haven't heard from him, you know. It was a good offer.

And, you know, we tried all these opportunities that people said, “Wow! With the Bananas, you never know what they're going to do next.” And so, people gave us a shot. They gave us a chance.

And we were criticized like crazy. And I think people are afraid of criticism. You know, I think you're playing it too safe unless you're getting criticized. You’ve got to get criticized a little bit. And it's a little polarizing. And people were ripping us apart, but they were talking about us. And that was the first start.

So, I kind of answered your question. The reality is, we had no other options. We were going to start doing something crazy and see what happens.

Jim:                 When did you know that you had sort of turned the corner? That this was sort of going to work?

Jesse:              Opening night. You know, I remember dates very well. November 12, 2015-- well, October 5, 2015, we showed up. The former team had cut the phone lines, cut the internet lines. It was myself, my wife, our president, 24‑year‑old Jared Orton, and three 22‑year‑old’s. We had a heck of a crew to start that. And we grabbed a picnic table, brought it into an abandoned storage building, and started calling.

Then, I remember November 12, 2015 and we had a big free event for the whole community hors d'oeuvres, free drinks. We were giving away free alcohol. We had about 100 total people show up for our opening event. We didn't feel good about it then.

Then, on January 15, 2016, was when we got the call. We overdrafted our account. We had no money left. Wasn't feeling good about it then.

Then, February 25, 2016, we announced the name of the team. And nationally, we're number one trending on Twitter which was crazy. Sportscenter 15‑minute spot. Nationally, everyone was buying merchandise even though very few people knew that we had a shipment of T‑shirts-- our first shipment, there were too many N's in Bananas. Actually, our name was spelled wrong in our first shipment of T‑shirts. We didn't tell people that. But we were failing miserably. And we got the attention. So, we said, “All right. That's a good shot but are people going to buy tickets?” And, luckily, we convinced enough people to buy tickets for that opening night to probably see us fail. I think that's why they bought it like, “Let's see this team just fall apart.” And we did, to an extent. We were wearing green uniforms because we weren't quite right. And we actually made six errors that opening night, played terrible. It rained, so fans flooded into the stadium, literally. We weren't ready for ‘em. We were feeding 4000 people all you can eat which we never knew that they would eat 10,000 pieces of meat in an hour. No idea. So, the lines went for about three hours.

But the crazy thing happened. The game didn't start till about nine o'clock. And I went on the field. We had the players come out of a trolley to announce the team, right before the Banana Nana’s dance, and not one fan had left. They gave us a shot.

Fans were in banana costumes. One guy had his beard shaped like a banana. I was like, “What is happening?” And they didn't leave. And they stayed to the end of the night. And at the end of the night and we had, you know, the band, and free s'mores, and all the giveaways, we were like, “Okay. This is special.”

And from that night on, they spread the word and, boy, we stopped spending bad marketing dollars and spent all of our money on the experience. And then, our fans did all the marketing for us. And that's when I really knew at that opening night.

Tyson:             All right. So, Jesse, you took what could be an extremely boring sport-- I love baseball. I love baseball. It's a great sport. Jimmy loves baseball--

Jesse:              Are you offended? I'm sorry. I said some negative things.

Tyson:             No. I agree with you. It can be a very stuffy sport. And especially the old guard, can be very stuffy. But you kind of flipped it on its head and you made it really entertaining not just, you know, on the field but in the stands. So, what advice would you have for lawyers that-- we've got a very stuffy profession, right? People will criticize you for marketing. Things like that. And you kind of touched on that but what is your advice to our profession to try to turn it on its head?

Jesse:              You know, I've been fortunate to, you know, learn a lot from PT Barnum, and Walt Disney, and so many. I'm right here I'm looking at my huge library. We actually paid our people to read in our office. We do book clubs. And we're all about learning. And, you know, I think I've learned a few things.

And, you know, as I said before, you know, you’ve got to put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Put yourself in your client’s shoes. And what I would say kind of the number one thing is we need to change the language. You know, everybody-- you know, whether it's clients, customers, vendors, partners. I'm on a mission to help people change the language because I've learned something. And the name of our company is Fans First Entertainment. Mission is fan's first, entertain always. We exist to make baseball fun but how we do it is we go fans.

Well, what if you guys looked in whether it's-- law firms, whether it's accounting offices, I don't care. What if you stop thinking about customers and clients and instead, “I'm going to create some fans.” It's a complete different mindset.

And the way you create fans and I'm writing about this for our next book coming out, Fans First. You literally think about what are all those friction points? What are all the frustration points that keep you from being a fan? And you do the opposite. And it sounds crazy but that's what we've done. We literally look--

You know, I mean, it's crazy to think that we eliminated all of our advertising from our stadium. No sports team is dumb enough in the world to do that. Let's throw away hundreds of thousands of dollars for a minor little inconvenience. But I think nobody comes to our ballpark to be sold to, to be marketed to, to be advertised to. So, we eliminated that - in the name of fans.

There's no shipping fees. You buy merchandise from us. There's no shipping fees. Oh, no big deal. Amazon does that. Well, Amazon charges you $100 Prime. You know, if you buy once from us, you're not getting any shipping fees and you're also getting a free koozie, a free decal, and a custom yellow box because we're thinking about how you create fans.

So, for instance, from a law firm. My buddies, my best man, is a lawyer. I always talk to him. I go, “Do you think it creates fans when you talk for five minutes and you get a bill for five minutes? Or do you think when you send an email, it takes 10 minutes and it just--?” Like, you know, that's one of the reasons we did all inclusive. No one wants to be nickel and dimed. No one wants to be able to try to get help and then literally being charged by the minute. And that's a tough thing because that's the way it's always been done for law firms. But there's things that we think about. Eliminate all the frustrations. Eliminate all the friction points and start actually entertaining your fans.

And law firm - entertain. Why should we entertain? Well, the definition of entertain is to provide enjoyment and to provide amusement. Aren't we all in the entertainment business? I don't care what business you are. I think we need to entertain our fans. And so, I would think eliminate the frustrations and start entertaining. And that's a lot of the starting point for us. And, you know, I think there's ways it can work.

Jim:                 I love it, Jesse. I love it.

Getting back to the baseball experience itself, I'm thinking about the Washington Generals and how they always get their butts kicked by the Globetrotters. And I'm wondering what is it like for the visiting teams at your stadium?

Jesse:              Every visiting team, we actually have a doughnut hitter. And so, we pick out one guy on the team and if he strikes out the whole stadium gets doughnuts. So, the entire stadium-- you know, like Belushi doing toga, toga. So, we got the whole stadium, 4000 people, going ”dougnuts, doughnuts, doughnuts”. I can't imagine being a hitter and having 4000 people chanting doughnuts as I'm hitting.

To answer your question, it's not easy to play in our place. We actually have weigh‑in’s before the game like, you know, UFC, boxing weigh‑in’s. We bring a scale and pick a guy from their team. He has to get on a scale and flex off as the entire stadium boo’s him. We created like this WWE script. But, you know, what's interesting, a lot of the guys that are playing on the other side, and they’re playing in front of 4000 people at our stadium and 400 at another stadium, after the year, they're like, “Man, I wish I could play for The Bananas.”

You know, I mean, we're so fortunate. I mean, we have 250,000 more followers on TikTok than every major league baseball team. You know, we have 1.1 million followers. And like our players are like, I get to be “famous” and, you know, be on video.

So, I think the other guys are-- they wonder what they're walking into. But then, hopefully, at the end, they're like, “Man, I'd like to play for The Banana’s. That'd be fun.”

Tyson:             So, what's your long‑term goal for this? Because we usually ask that of attorneys. You know, like, okay, are you going to scale your firm? Like what are you going to do with The Bananas? I mean, how are you going to make this thing bigger, better? Or are you to try to make it bigger, better? What do your think?

Jesse:              Yeah, I mean, obviously, a guy who's looking right now at custom posters of Walt Disney where it says, “Vision. It's kind of fun to do the impossible.” It's hard for me not to have a bigger vision just because I see the impact. You know, I see a family come to a game. And the father said, “Man, that was so much fun.” And his three kids and they say, “Yeah, we just drove 40 hours from Utah for this game. We're driving 40 hours back tomorrow. I'm like, “What is wrong with you? That's crazy.” But that happens every night. And, you know, we have fans come from anywhere between 25 and 35 states, every single game, traveling from all over the country. And so, I think that we have something that's special, that's unique, that's different. So, anybody that sees that and feels it from the fans wants to bring it to more people.

So, you know, the thing we've worked on we did last year, we did the One City World Tour. Yep, the One City World Tour. And we fortunately sold 7000 tickets in 24 hours in Mobile, Alabama. And the line started at two o'clock for a seven o'clock game and I knew we were onto something. So, we're spreading this. We're going to take it to, I think, six or seven cities this year.

And I'm sure there'll be some more failures. When we go to a different city and have no idea what we're doing, there'll be great stories that come out of it. But I always tell our team, “You either have success or you have a story, sometimes you have both.” And I think that's what we're going to achieve.

So, our goal is to take this all over the country. I guess, you would say similar to the Globetrotters but our games are real. You never know who's going to win. And we're going to keep playing banana ball which is our new game that we invented to try to make it faster and better for the fans. So yeah, I think that's a-- you’ve got to have a big vision and, you know, you have a big vision because it keeps everyone inspired. You know, once you achieve something new and unique, you know, what's next? And I think that keeps everyone really fired up and a lot of purpose.

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Jim:                 We're talking with Jesse Cole today. He's the brains behind the Savannah Bananas. Jesse, I took my daughter to a Cardinals game two weeks ago. And I'm very happy that she's 12 years old and can sit through a nine‑inning game but, I'll tell you, there weren't a lot of people there. And, you know, Major League Baseball, I think is really having a hard time, especially after COVID.

But, you know, to your point, you know, the things she got excited about were bingo on the MLB app, the hat dance, you know, I'm in DC right now. And when the President's running around the stadium, those are the things that certainly kids like, but I think it's really what keeps people engaged. The kiss cam, you know, that's like a huge thing. Like, what can Major League Baseball learn from what the Bananas have been able to pull off?

Jesse:              Funny thing, you mentioned kiss cam. We actually had this big guy who’s working for us and he had a big man bun. And he started with us and I said-- I go “Ricky, your name’s going to be Cam the rest of the summer.” He goes, “What do you mean?” I go, “You're going to be Cam.” He goes, “Well, what are you talking about?” I go, “You'll find out opening night.” So opening night, I said, “All right, fans. It's now time for the kiss cam. Here comes Cam around the crowd. You’ve got to make sure you kiss him.” And so, this guy, we made him run through the crowd and fans had to try to kiss him. And it actually became an interesting promotion.

But, anyways, what should MLB learn from us? I think, you know, it's very simple when you look at what's happening. The average baseball fan is getting into their 60’s. Baseball games are getting slower. We are in a TikTok world and baseball games are getting slower. People need faster things, more entertaining. And I think they need to cut down the walls. Baseball does not need to be the serious traditional corporate game it is.

The challenge is Major League Baseball’s is making more money than any-- you know, than they ever had before. You know, they're in the billions. So, the owners keep seeing the money, so they will keep charging the businesses and developing all these corporate ticket packages but not thinking about the fan. And the young fan. And the fan that wants just to come out.

They have to realize that your stage, your show, is not just the baseball on the field. It's everything that happens in the grandstand, everything that happens in the concourse, everything that happens in the parking lot. It's the experience you deliver. And you’ve got to break down the barriers.

Let the players have fun. Let them joke around. Let them celebrate. Let them backflip. Let them do all the things that they need to do to have fun. Let them go to the crowd. You know, when we score our first run, the entire Bananas team runs through the entire crowd, high fiving every single fan. If you look at our dugout, there's no one in our dugout for about two minutes as our fans are out there. Is it Bush League? Maybe, but our fans love it.

And so, I think baseball needs to not take themselves too seriously. It needs to have fun. And if they start doing that, they'll start getting more younger fans.

Jim:                 Well, I mean, the lessons for law firms are just so obvious and everything that you're saying is just so analogous. I mean, you know, I think lawyers do a really bad job of envisioning or thinking through the customer experience or, you know, like, you know, the fan experience. I mean, clearly, the jump from customer to fan is a huge thing. But also, just sitting down and taking the time to think about, you know, “What's it like for our clients to go through this process?” And, you know, for us, they're going through things that probably aren't very comfortable. And so, you know, we probably need to do even more of that.

Jesse:              Yeah. Yeah, I think, if you were to map it, you know, what happens? When people first go to your website, when they first call your number, does it go to a voicemail that says, “Please listen closely as our menu options have changed.” You know, what is up with menu options changing all over the country every day? Like, stop that.

How long does it take for someone to solve your problem? How long till someone answers the phone and gets you with what you need to get done? And that can be to a fault to us. Literally, people buy a ticket and say, “You know, I'm not able to make it on Friday.” And I'm like, you know, we are finding ways to take care of them which is crazy. You don't go buy a head of lettuce at the grocery store and say, “No. I'm not going to eat this anymore. Can you take this back?” But like we are there for our fans and we let them take advantage of us.

And I think, from a law firm, it's so much corporate just like it's been for baseball that this is the way it's always been - maximize the billable hours, maximize the efficiencies, maximize the profits. What about maximize the fans? Maximize the amount of fans that you create. You guys have probably-- everyone's got “Oh, man, I'm a big fan of you guys.” Like what did you do to create that? Do more of that and the money takes care of itself.

We have zero ad money like zero sponsors money. Zero. Fortunately, we're one of the most profitable sports teams, you know, definitely in our level. You know, we do more merchandise than almost every minor league team in the entire country and they play three times the amount of games. It's because fans buy from us because they want to wear it proudly. What would it take for someone to buy a logo of your law firm and start wearing it around town? It’s like, “Heck, yeah, I love this law firm.” Like that would be amazing. But you would have to do things in the experience to make them feel like you care about them and make it different than every other law firm. Get people to wear your merchandise. That's the first sign of fandom.

Tyson:             Well, that's a good segue because I want to give you a scenario. You're not going to like it. The government tomorrow bans baseball, right, so you can no longer own a stadium. So, you've got to take a job with an injury firm. So, you're handling car crashes and slip and fall cases. What's the first thing you do? What's the first thing you do from a marketing point of view?

Jesse:              Oh, jeez. Oh, you had to go to injury one, too. You had to go that route.

Tyson:             That's mine. Of course, I had to.

Jesse:              You know, again, it starts with questions. It starts with question. So, you know, a lot of people would say, “All right. What’s the first thing you do?” Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Whatever’s normal, do the exact opposite. So, what's the normal way an injury law firm tries to attract customers?

Tyson:             The volume firms, they put up TV ads. They put up billboards. Things like that.

Jesse:              And it's all this kind of desperation. You need our help. You need this. You need that.

So, I would look, write down all those ways as normal and say, “All right. What would be an opposite approach? What would be a unique way of attracting customers?” you know.

And, again, like, you know, when I released my first book, Find Your Yellow Tux, you know, the most books, you know, you know how you do ‘em. You release on Amazon, etc. I did a world book tour, at Epcot. So, I literally went to each country. And I ended up actually getting kicked out by a security guard when I was in my Bronco. I was in a yellow tux. They go, “You're confusing all our guests as one of our characters at Disney. You're going to have to leave.” But you know what? It created attention. So, all those pictures, all those videos, that whole story created attention.

And so, I think you’ve got to think about what is the way they would do it? You know, the normal way everyone would attract customers, attract fans. How do they do it? And do the opposite.

And so, I don't know the whole business but that's where I would start. It has to start with a question. And I think that's-- I know, I kind of politically correct answered your question but that's where I would--

Tyson:             I love it. It's the right answer. I love it.

Jim:                 So, what's next? What's next for Jesse? What's next for The Bananas?

Jesse:              As I said, we're just going to keep trying to take the show on the road and, you know, keep having either more successes or more stories. And, you know, with anything, I think you have to enjoy it.

And you know, I've learned a lot. I've studied a lot of Lorne Michaels with SNL. I studied a lot of Grateful Dead. I studied a lot of Apple. And, you know, what I learned about some of the greatest. And, actually, this is ironic. I actually read Kevin Hart's book which, you know, what does it have to do about doing that? But, you know, these people that are very successful. They hone their craft. They master their craft. They keep getting better. Kevin Hart kept showing up and doing stages in front of 200 people, in front of 50 people, before he got to the big stages. The Grateful Dead did thousands of shows and they kept practicing. They kept practicing.

I just want to continue to hone our craft and create the greatest experience, the most fun, the greatest show in sports. And, to me, that means we have to continue to experiment and try new things.

You know, with our director of entertainment, every night, we do four or five promotions we've never done in front of a crowd, live, and a lot of them fail. I mean, it's ridiculous, some of the things that we do. I mean, it's bad, but that's how you learn. And so, for me, I just-- I want to keep honing the craft. I want to keep getting in front of people and putting on a show, and learning, and testing things, and trying things.

I want to think bigger. You know, I want to ball monkey - a monkey that delivers baseballs to umpires. I think that would be fun. You know, I want to think about all these crazy things that we can do. You know, the characters we can develop. We had a princess at our games this past year, Princess Potassia, who literally would sing every night at the ballpark. You don't picture princesses at baseball games. We have a male cheerleading team, the Man-Nanas.

And I think the day that I stop wanting to explore and do new things and create new things for the experience in the show is the day that I need to retire. And that's not any day soon. So, I think, it's you’ve got to love what you do and then things start taking care of themselves.

Tyson:             I love it. This is great.

All right, Jesse, we do need to wrap things up. I could talk to you for hours, upon hours, upon hours. So, I can't wait for that new book to come out.

Before we start to wrap things up though, people want to reach out to you get in touch with you, follow you, how do they do that?

Jesse:              I'm very easy. I heard from somebody you search yellow tux on Google, you'll find me pretty prevalently. Yeah, I mean, I spend most of my time on LinkedIn. I post a lot on LinkedIn which is ironic because our team does most of the other social. I just share kind of the business lessons, the things I'm learning, on LinkedIn. Very accessible, as you guys know. So that's the easiest way. And then, obviously, The Bananas.

We're constantly trying things, testing things and doing new videos so we're pretty easy to find on the interweb as well.

Tyson:             I love it.

All right, we're going to wrap things up. Before I do, I want to remind everyone to join us in the big Facebook group. If you would like to, there's a lot of great conversation going on. If you want a higher level conversation, please join us in The Guild, maxlawguild.com. Then, while you're listening to the rest of this episode, please leave us a five‑star review on Apple or wherever you get your podcast.

Jimmy, what's your hack of the week?

Jim:                 I meant to mention earlier that, you know, the St. Louis Browns and Bill Veeck used to pull a lot of this stuff. Bill Veeck went on to on the White Sox. And, you know, he's the one that brought in Eddie Gaedel who was like three feet tall to have at bat. And he also had the infamous disco night when everyone in Chicago brought a record to old Comiskey and threw it onto the field. So, I just wanted to mention that. That's our St. Louis connection.

Jesse:              Love him. I’ve got another poster of him in my office. It says, ”Innovation. I don't break the rules but I merely test their elasticity” which I love as well.

Jim:                 Love it.

So, for me, you know, with any growing firm, you know, you have people that sometimes want to do a promotion and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't but it's really hard to let people go back to their old jobs. Because, if people have expressed that they they're not satisfied with that job, it generally doesn't work. So, I think you need to think real hard.

So, my tip of the week is think real hard before letting someone go back to an old job if they've tried something new. It's not great, but I think you're going to be better off in the long run because it's sort of either up or out. It's as hard to get them to fit back into their old role.

Tyson:             Got it. That's good advice.

Jesse, we always have our guests give us a tip or a hack of the week. Do you have a tip or hack for us?

Jesse:              A tip or a hack.

This summer, I've been focusing tremendously on one of the best lessons from Walt Disney and it is the power of plussing. And Walt always, when he started with Disneyland and everything, he said we're always going to plus the show. We're always going to plus this theme park. It's a living breathing thing. And the plus is just continuous improvement.

And, you know, he even Tomorrowland spent $6 million on an expansion. He convinced the accountants and the managers to spend $350 on a Christmas parade, even though the night stays were sold out because he wanted to plus the experience. He wanted people to always get more and expect more.

And so, what we do every night is we talk to our team, “How are we going to plus the experience today? How are we going to plus this promotion?” And when you look at every area of your business and look at a way to plus it, it's pretty amazing the results that come from it.

Tyson:             That's great. That's great advice. You could probably cut that episode right there, just that part of it, and get a lot out of this episode. So, fantastic.

My tip of the week is a couple of weeks ago the team got together and broke down every stage of the process for the firm when it comes to the client. So, it's kind of cool that we have you on here, Jesse, because we went through the entire client journey up to the point where they finish treating. We've got a long way to go. But we just asked these questions, ”What's the client currently doing at that point in the case? So, what's the client doing? What's the client thinking? What and who do they interact with? What is the client feeling? And then, what needs to be done?” And so, we broke down each of these things.

And then, after that, we did opportunities. What can we do that no one else is doing? And we got a ton of great ideas, just a ton of great ideas. So, I highly recommend going through that with your team. So, break down the entire process for the client. And then, at each phase, answer those questions. You know, go a long way.

And then, ask the question, “How do you plus it?” because we're going to add that to our questions. “How do we then plus it?” Because I really do think that that is the magic question. I love that.

So, Jesse, thank you so much for coming on. This is a lot of fun. Just, I mean, you can tell that you've got a lot of passion for this. It's great. So, thanks for coming on and sharing your passion with us.

Jesse:              I appreciate you guys. Thanks so much.

Jim:                 Thanks, Jesse.

Tyson:             Thanks, bud. See you later.

Thanks for listening to The Maximum Lawyer Podcast.

To stay in contact with your hosts and to access more content, go to maximumlawyer.com.

Have a great week and catch you next time.

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