Meet Jeevan Tillit

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jeevan Tillit a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jeevan, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

Without a doubt, my work ethic comes from my mother, Carmin Tillit. A single mother, originally from Peru, she is the founder and vice president of East of Collins Expediting (EOCE), a permit expediting service provider that has been servicing clients for over 15 years. She opened the company in the midst of the housing and financial crisis and after losing her job in the construction sector. Today, EOCE has 25 full-time employees handling not only building permits but also business licenses, special event permits and other supporting services for the South Florida area. The key to her success? Her white glove service. Her dedication to the company and commitment to the clients is admirable. She has been a great inspiration to me and a great role model. Through her, I have learned to give more than 100 percent of my effort to each client. I always find a solution to any problem I come across, and I refuse to give up.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

With more than 15 years of experience in construction permitting, business licensing and special event permitting, I am the president and CEO of EOCE. Founded in 2009, EOCE was created to help developers, business owners and event organizers navigate the cumbersome permitting process, as every municipality has different requirements, and rules can change without notice. Our role is to help clients address this major pain point, which is a critical part of building infrastructure, operating businesses and hosting events. By assisting businesses to open their doors and operate properly, or securing the permits for a major event, we help the economy move forward. We are like the motor oil to the engine – and nothing gives us more satisfaction!

Our office, based in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, has assisted thousands of clients throughout the years in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. We have handled a number of permits for high-profile real estate developments, hotels and restaurants/bars. Included among our extensive roster of clients are The Mansions and Estates at Acqualina, Boucher Brothers, Crescent Heights, Faena, 72 Park, Ice Palace Studios, Avra, Catch, Loan Depot Park, Nylon House, One Hotel, Opa Locka Airport, Related Group, Ritz-Carlton South Beach, Stiles Construction, Surfcomber, Tala Beach Club, The Fillmore Theater, The New World Symphony Miami Beach, and W Hotel, among many others. We have also secured permits for major special events such as Ultra Music Festival, Jazz in the Gardens, Rolling Loud and Untitled Art Fair.

Additionally, as expeditors, we are an important part of the tool belt of any real estate professional. We not only assist with closings when they get delayed because of expired permits/open violations, but also help with due diligence research on previous use or potential impact fee costs, and provide support when planning a renovation, among other things.

The best part of the job is the self-satisfaction we feel every time we help clients achieve their dreams. Our success is tied to our clients’ success, and our clients’ success translates into our community’s success. It is a win-win for everybody!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

To succeed in the permitting business, it is key to have a great deal of determination, perseverance and be very detail oriented. This profession has a level of complexity that goes well beyond preparing and submitting the appropriate paperwork to a city. With over 80 municipalities in South Florida, it can be pretty challenging to keep track of all the rules and regulations for each municipality and the constant changes that take place. It is not enough to be familiar with existing laws, it is also critical to do the due diligence and find the right information for each client. Missing a permit can delay the construction of a project, cause a business to go over budget, or prevent a store or restaurant from opening its doors, leading to money loss. For any business owner or company, this can be simply disastrous. Therefore, an expeditor’s role is to make sure the ball is not dropped, time is not wasted, and the approval process goes smoothly.

How do you strengthen all these skills? Having an inquisitive spirit and a positive attitude is important. Setting goals and working on strategies to accomplish those goals can help you achieve a sense of control, which can help you to keep going. Most importantly, don’t be afraid to fail. There is always a solution or an answer to every question.

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?

This is a good question. For years, I have had mixed feelings about this as we originally developed a permit expediting company and subsequently opened a real estate company and are now planning for a lifestyle company. That said, I have found over the years that one must play to their strengths before being distracted by other areas of potential.

To explain this better, I will use our permit expediting company as an example. Once we determined that our permit expediting company was a strong industry player, we went all in and put the other services on pause. This allowed us to grow the company from the two founders to over 30 full-time employees, making us one of, if not the largest, permit expediting company operating in South Florida.

From there, we took it not one step, but two steps further. We realized that it was difficult to have all employees work in every municipality we service, given that we service the tri-county area and all municipalities within. Because each municipality operates differently and has different procedures, it is hard to keep track of how each municipality works when you are working in all of them, so we had each team member focus on just one city, thereby becoming the expert in that municipality.

However, the specialization of each team member didn’t end there. Even after we had each project manager focus on one municipality and become the expert for that municipality, we realized there was an opportunity to become more laser focused by concentrating on the strengths of each project manager. Rather than having the project manager handle the project from beginning to end and do the same for each project, thereby having to master each step of the process, we saw an opportunity to break down the process even further.

We are currently in the process of productizing our service. We are now breaking the process down into various steps and creating departments for each step of the process. Now rather than having a project manager be responsible for each step of the process, we have different people assigned to each department allowing them to master the skills necessary only for that department or step in the process. These team members are now going all in on their steps and becoming super efficient. Basically, rather than trying to be well-rounded in many areas, we have found it more effective to become the expert in one area, master it, excel beyond all others, and let someone else do the same for those areas that you are not the expert in. When we do this, we become experts individually, and unstoppable collectively.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://eastofcollins.com/
• Instagram: @eastofcollins
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eastofcollins
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeevan-tillit-4899a229

Image Credits

Photos Courtesy of East of Collins Expediting