How I Landed an Interview with Mark Cuban For My Blog

Ever since I landed and conducted an interview with Mark Cuban and his team at Moov Transport for my column on Inc., my inboxes have been full and social notifications have been blowing up nonstop to the point where I had to turn them off just to be able to get some work done.

Overwhelmingly, the question everyone has been asking me is, "How did you do it?" They want to know how I landed an interview of this magnitude.

Well, please allow me just to go ahead and tell all of you right here.

Be careful who you take advice from.

Lately, I've been having a great time interviewing some rising stars in the business world for my column in Inc. magazine. They are people who are on their way up who have achieved a lot thus far but are not quite household names yet.

Rising stars can provide insights for those who want to make a similar climb in their career and aren't sure what moves to make first. I also believe that people can often relate to a rising star better than to an established megastar.

However, some writers and editors have criticized me for taking this approach with my column. They have told me things like, "Nobody wants to read an interview with someone they have never heard of, and by doing so you are damaging your brand as an Inc. columnist."

They suggested that I should be going after interviews with bigger names. Of course, every blogger would love to get interviews with big-name stars. However, it is not that easy.

You have to network your way up by taking advantage of powerful social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, beBee, and Facebook. It was indeed my interview with up and comers that led to the connection to Mark Cuban.

To quote my colleague, Chris Spurvey, author of the book It's Time to Sell, "… at any given time you're only one connection away from a breakthrough."

Here’s an example of one of the pieces I did on rising star entrepreneurs that caught the attention of Mark Cuban’s team and prompted them to reach out to me.

How to Be a Successful Entrepreneur Before Finishing High School

My interviews with rising stars have received thousands of page views and social shares. If I would have listened to the so called experts that were telling me that nobody wants to read these types of interviews, I'd never have landed the interview with Mark Cuban.

My interview with Mark Cuban and team.

Before hitting a grand-slam in your career, make sure to get some solid base hits first. For me, interviewing rising stars have been the base hits that enabled me to stick around in the game long enough to hit a grand-slam.