Daring Dottie putting passion back in business.

It's hard to believe, but Dottie Herman, the mega-force behind Prudential Douglas Elliman, managed to buy both Prudential and Douglas Elliman with no money down.

Today, Herman admits that when she sent a letter expressing interest in purchasing Prudential Realty's Long Island division in 1989, she couldn't have paid for it. Fortunately, Prudential believed in her so much, the company put up the money for her--and did it again in 2003, when Herman decided to buy Douglas Elliman.

"They lent me a sum in the millions and I was very young, in my early 30's, and if I couldn't [make the company work], I couldn't pay it back to them," Herman says. "I certainly didn't have the assets personally, they did it on faith. Talk about instrumental people!"

Herman, who starter her career as a financial planner with Merrill Lynch, credits good fortune like that with her success as a real estate maven.

Back in the 1980's, just as she was starting out at Merrill Lynch, the company decided to open a real estate division, giving her an opportunity to witness how the business should be built. She turned out to be a natural at residential real estate--the company eventually put her in charge of the entire Long Island division--so later, when business was being passed around from Merrill Lynch to Prudential and from Prudential to a number of different buyers throughout the country, Herman took a chance few people would even contemplate.

"I was very passionate about what I did, and I sent a letter to Prudential saying that I would like to buy the company," she explains. "I said I had the capital, which I really didn't, but I was looking for it. At the end of the day, Prudential ended up financing the whole thing for me. I bought it with very little money."

There were a few setbacks--a year after Herman bought her Prudential division, the real estate market crashed, forcing her to close down several sales offices--but she succeeded at making her company one of the most prestigious in Long Island and the Hamptons. However, Herman wanted to create something unique--a residential brokerage which would handle properties in the Hamptons, on Long Island and in New York City. After careful consideration, she set her sights on Douglas Elliman, but once again, the money was an issue.

"I knew I didn't have the capital, but I had the vision and the passion for it and wanted to do it," Herman explains. "That's when I was very fortunate to be introduced to Howard Lorber. He's a great businessman, he backed me up and Prudential came back into the picture again and lent me money and we purchased Douglas Elliman for $73 million."

Herman is particularly impressed that Prudential decided to take a big risk in order to help her out at the time when the New York residential market was no sure bet.

"That whole year when I was negotiating, we were planning to go to war, New York City was on orange and red alerts, we were considered a target for another attack and everybody thought I was nuts," she says. "We bought it at a time when nobody really knew what was going to happen."

This time, however, her timing was impeccable, as both demand and prices continued to go up. It was a perfect opportunity to improve an already great company.

"I tell my people that as we sell to the public, it's not enough to just satisfy someone's expectations of service, we have to surpass them," Herman says. "You can call up and say 'I don't know if I want to buy anything,' and I'll send you all the market reports because I believe that a good company should do that."

Herman is also making her management personnel read a book about how great companies operate.

"I gave them a book called 'From good to great,' where the author took all these companies that excel in their performance and analyzed what makes them great, as opposed to good," she explains. "And the biggest enemy of being great is when people are satisfied with just being good. This is the biggest thing I emphasize. I like to hire people who have passion; you can't be good at something if you are not passionate about it. When you have a company of this size, not everyone will make the same amount of money, but everybody should really strive to be the best they can be."

At this particular time, Herman is also concerned that her brokers understand that a house or an apartment is not just a place to live--for many people it's one of their most important investments.

"And I do think that with any investment you should have as much knowledge about it as [possible], that's why I am very big on our market reports and data and making it available to people," she says.

"The big deterrent to real estate used to be that it wasn't liquid-even if you wanted to sell and called your broker, it couldn't happen in a day. Now, we have a lot of mechanisms that make it a whole different ballgame. People can have equity lines and the money is now available if you should need it."