Today we’d like to introduce you to Javier Nuñez-Jusino.
Javier, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Hola! Something that a lot of people don’t know about me is that Javier, which is the name everyone knows me by, is my middle name. My full name is René Javier Nuñez-Jusino. I am a 24-year-old Director of Operations & Marketing for a top producing real estate team with Compass Florida called The Hopkins Team. I have always been a dreamer and have had a passion for helping others. I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, where a big part of my family still resides. At the age of 15, I took a leap of faith and moved to North Carolina with my mother in search of a better future. I knew that if I wanted to achieve all my dreams and goals, I needed to move to the land of opportunity. In the beginning, it was a big adjustment. Even though I knew English and understood the language well, I had never been in an environment where it was the only language I was speaking, listening, and reading for the majority of the day.
It took me a few months to get used to the language and the Southern accent. I knew that I had to expand my vocabulary if I wanted to do well in school, so like I always do, I decided to put in a lot of hours of studying after completing my schoolwork. I took it upon myself to learn 10 new words every week and practice them during my conversations with others and in my writing. My determination to learn and do well, allowed me to graduate with a 3.7 GPA and win two scholarships for college, one for $20,000 and another one for $4,000 – both which I later lost, but more to come on that. During my senior year, as part of the DECA program, I had the opportunity to shadow professionals in different industries. One of the businesses that we visited, was a hotel. When our tour came to an end, we were brought to the conference room to discuss everything that we had learn and for a final presentation.
At the end of the presentation, the General Manager told us they were hiring front desk agents and gave us the application. She encouraged us to apply and said that she did not mind training high-school students with no experience. After giving it a lot of thought, a week later, I decided to apply. I dressed up, went to the hotel with my application, and asked to speak with the General Manager. To my surprise, she was at her office and was free at the time. She came out and decided to interview me on the spot. I was not prepared and at the beginning of the interview, I was extremely nervous and completely forgot how to form proper sentences. After all, this was my first time interviewing for a job. Long story short, she hired me on the spot and added me to the schedule that same weekend. I knew it would be a challenge, but I needed to get out of my comfort zone, and I was up for it. The first few weeks were very challenging, it had its ups and downs, but I become good at my job and I loved every minute of it. I would go to school during the day and would work from 6 pm – 10 pm during the week and 7 am – 4 pm during the weekends. I am a big believer that this job was the foundation for my professional journey and what allowed me to be where I am today.
I always knew that I wanted to be involved in the real estate world in some capacity, so when the time came to apply for college, there was only one place I wanted to go to, The University of Tampa. I was going to major in Public Relations and minor in Urban Development. I submitted my application and got admitted, however, there was one minor issue, I was not accepted to start in Fall 2014, but instead, they delayed my enrollment until Spring 2015. My family decided to move down to Tampa in July so that we could get settled before me starting college in Spring 2015 and become familiar with the area. For many reasons, things didn’t quite work out, so we ended up moving to one of our friends’ houses in Winter Haven where we spent an entire month. We then moved to Orlando where we spent two months before heading down to Pompano Beach. We lived in Pompano Beach for two months, before we moved to Fort Lauderdale (a lot of moving, I know!). Down in South Florida, I was able to find a job as a sales associate for Cricket Wireless.
A few months into the job, I become one of the top sales associates for our region selling an average of 20-25 accessories and 10-15 phones per week. I started to become uninspired and missed the fast pace and the many hats I used to wear in the hospitality industry, so I started applying for jobs around Fort Lauderdale Beach and I was given the opportunity to be a front desk agent at the Pelican Grand Beach Resort. During my first year, I won employee of the year and when the position for Spa Supervisor became available, I decided to give it a shot and applied. To my surprise, the Director of Spa, whom I consider to be one of my mentors, gave me the job and took me under his wing and showed me the ins and out of the industry.
In the beginning, it was nerve-wracking; I was a 19-year-old supervisor of a high-end spa and my teammates were older than me by as much as 30 years and had 15+ years of experience in the industry. It was a little intimidating, but I was determined to learn and be a good leader/supervisor. To improve my management skills, I read books like The First-Time Manager & The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, I watched and learn how my director handled every situation, asked a lot of question, and did the same work as my team members to learn from them. The knowledge they shared with me is invaluable.
Two years later, the aspiration to enter the real estate industry and start building a career in the industry, came to me again. I knew that I wanted to learn from the best, so I did my research and reached out to a local top producing real estate agent who is also a tv personality and the founder and owner of her brokerage. I knew that she got emails, that looked like essays, daily about how much they admired her and wanted to work for her and learn from her. I had to stand out from the rest so when I reached out, I kept my email very short and straight to the point. I offered to be an unpaid intern and help out with marketing and anything else that was needed to make her life and the life of the agents in the company easier. She gave me the opportunity to be her intern and welcomed me to her company.
For an entire year, I was working full-time as a spa supervisor, part-time as a marketing intern, and was a part-time college student taking classes in the evenings from 6 pm – 9 pm – I enrolled in Broward College to obtain my A.S in Marketing Management. A year later, I was offered a full-time paid position to be her executive assistant and was given the title of Director of Client Happiness. Her guidance and mentorship truly shaped my marketing skills and for that, I will always be thankful. My time as a front desk agent, a supervisor, an intern, and an executive assistant for a top producing agent prepared me for the role that I hold today as Director of Operations & Marketing for The Hopkins Team. I am also back again taking classes in the evenings, this time to get my BAS in Supervision and Management; I plan to continue my education upon graduation from the bachelor’s degree by pursuing an MBA in Organizational Psychology.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
If you made it this far, you are probably wondering how did he lose $24,000 in scholarships? What happened with The University of Tampa? Did he enroll in Spring 2015? Why did he move 5 times in less than six months? Well, this is where I share my struggles. The road has been very bumpy, but I have always continued to move forward because I am not afraid of failure. In high school, I never felt like I belonged. I went from being the most talkative and sociable student in the classroom to be the quietest kid in the classroom when I moved to North Carolina. I had to put in double the number of hours studying to make sure I truly understood what was being taught in class. I signed up for a lot of tutoring after school, which I had never done in the past. My family struggled financially, and quite a few times our electricity got cut off. I remember having to go sleep at my aunt’s house until we had the money to pay the electric bill to get it reconnected and come back home. There was one time where the electricity got cut off in the middle of winter. It was 35 degrees outside, and the house was freezing.
At one point, the only vehicle in the family got repossessed and I didn’t have transportation to get to school, so I stayed at a friend’s house for almost a month so that I could drive to school with her. Many times, I questioned whether or not I had made the right move by coming to the United States and leaving everything behind in Puerto Rico, but I knew that giving up was not the answer. At the time, my mom was in the section 8 housing voucher program. When the time came to move to Tampa, she transferred her voucher, only to find out that the amount given to her was not enough to cover the cost of the rent for a home in the Tampa area and most landlords did not accept section 8. After weeks of searching without any success, we lost section 8 and that’s when we started living almost like “nomads”. Her friend offered us to stay at her house until we could find work (I slept on the sofa for a month and the rest of my family slept in a room). Things didn’t quite work out, so we moved to Orlando to another friend’s house. This time, there was four of us sleeping in one room: my mother, her boyfriend, my brother, and I. Things didn’t quite work out in Orlando either so two months later we moved to Pompano Beach.
In Pompano Beach, the four of us slept in the living room. Things went better, both my mom’s boyfriend and I were able to find work and save enough money for my family to be able to get our own place. And this is when we moved to Fort Lauderdale and I decided to go back to the hospitality industry. We did not have a car so I had to take two buses to get to work, which would take me about an hour each way. At the beginning, I worked the late shift so I would take the last bus at 11:00 pm and not get home until midnight. As far as The University of Tampa, when the time came to enroll for classes and pay for tuition and the cost of housing, even after grants and the scholarships I was awarded, it was too much money out of pocket. I tried to obtain a loan but due to the amount, I needed a co-signer. Unfortunately, I never found one since my immediate family did not have good credit and I did not meet the income and credit requirement on my own. The scholarships required that you were in good academic standing and submitted your grades at the end of the semester to continue to receive them. I had asked the committee of the scholarships to give me an extension since my enrollment had been delayed until Spring 2015.
Since I was never able to obtain a loan and attend UT, they took the scholarships away for not enrolling in the spring semester. That’s when I got very disappointed with college and decided to focus on work and give 110%. Things were not going well at home financially, so during the summer I took an overnight seasonal job at another hotel doing night audit. I was working the PM shift at one hotel from 3:00 pm – 11:00 pm and the audit shift at another hotel from 11:00 pm – 7:00 am. It was very draining, and I was sleeping about 4 – 5 hours a day (to this date I still don’t know how I pulled this off). A few months later I got promoted to be spa supervisor and things started to get much better for me financially. Shortly after, my finally decided to move back to Orlando and I decided to stay in Fort Lauderdale because I had a good position and I did not want to start over. I was able to find two co-workers that also needed a place and we rented an apartment between the three of us. The apartment only had two rooms, but it was all we could afford, and it was close to work. My co-workers took the rooms and the living room was my room for almost a year. They were here on a year work program so after a year they went back to their countries, I was able to move into one of the rooms, and my good friend became my roommate. A few months after being promoted to spa supervisor and living on my own, I was able to save enough money to buy a used car, which I bought for $1,000 cash. It broke down a few times so after 6 months, I went to a dealer and was approved to finance a car. I now happily reside in Plantation, FL., with my partner. He has been one of my biggest supporters and cheerleaders over the past four years; I couldn’t do it without him.
Please tell us more about your work, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
As the Director of Operations and Marketing for the team, I get to wear many hats. I work alongside the team leader in running an effective and successful operation. No day is the same, and I love that about my job. I am passionate about helping others in any way I can. Seeing others succeed brings me joy. My goal since joining the team was to help the team take it to the next level, and we have been able to do so successfully. I have an amazing team leader, that is now like family to me. In the past two years, we have grown our team from 18 agents to 32 agents, we expanded our reach from South Florida to Central Florida, and we found our new home at Compass, an innovative residential real estate firm, reinventing the real estate experience. As a team, we are known for selling high-end residential real estate, equestrian properties, and new development. We are also known for being very involved in the community and giving back as much as possible. I am very proud of the scholarships that we give out every year to 5 graduating seniors from Broward County that have proven to be emerging leaders. What sets us apart from others is our marketing strategy, our five-star customer service, and our team approach.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If I had to start over, I would not have done anything differently. I am a big believer that everything happens for a reason. Everything that I went through put me on the right path to get to where I am today. Every rejection and every failure made me stronger and taught me a lesson.
Contact Info:
- Address: 8201 Peters Road, Suite 1000, Plantation, FL 33324
- Website: www.thehopkinsteam.com
- Phone: 954.915.8011
- Email: [email protected]
Image Credit:
Chris Headshots
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