The Power of Broke: How Empty Pockets, a Tight Budget, and a Hunger for Success Can Become Your Greatest Competitive Advantage

by Daymond John

For example, I used to go to store owners and say, “Look, do you want to buy these shirts?” I’d take their order. Then I’d go to the screen printer, who wanted to charge me, say, $1.25 per shirt. I’d go back to them and tell them to charge me $2.00 instead, and in exchange I asked them to ship the items directly to the store and arrange for the store owner to pay them directly as well. This way, I could offer assurances to the store owner that the shirts were being made by a reputable company, and in turn I could convince the screen printer that my order was backed by this reputable store, leaving me free to take my cut and essentially finance these orders straight out of the gate—let’s call it “street-level leveraging,” for lack of a better term.