Hardwired for Hardwork with Jill Biggs | Ep 053

Hardwired for hard work. It's not just a slogan or a tagline. It's who Jill Biggs is. It's who the Jill Biggs group is. You'll find out how that language was developed and why it's such a perfect fit right here in this in person conversation I enjoyed with Jill. Though she never set out to be a real estate agent or a team leader, she's now the team leader of a 60 agent organization that leads their market. Some keys to her success outworking other people, persevering problem solving and having difficult conversations that need to be had. A couple of key roles in the Jill Biggs group. An in house stager and a chief operating officer. You'll find out more about both of those roles and how they came to be. Jill also explains why everything's always a little bit broken in your organization. Why everything and everyone always needs to be ready to change. And why you've only ever got about six months to make money doing something in particular before needing to pivot. Here's my conversation with Jill Biggs on real estate Team os.

No matter where your business is today or where you want to take it, you'll get there faster and more profitably with an operating system. Welcome to Team os, your guide to starting, growing and optimizing real estate team. Here's your host, Ethan Butte.

Jill, I am so glad to connect with you in person here at Unlock. I appreciate you sitting down for this conversation. Thanks for being here.

I'm so glad to be here.

Yeah. So our standard opener on the show is. Is what is a must have characteristic of a high performing team?

You know how hard of a question that is. We talked about it all my friends, a lot of high performing team leaders and coming up with just one.

You can give me four if you want.

Okay, great. So processes and structure, accountability, energy and I don't know, a little bit of like curiosity and speed. Actually for me, I do things really fast generally and it's not always right, but it happens and then we fix it. It makes everybody crazy, but I kind of drive everyone insane also. Besides the drive.

Yeah. Talk a little bit about energy. Why does energy matter? Why was that one of the first things to mind and what is it in this context?

So. Well, first of all, I have no short term memory. So every morning when I get up, no matter how beaten down I am at 4 o', clock, I get up, I'm happy, it doesn't matter. So it's great when you're happy every day and I really Love what I do. And then the problems start. Right. So I try to attack everything that is hard early on in the morning because I don't have the same energy left. And I think that my energy is internal. And I have no idea why I'm wired this way, but I definitely look at other people doing things, and I always think I can do that. Even if I can't do it, I have no idea how to do it. And there's a lot of things that I am not the best at, but I'm very good at finding out who the best person is and then moving over and letting them help and. And getting them to want to help. And I think that's how I've gotten here. It wasn't easy. It's been a long time.

Yeah.

A lot of mistakes. A lot of different people I've had at different points. I don't know, 30 assistants in the span of six months, which I used to be in charge of hiring. If I liked you and you look nice, like, I hired the hostess, I'm like, what? What are you good at? Oh, you should be the marketing director. So there were years of that and I got better. I had a lot of coaching, a lot of mentors, and a lot of just great people who helped me. And I've been fired by my coach about six times.

How does a client get fired from a coach?

You don't do what they tell you to do. You have to be coachable, of course. Right. And if your coach tells you to do whatever or. I don't know, usually for me, it's not. Not having enough process, structure. I'm a salesperson.

Share a little bit about the path into real estate initially and then into the team model in particular. Like, when did that occur to you? Like, tell that story in whatever detail you'd like. Like, how'd you get into the business? I mean, you're obviously a salesperson. I don't know if you're still in production, but I wouldn't be surprised if you were because it seems like something you love to do. So share that story however you like.

So, yes. There was no intention. I never wanted to be a realtor. I just. I was a bartender in New York City and I ended up having a baby that I took to the bar at like 3 days old. My husband, it wasn't working. He's like, you can't come home at 4:00 in the morning. And so he gave me money and said, start a business. And I said, I don't want to Start a business. I don't know anything about having a business. He's like, everybody wants to have a business. Okay. So I had this baby and I figured, I'm a great shopper. So I opened up a children's clothing and toy store. I knew nothing about it in Hoboken, which I also knew nothing about. I had discovered it because I needed a job. And there was an ad in the New York Times and I lived in the West Village. And so I. It's one stop. Even though New Yorkers never back then, they never went to Jersey. So I went to Hoboken and I went, got a job in a bar there. And then I discovered it. And so I had this baby, opened this store. I did that for 10 years and it was a high end store. I subsequently have four daughters because I needed people to dress. I probably would never have them except children's clothes. Everything is cute and small. And in 2001, we had this plan that we were going to pick the nicest place we'd been and change our lives, right? So it was not a great idea. We went to Maui. We had been four times on vacation and it was beautiful on vacation. And then we moved there and I was and am kind of a workaholic. I don't know. I like what I do, so I don't really consider it being I am a workaholic, whatever, I'll admit it. So I went there and I went to the beach. And after about four months I'm like, I hate the fucking beach, right? And I like literally moved every other month. The whole time. I was like, don't unpack. I don't like the neighbors, the people that live in Maui either. And this is back in 01. They are in gated communities or it's a strange place. And my husband happens to be half Korean and so he kind of looks like Don Ho. Maybe you don't know who that is, but whatever, he fit in. And I have never lived in a place where I felt so disconnected. So at the end of this moving every other month, I was living 14 houses down from Haleakalo, which the volcano. And I stopped like getting dressed. I invited a homeless family over and they wouldn't leave. It's like it got to Christmas and I said, I'm leaving, I'm taking the kids, you can stay. And so we packed all of our shit up and we came back and fortunately for me, I had rented my apartment out. So I took my apartment back and I was unemployed and I needed a job and I Had a friend and he came to stay with me. He was waiting tables. I used to run a bar, a gay bar, and a restaurant in South Beach. I'm kind of a.

You are all over the country here.

Yeah, I'm all over the place, right? So I went to South Beach. I stayed two years. I dated the two straight men that were there at the time, and I came back. But I had a great time. And my husband said after six months, he's never leaving. So I signed him up for real estate school and he went to real estate school and he started doing it. He was three months into it, and he was borrowing my car and getting dressed and having a good time. And I was like, huh, I could do that. So I got my license and I became his partner. That lasted about a year because he likes to go to the spa and have a good time. He's a great realtor, but he's very different than me. I started grinding and honestly, my first coach ever told me that the reason that I am so successful is I just outwork the other people. Like, you know, so in that window.

Like, what does outwork look like? Like, is that sheer hours and it's. So, like, what are we talking about?

No, it's not just hours. It's intensity.

Like. Like value of the time.

I may not know how to do something, but I'm so focused that I don't stop, you know what I mean? Until I've figured it out. Even when it's, you know, it's not. I have drive, I think.

Yeah, It's.

It's. We had that conversation yesterday about our children. And I have it because I left home at 17 and if I didn't work, I didn't eat. It created, you know, not in a bad way, just it made me depend on myself.

Yeah. Yeah. So you are. You've. You followed a friend into real estate. Anyway, kind of like different styles. So that didn't work.

Different styles. But what I did have, right, Because I'd had these four kids and I lived in Hoboken, which is one square mile, and I had sent my children to private schools, and I had women that shopped in my store. I had a 7,000 person database. And I used my database and I marketed to these women, right? And I don't have phone fear. When I learned real estate, they gave me the phone book and said, call the phone book. And I'm social and I'm a connector. I like people and I'm incredibly interested and ask people questions and they answer terrible questions. And I ask them in a nice way. It's the only way that I can figure out what's going on. It actually makes my husband insane. He's like, why do you have to ask so many questions? I'm like, well, how will I understand how to help them? I jump around, so get ready. I am not a linear thinker, hardwired for hard work. Our team, like, we do everything, we're super, super full service. And so I have made my friends. Also I should mention that I took all of my girlfriends that did not want to be realtors. And I said, you should be a realtor. And they're like, I don't want to be a realtor. I'm like, of course you want to be a realtor. So I have surrounded myself with a lot of great friends and the past clients that I really liked, they're realtors. So we have a group of. It's really eclectic because my daughter works with us and she just turned 28. So I have this entire like 30 young people and then a bunch of middle aged women and gay men. Gay men? Yeah, men. So it's. And bald men. I should mention that I seem to have a large support staff of bald men for no reason. I really don't target bald men. I just happen to have a lot of them.

Just look around one day and this is what's happened when like, from the start of like, I love that you started with a 7,000 person database in the community that you serve who had it at like already out of the gate, some amount of shared values and that they were drawn to.

They trusted you built, they trusted me. And, and I should also say that my group, right from the original, we call them the og I made everyone do a different thing so that we didn't cross over. Like, we supported every school. My children will tell you that they've gone to every single school. And so I moved them, whichever. Not because I was trying to get business, it was good for business, but also because they were different. And when you're urban, you're not kind of stuck in one school. You get to do whatever works best for you. And so they all were in different schools. And I participated where I could be with my kids, but it was also an opportunity for networking. We have sponsored every team. We're still in different things. One of my team became the president of the synagogue. I had somebody else who ran CCD at the church. We had the running club. And so everyone had a network and we grew.

What was from the start of your real estate business to the idea of bringing some of these folks around you. Like, what was that window? And what was the spark for you to say, I want to bring more people around me? Is it just because you're social? Like, I would rather do this with a group of people? Or was it like, yeah, share that a little bit?

I was so busy, right. That I needed help. And back then, there. There were not teams. Right. And I never. Yeah.

What year. What year is this ballpark?

I started in 05.

Okay.

And I had gone and watched some Coldwell Banker event because I was a Coldwell Banker and there was a top producer. And at the end, I waited online to speak to her. And I said, you know, I think she at that point had done like, $700,000 in GCI. And I was like, I work every moment, all the time. And so I said, how is it that you're doing so much business? And she said, I have a buyer's agent. So I went back to my office and said to my broker, I'm getting a buyer's agent. And she said, no, right? And I was like, no, doesn't really work out. So I started with. I hired an assistant, and really his skills were that we had a room where it was like a computer room. And he sat behind me. I didn't really know him, but he typed 90 words a minute. And I'm like this. And I listened to him, and it was so annoying. And he didn't have any business at all. And I said, you should be my assistant. So he was my first assistant, and about a year into it, he wanted to be an agent. And I had so much business that I started Zillow in 06, when the Internet. I did that right with Zillow. And I had leads. And I also. My past clients liked me. I did a great job. We still pride ourselves on going above and beyond and as much as possible, trying to close the gap, because at scale, you end up where everybody can't be happy. And that's been somewhat hard for me. When you start to get bigger every time you have cracks, you need to add more people, better processes, and kind of fill whatever those holes are after. At a certain point, and I think this was 2000 2010, I had gotten to a point where I realized that I needed help, you know, And I started looking at coaches, and I went and I looked at every coaching a couple times, and I ultimately got a coach and my first coach who I learned from him that I can negotiate. And I negotiated with my brokerage I learned about, you know, that we're, we don't necessarily have to follow the paper that they give us. And I learned, especially as a 12.

Or 14 person organization.

Well, but this is back in the day.

Remember, there's no, there's no rules, no norms.

Yes. And it was very, very different. And, and then fast forward, right. I had a lot of different coaches and with their help I, you know, I started to track my numbers. I, I had a spreadsheet, right. Which for me is a big deal because like I'm not allowed to touch the spreadsheet. Everything has to be locked because if I'm in it, it's all fucked up. But I learned enough about every part of our business that, you know, I'm scary, right? What is it? Nose in, hands off, whatever that expression is. Eyes on, eyes on, hands off. Yeah, well, nose, hands, whatever. The point is, is that and masterminding, right. I surround myself with people that are doing what I'm doing at a high level and I'm interested. And I've been in some highly effective masterminds where it was interesting because you have so many different types of intelligence, right. I have a very high EQ I like. So Tom Ferry, who was my coach, introduced me to my friends and said, these will be your friends. And they were nothing like me. They were operations people. I was kicking their ass, making so much more money because I'm a salesperson. Right. Back then they didn't have, remember there were no real teams. But I learned from them. And then I put people around me and we just kept getting bigger.

Where are you today? Ballpark like agents and staff.

I have 60 something agents, depending on what day it is, maybe 14 support staff. Like I think we have four VAs, four ISAs. I have a sales manager, I have Dan who runs my company. I have an ops who manages the transaction. You know, some of it we outsource, some of it's inside a marketing director to assistants and like an on staff stager. I own like 50 apartments full of furniture. It's the bane of my existence.

Moving it around from place to place.

We have a Mercedes Sprinter that we've had wrapped and it's everywhere. It's bright and it's driving around and it's horrible. Like that is really what I actually like. Moving furniture back and forth and making it the way that it should be. But I don't want to carry your couch upstairs ever again. It was so funny when we were yesterday, Nate was talking on stage and I listened to him. I don't know if you caught him at the end.

I did.

And I think everything is super price point specific, but with. If you're selling condos or, you know, like, spaces, you could. A railroad apartment. If you don't fix it and put furniture in, it looks like a hallway. So you end up not getting paid. And like, the idea is at the end, you have to actually end up selling the listing. So a lot of that stuff was just a function of, you know, how was I going to get my clients to go to the next place and keep moving forward. And it just developed, and if I could figure out how to get out of it, that. That part of it, I would.

But it's the key part of it. How have you set yourself up? Like, what. What are you doing? Like, week to week, month to month? Like, what are the things that you continue to hold on to as someone who has built an organization that would allow you to kind of put yourself in your favorite role? Like, what are some of the things that you're doing that you love doing and you intentionally held on to? And what are some of the things that you're doing that are like, well, someone's got to do them. And I guess I'm the person to do them. For example, maybe video content. I don't know if that's something you love doing, but you do a lot of it and you do it really well.

I never, ever, ever watch my videos and I do them, you know, on purpose. Right. Sometimes we will spend two hours and I'll change my jacket and, you know, and then I have a. So I. But I didn't mention I have a social media person and I actually have a videographer.

So all of this is done in house.

Yes. Yeah. And we will end up. You asked, and I know I didn't finish. I think we'll do something like 525 units, which is around 475 million. So we have grown a great business. And. And Covid impacted me in that I'm so close to the city that we really had people dying. And everybody on March 13th went home, including me, and they were. My whole team was in their pajamas, not working, and. Because people were fleeing. Because if you're stuck in a condo with two children, you're not a happy person. Right.

It feels super trapped.

Yes. So all of a sudden I had 220 listings and nobody working and. No. No way. Like, I was losing my mind, working 18 hours a day. And I. I called up a mentor of mine who was. Had a big job at nrt and said, I'm quitting real estate, right? I'm unhappy. And. Because what we really do is the therapy part, right? I was giving therapy at a high level, only there wasn't anyone really giving any therapy to me. And I couldn't get anyone up. And I, you know, I bought one of the last Matterport cameras. I think I overpaid because they had all sold out. And then I created an instruction, you know, on a car, and was dropping these off in, like, a Hazmat suit so that people could make their own Matterport. And then I was doing these Zoom Cellar seminars and just. It was crazy, right? And anyway, so he said, don't quit. And I said, I need help. And he introduced me to my coo and I called him and. And he had worked as the, like, the chief marketing officer, like, in corporate America. Had a huge job. And I said, you should work for me. And he said, I don't want to work for you. And I said, no, no, no, you should work. This is going to be great. So somehow or other. And I liked him, right? This is a phone call or it's Covid. I liked him and I trusted him immediately. And I. Trust is a tough thing for me. But he came and he said, I will help you for 90 days. And he helped me. I ended up with. I think we had maybe, I don't know, 15, 16 agents at the end. Now we have 60. And every day I said, dan, don't leave, right? And he is very process oriented, and he likes to actually watch money, and he's good at watching our money. He's like, who spent $1.61? Or. He said when he first started, he said, somebody has hacked into your Uber Eats. And then he called me back, he said, it's just your kids. So with him, we've grown and put other processes in place, and we added eos and leveled up our leadership team and run our weekly meetings. I don't know. I'm running my business like a business.

Yeah. Are you selling?

I have a listing team. However, I step in and I help where it's needed. My skill set is I never let anything die. And we're so close to Wall street that we have a lot of high D. So I spend a lot of time, you know, having hard conversations, which, you know, which my agents have a harder time with, you know, So I guess the answer to that would be yes, but I'm trying to do it a lot less, you know, and if my going with them or having a conversation helps, and they do the rest of it after that. I think, you know, I'm working on it. How's that? I'm a work in progress.

How far have teams come inside the ecosystem that you're in? You know, obviously, in the time that you've been building your business and building your team, you know, there are some other, you know, models or companies that have really built and designed around teams and just wondering what you. What you would observe about the effort you had to make to get your team going in that environment. Is that easier now? And if so, how?

For other people, for my company, for Coldwell Banker, there are many teams at this point. However, we're pretty autonomous and nobody really bothers us. We're. They leave us alone. We're like. We're kind of almost forgotten doing our own thing. And there's so many of us that we haven't really had to step out and ask for help because our agents are helping each other. In my coaching, however, like, when I started, there were no teams and there were maybe 100 people in the coaching program. And this grew, and then it. Teams started to pop up, and then they separated off and they have, you know, coaching for teams. And so there's a, you know, there's teams everywhere, and they're all so different, and the way that they run is so different. And I think that without having access, like, everybody always wants to know, like the secret sauce, like, what is your SOP for this? And the truth is you can share everything. Nobody uses it. There's very few people that are actually taking action. I don't want to end up losing. I don't even. I can't explain it. They talk about why, and everyone says, oh, your why is your children? My why is more of, I grew up in a way where I had to take care of myself and everyone, and I grew my business because I never wanted to say, you know, you can't have that. We can't do this. So I said, mommy, I'll sell another house. And I just, you know, like, it's amazing if you look from where I came to where I am, I wouldn't be there if I didn't have. If I hadn't created these relationships within, with other teams. And, you know, and you spend. We spend a ton of money on education, on learning, on systems, on building integrations and all these things that Dan likes to stand in the corner and do whatever he's doing, and then we share back and forth because somebody else has built out something. And so that is huge. And and has helped us, right, to scale. Just because we still have. Everything is fucked up, okay? All the time. And it's. Whenever do you feel like that's true.

For, like, a lot of different teams?

How's this? Anyone that doesn't say that is lying, right? And every time I ask for something, because Dan and I will sit down and we'll speak on different things, and you're supposed to pick something that you're the best at, whatever that is. And we're like, well, we're kind of mediocre at everything, right? So the truth is, however, when I look at other people's businesses, we have so much that we're good at. It's just, you have holes, and the bigger you get, right? You, like, things are constantly breaking. And just when you think you have everything the way it should be, the world around you that you cannot control, the companies that you partner with, it changes, right? It changes. And you have to run faster, you have to adapt, and you have to do it quicker, because if you don't have that lead time, they're gonna figure it out behind you. You got six months to make money doing this, and then you have to pivot. And so it's not boring. And I think that for people like me, I get bored, right? I get bored. And. And if you give me the day off, I'll restructure whatever you're doing. Like, nobody wants me to come home. Like, oh, good, Mom's here. I'm like, everybody get up. We're gonna redo your whole room. Carry everything in the living room out. And I'm busy.

Yeah. So this kind of goes back a little bit to. You already mentioned it, and I wanted to ask you about it anyway, which is hardwired for hard work, obviously. Try to prepare for these conversations, learn a bit about people, special people I haven't met before. Thank you again for spending this time with me. I'm glad to spend more time with you and your. Your logo, your branding, the tagline itself. Hardwired for hard work. I could tell, especially also watching some of your video content. Like, there's some taglines. You see them, you're like, ah, that's a pretty good tagline, or whatever. And then there are other ones. You, you. I felt like in looking at it, that there was some work done there that was thoughtful to reflect who are. So, like, it gave me an impression of you, but then also, like, again, experiencing you through video. I was like, this is. Feels like an authentic thing, so I'd love for you to Share anything you want about your branding in general, including that hardwired for hard work, which has certainly been a theme to this conversation.

Yeah. So my, my branding, years ago, right, when I, Maybe this was 2013, Tom Ferry had Mark Davison from Thousand Watt come and they had, they were starting a business, right? It was whatever they were going to do. Agent bios, some sort of branding, help you with your business card. None of us, we didn't have any of that back then. We all had cards with our faces on them, as big as possible. And so I immediately, as I said it was back then, I think for me it was. It might have been like $10,000, right? And that was a lot of money. But I, I'm doing it right, so. And I think that Mark and Tom thought it would be easy, right? So they sent over the branding that I was going to get and I looked at it and I sent it back. My thoughts, like, it didn't feel like me. It didn't resonate. And then of course, I started talking to Mark on the phone and he's amazing. Like, if you ever get the opportunity, super, super great guy, smart. And we went back and forth. And I suppose that that happened with the other people involved in this trial because the business did not, at that point, they killed it because it wasn't quite so easy. So we went through hours of how I felt about myself, how I felt about my business, my urban, and how I wanted it to feel and what was important, and just they kicked back. I loved what I ended up with. And then about a few years ago, I ran into him again and I said, maybe we can do this some more and, like, get a refresh kind of, I'm not the same as I was then. And we did a whole other round of, you know, what took, I don't know, a few months. There are a bunch of other taglines that we went through, but the truth is that, like, we're urban and I think that our stuff looks a little bit urban. I like it. It's good. It feels like me. And it wasn't easy. It took a lot. Because if you redo any sort of branding, you know, you don't want to throw out what you had. We had to kind of try to keep it so that it would be consistent. And where I work is, you know, most of our business is in probably five miles. And everywhere you, you go, you see our signs and we have a huge, like, billboard that says, we probably sold your neighbor's home. And so, like, it's a Good line. I've gotten listings off it because anything that stops and makes people think or at least smile, I. You don't have to work with everyone. Right. And that's the truth. And when you do this for years, I no longer. This is middle aged woman stuff. I don't, I don't need for anyone to like me. I want to like them and whatever. And I like. And I like, I like funny, I like a little bit irreverent and I don't know.

Well, it's certainly refreshing relative to the standard bus benches and billboards that we see in general in this space. In general. What are you looking forward to in the year ahead? 2025, like what top line things like you just.

So we're doing a lot of things. Like we're trying to diversify. We've. We got involved in some syndication. We're doing a fix and flip division. I have had the unique experience of working with my daughter for the past seven years. And so she is doing incredibly well. It's. It's been, it's interesting if you ever get the chance to work with your kid, it's not. It's hard. Right? It's hard.

And because you're both coming with a lot of preconceived notions about the relationship.

Yes. And.

And so it's in a whole new context.

Yes. And so it came from where she says what she thinks. She's my daughter. And that's not always great. Right. Especially if the entire team is watching and. Yes. But we've evolved. And when people ask what's the exit plan, what are you gonna do? Like, I'm not a retiring type. What would happen?

You strike me as such.

Last year, not this year, had a lot of weekends where I hung out with my husband and rode my bike around and did things a little bit different. Time with my family is, you know, is valuable to me. And I have learned that setting expectations. Right. With whoever. Right. With your team, with the people that you're working with. People will wait. Right. And I don't have to necessarily be quite as on demand as I was. You know, the world is not going to blow up if I don't respond to people in four minutes. But the truth is somebody does have to respond. Right. So putting those processes behind me, having somebody who can answer in my voice and, and that's hard for somebody like me because my mind is not structured that way. So I'm not changing, but the people around me to support me so that I am, can do what I'm the best at, which is probably just making things happen. Yeah.

This has been a pleasure. I really appreciate you sitting down with me this morning. And before I let you go, I have one fun question for you. I think it's fun anyway. What is one of your most frivolous purchases? Or you can answer one or the other. Or what's a cheapskate habit that you hold on to even though you probably don't need to?

I negotiate everything to the to. I'm not surprised my children will leave. Like, I'll be in a store and I'm like, well, can you, can you do a little better? Like, I cannot not ask. And like when my team, you know, has an event or whatever it is, I'm like, what did you go back and ask to pay less? And literally it always works. I always pay less. And it's not. I don't think of that as. As cheap. I just think of that as you're supposed to. Right? Yeah, whatever. And I don't know, frivolous purchases. Years ago, when I was sitting and I was trying to figure out where is all my money, right? Because I did have like, I had an IRS situation that was crippling. I don't know the irs. I am the poster child for pay your frickin taxes. But years ago, when I was not and I opened up that letter from the IRS and had to reevaluate my whole existence, I looked over at the $30,000 worth of handbags that I had and I was like, you're an idiot. So I don't know. I'm left frivolous now. Right, Cool.

Anyway, well, thank you so much for doing this. I wish you continued success in the year ahead. This was really fun and I appreciate you.

Thanks for checking out this episode of Teemos. For email exclusive insights every week, sign up@realestateteamos.com.