There are similarities between responsible gambling and responsible business management. The only difference is that there is not a support group for people who recklessly loss a few million of a corporation’s money, eliminate a few hundred jobs, and end up unemployed and broke. Nor is there a support group for business people who invest their life savings in a business without ever learning how to run it.
Poker is the same. You cannot play a good game, and win consistently, unless you learn how to play poker using the fundamental rules of business. Examples:
The Best Hand Doesn’t Always Win
Many poorly managed businesses create millionaires while many hard working family owners struggle to pay their bills. The winner is the one who ‘knows their opponents.’ The opponent is always the person who has the money that the player wants.
A poker player does not need the best hand to win, they just need to know the people they are playing against. This can take months of studying Communication Styles, Personality Types, masking, lying, and body language. You need to use the same skills used by a good Real Estate Agent, or Ferrari sales person who is trying to convince someone to part with their money.
It Takes Money to Make Money
The rule of thumb in the business world is to continually turn 20% of your profits back into advertising. This money is lost. However, some day, you’ll suddenly have a windfall. A healthy company can afford to lose this money.
An investor works on the same principal. They only invest what they can afford to lose, and they always ad to their ‘stake.’ Poker players need to learn to invest only what they can afford to lose, and to always add a little to their ‘stake.’ This enables them to keep playing, even if they have a bad night.
Image Is Everything
In the business world, it is called branding. Professionals call it masking or creating a persona. Gamblers call it a Poker Face. This ability to convey only what you want can instill respect, confidence, and can hide your true intentions. The world’s best poker players, CEOs, and top sales people master the poker face.
Branding lets you bluff your way when the company is struggling, and get ahold of money that other people are barred from.
Failure to Plan is a Plan to Fail
The difference between a winner and a loser is their strategy. A good businessperson will not play another person’s game – they know they will lose. A good businessperson will never play a game they don’t know, especially if the stakes are higher than they can afford.
Here are a few fundamentals that both poker players and business owners need to learn before they try playing high-risk games. Poker Strategies have very little to do with the cards on the table. Instead, they involve strategies that play player-against-player, and increase the chances of playing successfully. If you want to be a pro player, or learn how to play in tournaments, then you need to know more than the rules of poker – you need to know how to ‘play the table.’
In the business world, the companies who engage in marketing and advertising have the best hand. Those with the least money to invest in the pot, often lose. Those who have money but refuse to gamble it, never win the big pot. And last, winners are not born. It doesn’t matter whether playing at a poker table or addressing a board room, winners become winners through practice and tenacity.
These are just a few things I learned as webmaster for www.win247.co.uk. I really understand now why they say that poker is a business.
