Insight
Every major business breakthrough Corcoran achieved was catalyzed by an insult
“Because every one of my great successes building the business, the ones that were bellwether changes that I thought, wow, did that make a change? They were always a result of an insult.”
Insight
Corcoran: All business success or failure rests entirely on working with people
“All you needed to know is how to work with people, and that's all the business ever is. All the work I do today, it rests entirely, any success or failure, rests entirely on my ability to work with the people at hand.”
Insight
Barbara Corcoran: Effective marketing requires exaggeration and storyline acumen
“It's not a black and white game marketing. It's a softer side of things, right? It involves exaggeration. It involves an acumen for seeing what a storyline is, or what would capture people's interest.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Corcoran demanded $66 million for her firm because 66 was lucky
“Great. Come back when you get sixty-six million cash. And he said, why sixty-six million? I said, because it's worth it. And I hung up, and I said to my brother, John, just got twenty-three million. Think of that, John. Imagine us having twenty-three million d…”
Opinion
Corcoran believes founders from poor backgrounds have a much higher success rate
“I'm very biased. They have a much better shot at succeeding.”
Disclosure
Corcoran started her real estate empire with a $1,000 loan
“And Ray gave me the thousand dollars I started in my own firm.”
Opinion
Spending her first commission on a luxury coat built Corcoran's confidence
“I ran right over to Bergdorf Goodman's, and I blew it on a new coat And it was the smartest thing I could have done, because I dressed like a poor kid from Edgewater. Nothing looked, you know, I just looked not the part, but I bought the fanciest damn coat bro…”
Insight
Corcoran booked clients for full days so they couldn't see competing brokers
“If you could control someone's time, they can't go to anyone else. I would say, I'll pick you up at the Drake Hotel, it's now a new name, at nine o'clock, and be aware we won't be finished till at least five 30. This way you can't even entertain going with ano…”
Assertion Supported
Corcoran created NYC market reports because public real estate data didn't exist
“Remember, there was no public data of apartment prices, and in the vacuum of no numbers, I supplied a number, and they wanted to do a story on the bad market, and I put a label on it, how bad it was, right?”
Assertion Contradicted
In the 1970s, women dominated NYC real estate but men owned everything
“The whole business was 90% female. It wasn't like women were not in the real estate brokerage field. But it just happened that all the firms were owned by the men.”
Disclosure
Corcoran scaled her firm by instantly turning all spare cash into headcount
“Whenever I had spare money, I would divide it by an overhead monthly, figure out how many bodies I could afford, like a mother paying for their kids, and then I would go out and hire that many people. That's, it was a simple formula I never changed, and it was…”
Insight
Market stagnation kills brokerages much faster than severe market crashes
“Nothing is terrible for brokerage. A big seller's market is great because it's action. A horrible market is great because people have to sell. But in the beginning, when nothing happens, you go out of business.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Corcoran made over $1 million in net commissions in 90 minutes
“To see those apartments, and I'm telling you, an hour and a half, I had more than a million dollars in net commissions.”
What-if
Corcoran: Pitching Midtown corporate HR door-to-door saved early brokerage business
“If not for that, I don't think I would have stayed in business because I went door to door and knocked on all these corporate Personnel departments to try to get business. I saw where the traffic was coming from, and I had great accounts that fed their people …”
Assertion Supported
Corcoran: Co-founder Ray Simone held a 51% controlling stake
“No, he owned 51%. And That's how I found out the value of that one percent.”
Disclosure
Corcoran: Decided on day one to become queen of NYC real estate
“I remember answering that phone, sitting there, And thinking, I'm going to be the queen of New York real estate.”
What-if
Corcoran: Corporate bureaucracy would have killed the initial Corcoran Report
“Initially, if I had been a big company, and I'd run it by attorneys, vetting, committee decisions, it would have never gone out. The beauty I had as a little guy is I had the freedom to run it.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Corcoran: The Corcoran Group owed over $300k after 1987 crash
“Well, I was really on the brink of declaring that it was over, but I was ashamed in trying to make back the money I owed to various suppliers like my ad agency the New York Times, but I owed over 300,000 dollars.”
Insight
Corcoran: Rental deals provide faster cash flow than property sales
“That's what's beautiful about rentals. You don't have to wait for a sale closing.”
Barbara Corcoran