Bethenny Frankel: 'I Had to Learn to Be a Gangster' A chat with the inspiring, always outspoken entrepreneur and philanthropist Bethenny Frankel.
By Dan Bova
This week's Get a Real Job guest is a philanthropist, entrepreneur, author and producer. She has so much going on that it's a little shocking she had time to dial us up. But if you listen to this podcast to get a no-b.s. look at what it takes to pursue your passion, Bethenny Frankel will not disappoint.
Over the course of our conversation, we discussed her new podcast Just B with Bethenny Frankel and her new business competition show The Big Shot With Bethenny. We got the scoop on her company Skinnygirl, her fierce battle to get critical PPE to hospitals and frontline health workers, and lots more. Below are highlights from the conversation, which have been edited for length and clarity. Thanks as always for listening!
On managing her crazy schedule
"I'm very precise. I'm very linear. I execute. I am organized to the nth degree and I just get it done. I'm like with a machete, just hacking away, one thing at a time, keep going, keep moving!"
Related: How Bethenny Frankel Achieved Brand Success
On the common traits of super successful people
"I've had Mark Cuban, Paris Hilton, Dana White on my podcast — people who started at the bottom and took a non-traditional, circuitous route to the top. They're not corporate people who just sat in a cubicle and like waited to get to the top. Dana White, the head of the UFC, he and I both believe in, 'Don't tell me no — if I tell you it can happen, it can happen. Go find the yes. Figure it out.' Paris Hilton and I both believe your team is so important and that no one is ever going to work as hard as you are. Mark Cuban's thing is that you're always selling. You're always selling to get to where you need to get to. And Andy Cohen and I are both utterly decisive. You make a decision and you keep it moving."
On her BStrong disaster relief initiatives
"We raised millions of dollars to get PPE to those in need and it was the most difficult thing I've ever done because I didn't know anything about what I was doing. It is similar to starting a new business, but you've got to run and gun. You gotta be on the ground while the disaster is still happening. You get an education on each disaster that is totally different than the disaster before. So you're learning about what it means for a volcano to erupt or fires in the Amazon or flooding. And then you're learning about PPE, which is the most corrupt thing I've ever encountered. You have to cut through criminals and, you know, be a gangster when you're a 108-pound woman. And you just plow through and you execute."
Related: Shark Tank Guest Judge Bethenny Frankel's Secrets to Building a Killer Brand
On her new competition show
"The show is the search for a new member of my executive team. It's real and it won't be easy. We need a person to execute a brand vision, and the show is going to have many real tasks for real verticals of my real business, instead of fake, integrated tasks. And these tasks are going to utilize my real social media platforms and my life in order to find out who can hang. It's going to be a very sort of scary rocky road competition. It's not going to be predictable because my career is not predictable. Every day is different."
On Skinnygirl's future
"When I sold the margarita part of the business, I could have just rested on my laurels and said I'm done, I'm going to go relax for the rest of my life. But instead, I doubled-down. I split my aces. I'm in it and I'm on the precipice of taking this thing all the way into the end zone. Like right now I'm in my war room. I am building the sort of macro brand of Bethenny, and all of the elements that fall beneath it. And that's where the big game is. I'm going in one last time and taking it all the way. And then maybe I'll rest."
