Baseball Again

As some of you know, I am a Baseball fan. I enjoy both the simplicity and the intricacies of the game. I see in Baseball – the game and the business – valuable lessons.

While this has never fundamentally changed, I was pretty disgusted with my team after the 2008 season (http://kenfarmerconsulting.com/2009/05/misc/you-forgot-about-me-didnt-you/) choosing not to renew my season tickets last year. I expected I would still go to a couple games and buy merchandise but just not with a season ticket package.

Funny thing, turns out I was more upset than I realized and never made it to one game in 2009. My wife and I didn’t spend any money at all on the Padres last year – no game tickets, no ball caps, no jerseys, not even a bag of peanuts. We always bought Padres gear for the nieces and nephews but not last year.

This year my outlook started to change in the off season. The new ownership group made roster moves, cleaned house in the front office, and actively started trying to win fans back. They assigned a new rep to my account and she was great. Young, cute, empathetic, persistent – she said all the right things without feeding us a load of crap.

I started paying attention and discovered I liked the changes. They seemed to be building a team that finally fit the ballpark. They jettisoned overt bean-counters from the front office and replaced them with smart, young, passionate baseball people – that were also good business people. They seemed to be trying hard to listen to the fans and make the right changes. They didn’t just promise change but took time to explain and admit mistakes.

(Just for the record, one mistake they haven’t fixed yet is the contract with the food concessionaire. Delaware North is absolutely horrible and a huge detriment to the fan experience. Hopefully they will be gone when the contract runs out. But I digress…)

This year, while we didn’t renew the old season tickets, we decided to purchase a small package of games. Earlier, I went to Spring Training and had a blast visiting several of the parks, attending 4 or 5 games, and spending money. It seems I am buying in to the new vision and direction.

Will the Padres win the pennant this year? Go to the playoffs? No. But the point to me is that they are trying again. The product on the field has potential and should be fun to watch. There seems to be a passion about the game in the new ownership and front office. The passion I agree with and the vision has been effectively explained.

As a business – and ultimately, Baseball is a business – the team has had to address poor customer service, upset customers, and bad press. They have been in serious recovery mode for over a year. In every business, it is more cost effective to keep customers coming back and happy instead of trying to recover them. I’m a tough customer to recover but it’s working so far.

See, a lesson…

Think Big, Start Small, Act Now.

You forgot about me, didn’t you?

Do you ever get customer letters? How do you respond? Should you respond?

The following letter is one that I wrote and sent to the San Diego Padres. Since I have had no positive experiences with the Front Office I am not expecting anything back beyond a form letter or email. I share this here as an example of an unhappy customer. And it’s my blog…

Think about being a business owner and receiving a letter like this – how would\should you react?

~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Padres Front Office,

I am your target market.

The stats – Baseball and Padres fan (since mid-nineties), taught my wife the game and got her hooked, comfortable 2 career household with disposable income (yes, even in this market), own my home in Carlsbad, in my late-forties, like to take the train and trolley to games, enjoy spending time and money in the Gaslamp Quarter, love to watch the younger players that were just called up play their hearts out, understand that baseball is a business, respect and revere the iconic symbols of the game, buy new hats and jerseys every year, try to get to spring training every couple years, and finally became a season ticket holder when the new stadium was built.

You forgot about me, didn’t you?

In the crazy rush of running a multi-million dollar business and the growing internal office mess you created over the last couple years, you forgot about me. Me and the thousands of others like me in San Diego.

I kept the faith. I believed. I even caught the excitement. I was sad when Tony Gwynn retired and burst with pride when he was inducted. I cried when Cami died. I stood and cheered every time for Hell’s Bells even when watching on TV. I stood in the stadium with awe and respect for save number 479 and yelled myself hoarse with the crowd for an hour afterward. I laughed with the Chicken, got angry about steroids, made excuses for the losses, understood (but didn’t always agree) when favorite players were let go or traded, stayed until the end for 14+ inning games, and kept coming back.

You forgot about me, didn’t you?

This year I didn’t renew my season tickets, I was angry about being forgotten. I was disappointed that in spite of my loyalty and money over the years you forgot what was important to me and the thousands like me.

I have not been to a game this year. My friends and family can’t believe it but it’s true. I still pay attention and am still a fan. I agonize over the win\loss record but am not surprised. I get a thrill every time Adrian hits a dinger. I feel bad for Jake with 5 losses already (in early May!) that he doesn’t deserve. I have new favorite players named Jody, Scott, and David knowing they may not be around long. I know it’s a long season – a marathon, not a sprint.

You forgot about me, didn’t you?

I actually got a call from a junior sales guy a couple months after my season tickets weren’t renewed – first call from the Padres in 5 years. He wanted to know why I wasn’t renewing. I was honest and gave him 5 or 6 reasons including lack of ownership commitment, bad and expensive food, poorly run concessions, and feeling that what is important to the fans has been forgotten.

He said, “You can bring food in to the park” and “looks like we may have a new owner soon”. I kid you not, that was his entire response. His response only confirmed that I made the right decision.

I was ready to be persuaded to renew. Heck, I was already beginning to regret not renewing. I was actually happy to get the call so I could reconcile my being a fan with a team that cared about me. But during the call it became painfully clear that I was right all along.

You forgot about me didn’t you?

~~~~~~~~~~~

Think Big, Start Small, Act Now.

Time to Regroup?

It’s that time of the year, the time to evaluate goals and objectives set at the beginning of the year and decide whether to press on or regroup. Did we achieve what we set out to accomplish this year? Should we think about getting rid of some staff or dump expensive salaries? Maybe we should take our best and most expensive talent and let our competitors have them? Perhaps we just waive the white flag and let the new guys (inexpensive salary folks) run the company for awhile and start planning for next year.

For those of you who recognize this scenario – and perhaps agonize with me during this time of year – you are a fellow baseball fan with a losing team. At some point after the All Star break, executives with losing teams begin to dump players and salaries to teams that think they still have a shot to make the playoffs. They talk about the prospects they get in trade or the salary they save and start “spinning” the possibilities of the next year. The most amazing thing to me about this process is that they do it just before they send out the season ticket renewal forms.

Think about that in a business sense for a minute. The team is struggling or playing poorly, they dump good players that fans enjoy watching (maybe bought their jersey), the fans are frustrated with the team so they are more aware of the little annoyances of going to the ballpark (traffic, parking costs, ballpark food cost and service), and the fans have to hear how bad their team is from friends. What a customer service nightmare!

Luckily for baseball executives and team owners, baseball fans with losing teams have their own “5 Stages of Grief”. Team executives count on the majority of them always reaching the fifth stage of Acceptance. At least in time to renew their season ticket package.

Sadly, baseball has become a business first and sport second. In a pure business sense the players can’t be thought of as staff but rather products. This business model of planning, hope, execution, evaluation, adjustment, execution, evaluation, and possible retreat is more common to a manufacturing or retail business. Launch a new product (player) and then dump it when it doesn’t meet sales objectives or customer acceptance.

What about your business? Do you re-evaluate your business model or objectives often enough? We can easily get comfortable with our process but not really see the complete picture. As in baseball, we must constantly be evaluating our team, product, market, and process to keep competitive and relevant. If you think your market or customer hasn’t changed lately, you are heading for a big surprise. I sincerely doubt YOUR customers will go through 5 stages of grief so they can stay with you.

Get your key team members together for some open and honest conversation. Look very closely at your competitors and any deals you lost lately (or worse, never had a chance to compete for). What is changing, what is the same, where will your customers and market be in two or three years? Are you ready?

Thanks for helping me get to stage 5 – now where is that renewal form…