Mark Cuban believes in the power of silence and patience — until he’s so tempted during a negotiation that he just can’t help breaking one of his biggest rules.
That happened on Friday’s episode of ABC’s “Shark Tank,” when couple Fred Zwar and Kirsten Maitland pitched their artisan vegan cheese company Rebel Cheese. The pair shared a love of cheese, and after deciding to go vegan, searched for suitable substitutes, they said. Finding none, they created their own in 2019.
Maitland and Zwar asked the show’s investor judges for $750,000 in exchange for 5% of their company, which made $2.5 million in 2022 and was projected to make $3.5 million at the end of this year. They also handed out cheese samples, which Cuban — who is vegetarian, and has a track record of investing in vegan food companies — called “really good.”
Then, negotiations began, and something unexpected happened: Five minutes into the episode, Cuban jumped in with an offer, before any of the other investors.
The power of silence
Typically, during the show’s negotiations, Cuban speaks last, listening to everyone else’s decision-making processes before making his own offer or withdrawal.
“There will be times when someone walks in on ‘Shark Tank’ and I’m thinking to myself: ‘There’s no way I’m interested. Or, if I am, I don’t have quite all the data that I need to make a decision,’” Cuban said in a July discussion with bestselling author Chris Voss on Fireside, the interactive streaming app Cuban co-founded.
“When I listen to the other Sharks, they’re going to tell me if I have any competition financially to do a deal. They’re going to teach me things, potentially, about that industry … about the person,” he added. “Silence is powerful. Silence is money … money in the bank.”
He might also get a kick out of others’ reactions to his quietness, noting how they “always freak out” when he isn’t saying anything.
Zwar and Maitland skipped that guessing game entirely. “I’ll offer you $750,000 for 10%,” Cuban…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply