Creating the Hero Experience

Today we have a guest blog from Earl Bell:

While coaching Little League baseball during May of 2006, a nine year old boy taught me a very memorable lesson about the power of creating a hero experience.  On our first day of practice, I asked each player to write down what they wanted to accomplish by the end of season.  Most answers were fairly predictable; i.e. they wanted to pitch in a game, learn how to hit a baseball, etc…. but one boy wrote down; “I want to be a hero!” 

Now that was interesting…  I asked this boy what being a hero meant and he replied…  “To get a game winning hit and have everyone cheering for me!”  That’s simple, right?

Well, nearly three months later, this young boy hadn’t gotten a single hit in game.  Most ball players would have been discouraged and want to quit.  Instead, this young boy showed up each day with a smile on his face, simply glad to be playing ball with his friends and I really enjoyed having him on the team.  Fast forward to the first game of the post-season playoffs and during the top half of the last inning, our team was down by one run but had runners on 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd base with two out. Guess who comes up to bat?  Yep, you couldn’t have written a better script.

I called a time-out and walked over to home plate to ask this boy if he knew what time it was?  With a slight smirk he replied, “7:15 pm and time for a pinch-hitter?”  I said, “Nope – it’s time for you to be a hero - and it is totally going to happen, because I believe in you…“ With a whisper, I reminded him of his pre-season goal and then said, “This is your time!”  With a look of determination and an impish smile, an amazing thing happened when our little hero cranked the ball, and I mean hard, deep into left field.  When the dust settled, our hero was on 3^rd base, having driven in three runs.  Everyone was going crazy (even the other team) and the smile on this young boy’s face (and his parent’s faces too) could have lit up the sky at that very moment…  Well, guess who signed up to play baseball next year with a couple of friends?  Yep, you’re right!  So what does this have to do with business?  In a word, “EVERYTHING!”

Imagine building a business where a key business strategy was to create heroes.  Customers become repeat buyers and your advocates when they realize their hero experience (whatever that might be in delivering your product or service.)  If you aren’t creating hero experiences for customers, is this acceptable to you or instead a big business problem?

So here are my questions for you…. “What percentage of your customers or clients would say that you deliver the hero experience to them?”  If you do not know the answer, my question to you is, “why don’t you ask? What’s the harm?  My guess is that you’ll learn a few things along the way, and you’ll be glad you did…

EARL BELL

EARL BELL is the author of, Winning in Baseball and Business, Transforming Little League Principles into Major League Profits for Your Company, which provides a roadmap to success for leaders that desire to build thriving companies in a very competitive 21^stcentury business environment.  Earl believes that “everything you need to know about business, leadership and team building can be learned from Little League baseball.”

Earl conducts workshops, coaches and consults with owners, business leaders and their teams, teaching them how to dramatically reduce the time it takes to improve profitability, customer experience, employee engagement and company value, while simultaneously increasing discretionary time and reducing both stress/employee burnout.  He believes the secret to winning in baseball, business and life can be summarized in a simple formula:  Winning = Service + Humility. His motto is that Winning in Business is a Team Sport!

Earl has served in the Chief Financial Officer role for numerous companies throughout North America. His personal passion is youth sports and he has coached 28 teams since 2002.  Earl is a CPA, graduated from SU (Seattle University) with a BA in Accounting and from the MILL (Mercer Island Little League) with a Master’s in Youth Baseball.

Earl Bell can be reached at  earl@earlbell.com and 206-420-5946