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Quit Shortening Your Sales Process with Jesse Cole · Auto Collabs

• 0:00
  Wait for that record button, as usual. [upbeat music] This is Auto Collabs. I'll tell you what, I've been waiting for this podcast for a long time. [laughs] I was- A significant amount of time...
• 0:17
  onli- I was sh- my, my folks are in town, and I said, "Tomorrow I get to interview Jesse Cole from Savannah Bananas, the owner of the Savannah..." And they said, "Who's that?" And I pulled open YouTube,
• 0:33
  went to the shorts, typed in Savannah Bananas. We sat there for 10 minute. My parents were so captivated- [laughs]... at how cockamamie a notion it is that there are choreographed dances.
• 0:46
  [laughs] And then what, what struck them was, "Wait, but these dudes are good ball players." [laughs] That's the thing. That's the thing.
• 0:54
  [laughs] These ca- these guys can actually play, and, and doing trick, trick plays in the middle of it. You know what I love?
• 1:01
  I, so I've had this similar conversation, like, "Hey, Jesse Cole's coming to, uh, coming to Asotagon," you know, the man in the yellow hat, the guy that, uh, has the baseball team, the Savannah Bananas.
• 1:09
  I get to that point, and people are still like, "Huh?" And then I'm like, "The dancing ball players on TikTok." Oh. And they're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love those dudes." Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:19
  [laughs] You know, and it's, I think the waiting list is approaching a million people to get to one of their games. They went on tour this year. And- Unreal...
• 1:27
  you know, ha- having been a little bit connected with Jesse and watching some of the journey, you realize that nothing different is ever built, like, immediately.
• 1:37
  There's always a backstory that you're like, "Oh, this came out of nowhere." It's like, no, it, it doesn't really come out of nowhere. No.
• 1:44
  And it's like one of the things we talk about with Asotu quite a bit is that there are all these other people that have never been able to engage the retail auto industry, but they love where they work, they care about where they work, they, and they s- they see the fact that serving customers is a great thing.
• 1:59
  They see the, the, you know, the smiles on the faces. They know that they're really helping people. They know the owner gives so much back to the community.
• 2:07
  But they haven't really had a place to call their own, because there's just some really high-level conversations going on. So I mean, I've always felt a kindred spirit to what he's doing, um- Yeah...
• 2:17
  you know, with Banana Ball. Well- Well, we're gonna dig in, and I can't wait for, uh, for this conversation. So we hope you enjoy this conversation with the man, the myth, the legend, Jesse Cole.
• 2:27
  [upbeat music] Man, we should've used somebody... Jesse shouldn't have been our first podcast, guys. Yeah, right. [laughs] We'll re- [laughs] Got him. Never forget a first. Ah. So we are here.
• 2:42
  Uh, Jesse, we made it to the room. Thank you for joining us. You know, fired up to be with you guys. We did it. So I've, I dusted off this letter. This probably looks pretty familiar to you, right? Yep.
• 2:51
  Do you still write these? Yes, I do. It's the same. So this letter is from back in 2019. Oh, good, we got the yellow backdrops going. Thank you.
• 2:58
  2019, and you were on my personal podcast, and we connected via Donald Miller, and you just said yes, right? Like, you say yes to a lot of things. And you, well, I'm gonna read what you wrote.
• 3:09
  "I want to thank you for having me on your podcast. Can't tell you how much I enjoy connecting and love what you're doing and how you're using the power of story.
• 3:16
  I know we share a similar mindset and the impact we're trying to make. I look forward to stepping, uh, staying connected and having you and the family out for a Bananas game this summer." Then COVID hit.
• 3:25
  Uh, "Then thanks again, and keep making a difference. Jesse." And it says, "Inspired from the desk of Jesse Cole."
• 3:32
  This letter, uh, I leave it on my shelf because it reminds me how long you have to do something before everybody actually sees it.
• 3:40
  And here we are in 2023, and, uh, Banana Ball and the Savannah Bananas, your dream and vision, you know, that you mortgaged your house for is, is now coming, maybe just starting to come to light.
• 3:52
  So can you just tell us what it's like being on the grind for so long for something you believe in? [laughs] Well, I'll tell you, it's great.
• 4:00
  I'm not sleeping on an air bed anymore, so that was, that was a wild journey a few years ago. But yeah, I mean, it w- it was certainly a grind.
• 4:06
  It was, it was seven years ago now that we had to sell our house, empty out our savings account, uh, sleeping on an air bed, and vividly remember going to Walmart with my wife, who we just got married this year.
• 4:15
  What a great, you know, way to start off our marriage, uh, by going into serious debt, $1.8 million to be exact. [laughs] And, uh, we would go literally to Walmart with $30.
• 4:24
  We'd have a $20 bill and a $10 bill, and that's all we could spend for the entire week for food. And, you know, we eat 42 meals with $30. We weren't really eating real food.
• 4:32
  But it was something that, like, that was just part of our life. Like, we had bought a team, we had no other options, and we just believed in it. We had to get people to come out to a game.
• 4:39
  And a lot of people in marketing, they talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. You really want in the experience. And we knew this was before where they could actually experience a game.
• 4:45
  If we could just get them to that first game, they would see what we believed in and what we saw the vision.
• 4:50
  And yeah, fast-forward now, we've sold out every game, and the wait list for tickets just passed 900,000, and we're selling out all over the country.
• 4:56
  And seven years' journey, it's been a wild one, but it's been worth every minute of it, I'll tell you that. Good night. Seven years. Good night. So, so, like, when, uh, were there...
• 5:07
  'Cause I always, I, I, I'm sure there were moments along that path, like, you, you knew... You had the dream. You knew, like, "This is exactly what has to happen. This is the way we have to do it." Yeah.
• 5:18
  And were there moments where either, like, in your mind, you're like, "I don't know if it's ever gonna happen," or there were just naysayers just coming at you?
• 5:26
  And, and can you point to particular moments where you had to overcome that gap between disbelief or doubt or out- outsider doubt and, and jump the next hurdle- Yeah, yeah... to belief?
• 5:39
  Well, it, it sounds like I was confident in, like, the conviction right now, but, like, there's no way seven years ago I saw we'd be playing a game where fans can catch a foul ball for an out, and we'd have a twerking umpire and a senior citizen dance team- [laughs]...
• 5:50
  and, like, all the th- players playing in stilts. Like, I never envisioned that. I envisioned just, "Hey, how do, how do we create a great fan experience? How do we make baseball fun?"
• 5:58
  And then, you know, one of my greatest lessons I ever learned from Walt Disney was you gotta keep plussing the experience. He said Disneyland is a living, breathing thing. It'll never be complete.
• 6:06
  We have to keep plussing the show and plussing the experience. And so that's, it's been seven years of iteration. But yeah, in regards to times that are down, I mean, we have taken so much criticism.
• 6:16
  Um, and now it's becoming even more national, the criticism that we get. And, you know, the more fans we gain, the more haters we get. What kind of criticism? What kind of criticism?Oh, geez.
• 6:24
  I mean, well, when we first, when we first left the, the regular traditional baseball game, uh, of, you know, playing baseball in a league, in the Coastal Plain League, to go all in on Banana Ball, which is the crazy two-hour timed game where there's no bunting, if you bunt you're thrown out of the game- [laughs]...
• 6:38
  which actually happened. Um, so, so to, to turning the circus and taking it on the road, um, this is Jesse's joke, uh, you know, all they care about is money, which is the opposite.
• 6:48
  I have no idea what's in our bank account right now. I think we're doing okay. Um, but, like- [laughs]...
• 6:52
  the reality is, like, criticized every step of the way because the people that said, "You're leaving traditional baseball. What are you doing?" Like, "This is wrong." Um, there was tons of hatred. Um- Mm...
• 7:01
  now people are saying they're sick of the Bananas, the Savannah Bananas, because of their notoriety, like, "These guys are making a joke and a mockery of the game." There's a lot of that.
• 7:09
  Um, and I think so many people, like Michael Jordan and other people were, are fueled by that negative criticism.
• 7:15
  Um, I'm not so interested in trying to prove people wrong, I'm interested in proving the people that believe in us right. So I look back to the people like you- Mm...
• 7:22
  gave me hits in 2019, and all those podcasts that I was able to do before we really were doing too much of what we're doing now.
• 7:28
  Um, I wanna make them say, "Hey, I actually talked to them when they were just starting out, and look at what they've done." That fires me up. So I don't really focus on that criticism.
• 7:37
  Um, we're getting criticized, uh, because people don't know who we are. Jeff Bezos says you need to be willing to be misunderstood. People see our TikToks of all the dancing- [laughs]... they don't know the team.
• 7:47
  A- and see our guys... We've made 500 trick plays on this tour. Our center fielder has done 30 back flip catches. They're catching balls between their legs. I've seen some of those, yeah.
• 7:56
  It's, it's unbelievable, and I think that's... Th- they haven't seen it, so why am I...
• 8:00
  Why should I get in a conversation and spend too much bandwidth thinking about that when they really haven't even been to one of our shows before? I'm thinking about- Right...
• 8:06
  what it would act- what would actually happen, 'cause you know, you know the MLB players are watching intently. Well, the, I would tell you the MLB is watching. Those cats put a c-a clamp- Yeah, all of a sudden-...
• 8:18
  on everybody... yeah, like- Right? Yeah. [laughs]... is the pitch timer, is that tied back to Banana Ball pressure? I, I, I think people always try to make- He's like, "I'm not saying I'm Superman." Nah.
• 8:25
  [laughs] They try to give us credit for that. They have a lot of smart executives that know exactly what we're doing. We, we are completely different than MLB. I think everyone knows- Sure...
• 8:34
  we need to make the games faster, because we're an art form. Jesse's like, "I'm not saying I'm Superman. I'm saying we've never been seen in the same place at the same time." [laughs] That's all he's saying.
• 8:43
  No, but I was thinking about an, MLB and what it actually takes to change a paradigm to improve the experience for everybody and improve the opportunity for everybody.
• 8:52
  Can you imagine what's gonna happen when, I don't think it's if, I think it's a when, when the first MLB center fielder does a back flip when he catches a fly ball? Yeah.
• 9:01
  Can you imagine what would happen- Be our, be our center fielder... to his personal brand? The, it would shut down. Yeah. Yeah. And it's gonna happen- Well, I mean-... 'cause you know they're practicing that.
• 9:09
  [laughs] I mean, uh, Alex Bregman with the, the, the, uh, Astros, he bounced a ball to second base on, in, in spring training, and the place, everyone went crazy in the baseball world. Like, we bounce all the time.
• 9:20
  We're, we bounce behind the back passes. We're dribbling. [laughs] Our shortstop's dribbling, like, we're doing these plays, and they went crazy.
• 9:26
  And then Wander Franco flipped the ball to his hand and then threw the guy out. Our shortstop the other day literally gloved it to himself, bounced it behind his back barehand, and threw a guy out.
• 9:33
  [laughs] So it's like, it's, it's, it's starting. But I think more than any- I really don't care about the comparisons.
• 9:38
  I think about how do we, how do we make the game fun for a future generation of players that wanna play? When I was a kid, Ken Griffey Jr., all those guys- Mm...
• 9:46
  you know, Pedro Martinez, Nomar Garciaparra, they were everything. Yeah. And now, now- Absolutely... you can't name all the players, so that's what we're trying to do. Oh, man.
• 9:54
  H- what does the actual path to where you are now look like? I mean, you said, uh, Jeff Bezos, you quoted him saying, "You have to be willing to be misunderstood." Yep.
• 10:04
  H- how do you get people to your game to experience what you want them to experience when they don't understand? [laughs] Well, I think so many people are focused on, you know, their target audience, you know?
• 10:16
  And we're very aware of who we're not for. So to give you an example, I'm not focusing on the baseball traditionalists.
• 10:22
  I'm not focusing on all those people that are obsessed with the, the, you know, the integrity of the game. You know, we literally open our, our game saying, "This is not baseball. This is not your grandpa's pastime.
• 10:34
  This is the greatest show in sports. This is Banana Ball." [laughs] Like, we are... Sounds very WWE. Maybe we're inspired a little bit. Fantastic. [laughs] I love it. And he rips his shirt off to reveal six pecs.
• 10:45
  Yeah, he's just coming out, and like, "Why is his shirt off?" Right? I'm like, "Oh," like, well, we do have weigh-ins before the games, which is a whole nother story if you tune into that. Do you really?
• 10:51
  [laughs] Do you have stare-downs in the weigh-ins? Fans- Weigh-ins are great, but then they bust into a choreographed dance. It confuses everyone. [laughs] But, uh, it, it's a lot of fun.
• 10:58
  But yeah, I mean, [laughs] to answer your question, like, I don't think we need to try to force anybody to try to love this. What we do, and everyone talks about marketing, it's what you say, it's what you say.
• 11:08
  No, no, great marketing is what you do, and you share what you do. You capture it and share it.
• 11:13
  So we show so much of what we do, and instead of trying to recruit people to be a part of it, we attract the people that wanna be a part of it. Mm.
• 11:20
  And so that's why, you know, we have over 12 million social media followers. It makes no sense. Our second team, the Party Animals, now have two million followers.
• 11:26
  They have more than any Major League team on TikTok because they're attracting a different audience. Mm.
• 11:31
  They're not attracting the traditional baseball fan, they're attracting people that wanna come fun, have fun, or in the Party Animals, you know, say, like to party, 'cause we're calling that the greatest party team.
• 11:38
  That, that really brings me to, like, last year at a SotoCon, our keynote speaker was a, an author and entrepreneur named Jim McKelvey, who was a co-founder of Square, wrote a book called The Innovation Stack. Yep.
• 11:47
  Actually, if... Have you read it? It's incredible, yeah. If you haven't...
• 11:50
  And, and so I'm thinking about his whole premise in that is that v- he believed with Square, they believe with Southwest Airlines, with Ikea, with Bank of America, that there was a predetermined idea of who was interested in the product, who actually wanted to fly places, who actually wanted to take credit cards.
• 12:08
  And the premise was that there's a whole nother circle just outside that one of people who want to engage it, and what they did and what you're doing is, like you said with the Party Animals, right?
• 12:17
  There are all these people just on the fringes of baseball- Yeah...
• 12:21
  that wanna be interested in baseball, but in a different way, and that seems to be what you're tapping into.Yeah, or they wanna be interested in just having a good time, having fun, not taking themselves too serious.
• 12:31
  I mean- Sure... our, our games, it's just- It's a lot more of those. [laughs] You know what I'm saying? The people- Yeah... that just, like, you know, everyone, uh, you know, obviously I have kids.
• 12:37
  Your kids, you know, you think about... I'm constantly searching for activities with the kids, you know? And, like, what can we do that's fun? Absolutely. And when you do, and it's like, whoa.
• 12:45
  What Walt Disney did, he sat on a bench on Daddy-Daughter Day.
• 12:48
  It was on Saturday at Griffith Park, and he watched his two daughters on the carousel, and he said, "I wish there was a place adults and kids could have fun together." Ah, yeah.
• 12:55
  We, as dads, are constantly organ- I wanna do something with my kids that I would love, too. Like, you know? And, and so that's what we're trying to create- Yes...
• 13:01
  with games, that it can be a win-win for both, and obviously inspired by Walt with that. There's, there's- So-... a connection.
• 13:08
  There's a real clean connection between kind of what retail tries to accomplish and what entertainment tries to accomplish in the fact that they want people to be comfortable in their space.
• 13:19
  They want them to walk away with an, an up- like, a positive uptick in their emotions- Yeah... and in their energy.
• 13:26
  And as we, you know, we are real big advocates for the retail auto industry, and it's, it's one that has a bad stigma on it, um, some earned, much of it misplaced, 'cause we know the people and the stories that are within the industry every day.
• 13:39
  Um, as we try to help dealers rethink their mentality, especially when it comes around, uh, experience, 'cause that's where all the stigmas come in. I had a bad experience. People are stressed.
• 13:49
  They vote, they say, "I'd rather go to the dentist than go buy a car." What...
• 13:54
  And, and obviously now you, you- you're thinking a lot more retail because, you know, retailers are bringing you in to encourage their teams and try to, like, siphon from what you're doing.
• 14:02
  What, what can you share with us as a retailer on how a, like, a dealer could start to think about reframing the experience around buying a car? Yeah. Well, a- a- again, you know, I had no idea when we first started.
• 14:14
  It was just like, just start trying to get fans excited to come to the ballpark, and then we just started attacking the things that people didn't like about coming to a ballpark, and that's almost the starting point.
• 14:22
  And I hate going into a negative, uh, because I like to be... I'm in all yellow. I mean, for God's sake, that's who I am. [laughs] You know, upbeat on that. But the reality- Just a sad color. [laughs] Yeah, I know.
• 14:32
  Y- it's, it's all... Yeah, it's very sad.
• 14:34
  [laughs] Uh, but the reality is you can't start creating an amazing experience until you eliminate all the things, the frustrations and the friction points of what a bad experience looks like, and so that's literally where we started.
• 14:46
  Hmm. I mean, when... And again, I just try to... Uh, I was talking to David Novak, the CEO of Yum Brands, great guy, and he's like, "Jesse, you're a really good parallel thinker."
• 14:53
  And I was like, "What does that even mean? But thank you." [laughs] And a parallel, parallel thinker is where you- Sounds expensive. [laughs] Yeah, yeah. It sounds... I don't understand it.
• 15:00
  But it's where you, y- you see something in a certain industry or a certain thing, and then you can put it to your own.
• 15:05
  And so when I start thinking about, you know, how to work with retailers or different people, I think, "All right, what are we doing that, that's the same type of thing that you can put into yours?"
• 15:12
  And it is that, that framework of, of stop chasing the customer, start creating fans, and the way to do that is you have to start by eliminating all the friction points, all the frustration points of the experience.
• 15:22
  So I put myself in a, in a fan's shoes. I was like, baseball games, they're boring. They're too long. They're too slow. So I said, "What would be the opposite of that?"
• 15:30
  And a two-hour time game, nonstop entertainment, twerking umpires, players on stilts, all that fat ass things. You get nickel and dimed, so we eliminated ticket fees, convenience fees, service fees. We pay your taxes.
• 15:40
  All the things that are frustrating from the idea of coming to a baseball game. You pay a $30 ticket, it's 42.50, whatever it is, or a concert, and we eliminate them.
• 15:48
  So coming into retail, whether a car, and you're thinking about this, all right, what are the immediate friction points you think about? When you first show up, what happens? When you walk in, what happens?
• 15:57
  What are the confusion points? What are the, uh, the paperwork? What are the processes? What are all those things that people's like... It- buying a car should be the most exciting thing they think.
• 16:05
  Or getting things for your... Like, it should be so exciting. Why is it a chore? Yeah. It's unbelievable. It's like getting a house. Like, it should be the most exciting thing.
• 16:13
  And I think for a lot of people it is, but other people say, "Here we go. Let's buckle up." Most people don't say that. Yes. They might, they might on the other side of it be like, "That was pretty good.
• 16:23
  That wasn't that bad." Yeah. "That was pretty fun. I'm glad I have a car." But they're gonna talk a lot more about the car and not about the actual experience. Correct.
• 16:29
  And I think that, like what you're alluding to there is, a, a lot of people go, they, they target first becoming the show. Yeah.
• 16:38
  And what you're saying is like, "No, no, no, you can't actually become the show because people will be so distracted by the junk-" Yes... "that they can't actually see the show."
• 16:47
  So you could, like, have people on stilts in the showroom- 100%... but they wouldn't even see it because they'd be so frustrated by this- Exactly... junk over here that you've got. Yeah.
• 16:55
  You, uh, the ticket experience has to be so easy, so convenient, so wowing that you're already coming to the ballpark feeling good.
• 17:01
  So when you're first coming, you know, uh, whether it's cars or whatever, you're walking in, you are so, like, there's no friction. There's no frustration, and it's easy. It's simple.
• 17:11
  And then it's like, I ask this question, I always ask this question with our, our, "What would make people that want to stay longer at our games?" Most people leave baseball games early. So- Hmm...
• 17:22
  what would make people wanna say, "You know, I wanna spend three hours at this dealer show. I wanna spend two hours at this retail. I wanna spend four hours here because it's so good." Go the extreme.
• 17:32
  So say, all right, eliminate all the friction, and then say, "What would make them want to stay longer that make them want to want more?" Hmm. And when our games ended two hours, this is actually a quick funny story.
• 17:42
  So this is halfway into, uh, 20 games into the tour, and I noticed something. When we'd win a game, everyone would be standing and cheering, and they wouldn't leave.
• 17:52
  They would just be standing there, like, like clapping, and everyone's like, they, they're wanting more. And so I turned to our- Like the ovation...
• 17:59
  I turned to our director of entertainment, I go, "We've been entertaining since 5, 5 o'clock out here. We did our march 5:30. It's now 9 o'clock, and they're not leaving."
• 18:06
  I was like, "That never happens at a baseball game." [laughs] So I go, I go, "We need a finale." So I, so the next thing we did- Yeah. You need the encore, right? Yes. Yeah.
• 18:14
  We took the guys in practice, I go, "Guys, we need to work on a finale." So we have our, our captains start introducing all the players. They do a cold full dance.
• 18:20
  We do the Greatest Showman dance, the whole Greatest Show, into a thunderstruck kick line. Then we do streamers over it, and then I thank everyone and say thank you, and they bow.That's how our game ends.
• 18:30
  [laughs] So my point is, it finally tells people that it's ending. What if, when people were interacting with car retail and they were saying, "You know what? I want more.
• 18:38
  After I get my car, I don't wanna just leave and go home." Right, like, "I guess it's time to leave now." What is the experience? Right. Yes. Oh, man. You have to literally tell them, "You guys gotta go."
• 18:46
  Like, it's just the, "We're closing shop," all right? "This is the part where you leave," right? [laughs] You can't hang out here with your car and be a part of this experience anymore. You can drive away now.
• 18:53
  That is so, just so you know, like, a- and you may not know this, but in the industry right now, one of the things that, like, everybody's trying to do is shorten the transaction, get people- Yeah...
• 19:01
  in and out as quick as humanly possible. Yeah. And it's the antithesis to that this way of thinking. Because nobody wants to be there, and they know it. 'Cause no one wants to be there.
• 19:08
  But if they wanna be there so bad that they're like, "Three hours to buy a car? Sounds fun. Why wouldn't I do four?", right?
• 19:15
  [laughs] That would be a totally game-changing mentality that it is- "This will be the best afternoon of my week, of my month." Yes. "I'm taking my kids. We can't wait."
• 19:23
  Like, like, and again, you still gotta eliminate the friction. Like, like, eliminate all those- Yes, yeah... frustration points of the processes of all the paperwork, going back and forth. "Oh, we're talking to finance.
• 19:32
  Oh, we're talking over here. We're talking over here. Let's get you back." We like, like, eliminate all that, but then make it where it's like, "You know what? This is gonna be a fun journey."
• 19:39
  And that's what we try to do, an emotional, fun journey. And that would hopefully wow some people that say, "I'm, I'm just gonna go inside. I'm not buying a car, but I just wanna be there." Just let me in.
• 19:47
  What I love about this is, is you're, you're giving us the, the true behind the scenes of what it actually takes.
• 19:52
  Whereas, you know, people watching on social media, they go, "Oh, okay, so what I gotta do is eliminate the friction. You know what'd be a good idea?
• 19:59
  If I took TikTok videos of myself twerking on a Hyundai Sonata," you know? [laughs] And then it doesn't work, and they're like, "How come this doesn't work? I see the Savannah Bananas doing it," and I...
• 20:11
  So I love, Jesse, that you're bringing us behind the scenes and saying, "No, like, it starts with a whole lot of work removing friction." Thank you. A- a- and I, yeah, thank you.
• 20:19
  And that's, that's again about being misunderstood. Everyone sees all this crazy, and they're like, "I'm sick of the Bananas 'cause that's all they do is dance." Like, well, you don't know.
• 20:25
  Like, we literally, after we eliminate the friction, we map every moment of the experience from when they buy their tickets to when they show up and to when they leave.
• 20:35
  And after that finale, we actually then have our encore, which is out in front of the plaza, where we have all the players' autographs, pictures.
• 20:42
  We have the band playing, and then we have Hey Baby dance, and then finally Stand By Me at 10:00 at night- [laughs]...
• 20:47
  where all the cast and the players, I know it sounds crazy, our arms are around each other, and we're singing Stand By Me with the tuba player playing. [laughs] And that's what we call our kiss good night.
• 20:56
  And it's, it's, it, it's crazy, but, like, it's those details that people don't see.
• 21:00
  No one sees Stand By Me on social media, but when you come to our game and you're looking around and you're feeling like, "Wait, I've got the starting center fielder's arms around me. I got stilts right here.
• 21:08
  I got the dancing umpire, and all the fans are together," as you're looking around, it's emotional, as crazy as that sounds. It's those moments that really matter.
• 21:14
  That's the behind the scenes that I think anybody can do in any business when they start looking at these details matter. How do you convince a 47-year-old man with a graying beard that he needs to put on an umpire,
• 21:28
  be the umpire, and also dance and... [laughs] Yeah, other words, how do, how do you get that level of buy-in from these people? [laughs] 'Cause it's...
• 21:36
  I mean, we've, we've had a little bout of performing in front of an audience, and when you have to kind of make a fool of yourself, you feel like you're making a fool of yourself. [laughs] Oh, yes.
• 21:44
  Yes, but we all make a fool of ourselves together. There's a difference about doing things together. Ah. [laughs] Find the others, right?
• 21:50
  [laughs] If you're doing it by yourself, like we have this pitcher that was pitching literally triple A with the Cubs.
• 21:54
  He joined us, and, uh, he said he, he showed me a picture of him as Napoleon Dynamite back in h- and I was like, "Perfect." He goes, "What do you mean?" I go, "You'll do that entire Napoleon Dynamite dance."
• 22:03
  You'll do that dance, right? [laughs] He goes, "On the mound by myself?" I go, "Yeah, it'll be perfect." And so he's been working on it for weeks. [laughs] It's almost time to unveil it.
• 22:09
  But other than that- Ah, I can't wait. We're gonna, we're gonna see that in Syracuse in two weeks? Is that gonna be ready? Oh, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. Other than that- You gotta get him the Walkman, right? Yeah.
• 22:16
  Like the little wired headphones. Yeah, yeah, I hear you, I hear you. But Michael, to answer your, answer your, your question, o- obviously, and there wasn't really a question.
• 22:23
  It was a statement, so I'll answer it anyways. Um, but yes, everyone, we, we obviously work together, but so many people are focused on recruiting, recruiting talent, recruiting.
• 22:30
  We're so interested in attracting over recruiting. So when you are so clear about who you are and what you stand for and you scream it from the mountaintops, you attract.
• 22:39
  Most of those people, that dancing umpire, you know, he saw all of our stuff. We saw a video of him on Ellen, so we talked, and he got emotional. He's like, "You would consider me?"
• 22:46
  I'm like, "You're the only dancing umpire in the world. What do you mean? Of course I'll consider you." [laughs] I'm just saying, let me go through our list here. [laughs] You. Yeah, it's you. The, it's you.
• 22:56
  There's no one else. And so, and now his, like, I mean, he's got hundreds of thousands of followers, and he, you know, it's, it's unbelievable. But again, I think that's it. It's, it's attract.
• 23:05
  Or do, does every dealership, does every person, like, in every company, are they so clear on who they are, they, what they stand for, that everyone in their company, everyone on the outside knows what they're getting in themselves into and what they're about, that they will say, "You know what?
• 23:16
  I want this"? And that's what's really helped us as we've grown our team and grown our staff. Tell me... Oh, man, look, this, uh, I'm, I'm gonna, I've, I gotta cut it short because here's the thing. We'll keep going.
• 23:26
  [laughs] We can't blow everything. For, in just a couple weeks, you're gonna be joining us in Baltimore at ASOTU CON hanging out with the fam.
• 23:32
  I wouldn't be s- surprised if you get a couple offers for some partner deals and some dealerships or dealer groups right after that, so just, like, get your ink ready after that.
• 23:41
  [laughs] But, uh, we can't wait to have you in person and hang out and, uh, just share in the energy and the show, uh, that, that we're gonna hopefully, uh, have created a- around, uh, ASOTU CON.
• 23:52
  And, and thanks for spending a little bit of time with us here on Auto Labs. No, I can't wait. You guys are a lot of fun. It's gonna be a great time in a few weeks.
• 23:57
  [upbeat music] I, I was sitting here writing notes during that conversation, and one of the notes I wrote is that today, in the year 2023,
• 24:14
  there are little boys and little girls saying, "One day, I want to play on a ball team like the Savannah Bananas," where- Oh, I know where you're going with this... like, decades ago, it was like- Like, gone now...
• 24:26
  "I wanna be a Major League player," and now they're saying, "No, I wanna entertain pe- I'm an entertainer, and I wanna play sports, and I wanna play on this guy's team," and I just think it's fantastic.
• 24:36
  Go there, Cirillo. Go there. Yeah. Take it to us. Yeah, I just, I just, it blows my mind what-... innovative thinking can do and the revolution, if I dare say that word, can start.
• 24:49
  And so that, I, all of the notes I'm writing, I'm, I'm writing in, in the vein of this guy has just transformed an entire generation's view of what it means to be an athlete and an entertainer all at once.
• 25:02
  See, I gotta believe, I gotta believe that there are people in our industry, in the automotive retail industry, that can be so frictionless and so dynamic with the show that they put on as retail auto dealers,
• 25:19
  the young boys and young girls who thought they wanted to start their own business- [laughs]... may or may not just wanna become an auto dealer. Yeah. And by the way- There it is...
• 25:31
  and by the way, you don't need the full college education, and by the way, you'll make more money than all the people that have the [laughs] college education. Oh, that. [laughs] Oh, that. Yes. Yes.
• 25:41
  Look, that is the truth. I- It's, I, I mean, you've said this many times. I've seen you say it from the stage. It's one of the first, like, like, flags in the dirt that I saw you put.
• 25:49
  You're like, "My dream is that one day my kids will grow up and enter this industry when it's in a place where you have to know somebody because there's no space. It's full.
• 26:01
  There are people, like, waiting in line to get a good job in retail auto, and we know they're out there. We know they're everywhere."
• 26:07
  Man, I love that you just brought that point up, because we didn't talk about it in the interview, but we'll definitely talk about it at ASOTU CON, I think. Absolutely.
• 26:15
  Showing people- I, like, anytime I get enough people in a room, I'm talking about that, you know? Jesus, true. And, and this is, like, a direct link to that.
• 26:22
  I, I have to, I have to bring up again, I brought it up during the interview, but it, it just strikes me that, like, typically our trajectory, especially in retail auto, is how fast can we make it, and how little time can we spend with these people, and how bombastic or, or, like, wild of an experience can we make it?
• 26:47
  And the thing, and the two antithesis to that that he brought up, that I think, like, I'm starting to reframe myself right now currently, is what if they wanted to stay all day?
• 26:58
  [laughs] And what are the friction points that we have to mo- remove, that way they can see the really cool stuff that we're about to do? Yeah. [sighs] Well, I don't know. That's, you know- I need to go take a nap...
• 27:10
  we're all kind of quiet right now. Yeah, [laughs] we're all kinda quiet right now. Like- We're all like, all right, just contemplating...
• 27:13
  I'm gonna pull a card out of Darren Doane's deck, and he's, "You know, I think we've done enough work for today." [laughs] Well, you know what this is? I'm gonna go have- This is a, this is a great validator...
• 27:23
  some emotion later. Yes. Th- th- this right here is a great validator of if we were left this speechless and, like, teleported to a contemplative stance, imagine what's gonna happen when he takes the stage at ASOTU CON.
• 27:38
  In person. Like, you don't get value like this from other automotive events, when you bring in that level of energy, that level of innovation and creative thinking, that level of business acumen.
• 27:49
  And someone who, um, has taken the framework of a long-standing industry with a certain audience and said, "I'm gonna just, psh, boom, flip it on its head."
• 28:03
  [laughs] And to your point, you said in, in the opening, um, a wait list of almost a million tickets long. Like, [laughs] what the heck? Yeah. What'd he say during the interview? He's like, "We've just crossed 900,000."
• 28:15
  [laughs] You know how many people fit in a ballpark? [laughs] Minor league parks? Not that many. 15,000? That's a lot of ballparks already sold out. Yeah. Insane. So they're going MLB next year. They have to.
• 28:24
  And so- They have to... that's gonna be nuts. But you're only... But still, 50, 60. A million tickets. Come on. Look, I don't know. Have we been left spe- I, uh- No. Hey, go to ASOTU CON. I, I'm trying to think.
• 28:36
  Just come and meet Jesse. That's what you gotta do. ASOTUCON.com, get your tickets. We hope you enjoyed this episode with Jesse Cole.
• 28:44
  You're gonna be able to shake his hand, spend some time with him a little bit at ASOTU CON in Baltimore. You gotta be there, ASOTUCON.com to get your tickets.
• 28:53
  Uh, but on behalf of myself, Michael Cirillo, Paul Jay Daly, and Kyle Mouse here, thanks for joining us here on Auto Collect.
• 29:00
  Sign up for our free and fun-to-read daily email for a free shot of relevant news in automotive, retail, media, and pop culture. You can get it now at ASOTU.com. That's A-S-O-T-U.com.
• 29:13
  If you love this podcast, please leave us a review and share it with a friend. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time.
• 29:22
  [upbeat music] Welcome to Auto Collect. Welcome to Auto Collect. [laughs] Why are we recording? Are we rolling yet? Not yet.