How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It

by Mark Cuban

I even worked out a deal with a local consultant who paid me referral fees, which led to getting a $1500 check. It was the first time in my adult life that I had more than one thousand dollars to my name. That was a special moment, believe or not, and what did I do to celebrate? Nope … I didn’t buy better champagne. I had these old ratty towels that had holes in them and could stand on their own in the corner. They were so nasty I needed a shower from drying off after a shower, so I went out and bought six of the fluffiest, plushest towels I could find. I was moving on up in the world. I had the towels. Life was good.

If you are ready to compete with the big guys, you are ready to compete with anyone else.

The sport of business is the ultimate competition. It’s 7 × 24 × 365 × forever. I love the sport of business. I love the competition. I love the fire of it. It’s the feeling of the clock winding down, the ball in your hands, and if you hit the shot you win … all day, every day.

Relaxing is for the other guy. I may be sitting in front of the TV, but I’m not watching it unless I think there is something I can learn from it. I’m thinking about things I can use in my business and the TV is just there.

could take the time to read a fiction book, but I don’t. I would rather read websites, newspapers, magazines, looking for ideas and concepts that I can use. I spend time in bookstores because...

I’m not going to go to dinner with you just to chat. I’m not going to give you a call to see how you are. Unless you want to talk business. Other guys play fantasy sports. I fire the synapses to get an edge. That’s what success is all about. It’s about the edge. It’s not whom you know. It’s not how much money you have. It’s very simple. It’s whether or not you have the edge and have the guts to use it. The edge is getting so jazzed about what you do, you just spent 24 hours straight working on a project and you thought only a couple of hours had passed. The edge is knowing that you have to be the smartest guy in the room when you have your meeting and you are going to put in the effort to learn whatever you need to learn to get there. The edge is knowing that when the four girlfriends you have had in the last couple years asked you which was more important, them or your business, you gave the right answer. The edge is knowing that you can fail and learn from it, and just get back up and in the game. The edge is knowing that people think you’re crazy, and they are right, but you don’t care what they think. The edge is knowing how to blow off steam a couple times a week, just so y...

We are going to face off. My ability to execute an idea vs. yours. My ability to subvert your business vs. your ability to keep it going. My ability to create ways to remove any reason for your business to exist vs. your ability to do the same to me. My ability to know what you are going to do, before you do it vs. you, er, doing it! Who gets there first? Best of all, this game doesn’t have a time limit. It’s forever. It never ends. It’s the ultimate competition. It’s the sport of business. It’s not for everyone, but I love it.

In sports, the only thing a player can truly control is effort. The same applies to business. The only thing any entrepreneur, salesperson or anyone in any position can control is their effort.

had to kick myself in the ass and recommit to getting up early, staying up late and consuming everything I possibly could to get an edge. I had to commit to making the effort to be as productive as I possibly could.

It meant making sure that every hour of the day that I could contact a customer was selling time, and when customers were sleeping, I was doing things that prepared me to...

Effort is measured by setting goals and getting results. What did I need to do to close this account? What did I need to do to win this segment of business? What did I need to do to understand this technology or that business better than anyone? What did I need to do to find an edge? Where does that edge come from, and how was I going to get there? The one requirement for success in our business lives is effort. Either you make the commitment to get results or you don’t.

You are still in school. You don’t need to have all the answers or focus on one thing. You should be trying a lot of things until you find the one thing you really love to do and are good at. When that happens, you will be able to focus. Being focused at 21 is way overrated. Now is the time to screw up, to try as many different things as you can and just maybe figure things out. The thing you do need to do is learn. Learn accounting. Learn finance. Learn statistics. Learn as much as you can about business. Read biographies about businesspeople. You don’t have to focus on one thing, but you have to create a base of knowledge so you are ready when it’s time. You never know when that time will come. But you can be ready when it does. You never know, you might end up in the adventure business!

Going to college should be about experiencing as much academically as you possibly can, but more importantly, it should be about learning how to learn and recognizing that learning is a lifelong endeavor. School isn’t the end of the learning process, it’s purely a training ground and beginning.

The greatest obstacle to destiny is debt, both personal and financial. The more people you are obligated to, the harder it is to focus on yourself and figure things out. I’m a big believer that getting married is about finding yourself first, which makes it a lot easier to find the right person. If you can’t stand on your own, it’s impossible to successfully be part of a couple. I’m also a big believer that financial debt is the ultimate dream killer. Your first house, car, whatever you might want to buy, is going to be the primary reason you stop looking for what makes you the happiest.

If you aren’t happy with where you are, simplify your life and go out and try as many things as it takes to find what you may be destined to be. If there is such a thing.

being told how lucky I was to have expertise in such a hot area, as technology stocks started to trade up. Of course, no one wanted to comment on how lucky I was to spend countless hours reading software or Cisco Router manuals, or sitting in my house testing and comparing new technologies, but that’s a topic for another time.

The point of all this is that it doesn’t matter how many times you fail. It doesn’t matter how many times you almost get it right. No one is going to know or care about your failures, and neither should you. All you have to do is learn from them and from those around you because … All that matters in bus​iness is that you get it right once. Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are.

“Everyone has got the will to win; it’s only those with the will to prepare that do win.”

If you are the main engine behind your company, taking on new challenges will only dilute your ability to win the wars you are in and increase the risk of injuring your primary business or core competencies.

Taking any resources away from that battle would be a huge mistake. It’s the same with Landmark Theaters. We could go international, but winning the battles here is far more important and, again, every minute our leadership spends on the rest of the world is time and focus lost on Landmark in the U.S.

Win the battles you are in first, then worry about expansion internationally or into new businesses. You do not have unlimited time and/or attention. You may work 24 hours a day, but those 24 hours spent winning your core business will pay off far more.

Far too often when an entrepreneur hits a rough patch or competitive challenge, the temptation is to “turn on the thinking cap” and find something new for the company to do. Don’t fall prey to the temptation.

If you are adding new things when your core businesses are struggling rather than facing the challenge, you are either running away or giving up.

we managed. It all came down to choice. I had the choice between lying to myself and pretending that I could turn on a switch and become a details person, or accepting the fact that I’m not, and partnering with someone who is. Continuing to lie meant I would probably lose my business. Every entrepreneur faces comparable choices. Each of us has to face the reality of who we are and what we are. What choice will you make?

Far more often than not, raising cash is the biggest mistake you can make.

They think they are considering that person’s position by making up numbers and calling them expected returns for the investor. “If you only give me X dollars, you will get Y percent back in Z years. You will double or triple your money in XX years.” Any investor worth anything knows you are just making these numbers up. They are meaningless. Worse, if you tell a savvy investor that the market for your product is X billions of dollars and you just need one or some low percent to make zillions, you will be immediately kicked to the curb. These investors, including myself, know what you don’t, and they are not telling you. The minute you ask for money, you are playing in their game—they aren’t playing in yours. You are at a huge disadvantage, and it’s only going to get worse if you take their money. The minute you take money, the leverage completely flips to the investor. They control the destiny of your dreams, not you.

I started MicroSolutions by getting an advance of $500 from my first customer. The business didn’t grow quickly in the first couple years—just up to four people, and we all worked dirt cheap. So what’s wrong with that? Nothing! It’s okay to start slow. It’s okay to grow slow. As much as you want to think that all things would change if you only had more cash available, they probably won’t. The reality is that for most businesses, they don’t need more cash, they need more brains.

Before I do any of the many things that I get asked to do, and that I think might be fun, I have one simple question I ask myself. When I (hopefully) turn 90 and look back at my life, would I regret having done it, or not having done it?

What I don’t understand is why so many people think whining has a negative connotation. I don’t. Whining is the first step toward change. It’s the moment when you realize something is very wrong and that you have to take the initiative to do something about it.

The path of least resistance is why I think Amazon.com, Apple and Google have been so successful. I buy everything from books to electronics to toiletries on Amazon because it’s easier than schlepping to the store. They show up in the mail as quickly as I am willing to pay to have them show up.

In business, one of the challenges is making sure that your product is the easiest to experience and to sell.

Moral of the story: Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you.

The best salespeople are the ones who put themselves in their customer’s shoes and provide a solution that makes the customer happy.

The best salesperson is the one the customer trusts and never has to question. The best salesperson is the one who knows that with every cold call made, he is closer to helping someone. The best salesperson is the one who takes immense satisfaction from the satisfaction her customer gets. The best salesperson is the one who wakes up early every morning excited to come to the office, get on the phone and let people know exactly why he loves his product, job and clients.

Sound corny? It is. It’s also very simple. And it’s the most important job in every company. There has yet to be a successful company that has survived with zero sales. So if selling is the most important job in a company...

“Thank you for taking the time to listen/read. Would you mind sharing with me what you didn’t like about the product or why you like the product you chose?” And if I have a good counter to their objection(s), I will let it fly and see what happens.

“Every no gets me closer to a yes.” You have to move on and start communicating with someone you know might buy your product rather than wasting more time with someone you already know won’t buy your product/service/idea.

A smart, focused and successful salesperson will gear up and do the homework necessary to find their next customer. That is a sign of confidence.

Your biggest enemies are your bills. The more you owe, the more you stress. The more you stress over bills, the more difficult it is to focus on your goals. More importantly, if you set your monthly income requirements too high, you eliminate a significant number of opportunities. The cheaper you can live, the greater your options. Remember that.

It’s really easy to know if you are in the right job. If it matters how much you get paid, you are not in a job you really love. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t want to make more money. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t bust your ass to make as much money as possible. That’s not the issue. The issue is whether or not you truly love your job. If you love what you do so much that you are willing to continue to live like a student in order to be able to stay in the job, you have found your calling.

Once you have found out what you love to do, there is only one goal: to be the best in the world at it.

Then it made a fatal mistake. It asked its customers what features they wanted to see in the product, and they delivered on those features. Unfortunately for this company, its competitors didn’t ask customers what they wanted. Instead, they had a vision of ways that business could be done differently and, as a result, better. Customers didn’t really see the value or need until they saw the new product. When they tried it, they loved it. So what did “my” company do when it saw what its competitor had done? It repeated its mistake and once again asked its customers what they wanted in the product. Of course the customer responded with the features that they now loved from the other product.

Entrepreneurs always need to be reminded that it’s not the job of their customers to know what they don’t.

If there is someone out there who can “kick your ass” by doing it better, it’s part of your job as the owner of the company to stay ahead of them and “kick your own ass” before someone else does.