At age 12, Mark Cuban was busy selling garbage bags in an effort to make his first coin in business. But today, he is one of the most sought after investors in the world. He features in a popular television TV series “Shark Tank” which airs on one of the local TV Channels.
He owns a basketball team that plays in the NBA and a film distribution company. He is listed among the top 500 richest people in the world on Forbes with a net worth of $2.6 billion.
It is interesting to see how this notable business managed to rise beyond ordinary expectations – to move from being a garbage basket seller to a highly successful entrepreneur. Here are some lessons we can deduce from Mark’s unique way of doing business.
(1)Don’t sell your product; solve problems
Most of the time we forget that the customer is the most important part of the business matrix. We focus most of our effort in trying to sell instead of creating solutions or “helping” the customer. Mark Cuban recommends a totally different approach.
“To make the best sales, put yourself in the shoes of the customer. Make sure your product solves the customers problem.” Customers want to feel like you’re solving their problems and that way they’ll be more likely to buy from you.
(2)Never ever take a loan to start a business
There are so many uncertainties involved in starting a business. First, you are not even sure if the market is going to embrace your products or not. Secondly, you are still in the learning curve and cannot be too sure of what the future holds.
For this reason, the guru himself recommends avoiding going for loans when starting a business. “You can’t afford to add an extra uncertainty of paying back a loan when starting a business”. Loans are best taken to expand an already existing business rather than starting one.
(3)Invest little capital but lots of effort
Most SME business opportunities require next to nothing to set up. In other words, you don’t need to save to a tune of Ksh1,000,000 in order to start your dream business. At the initial stages of the venture, what you are mostly required to provide is effort, time and knowledge.
You need to spend lots of time understanding your market better than anyone else. You need to spend a lot of time improving the quality of your products and services.
Also, you need to spend lots of time listening to your customers feedback and opinion so that you can make your business customer-centric. As Mark Cuban once said in an interview with Bloomberg TV:
Also, you need to spend lots of time listening to your customers feedback and opinion so that you can make your business customer-centric. As Mark Cuban once said in an interview with Bloomberg TV:
“If you start your business, you better know your industry better than anyone else in the world…If you want to compete with me in one of my businesses you better recognize that I’m working 24 hours to beat you at it.”
(4)Start young
Start to nurture the desire to succeed in business when you are still young. Look at Mark Cuban, by age 12 he was selling garbage bags.
By age 25, after being fired from his job, he didn’t even thinking of sending out any more job applications. He sat down and used the little knowledge he had acquired in life to set up his first company called Micro-Solutions.
He knew a bit of computer programming and so he started to create programs and selling them to clients. He recognized the little talent he had in sales and decided to exploit it early enough.
As Mark Cuban fondly puts it, “It doesn’t matter how many times you have failed, you only have to be right ONCE!”
We hope you’ll find this short article inspirational and helpful. We hope that the story of Mark Cuban will inspire you to think BIG.
