If you're going to build something from nothing, you've got to know what really works.

I took a thousand dollar loan and built a five billion dollar business, and now I make smart investments in new businesses on Shark Tank. This is Barbara

Corcoran and you're listening to Business Unusual. Today I'm Business Unusual

I'll answer your questions about business, motivation, life, or anything else on your mind.

But first, how to build your business by creating great stories.

Just because you closed a big deal or opened a brand new office,

you think you might get a news story on that?

Well, guess what?

You won't.

It's boring.

What you've got to do is create good fairy tales for the press to write about.

Great stories that are irresistible,

and that was my specialty, always in building my business.

And that's exactly what I teach my entrepreneurs from Shark Tank to do every day.

Inventing good stories is easy if you keep your ears open for little news bits that you can wrap your head around and your arms around and make it part of your story.

When co-op boards were banning dogs in some buildings for the first time and also interviewing dogs in other

buildings I invited a hundred dogs to Central Park and every news channel out

there to come film me teaching dogs how to shake hands and be well behaved.

Ridiculous? Of course.

But was it in every newspaper out there?

You bet it was, along with my smiling face and my company name.

I used to smudge apartments that couldn't be sold.

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