After graduating from the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana in 2006, Jon Milonas didn’t know what he wanted to do for a career. So in the fall of 2006, he traveled to Valparaiso, Chile with the YMCA to work on youth leadership development programs for teenagers. While there, a family friend asked if he would be interested in an internship with CBRE. Milonas thought that was a guaranteed job upon his return home, but had no interest in a long-term career in real estate.
At the conclusion of Milonas’ internship, he began exploring opportunities in tenant representation. After interviewing with over 10 commercial real estate firms downtown, he was finally hired with CBRE full-time—although the company was in a hiring freeze—in December 2007. The only way Milonas could be hired was to have a senior brokerage professional guarantee his draw. Industry veteran Scott Brandwein took the risk and guaranteed his draw.
“It is very common in commercial real estate to receive a draw instead of a salary,” Milonas said, now first vice president in CBRE’s Global Tenant Representation Group. “CBRE gave me $35,000 and paid me every two weeks like a normal salary. As I earned commissions, they went right to the company. Once my draw was paid off, I could earn anything above $35,000.”
“I closed six projects in my first year, and those total commissions added up to only $30, 000,” he said. “So because Scott guaranteed my draw, he had to pay the remaining $5,000—out of his own commission—within that 12 month period.”
Brandwein noted that he has thought about why he guaranteed Milonas’ draw many times since then, and said it was because Milonas was far more inquisitive than the other candidates that CBRE would have interviewed, or hired.
“He asked far more questions, and followed up the answers to his questions with more questions,” he said. “I could tell that he had an intellectual curiosity that was really unique. My instincts were that that skill set would serve him very well in our business.”
A Sagacious Bond Unfolds
Brandwein became Milonas’ mentor, and eight years later, the values and business practices Brandwein taught him has built the foundation upon which Milonas has achieved his success.
“There are a lot of people in our business that are very aggressive, articulate, and have good sales skills,” Brandwein said. “But what has been important for a very long time is understanding the customer. Essentially, how you treat individuals within a client organization as opposed to the traditional customer (“the company”) itself. Jon understands the difference and the importance of both.”
Brandwein pointed out that it’s a combination of two philosophies he was taught that Milonas learned and now practices.
“The first is that you never leave anybody behind,” he said. “Always be observant about what the individual’s needs are; everyone is managing their own career within the customer organization that has to be supported. The corporate politics! Don’t just focus on what’s good for the customer organization, make sure that the individual people within your customer organization are taken care of and protected. The second is play the “man, not the park”—it’s an old hockey strategy. Jon understands this and is very good at it.”
Milonas said that Brandwein certainly taught him how to treat people. “Scott doesn’t have the typical salesman personality where it’s kind of a hard pressed sale, like a car salesman. He understands that people are people, and is very client customer focused. So as I was learning how to sale and develop relationships early on, that all gleamed from his experiences. He does a lot more listening than talking, and thought I was inquisitive.”
“He connected with that because he’s inquisitive as well,” Milonas continued. “He knows that in order to really solve someone’s challenges, you have to know what they are. In order to know what they are, they have to trust you. It’s really hard to build relationships in the business, and Scott taught me how to do it the right way.”
Brandwein’s Humble Beginnings
When Brandwein began his career in commercial real estate, it was a very different experience from Milonas’. Companies were in local markets but a global company with all the new services and the innovation that we have today didn’t exist. The three founding partners of what was a start-up and came to be CBRE, the largest global commercial real estate company in the world, mentored Brandwein.
“One partner was dead set against hiring anyone, and wouldn’t meet with anyone either,” Brandwein said. “Another partner said there was no way that they were hiring me because he believed that I would not be successful. The third partner hired me because he saw the same characteristics in me that I saw in Jon.”
Brandwein noted that the two partners who did not want to hire him turned out to be great business partners, and mentors, of his.
“I was very fortunate to have three amazing mentors,” he said. “What made them amazing mentors is that those three people had so much trust in me at a very young age—as I did with Jon. My mentors introduced me to everyone that they know. So at the age of 23, I was meeting the most important people in commercial real estate in Chicago.”
“You don’t normally get that opportunity,” Brandwein added. “So similarly I introduced Jon to everyone because that is how I was brought up in the business.”
Like Brandwein, Jamie Georgas, managing director at CBRE, had great things to say about Milonas, noting that he has always been considered a leader within his peer-set.
“Jon continues to put his footprint on CBRE from a cultural standpoint,” she said. “It has been really fulfilling watching him grow for the past 8 years, and his passion for the business and client service is contagious and impactful within all levels of the organization.”
‘Workplace 360′
Today both Milonas and Brandwein work together in the new ‘Workplace360′ free-addressing office space that is as dissimilar to both of them, as the stories of their careers are to each other. Both agree working in the 321 N. Clark space encourages interaction and collaboration, changing the culture of the company’s workplace, and building upon the innovation of services CBRE is able to provide its clients.
“We talked about how commercial real estate has changed, and Scott has seen it more from the early days, where a broker brought to the table a big book of all the available space on the market,” Milonas said. “That’s all online now. So how do we solve the complex challenges that our clients have? I think that one of the reasons I’m still here is that CB has such unbelievable resources, with unbelievable people, that it makes my job easier as I’m trying to serve my clients’ needs.”
“It means that our clients can feel really comfortable and we can help them,” Milonas added. “In a really complex world, CB has brought in people and the right kind of resources—like the people that handle Workplace 360—who have convinced me to get rid of all my paper. I feel more and more confident that as technology changes the world in general, that CB keeps investing in us, and in our platform, so that we can better serve our clients.”
For Brandwein, working in the new ‘Workplace 360′ space is a big change. “I’m a big proponent of it,” he said. “The advantages far outweigh any disadvantages. What I have observed is that the design is brilliant. We increased the density by a little over 20 percent, so effectively the company saved money.”
“We also wanted to set an example because we consult with clients about these issues,” he said. “But the primary objective was to save money by leasing less space. The design is brilliant. If we showed you the old space, in comparison to the new, you would see that there’s dramatically more open space.”
Brandwein continued, “By allocating less space for individuals, the benefit of the open space not only creates a very positive environment, but causes people to collaborate more because there is more open space. Our space is designed so that you’re sort of forced to walk through the multiple common areas to get anywhere.”
As one of the co-leaders of the Downtown Chicago CBRE office, Georgas had an important hand in managing the process for ‘Workplace360′.
“I was instrumental in making several of the decisions for our space,” she said. “Including the “vision” of our space, the building selection process, decisions on how we will utilize our space and a new way of working, design decisions, technology decisions and did a lot of heavy change management internally with our professionals. It was an extremely rewarding experience and we are extremely proud of the end product.”
