Business titan and leading investor on ABC’s Shark Tank Barbara Corcoran explains her top tips for succeeding in business.
Key Details
- Barbara Corcoran’s top seven tips for business owners…
- Get good with falling down
- Stay in the game
- Seek what you do not have
- Steal brilliant concepts
- Value your intuition
- Serve your people
- Get out of your own way
Why it’s important
Corcoran has been a business icon for decades, starting as a New York City real estate star to becoming an entrepreneur worth $100 million.
In her decades of business experience, she has learned some crucial lessons that she implements into her practices daily and shared her top seven tips on her podcast—Business Unusual With Barbara Corcoran.
Many people want to start their own businesses but are held back by fear and need help knowing where to start. Many look to business greats for advice, and Barbara Corcoran has started a podcast to share her decades of experience with listeners.
In her podcast Business Unusual with Barbara Corcoran, she explains how she had 22 jobs before starting her real estate company with a $1,000 loan and built it into a $5-billion business and now teaches others how to build their own way up.
She gives seven tips for business owners, starting with the advice of getting good with falling down. Corcoran explains the importance of failure. Growing up, her parents did not have time to shield her from failure, which allowed her to learn her own lessons, which helped her with her business.
She explained that she failed so many times she knew she had to get back up and start over, which is exactly what is needed in business—it is okay to fail.
“Confidence is knowing that whatever hits you, you’re always going to get up. You’re always going to keep trying,” she states.
Her next tip is to stay in the game. She explains the importance of continually learning and improving by staying in the competition. She tells a story of how she spent her year’s earnings making videos of real estate listings that amounted to no sales, but when she learned of the internet, she posted the videos, made two sales that week, and registered her company domains as well as her opponents.
Corcoran’s next tip—seek what you do not have. She explains the importance of understanding your skills. You need to know what skills you are good at, hire others who can do what you cannot and always stay on top of the game, and seek to improve.
Stealing brilliant concepts is another tip she says is crucial to building your business. She states that it is essential to create your own ideas, but if other people are doing brilliant things and they work, it is smart to implement those ideas into your business practices.
It is also important to value your own intuition. She explains how overthinking can get in the way of your own gut instinct, which is usually the right way to go. If you think about something for too long, it can ruin it—it is important to go with your initial feeling.
Her next tip—serve your people. She says that it is important to respect your employees, the moment you start treating them like they work for you, you are no longer a good boss. If you focus on building others’ success, they will be loyal to you and your business.
“Being a phenomenal leader starts by loving people and helping them be the best they can be. Really get that straight in your head: You work for them,” she states.
Her last tip for a successful business—get out of your own way. She explains that frequently your biggest competition is not your competitor but yourself. She states that negative thoughts can affect you and your business for years, and as soon as you believe in yourself and your company, you are built for success.
