The AUDACIOUS Move that Turned Barbara Corcoran into BARBARA CORCORAN

This is my favorite kind of “notes” story because it reminds us that all of those great entrepreneurs we hear about - the ones with the money and fame and cool businesses - truly started out just like you and me: Brave, committed, scrappy, and willing to try almost anything to break through.

Or, as I like to say, ‘what one man (or woman) can do, another can do.’

You can do it!

Needless to say, Barbara Corcoran wasn’t always the friendly, shrewd shark we see on TV every week.

Not by a long shot.

Back in the early 1970s, she had no contacts, no clients, no credibility.

What she did have was a husband/business partner ran off with her secretary, leaving Barbara with no money or business either.

All she had left was a dinky desk, a phone, and a lot of chutzpah.

“The Corcoran Report”

So there she was - alone yet determined, surrounded by a sea of ambitious, better known, better financed, competitors.

How to break out? How to get known? How to get clients?

One thing Barbara knew was that without a lot of money, guerrilla marketing was likely her best bet. So she made a move.

She sat down one day and wrote up an official looking document she dubbed, The Corcoran Report. It was a one-page flyer that contained interesting tidbits of information about the New York real estate market, like

• The average condo sale prices

• The latest hot neighborhoods

• Market trends

• Hot takes on where the real estate market was headed

And the funny part was, she made most of the “facts” up (based on her educated best guesses.) She was not trying mislead anyone, it was just that no one was tracking that kind of data back then. There was no Zillow. No Redfin. No analytics dashboard. It was all gut instinct and hustle.

Now that is one thing she did have!

She mailed that flyer to every journalist she could think of. Every newspaper. Every TV and radio station. Everyone.

Then something happened.

“May I Speak to Barbara, Please?”

Reporters started quoting it. They started quoting her. The New York Times. The Wall Street Journal. TV stations started calling her, asking her to come on the air to be interviewed.

Suddenly, Barbara Corcoran wasn’t just a broker, she was a market expert.

So she did it again. And again. The Corcoran Report, something Barbara Corcoran stared on a lark, became a a thing. Before long, it transformed onto a legit, actual fact-based, quarterly publication.

Eventually, when high-end clients wanted to sell their $10 million co-op or buy their first Fifth Avenue address, who did they call? The woman whose name they had seen in the paper.

And here’s the thing: While it all began as a smart, scrappy stunt, what worked is that it made her look ten times bigger than she was.

Barbara later said, “If you want to be bigger, act bigger. People treat you the way you present yourself.”

Gold, that.

The Takeaway

Barbara Corcoran’s story really shows the value of PR.

Why do I get 10 emails a day from publicist’s pitching their client’s new startup, or app, or book, or whatever? Because a story done about you or your business is not you telling everyone how great your business is, it is a legit outsider saying how great your business is.

And you can then post that TV clip, or blog post, or whatever it was, on your website and in your social, forever.

As they say, you can’t buy that sort of publicity.

Steal This Strategy

📖 Book - If You Don’t Have Big Breasts, Put Ribbons on Your Pigtails
Barbara’s wild and smart memoir on building The Corcoran Group from nothing.

🎥 Video - Barbara Corcoran on “How I Did It”
A short clip on how she got started and grew so big in such a competitive market

🌐 Website - Corcoran Report Archives
The report lives on, still lives on.

📖 Book - Guerilla Marketing The original and the best. Use it to Steal This Strategy!

Overnight Challenge

Go ahead, steal this strategy!

Create your own one-page “report.” Make it look real, official, important. Post it. Email itoggers, editors, writers, influencers. Plant the flag1

About Steve

Steve Strauss is the best-selling author of The Small Business Bible (and 17 other books), Inc.’s small business columnist, a lawyer (non-practicing), and an entrepreneur. He sold his last venture, TheSelfEmployed.com to Mark Cuban & Zen Business. Need a ghostwriter or a newsletter for your business? Contact Steve!