Success ain’t easy. Did you think that it came easy for Barbara Corcoran from Shark Tank?

If you did…you’re wrong.

Barbara’s success took years of making money, losing money and betting big on her business before it finally paid off.

She learned a few things along the way that can be applied to any business.

That’s because she learned some big lessons and failed a lot on her way to a $66 million dollar exit and Shark Tank. She told her biggest lessons to Andrew Warner in their Mixergy interview:

  1. Hit Back When You Hear “No”
  2. Recruit By Recognizing Greatness
  3. Tell a Story to Draw ‘Em In
  4. Have a Keen Sense of What Works
  5. Break All the Rules of Pricing

In this post you’ll learn exactly why Barbara subscribes to these principles in her own words. And by the end? You’ll have the tools you need to make a difference in your own business.

Use These 5 Principles From Barbara Corcoran’s Success

1. Hit Back When You Hear “No”

The more you try at something the more likely you are to succeed…and fail. The same is true for Barbara Corcoran’s real estate business. 

And the same was true for her spot on Shark Tank. At first she was rejected and Mark Burnett, the producer, picked a 20-something blonde bombshell instead.

Barbara hit back.

She quickly emailed Mark Burnett: 

“I wrote that I thought his rejection was a lucky charm and ended by saying that I already bought my ticket and I’d be on the plane. I suggested that he have us both come out and compete for the lone female spot.

Rejection, assume it’s there. It’s just a question of how hard it’s going to hit, and when, and it’s going to hit much more often if you’re an entrepreneur.”

-Barbara Corcoran

She’s been on the show since 2011 and has invested in over a dozen companies. 

Not taking no for an answer has paid dividends.

2. Recruit By Recognizing Greatness

Building a company takes smarts, a decent idea and a healthy bit of moxie. But it also takes people. The right people.

Sales are everything in many businesses. And since you can’t clone yourself, you need other people who can close sales on your team – they’re invaluable.

That’s why Barbara’s focus on recruiting helped her massively grow her real estate business. She recognized early on that great sales people were hard to find, so when she found them…

She recognized their greatness and told them about it.

“Every time someone got a public award in the real estate industry, I wrote them a handwritten note with flowers. Here’s the key. The line I sent to them was, “Your sales manager must be so proud of you.” Ha! They never got flowers from their sales managers. They never got complimented. 

They all came to work for me because…who do you want to work for? Someone who doesn’t notice you came in, or the person who’s sending you flowers and telling you you’re amazing?”

3. Tell a Story to Draw ‘Em In

You’ve heard it before, and you know it’s true.

Numbers tell, stories sell.

That’s especially true for entrepreneurs and the businesses they run. It’s much more meaningful to illustrate your point with real examples rather than abstract blah blah blah.

Nike could tell everyone about the specific materials and ongoing R&D that produce such comfortable and highly-engineered shoes. But they don’t.

Their story is simple (Just Do It) and it’s visual: be like the athletes you admire.

Whenever Barbara hears a pitch, she wants a story. She wants the numbers too – but it doesn’t stick the same way a story does.

“Any guy that gets up there and starts doing flowcharts and numbers…I’m snoring already.

The story [about] how they got started [is] so engaging. You’re either falling in love with the person and you’re buying into them – which means you’re buying into their business, or you’re not buying in.”

4. Have a Keen Sense of What Works

Barbara Corcoran admits that she sometimes spent money recklessly.

“If I saw $10,000 coming in, I was already committing it to the next office I was opening,” she says. You should do it too once you develop a keen sense of what works in your business.

That comes from experience and failure. In other words, hone your gut feeling about what works. When you have that down, you’ll start making a lot more money.

“If you have a unique sense of what works, you’re going to make money.

I never worried about making money, but I worried very much and gave a lot of attention to detail on making something work. 

If something works, you’re going to make the money.”

5. Break All the Rules of Pricing

There are a million ways to tackle pricing for your business. But sometimes you need to break all of the rules to truly find success.

That’s exactly what Barbara did. And what did she get?

Over $1 million in commissions in just 48 hours. And all she did was make all of the apartments in the same building one, single price.

Why did it work?

Get the interview below to find out…