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The Earmark Podcast

Fan-Centric KPIs: The Secret Behind Savannah Bananas’ Explosive Growth

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In a recent Earmark podcast episode, Dr. Tim Naddy, CFO of the Savannah Bananas, shared the team’s unconventional approach to sports entertainment and finance. With a background in accounting and education, Tim brings a unique perspective to sports finance, blending traditional accounting principles with innovative tactics prioritizing fan experience.

By analyzing the financial strategies behind the Savannah Bananas’ success, accounting professionals can learn how to implement and measure the effectiveness of all-inclusive pricing models, non-traditional revenue streams, and customer-centric KPIs in other industries to drive customer satisfaction and business growth.

The Savannah Bananas’ Revolutionary Business Model

The Savannah Bananas have revolutionized sports entertainment by blending circus-like excitement with baseball tradition. Tim explains that they’ve found a “secret sauce” that makes the game less stressful and more enjoyable for fans. 

The team creates a fun, family-friendly environment with unconventional elements like choreographed player dances and unique cheerleading squads. This approach yielded impressive results: over 3 million social media followers, 200 consecutive sold-out games, and a million-fan waitlist.

Their model emphasizes creating a total fan experience that drives long-term loyalty and word-of-mouth marketing. By prioritizing customer experience, the Bananas demonstrate how businesses can create a “flywheel” effect, where positive experiences drive demand and sustainable growth. Their results are a case study for incorporating customer satisfaction metrics into financial strategies.

All-Inclusive Pricing: A Game-Changing Strategy

One of the most revolutionary aspects of the Savannah Bananas’ business model is their all-inclusive pricing strategy. As Tim explains, “What we found very, very interesting is, when you give away the food for free, and people aren’t worried about whether or not their six-year-old is fed, they are happily taking that money and saying, well, shoot, I had such a great time. I think I want to buy a hat or a T-shirt. Because I know at the end of the game there will be 40 players out there all signing that ball.”

The Savannah Bananas include all food in the ticket price, allowing fans to enjoy hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, and soft drinks without additional cost. A family of four can attend a game for about $140, enjoying four to five hours of entertainment with all food included. Alcohol and specialty items are not included in the ticket price, maintaining an additional revenue stream.

Initially met with skepticism from industry consultants who viewed food sales as a crucial revenue stream, the Bananas persisted with their vision. The results have been remarkable. By removing the stress of additional food costs, fans are more likely to spend money on merchandise, turning attendees into “walking billboards” for the team.

For accounting professionals, this case study demonstrates the importance of looking beyond traditional revenue streams and considering how pricing strategies impact customer behavior and long-term brand loyalty.

The all-inclusive model also presents exciting challenges for financial reporting and analysis. Accountants must consider how to accurately allocate revenue between ticket sales, food costs, and merchandise and how to measure the true impact of this strategy on the bottom line. This requires a shift in thinking from traditional cost-center approaches to viewing food as part of the overall entertainment experience.

Fan-Centric KPIs: Redefining Financial Success

The Savannah Bananas focus on fan-centric Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), particularly the “per cap” metric. This metric, calculated by dividing total sales by attendees, helps identify trends and issues in various business aspects. 

As Tim explains: “The per cap is almost a universal KPI. It’s something that you absolutely need to watch. Because once you start seeing a flip in the per cap, whether that be in merchandise or food and beverage, that’s a lead indicator for you. Now, let’s say merchandise falls. We might look at that and say, was it because it rained this evening? Were we not offering the right products? Is there a certain product that isn’t selling? We investigate why we had that slippage because we know where we should be based on the per cap average.”

On the other hand, if they see an increase in their per cap, they can determine whether the bump came from a particularly popular piece of merchandise.

“It’s a great bellwether for us to look at because, ultimately, what it comes down to is if we don’t know our fans, then we’re going to miss out and it will show in the cap. It will absolutely show,” Tim says.

By adopting similar customer-centric KPIs, businesses in other industries can gain deeper insights into their financial drivers and make informed decisions about resource allocation and strategic planning.

Adapting Financial Systems for Innovative Business Models

To support their unconventional business model, the Savannah Bananas have had to adapt their financial systems and technology stack. As Tim explains, “We actually just made the move to NetSuite. We were originally using QuickBooks and we knew at some point we were starting to get a little too big. QuickBooks is a wonderful platform, but it’s not built for the volume of transactions we were running through it.”

The move to NetSuite ultimately improved processes like credit card allocations and cash allocations, streamlining daily financial operations.

The Bananas’ financial ecosystem combines specialized tools: Shopify for merchandise sales and inventory management, Toast for food and beverage operations, and proprietary software for their ticketing platform. This best-of-breed approach allows them to track and analyze fan behavior across different touchpoints, supporting their fan-centric business model.

They’re also building a data warehouse to integrate data from these different systems, aiming to provide more comprehensive insights into their operations and fan engagement. The goal is to be able to support a more sophisticated analysis of how different aspects of the fan experience contribute to overall financial performance.

Reimagining Financial Strategies for Customer-Centric Businesses

The Savannah Bananas’ success story offers a playbook for accounting professionals across industries to reimagine financial strategies in the context of customer-centric business models. The team has achieved remarkable success and customer loyalty by implementing innovative pricing strategies, focusing on fan-centric KPIs, and adapting financial systems to support these approaches.

To gain more in-depth insights into the Savannah Bananas’ innovative financial strategies and how you can apply them in your practice, listen to the full Earmark Podcast episode featuring CFO Tim Naddy. His story offers a valuable perspective that can help you drive innovation in your financial practices and deliver greater value to your clients and organization.

Why Tax Incentives Hurt More Than Help

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What if that mortgage interest deduction you’ve been counting on is actually making your dream home more expensive? Or if the tax credit for your child’s college tuition is secretly inflating their education costs? Welcome to the paradoxical world of well-intentioned tax policies, where good ideas often lead to unintended—and costly—consequences.

In a recent episode of The Earmark Podcast, I explored this issue with Scott Hodge, President Emeritus and Senior Policy Advisor at the Tax Foundation, a leading independent tax policy think tank.

Our conversation revealed how tax policy has a huge impact on everyone – both as professionals and as taxpayers. As Scott put it, “In so many ways our daily lives are ruled by taxes, whether it’s how we get our health care to the kind of house or car we buy, so many elements of our daily lives are wrapped up in taxes, whether we know it or not.”

As accounting and tax professionals, we must be aware of the hidden costs of well-intentioned tax policies in healthcare, housing, and education, where tax incentives can paradoxically drive up prices, ultimately harming the consumers they aim to help. This isn’t just an academic exercise—it’s a call to action for our profession.

The Paradox of Well-Intentioned Tax Policies

Let’s look at three areas where well-meaning tax incentives have led to unexpected and often counterproductive outcomes.

Consider the healthcare system. The way it operates today, with the majority of Americans receiving health insurance through their employers, stems from tax policies dating back to World War II. During this time, individual income taxes were very high. Employers found offering health benefits, which were not taxed, to be a more competitive way to compensate their employees. This paved the way for what is known as a “third-party payer system,” where healthcare providers are more answerable to insurance companies and employers rather than patients. The outcome? A disconnect between consumers and the actual cost of healthcare leads to a rise in medical expenses.

We see a similar paradox in the housing market with the mortgage interest deduction. Designed to make homeownership more accessible, it often has the opposite effect. Scott noted, “A lot of economic research shows that the mortgage interest deduction is built into the price of homes.” In competitive markets like Washington, New York, and California, this can make housing less affordable—the exact opposite of its intended purpose.

Perhaps most surprising is how tax incentives affect higher education. Those tuition tax credits we often recommend to clients? They might be padding university coffers more than easing student debt. Scott used a vivid analogy to illustrate.

“Imagine going to Best Buy to buy a television set,” Scott says. “And the sales clerk knows everything about your finances—how much your parents make, how much your house is worth, etc. They can price that television based on your finances, and you wouldn’t have a whole lot of negotiating power, would you?” This is essentially what happens when students apply to universities with tax credits in hand.

The Economic Theory Behind Tax Effects

Scott laid out a fundamental principle that explains why many tax incentives fall short: “If government’s trying to subsidize something or incentivize it, it’s the sellers of the good that tend to capture the value of that credit or deduction.” 

Consider the electric vehicle tax credit, a hot topic in many client conversations. As Scott pointed out, “Obviously the automakers know what the value of that $7,500 credit is. And so they’re going to bake that into the price.” When advising clients on the potential savings of purchasing an electric vehicle, we need to consider that the sticker price may already reflect much of the tax credit’s value.

Conversely, when it comes to tax increases or tariffs, the burden typically falls on consumers. Scott explained, “Let’s say we were going to try to disincentivize imports so we increase tariffs by 10% across the board. Well, that’s going to get passed on to consumers through a 10% increase in prices across the board.” The takeaway? We need to be careful about using the tax code to incentivize and discourage behaviors because either way, we can see some unintended consequences.

Challenges of Tax Reform and the Role of Education

Given the paradoxes and economic principles we discussed, it’s clear that our current tax system often falls short of its intended goals. However, as Scott emphasized, “In order to get to tax reform, we’re going to have to do a lot of educating on the unintended consequences of these things.”

Scott outlined three key attitude changes needed for successful tax reform:

  1. Taxpayers must be willing to give up credits and deductions for a simpler, more effective system.
  2. Corporations should stop viewing tax departments as profit centers.
  3. Lawmakers need to find better ways to deliver benefits than through the tax code.

These mindset shifts are challenging because they often go against ingrained habits and perceptions. Many struggle to understand the trade-off between higher tax rates with more deductions versus lower tax rates with fewer deductions. As Scott explained using the mortgage interest deduction example, “That mortgage interest deduction is a great thing for me. But I understand that it actually makes housing less affordable and less available for everyone. So maybe if we phased it out, we’d all be better off.”

This is where our role as educators becomes crucial. When a client comes to us excited about a new tax credit, we need to help them see the bigger picture. By consistently providing this kind of nuanced advice, we’re not just helping our clients make better decisions; we’re contributing to a more informed public discourse on tax policy.

By explaining how a seemingly beneficial tax credit might be “baked into the price” of goods or services, we can help shift the conversation toward more effective policy solutions.

The challenges of tax reform are significant, but so is our potential impact. We need to arm ourselves with in-depth knowledge and fresh perspectives to lead in this arena. That’s why I encourage you to listen to the full episode of the Earmark Podcast featuring Scott Hodge. You’ll gain valuable insights into the economic principles driving tax effects and practical strategies for advising clients on these complex issues.

How One Accounting Firm Turned Work-from-Home into a Competitive Edge

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At KBS CFO, new hires undergo a 3-day work simulation. Internal emails are banned, and success is evaluated based on the results delivered rather than the hours worked. These are all strategies that help the firm operate effectively while being completely remote. There is no office.

Robin Thieme, founder and CEO, shared her approach to remote work on my Earmark Podcast. As the accounting industry faces ongoing challenges in recruitment and retention, her insights offer a roadmap for firms seeking to build a more agile, efficient, and attractive workplace.

Revolutionizing Hiring with Work Simulations

KBS CFO has developed a unique approach to hiring that goes beyond traditional interviews and resumes. Their process begins with automated screening through platforms like Indeed or ZipRecruiter, followed by a three-day work simulation that gives candidates a real taste of the job while allowing the firm to assess skills that matter in a remote environment.

“We set up a simulation that includes a wide variety of tasks and assignments to be performed over a three-day period of time,” Thieme explains. These tasks range from explaining complex accounting concepts to simulated clients to analyzing financial data and demonstrating proficiency with project management tools.

The simulation is conducted through Asana, the firm’s project management tool, mirroring the work environment. This approach offers several benefits:

  1. Skill assessment: “Every single step of the way, there’s inherent screening going on,” says Thieme. The simulation tests technical knowledge, critical thinking, communication skills, and the ability to work independently in a remote setting.
  2. Self-selection: Some candidates opt out when they see the work involved, saving time and resources for both parties.
  3. Cultural fit: The simulation helps identify candidates who genuinely enjoy the work and thrive in a remote environment.

While the simulation’s 4-6 hour time commitment might seem substantial, Thieme reports that truly interested candidates don’t hesitate to take it on. Many spend even more time on it, demonstrating their enthusiasm and dedication.

Balancing Flexibility and Accountability

KBS CFO has developed an innovative approach that balances employee autonomy and operational needs. The firm’s core hours policy is at the heart of this approach.

“My requirement is that everybody be committed to working at least 60% of their time between 10 and 3, their time,” Thieme explains. This ensures substantial overlap in working hours across different time zones, facilitating collaboration and timely client communication. However, employees can complete 40% of their work outside these core hours if they meet deadlines and deliver results.

Thieme emphasizes that this flexibility comes with clear expectations: “There’s no flexibility in terms of meeting deadlines. If we make a promise to a client, there’s zero flexibility in that because those promises are essential.”

This balanced approach provides structure without sacrificing flexibility, ensures consistent availability for clients and team members, and maintains accountability by focusing on results rather than hours logged.

Streamlining Communication and Workflow Management

At KBS CFO, innovative remote work practices extend to communication and workflow management. Two key strategies stand out: banning internal emails and implementing a Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE).

“We are not permitted to email one another internally,” Thieme states emphatically. “It’s banned. I’m pretty serious about it because it’s such a waste of time.” Instead, all internal communication and task management occur through Asana. Every task is assigned a due date in the system, ensuring proper tracking and clear responsibilities.

This approach offers numerous benefits, including improved clarity and accountability, a searchable history of all work and communications, and better organization of client information. Thieme shares an example: “We had a situation with a client where I was talking to them about some kind of issue. Six months ago, I had been talking to them about the same issue, and I was just able to easily find the conversation. They were pretty impressed.”

Complementing this streamlined communication is KBS CFO’s adoption of a Results-Only Work Environment. “I can observe if due dates are being missed, regardless of whether the client is aware of it or not,” Thieme explains. This focus on outcomes rather than hours worked aligns perfectly with their remote work model, allowing them to measure performance based on results and promote a culture of accountability and ownership.

Implementing these strategies isn’t without challenges. It requires a shift in mindset for both managers and employees. However, the payoff regarding efficiency and accountability is substantial, contributing to operational excellence and enhanced client satisfaction.

The Future of Remote Work in Accounting

By prioritizing results over hours worked and effectively leveraging technology, firms can attract top talent, improve client satisfaction, and boost overall efficiency. However, implementing such changes isn’t without challenges. It requires a shift in mindset, investment in technology, and a willingness to challenge traditional practices.

As Robin Thieme puts it, “We’re accountants, but somehow we don’t translate the numbers game to the way we run our business.” This highlights the importance for accounting firms to use the same level of analytical rigor in managing their operations as they do in handling their clients’ books.

As the accounting profession grapples with talent shortages and increasing client expectations, firms that embrace these innovative practices will likely gain a significant competitive advantage.

Ready to revolutionize your approach to remote work? Listen to the full interview with Robin Thieme. In Thieme’s words, “It’s not about working less; it’s about working smarter.”