Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Big Money Energy, where
Speaker 1: we talk to super successful and self made people to
Speaker 1: find out exactly how they did it, how they went
Speaker 1: from nothing to something. I'm Ryan sit Heerhant and today
Speaker 1: I'm joined by one of the stars of a d C. S.
Speaker 1: Shark t, a best selling author and extremely successful businesswoman,
Speaker 1: Barbara Corkran. We discuss how growing up in a family
Speaker 1: but ten kids teaches you how to survive in a
Speaker 1: competitive business like real estate, why New York real estate
Speaker 1: will stay strong even in a down economy, and the
Speaker 1: golden ticket to building a successful company. Let's get into it.
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode. Nice to be here. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming in. You were, um, the first
Speaker 1: Corkoran quote unquote agent. Well, also the first Corkoran to
Speaker 1: come into our new office here. I have a thousand
Speaker 1: questions I want to ask you, and most of the
Speaker 1: people who work with me, especially a lot of the
Speaker 1: women who work with me, when they found out that
Speaker 1: you were coming in here on my phone. I've turned
Speaker 1: it off now so there's no issues. I could ask
Speaker 1: you questions for ten hours because they have so many.
Speaker 1: One of our agents, actually Rachel and San Francisco nearly
Speaker 1: jumped on a plane just so she could be here
Speaker 1: to meet you. I think you spoke at Barklay's a
Speaker 1: while ago when she was working on the trading floor there,
Speaker 1: and you changed her life. And I hear that from
Speaker 1: a lot of people, which is really really incredible. So
Speaker 1: good on you for doing that. Before I get into
Speaker 1: a lot of the real estate questions that I have
Speaker 1: UM and obviously shark tank questions and and everything that
Speaker 1: I think goes through my mind about you, I want
Speaker 1: to go back for a second because I have three
Speaker 1: sisters and two brothers. UM. I was born in Houston, Texas,
Speaker 1: grew up there, bounced around Long Island outside Boston Way
Speaker 1: before I ever came to New York, and I was
Speaker 1: basically the middle child at older city blings UM. And
Speaker 1: then I had my little baby brother, and so I
Speaker 1: had that kind of like I guess middle child syndrome,
Speaker 1: even though I didn't think I did when I was
Speaker 1: growing up. But you're one of ten curious what's a
Speaker 1: middle child syndrome. Middle child syndrome is like, is the
Speaker 1: kid in the middle who doesn't get all the attention
Speaker 1: because they were the first born and they're not treated
Speaker 1: like a baby because they're the last born. They're the
Speaker 1: one in the middle who like, okay did you eat,
Speaker 1: you ate? Okay, great, you're gonna live. Or you went
Speaker 1: to school, okay, great, you're gonna live. And so you
Speaker 1: have to figure out things on your own. It's a
Speaker 1: real I read about it once, I would think it
Speaker 1: would be the best position. I was a middle child.
Speaker 1: I knew it. See, I knew it. You get to
Speaker 1: be yourself, no expectations on the top or the bottom.
Speaker 1: It's terrific. Spot, dude, where you pushed a lot as
Speaker 1: the middle child, or their heavy expectations on you. Do
Speaker 1: you remember any of that from your brothers and sisters?
Speaker 1: Not at all. The way I saw it, I had
Speaker 1: an older sister on one side of me who protected
Speaker 1: me off from the top, and I had a younger
Speaker 1: brother on the other side of me, and he protected
Speaker 1: me from anything that was going to come from the bottom.
Speaker 1: I would never switch my my seat. But what's great
Speaker 1: about growing up with ten kids, which is an advantage
Speaker 1: to every child, I think, is you only have two
Speaker 1: parents to go around. You have ten kids who want attention,
Speaker 1: so you learn how to compete. Yes, and if I
Speaker 1: were to say one thing that prepared me for the
Speaker 1: real estate career that I enjoyed it was the ability
Speaker 1: to compete, and I learned it at home. And how
Speaker 1: did I compete. I became the most creative child, so
Speaker 1: I could put on every game on the streets that
Speaker 1: happen in our neighborhood, and I was in charge. I
Speaker 1: could open up rock stores and sell rocks. I could
Speaker 1: put on Broadway shows in the basement on rainy day.
Speaker 1: I could get my parents attention, and that was a
Speaker 1: huge advantage going into this crazy, wacky competitive business that
Speaker 1: we're both in. Don't you think that's a big part
Speaker 1: of being the middle child, because you're not guaranteed attention.
Speaker 1: I think that's a big deal. And for us in
Speaker 1: the real estate business, in the sales business, and the
Speaker 1: television business, all day long, I'm trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to get more attention from our clients. Are developers,
Speaker 1: are agents. The people were pitching, And as you say
Speaker 1: that about putting on shows and figuring out things to do,
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of all the times I got my little
Speaker 1: brother to do things with me, to perform in front
Speaker 1: of my parents, like magic shows, you know, we'd make
Speaker 1: little movies, and my little brother I had forced him
Speaker 1: to do it so that there always could be attention
Speaker 1: because I didn't. I didn't have the throwing arm. My
Speaker 1: older brother had the throwing arm. He was the quarterback.
Speaker 1: My little brother had the throwing arm, he was the pitcher.
Speaker 1: And then I was just in the middle left. And
Speaker 1: you're nicer than I because you shared the limelight with
Speaker 1: your brother at least. I was never that way. If
Speaker 1: any of my sibling student anything for me, like my
Speaker 1: sister marriaging made my bed every day. My students did
Speaker 1: my dish night. I never shared the credit. He was like,
Speaker 1: what do I do to get them to do the
Speaker 1: dishes for me? How my dish night? And all you
Speaker 1: had to do is compliment them when they were doing
Speaker 1: the dishes the night before. How do you do those
Speaker 1: dishes so well? So you were nicer sibling than I.
Speaker 1: You shared the credit, not for me. I was at
Speaker 1: to get the attention. Yeah, that's short and simple. So
Speaker 1: that competitive nature you you think you graduate college and
Speaker 1: you get into real estate. But one question I have
Speaker 1: because I don't know what the answer is, That's why
Speaker 1: I'm asking it is a lot of us I think
Speaker 1: who got into the real estate business. It wasn't our
Speaker 1: first choice. It was kind of okay, I could try this,
Speaker 1: let's see what happens, or do something else. Where would
Speaker 1: you be today had you not said, okay, I'll get
Speaker 1: into real estate. Who knows, Maybe I'd be a waitress
Speaker 1: still at before league dinner where I really Is that
Speaker 1: a real answer? Nobody? You never know. But I imagine
Speaker 1: I would own a chain of dinners today because I
Speaker 1: always thought I was smarter than my boss, that I
Speaker 1: could run the dinner a little bit better if only
Speaker 1: given the chance. But where would I be? I think
Speaker 1: I would have been in some kind of a career,
Speaker 1: making publicity and using my mouth to make a living,
Speaker 1: and probably advertising, public relations, maybe even politics, anything that
Speaker 1: I could swede people with my ability to sell, and
Speaker 1: you know as well as I do. If you can
Speaker 1: sell well, can pretty much enter any field and do well,
Speaker 1: because there's always a need for salesman in every spot.
Speaker 1: You know, when I say salesman, it sounds like it's
Speaker 1: not so important, but it's essential to every business. You
Speaker 1: can't sell a product of service, you don't have a business.
Speaker 1: So I think I would have just been leading something
Speaker 1: using my mouth to lead. And you've always been a
Speaker 1: good talker. I was a good talker outside of school,
Speaker 1: but in school I didn't say a word because I
Speaker 1: never had the answer. So it depended on the forum.
Speaker 1: But in my twenty two jobs I had before a
Speaker 1: star real estate, my gift in each of those jobs
Speaker 1: was I could talk. I could talk, yeah for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And why did you stick it out? I mean, I
Speaker 1: can't imagine your position in the nineteen seventies getting into
Speaker 1: the real estate business, which I was not around. Then
Speaker 1: you missed a great time. How did you muscle through that?
Speaker 1: Because I think people listening to this now they think
Speaker 1: things are tough now, but they don't know what it
Speaker 1: was like for you building your career and your entire business.
Speaker 1: What got you out of bed every day when you
Speaker 1: had a bad day or you lost agents, lost deals.
Speaker 1: I don't think I ever had the thought for a
Speaker 1: moment that I might fail. And the reason for it
Speaker 1: was I was so busy building that I had no
Speaker 1: time to give anything any thought. And much like a
Speaker 1: teenager that gets in trouble if the hands aren't busy,
Speaker 1: my mind was so occupied with building that business every
Speaker 1: day that I never had the thought that it could fail.
Speaker 1: There was one juncture where I actually, I guess I'd
Speaker 1: have to admit that I warmed up to the thought
Speaker 1: of going out of business. And I don't know what
Speaker 1: year it was, but nothing was going on. Two thirds
Speaker 1: of the competitors in New York City were down. I
Speaker 1: had no cash, I had no receivables, I had whining salespeople,
Speaker 1: and I actually thought of actually announcing the business was closing.
Speaker 1: I tried everything, but funny enough about adversity right popped
Speaker 1: into my head the one day, one price sale, and
Speaker 1: I made a million dollars one week later in two hours,
Speaker 1: selling eighty eight unwanted apartments at the same price to
Speaker 1: a line of people that didn't know they wanted to
Speaker 1: buy until they were going fast and boom. I opened
Speaker 1: another office that same week, as my competitors continue to
Speaker 1: go out of business. That was probably the only eleventh
Speaker 1: hour do rest I had, but thank god I did,
Speaker 1: because you never know what you're made of until the
Speaker 1: chips are against the wall. That's where you find your
Speaker 1: greatest courage, or you find your greatest graciousness to admit
Speaker 1: defeat one or the other. But you only have a
Speaker 1: black or a white way to go, And unfortunately, I
Speaker 1: thought of a creative idea, as I always thought somehow
Speaker 1: to save the day, so to speak. I created a
Speaker 1: market that everybody said was not there. And I must
Speaker 1: be honest, I was half surprised by myself. I thought
Speaker 1: it could work. It can't work, but let's get a shot,
Speaker 1: throw it against the wall and see what happens. But
Speaker 1: that morning, when I went around to a makeshift temporary
Speaker 1: office on eighty three Street and First Avenue and saw
Speaker 1: two hundred some odd people eating in line for apartments
Speaker 1: that nobody wanted the day before, my holy ship look
Speaker 1: at this, and uh, of course I was smart enough
Speaker 1: to have pre signed contracts and giants stacks that people
Speaker 1: walked in and say they're going fast. Nobody asked who
Speaker 1: signed those contracts? Are the real contracts? But there's something
Speaker 1: very alluring in the real sales concept in markets and
Speaker 1: markets that everybody wants what everybody wants, and nobody wants
Speaker 1: what nobody wants. So we took the nobody's and made
Speaker 1: them somebody, and everybody wanted them that morning. How did
Speaker 1: you convince the developer to do that sale? And to
Speaker 1: do that at those price points. I mean, I think,
Speaker 1: but all the developers I have now right where post COVID,
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on. There's and there's a mass
Speaker 1: oversupply of new condo inventory. You could see a lot
Speaker 1: of it from our window here in Tribeca. There's stalled
Speaker 1: projects left and rights, and I wish I could go
Speaker 1: to all of them and say, hey, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: We're gonna lower all prices to a million bucks a unit,
Speaker 1: down from whatever their schedule A prices are, and let's
Speaker 1: get it going. But they would have lender push back.
Speaker 1: It would say it would be tough. How did you
Speaker 1: do that? I'll tell you it's defeating you on it.
Speaker 1: If I might say, is your own limitation of things,
Speaker 1: it can't be done. There is a way. There's always
Speaker 1: a way. Um. What you have to appreciate more than
Speaker 1: anything in a terrible market is everyone's needy. And so
Speaker 1: the same guys that wouldn't be opened something a year
Speaker 1: before when things are rosy totally open. I mean, I
Speaker 1: had those units owned by Equitable Insurance, very powerful company
Speaker 1: in town at that point, financing the job along with
Speaker 1: Bernie Mendick, who was the biggest developer that day. But
Speaker 1: they had nothing to lose by trying something. They had
Speaker 1: nothing in hand, and Bank him nothing in hand, and
Speaker 1: Developer and nothing in hand. And so it was like, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: we're not lowering the prices. We're evening out the prices,
Speaker 1: because it doesn't make sense that people could grabble one
Speaker 1: bit and two bed in my studio at the same price,
Speaker 1: and once the two bedrooms one bedrooms go, believe it
Speaker 1: or not, if there's not enough to go around people
Speaker 1: who want the studios. And that's exactly what happened. There
Speaker 1: were level prices and you had to wait in line,
Speaker 1: and there wasn't enough to go around, and so they
Speaker 1: took a shot at it because what did they have
Speaker 1: to lose. All I asked them to do was to
Speaker 1: give me two years free maintenance because I needed a
Speaker 1: sales incentive. And why did they give me two years
Speaker 1: free maintenance Because they weren't going to sell those soccers
Speaker 1: for two years anyway, and they knew it, And so
Speaker 1: what was I really asking for. I was just taking
Speaker 1: the cards and reshuffling the deck. And they gave me
Speaker 1: a shot, and it worked, and it worked and they
Speaker 1: got out of trouble. I made a million, little boy
Speaker 1: a million. I made my million dollars plus and I
Speaker 1: was able to stay in business. Thank god. You've got
Speaker 1: to revisit your story here if you don't mind my saying.
Speaker 1: You could addit this out as you want, but you've
Speaker 1: got to read story. You had said on this one.
Speaker 1: Come on, look at everywhere I look, there's a problem.
Speaker 1: There's a problem you And I think if you were
Speaker 1: to ask the brokerage community in New York City now,
Speaker 1: they probably know us mostly for our out of the
Speaker 1: box ideas and creative thinking. We were doing auctions in
Speaker 1: the city by lowering prices to below cost numbers to
Speaker 1: freeze out the marketplace so that Street Easy would be
Speaker 1: completely useless, so that buyers wouldn't pay attention to other inventory.
Speaker 1: They would just say, Okay, well, now I got to
Speaker 1: see what's going to happen to sixty eight seven Street,
Speaker 1: because somehow that just went from twelve to six. Something's
Speaker 1: going on, let's see. We would then drive traffic that
Speaker 1: way and put the price up, and then inventory to
Speaker 1: started changing, and then it didn't seem as exciting anymore,
Speaker 1: so we change it up over and over and over.
Speaker 1: When did you open your second office because everyone's got
Speaker 1: there first. But when did you open your second The
Speaker 1: second office is the hardest office. I think I had
Speaker 1: fourteen offices when I sold. The second office is the
Speaker 1: hardest office. It was on the west side of one
Speaker 1: block from Z Bars, and it was the hardest office
Speaker 1: because I couldn't cut myself in half. I didn't realize
Speaker 1: until my second office that I was a power in
Speaker 1: the shop. I was a mother, I gave the love
Speaker 1: of I drove the people, and I couldn't jump back
Speaker 1: and forth between East Side and West Side. But it
Speaker 1: was also my opportunity to learn the greatest lesson in
Speaker 1: my life. That is, I didn't have to multiply myself.
Speaker 1: I had to find someone with talent, and I hired
Speaker 1: Barbara brian Uh sweetheart of a woman. On first glance,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't think she was a powerhouse. She didn't have
Speaker 1: my style, but she knew how to love people the
Speaker 1: way I knew how to love, and she nurtured those
Speaker 1: salespeople to become a force on the West Side within
Speaker 1: two years Latin and after that, I had the golden
Speaker 1: ticket to building a giant company. Find the talent and
Speaker 1: then build an office around them. I never opened offices
Speaker 1: and looked for talent. I'd stumble into anybody in any
Speaker 1: walk of life and think, you know what, they would
Speaker 1: be a great mom, It's the key to a successful
Speaker 1: brokerage office, and they would be great at judging people.
Speaker 1: And then I'd open an office around that talent. And
Speaker 1: that's how I got in many marketplaces, simply because I
Speaker 1: found the talent first and build the walls around them.
Speaker 1: How many agents did you have at that time when
Speaker 1: I opened that second office, Probably I don't really recall,
Speaker 1: probably thirty thirty five maybe, And the goal was just
Speaker 1: to physically be on the other side of town, because
Speaker 1: you needed to have that convenient office location. Not really.
Speaker 1: There was a common belief at that time which had
Speaker 1: been true, but I could see it was no longer
Speaker 1: true that people wanted east side, wanted east side and
Speaker 1: people one west side. We have territories in town of
Speaker 1: brokerage firms did one territory versus another, But I could
Speaker 1: see those markets blending, and I wanted agents that knew
Speaker 1: both markets and new one did, and so we crossed
Speaker 1: fertilized across the park basically, and we were able to
Speaker 1: take clients from the east to the west and show
Speaker 1: the more stuff. And even if they thought they didn't
Speaker 1: want Central Park West, when they came in for Park Avenue,
Speaker 1: we seld them Central Park West because they'd get a
Speaker 1: park few that they didn't get on Park. And so
Speaker 1: we built bilingual I should lingual whatever that where it
Speaker 1: is agents who could talk both languages for And then
Speaker 1: we did the same thing down the village. People said
Speaker 1: the village Martin was not a purchasing market. I saw
Speaker 1: very differently. It was delicious down the village, and so
Speaker 1: ho then Brooklyn early. I mean, it's just that people
Speaker 1: the customer change and the brokerage firms were the last
Speaker 1: ones to change their interpretation. And so we got ahead
Speaker 1: of the other firms because we listened to the customer
Speaker 1: and watch what their new habits were. And they were
Speaker 1: shopping everywhere. Not immediately, but little by little they started
Speaker 1: shopping everywhere. Today, you take the east side, west side, downtown,
Speaker 1: uptown Brooklyn. You've got to be versed in everything, as
Speaker 1: you well noticed, you so successfully do it. But in
Speaker 1: those days, no one believed that would happen. Since preposterous,
Speaker 1: but no one believed that would happen. It sounds so
Speaker 1: crazy now thinking about how you even sold real estate,
Speaker 1: then how would you generate leads? How would your business
Speaker 1: generate leads? At the time, was it mostly referral personal
Speaker 1: networking or people coming into the storefronts and going to
Speaker 1: the file cabinet. Well, initially we had no storefront and
Speaker 1: we were in whatever scrappy as we could possibly afford.
Speaker 1: We generated leads through advertising for them, and I had
Speaker 1: a simple ad. It sounds ridiculous because the New York
Speaker 1: Times Classified was the only billboard in town. There was
Speaker 1: no streets, no internet, nothing, and so the message was
Speaker 1: welcome to New York. And we trained people on that
Speaker 1: initial call how to be friendly. No one expected that
Speaker 1: from the city. We had friendly agents. And then the
Speaker 1: minute I could afford a corporate campaign, I relabeled my
Speaker 1: brokers the Power Brokers, but we took full page as
Speaker 1: out with them standing with their kids, the dogs, looking
Speaker 1: just like the people you'd like to hang out with. Okay,
Speaker 1: in Middle America more than New York City tough guy,
Speaker 1: and people broke into the image and they thought it
Speaker 1: would be nice to work with and they were right.
Speaker 1: We were great to work and we had nice people
Speaker 1: and they weren't eating alive, which is what people thought
Speaker 1: was going to happen when they worked as an agent.
Speaker 1: So we encountered intuitive to what people expected, and my
Speaker 1: agents were groomed to be those people that we put
Speaker 1: out there, which initially was kind of bullshit, eventually became true,
Speaker 1: right like ever reason does. It was the scariest part
Speaker 1: about owning your own business because something I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: when you said you didn't have time to fail reminds
Speaker 1: me of obviously that book in the Financial Crisis and
Speaker 1: Too Big to Fail. But I like that, and we
Speaker 1: I think we operate in the same way. It's you know,
Speaker 1: on the fifteen minute mark all day long, just go, go, go,
Speaker 1: go go. The faster you go, the more you do that.
Speaker 1: We just don't have time to fail. It's going to
Speaker 1: work out, and our backs are up against walls, and
Speaker 1: we figure out what those walls are every day. But
Speaker 1: was it that day that you thought the business might
Speaker 1: go under and you created that market or was there
Speaker 1: there ever a general fear that the real estate market
Speaker 1: might completely change and people not want to come to
Speaker 1: New York And I'm thinking about that obviously in a
Speaker 1: post COVID world. Now well, banish that thead because it's
Speaker 1: just never gonna happen that people want to come to
Speaker 1: New York. Of course, um, I know because I've lived
Speaker 1: through probably four dramatic cycles in the years I was
Speaker 1: building my firm. Uh And I can tell you that
Speaker 1: everybody in the end comes to New York. It's one
Speaker 1: of those towns because it's built on change. You think
Speaker 1: about the essence of the heart of New York City
Speaker 1: has change, that's the heart, and so you have to
Speaker 1: expect change. So I watched many groups of people leaving
Speaker 1: New York. Corporate America left New York. We've never had
Speaker 1: corporations in New York ever. Again, everybody bought you into it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Union Carbide went out, a few of the banks went out,
Speaker 1: and two years later they're back in h The Japanese
Speaker 1: are fueling on market, the highest prices in condo history. Left,
Speaker 1: The Chinese came home, scooped it all up. Okay, then
Speaker 1: they left, The Germans came in, and then the yuppies
Speaker 1: came in, and then though whatever, you know, if there's
Speaker 1: one thing you have to believe about New York, it's
Speaker 1: always here. The heartbeat of the city has changed without it,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't survive. It needs that flushing and flushing out
Speaker 1: all the time. And your markets fly up and down
Speaker 1: as a real stage and with it. But I saw
Speaker 1: that as an opportunity to make money because if nobody
Speaker 1: is changing, there's no deals. If it's a buyer's market,
Speaker 1: seller's mark up and down, there's always deals. There's always
Speaker 1: ability to make you six percent, which I know is
Speaker 1: diminished a bit today, but there's always an ability to
Speaker 1: make money. If you have changed, that's what you need
Speaker 1: a broker, no changing or new brokers. How did you
Speaker 1: leave your firm through those those recessions though you just
Speaker 1: said you went through four big market changes. As somebody
Speaker 1: who's leading a whole group with multiple offices and multiple
Speaker 1: other moms and people that are calling you every day.
Speaker 1: I know in the last time that we spoke, you
Speaker 1: mentioned a good part of your day was kind of
Speaker 1: nurturing your superstars. How did you keep the business excited?
Speaker 1: How did you keep people motivated when everyone was talking
Speaker 1: about how negative things are in the New York Times
Speaker 1: every day is saying how bad things are. I stay
Speaker 1: close to people to listen hard as to what they
Speaker 1: were most frightened about, and then I addressed those fears
Speaker 1: smacked between the eyes on regular sales meetings, no matter
Speaker 1: what was going on, I brought my people together and
Speaker 1: I told them the way I saw the future or
Speaker 1: short term future, what the greatest fears were, and I
Speaker 1: gave them my best advice to get over it. And
Speaker 1: I spoke from my heart because I didn't want to
Speaker 1: fool anyone or cheer lead anyone. I love this family.
Speaker 1: These were my kids. I found them, I groomed them,
Speaker 1: I supported them, and out of sheer love, I couldn't
Speaker 1: mislead them. And so they believed me. And that's cold inspiration,
Speaker 1: but not because it's trumped up, but because it was heartfelt.
Speaker 1: And so when nine eleven happened and the world thought
Speaker 1: that the city was going to be over brokerage wise,
Speaker 1: nobody was buying a thing, and most of downtown moved out.
Speaker 1: We couldn't get into show apartments. I collicked everybody together
Speaker 1: three days later at the Pierre Hotel and people were crying. Uh.
Speaker 1: People were so upset, and I told them they're about
Speaker 1: to witness the biggest market they had ever seen, which
Speaker 1: sound bizarre, but I believed it. I said everyone around
Speaker 1: the world sees New York City and it's bravery and
Speaker 1: its pain on their TV set every single night, and
Speaker 1: everybody around the world's gonna fall in love with New York.
Speaker 1: And so the deals you don't have now are going
Speaker 1: to come back by storm in six months and you're
Speaker 1: gonna have an entire international community wants the slice of
Speaker 1: New York. And that's exactly what happened. And then we
Speaker 1: all held hands in some godless America today at that moment.
Speaker 1: Because I know it sounds hokey, it wasn't a show.
Speaker 1: It was intended for that moment to make people feel
Speaker 1: we were together. And people went out and believed they
Speaker 1: were going to make a killing, and they did. Within
Speaker 1: nine months after nine eleven, our sales I think increased
Speaker 1: roughly over where they were before nine eleven because the
Speaker 1: world came back by storm, and so to the city.
Speaker 1: I think people are always smarter than you think they are,
Speaker 1: but particularly with your family, you cannot lie or mislead.
Speaker 1: You just have to really think what you really believe
Speaker 1: and share it. And I was apt to protect my people.
Speaker 1: They were they were everything to me. They were my family.
Speaker 1: They had to be uh not missed with so speaking
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, the work life balance question comes up
Speaker 1: all the time. And how did you run a massive
Speaker 1: business that everyone knew all around the world and still
Speaker 1: raise a baby at night and the weekends? I mean,
Speaker 1: how did you? How did you do that? How do
Speaker 1: you make that mental decision of where to put your time? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, I don't think this ever, even without
Speaker 1: a baby. This, every anything is managing your time like
Speaker 1: that balance You just such a chop yourself. So many
Speaker 1: hours to this is so many hours for that. I
Speaker 1: had a practical approach when Tommy was born. I wasn't
Speaker 1: at work at seven thirty every day, which I couldn't
Speaker 1: wait to get to her. I'm surprised I didn't get
Speaker 1: in before the doorman downstairs really on his shift. But
Speaker 1: I started going to work at night thirty was I
Speaker 1: was nursing Tommy and uh and I also wanted to
Speaker 1: hang out with him for a while. And then I
Speaker 1: was leaving the office at three o'clock to get the
Speaker 1: larger end of an evening with my child. And so
Speaker 1: how did I do it? I chopped my day, I
Speaker 1: had a shorter work day. Now could I have built
Speaker 1: the Corcoran Group as quickly as I did in those
Speaker 1: years if I had had a baby, absolutely not, because
Speaker 1: something else happens when you have children. You get sibling
Speaker 1: rivalry that plays out in your heart, and that's a threat.
Speaker 1: You know, it's the thing, I should be at home,
Speaker 1: I should be at work. I should be at home,
Speaker 1: I should be at work, and that can be exhausting.
Speaker 1: And so I realized that sibling rival read played out
Speaker 1: in my heart to my top ages who wanted me
Speaker 1: now wanted something, and I wanted to be there on
Speaker 1: and my kid who was crying. Uh. I even built
Speaker 1: a huge office with a playpen with a nursery. I
Speaker 1: got into all. I painted that as Sarian calm officers,
Speaker 1: but I brought Tommy in one day. I realized you
Speaker 1: can't be in both places. So I chopped up my
Speaker 1: day as our manage that until I sold a business.
Speaker 1: Of course, I want to fast forward a little bit
Speaker 1: in the time that we have left. Um. Uh, you sold,
Speaker 1: and that was your idea immediately to enjoy the rest
Speaker 1: of your life, all those crazy hours the agents. You know,
Speaker 1: if if I were to sell a company for sixty
Speaker 1: six million dollars today, I don't know. Maybe I go
Speaker 1: to Greece My wife is from Greece, and she's always
Speaker 1: wanted to have at one point go to Greece, and
Speaker 1: so I feel like it would be hard for me,
Speaker 1: for our marriage, for me to on that day if
Speaker 1: I sold a company for a hundred million dollars to
Speaker 1: tell my wife. Yeah, but but I gotta still do stop.
Speaker 1: I think she might kill me. Well, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: something else. It wouldn't work, as you will know, you
Speaker 1: got to crease for a week or two. Big deal, Fine,
Speaker 1: she'll be happy. What was your question? The question was
Speaker 1: you sold the company? The world changed, obviously, but then
Speaker 1: you kept at it. You kept working, right, You've you've
Speaker 1: got onto Shark Tank. Years later, you're investing in all
Speaker 1: these companies. When is enough enough for you? Or is
Speaker 1: it not? Ask anybody on any street corner whether it
Speaker 1: is such a thing as having too much fun? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and also no, I wanted more fun in life, all right.
Speaker 1: I'm the lucky one that could constantly have fun. I
Speaker 1: don't go into any work that I don't enjoy a
Speaker 1: hundred and I don't dedicate myself to anything. I don't
Speaker 1: want to do a hundred and fifty percent job at
Speaker 1: And the reason for that is because I like to succeed.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's maybe a shade of insecurity, but I enjoy success,
Speaker 1: and more importantly, I can't wait to get to what
Speaker 1: other people would call work. I can't wait to see
Speaker 1: what the day brings. And I'm too curious see what's
Speaker 1: around the corner. Imagine life without corners. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine. Yeah. So I don't even know if
Speaker 1: I answered your question, but you have? You did? You did?
Speaker 1: What do you love so much about being on Shark Tank?
Speaker 1: And you're what, eleven years into it later? I can
Speaker 1: take or leave it to some degree. What I love
Speaker 1: about Shark Tank is the opportunity to meet the entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: I meet on that show and to actually become part
Speaker 1: of their life and help them build a business and
Speaker 1: help them become who they're dreaming about being. I think
Speaker 1: I'm very capable of making those dreams come true. I
Speaker 1: always feel like I'm on that show playing very good.
Speaker 1: Another thing, You're going to be rich, bing, You're going
Speaker 1: to be rich, And it's not just about rich, it's
Speaker 1: about success. And the more injured the entrepreneur is, the
Speaker 1: more insecure they are, the more apt I am to
Speaker 1: fall in love because they have something to prove. And
Speaker 1: I wrapped myself around those people like I wrapped my
Speaker 1: neophytes at the corporate group and they became superstars. I'm
Speaker 1: just doing the same thing. I found another family, which
Speaker 1: is good because I like a family. What's next, Boil
Speaker 1: Right now, we're going to have a TV series on
Speaker 1: my life. I'm pretty excited about how these these series
Speaker 1: goes on enough seasons so that I die before it ends,
Speaker 1: so I don't even get to see the ending. Okay.
Speaker 1: And that's a reality show docuseries series. Yeah, well it's
Speaker 1: called what's the halfway between comedy and drama? Traumay, traumay, traumay.
Speaker 1: I can't get that word, that kind of thing. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: And of course I'm in love with my podcast. Business
Speaker 1: unusual because it's another forum where I meet people who
Speaker 1: dial into the eight barber number, which is constant, tell
Speaker 1: me their business issues, where they're struggling, where they're stuck,
Speaker 1: and I get to use the gift that I've realized
Speaker 1: after all these years of business, I have best more
Speaker 1: than my mouth. I give great advice. I know how
Speaker 1: to get people from a to be and get them
Speaker 1: on stuck and so I get to again have another
Speaker 1: phenomenal form where I help people and boy, oh boy,
Speaker 1: is it fun. And so my podcast is my sweet
Speaker 1: spot right now. Business Not to be busy, No, not
Speaker 1: because you are busy. I'm not so busy. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty busy. Well I could be busy here, like if
Speaker 1: I don't sleep, but sure I'm eating sleep at night. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty busy, I guess. But that that is that
Speaker 1: taps into my great gift of being able to pinpoint
Speaker 1: people's personality. What would apply to the individual? My last
Speaker 1: question for you, because I know we want to wrap up,
Speaker 1: and I would I would not be happy with myself
Speaker 1: if I didn't ask this. You're starting a real estate
Speaker 1: business in New York City now by yourself, the weight
Speaker 1: on the world on your shoulders. What's the best advice
Speaker 1: you give? One piece of advice you're talking about like
Speaker 1: your circumstances with your so many agents to take it
Speaker 1: from here there? Yeah, you know we we we're building
Speaker 1: again from the ground up in a very very different
Speaker 1: world than even when I started in the business in
Speaker 1: two thousand eight. You know, my legion when I got
Speaker 1: into it was men crashed and post ads on Craigslist
Speaker 1: meet renters, hopefully you can turn them into buyers. And
Speaker 1: it was Craigslist all day long. That was our thing.
Speaker 1: There was no money for for ads, at least not
Speaker 1: for me. And now we're starting a brand new real
Speaker 1: estate company. We do a lot of other things. But
Speaker 1: on the brokerage side, what would your what would your
Speaker 1: advice be? Well for your specific circumstance, I would say
Speaker 1: the very important street you must cross right now is
Speaker 1: away from the dependence on you for sales. You're not
Speaker 1: going to be able to build an empire unless you
Speaker 1: walk to the other side of the street and learn
Speaker 1: to sell through other people. It was hard for me.
Speaker 1: I was a powerhouse salesman when my business was young,
Speaker 1: when we had fourteen agents, only fourteen, and I was
Speaker 1: producing eight percent of the company income. I was a
Speaker 1: good salesman. I left it meet a faith and I
Speaker 1: decided I was not going to sell. You can't do both,
Speaker 1: and I started hiring people to self of me. And
Speaker 1: without that decision, I could have never built a powerhouse.
Speaker 1: Never your gift is marketing, your good looks and your
Speaker 1: gift of gap. What you also have, which I think
Speaker 1: is your greatest gift, is you know how to motivate. Sure,
Speaker 1: and unless you make the time to work through other
Speaker 1: people and do nothing but motivate the crap at them,
Speaker 1: you won't be able to build what you envision for yourself.
Speaker 1: And that's a big call. How do you move out
Speaker 1: of something you do so well that generates money. But
Speaker 1: I'll tell you one thing. The minute I did, everybody
Speaker 1: else made up for it because they have faith in
Speaker 1: them and they did it. They came through from me.
Speaker 1: Leap of faith. It's more than leap of faith. It's
Speaker 1: breast set of balls. Got it. Leap of faith with
Speaker 1: a brass set of balls jump across the street. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much, Barbara, thanks for coming on the pleasure.
Speaker 1: Really nice signing with you. I'm sure you'll be successful.
Speaker 1: You already on. If you're to take action today. Based
Speaker 1: on Barbara Corkrand's entire blueprint for how she got to
Speaker 1: where she is, go to Big Money Energy dot com
Speaker 1: slash podcast to download an action plan that I put
Speaker 1: together for you, as well as the show notes. That's
Speaker 1: Big Money Energy dot com slash podcast. Find more podcasts
Speaker 1: like Big Money Energy on the I Heart Radio app
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Big Money Energy is
Speaker 1: hosted by me Ryan Sirhand. It's produced by Mike Coscarelli
Speaker 1: and Joe Loreesca and executive produced by Lindsay Hoffman.