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Lesson #4: A Great Businessman is Only as Great as His Vision

Article Overview: What is the difference between an average point guard and a great point guard? According to Johnson, it all lies in the vision. Great point guards see the court differently than everyone else. They envision where they need to go and how they are going to get there before they even touch the ball. Johnson, unarguably one of basketball’s greatest point guards ever, used that very same vision in crossing over to the business world.

Lesson #4: A Great Businessman is Only as Great as His Vision

What is the difference between an average point guard and a great point guard? According to Johnson, it all lies in the vision. Great point guards see the court differently than everyone else. They envision where they need to go and how they are going to get there before they even touch the ball. Johnson, unarguably one of basketball’s greatest point guards ever, used that very same vision in crossing over to the business world.

Before diving head first into any new business ventures, Johnson took the time to craft a strategy, to see what he needed to do to get to where he wanted to go. It was a simple strategy that Johnson decided on: crafting a niche out of themes with which he had intimate experience.

“All of my businesses deal with people, customer service and entertainment because that’s what I’m good at,” says Johnson. “Everything flows together from that, and all the companies help each other.”

Take, for instance, Johnson’s partnerships with both T.G.I. Friday’s and Starbucks. He has been criticized for branching himself out too broadly, for over-expanding, but Johnson says it is all part of his original strategy. “I can promote my Friday's and Starbucks in the movie theaters and do the same thing in those venues promoting the theaters,” he says. “We have 1.8 million [people who go] through our theater doors every year in Los Angeles. The goal is to get a lot of that same audience to go to your eateries. Then, on the music side of it, it works because we can play our artists in those same theaters or restaurants. There's great synergy, and it all works together.”

To critics who say is he growing too fast, Johnson counters, “I say everything is working together. We’re growing but not so fast that it’s not manageable. And as long as I have knowledgeable people working with me, I’m not worried about branching out.”

To that end, part of Johnson’s vision entails making sure he has the right people on board, “People who don’t need my money,” he jokes. “People who have done well themselves…If you’re the best, you have to go with the best.”

Still, no matter how qualified the people around him may be, Johnson says that at the end of the day it all comes back to him and his vision. “Magic Johnson makes up Magic Johnson. I've got a team of people who work for me and advise me. But I call my own shots,” he says. “That's one thing about me. I'm my own businessman. I'm my own person. The team I built taught me how to get into business, how to run a business. They gave me the knowledge I needed to have. But now I'm on my own. If you ask Howard Schultz, if you ask the Sony people, they'll tell you I make my own deals. Everybody knows they have to deal with me.”

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Article Tags: audience, business world, customer service, eateries, great businessman, intimate experience, movie theaters, music side, new business ventures, niche, partnerships, restaurants, starbucks, synergy, t g i fridays, theater doors



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