Bethenny Frankel practically invented the personal brand. Here, she shares her secrets

Bethenny Frankel is a marketing maven. She’s best known for starring in the Real Housewives of New York City, and for launching the Skinnygirl lifestyle brand, starting with the now-famous “skinny girl” margarita. She then found a partner to help her manufacture the cocktail, which launched in 2009. In 2011, Frankel sold Skinnygirl for an estimated $100 million, but kept the rights to use the name. Since then, she’s launched Skinnygirl salad dressing, shapewear, and popcorn, among other items.

Frankel has 4 million-plus followers on Instagram and 3.3 million on TikTok, where she sounds off on everything from coffee to handbags. Frankel is also the queen of affiliate and brand deals—netting $7 million in 2024, a figure she’s on track to exceed this year. In May, she launched The List, where fans can shop her closet as well as her “obsessions,” which range from furniture to makeup. She’s also an investor in Cumulus Coffee, ShopMy, and several other companies.

Frankel sat down with Fast Company to talk about her career pivots—and what it means to be a marketer in today’s social-media-driven business world. She points out that consumers respond to authenticity and personal branding more than ever before, but also discusses the danger of blowback from putting your brand—and yourself—out there.

Let’s start at the beginning. You’ve said going on Real Housewives was purely a business decision. Can you tell us about that?

Well, I turned it down for a month saying I wanted to be a natural food chef. But I realized it’s not that easy to get on TV. And if this fails, no one will know about it. And if it succeeds, then it’s a great platform. I definitely did not think it was going to be a cultural phenomenon.

How did you think about riding that zeitgeist?

My instincts were just right there always. I think I’m a born marketer. When I was a little kid I used to want to be a copywriter, and came up with slogans and names for people’s businesses and stores. I just have always been a person that leads with marketing first.

I had an agent who also represented the Kardashians, and they followed suit with monetizing the Kardashians after what I did with Housewives and the Skinnygirl margarita, which no one had ever done before. No one had monetized reality TV.

Now the audience is turned off by that. Everybody’s followed in my footsteps, and everything is a photo shoot and a book cover and a launch party and a fashion line that may or may not really exist. Versus on Housewives, it was me being flawed and using that platform to go through the struggles and possibilities of building a business, whether or not it would look negative or positive to the audience. It was just a true experience that I was going through.

What marketing advice do you have based on that experience?

The actual lesson was that people weren’t buying the product that I was selling. They were buying the authenticity of me. 

They believed that I was being truthful about all areas of my life, so then they believed in what I was doing. And I think that’s where everybody’s lost their way, because everybody’s just trying to sell something to make a quick buck in the short term, but the audience is extremely savvy. While you may make money on a brand deal right now, in the long run they probably won’t trust you if you’re not telling the truth.

And that’s what’s key in social media, which is the new television.

How do you draw boundaries between your personal life and your professional life?

Attention is the new oil. I’m so grateful and so fortunate and so humbled by the fact that I have the attention of the people. There’s a handful of people in the world right now who have the attention of the people, because even in the last year, I’ve watched it change. Everyone’s desperate because there are more people in the store. So how do you get people to come up to your counter?

It is very manic and it probably really affects people’s mental health. So how do I deal with that? I don’t have to do any of this. And I think that’s what really separates me from the influencers and the content creator landscape. I wasn’t broke when I accidentally started doing this stuff and it was doing well. I was just sort of lonely. I was emotionally broke, I was sort of bored, with low-grade depression. I was at home screwing around. I found a real home in this medium.

You mentioned authenticity is your superpower for engaging with people. What happens when there’s backlash because you’re putting your authentic self out there?

It’s such a trap because they want me to comment, because I opine. I never rate higher than when I’m commenting. But then if you comment, people always want to know what you’re thinking. Everyone was mad at me because I  wasn’t posting about Charlie Kirk.

I had never heard of Charlie Kirk in my entire life, until the mob was mad at me for not posting thoughts and prayers. A couple of hours later, I said to everyone, “Sit the fuck down. I’d like to get educated. Sorry if you think I’m dumb, I can’t know what I don’t know.” The thing is I don’t get to have the fluffy buffer of just doing a TikTok dance and people wanting that. People want my opinion. I am in the impact zone often, but that’s okay.

How do you deal with being in the impact zone?

You go through the storm; you deal with it, and then it passes. You don’t apologize if you’re not sorry, and you don’t beg. You decide what you truly think is the right thing to do. And you do that.

I’ve advised so many celebrities who have called me literally when they hit rough waters. I’m like, this is what you do. They’re like, “I don’t know how you do this.”

Tell us about the pivot to investing.

I mean, it’s been gradual. It’s been an evolution. The company Cameo reached out and wanted me to be on the app doing those messages for people. And I said, “Well, I’d have to own a piece of it.” I kept pushing and pushing and pushing. And then I was able to invest series A and Series B and make a good amount of money off of that investment, to say the least.

And then the Bay Football Club, which is a women’s soccer team, reached out, and I thought that was interesting. So I invested in that. And then later Sheryl Sandberg came in and she invested, and so that investment is also up . . . all completely based on interest. But I have a team now. I have a COO who will go look at deals and bring some new ones.

What makes you want to invest in a company?

If I haven’t heard about it before and it solves problems. And then if I or my partner finds out if the actual business is good. One time on Shark Tank, I told Mark Cuban I loved his company. I love his product. He said, “Well, great, you could buy the product. You don’t have to invest in the company.”

Just because I love it doesn’t mean it’s a good space or business. I have people now who help me determine that.

What comes next?

I’m really working on this dating concept that is a social experiment. It’s a passion project that is working. There are very strict rules and guidelines to it, and people are devouring it and clamoring to get in. People in the much larger community have said on the record that they think that matchmakers are actually criminals. And many people are very disenchanted with the apps. I think the apps serve a purpose. I’m not anti-app, but I’m anti-matchmaker, after what I’ve learned. They prey on the weakness of the heart. They just take a lot of your money and it’s never refundable.

Sounds interesting. How do you figure out what’s next?

I am a big planner in my life—What are we doing, where are we going? But I often change and rarely stick to the plan. Still, I like to have the framework. I often change travel and booking plans. It’s very challenging for people to keep up with. But I’m like that with business too. There’s not a big grand plan—I change what I’m doing based on how I feel in the moment. 

And you know, [go] where the fish are. You’re kind of in a boat, you’re prepared, and you’re an organized person. I see fish, I can catch them, and I know how to catch them. And if there are too many fish to catch, then I’ll get a bigger boat.

This conversation has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

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