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Show Summary
In this episode, Jen Dillard shares her journey from real estate agent to founder of Brick by Brick, a support service for real estate professionals. She discusses how her business helps agents and investors reclaim their time, scale their operations, and achieve work-life balance, along with insights into her investment strategies in mobile home parks and RV parks.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Jen Dillard (00:00)
I was at my daughter’s soccer practice and she was just learning how to play soccer. And she was so cute how she was like learning how to dribble the ball back and forth between her feet. And she looked like a little golden retriever puppy, like too big. Her paws were too big for her. And I found myself, you know, just multitasking and was getting ready to send an email. And I looked up from my computer and I locked eyes with her.And that look on her face of sheer disappointment that I was there, but I wasn’t fully present really hit me and made me realize that it was time for me to figure out how to delegate more.
Michelle Kesil (02:10)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil. Today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Jen Dillard, who runs a real estate team, as well as founded Brick by Brick, which allows agents to receive support on their businesses. So excited to have you here today, Jen.Jen Dillard (02:34)
Thanks for having me, Michelle. Excited to chat.Michelle Kesil (02:37)
Awesome, so yeah, let’s dive in. First off, for those who are not familiar with you and your work yet, can you share what your main focus is?Jen Dillard (02:46)
Yeah, so I have been a real estate agent for over a decade and started a team about eight years ago. And about a year and a half ago, I realized that I just really needed more support in my business and ⁓ found myself just working like so many agents do, just working all hours. I was working morning to late into the evening and…Actually what happened was
was at my daughter’s soccer practice and she was just learning how to play soccer. And she was so cute how she was like learning how to dribble the ball back and forth between her feet. And she looked like a little golden retriever puppy, like too big. Her paws were too big for her. And I found myself, you know, just multitasking and was getting ready to send an email. And I looked up from my computer and I locked eyes with her.
And that look on her face of sheer disappointment that I was there, but I wasn’t fully present really hit me and made me realize that it was time for me to figure out how to delegate
and focus on the things that require me so that I can free myself up to focus on my family. ⁓ so that’s, I started Brick by Brick Collective out of necessity for myself and my own business. And it turns out that many other real estate agents also needed the support.
Michelle Kesil (04:10)
Yeah, I love that. And so can you explain more about how Brick by Brick supports agents? Like, what does it do for them?Jen Dillard (04:19)
Yeah, so we really are kind of a one-stop shop for backend support. So things like email, ⁓ know, ⁓ email delegating your emails. email support and inbox management, calendar management, ⁓ CRM management and setup and overseeing CRMs. also do many different cover many different areas in operations and marketing.transaction coordination where basically if there’s a need in the real estate space for backend support, we’ve got you covered.
Michelle Kesil (05:00)
Awesome. And is this for a specific market or is this nationwide?Jen Dillard (05:53)
We’re nationwide and we actually are also, we just opened up Canada as well. So yeah, we cover pretty much almost all 50 states. We have clients in almost all 50 states, crazy.Michelle Kesil (06:09)
Amazing. And so is this just for agents or do other people have like support through this as well?Jen Dillard (06:10)
Yeah.I think anybody that’s in the real estate space, so mortgage, title, real estate investors, anybody that’s in the real estate space, we can serve at this point. But we are open to, we have a lot of different support partners, so if there’s somebody that’s looking for support that’s not in the real estate space, we can definitely refer people.
Michelle Kesil (06:41)
Yeah, so how would they serve an investor?Jen Dillard (06:45)
Same thing, mean, investors also are super swamped with when it comes to their email boxes. I am an investor myself and my husband is an, you we’re investors. And so I know that we get, especially when we’re working on a deal, we’ve got so many emails that are coming in and it’s hard to keep up with. having your emails really well organized and having somebody who’s keeping tabs on that is something we can support, calendar management. ⁓operations, building out systems, processes and automations is something that real estate investors need as well. So yeah, we can cover pretty much everything that we serve real estate agents for investors could benefit from as well.
Michelle Kesil (07:27)
Yeah, awesome. And so the people that are using it now, how are they reporting their time given back to them?Jen Dillard (07:39)
We have had such a great response from clients. They just feel like they are able to free themselves up, to buy back their time. They’re spending more time with their families on themselves. some people, I’ve had a client recently say that she went on vacation and she didn’t open her computer. She actually was able to enjoy vacation, which is hard when you’re running a business to be able to find the time to just relax and…enjoy all of your heart, the fruits of your labor, everything you’ve worked so hard for, you’ve got to enjoy it. So it’s awesome to be able to provide that support.
Michelle Kesil (08:19)
Yeah, absolutely. And so how does it work? Is it like a subscription service?Jen Dillard (08:25)
Yeah, it’s a subscription based model. So it’s a monthly charge depending on what the needs are. We build a custom scope. So it just depends on what the needs of the client are. And then we bill monthly. We do also have some one time projects. we have, if somebody needs to have a brand created or have just, they just want their CRM to be built out. Like sometimes that would be a one time charge, but.For the most part, it’s monthly.
Michelle Kesil (08:58)
And so you said that you’re an investor yourself. How is that for you? Like what type of investments are you into?Jen Dillard (09:08)
Yeah,my husband and I ⁓ have been investing in real estate for, gosh, probably over 15 years. And we mostly focus on mobile home parks and RV parks, but we do have hospitality and apartment buildings, single family commercial. We kind of have a little bit of everything, but I would say our biggest focus is
⁓ mobile home parks and RV parks. We have over 800 doors.
Michelle Kesil (09:44)
Wow, that’s awesome.Jen Dillard (09:45)
Yeah.Yeah.
Michelle Kesil (09:48)
And so what would you say has been one of the biggest obstacles that you’ve overcome on your investing journey?Jen Dillard (10:34)
I think one of the biggest obstacles has been just getting into a deal that’s not… We purchased a property several years ago that turned… We partnered with the wrong people and got into a situation that was less than ideal, but we had to figure out how to turn the property around and get it to start cash flowing and making money again because it was…Definitely not, we had to invest quite a bit into it and ⁓ I think we never went out to the property. So I think that we’ve learned our lesson there that it’s really important to actually go out and get eyeballs, your own eyeballs on the property and just make sure that you do your due diligence, not just rely on somebody else to do due diligence.
Michelle Kesil (11:24)
Yeah, absolutely. And what are you like most focusing on solving or scaling to next for your business?Jen Dillard (11:38)
I would say we’re just, mean, as far as Brick by Brick goes, we just are trying to get in front of as many agents as possible to try to, you know, provide support and to have an impact on real estate agents and their lives and their work-life balance. And so this is the year of traveling and going to events and getting FaceTime with other agents and helping them to learn more about Brick by Brick.Michelle Kesil (12:09)
Awesome. And what do you feel have been some of the main keys that made the biggest difference in allowing your business to be able to grow and run successfully?Jen Dillard (12:22)
The biggest keys to success are being able to rebound fast. think that there’s in business, I’ve owned several businesses and in business it is, you fail. mean, you make mistakes and you drop the ball and there’s, I think the key is not avoiding failure, avoiding mistakes. It’s learning how to rebound quickly and to bounce back and be able toget back to work ⁓ and learn from any mistake or failure that you made. I think of failure as an opportunity to learn. don’t think of it as failure.
Michelle Kesil (13:05)
Yeah, absolutely. Do you have an example of one of those moments where you bounced back quick?Jen Dillard (13:12)
Yeah, I mean, I even with just starting brick by brick, we started about a year and a half ago and I started with a business partner and, ⁓ you know, we learned a lot. We learned we weren’t aligned, which is okay. And then we also, so we separated the partnership and then we also, ⁓ learned that the model that we were running wasn’t the best model for growth and nor was it for the clients. And so.when I bought the company, completely restructured everything, including the team, the model, the services that were offered, the way we offered services. ⁓ it was a great learning experience and I’m glad that I went through it so that, although painful, I’m glad I went through it because I was able to learn so much and to bring it back in a better way for everybody.
Michelle Kesil (14:07)
Yeah, absolutely. And what advice would you give to those that are just looking to get started in the real estate industry, whether that be someone that’s wanting to get into investing or maybe grow as an agent?Jen Dillard (14:23)
Yeah, to grow as an agent, feel like my biggest advice is to join a team and to or partner with, you know, work alongside somebody to learn the ropes, to learn, you know, to learn how they speak and how they present and just I think.going along with somebody and really soaking up all of the expertise that they have and being able to have like real life experience is so powerful. So that would be my recommendation as far as an agent goes. As far as an investor, ⁓ read, read, read, read, read, read, read. You cannot read enough. There are so many incredible books out there. And so I think that just in a and YouTube and there’s just so many resources. So just. ⁓
familiarizing yourself with as much as possible and learning as much as possible before getting in, I think is a good idea.
Michelle Kesil (16:03)
Yeah, and what have you read that maybe changed ⁓ your life the most?Jen Dillard (16:11)
Um, honestly, this is going to be like sound funny, but my husband wrote a book called zero to 100 and it’s a book about real estate investing and how to go from zero to a hundred units and to scale and find financial freedom through real estate. And it is like one of the best books that I’ve read on in the real estate space. And I’ve heard that from many other people too. So it’s not just cause I’m his wife, but, um, that I think that that has been really instrumental. And then asAnd then I think Buy Back Your Time is a really great book by Dan Martell. And that book has really been helpful for me to learn how to delegate better.
Michelle Kesil (16:51)
Yeah, and what is like your biggest takeaway from the book that your husband wrote?Jen Dillard (16:58)
He just has such great frameworks and models on how to start get it get started with investing and he breaks it down in a way that I’ve never seen anybody break down break it down before. So it makes it really digestible for the new investor.Michelle Kesil (17:17)
Awesome. And so with Brick by Brick, ⁓ what are some of the ways that it helps the backend? I know you mentioned the emails and the automations, but what are the other bells and whistles of it?Jen Dillard (17:36)
Yeah, so you know, I think that one thing that we do that is really differentiates us is the way that we support agents and transaction management. I think that so often transaction coordination is just pushing papers around or, you know, just checking boxes for compliance and our transaction team just gets fully immersed in the transaction and helps with scheduling.signage, ⁓ install, scheduling, staging, scheduling photography, but also communicating with the other agent on the other side of the transaction and communicating with the clients, just making sure to really help with every single step of the transaction. I think that that is so helpful. Having a good transaction coordinator is priceless. And the cool thing is too that you don’t pay for
you don’t pay for that service until closing. So if it doesn’t close, then you don’t pay, which is nice.
Michelle Kesil (18:36)
Yeah, that’s awesome. And so how does it work? Is it like AI that does these tasks?Jen Dillard (18:36)
Yeah.No, we have
real humans that do the tasks, yeah. We have AI to support the transaction coordinators, but we have a transaction coordination team and we have TC’s that are licensed across the states.
Michelle Kesil (19:00)
Awesome.Jen Dillard (19:00)
Yeah.Yeah.
Michelle Kesil (19:03)
And so what would you say, like, as far as your investing projects, like, are you looking to continue scaling into that? ⁓ And at what level, like, is it with the mobile home parks or what type of asset?Jen Dillard (19:16)
Yeah,yeah, we just closed down another property. We’re closing on another property this week. We’re always looking for new opportunities, but yeah, mostly in the mobile home park space. We just have found that that’s our favorite asset class.
Michelle Kesil (19:30)
Why is that?Jen Dillard (19:32)
It’s just the highest return for us. it’s the least of, it takes the least amount of, I don’t want to say effort, because it does take effort. We have great onsite managers and things like that, but it does, it just has the highest return and seems to be the easiest to manage as opposed to turnover with apartment buildings and long-term tenants. Yeah.Michelle Kesil (19:56)
Right.Yeah,
so with the mobile home parks, you hire then operators that end up managing each individual park?
Jen Dillard (20:08)
Yeah, so we have on-site managers at each park and then we also have asset managers that manage our portfolio.Michelle Kesil (20:18)
Awesome.And so what are you most excited about as far as real estate opportunities for this coming year?
Jen Dillard (20:30)
Yeah, I think that this year is going to bring a lot of opportunities. I feel like our real estate team is crushing it already. We’ve been so busy and far busier than we were last year. So I think that the spring market is going to be really strong. And that also helps with brick by brick as well. Just, you know, agents are getting busier and busier. So being able to support them through that has been really exciting. And I just think that the next the next, ⁓ you know,The rest of the year should be pretty exciting on all fronts. I’m ready for it.
Michelle Kesil (21:05)
Amazing. And like your agents, where are they located?Jen Dillard (21:06)
ThankWe are all in Oregon and Washington. So we have a couple of expansion teams, but primarily in the Columbia River Gorge area of Oregon and Washington, and then Pendleton, Walla Walla, and Southwest Washington.
Michelle Kesil (21:27)
and is that for like supporting people with more of that like single-family homes?Jen Dillard (21:35)
Yeah,we do mostly single-family homes, also commercial and residential, but mostly residential.
Michelle Kesil (21:46)
Amazing. Thank you for sharing all that.Jen Dillard (21:47)
Yeah.Yeah, you’re welcome.
Michelle Kesil (21:52)
So before we begin to wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect, and learn more about everything that you are up to, where can people find you and connect with you?Jen Dillard (22:03)
The best way to connect with me is through Instagram. My handle is just @jendillard or @brickbybrickcollective.Michelle Kesil (22:13)
Okay, perfect, well appreciate your time and your story. Thank you so much for being here. Of course, and for those listeners tuning into the show, if you got value, make sure you’ve subscribed. We have more conversations with operators like Jen who are building real businesses and we will see you all on our next episode.Jen Dillard (22:17)
Thank you, thanks for having me.
