Barbara Corcoran Says You Need 2 Types of People to Build a Successful Business: 'I Use That Formula in Everything I Do' Corcoran says every business needs an "expander" and a "container" to grow. Here's why.
By Erin Davis
Real estate entrepreneur and investor Barbara Corcoran says there are only two kinds of people at work: expanders and containers.
"And you're going to need both if you're planning to build a big business," Corcoran recently told her Instagram followers.
The longtime "Shark Tank" star pioneered the "expander" and "container" practice in business decades ago and explained this week why the concept has been so successful for her.
Related: 'I'm the Best Boss I've Ever Met': Barbara Corcoran Says It Takes One Principle to Be a Good Boss
"I use that formula in everything I do," Corcoran said. "I never opened another office again without hiring an expander and right by their side, a container. They are equally important people."
An expander, Corcoran says, can see "what's around the corner." She calls this type of worker "very outward facing" — they aren't afraid of risks and put themselves out there to do what's best for the business.
"They like to spend money," she said. "They like to try new things."
Containers, on the other hand, have a more numbers-oriented skill set that can appear more buttoned-up from the outside.
"They're great at working with the bank. They're great at systems. They know personnel," Corcoran said. "They're very good with people in a containment way to control your business."
Corcoran then shared how she came up with the concept before she grew and sold her company, The Corcoran Group, for $66 million in 2001.
Who Was Barbara Corcoran's Business Partner and 'Container'?
Corcoran wrote about her longtime business partner, Esther Kaplan, on LinkedIn in 2011.
On Instagram this week, Corcoran shared how they met when Kaplan came into Corcoran's office looking for a job in real estate.
"I gave her my business card not planning to hire her," Corcoran said of their initial meeting. "I told her I'd call her when something opened, which I really didn't mean, and she took my card."
But that's when Corcoran saw something she missed in their initial encounter.
"She tipped her purse in my direction, and her purse was divided into partitions with colorful labels on each partition," Corcoran said. "I had never seen a more organized woman."
Corcoran "hired her on the spot" and the duo became business partners.
Kaplan was a container, and Corcoran was an expander. The women had found their business counterparts in each other.
"She worked with the banks and the credit lines, ran the personnel department, and put us on a computer system first," Corcoran said. "She did anything that needed a system."
This left Corcoran "free to recruit salespeople," work on public relations, and "build a big business because of my big mouth," she said.
"I was never afraid of risk, and [Kaplan] contained my risk by controlling the money," Corcoran said. "We were perfect partners, and together we built a very big business."
