#725: Barbara Corcoran — How She Turned $1,000 into a $5B+ Empire: PR Stunts, Sales Techniques, Critical Early Wins, Fighting Trump, and Becoming a Real Estate Mogul｜The Tim Ferriss Show

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Lead to Paris show.

Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs.

This is Tim Ferris.

Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris show

where I interview world-class performers

to deconstruct how they do what they do,

to tease out the things that you can use.

My guest today is not only incredibly successful

in her various endeavors,

she is absolutely hilarious.

And I burst out laughing a lot in this conversation.

I had a blast.

I think you will enjoy it as well.

Barbara Corcoran.

Barbara Corcoran has been an investor slash shark

for the past 15 season on ABC's

four-time Emmy award-winning show Shark Tank,

investing in more than 100 businesses to date.

Even more impressive to me,

she is also the founder of an eponymous real estate company,

the Corcoran Group,

which she started with a $1,000 loan

after leaving her job as a waitress in New York City.

You've seen this name everywhere.

It's on signs, buildings, all over the place.

Over the next 25 years,

she would parlay that $1,000 into a $5 billion real estate

business and we get really deep into the weeds

about early decisions, critical inflection points,

and oh my God,

some of her stories are just incredible.

Barbara is the author of the National Best Seller,

Shark Tales, how I turned $1,000 into a billion dollar business

and host of the top business channel on Patreon,

Barbara in your pocket,

which provides exclusive content created

for entrepreneurs at every level.

On Patreon, Barbara will dive deep into the topics

most important in business today,

given inside look at how she runs her business

and works with her Shark Tank companies

and join members live to answer their toughest questions.

You can find Barbara on TikTok,

on Instagram, LinkedIn, all Barbara Corcoran,

and you can find Barbara in your pocket at patreon.com slash

Barbara Corcoran, without further ado,

please enjoy this very wide ranging,

meandering, hilarious, and also very tactical

and strategic conversation with Barbara Corcoran.

So I thought we would start Barbara with your fake funeral,

because I would love to know for your seven year birthday,

how did you decide to have this funeral rehearsal effectively?

How did that happen?

It was a competition with my friends.

I overheard two friends were planning a birthday party

for me as a surprise, and they didn't know I knew,

but I don't like surprises.

I like it when I give the surprise.

So I immediately kept thinking,

I'm gonna surprise them.

I'm gonna surprise them with my own surprise,

and I want to give it some thought.

I tried to think of the most absurd things,

and the most absurd thing was to kill myself

and have my own funeral.

It just seemed like the right thing to do,

because I knew it would have great shock value,

and I loved shock people.

You do love shock value.

So I planned it, but I took out the two other good friends

into my confidence, who could keep a secret.

So we switched the party.

They thought they were waiting for me to come into the house

upstairs in my apartment.

It was a great memory of it,

and I was really downstairs waiting in the coffin.

And then my good brother told him,

hey, she's coming downstairs, hurry down the stairs.

They all came charging down the stairs.

I guess I had 85 people there.

And they walked into a funeral.

I mean, if it had ended there,

I would have been satisfied, because the guests were,

I could hear my eyes close.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, they really thought I was dead.

And then they came up and paid my respects,

and I had the rabbi give the last rights

or whatever he does in the Jewish faith,

and the minister, they were both phony friends,

but they were dressed for the occasion.

And I got to hear what everybody said about me

before I was dead.

And I thought, I'm probably the only person on earth

who actually is hearing about it before I'm dead.

So I loved it.

And I had a beautiful gown.

I looked apart.

I was gorgeous.

And so my final day was really a beautiful day.

And I think there was, am I making this up

that you hopped out at one point

and then started dancing the tango?

Is that right?

Something like that.

Yes, of course.

Of course, the tango.

I had taken lessons.

I had taken lessons for four weeks.

I had a beautiful gown with a tall slit red.

I looked gorgeous.

And when I kicked my leg up, I had practiced that move.

I could kick my leg and hop right out.

And then we started the dancing.

And that was a dance party.

We had a ball.

Incredible.

You really seem to have a knack.

And obviously an enthusiasm for shock value.

And PR stunts getting press has been a superpower

and in the early stages of your business,

certainly that was the case and continues to be the case.

Where does that come from?

In the reading and research that I did,

I couldn't quite figure out if that was you

out of the box as a little kid.

Where did that interest in buzz and PR

and the knack for that come from?

Honestly, from my dad, you hadn't met my dad.

You would have known that.

He was the king of fun.

He worked two jobs his whole life.

So he killed himself for his family.

But on Saturday and Sunday, he was up playmate.

And he would think of the most irresponsible things

to do with us.

We had 10 children.

And he was the most popular dad in the whole town

because he would put us on a wooden ladder,

shove us down the side yard,

over retaining wall into oncoming traffic.

He thought that was exciting.

And it was surprise you didn't have your future earlier.

Yeah.

But he would put a twist on everything

that would just make everything fun for us.

So I realized the importance of fun.

I mean, people just don't have enough fun.

I'm sure everybody's most fun friend.

And I like that because I think it's so worthy

to introduce fun and joy and memories

into people's lives, whether you're at work

or whether you're at home.

I think about it afterwards.

Like it's so much satisfaction out of it.

Even some days, I think to myself,

well, if I died today, I'd be happy

because I really had a good time last night.

But I didn't plan on dying.

And as I was trying to deconstruct,

let's just say the first five, ten years of your business,

and we're going to talk about things that preceded that too,

the 22 jobs and so on.

And I'll just bounce around

because it's my curiosity to them chasing here.

But your ability to story tell,

it strikes me that you're very good at people,

you're very good at systems.

You're also very good at positioning and storytelling.

Is that also from your dad

or is that was that a trained or learned skill

on some level?

That's an Irish trait.

It's called Irish bullshit.

Talk to any Irish.

You can usually throw it around.

I don't think that's a special trait at all.

But why I like stories is people remember stories.

You could lecture, you could share experiences,

and people will like it for the moment.

But they won't repeat them, nor will it resonate with them.

Just like the old Indians probably sat around the fire

and told stories, same kind of thing.

And also I was in the sales business, remember.

And in sales, telling a good story is powerful.

The PR that I did for my real estate company

were all stories, creating a story

that people would be curious about to pull them in.

And so it always had a great spectacular beginning

or a hook.

I always used to think, what hook could I use?

And then I would develop the story quickly.

And that's why I also think I did so well

with the press building my business

because of the storytelling.

What were some of the hooks or early wins

in the press for your business?

Because in the beginning, my understanding is,

you're basically competing against this old boy network,

but they're complacent.

And they're accustomed to doing the things the way

their father or grandfather did it.

And so you had certain advantages in terms of speed and so on.

What were some of the early wins in terms of press

or early hooks that you used that seemed to really work

in the beginning chapters of that business?

There were so many hooks, little hooks, big hooks,

some that didn't make money immediately,

but wound up making money and some that made

a lot of money really fast.

I think probably my first stunt was when I got my first

big listing, which was, I don't even remember

who owned it now, some famous guy had a ton of money.

And he owned the top floor.

He had his cell, the pen house of the Galleria.

Oh, Stuart Mott, that was his name,

Mott Apple source, lots of money.

Nobody could sell the damn thing.

It was too big, too expensive.

It wasn't even attractive.

And he had cows on the roof.

So he thought the story might be that we have cows

grazing on the roof, which could have been,

but what the story I developed was,

I figured out what the maintenance was for night.

And I asked him how often he slept there,

because rich people have multiple homes.

He said, three nights, maybe four nights.

And I divided the maintenance by that.

And my headline was, living this apartment,

and the picture was all over the place.

It will only cost you $80,000 a night

to put your head on the pillow.

And people were fascinated.

People would spend that money.

I think right after that, I didn't

got a very good listing because of that,

because one thing leads for another

in a real estate business.

And I got the Guggenheim mansion.

Nobody could sell it.

It had never been touched.

It was a dump.

A real dump in the most expensive block in town.

I couldn't even get anybody to see it twice.

And so then I discovered a safe in the basement.

I said, what's in that safe?

And they said, we don't know.

We haven't opened it.

So I invited the today show to come over for the opening.

And they filmed it.

And we opened it.

And there was nothing in it, but who cares?

There was so much suspense about it that I sold it

within a week.

We had so many celebrities come to see it.

They just were enamored with it.

That's a story.

Those are early hits.

And then I just started turning out any kind of bullshit.

I could think of really.

And people usually went for it.

One of the most fun things was when the boards in New York,

the Stubby Boards announcer were going to interview dogs

before they let them into the building.

I thought it was reposterous.

But the very following day, I had all my salespeople

bringing the dogs to Central Park.

I invited the New York Post.

And I taught dogs how to shake hands, like 500.

And it was a great picture.

So I knew people would go for it.

Did that sell apartments?

No, but I put my brand in front of everybody's face

and made the old boy network go crazy, which

was not my reason for doing things to compete,

to show them that I could think of things

I could never think of, you know?

Definitely.

And as one of 10 kids, I've heard in other interviews

that you've mentioned, you learn how to compete.

And you learned a lot of social dynamics in that environment.

And I've been trying to study what differentiated you

from your siblings in the sense that what

really contributors to your later success,

one certainly seems to be your experience with dyslexia.

Are there other experiences or innate differences

that you feel really differentiated,

ultimately the trajectory that you took from your other siblings?

Not innate, I don't think.

But taught or brought out by my mother, definitely.

My mother would decide what each child's gift was.

And we had a role in the family.

So we weren't just 10 kids doing the same thing.

We all had a job.

My job was to entertain everybody.

My mother said I had a wonderful imagination.

I could think of games.

She would always push me like that.

With chalk was in my hand, not in a sibling's hand.

The rainy days I was in charge of entertaining the kids.

So I think my mother's belief that I was very creative.

And she always told me, you're so creative,

you're so creative, you're so good, you know, which do,

I think that gave me the role that I got.

And then I practiced.

I mean, not every day of my life,

but constantly I had to entertain kids.

And so I think I just grew up with great confidence

that I had the ability to do that.

Because I could do it really well.

I mean, if you were to walk into Edgewater, New Jersey

when I was eight years old, nine years old, 10 years old,

every kid in the neighborhood was playing in front of my house

on the street because I was able to draw extravagant

snail games that went on for like a block and a half

to win the game.

I'd go for a block and a half with the traffic going by.

What is a snail game?

What type of game is that?

I don't know if I invented it, honestly.

I don't remember how it came to be.

It's like a very sophisticated hopscotch board.

Instead of having a straight line,

I made it in circles, wounding, wounding, wounding, wounding.

You couldn't see where you're going.

And on certain spots, I had two feet,

another spot I had one foot,

then another spot I had two feet, one hand, another spot.

I had no feet, I had a really jump to get over it.

And I always use different colored chalk

and it made it exciting.

So people would cheer for the kids.

It entertained us for years, my snail games.

And if it was a rainy day, I would make board games at home.

And my brother to this day says,

I wish I had those board games.

I would have made it fortunate if I had to produce them.

I said, I don't think they were that good, Tom.

Let's see what I'm going to do.

But my mother was responsible, definitely.

Mom's a powerful creature, as you know.

Very powerful.

They can make you.

My mom was a maker.

Thank God, God bless herself.

And it seems like that would also be

on some level tremendous confidence builder

in combination with starting work as early as you did.

School being difficult with the dyslexia,

then building confidence through work.

If we look at that period of work

before you start your company,

and I guess there are 22 or some odd jobs,

I've heard you discuss service jobs,

waitressing before, and I worked in restaurants

for a long time as a kid, bus boys.

Then you know.

I think everybody should do it.

And I'm curious if you could maybe take a second

just to say what was so critical about

that particular job in terms of what you learned,

but also what second place might be.

So outside of the waitressing,

in terms of learning,

things that contributed to your later success,

is there a second place type of job

that really helped you?

I don't even think of it as first second place.

Honestly, every job I had,

I learned something new on,

and that's what I wanted to do.

I don't think consciously,

but my first job, when I was 11

as a playground supervisor,

not a very big job, no doubt,

but I watched four kids in the morning

for three hours and played on the playground.

But I'm thinking this town is filled with poor kids.

Where are the kids?

So I took my kids,

and I sent a letter to the Bergen Evening Record,

the local paper,

and I said, we have kids here coming for breakfast.

Breakfast was Barbara, I titled it.

Breakfast was Barbara, I was 11.

I had to have somebody else write it for me

because I couldn't write,

but I sent it out to the reporter

and they sent a camera down.

And after breakfast was Barbara was in the Bergen Record,

I had close to 40 kids show up every day.

And I realized my very first job,

the power of the press,

I never forgot that,

but sales jobs, I learned so much in talking on my feet.

I learned I could talk to people.

I could get them to see things away, I saw them.

So I would say,

imagine if you had this granny dress

at Shwite's department store,

imagine if your kids had,

they could play household day,

they could blah, blah, blah,

and people would see it through my eyes.

And they'd buy one.

I learned everything in my jobs,

nothing at school, not a damn thing at school,

but I learned everything in my jobs.

And I found my confidence there.

And I also found out what I wasn't good at.

I wasn't good working for a bastard

if there was a really mean, cheap boss.

I quit after a while,

you know, I just wouldn't take it.

I was no good as a secretary.

I couldn't type even I lied to get the job said I could.

I couldn't take Stenowell even I said I could.

I would get fired.

And so I really learned that I had a narrow piece

that I was good at selling, hustling, and PR.

You know, I got that early,

how lucky you are when you have jobs as a kid,

how lucky you are to hustle and get your real education.

That's the real life, you know.

For sure.

I would add another superpower

in so much that I've seen of you and heard and watched.

The one thing I have never seen,

and maybe I've just missed it,

but I have never heard you take a victim perspective.

And I have heard, you say, for instance,

that the difference between successful people

and others is how long they spend

feeling sorry for themselves.

So true.

I also heard you say,

and I'm paraphrasing here.

So if I get it wrong, please crack me.

So far you're right, Jim.

You are at your best when you're being

talked down to by a man or something like that.

Definitely.

And I would love for you to perhaps tell the story

of your 51% partner in the founding of the company,

but also I'm so curious where that resilience

and ability to reframe what other people

could take as victimization and turn it into something

to your advantage.

Because I've seen that over and over again in your story.

It's such an important part.

I mean, recovering from failure in my book

is 95% of life.

If you're going to have a good life,

you better be really good at getting back up

like a jack in the box.

Boom, boom, boom, just get back up, get back up.

I think I got that honestly by being dyslexic.

Because when you're the kid in class that's dumb,

you're a failure by anybody's standard.

And you constantly put down or look down on.

And I was embarrassed.

I learned shame in the classroom terrible thing for a child

to feel like a nobody just because they

don't have a certain skill set.

But that definitely taught me about I had to go to school

every day.

I had to go back and sit there and hope

they didn't call on me for reading, whatever.

And I got used to being a loser like that

and getting back up and just I just had to go to school.

So I got early training in that area.

And I also learned from running sales

for you in my whole life, that really

was the only difference between the superstars

that I had making $2, 3 million a year

and people made an average of $45,000, which was the norm.

How does a superstar do it?

I became a student of that.

I used to think it was connections.

I would hire for that.

Work ethic, I would hire for that.

Who did they know?

In real estate, high price real estate, I would hire for that.

And then I realized that's just a starting gate.

It gets you any easy.

But when it comes down to how well you get back up

and how long you take to feel sorry for yourself,

they drove me crazy too.

But I admired my superstars so much

because of that ability.

I could see them like, you could punch them around.

They go, ah, that's a back up.

And so I learned from them too, you see?

But I don't know if I answered your question too.

I think I got a little lost in that answer.

I think you did answer it.

And I think we'll probably end up expanding on it

a little bit.

To give an example from earlier, would you mind

describing the founding of the company

in your business partner and how that came together

just to give people a little bit of context

if they don't have it?

Yes, of course.

I was way tristing when I was 17 at the Fort Leigh Diner,

which was above my house, a middle class town,

which I thought that was a rich town.

But it's really just middle class, like a Pharisee.

And one night, a man walked in, and I looked at him.

He had olive skin, jet black hair, aviator shades on.

He couldn't really see his eyes and a real suit on.

I had never seen a man in a suit in my life.

Until that night, nobody wore suits

even into the diner, but dinner.

I looked at him and I thought,

I'm going to lose my Virginia and want to look.

I knew I was going to lose my...

Yeah.

And I did that month, and I knew it would be within the month.

But anyway, his name was Ramon Simone,

and he convinced me after a month of driving me home at night,

which my parents didn't like at all.

But he convinced me to go to New York City.

He said, with your personality, you should really visit the city.

I'm going to pay for a week at the Barberson Hotel for women.

I had never heard of that.

What is that?

I had never visited New York City.

It was the only hotel left in New York

that only leased rooms to women.

No men were allowed.

So it was respectable.

It's now a Reebok club, of course, many years later.

My mom accused me of being a prostitute.

I was... Your mom did?

Oh yeah.

Let a man pay for your hotel,

and I was going to New York City and leaving our home.

Oh, not a good thing.

But he gave me $100 to buy my first New York outfit,

and then I was wondering if my mom was correct,

but she still wasn't, I could tell.

I was just taking the 100 to get a new outfit.

But let me make a short story of that.

That's so boring. The key part is he gave me the $1,000

to start my business,

and he said he would take 51% of the shares,

and I would take 49% because he was the founding partner,

and I was the operating partner.

And I said, it sounds like a deal,

and off I went running.

About seven years later,

when we had a rental business we had,

I think 14 agents at the time,

renting apartments all around Manhattan.

He came home one night,

and I was making pacifers three kids

who I became their mom,

and he said, I'm gonna marry a secretary.

I'm like, couldn't believe it.

I thought I was hearing things.

That bitch, I thought in my med, but I said, Tina.

And they were married within seven months,

and it just broke my heart,

but more than broke my heart,

it really broke my confidence,

because remember, you had found me at a diner,

he had taught me I could have my own business,

he loaned me the money,

he took me out of my hometown,

he was a man 10 years older than me,

he knew this way around the world.

So all of a sudden that's gone,

my legs would take it, I'd remember me.

And I thought I couldn't live the year almost,

is how I felt at the stupid time.

What a waste of energy.

Anyway, just about a year later,

I think I was finished off on a Thursday,

watching Ray and Tina in my old office together,

holding hands and making eyes, it broke my heart.

So the very next morning I arrived

and I said, we're ending the business today,

Ray, we're gonna cut it in half.

I said, you pick the first person,

I'll pick the second until we have them cut.

And five minutes later, I took my seven people,

and I said, guess what, on Monday, we're gonna move.

Ah, where?

It's a surprise.

And it was a surprise.

But in the most days Tim, honestly,

you could get a phone installed on a weekend,

a great advantage,

mob belt came on that weekend and stole phone lines.

I had a landlord who rented me the 11th floor,

which was just like our previous eighth floor.

So I had a space to open it.

And I was able to buy all my desks down on 42nd Street

and the guys ran it up to the town, put it in place.

It was a different world,

but on Monday I was open for business.

And that was the Corcoran Group.

That was the first day of the business.

And I named it the Corcoran Group

because I knew with my cash physician

and acumen I was gonna need a lot of help

from the group to make it to the finish line, you know?

So I'm gonna pick up on that very briefly,

but I have two follow-up questions.

One is related to the landlord,

but before I get there,

I was listening to Diary of ASEO, your interview on that show,

which was excellent.

Thank you.

Absolutely. It was a very vulnerable, very powerful,

and one thing stuck out to me that I wanted to ask about,

and maybe it'll be a dead end,

but when you were describing the, I don't wanna say,

betrayal, maybe that's a strong word,

maybe it is an appropriate word.

It's life.

Yeah, it's life.

But what you said that struck me is,

I don't blame him, something like that.

And I wanted to ask you if you meant that,

or if you could say a little bit more about that.

And this comes back to the,

my perception that you very rarely take the victim perspective,

you use it in some way.

And I'm curious what you meant by that

when you said I didn't blame him.

Well, you have to realize Tino was five years younger than me.

I was 30 when he left me.

Tino was 25 or so prettier than me, much prettier.

Had long blonde hair.

She was far more feminine than I ever was,

and she was quiet, and she'd dored Ray.

So how could you blame them?

They fell in love.

They had three children together after they were married.

I mean, they were clearly in love,

but I couldn't blame him.

I mean, I would have fallen in love with Tino myself

if I was Ray.

Probably wouldn't have helped him out the door, you know?

No, I didn't have a grudge, honestly.

I was tremendously hurt as we all are when we rejected.

And I was at the age where I was thinking

I should start getting serious about marriage,

but I didn't have anybody.

So I was, you know, I had that moment where I was hurt,

but I didn't blame him, no.

He did the right thing.

He did me a great favor.

Without him, I wouldn't have gotten started.

Probably I would have found some other sucker

to give me a thousand dollars, I don't know.

But he was there the way one that did it.

You were a good at spotting talent,

and we're gonna come back to that point.

What do you think it was that Ray saw in you?

Enthusiasm.

What type of enthusiasm?

There's so many different species of enthusiasm.

I was a happy girl.

I saw the bright side of things which I have always done.

My whole family was pretty positive, you know?

I had good positive role models,

but I was highly enthusiastic, very talkative.

It wasn't my first job,

remember when Ray met me.

He couldn't look at me and realized

I had been working since 11.

And I was comfortable on my skin.

I was flirting you with the guys at the counter

to get the bigger tips,

because that's how you get bigger tips.

I knew the role, so to speak.

I looked like a young girl.

I wasn't so young inside.

I think he saw me as a fresh, happy person who wasn't shy.

And I made him happy.

He was a bit of a nature verb, himself.

Yeah.

A little bit of darkness in him that I didn't have in myself.

Yeah, so he wanted something to offset that,

to counterbalance it.

Yeah, we're pretty opposite.

We're pretty opposite in that way, yeah.

The landlord you mentioned to, I guess,

gave you a floor.

Was that, and I might get the pronunciation wrong here,

but was that Johnny Campagna,

or was that someone else?

That was John H. Campagna.

There we go.

John H. Campagna.

He did it out.

He always pointed that out.

Yeah, John Campagna.

Now, the hands, they hand some, man.

Wow, is he handsome?

So how does he fit into the story?

He did me a great favor.

I had two roommates on EC6 Street,

and I was operating my first business out of my apartment.

As so many people do.

It's another story I won't go on a different road.

But I got lucky in that somebody called me one day,

and I could smell the person on the phone

wasn't who they said they were.

I could just feel it.

And as it turns out, that lady posing as a customer

represented the largest relocation company in New York.

And I've sent something, and I gave her a dog and pony show

all day, like the perfect age in New York.

And she fell in love with me, and she gave me all her business.

She said, you know, I'm not who you think I am.

I said, oh, really?

I knew she was somebody else.

And then she started shoveling me business.

So as a result of that, getting back to John Company,

John H. Company.

She started shoveling all these young people from Citibank,

young guys.

And I would meet them in my apartment,

show them apartments.

I'd come to 86 Street.

That was like turning over pancakes.

They were coming so fast at me.

And so I was show them apartments.

I had my routine raking in the commissions.

And that was going on probably for three or four months.

And then Mr. O'Rawke, the super reported me

to Mr. Company of the landlord

that he had a prostitute in the building.

And I get it because I had spent my first check

on a brand new code at Bergdorf Goodman's,

my first commission check, three and four dollars.

And I looked like a fancy lady.

I knew it.

And so I got a Viction Procedure.

I found a note on my door, you know, big red print.

They put it really a public embarrassment.

Viction notice for prostitution.

But why I say it was a favor.

I knew I had paid my rent.

I knew I was quiet.

I knew what I thought it maybe was a mistake.

But then when I thought about it,

I bet he thinks of a prostitute

because all the guys in the apartment all the time.

So I went and visited him in his office.

And he was very buttoned up.

Did not like me when I walked in.

I explained that I was not a prostitute.

It took me a while to realize that talking to him.

You think I'm a prostitute?

I was almost a nun.

I'd be the last person to be a prostitute, you know?

That's how I was.

He was Catholic, fortunately knew what a nun was.

Yeah.

And then I explained to him how Mr. Jafuni

on the next spot on another Italian.

I did it on purpose was renting his apartments

like hotcakes.

What I knew, Mr. Campania had eight empty.

And I said, he's renting his apartments like hotcakes

because I was smart enough to tell him

to build a wall on the Elshapeliviarum

and call it a one bedroom and den.

So he's renting the same square footage as you

for $40 more a month

that you're getting on your plain one bedroom.

It was the idea I had for Mr. Jafuni

and I shared it with Mr. Campania.

He said, you have the listings on all my apartments.

I got it.

I didn't even think of it as a sales call.

I thought it was a defense call.

But I left that building.

He fired his agent who had worked with for years.

I can't recall his name now.

But I became his exclusive agent.

And that was the first real exclusive agency I got.

It was so easy with his list is

because I could get the city bankers in my apartment,

go in the elevator and rent them an apartment.

Easy, peasy.

So that was a fortunate happening.

Fortunate happening.

I didn't expect to lay in that way.

So then you end up with the founding of Corcoran Group.

After Ray and Tina.

Yes, exactly.

And you know you're going to need help,

but I would imagine it was perhaps challenging

to recruit in the beginning.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm wondering what the key was

to getting people you thought could be successful

to join your company in their early days.

What was the pitch?

What was the what was the trick?

I had a great gimmick, two great gimmicks I used.

When I advertised in the wanted ads,

I would never put position open a salespeople wanted.

That's what everybody put salespeople wanted, salespeople wanted.

I made my caption in double height.

I used up my lineage that way.

One empty desk.

Rare people want what they can't get, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

And so people would call on the one empty desk.

But I didn't say make high commissions.

I didn't even address the money piece.

I put join a company that's a lot of fun and cleaning up.

And having a blast, I just trimmed up our team that we had,

which was true.

I wasn't exaggerating on that.

But it brought in a lot of calls, okay?

Then when I was opening up a much bigger office

and needed to hire like 15, 20 agents at once,

I had even a better gimmick.

I put learn everything you want to know

about real estate career night.

It sounds common now, but then they never heard of career nights.

Nobody did them.

And then as the 40 people would come into my career night,

I had a pencil and one hand, a pen and the other.

And if they look good, I gave them a pen to sign in.

And then I dog and pony them, showed the made them fall in love with me,

putting on my charm in every way.

They all wanted to work for me.

And they call me the next day.

I'd say, if you have any interest, call me tomorrow.

And when they call, I would just see if they were in pencil and pen.

I know who I want to talk to.

So I would talk to maybe 30% of the people

that were at the career night and invite them in for an interview.

And then I would try to figure out if they have the capacity to sell,

which is no easy feat.

It's hard to recruit salespeople very hard,

very hard to recognize the talent that you need to do it.

Did you view being a woman in that business at that time

as an advantage, a disadvantage, a mixture of both?

How did you think about that if you thought about it?

I have to say, when I walked into my first real estate board of New York meeting

and didn't see a woman in the room of the business owners, I was a little intimidated.

But when I tried to talk to the sons of rich guys,

that's basically who the trade was owned by.

They didn't work very hard.

They were a cocky.

I spotted the cockiness.

And I knew I could be them at their own game.

It's a weird thing about cockiness.

It's a blinder, like, I'm cool.

I'm cool.

But they're never looking well hungry for other things.

I was desperate, not only hungry, I was desperate to even get a first sale into my bill.

It wasn't an advantage.

It wasn't an advantage because I could then walk into the rooms

and I always wore short red skirts with my jackets.

And I had great legs and I knew it.

And everybody would turn to look at it because a girl stood out.

You didn't have to be special.

You just had to be a girl and you were different.

But as competing with them, I never saw myself as a woman.

I never saw it as a disadvantage or a real advantage.

I saw myself as a competitor, just a competitor.

And boy, if they treated me badly or spoke down to me or didn't give me any credence

that I could possibly make it in their world, they thought I was a passer by her.

I would say to myself, you just wait, I'm going to become your biggest rival.

I knew that right from the beginning because I was very competitive by nature.

And I hated the insult.

It was like sending me back to the second grade where the kids were laughing at me.

It was too raw.

Even though I was much older, it was too raw.

And so it fired me up.

It was the best thing in the world.

If I had walked into a world of women or competing also, all being good, I don't think I would

have been very successful.

I think the men helped me.

I just had to show them what I was doing or would learn what I was doing.

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So you had this attitudinal advantage, right?

I mean, you had this competitive drive.

Tim, let me stop you for a minute.

I have to say you are a wonderful interviewer.

Thank you.

I am shocked at how much you know about me.

It's almost intimidating.

No, really, nobody takes the time.

Good for you.

Over-repair for sure.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

I know I've never had before, but I add my compliment.

Thank you.

I really appreciate that.

I mean it very much.

Thank you.

I take it seriously.

I enjoy doing this.

And I also value your time.

So I appreciate it.

So you had this attitudinal advantage.

You had this competitive drive.

You also later became very well known for systems.

And I'm wondering as someone with dyslexia, what did you do differently?

Because you're in an information business on some level.

You're in a people business, but you have to handle listings.

You have to handle sure plenty of written material.

What types of rules or systems did you have in place for yourself so that you could

function at a high level?

How did that work?

I don't think dyslexia eliminates the ability to organize.

I don't know.

I've never read about it.

I got my organizational system for my mother who ran our two-bedroom house like a bootcamp.

Everything had its place.

Anything she had to repeat she made a system for.

If she had to polish a white box shoes to go to Catholic school in the morning, she

used thick paint brush and painted them on a radiator, turned the mowage dry, painted the

other side, and even painted the radiator white after a while when she realized it was

dripping on the silver radiator.

She painted it white to get rid of that problem.

Everything my mother approached, she approached that way.

So everyone in my family, my nine siblings and I grew up very organized.

Very organized.

We knew what organization was.

We were part of her system.

And so I made my sales people part of my system.

I just mimicked my mother in every way.

But as a dyslexic, you have a problem with numbers as you know and words.

So I didn't use them.

I had no numbers, no words.

I color coded everything.

I had color coded file cabinets, listing cards, one bedroom or one color, two bedrooms

or another color.

When everybody else in the industry had white, I had buttons on things that signified things.

I just did a visual organization of anything I touched, okay?

And even right down to the memos that went out to congratulate people, I didn't use words.

I found pictures and put them together and it would make them laugh, you know?

So but they got the message.

So everything was visually done and very much like my mother, if I had to do it twice,

I said, I'm not never going to do this again.

How could I repeat it and have it automatically in place?

Everything was automatic, everything.

It was really if you walked into my company, I'm probably most proud.

I shouldn't be most proud of it because it's systems.

How excited can you get about systems?

But I love them.

I was so proud of the company how well run it was because it was like, you'd swear like

a Nazi was running me.

I get very excited about systems.

So I surely, oh yes, very much.

I get very excited about systems and automating.

So as we have that in common, you have the automation for these repetitive tasks or processes.

You also have the Hutzpah and the talent of, say, driving the press and getting attention.

What other innovations in this industry really paid off in the early days?

Like the first handful of years of competing against these old boy networks where they

have committees and they have to get approvals, then they have the lawyers and so on and so

forth.

So the ways that you experimented and innovated in the first five years, let's just say,

if anything comes to mind.

I think it all comes under the umbrella of urgency.

If I thought of an idea on a Monday, I had on the street by Tuesday.

Big guys couldn't do that.

And if I thought of an idea, I asked myself, is anyone else doing it and no one else was

doing it?

I said, let's give it a shot.

And you know, you try five things.

One thing works.

Okay.

But I kept trying different things, different things.

There was a system in New York, which is unofficially still the system, even though people don't

really acknowledge it.

Where no one shared listings, everybody, choral listings kept the good ones for themselves.

Everybody in New York was signed up for that.

There was no MLS.

And I declared that we were going to start sharing all listings.

My salespeople almost killed me.

Why should we share nobody else's sharing?

Which you can understand because people will follow us.

Customers will like it and people will follow us.

Well, they didn't follow us.

It took two years before the customer has even caught on to it.

And then the real estate board of New York, all my competitors, I don't even know what

the motion is called, but they filed me at the real estate board to like in a virtual real

estate lawsuit without the money to stop me from doing business in the state because they

said I falsely advertised because I was advertising like crazy.

What I call central listing system because we had no MLS.

So I called it central listing system.

If you list with us, you will hit every broker in the community.

If you list your competitor, you'll hit 3%, which was true.

Well, they told me the way they interpreted was different.

They kind of thought that I was saying to everybody that they were no good, which I kind

of was, I guess.

But they all band against me and wanted to throw me out of business.

And that was ten U.S. was a rough time.

But that was something trying to do things differently that didn't pay off so good.

Really, if I had to do over again, I wouldn't have done it.

You wouldn't have done it.

No, not worth a hassle.

We can talk about all sorts of highlights and I do want to talk about some highlights.

But let's talk about briefly, homes on tape.

Could you describe your experience with homes on tape?

Yeah, was that good?

I made a juicy 1.225 million dollars in one day, three hours to be exact.

That was another idea they said I couldn't do.

Ha!

They were wrong.

It was no law against them.

I checked the law.

What I did was it was a terrible real estate market.

It was when interest rates in the early 80s, I think, the late 70s were 18 percent.

So no one bought real estate in New York.

Nobody would dare buy it unless they had all cash and very few people.

So I thought of this idea.

I copied it from a puppy sale that I went to was by mother.

I guess I won't give you that detail.

I'll tell you how I applied it to real estate.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,

wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,

wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,

wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,

wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,

wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,

wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait

I never expected her to make a sale, honestly, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did,

she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did

She did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did

she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did

She did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did, she did

I'm very important thing the reverse clothes the best clothes in the world for any business and it would start like this listen today. I'm going to show you a number of apartments. I don't expect you going to like all of them, but they all to be measured against one another. I'll show you a range of prices. So you see the value this way you're moving up from the prices that they had to have you would have like a 10% leeway. I'm going to show you all of this stuff. And I want you to promise me right up front you will not buy anything today. What do you want to do today? What do you want to do today? What do you want to do today? What do you want to do today? What do you want to do today? What do you want to do today? What do you want to do today? What do you want to do today? What do you want to do today? What do you want to do today? What do you want to do today? What do you want to do today?

You need to know I'm buying anything because I don't want you to be rash. Everything takes thought you should really buy something you love. And even if you think you love it today, you cannot buy it the same day because it might not really be a love affair. Promise me you won't buy anything. I would have customers calling me and I panting and begging me to let them buy something. You know, it's a routine, right? It's sales, you know, but every customer was happy with what I sold them. Every customer referred their business. So I knew I was doing good.

But making everybody happy wasn't like I was selling anything bad. I always believed in what I sold or wouldn't have shown it. I'm saying that because I don't want you to think I'm a bad person. No, I don't think you're a bad person. I mean, you've had very, very low, very low churn rate in your company and companies. And I don't think that for a second. I'm curious about the aftercare if you had any particular type of follow up like after you saw something to someone after you sell a home. Was there any type of call the day after kind of

protocol for that that you had within the company? Definitely. I bought a gift which was from the salesman because I want them to get the repeat business. Those are my men. You know, I need that. Always sent a gift. I always had a lovely gift that wasn't too expensive, but we were making money so I could afford it. And the most important follow up was the follow up. I made sure that every three months they got a postcard from the salesman, but it had my face on it, my brand on it.

I was saying, hello, I had cute little messages. Really hulky now that I look back at it, but it's unimportant. What was important is that I didn't have to open an envelope to find the message they had to see it. It was on a postcard.

And it had a rhythm to it. Always like a steady drip, a steady drip. So it was hard for them to forget us. I remember I learned this lesson. I didn't do it the first one or two years, but I was at Lincoln Center one day having a lovely dinner with a friend.

And I sat next to a couple and they were talking about moving and they're trying to recollect the name of the agent right there right next to me. And they would say, what was her name? Where did you wear but they had lived in this apartment like 15 years.

And I thought, oh my god, that's terrible. And I went right back and created the system to stay in touch with people because I saw what a loss it was. How much money did that mysterious agent lose that day? Probably a lot of money. They looked rich to me the way they were addressed.

I learned the lesson at her expense, which she was. Yeah, stay front and center in the mind of your customers. And what was the gift?

We varied it. We started I think with a calendar. Everybody used to calendar, but my face was on it. Pretty ego driven. Don't you think why somebody hung a calendar with my face on it? You're kind of pin up girl, maybe my face. Yeah.

But at least they see who I was. Then we said we did bottles of wine, we shall lay. It was that time of year and I's hearty red wine with a lovely handwritten note. I don't know what we did. We didn't do anything special.

But the fact of the matter is we did it. And a lot of people didn't do it. It was the cadence. It was the steady drip. Yes, it was really was.

So it's speaking of consistency. I've heard you mentioned that exercises your therapy, your very sharp, mentally, physically. What does your exercise routine look like? What has it looked like over the years?

Nothing special, but what it does have is consistency. And that's the key to any exercise. I don't think it matters what you do.

Okay, I've thought of taking up different kinds of exercises and never get to it. But I have four appointments with the trainer well before I could afford it. It should be the last person I give up if I was going to the courthouse.

A trainer that is at my door and I have no choice because of how to choice I would never work out, but there she is Margaret who's been with me like now 15 years. And I got to do it.

I was weightlifting stretching, cardiovascular, a little bit of that. I get away with this little as I can. I don't like it. I've never liked to day of training my life. I really don't like it. I love to give it up.

I heard my back is short while and she insisted on coming anyway. I'm like, don't I get a break?

But no.

I don't give it up, but you don't. So what do you get from the exercise? How would you explain that?

First of all, you have your own time. I have an hour just for me, splurging on me. It's all about me. And I don't ever have any time like that will make the time.

What I also get is relaxation. I run hot.

I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I

get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get

fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat. I get fat