[JOE SANOK]: This is the Practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Sanok, session number 451.
I don’t need to tell you about the power of podcasting. If you have followed me for any bit of time, you know that I fully believe in podcasting and that’s why I want you to launch a podcast. I’ve put together a nine-part email series just for you. This is a course all about how to start a podcast. I would love for you to go sign up for it over at podcastlaunchschool.com. This is going to give you some step by step instructions of what to think about before you launch your first podcast. Again, that’s podcastlaunchschool.com.
Well, welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast. I am Joe Sanok here live in Practice of the Practice world headquarters in Traverse City, Michigan. We at the time of this recording are still on lockdown and when this episode goes live, we will see where we’re at in the world. Hopefully, all your healthcare friends and family are staying safe and healthy and that you aren’t driving one another too crazy. Hopefully you’ve binge-listened to a bunch of podcasts and you’ve worked on your business and you’ve worked on ideas to help the world. You know, wee hosted, at the time of this recording about a week ago, a webinar all about nine different ways to increase your income during this time of coronavirus. And there are new streams of income mostly passive income in a number of ways, and over 500 people registered for that. And from that group, a bunch of them now are signing up for our e-course that we’ve kind of quietly beta tested a launch of to our Podcast Launch School folks.
So, you may have heard of that and if you want to sign up for that course. We have a free email course, but then I’ve also recorded a, I think we have about 20 videos in there walking you through exactly how to launch your own podcast. Now, most podcast trainings start with ‘Buy this microphone, do all of this,’ but we actually back up from that there as to really helping you discover your message, helping you really understand your email course, helping you then start your podcasts, get the best guests, and then how do you promote that podcast. And so, if you’re interested in that we are going to be releasing access to that to people first that are part of the Podcast Launch School free email course team. So, you can sign up for that over at podcastlaunchschool.com. If you’re on that email list, you get very first access.
Then we’re going to be releasing it to all of our affiliates and then after that we’ll be doing it to the general public and to all the rest of you. And so, you know, wanting to really help licensed people and coaches and people have big things for the world to start a podcast. And I’ll be doing more on why now really is the best time to start a podcast. You are not late to the game at all. Just one of those things is when you look at how many blogs there are per person, there’s about two blogs per person right now. There’s I think a one to six or one to seven ratio of a person, I’m sorry, of one YouTube channel per I think six or seven people and then the podcast to people ratio is around one to a thousand. So, tons of people and not a lot of content out there. So again, podcastlaunchschool.com if you’re interested in learning more about that.
But today we have Jessie Cole. Jesse Cole wears a yellow tuxedo everywhere. He’s the owner of the Savannah Bananas, which is a minor league baseball team. We recorded this before all of this coronavirus stuff, but his marketing tactics, his ideas, his commitment to entertainment really got my wheels turning in regards to how do we continue to make Practice of the Practice stand out. And the same for you, for your counseling practice or other things you’re working on, it’s really important to think through those different things. How do we creatively engage? And one of the big things is to, was that some of their tickets are scented to smell like a banana. How crazy is that? Like to spend the extra money to have scented tickets? It’s just such attention to detail that makes the Savannah Bananas stand out. So, without any further ado, I give you Jesse Cole.
[JOE]: Well, today on the Practice of the Practice podcast, we have Jessie Cole. Jesse Cole, known as the yellow tux guy is the founder of Fans First Entertainment and owner of the Savannah Bananas. He has welcomed more than a million fans to his ballpark and it’s sold out every game for three seasons. Jesse, welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast.
[JESSE COLE]: I’m pumped to be with you, Joe, and have some fun.
[JOE]: Yeah, this is awesome. You know your name, it’s come up with Donald Miller on the StoryBrand podcast, Mike Michalowicz from Profit First, you know, these big-name people that I really respect their work and I’ve connected with a little bit. Let’s just start with like, how does a ballpark owner just get known in the business world so quickly? Or maybe it wasn’t even quickly, maybe it’s been years in the making?
[JESSE]: Well, I think, you know, we’ve had a lot of struggles. We’ve had challenges, you know, and our story four years ago, my wife and I, we had to sell our house, empty out our savings account, and were sleeping on an air bed. And you know, we’ve had a lot of challenges growing through last 15 years. Like most people that, you know, have some forms of success, they go through the adversity and I think for us, we just became very clear on what business we’re in, but what business are we really in? And you mentioned the ballpark and the baseball teams and all that but we’re not in the baseball business. We’re not in the sports. We’re not in the ballpark business. We’re in the entertainment business. And more specifically, we’re in the experience business. And so, for us, we don’t focus on the sports industry.
We don’t go to sports conferences. We don’t go to business conferences. You, we talked before about, you know, the minor league world. I don’t even know what’s going on in the minor league world because we’re not playing that game. And so, I’m so fortunate to be connected with some great people, as you mentioned Don Miller and Mike Michalowicz because we focus on the business world and how can we be the best in the experience entertainment? And we’ve learned that that translates a lot with a lot of other businesses and a lot of other industries.
[JOE]: Well, take me through what I would experience because I really don’t like baseball, you know, I mean for me, it’s such a boring sport and I know some people might hate me for that, but like what would I experience coming to be entertained? Like what is that like for someone like myself?
[JESSE]: And so, you know what you just said right there is something that I heard almost every day 15 years ago when I joined the worst performing team in the country in a little town called Gastonia, North Carolina. And I would go to these meetings in the community of business owners and say, “Hey, we’d love to have you come to our games.” And they would say, “I hate baseball. It’s long, it’s slow, it’s boring.” And I realized right there we had a serious problem. And I think if anybody wants to be innovative, the starting point is to look at what are the problems in your industry and do the exact opposite. So immediately what I thought back then was like, “Alright, we can’t be like a typical baseball team.” So, what would be the exact opposite of the typical baseball team?
Well, normally players play. They go and they play the game, they have their bats, they pitch, they play defense. What if our baseball players danced? What if they did choreograph dances every single game? And so, we had that idea to start. You know what if we started doing grandma beauty pageants? You know, what if we did promotions like flatulence fun night and salute to underwear night and buried trips to China and the infield dirt and have dig to China night? We immediately started thinking in the lines of we’re not a baseball team, we’re an entertainment destination. And so, for us to give you an, I mean, coming to a game now with the Savannah Bananas the first thing, as soon as you buy your ticket, you don’t get a typical payment confirmation. You get a video from us that says, “Congrats, you just made the best decision in your day. Right now, as your ticket order came in, a high priority siren went off in our stadium and our bananiax ran to the ticket laboratory to produce your tickets. Then a banana nana slowly walked in and selected your tickets and placed them on a silk pillow. As we raised yourself pillow to the air, we sang circle of life to celebrate the birth of a new fan. And then we walked your tickets down to our vault where they’re now in maximum security ready for you to go bananas.”
So that’s the first step. So, we’re already trying to set the tone. This isn’t your typical baseball game. Then you get a thank you call from someone in our staff. We call every single person that buys a ticket, a hundred thousand orders, we call and thank. Then we send a playlist of music to listen as you’re coming to the ballpark. So, we’re setting the tone and then as you pull up to our stadium, one of the first things you’ll probably see is a penguin. And that is not a real penguin, it’s you know, probably Savannah, Georgia, those would not work out that well. We’d have a lot of groups upset with us, but we have parking penguins. So, we dress up some of our staff in penguin costumes and they park your car and guide you to your spot. And as you pass that parking penguin, if you’re a little kid, you’ll be handed a Freezie pop then they’ll say, “Stay cool tonight.”
Then as you pass the penguins, you’ll be greeted by the players, not people dressed up as players, but our actual Savannah Bananas players who are passing out programs, signing autographs and taking pictures. Then as you pass them, you’ll see our 20-piece pep band. I don’t know about you Joe, but have you ever heard of a pep band at a baseball game? Heard about on football and in basketball, but never at baseball, right?
[JOE]: Yeah. I was in marching band in high school and we never played a baseball game.
[JESSE]: No one does because baseball is boring. You’re not supposed to have pep bands, but we’re trying to change the dynamic. So then as you’re hearing the band playing Rocky or final countdown or uptown funk, you’ll pass them, you’ll see our banana nanas, our senior citizen dance team dancing to Justin Timberlake or whatever, and then you’ll get our ticket takers that are in banana costumes that are literally ripping your banana shaped tickets that are scratch and sniff and smell like bananas. This is before you get into the stadium. Then you’ll probably be greeted by a professional high-fiver. Yes, we have a six-year-old that their sole role and we pay them to be a high fiver and their sole goal is to high five everyone in the stadium. So, this is just getting into the stadium.
As you get in the ballpark, we have a break dancing first base coach, we have a male cheerleading team, our players deliver roses in the crowd. We have 4,000 people dancing with each other. It’s a whole different lens and this has taken 15 years to get to where we are now. But we’re so fortunate to have the success because we’ve been very clear on who we are and who we are not. And that’s been huge for us.
[JOE]: Yeah, I love just the, you know, we could just call it an onboarding of a new client. I mean that in itself sounds super boring, but you know, just, just to know that even if I don’t like baseball, like the rest of it sounds awesome. It’s not just like there’s a T shirt cannon after the third inning and then there might be somebody dressed up in some jousting outfit, but it’s, every single step of it is thought through. And it reminds me of, like the Disney experience was when kids go to Disney for the first time, which we experienced over spring break last year, they’ve thought through almost everything to say, “We want you to have memories that last a lifetime.” And so how would you apply some of those thoughts to just, you know, an average private practice? What are, and maybe you know, we can kind of brainstorm how to apply that to just your typical counseling private practice?
[JESSE]: Sure. Well, I mean, what we say is whatever’s normal, do the exact opposite. Turn the required to remarkable and turn the boring to fun. So, a challenge with any business is this a misconception I believe on professionalism. We believe we have to be professional. However, you tell me, Joe, when was the last time someone came home and said, “Oh, you won’t believe it. I met the most professional person today.” Or, “You know what? Wow, man, that’s such a professional company.” We have this obsession with being professional, but professional is not an emotion that people get excited about. And I would challenge whatever industry you’re in, whether it’s a practice or whatever. How do you make people feel and stop thinking about professionalism? How do you make them excited? How do you make them want to go home and tell everyone about the experience that they had?
So how do you do that? You look at what are those normal things that you and everyone else in your industry does and flip them around? What are those required things that you can make remarkable? To give you an example, what’s the voicemail that you have for any practice? Is it a typical voicemail? Is it, you say, “Please listen closely. Our menu options have changed.” Every single voicemail in the world says our menu options have changed. No one likes that. So, do something different. For instance, for ours, it’s, “Savannah Bananas. You’ve reached Savannah Bananas.” It’s the song by Camilo Kumbaya, Havana. We made it into a song and we actually made our whole music ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, banana, phone. We have people call us that they want to be put on hold. This happens on a biweekly basis.
All right, so what are those required, those normal, those typical boring things that you have? What’s your email signature? All right? What’s your business card? What’s your name tag? Look at all those things. And I ask the question, what makes you different? What makes you stand out and how do you want to be known? And I’ll tell you if it’s just professional, I think that’ll have a tough time getting people, your clients to go tell everyone about you because professional isn’t something that people get excited about. So, we look at one of those little things, and Joe, I’ll give you that. One of the best advices I’ve ever received is probably the best business plan is, ‘Stop doing what your customers hate.’.
Literally write down right now. If you’re a client or if you’re a customer, what are those things that you hate? Whether it’s impersonal emails, whether it’s waiting when you show up, whether it’s not feeling cared for, whether it’s feeling like another statistic or just a transaction. There’s all these things that are impersonal, that every company in the world does and we’ve been guilty of it. Like giving an example, like people, you go to a ballpark, you hate being nickeled and dimed, right? Pay $5 for this, $6 for this, $8 for this. You’ve been there, right?
[JOE]: Oh yeah.
[JESSE]: So, we made every ticket all inclusive. Every ticket includes all your burgers or hot dogs, your chicken sandwiches, your soda, your water, your popcorn, and your dessert, for $18, every ticket. Stop doing what customers hate. So, if you were to write down a list, I worked with a car dealership in a workshop and they have a campaign going now ‘Stop the hate,’ and now they’re a car dealership. So, thinking of the things that people hate about car dealerships, this could take months, but they wrote down all the things that customers hate about going to a car dealership and they’re focused on doing the exact opposite. So, for the people that have practiced here, you know, think about what are those things that if you’re a customer, if you’re standing, sitting in their shoes, what would you hate? And do the exact opposite.
[JOE]: Oh, I love it. Like, I mean, even just thinking about that onboarding of sitting down, and we did this with Mental Wellness Counseling where we were so sick of people starting with 20 pages of paperwork. We said, “What is the bare minimum to get someone in the door and they just want to talk to somebody?” And so, you know, for them to list four pages of symptoms, we’re going to cover that in the intake anyway. And so, what’s the bare minimum we can give them just to get in the door from a liability standpoint, but then just say, “Okay, let’s improve that experience. And even just having a refrigerator full of beverages that they can grab a Starbucks or a LaCroix or coconut water, like that’s just a little bit different from your typical practice.
[JESSE]: Even thinking about the language. Language is something that’s not talked about at all. The language you use is so, so important. Why is one of the reasons why Chick-fil-A is dominating and they’re doing three times the revenue of most fast food restaurants? Here’s why. Because they focus on how do they make you feel, not necessarily what is the chicken sandwich they’re serving. And how they make you feel is by using language like ‘My pleasure’ instead of using “No problem.’ So, what I challenge any company is to look at the language they use, obviously face to face, but also what’s the language they use in their paperwork. Is it all legal jargon that people don’t feel comfortable with? They feel like they don’t trust this brand anymore or is it fun like, “Hey, here are the, oh I love the terms and conditions. Said no one ever.”
Like you could put fun things like that or like just really make the language human, you know. Make it fun. And I think those are things. So yes, eliminate 20 pages, make them two or three pages, make the language fun. If there’s something that they have to do, make fun of yourself because of it. “Yeah, like this is what we have to do. This is what our lawyers told us we have to do.” Poke fun at yourself and then people can and will start talking about it. Again, we think about how can you make every piece of your business remarkable. And remarkable means are people willing to remark about that piece of your business? And I’ll tell you, Joe, that the big piece we’re working on, and this is the next book, is a concept called You Wouldn’t Believe. Three words that will transform your customer experience.
Think about this. Have you ever left a restaurant or anywhere, a show, a movie, whatever, and say you wouldn’t believe what they did at this restaurant? You wouldn’t believe —
[JOE]: Yes, Brian Canlis out in Seattle, actually, I heard him on Donald’s show, reached out to them on a rainy day. They were booked out for like four months, you know, James Beard rated restaurant, told them I had listened to Donald Miller’s podcast and we were there to go out to a marriage seminar and they squeezed us in. And then Brian actually gave us a behind the scenes tour that they usually charge $200 for a behind the scenes in the kitchen. And he ended up being on my podcast afterwards. Yes. You wouldn’t believe Canlis restaurant in Seattle.
[JESSE]: How many people have you told about that?
[JOE]: Oh my gosh. Well, I’ve told my whole podcast. That’s like a hundred thousand a month, but then I bet of friends and clients that have gone out to Seattle, anyone I know that’s going to Seattle, like, you have to call way ahead of time and get into Canlis. So probably 40 people.
[JESSE]: There you go. It’s the most powerful form of marketing in the world; is word of mouth and taking it, not just from, “Hey, that’s a great restaurant,” to, “You wouldn’t believe what happened” —
[JOE]: You would have to go there.
[JESSE]: Exactly. And so, the whole concept that we work on is every day we’re wanting people to come to our ballpark and say, “You wouldn’t believe what happened at the stadium today.” And to do that, we look at every piece from our bathrooms, from the emails they get, from how they’re greeted when they come to the stadium, from how they’re greeted when they leave. That’s why we have free S’mores when people leave, that’s why we have the pep band playing music and we have all our characters out greeting you. When you look at every piece of your experience, say what would be your ‘You wouldn’t believe’ moment right here? And all you do is to start with one because that’s all we did. We started with one. Ours was the dancing players. We were the only team in the country to have dancing players and now we’ve continued to add to that. So, for everyone who’s listening, what is your one ‘You wouldn’t believe’ moment that you can create in your experience? Because I’ll tell you, you’ll no longer have to market. You’ll no longer have to talk about what you do. You’ll have your customers and your clients doing all the talking for you.
[JOE]: What do you say to the people that say, “I’m just so overwhelmed putting out fires with my business. We’re so behind in other areas. I can’t make time or should I make time for this?” What would you say to that pushback?
[JESSE]: I’ve been there. I understand. I’m empathetic to that situation. You know, I literally spent probably the first 10 years in this industry putting out fires every day, being in a reactive instead of proactive, every day, having to literally say, “Oh, what’s happening now? This is going on concessions. This is happening to sales. This happened from a customer.” But I’ll tell you, you’re going to have to sacrifice some things. And so, what I focused on is what can we be the best step? Here’s the reality, Joe, and probably for a lot of people you might not have, you might not be the best location, you might not have the best office, you may not have the most resources, whatever it may be. For us, we’re at 1926 Ballpark. All right? There’s paint falling off the stadium, the seats are kind of falling apart, we don’t have a digital scoreboard, we don’t have sweets. We don’t have any of that.
We don’t have the best food in the world, but I’ll tell you what we focus on is providing the best show in the world. So, for all these people that say I’m putting out fires, I’m putting out fires, I would be very clear on first what gives you energy? Every time you talk about, “Oh, just do what you love. Do what you love.” Well, no, let’s not focus on what you love and what you hate. Create your energy list. What are the things that you do every day that fire you up that you could do for an hour and it feels like five minutes? This was a big aha for me because when I was running around doing things that I was not good at, like operations and food and putting out fires, I wasn’t good at it and then all of a sudden, I started the three things that gave me energy. And that’s sharing, sharing our story, whether it’s on stage, whether it’s on a book, whether it’s in a podcast, sharing with our people, creating, whether it’s creating new videos, ideas, I come up with 10 ideas every day or growing, whether it’s reading, learning, podcast.
Well I’m doing those three. At the end of the day I’m fired up and I could keep working whereas most people, a lot of people at the end of day, they’re completely exhausted because they weren’t doing things that give them energy. They were doing things that wear them out. And I think everyone needs to do an audit of their life, of their business and look at that list. And either you’ve got to eliminate, you got to delegate, what you’re going to do and you got to be very clear on, “This is what I’m going to do moving forward.”
[JOE]: Hundred percent. I can’t agree with that more. I want to go back to the very beginning. You said, we are in the entertainment business. We’re not in the baseball business. And I think that’s such an important point I want to circle back to, because we aren’t in the counseling business, we aren’t in the coaching business. You know, we’re in the life transformation business or the like happy in your marriage business or however you would frame it. How important is it to keep drilling back and say, “What business am I really in here?”
[JESSE]: I think it’s essential because who you are and what you stand for matters most. A lot of times the people that are running around putting out fires, they don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing and they’re just doing something because it’s their job. It’s what they think they have to be doing. 99% of people in my business think that they have to have a winning team, think that they have to focus on the baseball players that they bring in. Joe, I spend 0% of time focusing on the players that we bring in. Again, I delegate. I let our coach do it. He’s clear on the culture that we have. So, you know, I think clarity and intention is one of the most important things that every business needs to have. And if you are feeling overwhelmed, busy and putting out fires, I would challenge that you don’t have direct clarity in what you’re doing.
And I’ll tell you, even though the one on one coaching practice, you know, it’s so much on you, but I’ll tell you if every day you’re fired up and you’re doing what you love, “Hey, bring it on. Bring it on.” There’s nothing wrong with loving your work so much that you want to do more of it. People have this challenge with, “Oh, you know, you work so much. You work so much.” Well, if you love it, if it fires you up, if it gives you energy and it makes you a better person for the people that you’re around, your family, your friends, and everyone else, why wouldn’t you want to do more of it? And so, again, I think the starting point is really understand how are you making people feel? How are you making yourself feel and how does the business fit into that as opposed to this business is here to make money, to do this job. Stop focusing on your product. Focus on your focus on yourself and your clients. And, you know, I share with everyone. Joe, I mean, love your customers, love your clients more than you love your product.
[JOE]: Yeah, recently I’ve been saying, put the people and the pain above the pitching of the product. So, many people will, you know, create an e-course and then try to find people to sell into it versus, “Hey, let’s just find out who cares about this, find out their needs, and then sell them into the e-course if they want it.” You know, figure out what they want
[JESSE]: You don’t even have to sell them. So, here’s the big thing that we’ve learned. We spend $0 on advertising, $0 in marketing. Now let me say this. Four years ago, we did marketing like everyone else. We did email newsletters, we did newspaper, we did radio, we did everything. And you know, what happened? We got results like everyone else. Actually, it was worse. That’s when we only sold a couple of tickets and my wife and I, we had to literally sell our house and empty our savings account. We over drafted our account when the team was completely out of money. That was four years ago. It wasn’t until we focused and invested all in on the experience that we provide to make our customers our marketers. And right now, we have customers that do all the marketing for us and we just let people know, “Hey, you know, Joe, jump on the wait list.”
And people will jump on the wait list. We are not selling and in fact, we don’t have anyone on our staff that has sales in their title because we believe in serving over selling. We believe in creating stories over selling and we incentivize stories over sales. When you create great stories, when you serve your people well, the sales, the revenue, everything else takes care of itself. And so, we’ve had to shift to that because we saw the results were failing. So if you think you’ve got to go out to the, I got to pitch, I got to sell this to you, I got to sell this eBook, I got to sell this online course, I got to sell this, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, you’re not going to get great results because no one wakes up in the morning, says, “I want to be sold today.” No one wakes up and says, ”I want to be advertised to today.” No one wakes up and says they want to be marketed to today, but everyone wakes up and says, “You know what? I want a great experience today. I want to feel cared for today. I want to feel served today.” And if you serve and you care and you take care of the people, they will take care of your bottom line.
[JOE]: Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, Jesse, you’re making me feel really good about Killin’It Camp, the event we just put on. You know, we really wanted to make it the anti-conference in a sense. So, we hosted it up at the YMCA of the Rockies and the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park. It was all inclusive where everything was included in their ticket and we had yoga on there, but we didn’t tell them until right before that it was goat yoga. And so, we surprised them with goat yoga and then opened bar for two nights in a row. And it’s just, you know, there’s the most common, I think one of the most common things people said is, “You would never see this at the American Counseling Association. You’d never see this.”
And it’s like, yeah, exactly. We all are eating our food together, we’re hanging out, and it feels like a mixture between a conference, summer camp and a music festival. And you know the amount of social media love we got from that conference, you’re absolutely right. We didn’t have to market it or even tell people, “Hey, don’t forget to tag us on social media.” Like they just did it because they wanted to say, “I was a part of this amazing event.”
[JESSE]: Yeah. You know it builds social currency. See what we forget is that if we can go around and tell someone something cool, a cool story, a cool you wouldn’t believe moment, then we look cooler. But no one wants to go on and say, “Hey, I got sold something today.” But we want to say you want to believe they had goat yoga, they had this, it was a party, it was like summer camp for adults. We had so much fun. That makes you feel a part of something that you want to tell people. And so, all marketing campaigns, all campaigns to try to drive revenue should be based solely on what is the experience you provide and are you proud of it?
I mean who [inaudible 00:27:16]? Who’s proud of like, “Oh yeah, I’m so proud. We just sold this many tickets. We sold this many.” And it’s all about like ego numbers. You know, it’s all about, “I did this, I did this, I did this.” In 10, 20 years, we’re not going to talk about how much we sold. We’re going to talk about how we made people feel and the memories and the experiences that we had. And when you reverse engineer that, it makes everything else so much easier.
[JOE]: Oh, so many good tips. So, what would you say? I want to just kind of relate this specifically to a private practice. So, let’s just brainstorm. How does someone get out of that kind of professional? “I went to school for this. I’m licensed.” How do they find their true self within that while not also having people not take them seriously? Because if I go to a therapist or a marriage counselor, ultimately, I want to have help with my marriage, you know. I don’t want someone that is just goofing off either. So how do you, how would you recommend people find that balance?
[JESSE]: You know, it’s tough and I, someone’s got to be really open. I mean, this is out of my field, you know, this is out of my field and I know what I’m pretty good at it and I know what I’m not. I just think about universal truths and what do people want? People want human connection. And I think that’s what you provide and the people that are listening to this show provide. We all need that. We want it. We need it more than anything right now. And that’s not just between whether it’s a marriage, whether it’s other people, it’s between the counselor, the coach, the therapist. What is that human connection and how do we eliminate the friction points that take away from that? So again, going back to what are those things that are the friction points to building human connection? Look at the website, look at the contact form. What happens after that?
You know, is it actual, personal reply? Is it maybe a video? You know, I think, I can’t tell you how much, I do personal videos like this every single day to people because I do a selfie video and it’s so important to show, “Hey, this isn’t like everyone else.” How do you separate yourself? And a question that many people have trouble answering, and so do I, in the beginning, was what makes you different and what makes you stand out? And if you were to write down that question, you can’t say prices, you can’t say anything about money because if you do a great job, price is irrelevant. So, what makes you different? What makes you stand out? And how can you build a deeper human connection? You know, just humanize the relationship.
[JOE]: I love that.
[JESSE]: And I know that it’s tough for me to get specific, Joe but that’s what I would think of it.
[JOE]: No, I think that’s great to bring it back to that because the very fact that our listeners are thinking about that means they’re probably going to overdo it anyway. And so, if they’re saying, “I shouldn’t do self-disclosure. I want to be too professional.” Any step towards lightening up a little bit and becoming their true self there to me is probably still going to be kind of tapered down. And so, pushing them to say, “Okay, let’s think about who you are as a person.” Like I love standup paddleboarding. You know, I love being outside. In my private practice I should have that personality show through. That doesn’t mean that I’m going to take my clients to standup paddleboarding, but they know that I’m a person.
[JESSE]: You should tell them. So, we just, had everyone on our staff recorded and about, from their love languages to, you know, literally their favorite interests, their favorite music, their favorite food. And we’re going to put all those videos out because here’s the reality. Now moving forward more than ever, people don’t connect with brands. They don’t connect with corporate logos. They connect with people. And so, for you telling everyone that you love standup paddleboarding, which by the way, I just did in Cabo about two weeks ago and it’s much harder than I anticipated, my legs like shake, I went surfing later. And actually, surfing to an extent was easier than paddleboarding. But see, by you mentioning that, what just happened is that we connected over that. And I could probably talk to you more about paddleboarding because I was fascinated by it.
But if you don’t share that, if you’re a counselor, a therapist, a coach, and you don’t share who you are, the things that you love, that are no so professional. “I did this, I did this, I did this.” No. What are the things you’d like to do on a Saturday when no one’s around? What are those things you’d like to do with your family? Share that. And I’ve been scared of, you know, I think, “Oh well people don’t care about that.” You know what? People do because that’s how people can relate to others. So, I would challenge everyone. Do, your clients, customers, whoever you call them, do they, can they connect with you from a real human to human way or is it just connect, “Hey, this person’s helping me get better.”
[JOE]: I love it. Oh my gosh, I feel like we could go on forever. So, if every private practice owner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know?
[JESSE]: Well, we have something on the back of our fans first playbook, and I think for this group, they probably already believe it and they live it. But it’s something that I stand for and I’m very adamant and it’s on the back of our fans first playbook that we share with everyone on our staff, our coaches or players, our game day staff or interns. It says, be patient and what you want for yourself, but be impatient in how much you give to others.
[JOE]: Hmm.
[JESSE]: And I’ll elaborate on that because I was extremely impatient when I first came up. I was this GM that wanted to be an owner, wanted to buy the team, wanted to buy a league, wanted to have numerous teams. And I was focused on myself and I hurt relationships in there and I didn’t focus on everyone else. And as soon as I changed our whole culture, our mentality into be about our fans, be about our people, be about everyone that we touch, everything that I could have ever dreamed for professionally, personally came true. And so, it’s come true. So, I would just, I would challenge everyone to think about that. And when you start your day, are you focused on what you’re trying to get or are you focused on what you can give to others? And if you give to others, everything comes back full circle.
[JOE]: Jesse, if people want to connect with your work, with your website, with your team, what’s the best way for them to connect with you?
[JESSE]: I was told about six months ago, if you just search yellow tux, you’ll find me everywhere. So, if you search yellow tux on Google, I’ll come up. You know my website, Find Your Yellow Tux, which is the name of my first book I wrote two years ago, and, but yeah, reach out. You know, I’ll tell you for you as I know who’s obviously had a lot of success doing what you’re doing why we do what we do is to make an impact. And the emails, the calls, the letters, the gifts really mean the world. And so just reaching out and say, “Hey, you know, something stood out for me today and that made an impact.”
And, you know, four years ago, Joe, I started something that I call the thank you experiment. And I started writing a thank you letter every single day. I thought I would do it just for a year, but it’s continued almost four years now. And it makes me feel better than anything in the world because I know that I’m able to be grateful and give back to someone else. So, if I helped in any way or if I can continue to help, feel free to reach out and I’ll definitely reply because it means the world to me.
[JOE]: Well thank you so much for being on the Practice of the Practice podcast.
[JESSE]: It was a pleasure, man. Thank you for everything you’re doing to make a difference in the world.
[JOE]: Well, if you were not inspired by the interview, I mean how cool was that? And for me, podcasting is so fun because I get to interview people like Jesse that I never would have met, but also now I have a lens that I can say, “Okay, this guy who owns a minor league baseball team, how do I put that through the lens of private practice?” And say, “What can we learn about private practice because of this other person?” I get to be curious and creative in what I do and it gives me an opportunity to really help the world in a way that’s different and diversify my income.
So, today’s sponsor, if you didn’t pick up on it earlier, is podcastlaunchschool.com where you can get a free nine-part email course all about what to think about before you start a podcast. So, we walk you through a number of different things through that. Again, that’s podcastlaunchschool.com. You can go grab that free email course and that’s going to walk you through how to start a podcast from the front end and all those things you got to think about before you even buy that microphone.
Well, thanks so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. And the next podcast we are going to be hearing from Josh Fonger and he wants you to work the system. He wrote a book called Work The System and a great interview. So that’s coming up next. Thanks for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have an amazing day.
Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for your intro music. We really like it. And this podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.