Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, is a happy man after his basketball team decisively won last night. At the game, I noticed that Mark did not wear the the jersey of his opponents or a Dallas Cowboys hat for that matter. However, the American Airlines Center was packed with fans who wore Mavericks clothing, painted their faces or bare stomachs in team colors, and cheered almost nonstop throughout the game. Mark’s laughing all the way to the bank because of it.

Don’t get me wrong. I like a good game and enjoyed watching the Mavericks beat the Golden State Warriors. But I’d love to have clients wearing my colors and showing the same team fanaticism for my business.

How about you?

And whose brand do you wear in public?

I can understand Mark Cuban, Dirk Nowitzki, and Jason Kidd wearing Mavericks’ clothing last night. Each has a monetary incentive to promote their own team. Yet the typical fan decked out the same way last night wasn’t supporting “his” team — he was supporting someone else’s team. What a lost opportunity cost.

Always looking for new business relationships, I’d have been thrilled if the person sitting next to me wore a shirt or cap letting me know he was a certified public accountant (CPA) because it is tax time, or an orthodontist because my kid needs braces.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s a time and a place to promote other brands. For example, I often promote products and services sold by my clients (you’ll see promotion for some of them on this blog). But that’s because of a real world relationship that exists between us. Until Mark Cuban hires me to be his Internet lawyer, there’s simply no incentive for me to promote his team because I’m not part of it.

To be part of a team is a great feeling. But let’s stick to reality. Unless you’re doing business with your favorite sports team or its owner, there’s really not a relationship there for you to promote. Far better for you to show up wearing a shirt with your business logo and one of your customer’s ball caps at the next event than to pay to wear the jersey of a team that doesn’t really know you even exist (whether or not you show up with your face painted in team colors).

What are your thoughts?

Do you promote your brand everywhere you go?

How about promoting your customers’ brands?

If so, how do you do it?

About the Author

With an advanced international law degree from Georgetown University and more than 14 years of real world legal experience, Attorney Mike Young shows entrepreneurs how to protect and grow their businesses online. He's the author of "Internet Marketing Legal Secrets Revealed," "How to Create Your Own Internet Business Without a Lawyer for Under $175," and the creator of Website Legal Forms Generator^TM. Not just a lawyer who focuses exclusively on Internet and marketing law, Mike’s been working with computers for more than 27 years (his first computer was an Atari 400 with 8 KiB RAM) and started representing Internet businesses back in 1996.