If there’s anyone who knows how to manage multiple businesses simultaneously, it’s Nick Cannon. The television host, actor, and businessman continues to disrupt the entertainment industry and find ways to keep millions of people engaged. Cannon was a guest speaker at the Black Enterprise Disruptor Summit, where he shared secrets about his creative process and things he’s learned along the way in his career.
Cannon personally spoke with rolling out about what it means to be a disruptor and tips for people trying to secure their first million-dollar investment.
What does it mean to be a disrupter?
A disruptor is honestly someone who wilds out. He kind of grabs the bull by the horns and makes his own way, that entrepreneurial spirit of not just taking the status quo or what society believes the way one should operate their business or their creative endeavors, and just doing it and figuring it out as you go, and where everyone else is zigging and you’re zagging, purposely making noise. When you make that noise, it’s purposeful noise.
Why is it important for people to know that they are a business?
Because you are your brand, whether it’s from the intellectual property or from the fact that that’s just the way the world works. Whether you like it or not, this is capitalism and you want to be at the top of the food chain as much as possible. If you approach life as a business, everything from even your personal endeavors, marriage is a business contract. Owning property, that’s a business. All the things that we desire … are all business propositions. The earlier that you can understand that you are your business the further you’ll go.
What would you tell someone selling their first million-dollar investment?
A million dollars ain’t enough. You have to know that. It sounds like a good goal, and it’s a nice and shiny number, but strive higher and desire more. Think and Grow Rich was written almost 100 years ago, and it’s public domain now, so back then with a million dollars, you were right there with Rockefeller. Now, with a million dollars, I forgot the exact statistic, but they were like, in the next decade for homeowners, the minimum home cost is going to be a million.
I say strive for more. Strive for $10 million, $100 million, a billion. Those are the businesses that if you really want to shake up things, you really want to be a disruptor, you have to strive for that. I remember making my first million dollars, and I remember losing my first million dollars. As soon as you make it, it goes away. That $1 million quickly turns into $500,000, and from there, how are your operating costs? You look up and before you know it, you have to make another million to suffice the last million.
What are three business tips people must know?
Be an outlier. Be unique in your process. If you see an empty space, fill the void. Be loud. Fill the void and be loud. If you do that, you’re going to be successful.
