In the previous post, I wrote about a different metric for judging companies - rather than just looking at the financials of a corporation, you tried to measure how many ‘promoters’ they had. To determine if a customer was a promoter, you asked them:
“How likely are you to recommend us to a friend?”.
Responses were graded on a scale of 1-10, 9s and 10s were deemed ‘promoters’.
As I’ve indicated before, historically I had not been a promoter. Something changed in late 2005, and after reading the article discussed in the last post, I realized that it might be important to identify what caused the change. One of the main reasons, I suspect, is that my kids were a little bit older - Zak at 8, and Rebekah at 2. The park was a place where I felt comfortable enough to let Zak go off on his own and there was enough going on to keep Bekah occupied while I watched the game. People were friendly - fans, security staff, employees, everybody, and genuinely so. Parking was cheap at $3, and concessions were fairly priced.
But that still didn’t quite explain the change. I stumbled on this post over on Howard Bloom’s blog. Howard is “The Sports Doctor” and the publisher of ‘Sports Business News.com’. Here’s the edited version:
…Darwin sold the Lynx to Pecor after the 2000 season for $7 million. Pecor owned the Vermont Expos. Pecor’s first (and best) decision was to move Kyle Bostwick his young Vermont general manager to Ottawa. Nine years after Ottawa was awarded a Triple-A franchise not only did the team have a general manager who understood the importance of the game day experience for minor league baseball fans, but Bostwick would be provided the tools he needed to work with. The Lynx had outstanding general mangers each and every year Darwin owned the team. Each general manger faced insurmountable challenges before Pecor took over the team.Determined to ‘get it right’, Boswick introduced a series of game-day promotions, added a family fun zone, reducing the price charged for parking and introduced fan-friendly aggressive ticket pricing and policies. Bostwick wasn’t going to reinvent the wheel, he was going to try and introduce the joy of minor league baseball to a market that had, had a minor league baseball franchise for eight years, but hadn’t been offered the minor league baseball experience… Bostwick hired a full front office staff (another missing element during the Darwin era)… When and if professional baseball returns to Canada’s capital here’s hoping the group entrusted to manage and operate the franchise follows the examples set by Ray Pecor and Kyle Bostwick and ignores the legacy of mismanagement left by the people who brought Triple A baseball to Ottawa in 1993. (Read the entire article here.)
That captured it - the ‘minor league baseball experience’. There was just so much stuff going on. Zak wanted to go to the picnic area to play catch with kids he’d just met. Bekah wanted to watch the kids playing musical chairs between innings. Or go down the slide. Or get her face painted. Or get an autograph from Keith Reed. It reminded me a lot of going to a country fair - but this was in the city, 70 some odd nights a year, less expensive and had a much more inviting atmosphere. In this past season alone, we’ve met the winners of ‘The Amazing Race’, Dennis Martinez ‘El Presidente’, and most notably George Shuba (more on that later). My kids have gone trick or treating in July, done ‘The Twist’ in centrefield, played musical chairs, movie trivia…. On just about every night at the park, I would wind up telling Zak what fantastic event was going to happen at the next game. I began to look forward to coming back.
And that, my friends, is what turned me into a ‘promoter’.
