Jessica Mendez and Joel Gonzalez: Real 4 Jax Team Top Jacksonville Agents

REE #264 Transcript

[00:00:00] Joel Gonzalez: The main source for our growth, was that community involvement? Yeah, the community was that. So being there, supporting there, out there, taking the steps to help each other out there, just even buying things from that we didn't need from other people.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: Just to show support.
Jessica Mendez: Right.
Joel Gonzalez: Just to get that face recognition, just to, you know, to kind of, show, I like to call it the critical mass.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: And being there.

[00:00:51] Tracy Hayes: Hey, welcome back to the Real Estate Excellence Podcast. We feature the top professionals driving results, raising standards in Northeast Florida's real estate industry. Today's guests are part of one of the most trusted and culturally connected real estate teams serving the Jacksonville area, known for their deep local expertise, client-first mindset, and commitment to serving the Spanish-speaking community. This dynamic team is helping families across the region find homes, build futures with integrity, heart, and hustle. They bring a powerful blend of leadership, bilingual communication, a passion for service that's making the real impact on buyers, sellers, and fellow agents alike. Joining me today, Jessica Mendez and Joel Gonzalez of the Real For Jack's team with Rise Realty Advisors.
Jessica Mendez: Thank you.
Joel Gonzalez: Yes, thank you.
Tracy Hayes: What was that? Where was the tagline? Gimme the tagline.
[00:01:41] Joel Gonzalez: Yeah. Our confidence is your trust.
[00:01:43] Tracy Hayes: Confidence... "confide is your trust, our confidence" version. Okay. I appreciate you guys coming down and finally getting this. It's been at least two years. I think I've been asking you—if it's been all—I mean, I'm going on my, sorry, I'm going on my four-year anniversary, uh, next June 6th, I think when I put the first show in you asked for the first time. So it might be longer than two years, but I'm glad you guys are here.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah, we are here.
Tracy Hayes: I was fortunate to have Daniela Aton with eXp. You familiar with her?
Joel Gonzalez: Okay.
Tracy Hayes: She works the Hispanic market as well. And I'm just amazed by what you guys are doing and the business that's being created. Because I think it's so important that that community is being served and you guys are serving it at a high level.
[00:02:24] Joel Gonzalez: That's...
[00:02:24] Tracy Hayes: Correct.
[00:02:25] Joel Gonzalez: That's correct. We're very proud of that. We're very proud to help our community grow and generate that generational wealth.
Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: Which is key to the American dream.
[00:02:32] Tracy Hayes: Exactly. Actually, that was one thing I was typing up—a little headline to put on when it goes live on Facebook—and that was the important thing: the wealth. I think. And when I was writing that, I was thinking, you know, because we hear the news lately—oh, oh, you know, oh, people are, you know, are shying away from buying homes. And obviously it's difficult now with high interest rates and cost and everything's gonna adjust there. But where some of our—I would, I'm gonna say myself as being more of a, the average American—they're not coming with that cultural sharing. It's coming from other cultures, whether it's across borders or across water, coming in and realizing what the opportunity is here, especially in real estate.
[00:03:14] Jessica Mendez: Yeah. Sometimes here in United States it's easier than in our country to buy a home.
Tracy Hayes: For sure.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah. We, we have a lot of different SPRs, right? Just as a lender, you know that.
Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Mendez: So it is, it's easier sometimes to do it here than in our country.
[00:03:32] Joel Gonzalez: Yeah. So they see that opportunity. The system actually encourages home ownership.
Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: And that's something that we really try to drive home and make them realize it, where they, where they don't. And like, hey, stop wasting your money with rent. Here are these opportunities to become a homeowner. When they realize it's not that difficult, then they jump in immediately. Just like with that entrepreneurial mindset they have already to create businesses, to grow, to live the American dream. Once they realize, oh, and becoming a homeowner is a key part of that—or that mix—let's do it.
[00:04:06] Tracy Hayes: Well, you think, again, you know, I'm gonna just use that phrase, average American, and we've taken it for granted to actually own our own dirt, right? Our own house, our own roof. And in other cultures, it's handed down. To buy property in a lot of countries is very difficult.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Tracy Hayes: It's not often put up for sale.
[00:04:25] Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Here you have onto down payment assistance. They don't know that.
Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Mendez: So we try to, you know, to show them the opportunities that they have here.
[00:04:34] Tracy Hayes: Right. So since we're on that culture—do you guys need to get LinkedIn? Although I didn't look up Joel's.
Jessica Mendez: We have it.
Tracy Hayes: You have LinkedIn?
Jessica Mendez: Oh, we have it.
Tracy Hayes: We have one?
[00:04:43] Jessica Mendez: Instagram.
Tracy Hayes: So that's—he's LinkedIn?
Jessica Mendez: Yeah, she's on—
[00:04:47] Joel Gonzalez: Instagram master, but I come from the America, corporate America, so I have my LinkedIn for sure.
[00:04:52] Tracy Hayes: So I didn't get a chance to go on your LinkedIn, Joel.
Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
Tracy Hayes: So, which usually gives me at least the background to ask the question.
Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
Tracy Hayes: 'Cause I'm gonna ask a question I do not know the answer actually to, because there could be a couple different... tell us a little about, you know, where you're from, you know, and then what you've been—you've been in corporate America?
Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
Tracy Hayes: Tell a little bit of story of, and then how did you guys get into real estate?
Joel Gonzalez: You wanna take it?
[00:05:11] Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: First?
Jessica Mendez: Yeah. We're originally from Venezuela.
[00:05:14] Tracy Hayes: Okay.
[00:05:15] Jessica Mendez: Eh, we came and we used to live in Miami for a couple of years. Then we moved to Georgia and, well, now we are here in Jackson.
Tracy Hayes: So how—Jackson—how old...
[00:05:26] Tracy Hayes: How old were you when you came from Venezuela?
[00:05:28] Jessica Mendez: How—what?
[00:05:29] Tracy Hayes: How old?
[00:05:30] Jessica Mendez: It was like 12 years ago.
[00:05:32] Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
Jessica Mendez: For me.
Joel Gonzalez: For you. I was 15.
Jessica Mendez: So you're like 15?
Joel Gonzalez: When I started, 15.
Jessica Mendez: Exactly.
[00:05:37] Tracy Hayes: Are you kidding me?
[00:05:39] Tracy Hayes: Alright. So you, young, you were old enough to realize what was going on.
[00:05:42] Jessica Mendez: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:05:43] Tracy Hayes: And came to Miami first?
Jessica Mendez: Yes.
[00:05:46] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. I was fortunate enough, back in a previous career about 22, 23 years ago, I was running an Alltel store—cell phones—in Naples and had a young lady from Venezuela, and I actually recruited her. I was walking the mall and I was—I watched her and what was going on. And obviously in Naples you do—I actually, every employee but me was bilingual. I recruited them all. Oh, I had one, a gentleman from Haiti and, and so forth. But I knew that was a power to have a bilingual person.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Hayes: And then what I found was the work ethic, sort of the attitude. If they didn't hang out with too many of those average Americans that I've been talking about—sometimes can get lazy—they really came and saw the opportunity of obviously, you know, having a job, having health benefits, and so forth.
[00:06:32] Joel Gonzalez: Correct, correct. So we came here to grind.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: You know, to do the best that we can to achieve that American dream. I started in Boston with an MBA, then I moved down to South Florida where my wife joined me.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: When she finally graduated in Venezuela—an accountant.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: And then she moved over with us. You know, we moved over to Pembroke Pines, South Florida and we lived there for like five years.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: Then we came down because of an opportunity—you know, I was a global logistics and supply chain manager.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: And they gave me an opportunity at this corporation that is based in Jacksonville, that actually had plants in Georgia, you know, Fernandina Beach and Canada later. And a good base for us was Brunswick. It was, you know, good distance to the different places. So we moved from—
[00:07:18] Jessica Mendez: May, Valencia—
Joel Gonzalez: Valencia, industrial city in Venezuela—
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: To Miami, Boston, and all of a sudden we're in Brunswick, Georgia.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: And we love that experience because when we moved over to Jacksonville, it was that right mix for us between the big city and the town.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: And, you know, what a city can offer—a big metropolitan area can offer—
Tracy Hayes: Right.
Joel Gonzalez: But without the mess they have in Miami, these other big metropolitan areas, right?
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: So we fell in love with Jacksonville immediately.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: And that's where our three children were born.
Jessica Mendez: Born here.
Joel Gonzalez: And we're growing. And we love this city.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: We really market the city.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: Like, hey, look at the values, look at what you can find here. Look at the opportunities. Look at...

[00:08:04] Jessica Mendez: Yeah, you have everything that you need here.
[00:08:06] Tracy Hayes: Right? Well, you kind of have—I was just thinking about, you know, going to Miami—Venezuela, were you living, was it more of a metropolitan area?
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Tracy Hayes: Yeah. So you were living in an apartment or condo, whatever.
[00:08:17] Joel Gonzalez: The big industrial city.
[00:08:19] Tracy Hayes: Your neighbor's right there if you're hitting the wall, right?
Jessica Mendez: Yes.
Tracy Hayes: I've traveled to Asian countries and they explained it—they like living in the tight, you know, multifamily condo.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Tracy Hayes: That side.
[00:08:32] Joel Gonzalez: Yeah. Complexes.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:34] Tracy Hayes: Did you see that cultural difference being in America, where most of the people like living—they want space?
[00:08:39] Joel Gonzalez: Yeah. Space, yeah.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
[00:08:41] Joel Gonzalez: Honestly, I think it is kind of regional. There's definitely a mix. I mean, we have both scenarios as well—areas that look more like Florida, and areas that look more like New York.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: So, you know, I think where we lived—where we're from—is more like Jacksonville, actually.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: So we really connected the dots, like, hey, Jacksonville looks a lot like where we're from.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: And we see the potential for growth, the development that is happening, and the fact that there’s space for that growth.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: And there's planning that you can see around the highways and everything and the distances to key cities, areas—you know, like Orlando, the same distance to Atlanta, then to Miami—and the fact that you are on I-10 and I-95 and you can go anywhere from there.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: A logistics hotspot.
[00:09:33] Tracy Hayes: Well, I think—I always talk about lifestyle. People move to Florida for a lifestyle.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Hayes: Especially, you know, our Midwesterners or probably even California, but definitely our Northeasterners—we're moving here for a lifestyle. And Jacksonville kind of gives you that. You're 30 minutes from—hey, if I want to get out and I don’t want to see anybody, you can take about a 30-minute drive west and you won't see anything. Or you could take a 15-minute boat ride and you're already out in the ocean.
Jessica Mendez: That's correct.
Tracy Hayes: If you wanted to, if that’s what you desire. But you got rivers, you've got hiking trails and so forth, and you don't—you feel like within a few minutes I can be in the country.
[00:10:13] Joel Gonzalez: Yeah. That one thing I really enjoy about Florida—you have like a land life…
[00:10:18] Jessica Mendez: And a water life.
[00:10:20] Joel Gonzalez: Yeah. And once you get on the water, it's like, my God, this is just such a different city from this perspective. Everywhere in Florida—like Miami, Jacksonville, you name it. Even Orlando, as the St. John’s River gets really close to that.
[00:10:32] Jessica Mendez: Yeah. And what I like most about Jackson is—it’s an easy city for me. First, we come from Miami.
Joel Gonzalez: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Mendez: We came from Miami, you know, it's very—
[00:10:40] Joel Gonzalez: Mess.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah. And this is an easy city. And the people—oh my God—the community is awesome.
[00:10:48] Tracy Hayes: Are you seeing people move—you know, I don’t know if you had friends or whatever—there is a move, I think, from the Miami, Fort Lauderdale area to come north to get out of that race.
Jessica Mendez: Even from Orlando too.
[00:11:00] Tracy Hayes: Even from Orlando.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
[00:11:02] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, because—although, we were talking—you mentioned Tallahassee before the show.
Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
Tracy Hayes: I mean, that's still an area that's like untouched, wild country, rural.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Tracy Hayes: Like you want to go boar hunting or whatever—
Joel Gonzalez: Yeah, go out there.
[00:11:18] Joel Gonzalez: I say that we have like four kinds of immigration in Jacksonville. We have the people that are coming from California—I think that’s number one. New York is number two. Chicago is number three. And Miami, South Florida is number four.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: And then she adds Orlando—even more people from Orlando come to Jacksonville too.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
[00:11:37] Tracy Hayes: What, you know, since you've been here and obviously you guys are involved in it—real estate’s a business where you want to be in, you're in touch with what's going on—what is Jacksonville doing right? You know? And the influx of—we’ve become a financial hub. We've actually stolen some of these corporate companies from Charlotte—you know, the Triangle, so to speak—and brought 'em in here to bring a lot of, you know, white-collar jobs and so forth.
[00:12:02] Joel Gonzalez: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I totally see that. And that’s one of the first things, as I worked in the corporation, one of the first things that we noticed.
[00:12:10] Jessica Mendez: Yeah. Many opportunities. Yeah. That’s why people are coming here. Because better prices. You can buy a home here—in Miami it’s so hard, so difficult. You're always gonna try, but you're never gonna find, because, you know, it’s too expensive. So here you have many job opportunities.
Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Mendez: Better jobs and the opportunity to buy a property here.
[00:12:33] Tracy Hayes: Alright. So he talked about his corporate job. You had an accounting degree—
Jessica Mendez: Yes.
Tracy Hayes: Coming in from Venezuela.
Jessica Mendez: Yes.
Tracy Hayes: What did you do prior to—as we're gonna get into here in a minute—getting into real estate?
[00:12:43] Jessica Mendez: Yeah, no, I was working as an accountant in Miami.
Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Mendez: In a company there. And then when we moved here, I started with my first baby. I really liked connecting with people, helping them.
[00:13:00] Jessica Mendez: And in Georgia, I see that was very difficult because everything was in English. It was a very big change from Miami to Georgia. It was like a—
[00:13:09] Joel Gonzalez: Wow. South Georgia.
[00:13:11] Jessica Mendez: Oh my God.
[00:13:12] Joel Gonzalez: To be clear.
[00:13:13] Jessica Mendez: Yeah. And it was like nobody spoke Spanish at all.
[00:13:19] Tracy Hayes: Right. And they’re not totally speaking proper English either.
[00:13:22] Jessica Mendez: Yeah. It was very hard. So there, I got a couple of friends that wanted to do things but they couldn’t because of the language. So I said, oh my gosh, what about the people that really want to buy a house—how can they do it with that? Difficult, you know? They don’t speak the language—it's one of the most important investments in your life.
Tracy Hayes: Right.
Jessica Mendez: And you’re gonna do it without knowing anything? Just signing and signing the document but you don't know what you're signing?
[00:13:56] Tracy Hayes: Right. Oh, well, there's just two parts. Being on the lending side—how you need to have your financials in a row as well, and it's different culturally wherever you go. You know how people—obviously, you know, lenders don’t like mattress money.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Hayes: There's a lot of people that feel much safer having so much money—
Jessica Mendez: Oh yeah.
[00:14:14] Joel Gonzalez: I mean, many Europeans that I deal with and South Americans, they don’t like the credit system. Right? They think credit is just a bad thing. You talk to a German about credit, it's like, no, I don’t wanna get credit. I wanna buy with cash.
[00:14:28] Jessica Mendez: Most of our Spanish people, they think the same thing.
Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
Jessica Mendez: They use the cash. “I have the cash.”
Joel Gonzalez: “Yeah. In my bag, in my bedroom.”
Jessica Mendez: What? The cash?
Joel Gonzalez: Cash!
Jessica Mendez: Really? You’re talking all the cash.
Joel Gonzalez: Cash, yes.
Jessica Mendez: No, please.
[00:14:45] Joel Gonzalez: About a customer—let’s talk about this customer we're dealing with right now, who has a really good, thriving business.
[00:14:53] Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: And we realized, when we're doing the lending process, that she withdrew money—
[00:15:00] Jessica Mendez: To save in cash.
Joel Gonzalez: From the business account to save it in cash.

[00:15:03] Joel Gonzalez: To buy a house.
Jessica Mendez: No, because I'm saving—I'm saving that money in cash because then I wanna buy another house in the future and I'm gonna use that money.
[00:15:12] Tracy Hayes: Right.
[00:15:13] Jessica Mendez: What?
[00:15:15] Joel Gonzalez: But yeah. But you went along and then you're gonna use that money as a down payment.
[00:15:21] Jessica Mendez: We try to teach, you know? Yeah. All the time with the customer.
Tracy Hayes: Tell us—what is the way—
[00:15:26] Joel Gonzalez: You tell us how difficult it is to convey that cash into the lending.
Tracy Hayes: I remember, hopefully they—
[00:15:31] Tracy Hayes: Have that much money actually in an account that we could say—and we don't need that money—but when you come to closing, we don't care what money you bring.
[00:15:37] Jessica Mendez: Maybe, maybe Tracy, maybe you don't remember, but I remember when we were—the first time, like five years ago, I believe.
Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Mendez: The problem with the customer was that—that he received a deposit for 8K and we couldn't—
[00:15:56] Tracy Hayes: Couldn't trace it.
Jessica Mendez: Exactly.
[00:15:57] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
[00:15:58] Jessica Mendez: We, we waited like two months, something like that—two months and a half to get the new statement.
[00:16:04] Tracy Hayes: And I mean, the common thing we get—especially sometimes they just get it from a relative. Well, that’s what they tell us. But then when we say, well, we need to see that relative’s statement—that that's where it came from—and they don't want to show.
[00:16:18] Joel Gonzalez: And they're like, “Why do you want to see my bank statements?” And they feel like—that’s an offense.
[00:16:24] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
[00:16:24] Joel Gonzalez: “Why do you want to get into that? Why don't you trust me?” It’s a trust thing also.
[00:16:29] Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: It’s like a principle. “Why don't they believe that I work hard, and I show this, and I have the money? Why do they want to get into my personal and privacy?” Yeah, it’s a big cultural barrier.
[00:16:42] Jessica Mendez: Yeah. They just sometimes believe like, “Oh, they don't want to give me the loan, so I don't want to do it because they don’t trust me.”
[00:16:49] Tracy Hayes: Well, those who are listening right now—we love lending money.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Tracy Hayes: It's not that we're trying to find a way—although, I mean, obviously these are guidelines not set by any lender. They're set by investors.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
[00:17:00] Tracy Hayes: But then the federal government’s coming in and saying, well, we want to make sure that someone’s not taking this scrupulous money over here and laundering it through a house purchase and then selling the house and calling it clean.
[00:17:14] Joel Gonzalez: Hey, Tim, I'm gonna tell you about a case real quick. I mean, we have this couple that sold their property in Colombia, and we were about to close here. And when we were about to receive the keys, all of a sudden that huge amount of money jumped into their account. And now we have underwriting asking, “Where is this money coming from?”
[00:17:36] Joel Gonzalez: “It's coming from Colombia.”
Tracy Hayes: Oh my goodness.
Joel Gonzalez: So it's out of the shortlist. All the papers are in Spanish—GTOs, the official registration, official records—translation. And it's a very different, difficult paperwork type of tracing, and you have the language barrier and everything. And I had to go through and learn myself—
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:00] Joel Gonzalez: About how they do a property sale in Colombia to actually justify that money.
[00:18:04] Tracy Hayes: That brings just an interesting statement for those that are listening—that's where you really gotta have—you gotta have some lenders in your pocket. Because, having worked for multiple institutions in my 20 years, not all of them can overcome that hurdle.
[00:18:18] Tracy Hayes: Okay. Some of them have underwriters who have been in the business, are savvy enough, are confident enough to say, “I'm gonna make this call. That's okay. Yeah, I'm okay with that paperwork. Should someone audit the loan or something, I’m good.”
[00:18:28] Joel Gonzalez: I totally agree. And the people that give up—a lot easier than others.
Jessica Mendez: Yes.
Joel Gonzalez: One of our key ingredients to our success is that we never give up.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: No, exactly. We never, ever give up.
[00:18:39] Jessica Mendez: You know—when it makes sense—to the end. We try. And we have a lot of knowledge because we have a long time doing this—more than a hundred people helped. So we know—we know many cases.
[00:18:51] Tracy Hayes: What should work, what should get through, and what should not.
[00:18:55] Jessica Mendez: Experience is very—
[00:18:57] Tracy Hayes: I'm the same way. I mean, my first 12 years I was in the call center—Quicken Loans—volume. Pulling a lot of credit reports every day. Probably more credit reports in a couple of days than most loan officers pull in an entire month. Because it's just a volume-based business. And when you see that many credit reports, and then you submit enough loans, you're like, I know.
[00:19:14] Tracy Hayes: After a while—it’s just like AI, right? You start to teach yourself, like, “That has an opportunity. That’s gotten approved before,” you know, and things are coming.
Jessica Mendez: I know that way how to do it.
[00:19:25] Tracy Hayes: Right. And having—but having those people in the back office too—the underwriters—that are gonna look at that and say, “Yeah, we’ve done something like that before. Let me just—get me this other document, and that will help me seal the deal, and I’m good with it.”
[00:19:37] Jessica Mendez: Yeah. And sometimes people come—“Oh no, I was denied.” And they feel very bad because they didn’t get approved by another bank or something like that. I say, “No worries, let’s try.”
[00:19:50] Jessica Mendez: I have tried—like one time they say deny, second time deny—only the, you know, fight—they say yes. So don’t give up.
[00:19:57] Tracy Hayes: Because to me, my question is, why? So someone’s denied and I look at it and say, “Why? Why would this person be denied? Everything looks right. What am I missing? What piece do I have?”
[00:20:14] Tracy Hayes: So when you're working—'cause you work closely with some of these people—you handhold. Are you going after someone who’s a lender and say, “Tell me why?”
[00:20:14] Jessica Mendez: Well, of course. I ask why. Of course.
[00:20:17] Tracy Hayes: What are some of the things that—if you—you know, like the situation I think you were kind of telling there—you had someone who was denied a couple times, but the third time you get someone that actually said, “Yes, we can do a loan with this.” What were some of the excuses that they were saying? They basically were saying they just didn’t want to do the loan.
[00:20:33] Jessica Mendez: Mm, yeah, exactly.
[00:20:35] Tracy Hayes: I mean, what were some of the things they were telling you?
[00:20:37] Jessica Mendez: For example, maybe—“Oh no, they don’t have the two years’ history,” for example. So I closed like three months ago—two, three months ago—a deal with a Colombian couple.
Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Mendez: They came and they only have here one year and a half—
[00:21:00] Tracy Hayes: Here in the States?
Jessica Mendez: Here in the United States, working here. So I could, you know—with the lender—we searched what she was doing in Colombia, and we could put everything together to get the two-year history. So stuff like that.
[00:21:20] Jessica Mendez: Sometimes—I don’t know—maybe some lenders, they, you know—
[00:21:20] Tracy Hayes: Well, I agree. Especially when I first started, I think I’ve had similar situations. They didn’t want to cross. I found recently—they’re more open to it. Especially if they're able to pull that company up on the internet and see that it looks like a legit company—that’s actually where they worked for.
[00:21:38] Tracy Hayes: And what’s so silly about that is—okay, if they're putting some money down, they already have credit established here, they’ve been here a year and a half—what is two years? Because they’re not working for that company anymore anyway.
[00:21:49] Tracy Hayes: If they said they were just—“Hey, I was going to school”—they would just say, “Oh okay, well get us a copy of your transcript or your degree with the date you graduated.”
Jessica Mendez: Exactly.
[00:22:00] Tracy Hayes: And that would fill the—
[00:22:03] Joel Gonzalez: Exactly. Because I think there are rules, and there's interpretation of the rules. And that’s where—you very well mentioned—it’s their experience.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: That gives you the confidence, like, “Hey, wait, wait a minute. There’s experience. That’s the key to really make the rule and justify this.”
Joel Gonzalez: It’s just about that—sometimes these underwriters—or I call them, I translate into “auditors”—they're trying to do their job to the letter. The translation by the literal reading of the rule. And they don’t see how they can justify something that is—
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: To us, because of the experience—very clear, easy to justify.
Jessica Mendez: Looks simple.
Joel Gonzalez: Yeah. Looks simple. And then when we get that door shut—

[00:22:45] Joel Gonzalez: We just push it back.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: One more time, like say, “No, wait a minute, did you look at this? Did you look at it this angle? Can you put it this way?”
[00:22:51] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Well, it's why it's so important to be lined up with a lender. And you're always gonna—there’s always gonna be someone—a new underwriter.
Right? Someone has to fill someone else. There’s gonna be a new underwriter who doesn’t have all that experience in the exceptions.
Jessica Mendez: Right.
[00:23:00] Tracy Hayes: And so you need—hopefully that person’s being led by someone who’s senior and savvy and has got enough at-bats that they’ve seen and said, “No, we can get around that by doing this.” And they feel good about it. Because I think a lot of people don’t understand—that underwriter, when they sign off on it, that’s their license that they’re signing off on.
Jessica Mendez: Exactly.
[00:23:24] Tracy Hayes: Because if that loan comes back, they’re not—
Jessica Mendez: It’s gonna be a problem.
[00:23:27] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. So corporate moved you to Jacksonville.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Hayes: Basically. Did you both enter real estate at the same time or when—
[00:23:35] Joel Gonzalez: That’s a great question.
[00:23:36] Tracy Hayes: So when does real estate start to become a topic of conversation?
[00:23:39] Joel Gonzalez: So since we got—even before we set foot in America—we invested in real estate.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: Even before we were here, we were already homeowners. But we bought as internationals: higher interest rate, higher down payments, higher... most everything was more difficult.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: But we were already homeowners and we saw the value of real estate in America from the very beginning. So we were always invested into it.
[00:24:00] Joel Gonzalez: As I developed my career, we were—you know, I was basically the provider, as she was still working, but I was basically the provider. Then when she started in real estate—because she saw that opportunity, you know, that language barrier thing—like, she’s like, as she said, she’s amazing at connecting with people, and she, you know, kind of being that leader out there and kind of mentoring people around opportunities.
Joel Gonzalez: When she saw that and she felt like the passion clicked—
[00:24:33] Tracy Hayes: In her eyes.
Joel Gonzalez: Oh God. That she could make that bridge for people.
Jessica Mendez: Oh, completely.
Joel Gonzalez: Instead of being in an office, you know, 12 hours—because she’s a workaholic, I gotta admit it. I’m not saying that is a good thing—but she’s inside the four walls just crushing numbers and getting little pay. And all of a sudden, she’s putting even more time but getting more rewards and kind of flexible time and all of that.
[00:25:00] Joel Gonzalez: She felt that passion. It just ignited.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: And my only job was to support her in the little time I had to help her out. Right? But she started exploding in success. And all of a sudden, then she was—you know, we had a family, small kids and everything—and I started getting busier and busier.
Tracy Hayes: You’re still doing your corporate job?
Joel Gonzalez: Corporate, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it became just too overwhelming. And there was a time where we realized, “Okay, your business is just skyrocketing,” and I just plateaued in my corporate life.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: Very difficult to move up. You know, that’s a corporate life—just very difficult, very slow to move up.
[00:25:46] Jessica Mendez: And the time for kids.
Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
Jessica Mendez: We have—I always say this—
Joel Gonzalez: Overwhelmed, yes. Her success swallowed my career.
[00:25:50] Joel Gonzalez: And I was a long time—and I had three master’s degrees.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: I mean, I was really into my career. Industrial engineer and logistics specialist. And we decided to make the call and join forces.
[00:26:12] Tracy Hayes: So what I always like to share is that—for the first steps that you take in real estate—so you decide you wanna do it. You go get your license, or did you meet somebody in real estate?
[00:26:25] Jessica Mendez: No, I got the license.
Tracy Hayes: You didn’t know—
Jessica Mendez: I didn’t know—
[00:26:27] Tracy Hayes: You didn’t know any real estate agents?
[00:26:29] Jessica Mendez: Nobody.
Tracy Hayes: Okay.
Jessica Mendez: Nobody. Even—I remember very clearly when I went to—it was the broker that was very close to my home.
Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Mendez: Because I said, you know, it’s easier for the kids and to get there to the office because I didn’t know anything. So I said like, I want it to be easy just to go to the office. And I remember the person that was there talking with me, you know, and she said, “Oh, and you know someone—someone here? Because you are telling me that you are moving from Georgia to here, to Jacksonville.”
Jessica Mendez: And I said, “No. I don’t know anybody.”
[00:27:00] Jessica Mendez: She said, “Uh, this job is not gonna be for you.”
Tracy Hayes: What?
Jessica Mendez: “No, because—”
Tracy Hayes: That was the broker?
Jessica Mendez: That was the broker.
Tracy Hayes: The broker?
Jessica Mendez: That first broker that interviewed me.
Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
Jessica Mendez: And she said like that: “No, that’s not for you, because you don’t—” and maybe she saw my, you know, my language too, like not the best English, and “Here, you don’t know any buyers. You just moved. Nah, that’s not for you.” I said, “Oh.”
[00:27:25] Joel Gonzalez: That’s one of the barriers that life puts before you.
[00:27:29] Tracy Hayes: Well, how did you feel when she said that? Did you take it back?
Jessica Mendez: Like—
[00:27:32] Tracy Hayes: I don’t know, insulting is the comment, but sometimes someone says you can’t do something—
[00:27:37] Jessica Mendez: That encourages me.
[00:27:38] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
Jessica Mendez: To do what I do now.
Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
Jessica Mendez: That encouraged me. I said, “Oh my gosh.” I said, “Okay, no worries.” And then from that day I said, “I’m gonna do it,” and I did it. And—yeah.
[00:27:53] Joel Gonzalez: I’m gonna give you more color into that. One of the reasons why we actually got her the real estate license is because we wanted to invest in real estate ourselves.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:00] Joel Gonzalez: We wanted to do it for ourselves, right? And as I was in corporate America, it’s not like I was out there networking much.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: And yeah, she is right. It is like—we didn’t know many people in Jacksonville. We were new in Jacksonville.
Joel Gonzalez: Nowadays—I will tell you—I would challenge somebody who knows more people than she does.
[00:28:29] Jessica Mendez: I say, “If you don’t know me, you don’t know nobody.”
[00:28:33] Joel Gonzalez: And the amazing thing about her is she knows a lot of people and a lot of people know her. And the fact that she has this memory to not only recognize but know the names of the people—like nobody does.
[00:29:00] Joel Gonzalez: I deal with people over the years and I forget their names. I remember their faces.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: And then you just gotta ask Jessica—“Who is this person?” “Oh, that’s Carlos,” or “That’s John.” That is a skill.
[00:29:07] Jessica Mendez: Because I connect with them—with the reality, you know? Each case I can remember. Each case I can learn from. Each case is different.
[00:29:16] Tracy Hayes: That, to me, is one of the skills of truly great people—presidents and so forth, corporate CEOs—they just remember everybody’s name. Blows my mind.
[00:29:26] Joel Gonzalez: That’s amazing. I’ve been training for it. It didn’t come natural to me, so I started training for it—but she’s a natural.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
[00:29:33] Tracy Hayes: So did you go with that—you obviously didn’t go with that brokerage that you were—
[00:29:38] Jessica Mendez: Of course not.
[00:29:40] Tracy Hayes: So to share with the agents that are out there—and there’s someone out there that this is resonating with—and they may be with a brokerage right now who might not be giving support. Because I really think the broker you choose, for most agents—
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Hayes: Can make or break them. Sometimes they may only last in the business a couple months because they joined the wrong brokerage—they didn’t actually take the time. So who did—you know, if you don’t want to share the name, I don’t know if you’re still with the group you ended up with—but when you chose the brokerage you were going to go with, what was your decision-making and why you chose them?
[00:30:17] Jessica Mendez: Because—it was, I think, one of the most famous here in Jacksonville.
Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Mendez: I saw everywhere, signs about that broker. I said, “That’s the best one.” So I have to be with the best one. But you know, I changed my mind. I say, “I don’t have to think about the broker. It’s about me.”
Jessica Mendez: You know, I don’t have to go, “Oh, my broker is my key.” No, no, no. It’s Jessica Mendez. Jessica Mendez.
Jessica Mendez: So everyone knows Jessica Mendez now.
[00:30:50] Tracy Hayes: The rocket.
[00:30:51] Jessica Mendez: It’s like, “You are the broker.” I’m Jessica Mendez.
[00:30:54] Tracy Hayes: Well, would you agree though—well, I mean, because you guys were already dabbling in real estate, so you kind of had a general idea, 30,000-foot level of what the—you know, you understood the value of it—but actually what day-to-day a real estate agent actually needs to do.
[00:31:00] Tracy Hayes: Did you need some guidance there? Was that something maybe you got from the broker that you chose, or maybe another top real estate agent? How did you start to learn the business in those first few months, and what you—

[00:31:21] Jessica Mendez: And in the real life—
Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Mendez: In the real life? You know, my first case—my first customer was in America.
Tracy Hayes: In English?
Jessica Mendez: Yes. My first customer.
[00:31:40] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. So what were some of the things you started to develop? I didn’t, you know—I don’t know what your numbers were. Your husband says you started off gangbusters, is kind of the way—in so many words—he described it. What got you going? What did you initially start doing, that first month, that first year, that really—
[00:32:00] Jessica Mendez: Social media.
Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Mendez: I love social media.
Tracy Hayes: Oh my God, yes you do. You have a huge—
[00:32:05] Jessica Mendez: Instagram. I use social media. Yeah. I like to connect with people like this—talking with them. Different, uh—community events, like for the—yeah. The community.
Tracy Hayes: Was it necessary—you always hosting the community, or just going to these community events?
[00:32:21] Jessica Mendez: No, no, no. Both. And the sponsors.
[00:32:23] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
Jessica Mendez: We try to sponsor, help, support the community—and it’s amazing how the community goes back to us and trusts in our project, in what we do.
Tracy Hayes: Right.
Jessica Mendez: Just participating.
[00:32:39] Joel Gonzalez: She loves that social media. And I can tell you—just like, I think your podcast is gonna be your main theme because you are amazing at it. That’s—if she wanted to be just an influencer, she could just focus on that.
Jessica Mendez: I love it.
Joel Gonzalez: She loves it. It means the whole day.
Jessica Mendez: The whole day.
Joel Gonzalez: However—the main source for our growth was that community involvement.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: The community was that. Being there. Supporting there. Out there. Taking the steps to help each other. Just even buying things we didn’t need from other people—
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: Just to show support.
Jessica Mendez: Right.
Joel Gonzalez: Just to get that face recognition. Just to kind of show—I like to call it the “critical mass.”
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: And being there.
[00:33:23] Jessica Mendez: Yeah. Being there.
[00:33:24] Tracy Hayes: Did you feel in that community—well obviously your initial observation when you were living in Georgia was like, people really need some guidance in real estate.
Jessica Mendez: In Spanish.
Tracy Hayes: In the Spanish community.
[00:33:35] Jessica Mendez: It’s beautiful. Yeah. I feel very grateful that I can—with my customers—maybe they don’t even know how to fill out the loan application, right? So I can meet with them and help walk them through it. And everything. So that’s—
Tracy Hayes: That’s pretty nice.
[00:33:52] Joel Gonzalez: And to me, honestly—I love your mantra because that’s a key word for us—is serving with excellence.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: And even for those that are not Spanish speakers—you know, like I said, we’ve had a lot of American customers who have no world in Spanish, or Portuguese, or French, or Italian. You know, we still service with that excellence.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: We bring that. And they notice—despite some of the language barriers, some of the key words that we may not get across—they realize, “Oh my God, I never got this kind of service before.”
Joel Gonzalez: I’ll tell you really quickly a testimonial—from my mother’s husband. He’s a retired Army, federal agent, high-level rank. He’s been there, out there, everywhere. He knows every single state, every single place you can call America—and different bases globally.
Joel Gonzalez: And he had many houses throughout his life—many different agents helped him across America.
[00:35:00] Joel Gonzalez: And when we first met him, and we were his real estate agents—and he realized how we operate, how we support our customers, the kind of service that we deliver—he was like, “My goodness, you guys are amazing.”
Jessica Mendez: Always that extra mile.
Joel Gonzalez: “You guys don’t—”
Jessica Mendez: We always do more.
[00:35:17] Tracy Hayes: All right. I’m gonna throw—I’m gonna put a test to you on that. I’m gonna make this like you’re interviewing for a job. Because when someone says something like that—
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Hayes: Tell us a story. That was a part of a story, but actually tell us something you did. Because I think I’ve seen some reviews—and I’ll talk about my wife, for example. You know, someone wrote a review and said she was still picking the weeds after the contract was signed.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Hayes: In other words, she didn’t say, “Oh the contract’s signed, this house is sold, I’m done, I’m moving on.” No. She was still making sure the house looked good right up until that final walkthrough. And she was picking—you know, the house had been, uh, I think someone had passed away and left it. So it needed a little TLC to make it show-worthy.
Tracy Hayes: And she was still picking the weeds in the flower bed—was the comment that one of the customers said. And she probably didn’t think anything of it at the time—like, “Hey, I want to impress you, I’m gonna go pick weeds.” No, she just went over there and saw it and just picked the weed.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
[00:36:19] Tracy Hayes: And that—right—that little thing just impressed them, and they put it in their review. So share with us a story that you did—one of your natural things—serving with excellence, and the response from the client was probably like, “Holy cow, I can’t believe you did that.” And to you and I, it was just something—
Jessica Mendez: That’s what we do.
Tracy Hayes: Yeah. You know? Do you have something you could share with us like that?
[00:36:42] Jessica Mendez: Well, I always tell them at the closing table: “This is not the end. This is just the beginning.” Because after closing, they’re gonna receive many forms. They’re gonna ask many questions. And we are there.
[00:37:00] Jessica Mendez: It’s not like we just close the deal and bye-bye. No. We are playing long-term.
[00:37:05] Joel Gonzalez: Yeah. We play that long-term game. And that’s very noticeable since the very beginning—because we’re not just transaction-centric. We’re relationship-centric.
Jessica Mendez: Exactly.
Joel Gonzalez: We can tell you experiences where—we’re listing a home and we get to—
[00:37:21] Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: We get to—
Jessica Mendez: He was on the roof, cutting the tree.
Joel Gonzalez: So we are there, ready. We tell our customers, “Be ready for us. Be ready for the pictures. Prepare that home,” because we want to take advantage of the time when we’re there and we want to make it look nice.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: And she trains them very well—for that home to be ready for our arrival.
[00:37:43] Jessica Mendez: I’m very picky. I’m very picky. Because I don’t like to take pictures with stuff there. Like, no, no, no, no. Has to be perfect for me.
Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
Jessica Mendez: So we have to do it by ourselves. It has to be clean. We have to do it.
[00:37:56] Joel Gonzalez: So yeah, we got on the roof, we got trimming the bushes, we got sweeping, vacuuming—whatever’s needed. We are there. I mean, we’re not just—
Jessica Mendez: Because we are the agents.
Joel Gonzalez: No.
Jessica Mendez: Exactly.
Joel Gonzalez: We’re not at this level—whatever. We’re just there to help you, to be your partner, to work together to success.
[00:38:17] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Very good word. I like that—partner word. In talking to so many great agents—and these stories like this come out—if an agent’s listening right now, and—you know, I mean, how many times has someone moved out and left a bunch of stuff in the garage that you had to go clean out?
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Hayes: I mean—like you said, let alone go in and clean a house and get it prepared for an open, or just for pictures—clear the clutter off the countertops in the kitchen so the pictures look good. Those are things that, you know, people don’t realize real estate agents are doing—or at least really good real estate agents are doing all the time.
[00:38:49] Joel Gonzalez: Yeah. It’s very easy—it’s actually recommended—to delegate the pictures to a professional photographer.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: But we don’t like doing that when the house is occupied.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
[00:39:00] Joel Gonzalez: Because nobody’s gonna be like her—like, clean it, take all—
Jessica Mendez: Making sure—
Joel Gonzalez: Details are rearranged in a way that are more appealing. The photographer is just gonna go there to take pictures, but she’s gonna make arrangements to make it look nicer.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: So we don’t like to delegate that part. We want to be there. We want to learn about the home.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: We want to learn details that we’re going to—
Jessica Mendez: What we’re selling.
Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
Jessica Mendez: In our video—we try, you know, to do for each listing that nice video.
Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
Jessica Mendez: Because, you know, people like more to see video. Pictures are okay just for MLS—they’re reality for the MLS. But for social media, you need a video.

[00:39:41] Tracy Hayes: I love your website. And you—instead of just doing a bio with everybody, everyone’s got a little video. I think that’s really—I mean, thank you. The whole thing with the—auth—I think that’s, I’ve never seen anybody else do where each of—each, everyone’s saying something, you know, about themselves or whatever. They got their—and that is 30–45 seconds.
[00:39:56] Jessica Mendez: We need time for that. Yeah, that is time. Yeah. We really like to do the home videos.
[00:40:00] Tracy Hayes: Great.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Tracy Hayes: Yeah. But—and I really didn’t get a chance to actually go on it because I think YouTube is one of those untouched things. I’ve had a lot of—even some of the top agents—they don’t really even have it. They have a page, but there might be a handful of videos they did.
Tracy Hayes: And I really think—and if you agree or disagree with the discussion—every video you do on every house, you should be posting on YouTube. Because that video is there.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Tracy Hayes: It’s like a library. And if someone goes, “I know I want to…” You know, if you’re doing a video on 123 Jacksonville Street, and who knows—three years later—someone’s Googling 134 Jacksonville Street, that house is probably going—that video’s gonna pop up in the search.
[00:40:39] Joel Gonzalez: I’m gonna record you to send it to our marketing advisor.
[00:40:41] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. I think everything should be dropped into YouTube. It is a library and you don’t—you know, I don’t know the algorithms. You just don’t know when that video’s gonna pop up in front of somebody.
[00:40:53] Joel Gonzalez: That’s correct. That’s correct. That’s—we’re trying to take advantage of that. But it’s just—and it’s funny that you mention that because some people—I think, and I don’t blame them—they think real estate agents, especially the successful agents, they’re just opening a door and showing a house and they’re making money.
Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: Nobody could be more wrong than that. And that’s why I believe in this industry, we have such a high rotation. These new agents come—and you are listening—
Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: Pay attention to this. You come and you think just opening and showing a house is gonna make you money. It’s not. You cannot be more mistaken than that.
Joel Gonzalez: It takes way more than that. It’s a business. It’s a profession.
Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: And if you don’t have a professional approach to it and learn to overcome the obstacles over time—grind to actually achieve those results—because there’s so much more out there.
Joel Gonzalez: Even the time-consuming tasks—like showing the houses—you have to make sure that you are really educating your customers so you are more productive with that time.
[00:42:00] Joel Gonzalez: That time is so valuable to us. It’s time that we’re sacrificing from our families.
[00:42:05] Jessica Mendez: Exactly.
Joel Gonzalez: You know, because most of the time these showings are happening on the weekends—
Jessica Mendez: Yep.
Joel Gonzalez: Or after-hours, evenings—
Jessica Mendez: Yep.
Joel Gonzalez: And that’s time away from our kids. And even showing that house is a big investment. So there’s way more than just opening that door.
Jessica Mendez: Just open door—
Joel Gonzalez: And—
Tracy Hayes: It brings up a good point. A lot of people don’t think—
Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
Tracy Hayes: I mean, in our industry—whether it’s on the lending side or the real estate side—we accommodate our time for when they’re available.
Jessica Mendez: Right.
Tracy Hayes: Our customers are available. That’s just our business. It’s how we live it.
[00:42:34] Jessica Mendez: It throws off your plan when they’re available.
Tracy Hayes: Yes.
Jessica Mendez: You have a plan—
[00:42:36] Joel Gonzalez: You have a plan for the day, you have a plan for the week—and all of a sudden this customer’s available. And it’s now. It’s not gonna be available in another week. And you gotta, like, scratch your plans.
Tracy Hayes: Okay.
Joel Gonzalez: It’s always when their kid’s not playing soccer—that’s when they’re available. On the weekend.
[00:42:45] Tracy Hayes: I want to touch on two things, because I really think the average agent only thinks 60 or 90 days—if that—in advance. Most of them are going 30 days. They’re trying—“Hey, what can I get? Can I get something under contract and get paid next month?” Right?
Tracy Hayes: They’re not looking at it as a long-term game plan. You mentioned a little bit earlier—is that something you realized when you understood the business and how it worked? You know, the relationship part?
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Hayes: That this is a marathon, not a sprint. And you’ve got to—whether you’ve got that customer who needs a couple years to get their credit and financials together, or—
Tracy Hayes: You know, hopefully we’re lucky, we get that customer who calls and says, “Hey, I have a house. I want to go see it,” and they make an offer that night and you close in 30 days. That’s beautiful.
Jessica Mendez: Right.
Tracy Hayes: But those don’t come around. You have to understand—it is a long-term game. When did you actually start to understand that? Or is that something you just did naturally? Because I think a lot of agents need to—like, at one point the light bulb goes off and goes, “You know what? I need to start really working on my relationships and really focusing on either my marketing or the follow-up after the close.”
[00:44:00] Tracy Hayes: When did that really start to go off—set off?
[00:44:01] Joel Gonzalez: I think from the very beginning. Honestly, it’s that contributing factor. It’s that doing something for a purpose. Because one of our big purposes was leveraging these community opportunities and showing them—and helping them grow capital, helping them grow wealth.
Joel Gonzalez: And to us, it’s a big purpose. To me—whoever doesn’t realize homeownership is the key ingredient to the American dream—is falling short big time.
Joel Gonzalez: And I hate when they try to promote renting, and “homeownership is just too expensive,” and “home values are just going to drop from the sky,” and “they’ll fall apart,” and “World War III is just coming—don’t do homeownership.”
[00:45:00] Joel Gonzalez: And I say—you don’t know how big of a driver real estate has been for America since the very beginning. That generational wealth that’s been translated from generation to generation—
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: And leveraging—I mean, we can get into the technical details—
Tracy Hayes: Yes.
Joel Gonzalez: Of how that happens. But all that takes time.
Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: It takes time.
[00:45:09] Tracy Hayes: That’s why you’ve gotta be in it for the long haul.
[00:45:10] Joel Gonzalez: Correct. So we have that approach for all people—to not just get some commission at the end of the transaction. No.
Jessica Mendez: It’s that happiness.
Joel Gonzalez: That they’re really getting the best that they can get. Services, given the circumstances. And then if they feel that they were very well treated—they have the best support, the best—
[00:45:30] Jessica Mendez: Yeah. One of the most that we have is referrals.
Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
Jessica Mendez: From customers. That’s our big—most of our customers come from there.
[00:45:41] Joel Gonzalez: Direct referrals.
Jessica Mendez: Because—why?
[00:45:43] Joel Gonzalez: Because we did a great job.
Jessica Mendez: We play the long-term game.
Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
Jessica Mendez: We—
Joel Gonzalez: You know, we want to be that primary care physician. That lawyer that’s gonna be with you—partnering with you—for the rest of your life.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: I mean, it’s like—real estate is gonna be there with you for the rest of your life. We want to be that agent who’s going to help you navigate the opportunities, the challenges, and everything that comes your way. When they think of real estate—
[00:46:08] Jessica Mendez: These are our agents. Yeah. And we are always with them—from the beginning until the end—and more.
[00:46:13] Joel Gonzalez: And—
Tracy Hayes: I know that’s one of the things here. Eventually one of these days I’ll have big fancy cameras—that’ll just be set—
Jessica Mendez: There we go.
[00:46:20] Tracy Hayes: We’re back on. Marketing—I just want to make sure, actually, I get—everyone’s being recorded here correctly. There we go. Back up. All right. There—we got you back on.
Tracy Hayes: Part of the follow-ups and staying top of mind—you know, as the years go on. I always say that customer in front of you is your billboard for the rest. If you do a great job, they will be a billboard out there advertising you every day of the week.
Tracy Hayes: But some—you have to repaint that billboard every so often and stay in touch with it to keep the light on it, so to speak. What are some of the things that you guys are doing to stay top of mind and keep those past customers warm—so they are thinking of you when someone starts talking about real estate?
[00:47:01] Jessica Mendez: We always try to give new information—
Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Mendez: Education.
Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
Jessica Mendez: Education.
Tracy Hayes: Yep.
Jessica Mendez: We do classes—
Tracy Hayes: Are you doing like a—
Jessica Mendez: Newsletter.
Tracy Hayes: Newsletter or anything automated?
[00:47:17] Jessica Mendez: Yeah, newsletter. And we’re doing classes like—
Joel Gonzalez: Monthly, every two months.
Jessica Mendez: Monthly, yeah. I have a waiting list of more than 10 people that want to go to our classes. But the time is, you know, sensitive with the kids and everything and the customer things, organizations—
[00:47:44] Jessica Mendez: But we try to educate. We love educating our community, because it’s so sad when some customer calls me, “Hey Jessica, I have my home and I want to sell it.” And I say, “Okay.” “And I want to buy another one.” “What is your loan?” “I don’t know.” “What is your interest?” “I don’t know.”
[00:48:00] Tracy Hayes: You just want to change the scenery.
[00:48:02] Jessica Mendez: Oh my God, that’s so sad. We really love educating our customers, our community—so that they know what they’re doing.
[00:48:13] Joel Gonzalez: And using that long-term perspective actually helps us. As we’re helping people buy or sell their home, we’re thinking down the road.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: Because we’re doing the best—thinking in these scenarios are gonna present themselves down the road.
Joel Gonzalez: I’ll give you a very quick example. We got recently a listing where they bought their home, but they didn’t have the inspection. And therefore, they didn’t realize that their attic didn’t have sufficient insulation.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: And we were like, “How is that possible?” That you could buy a house without knowing it didn’t have sufficient insulation on top.
Joel Gonzalez: And now it’s our problem because we are selling that house.
Jessica Mendez: Right.
[00:49:00] Joel Gonzalez: So when we’re buying—we’re thinking, “If I’m gonna sell that house down the road and my customer is going to rent it or sell it or whatever—this is how we’re going to help them do it.” They’re getting the best here. They’re getting the best there.

[00:49:10] Joel Gonzalez: You know, having that approach with them so down the road we provide these newsletters, education, and being out there in the community—you know, helping, continuing to contribute—keeps us top of mind.
[00:49:18] Jessica Mendez: And also most of our customers are friends.
[00:49:21] Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
[00:49:22] Jessica Mendez: Now our friends—they invite us for baby showers, birthdays, Christmas.
[00:49:28] Joel Gonzalez: We wish we could actually honor all those invitations.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: We would love to honor all those invitations. Honestly. And it’s actually great for us—not only because somebody is really caring about us—
[00:49:43] Tracy Hayes: Or you impacted their life if they want you to join them, you know?
[00:49:47] Joel Gonzalez: Correct. But every time we go to one of those invitations, she gets a new customer. So we would love to go to every one of those. It’s just—we only have 365 days, 24 hours a day, and three more cakes.
[00:50:01] Tracy Hayes: Oh, because today’s younger generation—a lot of them don’t even know. You’re talking about educating them, like on their house and the things they should know—like, know what their financial situation is, let alone the mortgage. But they really don’t even know that there’s a hot water heater in the house.
Tracy Hayes: There’s actually—you know what I mean? Where these things are at. And like—how do you shut off the water should you have a little catastrophe in the house? How do you shut the water off? I guarantee if we went around and quizzed 10 homes on a random street—
[00:50:30] Joel Gonzalez: It’s great that you mentioned that.
Tracy Hayes: —six or seven wouldn’t even know how to shut the water off.
Joel Gonzalez: I got a water heater negotiated when the deal was already done.
Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: And they were like, “No, this is good. This is all we needed. That’s fine.” And I said, “No, that water heater is gonna break in a few months. And you’re gonna be mad that you didn’t accept my recommendation.”
[00:50:44] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, let’s—
[00:50:45] Joel Gonzalez: “Let’s help get that new water heater, even if you gotta pay a little bit for it right now. But let’s do the best now in advance of having that water heater break on you.”
[00:50:56] Tracy Hayes: A few hundred dollars. Because you don’t want to make an insurance claim—God forbid.
Tracy Hayes: You mentioned the word “grind,” which led to—I was—we were talking pre-show about grit and the love, laughter, and consistency of what you’re doing in the business. So, if I could get just a statement from each of you: why do you love real estate?
[00:51:16] Jessica Mendez: I love talking with people, helping people. As I say—I feel very—I don’t know, how can I say that? Important?
[00:51:23] Joel Gonzalez: Relevant?
[00:51:24] Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
[00:51:25] Tracy Hayes: Impactful.
[00:51:28] Jessica Mendez: Yeah, because—when I see those faces and they say, “Oh my God, Jessica, thank you for explaining all of this to me in my language. Now I understand what I’m doing.”
[00:51:36] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.
[00:51:37] Jessica Mendez: It’s so—
[00:51:38] Tracy Hayes: Because you find a lot of them—they don’t know what to ask, right? But you know what they should hopefully know. But you find a lot of them don’t know, because if they don’t know what to ask—when you tell them something—
[00:51:49] Jessica Mendez: They say, “Oh my God!” Then they start to ask. Yeah, of course. When you start to explain what is going on, they start to ask. Of course.
[00:51:57] Tracy Hayes: Because now you’re starting to—you’re starting to educate them a little. Starting to get them to think a little bit because they didn’t know where the road was.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah. I love to do that. That’s the most—because I feel like I’m doing something more than the regular business. And doing more and more.
[00:52:12] Joel Gonzalez: Yeah. Being that beacon of light—I mean, when she’s mentioning connecting with people—becoming that beacon of light. Not because I’m a spiritual guru or some special sort, although I’m very spiritual.
Joel Gonzalez: I try to be. But it’s just being that contributor. Contributing to their success.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: To me is key. Having that flexibility to mingle with different people, different mindsets—and sometimes they’re very difficult customers that are just blocking their mindset when they’re getting their “no’s” and their doors shut or obstacles put before them to get that loan approval, for example.
Joel Gonzalez: And then we show them—there’s still that light at the end of the tunnel. Focus on that. And let’s overcome this. You’re gonna be really happy when you get your keys—believe me. I’ve seen this so many times.
[00:53:01] Jessica Mendez: Yeah. Even when they don’t believe that they can do it.
Joel Gonzalez: And they want to give up.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: They say, “This is not for me. This is not my house.” And they start looking at the gray—
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: You know, at the black hole sometimes.
Joel Gonzalez: Sometimes I send them a spiritual message, like—hey, I try to use things from the Bible.
Jessica Mendez: He’s amazing. An amazing marriage counselor.
Joel Gonzalez: I avoid getting into the marriage box. But you know—and everybody knows this—some people just get divorced when they’re buying a house.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm. Yes.
Joel Gonzalez: Because it starts, you know, bringing out those differences.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: And we make sure—we do our best—we strive to make sure that people are enjoying the experience the most. And sometimes, it’s not easy at all.
[00:53:47] Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: Transactions can get really convoluted. Many people involved in the transaction—it can be really tough. The situation can be really complicated. But we do our best to shield our customers from those situations and make sure we try to put them in a bubble.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: Sometimes there’s always that spark—
Tracy Hayes: Someone in the family, typically.
[00:54:11] Joel Gonzalez: But we do our best to help them enjoy the experience. And when we see this young couple we just closed on—their dream coming true—and how everything went, it was really the roses for them. But we made them feel really special, really memorable.
Joel Gonzalez: It makes us feel happy.
[00:54:28] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. There’ve been many times, doing a loan—and it really wasn’t any—I mean, I didn’t do anything special. Or maybe I helped someone get their credit score a little better by paying off a credit card or something, giving them that advice—because we have access to do stuff like that.
Tracy Hayes: And when they say, “I can’t believe I could,” you’re kind of humble, but it’s like—I didn’t really—I mean, I didn’t go to the end of the earth on this one.
Tracy Hayes: Because there are a lot of people out there that don’t believe they can do it.
Jessica Mendez: Uh-huh.
[00:54:55] Tracy Hayes: Because they haven’t had the courage—maybe that’s a better word.
Tracy Hayes: There’s a glass ceiling, and you know that—
[00:55:01] Jessica Mendez: Because they ask the wrong person.
Tracy Hayes: Right.
Jessica Mendez: “Oh no, the neighbor told me—because I bought a car, I cannot buy a house.”
Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
[00:55:11] Jessica Mendez: You have to ask the experts.
Tracy Hayes: Exactly.
[00:55:15] Tracy Hayes: We so often want to ask someone who has no experience with what we want to do—what they think of our dream or our vision. And they don’t have that dream or vision that we have.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Hayes: And they’re the killer trying to come in—
Joel Gonzalez: Everybody’s trying to contribute.
Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: But hey—every transaction and every particular situation is very different. There’s something they’re not telling you, or something they don’t know, or something they weren’t told.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: That happened in the transaction.
Joel Gonzalez: And I think at the end of the day—it’s a matter of trust.
Joel Gonzalez: That’s something—our—we have definitely experienced where the trust from the beginning—because that customer is a referral—those transactions are just smoother, because it’s a teamwork effort.
Joel Gonzalez: But when sometimes these leads are coming from social media, whatever—
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: And they don’t know us enough, and they come with that distrust in mind—because they’ve been taken advantage of in the past.
Tracy Hayes: Right.
Joel Gonzalez: I don’t blame them.
[00:56:12] Jessica Mendez: Sometimes.
Joel Gonzalez: And they create that barrier. We work hard on breaking that barrier—because we need to work together to help you succeed. And that’s one of the key things that we try to do every time.
[00:56:26] Tracy Hayes: So the subject we were talking about was love. But one thing that came up for me was the fact—coming from corporate America and now you’re self-employed, now you’re calling your own shots. How does that feel?
[00:56:38] Joel Gonzalez: It felt terrible at the beginning.
[00:56:41] Jessica Mendez: Very.
[00:56:42] Joel Gonzalez: Like a fish out of water—especially to me—when I used to pick up the phone or just chat to my IT department: “Hey, I have this issue. Can you fix it for me?”
Joel Gonzalez: I can’t work now—it’s like I’m my own IT department. Like, “My goodness—everything with this,” and I don’t have another department to call to help me out here. I have to save myself. That was one of the big barriers—trying to overcome that.
[00:57:14] Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: And then also—at the end—calling my own shots was really inspiring.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: It is really inspiring. I mean, it’s like—when I realized, “I have to lead. I have to take the best use of my time and start making things happen on my own”—that’s great.
Joel Gonzalez: However, you have to overcome that anxiety that by day 15—that check is not coming. It is gonna come the day you close.
[00:57:37] Jessica Mendez: Uh-huh.

[00:57:38] Joel Gonzalez: Right. So you have to live until that—
[00:57:39] Jessica Mendez: Day. Yeah. You have—
[00:57:40] Joel Gonzalez: To have the faith and the courage to keep plowing through, crossing on plow. Because that day—
[00:57:46] Tracy Hayes: You don’t think the deal’s coming, that’s when it comes. And you just gotta keep doing the things that you’ve—process.
[00:57:53] Joel Gonzalez: And sometimes even your customers on the other side—they want to take advantage of that, because they know you’re not collecting until that transaction closes.
[00:58:00] Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
[00:58:05] Tracy Hayes: All right, the laughter part—we kind of described it earlier. Yeah. You’re making that leap of faith from corporate America. That takes a lot—
[00:58:13] Jessica Mendez: Huge leap of faith to do that.
[00:58:14] Tracy Hayes: Now obviously you supported her getting started. Now she had a system rolling, you were able to join on—it makes it a little easier. But yeah, like you said, you’re—hey, that deposit’s not coming into your account a couple times a month. And the health benefits and—
[00:58:28] Jessica Mendez: Yeah, of course.
[00:58:30] Tracy Hayes: Not asking someone if you can take vacation or not is nice too.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
[00:58:34] Tracy Hayes: Like, “We’re going on this date.” We don’t have to have permission from anyone else.
[00:58:39] Joel Gonzalez: Oh, that’s one of the nicest things. But that healthcare thing—that threw me off when I started doing healthcare on my own instead of that corporate healthcare. Oh my God, that was a big one.
[00:58:54] Tracy Hayes: But Jessica, share with us a time when—whether it was just a bad transaction—but really kind of set you back. I mean, I think a lot of real estate agents—I don’t know if this was the case for you—but I know, I think if a real estate agent hasn’t actually, you know, got to a point of tearing up or, you know, just being down—whether it was the way a customer treated you, or a transaction went—something in real estate that kind of sets you back but you say, “You know what, I’m gonna press on.” Have you had a time like that? A situation?
[00:59:22] Joel Gonzalez: I think many times. Just trying to recall like a specific one that stands out.
[00:59:27] Jessica Mendez: What I really feel bad is when I give you everything—when I trust you and I give you all my knowledge and I guide you in everything—and then, you know, I don’t know, the patient went to a new building.
[00:59:42] Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah, I have. I was walking on the walk and I see—oh, my friend’s new building.
[00:59:48] Joel Gonzalez: No—
[00:59:49] Jessica Mendez: No, no—it’s—you know, sometimes because they don’t know. And I was walking that Sunday, and I see that builder, and I go in—“I don’t know, I signed it.”
[01:00:03] Joel Gonzalez: “I signed all the papers.”
Jessica Mendez: “Jessica, I don’t know, can you help me with this and this and this?” What? How can I help you? You already signed it. I cannot do anything.
[01:00:14] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, especially back—that’s so sad. Because it’s like—ah, that transaction we were talking about earlier, back in ’20 when the builders didn’t even want to talk to the real estate agents.
[01:00:25] Jessica Mendez: Yes. Oh my God.
[01:00:26] Tracy Hayes: Now of course they’re begging you to bring people to them. And all the extra incentives and so forth. But yeah, if that customer went in and signed the paperwork, there was no way you were getting on it.
[01:00:33] Jessica Mendez: Yeah. In the middle of the transaction—most of the customers are, you know, alone.
Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
Jessica Mendez: They don’t have anybody there helping them. And then they want to ask me, “Oh, what do I have to do on this?”
[01:00:49] Joel Gonzalez: Sometimes they believe they’re gonna save money on it.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: And it’s the total opposite.
[01:00:56] Tracy Hayes: That is their—
Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
Tracy Hayes: I don’t want to say an old lifestyle—
Jessica Mendez: People don’t know.
[01:01:02] Tracy Hayes: There’s this gentleman out here—I hate to mention his Instagram—I think it’s “realtors hate me” is the name of his…
Jessica Mendez: Really?
Tracy Hayes: So he’s trying to drive this—you know, he’s trying to launch this basically online thing—that you don’t need a realtor. Gonna save buyers and sellers billions of dollars.
Jessica Mendez: Oh my—ugh.
Tracy Hayes: No, you’re gonna create billions of headaches is what you’re gonna create.
[01:01:24] Joel Gonzalez: We’ve been there. In another country where real estate agents weren’t really that relevant. It doesn’t help the system at all. And that’s—if you actually investigate why this industry was built on—it’s making sure the system has some set of rules and guidelines. And people that really know how to drive that American Dream home.
[01:01:49] Tracy Hayes: The LLC—we got love, laughter, consistency. What do you think you’ve done in your business—and this may have changed over time—you know, what you were doing obviously years ago to today’s market—but what do you feel has been like, almost like a cornerstone in your business? That you consistently do—something the agents who are listening can take from you. A tip that you’re giving, that you do on a regular basis. Whether that’s daily, monthly—but something in your business that you’re doing, and if the day goes on or the month comes to an end and you haven’t done it—you’re like, “I gotta go back and do this.”
[01:02:20] Joel Gonzalez: In my mind, it’s staying knowledgeable. Training and really reading the news.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: If you’re a real estate agent and you don’t know what’s going on out there—in the macro environment—
Tracy Hayes: Right.
Joel Gonzalez: Or what your customers are hearing, even the microenvironment, you’re gonna miss out big time.
Joel Gonzalez: You’re not gonna know how to—sometimes I deal with other agents in a transaction—
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: Have no clue what’s going on. And they tell you something that is totally out of this world. Like they feel it’s a seller’s market when it’s indeed a buyer’s market.
[01:03:00] Tracy Hayes: These are on timers—so I just want to make sure it doesn’t blink out on me in this office. Sentence. Okay, good.
[01:03:09] Joel Gonzalez: Yeah. It is.
[01:03:10] Jessica Mendez: What else?
[01:03:11] Joel Gonzalez: Staying current. Knowing what’s up with the economy, politics—I mean, real estate especially breaks everything.
[01:03:21] Tracy Hayes: Well, you know, if you want to be leaders—or, to me, you know—we know the housing industry in the United States is a big part of our economy. When people are moving and buying or building new houses, a lot of people are involved.
Tracy Hayes: From building refrigerators, to building the house, putting the roof on—and the real estate agent is like the concierge. You’re like the linchpin that makes that whole thing flow a little easier.
[01:03:58] Joel Gonzalez: We’re the quarterback of the transaction.
[01:04:00] Tracy Hayes: That’s what I was saying.
Joel Gonzalez: Exactly.
Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm. Exactly that. And if you’re not staying knowledgeable—
[01:04:04] Jessica Mendez: Exactly.
[01:04:05] Tracy Hayes: You’re not being the leader that these people are hopefully hiring. They want someone to lead them through this transaction.
[01:04:11] Jessica Mendez: And you don’t feel confident at the moment that you are talking with the customer. So they ask questions—and you have to give the best advice. So you have to be knowledgeable.
[01:04:20] Joel Gonzalez: Totally agree. I mean, sometimes we can get swamped into different things, pulled to different things, and I may have a couple days where I haven’t read my Wall Street Journal—I feel like, naked. I mean, like—I have to read my Wall Street Journal. I need to know what’s going on. That’s my main source of information.
Joel Gonzalez: And of course I read the Florida Realtors publications—
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: And Northeast Florida publications. I can tell you all kinds of statistics about real estate here.
[01:04:53] Tracy Hayes: Let’s finish up. I want to talk a little bit—because you have a team—and kind of finish up the philosophy with them. What’s going on with the team? How you run your team? There’s a lot of teams, but every team is run differently.
[01:05:00] Tracy Hayes: How leads are generated, how—just in case there’s an agent who is interested in talking to you guys. Heard what you said and it resonated. Say, “Oh geez, I’d really love to talk to them.”
Tracy Hayes: How big is the team now? How many agents do you have?
[01:05:17] Joel Gonzalez: We are a total of four agents right now. And we were bigger before. And for whatever reason—some people got other great opportunities. Some people weren’t just the best fit. We let them go. And we felt like—we don’t just want to grow for growing the team. We want quality of service.
Joel Gonzalez: We want alignment. And we’re very happy with the agents that we have. And we have more people—more staff—that work around our team.
Joel Gonzalez: And some agents want to jump in—just knocking at the door. But to me, it’s just a matter of alignment. And also—probably create that relationship first. If I don’t have a relationship with you—even if you bring me that resume—I’m just not gonna take you by the resume. I want to build trust first.
[01:06:02] Tracy Hayes: Have you learned this through a little trial and error with the team? You know, bringing on people that were sort of bad apples—
[01:06:07] Joel Gonzalez: Yeah. I think in the end, if you realize that you don’t connect in a way with the same kind of vision—and it is good to have a vision. For example, we’re very ambitious. But we are—we are ambitious with a purpose: to serve. To do it in the best way possible. To grow together. To collaborate.
Joel Gonzalez: And when we see that person just, you know, probably being too selfish, or is not being truthful—
[01:06:36] Jessica Mendez: Just to take advantage.
[01:06:38] Joel Gonzalez: Advantage of that knowledge. Take it from us, whatever—I mean, everybody has an opportunity to grow. Everybody has an opportunity to expand. Everybody has the opportunity to move on. But if you’re coming with that mindset from the very beginning—we notice that you’re not really committed.
Joel Gonzalez: There’s not a real commitment to that team effort, to that growth together. We’re like, hmm. This probably wasn’t a good decision.
[01:07:00] Joel Gonzalez: And she complains about how much I like to teach, right?
[01:07:06] Jessica Mendez: We talk a lot. Whole podcast is talking. So he—everything from the beginning to the end. And my parents—I’m just giving you an example, da da da, that’s it.
[01:07:21] Joel Gonzalez: They were—they were both teachers.
Jessica Mendez: No—just playing in a long way.
[01:07:23] Joel Gonzalez: And I’m trying to convey that in a very good manner.

[01:07:38] Tracy Hayes: Because in a small team like that, I imagine you're getting overflow customers.
Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
Tracy Hayes: You're busy, so you've got another referral. You're handing them off. In that situation, it's important that they're getting the same service as if they were dealing directly with you.
[01:07:54] Joel Gonzalez: And it's a big challenge because customers wanna deal with Jessica.
[01:08:00] Joel Gonzalez: I mean, Jessica—sometimes they even complain when I'm handling them more than Jessica. It's like, “Who’s your husband? Where is he coming from? Is he a real estate agent too?” I mean, they wanna be with that personality they bought into. And it’s difficult to convey the fact that we are delegating. We are, you know—we're actually, you know—if I get to speak with like a Ryan Serhant, that's one of the key questions I'd ask him. I mean, if I'm selling my home, I want you to be the one selling my home.
Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
Tracy Hayes: I wonder when the last time Ryan Serhant went on a listing appointment.
Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
Tracy Hayes: Do you go on listing appointments and buyers together? Or how do you work that?
[01:08:47] Jessica Mendez: Yeah, together. Most of them are together because—
[01:08:52] Joel Gonzalez: Listings are very, very key.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah, we are very picky with listings. That's why we really like to do a great job, so we do it together all the time.
[01:08:59] Joel Gonzalez: And we don’t—we don’t—we think it's not a good fit. But not only for us—it’s mostly for the customer.
[01:09:11] Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
[01:09:11] Joel Gonzalez: Most listings that we reject—it’s because they're not convenient to the customer. We tell the customer straight on their face. We're not just gonna tell you to list for the sake of just trying to sell something and tell you lies. This is your situation, this is your scenario, and what we think with our experience and knowledge is best for you is actually not to sell right now.
[01:09:42] Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: We tell that on their face. And they're like, “I can't believe you're telling me this.” And sometimes they even try with another agent. They fail miserably. And they come back like, “You were right. I should’ve rented instead of sold. Okay, let me see if now is the time.”
[01:09:49] Tracy Hayes: Right now you’re getting these situations where—you know, like especially in condos, but it could be the same neighborhood—“Hey, there's already so many other houses for sale in your neighborhood right now. You may want to just hold on for a few more months. Let some of those move out before you list your property.”
[01:10:03] Jessica Mendez: Yeah, we don’t take listings just for listing. And we don’t say, “Oh, I have 10 listings, 20 listings,” just for the sake of it.
[01:10:09] Joel Gonzalez: Do you know—if you're an agent out there—do you know there are almost over 12,000 agents in Northeast Florida? Do you know there are more than 11,000 homes listed in Northeast Florida, which represents more than 10% of the entire inventory of the state of Florida, which is one of the biggest states in the U.S.?
[01:10:33] Tracy Hayes: I saw somebody posted something in St. Johns County—there’s like 3,000 listings right now, which is like the highest it's ever had. You know? Talk about the support. One of the things—the challenges to a lot of agents—is, especially solo agents, they reach kind of a lid. They can do only so much by themselves, and they start to hit that lid. Somewhere between, you know, $6–8 million in general inventory. Obviously depends on your market and price point.
[01:11:00] Tracy Hayes: That might go up or down a little bit, but somewhere south of $10 million—$10 million by themselves is a feat, doing everything. I mean literally everything—your own transaction coordinator. But when you—you mentioned you have several support people. How has that changed your business when you started to bring some—well obviously you, he got in the business as support, supporting you. But now you've actually got—I imagine you probably have a transaction coordinator, maybe someone doing your…
[01:11:27] Jessica Mendez: Yeah, we have a transaction coordinator.
[01:11:27] Tracy Hayes: Tell me about some of those support people.
[01:11:29] Jessica Mendez: Yeah, we have a person with the social media too. It lets us have more time to, you know, do more business.
Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
Jessica Mendez: Focus on their value. It’s great. Yeah. Because you can grow—because you’re not in a—and it’s very difficult for me to let everything go to others because I'm very picky. Like for social media, I have to check the videos. I'm working on that. He’s easier, you know—like, “Okay, do it.” Me, no—I have to check first. So it’s—I’m working on that. Still working on that. But yeah, of course. There’s more time to grow and do more business and focus more on our customers.
[01:12:14] Tracy Hayes: Speak a little bit to that, because I think a lot of agents don’t realize—when they start getting to that stand—you’re starting to take away that time that you can focus on to wow them, right? We talked about earlier—going above and beyond. Well, it’s hard to go above and beyond when you’re running around like a chicken with their head cut off doing all these different things.
Tracy Hayes: As your business has now reached a level where you’re either gonna grow or you’re just gonna cap off right here and probably start retracting—because you’re not following up on the past customers and letting them know you’re still in the business. So your business is continuing to hopefully become 100% referral.
[01:13:00] Tracy Hayes: But talk about the quality of face time—I imagine is one of the main things you’re doing. The more face time—because they want Jessica, right? You said they’re always asking for Jessica. This is what’s happening. Having these support people—that actual time has equated to more money even though you spent a little bit on that support. Because that costs money—and it’s now gotten you 10 times more.
[01:13:12] Jessica Mendez: Yeah. Well, I can—with more time—for example, for invitations, special invitations—right? Most of the customers are our friends. So, “Jessica, I have my first year old’s birthday…” So I have time. I can stop by, go with my kids. And you know, it’s that kind.
Jessica Mendez: All what I can say is it’s natural. It’s me. It’s doing me. People trust me, trust us, because they can—you know, you can read their eyes. They can see that we're telling them the truth and we are always there. And connecting—birthday, wedding, everything—we’re always there.
[01:13:52] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. I think anyone who’s listening—and I think it’s—I want to say it’s common sense and it makes total sense—but I don’t think we realize. Because, you know, being a real estate agent—you’re 24/7.
[01:14:03] Jessica Mendez: That’s—
[01:14:04] Tracy Hayes: You are on call. That person—maybe if you go away on vacation—you can get, you know, obviously you’ve got other agents that can help cover whatever things that happen while you’re not in town. But going to that actual birthday party, as Joel has said—you walk out with a referral half the time. Even more—because you went and spent time there.
[01:14:39] Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
[01:14:40] Tracy Hayes: You know—
[01:14:41] Jessica Mendez: And people see all my Instagram—“What’s she doing?” Right? But no worries—I can be at a party and I can answer you. I can be in Europe.
[01:14:50] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
Jessica Mendez: We were on vacation and it was—“Why are you talking on your phone with the customer?” I can’t believe it. It’s like—yeah, I can do that. For me, it’s normal. I enjoy it.
[01:15:02] Joel Gonzalez: At the beginning—she’s a workaholic. But yeah, sometimes—it is like a challenge where we are committed to the people that trusted or valued us enough to invite us to a certain celebration or event. But then we have these other customers who are boarding on a transaction, and they see, “Oh my God, but you were partying last night.”
[01:15:23] Joel Gonzalez: You know, like, we’re answering to you tomorrow—just a few business hours after. And you are mad because we delayed our answer a couple of hours. Business hours.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
[01:15:30] Joel Gonzalez: Because they get that desperate, because that transaction is so important to them, right? So it is a game. That is difficult to play—around that. And like you said, everybody wants that face.
[01:15:46] Jessica Mendez: Yeah. But because most of the time we are there within any hours. So I talk to my customer—10 PM at the end of the day, 11 PM day.
[01:15:56] Joel Gonzalez: And when they close the transaction after 30 or more days—and they realize how much support they receive…
[01:16:00] Joel Gonzalez: Sometimes we create these chat groups with our customers.
[01:16:10] Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: And let’s say a couple of days go by—and I don’t read the chat because I’m dealing with another situation—but she’s on top of it. And then I check the chat—700 unread messages in one of the chats. And I’m like, “Oh my goodness.” I mean, it’s unbelievable. I would love if that chat feature gave you statistics—how many messages were there at the end of the transaction.
Joel Gonzalez: Because it could be thousands in every transaction.
Joel Gonzalez: Of course, most of our customers value that in the end. They see—they realize how much support they received. But sometimes they don’t realize how actually much. It was—again—700 messages in 24 hours is just amazing.
[01:17:01] Tracy Hayes: Do you set any expectations though? I mean, like, because it’s like—“Hey, I’ll take your call in the evening, but if it’s really not an emergency, just call me back in the morning.” Do you ever kind of—
[01:17:10] Jessica Mendez: No.
Tracy Hayes: You never—
Jessica Mendez: No, no, no. I always try to answer.
[01:17:13] Joel Gonzalez: We actually tell our customers—we work 24/7.
[01:17:16] Jessica Mendez: For me—it’s not a problem. It’s not—doesn’t bother me to do that.
[01:17:22] Joel Gonzalez: The only thing I tell them—if you call me in the middle of the night, I’m not gonna pick it up because it’s in silence mode.
Jessica Mendez: So you—
Joel Gonzalez: So you—

[01:17:38] Joel Gonzalez: And they don't appreciate that. You know, they don't appreciate that experience. We are at 2:00 AM at an airport or you just can't sleep—you can message us a hundred percent of the time.
Jessica Mendez: Mm-hmm.
Joel Gonzalez: Mm-hmm. So we tell them—we are truly servicing you 24/7.
Joel Gonzalez: Oh, I have a pilot—and the other day he said, “I didn’t write to you because I thought it was too late.” And a doctor told me that too. And I said, “No, you can definitely write to us 24/7.”

[01:17:53] Tracy Hayes: Don’t hesitate to write. Well, I feel text message is one of those things where—you know, you send it, you’re not expecting an immediate response. You're expecting maybe the next time they pick up their phone or like I said, when they wake up in the morning.
Tracy Hayes: You know, 'cause maybe they get off work late, they can message you 'cause their thoughts are in their head. So they're sending that question, but they really shouldn't expect a response back until a reasonable—you know, the morning when you get up and start working. Now if it’s like, “Hey, I’m broken down on the side of the road and I have no one else to call,” that’s a phone call.

[01:18:23] Joel Gonzalez: I know. No, actually, I gotta tell you, this story—it happened yesterday. My conversation with a cardiologist in town who is very, very busy. He’s a very popular cardiologist. And Saturday night, he didn’t dare to contact me because he thought it was too late.
Joel Gonzalez: And then he ended up in a bad deal—you know, in the rent, in the lease that he's on—as we're trying to buy his next few houses. And just because he didn’t dare to contact me. And I said, “Don’t ever do that again. You know I'm here for you. So do it. Really take me seriously when I say we're 24/7.”

[01:19:00] Tracy Hayes: I’ll finish up with this thought. I mean, that just goes back to—this business cannot be automated. It is a human business. And those people—and you and I are like, “That’s not really a big deal.” But to them, in their mind, they’re stressing out. They may lose sleep over whatever it is—they've gotta talk to somebody.
Tracy Hayes: And that’s really the role that—
[01:19:19] Joel Gonzalez: I tend to flush it out. Because that question—if you don’t send it, it’s not gonna let you sleep. You’ll send me that question right then.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah, exactly.
[01:19:26] Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
Jessica Mendez: Both of them are first-time homebuyers. So—and they feel like, “You know, I need an answer.” So it's great when you are there.

[01:19:33] Tracy Hayes: Well, in those situations—'cause you don’t want the mother, father-in-law, whatever, trying to give them advice.
Joel Gonzalez: Yeah.
Tracy Hayes: And before they—you want to get your answer in before their answer.
Jessica Mendez: Exactly.
[01:19:45] Joel Gonzalez: Yeah. Don’t derail into an emotional track.

[01:19:50] Tracy Hayes: Anything you guys would like to add?
[01:19:51] Joel Gonzalez: Well, I just wanna thank you for the invitation. Really, I’m honored. You are amazing at this.
Tracy Hayes: I appreciate that.
Joel Gonzalez: I don’t know—are you a journalist by background?
[01:20:00] Tracy Hayes: No, no. I am a—education major was my degree.
[01:20:06] Joel Gonzalez: You're a teacher at heart.
[01:20:07] Tracy Hayes: When people ask me about doing a podcast—and especially if you’re doing an interview podcast—some people, I don’t know, you could sit and rant and go on like a solo podcast.
Tracy Hayes: To me, if you don’t have a following, there’s not a lot of people gonna listen to you for very long, unless your subject matter is very unique or something that you’re talking about.
Tracy Hayes: But if you’re doing interview—you gotta be interested in people. And it’s kind of like you, you know—like you guys said—you are, you guys are so interested in, you know, winning for your customers and, you know, making them happy and, you know, showing them that this can be done.
Tracy Hayes: Those types of inspirational things give you guys an eye. My eye is just really—it’s like a personal development thing to hear your stories.

[01:20:47] Joel Gonzalez: Yeah. It’s amazing how much you are learning.
Tracy Hayes: I bet.
Joel Gonzalez: Oh, this? Yeah. Oh my God. And I’m gonna tell you something. I’m gonna ask something truly. And what you’re saying is so true—and it’s not only to customers, agents out there listening to you right now—it’s not only to customers. It’s to other agents too.
Joel Gonzalez: Please—do try to work with a professional approach. Even though we're on the other side and we are negotiating big emotional and financial situations—even when the deals are more difficult—it’s better to connect with the other agent in a positive and proactive way.
Joel Gonzalez: Yeah, we represent our customers the best that we can. We represent their interests. Doesn't mean we're gonna agree on everything, but we don’t have to fight over it in a non-professional way.

[01:21:44] Joel Gonzalez: That’s a big advice. And I gotta tell you—I don’t know if you heard about this big news on these real estate agents that lost their kids—and actually, she lost her spouse.
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
Joel Gonzalez: Her husband in the river here.
[01:21:47] Tracy Hayes: Yes, yes, yes.
Joel Gonzalez: Tragic accident.
Tracy Hayes: I’ll tell you a post-show—a story, a little thing about that. Go ahead.
[01:21:50] Joel Gonzalez: And I had met that agent probably twice in my life. The last time—it was a quick hello. I remember his face. I don’t know, out of coincidence—I guess one of the many agents you run into at an event.
Joel Gonzalez: But the story struck me. And in these real estate agent groups where they start shouting and kind of supporting each other—one of the themes there was like, “Hey guys, let’s focus on the important matters and let’s stop, you know—”
Jessica Mendez: Yeah.
[01:22:21] Joel Gonzalez: “—killing each other for just business.”

[01:22:22] Tracy Hayes: You know, my point of view on that is—you have to, what’s the thing they say to do in the morning? You do your aspiration—
Joel Gonzalez: Meditation.
Tracy Hayes: Just—you’re thinking about what you’re grateful for and so forth. Your meditation. The reality is—you should be grateful you have a deal.
Tracy Hayes: The reality is—you have someone who wants to sell their home. You have someone who wants to buy it. And you have an agent representing over there, and you're representing the other side. And your goal is to get to the goal line.
Tracy Hayes: How much they sell it for, what they give up—that’s totally up to them. They have to sign the bottom line.
[01:22:52] Joel Gonzalez: And you're a listing agent, you’re gonna be a buyer’s agent too. You’re a buyer’s agent—you’re gonna be a listing agent too. Think about the other side.
[01:22:57] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. I mean, your customer may ultimately not like that they had to, you know, concede a thousand dollars for something—but ultimately, when they sign it, they’re happy it’s done and they’re moving on.
Joel Gonzalez: That’s correct.
[01:23:00] Tracy Hayes: I appreciate you both coming on.
Jessica Mendez: Thank you.
Joel Gonzalez: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.