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 this saying, work like someone is trying to take it all away from you. You know, work like, actually work like someone is 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 1 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 vaccum 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, 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. Umm. .

. 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 going to kick your but You know, and you're not going to outwork me. And so you know, the combination is usually what kills businesses early on more than anything else.

You could within a 5-10 minute interview say, this dude is not going to make it as an entrepreneur? Yeah, I mean I can, I can typically tell. Right.

I can tell, umm. . .

by 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 1000 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 ones you don't, the ones 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, it 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 butt right? So you talked 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 to learn, if you don't know how to learn if you don't have a thirst for learning and acquiring information you're- you're SOL.

Do you think there needs to be a healthy level of paranoia? - Absolutely. - There needs to be?

Oh yeah, I mean, I always say, you know for every one of my businesses I say what would I do to kick my own butt? 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.

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, at a 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 difference 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. .

. say, forget about school, you know, drop out of school. - They're idiots, they're idiots.

- So you think they're idiots, - tell me why? - Umm. .

. If you're going to have and run a business, if you don't understand accounting you're already behind the 8-ball. Can't you hire a guy that's, that knows how to run- but then, they still have to communicate to you.

Your accountant might tell you you're profitable but your cash is going down. You know, not understanding um, that 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 anyways 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 you don't have to hire a lawyer to incorporate, right? You can probably figure it out yourself.

And so your cost of opening up a business drops but even more important than all that that's- that's the blocking and 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 control- - Speed in what way? - Speed of growing your business.

- Alright. - 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.

You know some companies are slow, slow grind and you just have to understand that and you've just got to bide your time 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 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 who say you know, "perfection is the enemy of profitability" right and that doesn't mean you have to wait until it's a perfect product. It really just depends on what the product is, is it you know a barber shop right?

Is it an app, is it a service, is it a product but you know, the- the key is looking for the low-hanging fruit what are the. . .

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 going to see how they use it so 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 in 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 Cuban - I’m the new owner of the Dallas Mavericks. " - Unbelievable. You know, "I’d like to invite you back for-" -Unbelievable.

It's not though, this is my business- But you- what you- you can't get regular sales guys or something to make those calls once they get to a quarter? You're a guy that's a billionaire you're making those calls. Well, but that's all, you know, that's fine and good right?

Because everybody's got their own goals, right. But still 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.

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 the discipline you know Dirk Nowitzski 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 7 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 I’d have these little sales and it was great I made money and I mean it was. .

. you know, I learned as much about business when I was 9, 10 and 12 as I learned any other time.