Confidently Walking: Women in Commercial Real Estate

The talk, in full

As delivered, from Jenn’s script. About 2299 words, roughly 15 minutes spoken.

Several years ago, I drove from West Palm Beach to Orlando to meet a friend and accidentally ended up in Jacksonville.

If you don’t think that’s funny, take a look at this map.

Years later, I picked up that same friend at LAX and headed to my home in Mission Viejo, only to look up and realize we were in Sherman Oaks.

Here’s another map, for those of use who are not Southern California natives.

Now luckily, I’m not here to talk about my keen driving abilities, but what I am here to talk about is Women in Commercial Real Estate, and the real problems that are holding us back in our life, and holding us back as an industry.

I’m a big fan of “real.” It’s why I love commercial real estate. To me, there is no better investment than the built environment, because it’s real. If a deal goes sour and somebody has to walk away – that is real property and it still exists, which makes way for it to be recapitalized, redesigned, rebuilt, repositioned and reactivated within its community.

This is a great metaphor for life, and it’s a good place to begin our walk together.

My talk today has a fun name that I’ve been telling people for about a decade would be the name of my autobiography one day.

It’s called: Confidently Walking In the Wrong Direction

Now wait a minute. (you might say). Why in the world would I need to hear someone tell me about how to be WRONG?

I know. Nobody ever wants to be wrong. But I’m going to give you a fresh perspective on it. And that perspective starts with a question:

When does a decision become the wrong decision?

It’s not always the wrong decision.

In fact, at some point, and maybe even for a long time…it’s the right decision. Or it feels like the right decision.

But then, at some point, it turns out to be “wrong.”

A couple of examples to illustrate my point:

Samsung and Lebron James: When the Samsung marketing team got the best basketballer in the world to promote the new Samsung Galaxy Note and win market share from Apple – that was a darn good decision! In March of 2014, when Lebron’s Samsung phone had a meltdown, he tweeted about it to his 12 million followers. Now it’s become the wrong decision. But until then, it seemed pretty darn right.

Let’s look at one more.

This is Ronald Wayne – in April of 1976, he was the third co-founder of Apple and owned 10% of its stock. After less than two weeks with the company, he sold his stock for $800. If he’d kept it, it would’ve been worth about $63 billion today.

The point I’m making here is that you don’t really know when you’re living in a wrong decision. None of us does.

The key is to recognize when you are wrong, and keep walking forward. This is where hypergrowth happens.

The ingenious Maya Angelou said “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

This is a mantra for our lives, and also for our industry.

The commercial real estate industry is one of the most impressive I’ve ever seen when it comes to reinventing itself over and over and over. None of the spaces you are visiting today look anything like they did 10 years ago. We adapt. We imagine new uses for properties. We dream up new financial structures and news ways of building value.

We’re like the Madonna of industries.

And yet, we have a problem. We are moving in the wrong direction.

CREW Network’s Gender and Diversity in Commercial Real Estate study in 2020 revealed that women comprise less than 37% of the workforce in our industry.

When I read that, I thought, okay. We’ve got some road ahead of us but we’re building, right? We know we have a diversity problem, and we’re working on it.

Then I thought, well, if we’re at 37%, where did we come from? How much growth have we seen from years ago? It must have been CRAZY low back then.

And fortunately, CREW Network has done these wonderful benchmark studies over the years – And you guys. You’re not going to believe it.

In 2005 – 17 years ago – women comprised….drum roll please….36% of the industry.

That means we gained one measly percentage point of influence during the entire time Grey’s Anatomy has been on television. And that is a looooooong time.

That’s inexcusable folks.

Now don’t get too comfy, because the next number is 43%! In 2010, we reached 43% of the industry. Yes! We are moving up – pretty soon we’ll be at least at HALF.

Then by 2015, we were back to 35%.

So problem #1 is: we need more women in commercial real estate!

And with that in mind, today I want to look at the trajectory of women in the CRE industry.

I want to speak from my personal experience as a woman to say that sometimes, making the decision on how and where to move forward is the biggest challenge.

Life is filled with decisions. And sometimes, we’re going to be wrong.

The challenge is either A) people don’t like to be wrong so they put their hands over their ears and sing “I’m not listening” over and over, or B) and this happens especially as women, there is this immediate need to right what is wrong.

What I’m proposing is the absolute opposite strategy.

The minute you know that the direction in which you are headed is wrong, you keep going forward with the same - if not more - energy.

Now you may say why, Jenn, that sounds very counterproductive, why in the world would I take one more step if I know I’m going in the wrong direction?

I would answer that with “You will be twice as successful twice as fast if you do.”

Women are historically – how do I say this – repressed.

Now look, this concept can apply to all people, but today I’m talking to women in commercial real estate.

Women have these periods of time where, folks, we are paralyzed because we can’t go forward because we’re trying to plan our flipping life, guys, and I know you’ve heard it you’ve heard it but like LISTEN UP. There is energy that is spent when you create a child and create a family, okay? And you have to plan that in your life. So what happens to us as women looks something like this:

We go for it and we try to get our career on track and then all of a sudden we realize *ding ding ding we’re headed in the wrong direction.* Why is it the wrong direction? Because our body is like “it’s time, baby. Let’s bring some souls into this world.” Because we want to create.

What happens to a lot of women is that the minute they realize “hey, I think I’m headed in the wrong direction,” they kind of do an about-face – just turn around and start plowing backwards. That or they freeze. Which is also, you know, not moving us forward.

So what I’m proposing is that once you know that you’re headed in the wrong direction, you add even more confidence to your walk. And you start watching and listening more closely.

Here’s my story of how I came to this realization.

In a nutshell, I’m a Southern Mormon who went on tour with a theatre group.

I’m pretty sure I was born in some sort of…rocket cannon. That’s just my style.

So the day after I graduated high school I got on a plane and I went to work on a cruise ship. And over the course of the next three years, I worked on about 5 different cruise ships visiting over 100 different ports of call and I sang and danced and choreographed professionally. And it was effing amazing.

And from there - because I was born in a rocket cannon – I had to do more – so I moved to New York City, I waited tables, I danced and sang some more, I went to over 190 auditions in about 10 months, and after a series of summer stock and dinner theatre, I ended up on two different national tours as a performer – first, there was Barry Manilow’s Copacapana – just image fruit on my head - and then the The Full Monty – just imagine, well, maybe don’t image that.

And then, somewhere on one of those tours – between the two tours, my body woke me up in the middle of the night in my sublet apartment in New York and made it very clear to me: “This is the wrong decision. I don’t want this for my life.”

But I did not stop.

What I did instead was I started leaning in and paying attention to the voice inside myself. I stayed on tour for another whole year in company management with RENT.

From there, the next logical step was move to Paris. Because that is what you do in your 20s when you don’t know what to do.

And what I really wanted to do was just, you know, go speak French and drink wine and smoke and eat croissants, but I knew I had to do something because you know – born in a rocket cannon, right, thank you.

So – then I went to graduate school. When I was in graduate school I did some voiceover work. I kept leaning into my acting career. I was still very confidently walking in the wrong direction.” But I knew if I just stayed open, the “right direction” would appear.

So, while I’m in Paris, I listen to the voice and I met my husband. And from there I moved to California. And at this point, it’s 2008, and I can say I have accomplished everything I’ve sought to accomplish. I’ve been a performer on two national tours, a manager on a 3rd. I achieved a graduate degree. I lived abroad. I had visited 49 of the 50 states. I had done it.

And this was the critical moment. I realized:

Had I not walked confidently in the wrong direction, I would not have achieved what I needed to achieve to make the next move and grow as fast as I did.

So now it’s 2008 in California, I’ve accomplished all this stuff, I am chock-full of confidence, and I am the best waitress you ever had at Cucina Alessa down on PCH. For like a year.

Because it was 2008. I couldn’t get a job. No one could get a job! I was applying for everything, from salon assistants to doggy daycare help to PR roles to project managers. I couldn’t get a job to save my life. And so you know what I did? What do you think I did? That’s right! I confidently walk in the wrong direction.

I leaned in to my waiting tables job. I look back from my journal entries at this time, and I was learning leadership. I was watching the man who owned the restaurant; I didn’t even realize it. I was taking mental notes on how to run a workforce, how to motivate people, how not to motivate people.

Today, I’m the President and CEO of a national firm that exists to advance commercial real estate and finance through effective communications.

So, there’s a lot we can learn from our life experiences. And the more you lean in, the more you’ll get out of these experiences, and the faster you’ll grow.

And please let me share with you why you have to go fast.

I know. Nobody likes to be don’t they have to go fast. It’s my least favorite thing. I hate to be rushed!

But you guys. You ladies and gentlemen. People of open minds, open hearts, who represent different ideas. We have a responsibility. And that starts with Women in Commercial Real Estate. We have a responsibility to each other, to ourselves and the next generation of professionals coming up behind us.

It’s time to remember who you are.

Remember who you are as an industry. You are innovators, you are developers you are creators, you are imaginative dreamers who can work magic with investments. Think back to when you were in school. What did you love? Probably to see things come to fruition – physical properties come to life, or portfolio growth charted across beautiful spreadsheets.

What you crave is to build something, to watch it grow.

So, Women. Women of Influence. Women of Influence in Commercial Real Estate: Remember who you are. You are the only being on the Earth that can create another human being. That’s a power. Remember who you are. Remember that you have that power.

I hear so much about women who doubt themselves or feel like imposters – and I get it, l man, I am THERE. You know I…

I have always felt too big. Too big in size, too big in voice, too big in ideas, too BIG!

But that’s only because as a woman we somehow believe we need to be more small.

But I say to you Women you have Big Power. BIG Power. Use it. And the way you use it is to Speak Up.

Start using your voice any way you can. Develop your own opinions.

This will happen differently at different times of your life. Be patient with yourself.

The key is to keep walking confidently in the wrong direction. Ultimately, you’ll find yourself right where you need to be.

Thank you.