The Courage to Put Customers First
Courage is one of those words we talk about a lot in business.
It shows up in mission statements. It shows up in leadership books. It shows up in conversations about innovation and growth. But when it comes time to actually use it, real courage usually looks a lot less comfortable than we expect.
In this 10 to Win episode, I found myself reflecting on that idea through an unlikely source. A baseball team called the Savannah Bananas. If you haven’t heard of them, they’re not your typical baseball team. In fact, you could argue they’re not even trying to play traditional baseball at all. And that’s exactly the point.
Their story, led by founder Jesse Cole and captured in his book Fans First, isn’t really about sports. It’s about leadership. It’s about business. And more importantly, it’s about what happens when you decide to build something entirely around the customer experience.
Jesse Cole didn’t take over a thriving organization. He stepped into a failing business. And instead of doing what most leaders would do, cutting costs, tightening operations, and trying to compete more efficiently, he asked a very different question.
What if we made this unforgettable for our fans? Not better. Not faster. Not more efficient. Unforgettable. That question changed everything. They reimagined the entire experience. Games are capped at two hours. Players dance on the field. Fans catching foul balls count as outs. The team wears yellow tuxedos. From the outside, it looks chaotic. Even ridiculous.
Todd would probably say it looks like someone broke all the rules. And in a way, they did. But from the inside, it was deeply intentional. Every decision was filtered through a single lens. If it’s good for the fans, do it. If it’s not, don’t.
Jesse Cole believes that innovation often looks irresponsible until it works. And I think that’s a lesson more of us need to sit with. Most businesses don’t fail because they lack good ideas. They fail because they lack the courage to act on them.
And that’s where this really hits home for our industry. Because if we’re honest, we spend a lot of time doing what’s expected. We benchmark competitors. We follow established processes. We design around what’s familiar. We tell ourselves, “That’s just how our industry works.”
But what if that thinking is exactly what’s holding us back? What if instead of asking what’s normal, we started asking what would make this experience remarkable?
In your business, do your customers feel like transactions, or do they feel like participants in something bigger? Are you designing experiences, or are you simply fulfilling requests? Are your decisions driven by internal convenience, or by customer impact?
Those questions aren’t always easy to answer. And more importantly, they’re not always easy to act on. Because being truly customer first requires you to challenge things that feel safe.
It means questioning long-standing traditions. It means pushing back on internal resistance. It means risking the perception that you’re doing something different, maybe even something a little crazy. And that’s uncomfortable.
Most leaders would rather blend in than stand out in a way that could fail. But the reality is, blending in rarely builds loyalty. It rarely creates connection. And it almost never creates something people remember.
The Savannah Bananas didn’t grow because they played better baseball. They grew because they redefined what the game could be. That same mindset applies to any business, especially ours.
Customers don’t just want products. They want experiences. They want to feel something. They want to be part of something that’s worth talking about. And those moments don’t always come from big, sweeping changes. Often, they come from small decisions made with intention.
A better interaction. A more thoughtful process. A moment where the customer feels seen, heard, and valued. Over time, those small moments build something much bigger. They build trust and loyalty. They build a community.
That’s what Jesse Cole understood. And it’s what I think more of us need to consider. Because the real question isn’t whether you have the ability to do something different. The question is whether you have the courage to do it.
So I’ll leave you with this. What would change in your business if you truly put your customers first? Not in theory. Not in a tagline. But in the decisions you make every day.
Even if it meant doing things differently.