I’m Not a Guru.
I’m Just Jacob.

Most people in this industry have one lane. I never did.

After studying e-Business — with a major in marketing and web design and minors in piano and Spanish — I started my career as a programmer at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, managing SharePoint portals for engineers, building custom web services, and teaching Lunch & Learns on software to military staff. Not exactly a typical marketing origin story.

From there I moved into finance — earning my insurance, mortgage, and investment licenses while also handling marketing for the firm and working directly with clients on their financial futures. At the same time I was running a piano studio with 35 students and serving as a piano player and worship leader for a Hispanic church in Pensacola for six years.

None of this was planned. It was just who I am — someone who is genuinely curious about everything, can walk into any room, and find a way to connect and contribute.

In 2011 I stopped building other people’s empires and started my own marketing company. My bosses were making a lot of money off my ideas. I decided to take those ideas and run with them myself.

Around that same time a friend of mine was manufacturing photo booths. I saw the opportunity, got involved, and built a photo booth company that eventually expanded into three cities. That venture led me deep into the event rental industry — and I quickly became one of the go-to marketing minds for event rental businesses, building converting websites and booking systems that actually drove revenue. That experience became the foundation for a whole new marketing specialty.

When I started my marketing company I quickly realized something most agencies never figure out: a great website means nothing without a great strategy. A great brand means nothing without the right tools. And hiring five different companies to handle five different pieces of your business is a recipe for a scattered vision and wasted money.

So I built Hi5 Biz Solutions to be the answer to all of it — branding, web design, SEO, content, automations, CRM, video marketing — one company, one vision, one team that understands your entire business from the inside out.

The name? When you accomplish something, you give someone a high five. That’s what we’re here to do — help you accomplish something worth celebrating, then celebrate it with you.

We’ve worked with event rental companies, medical spas, home builders, real estate agents, and businesses across dozens of industries. The common thread in every single one? They needed a total solution, not a band-aid.

On February 23rd, 2020, the event industry shut down overnight. Events were canceled. Venues closed. And nearly every event rental client I had suspended their marketing indefinitely. A business I had spent years building essentially disappeared in a matter of days.

At the same time, my husband Miguel was working long hours in multi-family housing and property management. He was good at it — but he wanted more flexibility, more freedom, and more ownership over his future. I looked at him and said — why don’t you get your real estate license?

He wasn’t sure how he could make that transition, especially with the hours he was working. So I decided to get my license with him. Not necessarily to become a full-time agent, but to help him through the transition — cover property tours, follow up with clients, and build something together. We both knew from the start that we wanted to build a real estate business, not just be self-employed agents like everyone else.

We quickly found eXp Realty and realized we could start building from day one — bringing agents in and growing a group with our combined marketing and business backgrounds. Miguel eventually got a promotion at his job and stayed there for a while longer, but we kept building. Now we’re both full-time agents, running our real estate group at eXp, and working with clients across Houston and beyond.

Once I was inside the industry, agents started asking to pick my brain almost immediately. And the more I looked at what was being sold to them, the more frustrated I got — funnels that don’t work in real estate, websites with nothing but an IDX feed and a contact form, coaches telling agents they don’t need websites anymore. Traditional marketing tactics being applied to an industry where buyers and sellers simply don’t behave like traditional consumers.

The worst part? Many of these so-called experts were real estate agents who had success in their own market, with their own niche, and were now packaging that one experience into a course and selling it as a universal truth. A strategy built around new construction community tours in Houston doesn’t translate to Toronto. What worked for a luxury agent in Miami doesn’t apply to a first-time buyer specialist in a mid-size midwest market.

I was different. I wasn’t an agent who learned marketing. I was a marketer who learned real estate. And I had been helping friends flip houses since 2014 — years before I ever got my license. That perspective changes everything.

I grew up outside of Indianapolis, Indiana in a small town called Martinsville. At 18 I moved to Pensacola, Florida for college and ended up staying for over a decade — teaching piano, leading worship, building businesses, and figuring out who I was.

From Pensacola I spent time in Atlanta, then did something most people don’t do — I spent a year living abroad in Venezuela. That year changed me in ways I still carry today. Being fully immersed in a different country, culture, and language — navigating life in a place that is nothing like where you grew up — teaches you how to read people, adapt quickly, and find common ground with anyone. It’s one of the best things I ever did.

After Venezuela I spent time in Chattanooga, Tennessee before relocating to Houston in 2017. In late 2017 I met Miguel. We’ve been building our life and business together ever since. Houston is home.

We have two rescue dogs who mean the world to us. Rusty came into our lives in September 2019 when he was just four months old — a tiny, energetic puppy who has been our loyal companion through every chapter since. And then there’s Gracie.

On Easter Sunday, March 31st, 2024, I was showing a property to a client when I noticed a small dog wandering alone outside the home. I thought she had a broken leg. When we got her to the animal hospital we found out she wasn’t injured — she was born without her front right leg. She had clearly been surviving on her own for a long time. We took her home that day and she hasn’t left our side since. Real estate literally brought Gracie to us.

I’ve been broke. I’ve had money. I’ve worked for others and built my own. I’ve lived in multiple states and a foreign country, taught piano, programmed software, managed finances, led worship, run a photo booth company across three cities, and built a marketing agency — all before most people figure out what they want to do with their lives. None of it was wasted. All of it made me who I am.

By Human Design I’m a Manifesting Generator — someone built to do multiple things at once, respond from the gut, and create energy rather than drain it. Manifesting Generators are designed to find the fastest, most efficient path forward, light up when the work is right, and bring others along in the process. If you’ve ever felt like you’re supposed to be doing more than one thing at once — you probably understand. For my clients it means you get someone who is genuinely energized by your success, can hold multiple moving pieces at the same time, and will always tell you what their gut says — even when it’s not what you want to hear.

I’m a self-made person. I don’t do things halfway and I don’t chase trends. I build real things that last.

One more thing:

I’m not here to be your guru. I hate that word. I’m not here to sell you a $997 course built on the one thing that worked for me in my market and pretend it applies to everyone. I’m here to understand your business, your goals, your market, and your people — and help you build something that actually works for you.

My goal isn’t to copy what somebody else accomplished. It’s to help you accomplish what YOU set out to do. Just because someone else wants to close $3 million a year doesn’t mean that’s your goal. I want to help you define what success looks like for your life — build the systems to reach it — and have the freedom to enjoy it.

I want to help the people you want to help. I want you to make the money you want to make. And I want you to build the life you actually envisioned — not the one someone else is selling.

If that resonates with you — I’d love to work together.