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Bethenny Frankel has some bizarre enterprise recommendation: “You may’t ask a canine to be a cat.”
Which is to say: Don’t attempt to be one thing you’re not in enterprise. As an alternative, maximize your strengths — even when they might appear a bit unorthodox.
For instance, many individuals say to put in writing a marketing strategy and plot strategically. That is nice when you’re a cautious, strategic thinker. However what if that’s not you? What if, as a substitute, you’re the sort of individual with a excessive tolerance for threat and experimentation?
Frankel has a speculation, confirmed out from her personal expertise — as a former Actual Housewife of New York who leveraged that spotlight right into a string of enterprise successes, together with the Skinnygirl model (whose shapewear, salad dressings, popcorn and occasional formally hit $1 billion in retail gross sales in 2025) and who now strikes $2 million value of product per thirty days as an influencer. She believes that when you attempt to conform to another person’s requirements in enterprise, you’ll simply find yourself being a weakened model of your self.
That is actually true for her.
“I don’t do issues simply haphazardly,” Frankel says. “That being mentioned, there’s no huge endgame. I didn’t plan any of this. I had no concept this was going to occur. However belief and imagine, if there’s cash or fish, I’m going to get the web.”
Right here’s how she does it.
First, she’s clear on her psychological strengths.
Frankel could not have a “huge endgame,” however she does view the world by a specific strategic lens. She describes it as “simply being logical about it” — breaking down advanced conditions into doubtless outcomes, the place she will think about: If I do that, that can occur, after which that can occur…
For instance: Frankel constructed her Skinnygirl model into a spread of merchandise, together with a preferred cocktails line. Then she received an acquisition supply in 2011 from Beam World (now Suntory Holdings Restricted) for a rumored $100 million — and, as she learn the sale contract, one thing “hit incorrect” for her.
“It’s not logical that if I’m promoting Skinnygirl cocktails to a liquor large, and so they don’t make denims or lip gloss or anything, why would I give them the whole IP?” she remembers. So she solely bought them the rights to the cocktail model, not anything branded Skinnygirl — an modern deal that permit her keep management of her model, whilst she additionally bought a part of it off.
“Individuals give me an excessive amount of credit score for the massive image choice,” she says. “It’s identical to a logical factor. I simply take a look at the factor like that doesn’t make sense so I don’t wish to do this.”
That alternative, she says, “knowledgeable my whole profession path in the best way that I did issues.” She’s makes “seven-figures yearly” from the opposite Skinnygirl classes that she nonetheless retains possession of, she says.
She additionally has a excessive tolerance for threat, buoyed by her potential to give you artistic options to what’s on the desk. She’d reasonably create a bit chaos in a scenario, realizing that she’ll be capable of piece collectively a greater final result on the fly, even when she has no concept what that final result is perhaps.
A basic instance: When she was chosen to hitch the Actual Housewives of New York for his or her inaugural season, she threw an enormous wrench into the proceedings by rejecting a typical contract clause introduced by the community, Bravo, that acknowledged that they’d get a chunk of any companies she began whereas on the present. It was an enormous threat that would have gotten her bounced from the present.
“It was 2008 and I used to be a pure meals plant-based chef. I simply needed to have the ability to pay my hire. I had $8,000 to my title. I might bounce checks. I might have inadequate funds notices,” she says. “I don’t even know why I instructed Bravo that I might take $7,250 [as her fee for the season] however that they needed to take out that half that mentioned that I might give a chunk of my enterprise. I didn’t have a enterprise. I simply didn’t just like the sentence.”
With out realizing the result, she created a situation that allowed her to reap all of the revenue from the Skinnygirl sale and from all additional Skinnygirl branded merchandise.
Frankel additionally has an unshakeable perception in her model, is aware of what it takes to keep up it and doesn’t again away from inserting a better worth on it than her opponents place on theirs.
As an example, Frankel says she usually doesn’t do category-exclusive endorsement offers. Most influencers will comply with this kind of exclusivity. Nevertheless it’s a call that she believes enhances her authenticity and trustworthiness along with her followers, who she calls the Nosy Bs.
“I’m not risking my whole popularity for an endorsement verify,” she says.
Her religion is being rewarded: Her affiliate offers generated $20 million in transport income throughout Amazon and ShopMy in 2025.
It takes plenty of religion in a single’s instincts to function this fashion, particularly since Frankel claims that though she understands at a excessive stage the offers she’s concerned with, she doesn’t at all times perceive each deliverable and clause. However as soon as the phrases are defined, and she or he understands what’s at stake, “I’ll at all times have a unique take…or a strategy to get to do what I wish to do by giving one thing else.” This, she says, creates a “very artistic area to do offers in a sure method when you can breathe and step again from it.”
“If two events wish to work collectively,” she says, “I could make it make sense. And if at a standstill, I’ll name the CEO or CMO immediately as in the event that they’re an area pizza place to debate.”
Certain, she might do issues one other method — to be a cat as a substitute of a canine. However she doesn’t suppose issues would have labored out the identical. The important thing to success is easy, she says: Know your strengths and don’t stray from them.
Bethenny Frankel has some bizarre enterprise recommendation: “You may’t ask a canine to be a cat.”
Which is to say: Don’t attempt to be one thing you’re not in enterprise. As an alternative, maximize your strengths — even when they might appear a bit unorthodox.
For instance, many individuals say to put in writing a marketing strategy and plot strategically. That is nice when you’re a cautious, strategic thinker. However what if that’s not you? What if, as a substitute, you’re the sort of individual with a excessive tolerance for threat and experimentation?
