What can a small business learn from a baseball team that wears yellow tuxedos, puts players on stilts, and lets fans catch foul balls for outs? Quite a lot.
Banana Ball: The Unbelievably True Story of the Savannah Bananas by Jesse Cole and Don Yaeger is the story of how the Savannah Bananas transformed themselves from a struggling minor-league baseball team into one of the most recognizable entertainment brands in sports.
The book is part entrepreneurial memoir, part business case study, and part manifesto for challenging conventional thinking. Cole, founder of the Savannah Bananas and Fans First Entertainment, tells the story of how he and his team questioned virtually every assumption about professional baseball—from how games should be played to how tickets should be sold and, most importantly, what customers actually want.
The result is Banana Ball: a faster, shorter, more entertaining version of baseball designed around the fan experience rather than the traditional rules of the game.
The Bananas didn’t simply try to become a better baseball team. They asked a more fundamental question:
What if we completely redesigned the experience for the customer?
That question is at the heart of the book—and it has enormous relevance for small business owners.
The Big Idea: Don’t Improve the Old Game—Change the Game
One of the most important lessons in Banana Ball is that innovation doesn’t always mean making your existing product or service incrementally better.
Sometimes you need to rethink the entire experience.
Traditional baseball is built around the game itself. Cole realized that many fans weren’t necessarily looking for a better baseball game. They were looking for an experience they could enjoy, share, and remember.
So the Bananas built an experience around baseball.
The games are filled with music, dancing, comedy, unusual rules, fan participation, giveaways, and constant interaction between players and spectators. The food is included in the ticket price. The players interact with fans. The organization actively creates moments that people want to photograph and share.
The baseball is still there—but it is no longer the entire product.
That distinction is important for virtually every small business.
Your customers may not simply be buying your product. They may be buying convenience, confidence, speed, expertise, recognition, entertainment, peace of mind, or an experience.
The question is: What are they really buying from you?
Five Key Takeaways
1. Put the customer at the center of every decision
The Bananas’ philosophy can be summarized in two words: Fans First.
Rather than asking, “What do other baseball teams do?” Cole asks, “What would make our fans happier?”
That sounds simple, but it is remarkably difficult for established businesses. Over time, companies tend to become internally focused. Processes, policies, traditions, margins, and organizational convenience begin to drive decisions.
The Bananas continually work from the opposite direction: start with the customer and work backward.
For a small business, this raises some useful questions:
- What frustrates our customers?
- What do they wish we did differently?
- What could we eliminate to make doing business with us easier?
- What could we do that customers would genuinely appreciate?
- What would make a customer tell someone else about us?
Customer service is not simply about being nice. It is about designing the business around the customer.
2. Don’t be afraid to be different
Perhaps the most obvious lesson from the Bananas is the power of differentiation.
They don’t try to be a slightly better version of traditional baseball. They are intentionally different.
And that difference makes them memorable.
For a small business, this is a powerful competitive strategy. Most businesses compete by saying essentially the same things:
“Great service.”
“High quality.”
“Experienced professionals.”
“Competitive pricing.”
The problem is that none of those statements differentiates you.
The Bananas demonstrate that being memorable can be more valuable than being marginally better.
Ask yourself:
What is the thing about our company that customers will remember?
If you can’t answer that question, you may have an opportunity to create a stronger competitive advantage.
3. Create an experience, not just a transaction
One of the most interesting aspects of Banana Ball is that the organization has turned a commodity-like product—watching a baseball game—into an experience.
This is an important concept for small businesses.
Consider a plumber, CPA, law firm, contractor, funeral home, restaurant, manufacturer, or professional service firm. Much of what these businesses sell can be obtained from competitors.
The differentiator can therefore become how the customer experiences the company.
What happens when the customer calls?
How quickly does someone respond?
How easy is it to get an answer?
The Bananas remind us that every interaction is an opportunity to create either a raving fan or a forgettable customer.
4. Culture starts with what you celebrate
The Bananas have created an unusual organizational culture, but the important lesson isn’t the yellow tuxedos or the outrageous antics.
It is the intentionality.
Cole doesn’t simply hire people and hope a culture develops. He creates an environment where employees are expected to contribute ideas, entertain customers, take risks, and think differently.
That has a significant implication for small business owners.
Your culture is not what you write on the wall. It is what you consistently reward.
If you say innovation is important but shoot down every unusual idea, your employees will stop innovating.
If you say customers come first but reward employees solely for productivity, they will optimize for productivity.
If you want employees to take ownership, you have to give them opportunities to make decisions.
Small businesses actually have an advantage here. They can change culture much faster than large organizations.
5. Generate more ideas
Cole is an obsessive idea generator. He has talked about writing down ten ideas every day and encouraging his employees to develop ideas as well.
The important point isn’t that every idea will be good. Most won’t.
The point is that innovation is a process, not an event.
Many small business owners complain that they need “a great idea.”
The Bananas’ approach suggests something different:
Don’t wait for the great idea. Generate hundreds of ideas and see which ones work.
That creates a much healthier attitude toward experimentation.
Instead of asking, “Will this work?”
Ask:
“How can we test this?”
Small businesses have the advantage of being able to experiment quickly and cheaply.
Then build your customer experience around that objective.
One Caution
There is also a lesson in Banana Ball that small business owners should not miss.
You probably shouldn’t copy the Bananas.
The point isn’t to put your employees in banana costumes or manufacture outrageous customer experiences.
The point is to understand the thinking behind the success.
The Bananas are successful because they are extraordinarily clear about who they are, what they are trying to accomplish, and what experience they want their customers to have.
Every small business needs its own version of that clarity.
Your “Banana Ball” might be incredibly fast service, extraordinary expertise, remarkable personal attention, unusual convenience, an obsessive focus on quality, or simply making a traditionally frustrating experience remarkably easy.
Bottom Line
Banana Ball is an entertaining story, but its real value for a small business owner is as a reminder to question assumptions.
Don’t automatically accept that your industry has to operate the way it always has.
Don’t assume customers want what you’ve always sold them.
Don’t confuse being different with being better.
And don’t underestimate the power of creating an experience that customers remember.
The Savannah Bananas didn’t win by playing traditional baseball better.
They won by asking whether people really wanted traditional baseball in the first place.
That may be the most important question any small business owner can ask:
“What if we stopped doing business the way everyone else does it?”
That’s where some of the best opportunities begin.
Purchase your copy of Banana Ball through this paid link.