Fame & Fortune: Realty diva Barbara Corcoran 'Jersey girl' trumped Trump with street smarts
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Bankrate: Were you confident managing your money?

Corcoran: I'm still terrible with finance. That I was able to make a lot of money was nothing short of a miracle. It was almost by accident. I had great organizational skills and great people skills and that's what I built my career on. And I could talk well because I couldn't write and read well, so you compensate. But I certainly never learned how to manage money. I never could read a financial statement, never cared, but somehow the financial statements were always great from the bank. I don't think I ever had a loss in a year, even in the recession.

Bankrate: How did you come to work in real estate?

Corcoran: Thank God I met (Realtor) Ray Simone at the Greek diner when I was a waitress there after school my last year in college. When I met Ray Simone and became his girlfriend, much to my parents' disgust, he loaned me the $1,000 to start my business. Why did I go into the real estate business? Because he was 10 years older than me, he seemed like a savvy businessman, and the allure of that made me think that he had the answers in the bigger picture of life outside of Edgewater. So when he said, 'You'd be great in the real estate business,' I just accepted it. That was good luck.

Bankrate: Did you take to it immediately?

Corcoran: No, that was the last thing I wanted to do, because my image of real estate was a lady with a couple of screaming kids and a buyer in the backseat running people around. It looked more like a taxi driver to me. But the missing piece of that equation was New York City. It was far sexier to me to hail a taxi than it was to jump in a car and drive someone around. But I took to it like a duck to water because I realized from my very first customer that it had nothing to do with real estate and everything to do with how you got along with people, and I knew by that point that I was great at that. I could get someone to like me and trust me instantly it seemed because I was trustworthy and likable. So that being said, the rest was simply a matter of hanging out with them awhile and opening up a few doors. They would want to hang out with me, and if you can hang on to a customer, you'll sell them something. It happens.

Bankrate: You weren't content to remain a small boutique for long.

Corcoran: You know why I grew? I lost my first salesman, a phenomenal salesman who started with me in the business, to the powerhouse agency in town. She left for one reason only: She wanted a big brand on her business card. And that was a wake-up call for me that the only way that my sales people could get promoted was to go to a bigger firm. So I decided to be big as a defensive move, so I wouldn't lose any of my kids anymore. I never gave a moment's thought to the overhead, how to manage and organize it. I just kind of handled it as it came. My whole thing was, I was (infuriated) that somebody took out a person that I treasured, that I trained, that was a great salesman. I assumed I had earned her for life and yet she left. I decided to get a big company come hell or high water.