OUTWORK EVERYONE | Brutally Honest Business Advice from Billionaire Mark Cuban
whatever industry you pick
if you outwork everybody if you try to
be a little smarter than everybody
if you try to be a better sales person
than everybody if you try to be
better prepared than everybody you've
got your best chance because
if you don't do it and somebody else
does
you know i have the same work like
someone's trying to take it all away
from you you know working i actually
work like someone's spending 24 hours
working 24 hours to take it all away
from you and that's kind of the way i
look at it
what would you say is the number one
reason why people fail lack of brains
lack of effort
lack of brains lack of effort yeah they
just they don't do the work they don't
learn
you know when you walk in the room when
you start a business and you start to
talk about somebody
you're never in a vacuum with no
competition you know unless you're just
extremely lucky and if there's going to
be competition that means somebody else
knows your business as well as you do
when you get started
and if you walk into a competitive
environment and
they still know more about the business
than you do and more about your
customers
you're going to lose but most people
don't consider that they don't do the
work they don't learn more about their
industry
they don't know even about their
business i mean and so you've got to put
in the effort to know more about your
industry than anybody
else um and that's that's the brains
part and
that's the effort part as well because
look if you're competing with me
you you better know what you're doing
otherwise i'm gonna kick you out
you know and you're not gonna outwork me
and so you know the combination is
usually what kills businesses early on
more than anything you could within a 5
10 million minute interview say
this dude's not going to make it as an
entrepreneur yeah i mean i can i can
typically tell
right i can tell um but by um
their passion i can tell by their focus
i can tell by their preparation you know
there's a whole realm of things in any
business here
you know here's here's the business
you're in and here's a thousand things
that influence whether or not you're
going to be successful
you know through my experience in
businesses i can put myself in his
position and say okay
here are 900 of the thousand things he
has to be aware of and then go through
and ask
and by how many of those or her issues
they've been able to address
already that kind of gives me a sense of
how hard they're willing to work
you know and i can tell by the questions
they ask me so all i have to do is say
okay
what do you want to know and you know
when they start saying what should i do
they ask you yeah yeah and that's fine
right and i want them to ask questions
but
you know people like to say you know the
only stupid questions are the one you
don't once you don't ask and that's not
right
right because the questions you ask tell
me tell whoever
more about you than anything else you do
because in particular tells me about
your preparation
if you ask me questions about just basic
things that you should have known
and you should have down to a science
that's going to disqualify you almost
more than anything
if you're not always learning if to this
minute
if if i'm not continuously learning if
i'm not just absorbing as much as i can
absorb
someone else is going to kick my ass
right so you talk about paranoia
the greatest source of your paranoia
should be knowledge
if someone else knows more than you do
and if you're not learning if you don't
know the learn if you don't know how to
learn if you don't have a thirst for
learning
and acquiring information your sol
do you think there needs to be a healthy
level of peril absolutely there needs to
be oh yeah i mean
i always say you know for every one of
my businesses i i said what would i do
to kick my own ass
you right so whatever business you have
there's somebody trying to put you out
of business there's somebody trying to
to take a bite out of your business and
it's better for you to figure out how
they're going to do it rather than
they do it um and so yeah that's being
paranoid and so you have to be paranoid
you have to anticipate other people's
next moves and you can't ever
you know downplay the competition i was
at a business plan competition this
morning for out of college
and they were kind of being dismissive
of the competition
and so you can't ever do that you know
they're out there trying to take you
down
and they're not just going to sit still
and if you're good really really good
you're going to inspire them to work
even harder faster better
and so you have to be you know very
self-aware of what you're good at
and what other people are good at and
you know a healthy dose of paranoia
makes a big dif
i mean is very helpful let's transition
to a different subject with college
you went to iu yep right now you got a
lot of people that
uh say uh forget about school you know
drop out of school there
it is so you think they're really tell
me why um
if you're going to have and run a
business if you don't understand
accounting
you're already behind the eight ball
can't you hire a guy that's that knows
that but then
they still have to communicate to you
your account might tell you you're
profitable
but your cash is going down you know not
understanding
um a breakdown and and when you don't
do you think you need college to learn
that yeah i think you do right because
it may not for some people look if
you're so self-motivated
that you can take an online course in
accounting and teach yourself everything
you're way ahead of the game many ways
but most people aren't i don't care if
you go to a community college and take
accounting
and spend 99 bucks for the class just
you know
spending the money forces you to be more
obligated to do it
but accounting finance lesser extent
marketing
sales if the school offers that these
are all that's the language of business
and so while it's possible to teach
yourself these things and while it's
possible to hire them
when you're starting your own company
you don't want to have to spend money
hiring an accountant well let me tell
you about if you've
gone through all these classes probably
don't have to hire a lawyer to
incorporate right you probably figure
out yourself
and so your cost of opening up a
business drops but even more important
and all that that's that's the blocking
of tackling
that's the language of business you know
the thing i learned at indiana that was
more important than anything else i
learned how to learn
and learning became far more important
to me because the one
certainty in business is that it's
always going to be changing
how does one entrepreneur increase the
speed
and areas that they can increase there's
certain things you can't concentrate in
one way
speed of growing your business all right
so how fast can i grow yeah i mean
it just depends you've got to know your
own skill set right
and you've got to know how that fits
within your
company's life cycle um you know some
companies are slow
slow grind and you just have to
understand that and you've just got to
bide your time and still
until it starts to click and then grow
with it quickly you know if you're
trying to release a product that needs
to be ubiquitous
you've got to go um as fast as you can
and and then
you know release a product yeah yeah and
and you know
there's a lot of people say you know
perfection is the enemy of profitability
right and that doesn't mean you have to
wait till it's a perfect product
it really just depends on what the
product is it you know a barber shop
right is it an app is it
um a service is it a product but
you know the the key is looking for the
low-hanging fruit
what are the at what are what customers
are willing to write you a check or
commit to it you know so that
they're willing to integrate it into
their daily lives or integrate it into
their daily business
and so getting a commitment either
through time or revenue
is typically what i look for and so if i
can get a commitment
then i'm i'm going to be able to learn
i'm gonna see how they use it do they
sustain usage
and then once i get the next one you
know hopefully it came a little bit
faster than the first one then i can ask
for referrals and then the next one then
the next one
and i just try to ramp it up you know
when i bought the mavs
we had no season ticket holder base and
so literally it was a matter of just
putting a list of former season ticket
holders and a white pages back then
you know on my desk next to my phone and
making phone calls
you yeah me yeah because if i'm not
going to do it how can i expect someone
else to do it right
so just get on the phone hey this is
mark q and i'm the new owner of the
dallas mavericks
you know i'd like to invite you back
over again it's not though this is my
business you
you can't get regular sales guys or
something make those calls once they get
to a quarter
you're a guy that's a billionaire you're
making those well but that's all you
know and that's fine and good right
because
everybody's got their own goals right
and but still i i don't want anybody
at the mavs to be able to say well he's
not willing to do the work right there's
you know if i walk around i'm picking up
all the papers i'm not saying go get
that picked up i'm like
okay that's trash i'm picking it up um
so
but in terms of speed of growth it's
really you got to get that first
customer first
and then when you get that first what
did you learn reiterate
get that next customer and then
hopefully as you learn more and more
through the process then the next one
the next one the next one becomes
come by even faster i alluded to it
earlier about
entrepreneurs being born or built you
know and i think
there i knew i was wired to be excited
about business
how or why i don't know but you know and
there's certain guys they have the
genetics to jump out of the gym
right certain guys you know that you
know when they golf they have the muscle
memory and
and the discipline you know dirk um the
whiskey may not be the most talented guy
in the nba
but his discipline and his focus to do
what's necessary to be successful
he's willing to do and combine it with
being seven feet tall and being skilled
you know it makes him an amazing
basketball player
so it's understanding what your skill
set is
finding the right place to use those
skills and then
going for it you know will that make you
250 grand it depends if you pick the
right industry
you know i started my first business
when i was 12 i was buying and selling
baseball cards buying and selling stamps
anything i could do to make money i was
hustling and trying to do so
i was in the business but i not so much
where it was
all my friends were into it with me so
they wouldn't know
baseball cards yeah baseball cards you
name it i mean i grew up in pittsburgh
and so i would probably even less than
12 years old i would
go up buy a bunch of baseball cards that
i collected and i would package
i would say okay you're guaranteed to
have a pittsburgh pirate in this package
and i would charge three times as much
and i'd set up on this park bench down
in the park down in scott township where
i grew up
and um i'd have these little sales and
it was great i made money and i mean it
was
you know and i learned as much about
business when i was 9 10 and 12 as i
learned any other time
[Music]
you
