If Mark Cuban wanted to rebuild his fortune from scratch in six months, beginning with just a phone and $500 in money, he is aware of precisely what he’d do.
“That is the best question I have ever been requested in my complete grownup life,” the billionaire entrepreneur and investor advised Wired in a latest video Q&A. His first step, he mentioned: Land a gross sales job, and use one in every of his best expertise to shortly get forward. It may not even make a distinction what services or products he’d be promoting.
“I am actually, actually, actually good at gross sales,” Cuban, 65, defined. “I’m going to search out a gross sales job. Because I already know that if I’m right down to my final $500, and all I have is a phone, I am going to get that job and I am going to be taught extra about that trade than anybody on the planet.”
For his first three months, his purpose would be to make fast cash by by giving himself “a fee as excessive as I probably can” on his gross sales, he mentioned. He’d additionally attempt to set up a formidable observe report, showcasing his expertise, to construct future leverage with his bosses, he added.
“Three months in, when I’ve demonstrated that I am the best salesperson in the historical past of that firm, I’m going to stroll into my boss’ workplace and I’m going to inform her or him: ‘You’re both going to pay me this sum of money to maintain me, or I’m going to start out my very own enterprise promoting these items,'” Cuban mentioned. “That is precisely what I would do.”
‘Everything all the time goes again to gross sales’
Cuban’s technique aligns with recommendation from profession consultants, who usually say there’s no wrong time to ask your employer for a elevate, so long as you may make a robust case for the worth you deliver.
“Set up a assembly with your supervisor and deliver the earlier interval’s accomplishments, how the supervisor benefited, what the loss would be to the group in case you had been now not a part of the group, and what it would value to interchange you and the time misplaced in doing so,” career expert Joe Mullings told CNBC Make It in 2021.
The billionaire’s response may be interpreted as figuring out your most respected ability, and discovering a solution to monetize it. But that is not precisely the case: There’s one thing significantly helpful about excelling at salesmanship, mentioned Cuban.
Sales expertise apply to each space of enterprise and life, Cuban often says — from attempting to promote somebody a bodily product to impressing somebody in a job interview or convincing your boss that one in every of your concepts is price a shot.
“Everything all the time goes again to gross sales, irrespective of what,” he advised Wired.
‘Selling is not about convincing, it is about serving to’
Cuban has been honing these gross sales expertise for a lot of his life. When he sold garbage bags door-to-door at age 12, he developed a 14-second sales pitch to clarify the worth of his enterprise as shortly as potential, he told GQ final yr.
The concept was to indicate his prospects he valued their time as a lot as his personal, he mentioned.
“It went like this: ‘Hi, my title is Mark. Do you employ rubbish baggage? I’ve acquired a nice deal for you, and each time you want rubbish baggage, all you ever have to do is name me and I’ll put ’em in the again of my wagon and I’ll deliver ’em proper right down to your home,'” mentioned Cuban.
More than a decade later, Cuban used these expertise to make a fortune. He based software program firm MicroSolutions, which offered to CompuServe in 1990 for $6 million. His subsequent startup, audio streaming firm Broadcast.com, was acquired by Yahoo in 1999 for $5.7 billion.
Throughout his profession, Cuban has mentioned he is always fallen back on what he considers the first rule of gross sales: “Selling is not about convincing, it is about serving to,” he mentioned in a TikTok interview final yr.
“When you perceive what individuals want and need, you place your self in a place to assist them,” mentioned Cuban. “Then you make good issues occur, shut offers and that is the way you create corporations.”
Disclosure: CNBC owns the unique off-network cable rights to “Shark Tank,” which options Mark Cuban as a panelist.
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