Quit Shortening Your Sales Process with Jesse Cole

Paul J Daly: 0:00Wait for that record button, as usual.

‍Speaker 2: 0:08

This is auto collabs.

Paul J Daly: 0:11

I'll tell you what. I've been waiting for this podcast for a long time.

Michael Cirillo: 0:15

I.

Paul J Daly: 0:16

Was out of time on line.

Michael Cirillo: 0:18

I was my my folks are in town and I said tomorrow I get to interview Jesse Cole from Savannah bananas, the owner of Savannah. And they said who's that? And I pulled open YouTube, went to the shorts typed in Savannah bananas. We sat there for ten minutes. My parents were so captivated. At how cockamamie a notion it is that there are choreographed dances. And then what? What struck them was wait, but these dudes are good ball players.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:52

That's. That's the thing these cat, these guys, can actually play and and doing trick, trick plays in the middle of it. You know what I love? I so I've had this similar conversation like, hey, jesse Cole's coming to come into a soda gun. You know, the man in the yellow hat, the guy that has the baseball team, this man of bananas. I get to that point and people are still like huh, and I'm like the dancing ball players on tiktok.

Speaker 2: 1:16

You know I.

Paul J Daly: 1:20

You know 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, you know, having been a little bit connected with Jesse and watching some of the journey, you realize that nothing different is ever built like immediately. There's always a backstory that like, oh, this came out of nowhere. It's like, no, it doesn't really come out of nowhere and it's like one of the things we talked about with a soda 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 in base. They see the fact that serving customers is a great thing. 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, 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. Yeah, you know, with banana ball.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:19

Well, we're gonna dig in and I can't wait for For this conversation. So we hope you enjoy this conversation with the man, the myth of legend.

Michael Cirillo: 2:31

And we should have used somebody. Jesse shouldn't have been our first podcast guys.

Paul J Daly: 2:41

So we are here, jesse, we made it to the room. Thank you for joining us.

Jesse Cole: 2:45

No, fired up to be with the guys.

Paul J Daly: 2:46

So I did it. I dusted off this letter. This probably looks pretty familiar to you, right? Yeah, do you still write these?

Jesse Cole: 2:52

Yes, I do.

Paul J Daly: 2:53

It's the same, so this letter is from back in 2019. Oh good, we got the yellow backdrops going 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 love to read what you wrote, 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. I know we share similar mindset and the impact we're trying to make. I look forward to stepping, staying connected and having you in the family out for bananas game this summer. Then COVID hit. Then thanks again and keep making a difference, jesse. And it says inspired from the desk of Jesse Cole this letter, I leave it on my shelf because it reminds me how long you have to do something before Everybody actually sees it. Here we are in 2023 and Banana ball in the Savannah bananas your dream and vision. You know that you mortgaged your house for is Is is now coming, maybe just starting to come to light. So Can you just tell us what it's like being on the grind for so long for something you believe in?

Jesse Cole: 3:59

I'll tell you, it's great. 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 was certainly a grind. It was seven years ago now that we had to sell our house, empty out our savings account, sleeping on an air bed, and vividly remember going to Walmart with my wife, who we just got married this year. What a great way to start off our marriage by going into serious debt 1.8 million dollars to be exact, and we would go literally to Walmart with $30. We'd have $20 bill and a $10 bill and that's all we could spend for the entire week for food and you know you, 42 meals with $30. We weren't really eating real food, 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 and a lot of people marketing. They talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. You really went in the experience and we knew this is before where they could actually experience a game. We could just get them to that first game. They would see what we believed in and what we saw, the vision and, yeah, fast forward now. We sold out every game and the wait list for tickets just past 900,000, and we're selling out over the country and seven years journey. It's been a wild one, but it's been worth every minute. I'll tell you that.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:03

Night. So so like when we're there, because I always, I'm sure there were moments along that path, like 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. 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 and and can you point to particular moments where you had to overcome that gap between disbelief or doubt, or out outside of doubt and and jump the next hurdle?

Jesse Cole: 5:38

Yeah, well, 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 and like all the players playing in stilts. Like I never envisioned that. I envisioned just a how do, how do we create a great fan experience? How do we make baseball fun? And then you know, my greatest lessons I ever learned from Walt Disney was you've got to keep Plusing the experience, said Disneyland is a living, breathing thing. It'll never be complete. We have to keep plusing the show and plusing 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 and now it's becoming even more national the criticism that we get. And you know, the more fans we gain, the more hate kind of criticism?

Paul J Daly: 6:22

What kind of criticism?

Jesse Cole: 6:24

Oh jeez, I mean well, when we first, when we first left the the regular traditional baseball game Of, you know, playing baseball in a league and the coast of playing to go all in on banana ball, which is the crazy two-hour time game where there's no bunting if you bunch your thrown out of game, actually Turning the circus and taking it on the road. This is Jesse's joke. You know, all they care about is money, which is the opposite. I have no idea what's in our bank account right now. I think we're doing okay, but like reality is like criticized every step of the way because for people that said you're leaving traditional baseball, what are you doing? Like this is wrong. There were tons of hatred. Now people are saying they're sick of the bananas, the Savannah bananas, because of the order. I, like these guys are making a joke in a mockery of the game. There's a lot of that and I think so many people, like Michael Jordan and other people, were fueled by that negative criticism. 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. It's a 2019 and all those podcasts that I was able to do before we really were doing Too much of what we're doing now. I want to 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. We're getting criticized Because people don't know who we are. Jeff Bezos says you need to be willing to be misunderstood. People see our ticktocks of all the dancing and see our guys. We've made 500 trick plays on this tour. Our center fielder has done 30 backflip catches their catching balls. We need their legs in some of those. Yeah, it's unbelievable, and I think that's that they haven't seen it. So why am I? Why should I get in a conversation? I spend too much bandwidth thinking about that when they really haven't been to one of our shows before.

Paul J Daly: 8:05

I'm thinking about what it would actually, what would actually happen, because you know, you know, the MLB players are watching intently well, I would tell you, the MLB is watching those cats put a. Yeah, like right the pitch timer. Is that tied back to banana ball pressure?

Speaker 2: 8:25

They try to give us credit for that.

Jesse Cole: 8:27

They have a lot of smart executives that know exactly what we're doing. We are completely different than LB.

Paul J Daly: 8:32

I think everyone knows you need to make the games faster because he'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 but, I'm 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. Can you imagine what's gonna happen when I don't think it's, if I think it's a win, when the first MLB center fielder does a backflip, when he catches a fly ball?

Speaker 2: 9:01

Can you imagine what would happen to his?

Paul J Daly: 9:03

personal brand, it would shut down.

Jesse Cole: 9:05

Yeah, and it's gonna happen because you know they're practicing that. I mean Alex Bregman with the, the Astros. He bounced a ball to second base on in spring training and the place everyone went crazy in the baseball world Like we bounce all the time where we bounce behind the back passes, we're dribbling our shortstop, dribbling like we're doing these plays, and they went crazy. And then Wanda Franco flipped the ball to his hand and then threw the guy out our shorts. I'm the other day literally glove feet to himself, bounced it behind his back barehand and threw a guy out. So it's like it's, it's starting. But I think, more than I really don't care about the comparisons, I think about how do we, how do we make the game fun for a future generation of players that want to play? When I was a kid Ken Griffey Jr, all those guys you know, pedro Martinez no more. Garcia para they were everything, and now now Can't name all the players. So that's what we're trying to do.

Michael Cirillo: 9:54

What is the actual path to where you are now? Look like. I mean you said Jeff Bezos, you quoted him saying you have to be willing to be misunderstood. Yeah, how do you get people to your game to experience what you want them to experience, when they don't understand?

Jesse Cole: 10:13

Well, I think so many people are focused on their target audience and we're very aware of who we're not for. So, to give you an example, I'm not focusing on the baseball traditionals. I'm not focusing on all those people that are obsessed with the integrity of the game. We literally open our game saying this is not baseball, this is not your grandpa's pastime. This is the greatest show in sports. This is banana ball. Sounds very WWE. Maybe we're inspired I love it.

Paul J Daly: 10:43

And then he rips his shirt off to reveal us. Yeah, he rips his shirt off.

Jesse Cole: 10:47

Well, we do have wayans before the games, which is a whole other story.

Paul J Daly: 10:50

Do you really?

Jesse Cole: 10:51

You stare down in the wayans, the wayans are great, but then they bust into a choreographed dance. It confuses everyone, but it's a lot of fun. But yeah, I mean 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. No, no, great marketing is what you do and you share what you do. You capture it and share it. 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 want to be a part of it, 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 2 million followers. They have more than any major league team on TikTok, because they're attracting a different audience. They're not attracting the traditional baseball fan, they're trying to be able to come fun, have fun or, in the party animals, you know, say like the party is, we're calling that the greatest.

Paul J Daly: 11:38

That really brings me to like. Last year, at a Sotokan, our keynote speaker was an author and entrepreneur named Jim McKelvie, who was a co-founder of Square, wrote a book called the Innovation Stack. Actually, have you read it?

Speaker 2: 11:49

It's a little bit.

Paul J Daly: 11:51

And so I'm thinking about his whole premise in that is that 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 it, who actually wanted to fly places, who actually wanted to take credit cards, 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, there are all these people just on the fringes of baseball that want to be interested in baseball, but in a different way, and that seems to be what you're tapping into.

Jesse Cole: 12:27

Yeah, or they want to be interested in just having a good time, having fun, not taking themselves too serious. I mean, our games is just. There's a lot more of those. You know what? I'm saying the people that, just like everyone obviously I have kids or kids you think about I'm constantly searching for activities with the kids and like what can we do? That's fine, and when you do it, it's like, whoa, what Walt Disney did? He sat on a bench on Daddy Daughter Days on Saturday at Griffith Park and he watched his two daughters in the carousel and he said I wish there was a place adults and kids could have fun together. We as dads are constantly working. I want to do something like kids that I would love too, and so that's what we're trying to create these games that it can be a win-win for both and obviously inspired by Walt with that.

Paul J Daly: 13:07

There's a connection. There's a real clean connection between kind of what retail tries to accomplish and what entertainment tries to accomplish and the fact that they want people to be comfortable in their space. They want them to walk away with like a positive uptick in their emotions and in their energy. And as we, you know, we are real big advocates for the retail auto industry and it's one that has a bad stigma on it. Some earned, much of it misplaced, because we know the people and the stories that are within the industry every day as we try to help dealers rethink their mentality, especially when it comes around experience, because that's where all the stigmas come in. At a bad experience, people are stressed, they vote, they say I'd rather go to the dentist than go buy a car, and obviously now you're thinking a lot more retail because you know retailers are bringing you into, encourage their teams and try to like siphon from what you're doing. What can you share with us as a retailer on how, like a dealer, could start to think about reframing the experience around buying a car?

Jesse Cole: 14:10

Yeah, well, again. You know, I had no idea when we first started. 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. And I hate going into a negative because I like to be. I'm in all yellow. I mean, for God's sake, that's who I am, you know. Upbeat on that.

Paul J Daly: 14:30

Just a sad color.

Jesse Cole: 14:32

Yeah, I know, yeah, it's very sad, 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. I mean and again I just tried to 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 and I was like what does that even mean? But, thank you, and a parallel thinker.

Speaker 2: 14:57

Sounds expensive. Yeah, I don't understand it.

Jesse Cole: 15:00

But it's where you see something in a certain industry or certain thing and you can put it to your own. And so when I start thinking about you know how to work with retailers or different people, I say, all right, what are we doing? That that's the same type of thing that you can put into yours and it is that that framework of stop chasing customers, 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. So I put myself in a fan 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? And a two hour time game, nonstop entertainment, twerking on Pirates, players and stilts, all that fat has things. You get nickel and dime. So we eliminated ticket fees, convenience fees, service fees. We pay your taxes, all the things that are frustrating from the idea of coming to a baseball game. You pay a $30 tickets, $42, 50, whatever. It is our concert and we eliminated them. So, coming into retail, their 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? What are the confusion points? What are the paperwork, what are the processes? What are all those things that people like buying a car should be the most exciting thing, getting things for your like it should be so exciting. Is it a chore? It's unbelievable. It's like getting a house, like it should be the most exciting thing, and I think for a lot of people it is. But other people say here we go, let's buckle up.

Paul J Daly: 16:17

Most people don't say that.

Kyle Mountsier: 16:19

Yes, they might. They might, on the other side of it, be like that was pretty good, that wasn't that bad, that was pretty fun. I'm glad I have a car. But they're going to talk a lot more about the car and not about the actual experience and I think that, like what you're alluding to, there is a lot of people go, they, they target first becoming the show 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 that they can't actually see the show. So you could like have people on stills in the showroom but they wouldn't even see it because they'd be so frustrated by this exact over here that you got the ticket experience has to be so easy, so convenient, so wowing that you're already coming to the ballpark feeling good.

Jesse Cole: 17:01

So when you're first coming, you know 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. And then it's like I asked this question. I always ask this question with our what would make people that want to stay longer at our games? Most people leave baseball games early. So what would make people want to say you know, I want to spend three hours steal or show, I want to spend two hours at this retail, I want to spend four hours here because it's so good. Go the extreme 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 at when our games ended two hours? This is actually a quick, funny story. So this is halfway, 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. They would just be standing there like, like clapping and everyone's like they're wanting more. And so I turn the ovation I turn to our director of entertainment. I go, we've been entertaining since five, five o'clock out here. We did our March five, 30. It's now nine o'clock and they're not leaving. I was like that never happens at a baseball game. I go, we need a finale. So you need the encore right, yeah, guys, in practice I go, guys, we need to work on a finale. So we have our captain start introducing all the players. They do a cold full dance. We do the greatest showman dance, the whole greatest show into a thunderstruck kickline. Then we do streamers over it and then I thank everyone and say thank you and they bow. That's how our game ends. So, by point, it finally tells people that it's in. What if? When people were interacting with car retail and they were saying, you know what? I want more after I got my car, I don't want to just leave and go home.

Paul J Daly: 18:41

I guess it's time to leave now, right?

Jesse Cole: 18:43

Yes, you have to literally tell them you guys got to go like it's we're closing shop.

Speaker 2: 18:47

It's the part where you leave.

Michael Cirillo: 18:51

You can drive away though.

Kyle Mountsier: 18:52

That is so, just so you know, like, 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 in and out as quick as humanly possible, and it's the antithesis to that because nobody wants to be there and they know it.

Paul J Daly: 19:07

No one wants to be there.

Kyle Mountsier: 19:08

But if they want to be there, so bad that they're like three hours to buy a car sounds fun. Why wouldn't I do four?

Jesse Cole: 19:15

That would be a totally game changing the best afternoon of my week, of my month, I'm taking my kids. We can't wait, like, like and again. You still got to eliminate the friction, like, like, eliminate all those frustration points of the processes, of all the paperwork going back and forth oh, we're talking to finance over, 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 going to be a fun journey and that's what we try to do. An emotional, fun journey and that would hopefully wow. Some people say I'm, I'm just going to go and say I'm not buying a car, but I just want to be there.

Michael Cirillo: 19:46

What I love about this is is you're. You're giving us the true behind the scenes of what it actually takes, whereas you know people watching on social media they go, oh okay, so what I got to do is eliminate the friction. You know, it'd be a good idea if I took TikTok videos of myself twerking on a Hyundai Sonata, you know. And then it doesn't work. And they're like how come this doesn't work? I see the Savannah bananas doing it, and 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.

Jesse Cole: 20:18

Yeah and thank you, and that's. That's again about being misunderstood. Everyone sees all this crazy. They're like I'm sick of the bananas because that's all they do is dance Like well, you don't know. 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. 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, we have the band playing and then we have hey baby dance and then finally, stand by me at 10 o'clock at night. We're all the class of the players. I know it sounds crazy Our arms around each other and we're singing, stand by me with the tuba player playing and that's what we call our kiss, good night, and it's it's. It's crazy, but like it's those details that people don't see. No one sees standby me on social media. But when you come to our game and you're looking around, you're feeling like wait, I've got the starting center feelers, arms around me, I got stilts right here, I got the dancing umpire and all the fans are together. So you're looking around. It's emotional, it's crazy, that sounds. It's those moments that really matter. That's the behind the scenes that I think anybody can do in any business when they start looking at these details matter.

Michael Cirillo: 21:20

How do you convince a 47 year old man with a graying beard that he needs to put on an umpire, be the umpire and also dance, and yeah, other words, how do you get that level of buy-in from these people? Because it's, I mean, 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.

Jesse Cole: 21:43

Oh, yes, yes, but we all make a fool of ourselves together. There's a difference about doing things together.

Paul J Daly: 21:48

Find the others right.

Jesse Cole: 21:50

If you're doing it by yourself, like we have this picture that was pitching literally AAA with the Cubs. He joined us and he said he showed me a picture of him as a Napoleon dynamite back in and I was like, perfect, he goes. What do you mean? I go, you'll do that entire. You'll do that dance right, he goes on the mound by myself. I go, yeah, it'll be perfect. And so he's been working on it for weeks. It's almost time to unveil it, but other than that?

Paul J Daly: 22:11

Are we gonna see that in Syracuse in two weeks? Is that gonna?

Jesse Cole: 22:13

be ready? We'll see. We'll see. Other than that, you gotta get in the.

Paul J Daly: 22:15

Walkman right Like the little wired headphones.

Jesse Cole: 22:19

Yeah, I hear you. But, michael, to answer your question, obviously and there wasn't really a question, it was a statement, so I'll answer it anyways. But yes, everyone, we obviously work together, but so many people are focused on recruiting, recruiting, talent recruiting. 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 Most of those people. That dancing umpire 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, consider me. I'm like you're the only dancing umpire in the world. What do you mean Of?

Paul J Daly: 22:49

course I'm considering. Let me go through our list here you, you, you.

Jesse Cole: 22:54

Yeah, it's you, it's you, there's no one else. And so, and now he's like, I mean, he's got hundreds of thousands of followers and you know it's unbelievable. But again, I think that's it. It's attract or do. Does every dealerships, every person, every company? Are they so clear on who they are, that what they stand for, that everyone in their company, everyone outside, knows what they're getting themselves into and what they're about? That they will say you know what I want this and that's what's really helped us as we've grown our team and grown our staff.

Kyle Mountsier: 23:21

Tell me Look this, I'm gonna. I gotta cut it short because here's the thing we can't blow everything For. In just a couple weeks you're gonna be joining us in Baltimore out of SoduCon hanging out with the fam. I wouldn't be 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. But we can't wait to have you in person and hang out and just sharing the energy and the show that we're gonna hopefully have created around SoduCon. And thanks for spending a little bit of time with us here on AutoFinds.

Jesse Cole: 23:54

No, I can't wait. You guys are a lot of fun. It's gonna be a great time in a few weeks.

Michael Cirillo: 24:01

I was sitting here writing notes during that conversation and one of the notes I wrote is that today, in the year 2023, there are little boys and little girls saying one day, I want to play on a ball team like the Savannah bananas.

Paul J Daly: 24:22

Oh, I know where you're going with this.

Michael Cirillo: 24:24

Like decades ago, I was like I want to be a major league player and now they're saying no, I want to entertain P. I'm an entertainer and I want to play sports and I want to play on this guy's team and I just think it's fantastic.

Kyle Mountsier: 24:36

Go there, cirillo, go there. Yeah, take it to us.

Michael Cirillo: 24:40

Yeah, I just. It blows my mind what innovative thinking can do and the revolution if I dare say that word can start, and so that all of the notes I'm writing I'm writing 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.

Kyle Mountsier: 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, the young boys and young girls who thought they wanted to start their own business may or may not just want to become an auto dealer.

Paul J Daly: 25:29

Yeah, and, by the way, 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 college education.

Kyle Mountsier: 25:38

Oh that, oh that, yes, yes, look, that is the truth.

Paul J Daly: 25:43

I mean, you've said this many times. I've seen you say from the stage it's one of the first like flags in the dirt that I saw you put. 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. There are people like waiting in line to get a good job in retail auto. We know they're out there, we know they're everywhere. 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 a soda con, I think.

Kyle Mountsier: 26:14

Absolutely. Showing people Anytime I get enough people in a room. I'm talking about that, you know, and this is like a direct link to that I have to bring up again. I brought it up during the interview, but 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 like wild of an experience can we make it? 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? And what are the friction points that we have to remove? That way they can see the really cool stuff that we're about to do. Yeah Well, I don't know, that's you know I need to go take a quiet right now.

Speaker 2: 27:11

Yeah we're all kind of quiet right now we're all like we're gonna pull a card out of Darren Dones deck, and he's you know.

Paul J Daly: 27:17

I think we've done enough work for today.

Michael Cirillo: 27:19

Well, you know what this is.

Speaker 2: 27:21

This is a great validator.

Michael Cirillo: 27:23

Yes, this rate 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 a so-do-con. 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 and someone who has taken the framework of a longstanding industry with a certain audience and said I'm gonna just flip it on its head and to your point, you said in the opening a wait list of almost a million tickets long.

Paul J Daly: 28:10

What the heck? Yeah, what do you say during the interview? He's like we've just crossed 900,000. You know how many people fit in a ballpark Minor league parks 15,000. That's a lot of ballpark, yeah, insane.

Kyle Mountsier: 28:22

We're going MLB next year. They have to, and so that's gonna be nuts, but you're only, but still 50, 60, a billion tickets.

Michael Cirillo: 28:31

Look, I don't know, have we been left speed? No, hey, go to a soda cup.

Kyle Mountsier: 28:36

I'm trying to think just come and meet Jesse.

Michael Cirillo: 28:38

Asoduconcom get your tickets. We hope you enjoyed this episode with Jesse Cole. You're gonna be able to shake his hand, spend some time with him a little bit at asoducon in Baltimore. You gotta be there, soduconcom, to get your tickets. But on behalf of myself, Michael Srillo, Paul J Daly and Kyle Mouse here Thanks for joining us here on AutoClem.

Speaker 2: 29:00

Sign up for our free and fun to read daily email for a free shot of relevant news and automotive retail media and pop culture. You can get it now at asoduconcom. That's asoduconcom. 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. ["autoclem"]. ["welcome to AutoClem"]. Welcome to AutoClem.

Paul J Daly: 29:35

Why are we recording? Yeah, we're rolling.

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