Mark Cuban used a 14-second pitch to generate profits at his first gross sales job

Some youngsters make additional money working lemonade stands. A 12-year-old Mark Cuban bought trash luggage door-to-door.

The billionaire serial entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks proprietor lately advised GQ journal {that a} household good friend gave him the chance, marking his first-ever gross sales job. The good friend bought Cuban bins of trash luggage for $3, so Cuban might flip round and promote them across the neighborhood at $6, to save cash for sneakers.

Cuban mentioned he developed a 14-second pitch for each buyer. He’d knock on doorways, introduce himself and ask purchasers in the event that they used storage luggage. Then, he’d give out his cellphone quantity and supply to personally convey over extra bins each time they referred to as.

“It went like this: ‘Hello, my title is Mark. Do you utilize rubbish luggage? I’ve obtained a fantastic deal for you, and each time you want rubbish luggage, all you ever should do is name me and I will put ’em behind my wagon and I will convey ’em proper right down to your home,'” he recalled.

“That was my first enterprise: The world’s first, in all probability solely, storage bag door-to-door subscription firm,” added the panelist on ABC’s “Shark Tank.”

The benefit of the transient pitch was explaining the worth of his enterprise as shortly as doable — maximizing his and his purchasers’ time.

Cuban carried that lesson with him as he obtained older, promoting stamps and cash all through his teenage years. Ultimately, his focus shifted from accruing cash to discovering alternatives that might assist him “management my very own time,” he mentioned.

He nonetheless seems to worth time extremely. In 2020, Cuban advised the “Elevating the Bar” podcast that he receives about 1,000 emailed pitches per day — and he judges them by solely their first few sentences.

“I will learn the primary paragraph or two, and if it is one thing that catches my consideration and is attention-grabbing, and I feel is forward-thinking, then I’ll simply begin peppering them with questions,” he mentioned.

In 2017, Cuban spoke at South By Southwest concerning the impression a single sentence can have. He recalled receiving a chilly electronic mail in 2012 from Adam Lyons, the then-25-year-old founding father of insurance coverage comparability start-up The Zebra.

The e-mail was an funding pitch, and its brief topic line, “Wanna disrupt the insurance coverage business?” obtained Cuban’s consideration.

Cuban mentioned he responded inside 25 minutes, and the 2 emailed backwards and forwards for weeks. Cuban went on to spend money on The Zebra, which has since raised a complete of $256.5 million over 9 funding rounds, an organization spokesperson tells CNBC Make It.

The corporate is now a unicorn, attaining a billion-dollar valuation final yr, in keeping with monetary analysis database.

Disclosure: CNBC owns the unique off-network cable rights to “Shark Tank.”

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