If You Don't Have Big Breasts, Put Ribbons on Your Pigtails (14 page)

"Let me also introduce myself to you. Fm Barbara Corcoran, president of The Corcoran Group." I took a quick look down at my notes and said, " Since it looks tonight as though we're only going to be seven, let's begin."

No sooner had I said "seven," than the door banged open and a Chinese woman hurried in. She walked directly to the center front desk and said to the man sitting there, "I want to sit there." The man looked confused and started to move.

"There's another seat in the front over here," I quickly interrupted. "And it also has a better view of the blackboard. As everyone just finished introducing themselves, why don't you take a seat and introduce yourself to the class."

"Carrie Chiang," she blurted, and then hustled over to the desk on the other side of the room arid plopped herself down. While I went over the classroom rules, she ruffled through her papers and unpacked her bags.

"I was asked to announce that smoking and eating in the classroom are not permitted, but as six-thirty is my dinner hour, you're welcome to bring food, as long as you leave the room as clean as you found it." The woman hiding her sandwich looked relieved. "You'll find the rest rooms down the hall and we'll be taking a break in about an hour. Last, I'm pleased to announce that everyone will earn an A for taking this course simply because you came. Your outline is in front of you, so let's get started." The students seemed to like my A idea and smiled.

The best way to get over my Citibank debacle was to move on, and I knew I could only do that by practicing speaking in front of a large group. Although lecturing to eight students wasn't exactly what I had in mind, I looked at the class and figured some practice was better than no practice at all.

An hour later, I declared a class break and walked down the hall to the school cafeteria. I had made up my mind to cancel the remaining nine classes and would announce it right after the break. Giving up three hours every Monday night for ten weeks over the summer just wasn't going to be worth it.

As I reached for the wilted fruit salad, I was startled to hear my name. "Baa-bwa!" the Chinese woman called as she cut into the line and made her way toward me. "Baa-bwa, you know how long I been in business? You know how long?"

"No, I don't," I answered, picking up a bagel and cream cheese from the counter. "How long has it been?"

"T'ree months," she bragged.

"Three months?" I repeated.

"You know how much money I make in t'ree months?"

"No, I don't," I said, surprised that someone would offer so much information so quickly, especially in a crowded cafeteria line.

"Two, hundred, dousand, dollars!" she bragged, loud enough for the buzz in the line to come to a complete stop. "I sell only con-dos," she said. "I sell lots of condos!"

"Selling condos?" I said aloud. "How can you make that much money selling only condos?!" I took a closer look at her, trying to pick up anything about her that lacked credibility. But everything about her looked like the genuine article: her blunt-cut, neatly combed hair, her solid gold choker, her well-tailored sweater set with three buttons open and three buttons closed. Even her black mid-height heels, supporting two sturdy legs, looked as if they meant business. Miss Chiang started speaking in a rapid-fire, Chinese-American dialect, gesturing frantically as she spoke.

"I sell big condos to big customer in Hong Kong!" she rattled, opening up her leather file cabinet and pulling out a manila folder. "He's a big customer, he send me his cousin and his cousin buy small condo. Dis lady have sister-in-law in Taiwan and she buy two condos! She send me sister's cousin in Hong Kong, but she no good. But she send me cousin from Taiwan and she buy more condo!"

I immediately switched gears from snoozing to schmoozing, realizing I had just stepped in front of the Hong Kong to Taiwan to New York Express. "That's really incredible!" I admired. "You're just amazingl" I gave Miss Chiang my very best smile and decided the ten weeks might be worth it after all!

4fe

MOM'S LESSON #14: Go stand next to Nana and see how big you are!

THE LESSON LEARNED ABOUT STANDING TALL

On bad days, mv mother used Nana to reframe our perspective and make us feel better. She never once suggested that we measure ourselves against anyone tall. And just as my mother changed our perspective then, I was able to reframe the Citibank debacle that night. I realized that at least I got up there, and did have something to say. I just couldn't say it then.

My Citibank flop only made me try harder, and by getting back up, I was able to recruit the best condominium salesperson in all New York. By the time the NYU semester ended, Carrie Chiang had arrived at our office along with her leather file cabinet, her twelve boxes of folders, and her first cousin working as her assistant.

When Carrie started in 1986, the condominium market accounted for less than 5 percent of the city's residential sales. By late 2002, New York's burgeoning condo market accounted for more than 35 percent of city sales. And Carrie Chiang, New York's number 1 undisputed Condo Queen, had sold more condos than anyone else.

By teaching the classes at NYU over the next five years, I succeeded in becoming an excellent public speaker, and the course proved to be my most fertile ground for recruiting top-notch salespeople. Not a bad payoff for standing back up.

What I've learned about public failures is that nobody really gives a damn.' While you're wallowing around worrying about what people are thinking, you fail to notice that everybody else has already moved on. x\nd fretting about what the other guy thinks often stops you from trying in the first place.

For two whole weeks, Janet Clean. Eugene Darby, and I met on the strip of grass across the street from Mrs. Cacciotti's house and watched tlie three men build a long retaining wall in front of her house. As they laid the cement blocks one by one, they didn't talk much, but from the few words they said, we knew they weren't from Edgewater.

On the last day they were there, the men took what looked like a pointy spatula and smoothed cement all over the front of the wall just like Mom iced her cake. It wasn't until Eugene and Janet went home for dinner that I saw my opportunity.

I made a beeline to Mrs. Cacciotti's wall to figure out how long it was. I began where the wall started and took broad steps around the curve to where it joined Mrs. Mertz's driveway. The whole wall was a total of fifteen big steps. Perfect! I thought. Just exactly what I need.

I picked up a big stick from Mrs. Mertz's yard and walked back to where the wall started and drew the top of the first B about level with my bangs. I made the two sideway bumps nice and round, ending the bottom bump with a fancy curlicue. I took two side steps to the right and drew T an A. (I had to go back and add a little extra line on the right side to make the legs even.) When I finished the N on the far side facing Mrs. Mertz's, I wiped off my stick on her grass and stepped back to take a good look at my work of art.

'BARBARA CORCORAN?!'* my mother cried as we came upon my masterpiece. "Barbara Ann, what were you thinking?!

What I was thinking was: Why couldn 7 / hare just written "Barbara"? There were a few Barbaras in Edgewater. but only one "Barbara Corcoran." And that was the one written on Mrs. Cacciotti's wall.

"How could you do that?" my mother scowled, leaning into my face. "And where was your brain? Don't you know if you write your name on a wall, somebody's going to notice?

I knew it wasn't the kind of question Mom really wanted an

answer to. But I was thinking that I sort of knew somebody would notice, and, in fact, that was the whole idea. I just didn't know Mom was going to notice!

I was sentenced to two weeks of hard labor as Mrs. Cacciottfs slave. Mom instructed me to knock on her door every morning at eight and say, "Good morning, Mrs. Cacciotti! What can I do for you today?"

I always got the feeling that Mrs. Cacciotti had to think hard to come up with stuff for me to do. But for two weeks I put Mrs. Cac-ciotti's milk bottles outside for Mr. Colontoni, the milkman, walked her brown dog, and swept her front steps. I cleaned up the clippings from her hedges and pulled some weeds from her backyard. I didn't like working for Mrs. Cacciotti much, but I was still happy I wrote on her wall.

My name was famous on Undercliff Avenue for two whole days! On the third day, the same three men came back, and Mom paid them to erase my name from Mrs. Cacciottf s wall.

MOM'S LESSON #15: If you want to get noticed, write your name on the wall.

THE LESSON LEARNED ABOUT GETTING NOTICED

By growing up in a family of ten kids, I learned how to grab attention in a crowded market. I would later learn how to steal the limelight in

a city of eight million. Getting publicity is nothing more than getting attention.

All reporters have one problem. They need stories. And when you provide reporters with a good story idea, you're not asking for a favor, you're giving them a gift.

The Corcoran Group typically spends $5 million a year on advertising, but less than $100,000 on publicity. Advertising helped us make our name, but publicity put it on the marquee.

Unlike advertising, publicity has the power of the third-partv endorsement, which builds credibility around a name. If a company spends millions of dollars advertising how good they are, some people may believe it. But if a major newspaper presents the company in a favorable light, everyone believes it.

Publishing our statistics in The Corcoran Report was the beginning of what would later prove to be my most profitable road to success. Statistics are the slam dunk of all publicity. But there are other ways to capture media attention. Here's how:

1. Making news on hearsay or rumors.

Sometimes the easiest story to get publicity on is the one that's already out there. It's like tying your wagon onto someone else's horse.

2. Making news with your competitor's sales.

The irony of most businesses is that you often can't talk about your own sales, either for privacy or legal reasons. But you can always talk about your competitor's sales, and in doing so. you will inevitably get the credit.

3. Good old-fashioned grandstanding.

Everyone loves a show. Grandstanding is nothing more than trying to figure out what would be visually interesting and be a little different from the norm.

Here are a few ways we've made headlines:

THE LITTLE PINK BUILDING ON EAST 52nd STREET

When we were confronted with marketing our first new building project, it was already labeled a pink elephant that couldn't be sold. I took its liability and made it an asset by painting the building pink. By naming it the "Pink Elephant," we rode the publicity for all it was worth, and the affection it generated sold out the building in three months' time.

MADONNA GOES HOUSEHUNTING

When I read in the paper that Madonna was on the hunt for a new apartment, I was disappointed to learn that none of our salespeople were working with her. I immediately made a checklist of what Madonna would be looking for. All I knew was that she lived in a large apartment on the West Side and that she was about to have a baby. The checklist included the usual things important to any wealthy celebrity, such as grand space, top security, views, and all the luxury amenities that money can buy. I sent out a copy of the list to all our media contacts that same day. Everyone received a copy, except Madonna.

Two hours later, I was sitting at a desk at CNN's Penn Plaza studio, chatting it up on-air. I was no more an authority on what Madonna's wish list might include than anybody else, but I was the only one willing to speculate.

Everyone in our marketplace wrongly assumed that Madonna was our client, and we got four other celebrities as a result of the publicity.

AMERICAN INDIAN RITUAL SELLS HOME

After six months of trying to sell an eleven-room Park Avenue apartment, our efforts proved unsuccessful. We were baffled as

to why until we uncovered the awful truth that the apartment had been the stage for a prolonged and violent marriage. In an attempt to satisfy the disgruntled seller when he threatened to pull the listing, we recommended "a complete smudging of the apartment."

Smudging is an American Indian ritual performed with bells and incense to cleanse troublesome spaces of their evil spirits. The ancient blessing had to be followed by twenty-four hours of total darkness with the shades drawn and all light eliminated. The next morning, we opened the curtains and the first couple to see it sat on the bed in the master bedroom and eagerly offered the full $3.2 million asking price.

After this success, we made a regular practice of offering our smudging services for problem apartments. We never again performed them without a newspaper reporter or television crew present.

HELPING ROVER PASS THE CO-OP BOARD

As "no dog" buildings became commonplace, and as rules surrounding pet behavior became more ridiculous, we hired a celebrity dog trainer to teach our clients dogs how to pass coop boards. Although the boards had not actually asked any dogs to come in for a board interview, we made our dogs ready nonetheless!

The publicity our stunt generated gave me a sore back from bending over to shake doggie paws, as newspaper photographers snapped away!

THE $35 MILLION EIXER UPPER

When Sharon Baum, New York City's grand dame of multimillion-dollar home sales, asked me to survey the Vanderbilt Mansion on East Sixty-fourth Street, we found twenty-two rooms eerily frozen in time. The original gas lanterns were still in place.

along with the old iceboxes in the basement kitchen. Sharon set the price at $35 million and estimated it needed another $10 million to make it livable.

1 billed the mansion as "The $35 Million Fixer-Upper" and the curiosity about the property not only brought eleven camera crews, but also more than three dozen multimillionaires asking to see the property.

KENNEDY LOFT PUT ON BLOCK

A New York Post reporter called only minutes after John F. Kennedy, Jr., and his glamorous young wife, Carolyn Bessette, were declared dead in a tragic plane crash. The reporter urgently asked what Kennedy's Tribeca loft would be worth if it was put on the market for sale. Still surprised by the call, I calculated out loud that six months earlier we had sold an identical apartment one floor below the JFK, Jr. loft for a million dollars. The market had been active, so I figured its value had increased by about a half million since. I added another million for the Kennedy lofts "celebrity value" and declared, "I guess the value would be somewhere around $2.5 million."