Lessons from my first Savannah Bananas game
I’m not much of a sports fan. I do love the Green Bay Packers and will always be a cheesehead no matter where I live. So, when I had a chance to see the Savannah Bananas in action, you might be surprised to hear that I was ecstatic!
Founded in 2015, the Bananas were part of the Coastal Plain League, a summer collegiate league, for seven seasons. Anyone who has seen a news story, Tweet, or Facebook post about them knows that they don’t just play baseball. They play Banana Ball. That meant it wasn’t a surprise when in 2022, the Bananas announced that they were leaving the Coastal Plain League to play Banana Ball year-round.
Banana Ball was born out of the idea of making baseball more fast-paced and entertaining. They play with 10 Rules, including a two-hour time limit and allowing batters to steal first. Yes, you read that correctly! And if you haven’t clicked on the previous links, take 4 minutes and watch this compilation of the Top 10 Banana Ball Moments 2022.
With all the fun of the game, their major tenant was what struck me: Fans First. Being a credit union nerd, I took in the game with a lens of how credit unions could adopt this philosophy. There are plenty of credit unions who operate with a members first philosophy. And once you immerse yourself in a Savannah Bananas game, you’ll see that even the best, most member-focused among us have opportunities to expand and serve our members even better.
Consider some of my top take-aways as you contemplate your members-first ideas:
When no one has heard of you, no amount of free swag will make you stand out.
When the Bananas first came to Savannah, they followed a long line of failed attempts to get minor league baseball to catch on in the area. After their naming contest went viral with people both delighted and outraged, suddenly everyone knew who they were. And they’ve played to sold out crowds ever since.
Alas! Credit unions have a long history of not being able to get our stories heard. No quantity of free pens, free coffee, free T-shirts, or free anything will change that. We need to find a way to show people we’re different. And then we need to live up to the hype. Every leader. Every employee. Every time.
Make your secret weapon a willingness to try anything.
In a traditional baseball game, any fan involvement happens between innings. If you’re lucky, you might get a little organ music rallying cry thrown in between pitches. At a Savannah Banana game, the music and the fun never stop. I first noticed something was different about this game when the first player stepped up to bat. The music didn’t stop. It didn’t get quieter. And nobody stopped singing. Music is part of the entire experience. It’s music you know by heart where you can sing along. And everyone sings along! At the game I attended, the entire team surrounded the pitcher’s mound and did a choreographed number at the same time the pitcher was throwing his warmup pitches. It was a delightful way to get everyone to put down their phone and engage with each other. Contrast that with a typical baseball game where it’s ghostly quiet when someone is at the plate, and nobody looks up from their phone until you hear the crack of the bat. It’s an unwritten rule that you should be quiet during every pitch. But why?
What kinds of unwritten rules are we following to the detriment of our member experience? Maybe there’s a regulation, but maybe it’s just the way we’ve always done business. Speaking of, is anyone else tired of regulations ruling our world? What if we start living in a world where we worked on saying yes more? Tried more ideas that feel “out there?” Notice I said, saying yes more, not spending. If we concentrate on outthinking the competition rather than outspending them, we’d be able to help more members – and do it in a way that aligns with our people helping people philosophy.
The best opportunity to create loyalty is when something goes wrong.
We went to the game expecting hijinks and tons of fun. After all, we saw the piece featuring the Bananas on CBS Sunday Morning. Imagine our disappointment when one out into the 4th inning, there was a bright streak of lightning just beyond right field. (See, I can be sporty if I want to.) Then the sky opened up with buckets of rain coming down in sheets. You could guess part of what happened next. First, they covered the mound and home plate with tarps. Then it got interesting. Dozens of players and staff emerged from both dugouts to cover the infield dressed in everything from a hard hat to a motorcycle helmet, to a huge pink wig. Then a player danced on the catwalk above our heads to a medley of Michael Jackson hits. In his uniform. The shenanigans continued for about an hour, and nobody left the stadium. Finally, the announcer came on and said, “I have an important announcement about the weather. It’s raining.” Completely hilarious and unexpected to us. But very expected to them. They know rain happens in Georgia in the summer. And they were prepared to entertain through it all.
Are we prepared when something goes wrong? Because it will. Mistakes happen. Accounts get debited when they should have been credited. The much-anticipated upgrade doesn’t live up to the hype. The app crashes. The system goes down. And through it all, how do we respond? We knew this all could happen. Are we prepared with responses that let our members know that we’re with them? Can we anticipate our members’ needs during an outage just like we do when all systems are operating normally? Can we prepare our staff better with something beyond a canned response that will do little more than irritate our members? If you don’t think so, go back and review #2 in this list one more time. As the Bananas say, “The best opportunity to do the unexpected and create a fan is when something goes wrong.”
Ask questions. Lots of questions.
Most sports fans who shell out $20 for a ticket to a game will admit that the ticket is just the beginning of the battle for your wallet. You can pay $16.00 for a beer at a LA Dodger’s game. Add in a hotdog for $8.25 at Camden Yards, and parking for $40 at a Brewer’s game, and my $20 ticket just turned into $85. Multiplied for a group of four means you’re shelling out some serious money – and we’re not talking peanuts! (That’s my quota of dad jokes for this article.)
The Savannah Bananas asked questions. What is making everything so expensive? Why can’t we make this a family outing at an affordable price? Why can’t we offer a different experience? And that’s how the all-inclusive $25 ticket was born. That means one ticket price for everyone. And that ticket includes all you can eat (burgers, hotdogs, chicken sandwiches, chips, and cookies) and drink (water, Coke™, Diet Coke™, and Sprite™). Really. For everyone. Not into burgers and soda? They have a wider menu including ice cream, peanuts, nachos, and other traditional game day treats – for a price. And they sell beer and cocktails – for a price. And guess what? After the initial excitement about the free food, the lines for the paid items continued to grow and bring in customers as the game went on. They found a way to think differently and come up with a game winning solution. (Pun intended – that’s not really a dad joke, right?)
Where can we ask more questions to reduce friction in our member experiences? Looking back 10 years, member experience mapping was big in credit unions. Where did it go? Did we solve all the points of friction? Or did we just get tired because it’s so much work to do experience mapping? Maybe it’s time to ask some of those questions again. Dust off those maps and see what’s changed – and what’s not. Where are our members still struggling? Has our lending process become easier? Does our mobile app make people happy or frustrated? Are we seeing as many people in our branches as ever, even though we’ve tried to make everything available online? Why are they still coming in? Keep asking questions, because your members who are struggling with the tools you’ve provided are finding other ways to make their finances accessible, with or without you.
I’ll admit I’ve become an overnight fanatic about the Savannah Bananas. Check out the links to learn more about their culture. And please reach out to learn more about how you can build a more member focused culture using the Savannah Bananas principles. It’s time to stop chasing members and start creating credit union fans. I’d be delighted to help!
