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Justin Landis: Welcome to the Justin Landis Show, your real estate podcast about having conversations, building relationships and creating freedom. I'm your host, Justin Landis. And today I'm here with my guest, Jarrod Thomas. Jarrod, thanks for being here.
Jarrod Thomas: My pleasure, Justin.
Justin Landis: You've been here for a long time. We first met in 2008. You were 20 years old and had just gotten your real estate license. What prompted you to do that? Tell me, set the scene for 2008 in college, real estate license.
Jarrod Thomas: Yeah. So I got my license when I was in college and this was back in 2007. So my original plan was to get my license to get a better summer internship. And anyway, when I went after a summer internship that summer, I got connected to a guy named Rich Richardson, high producing individual agent in the residential space. I liked him. He brought me on as his summer intern. And so away we went. And that was the beginning of it all.
Justin Landis: So then I started working with Rich and we met and a lot changed between 2007 and 2008.
Jarrod Thomas: So summer 2007 I was like, man, this is the greatest job ever. Like everybody's making tons of money, everyone seems really happy. I went back to school, came back summer of 2008. That's when you and I, Rich connected you and me. A lot different vibe in the office. Because the market had crashed for anybody who didn't remember that. I mean, like absolutely crashed.
Justin Landis: And you were in college for the first year or two we were together. But then you made the decision during a down bad market to continue in real estate, even though it wasn't boom times anymore. Walk us back through that decision, how you decided to go right from college into real estate.
Jarrod Thomas: Yeah, definitely. Well, I knew a few things. I knew for sure that I didn't want to have a corporate job. I didn't want to have a traditional nine to five. I didn't want someone else to dictate my income or my freedom. And I felt like of all the things, I've been interested in real estate for a long time, growing up a few people that I knew that were successful where I was, were in real estate. And I think when you and I were working together, the two groups of people who were actually doing business, like transacting real estate at the time were investors and first time homebuyers. And so that was kind of like in our collective wheelhouse.
Justin Landis: Yeah. I mean, that was one of the big takeaways from that for me. It was like the market of the moment. It was either bank short sale investor or first time home buyers and we knew a lot. We did it all.
Jarrod Thomas: Yeah, we did it all. We turned the water on in the bank-owned properties. The utilities were off, you're out with the water tool outside, you're yelling in the house that the house is leaking.
Justin Landis: Yeah, that's right. I think the statute of limitations is over on that, so I think we're good to talk about that. All right, so when you came on after college and worked full-time, I mean, I was selling houses, had a pretty good business, and you were doing a little bit of everything. Do you remember what you were actually doing?
Jarrod Thomas: That's just what I told people, I did a little bit of everything. I think I've done everything you can do. I was doing paperwork for sure. I mean, in today's parlance, I would say I was doing some transaction coordination. I was doing some listing management. I was a showing assistant. I was running all over the place. The real estate industry is historically a little slow to adapt to technology. So we had to like physically do a lot of things, like get checks and things of that nature. I was going to inspections, all kinds of stuff.
Justin Landis: And then you realized you wanted to be a real estate agent because you did that for a little bit, but then you grew on to the next step. How was that transition? You were really young when you did this, to become a full-time real estate agent at a young age.
Jarrod Thomas: Yeah, I was young and it was super helpful to have the consistency of the income because I was doing probably a few deals per year those first couple years when I was working for you. But it was nice to have kind of both.
Justin Landis: Well then when you went out on your own, I mean that took like a big step, to go from having that salary to, I'm going to sell houses, but I'm young and the market's still not great.
Jarrod Thomas: Yeah, that's true for sure. I don't think I fully thought it through but you know you just kind of have a general sense of like, I feel pretty good about my pipeline, I feel like I know what I'm doing now, I have a good network, you know, more and more of my friends and people are starting to buy houses. So it was kind of a gut thing, but it just felt right at the time.
Justin Landis: And then when we officially started the Justin Landis Group, you came on to be a part of that initial group. It was you and Ashton and Amanda. What do you think, looking back on that beginning?
Jarrod Thomas: It's kind of the perfect storm. I felt like the foundation we were laying for probably three or four years timed with hiring, coming together with three or four great people all within a few months, and then the market shifted positively. All of that happened in like a probably three to six month period if I remember correctly. And yeah, it was just like pouring gasoline on the fire.
Justin Landis: Do you remember how many miles you drove that first year?
Jarrod Thomas: I don't know if it was the first year but one year I did track and it was about 44,000 miles. I was doing it for tax reasons, to get the mileage deduction. I sold houses in six counties. I sold like 40 houses. We were very relationally driven. And so we would just go wherever the relationship was.
Justin Landis: And your first role on the team was buyer's agent.
Jarrod Thomas: Yes, that's right. In my peak I would say I was doing probably 40 to 50 buyers, helping 40 to 50 buyers per year myself.
Justin Landis: What is the big learning as you look back on that? I mean, that is a massive number.
Jarrod Thomas: Well, I got to learn a ton, which was awesome. And I mean, I guess in hindsight, working a lot and really grinding, that's it. Yes, it was a long four years in a lot of ways, but also it was a lot of fun. I learned a lot in a relatively short amount of time, and I didn't really think that at the time, but it helped me set myself up for a lot of opportunities in the future. I mean, doing 200 houses in four years, that's a career for a lot of people.
Justin Landis: Yeah. So you had taken the jump, been on the team, you start to just say yes, I'll take these clients. What advice would you give to somebody who's in that point of their career?
Jarrod Thomas: I mean, I definitely think like one step at a time. I've heard like the view changes based on where you are. So as you move along, you'll feel better and better about what you're doing. And it's like, if it's hard work, but it's fun, it doesn't feel like hard work, if that makes sense.
Justin Landis: Yep. Yeah. And then your path kept changing. You sold those houses, but then you started mentoring other agents on the team. How'd you decide to do that? Because I mean, a lot of times in this industry, you take an income step back if you want to get into training or leadership.
Jarrod Thomas: I mean, I think anytime you want to do something great or new or fun, there's a risk involved. There's risk involved in getting into sales for the first time. But there's also risk involved in maybe taking a small step back or a sidestep to kind of selling fewer homes and helping other people.
Justin Landis: I'm curious if you remember some of the things that we did that were scrappy early on. You have any recollection?
Jarrod Thomas: Yeah, for sure. I mean, first of all, we found out what is the minimum commission. Like even Bank of America felt so bad. They're like, here's $1,500, which is the minimum commission. And that included we'd have to ride around and physically deliver checks because they wanted cashier's checks. Yeah. Then you go up to the closing at McCullough Raymer, the bank-owned closing at some location that locks the doors behind you because they're selling foreclosed houses. We're like, what is happening? The security level here to buy this $18,000 house seems really high.
Justin Landis: We also put the electric in our personal names.
Jarrod Thomas: Right, we put the electric in our personal names. Why not? All for a $1,200 commission that we're splitting.
Justin Landis: Hey, this is Justin with a quick market update. We're going to get back to the podcast in just a second. But I want to let you know that houses are sitting on the market longer than they have for a while in Atlanta. A plus property in an A plus location, something like Morningside or Milton, you are seeing longer times. So it has never been more important to hire a Justin Landis Group agent. You can go to justinlandisgroup.com to get connected and find the agent who will serve you the best. Now let's dive back into the podcast.
Justin Landis: As you think back on that, how do you think that helped us build trust with clients and build our business?
Jarrod Thomas: Yeah, definitely. I mean, first of all, it set a phenomenal foundation for getting future referrals for sure. And I think the other thing, I really think this is like a momentum business. And so I think just doing anything to stay active, to stay busy, you just never know. Once you kind of get in that, I'm working today mindset, stuff starts happening.
Justin Landis: I mean, the referrals started to snowball at some point, and that's really what helped the business take off. One thing we did those first couple of years at JLG that I think anyone can benefit from was being in the office, you and Ashton and I, actually lead generating.
Jarrod Thomas: Yes, for sure. We actually did it. We did it Tuesdays and Thursday mornings, if I remember correctly, for a couple hours. Honestly, the great thing about it is I don't really remember every specific call, but I know I did it. And it can be a short-term thing to kind of get your business started. But you need to be doing some obviously forever.
Justin Landis: I mean, we had exponential growth after doing that for two years. I mean, the business was in a completely different place, which on one hand seems long, but it's not really that long when you think about your whole career.
Jarrod Thomas: Exactly. Two years to set yourself up. This is huge.
Justin Landis: All right. So Jarrod, we've come a long way from those early stories. You became a partner at JLG. You were lead buyer's agent and then in charge of sales. Now you're running the day-to-day of it. You've brought in so many agents, trained so many agents. If you were giving someone advice or if you were starting now, what would you do?
Jarrod Thomas: Yeah, I mean, for me, it's like I love to help people take that four or five year journey I just talked about and make it four or five months, maybe. And this is going to sound insanely simple. But the very first thing I do, if it was like day one on the job, I would get a list of everyone I know in one place. And you don't need a CRM, just Google spreadsheets, fine. And meet them face to face as fast as possible.
Justin Landis: How many people do you think start this business and have that list ready to go?
Jarrod Thomas: Not very many. Exactly. But it sounds simple, but most people don't do it.
Justin Landis: What's the power of doing that?
Jarrod Thomas: Yeah. Well, it's really kind of a numbers thing. Roughly if you do that 10 times, that should produce one piece of business versus like, if you want to talk to strangers, you need to talk to like a hundred before one of them will do it. The power of it is just like, it feels slower, but it's actually a lot faster.
Justin Landis: So for every 10 people who know you, like you, trust you, that you're in a conversational relationship with, you get one piece of business?
Jarrod Thomas: Yeah, every year. So every 10 people who know you, like you, trust you, that you're in that conversational relationship with, they're getting you one piece of business a year.
Justin Landis: And let me contrast that. When we were making those early calls, we had a spreadsheet where we were tracking this. Ashton was cold calling. We were calling people we knew. It took her 454 calls per closing.
Jarrod Thomas: Yeah. And she's great at it. This is someone who is like dedicated, awesome, doing great stuff. 454 to your 10 relationships.
Justin Landis: Yeah. So how does this philosophy shape what you're doing with JLG and Bolst and your career and the agents you're working with moving forward?
Jarrod Thomas: Yeah. So even though we do work with people that we don't know, of course, it just kind of informs the way we treat them and guide them throughout the process. Our goal is to turn them into a client for life and a future referral source as well. It just kind of helps us put a premium on the service that we're offering.
Justin Landis: Love it. What other advice would you give to somebody who's just started?
Jarrod Thomas: A lot of this stuff we've figured out slowly over time. They can be sped up by following, by joining a brokerage or a team or someone that has a proven process for expediting everything I just said. So whether it's training, support, leads, but yeah, joining someone that has a track record.
Justin Landis: What do you think is most important? You mentioned like move four years into four months. For somebody, what are some of the specifics they should be looking for if they want to accelerate that timeline so fast?
Jarrod Thomas: Yeah. So you need proactive training, I would say. Not just like if it happens to happen to me, then I'll learn it. We need to be proactive. For sure. Training. You need someone to guide you, shadow opportunity, mentor opportunity, just need to see it in action to kind of take it from the textbook to real life for sure. And then it does take some time to build up your own business, and so I think having some kind of lead system or lead opportunity is very helpful.
Justin Landis: Yeah, I mean, I feel like the pairing of the training, the mentor, and then getting the real at-bats, like actually getting to do it, just really speeds things up super fast compared to either spending eight hours a day lead generating with no clients, or going to eight hours of classes a day with nothing in the real world. I mean, I think that combo has been really helpful.
Jarrod Thomas: Yeah, definitely. I agree. And some agents I talk to that are starting out, they spend money on leads up front. And I would definitely not do that. I mean, you can partner with people who have leads where your split might be different, but you get an opportunity to make money. And the trial and error on your own, which we have done a lot of, is very expensive relative to a proven process that somebody's already done hundreds or thousands of times.
Justin Landis: Right. Yeah. I mean, you're already going into a 100% commission job. Like, that's plenty of risk. You don't need to also max out your credit card on an unproven lead source when someone could teach you and you could have success quickly.
Jarrod Thomas: Exactly.
Justin Landis: I mean, Jarrod, as I reflect way back to you being an intern, I feel like I owe you a formal review. So let me share some of the things that just really stood out to me that helped me know you're going to have a great career. One of those things is you always want to do things the best. You're always trying to figure out a better way to do things. And then secondly, you were willing to do anything. There wasn't, I'm not willing to crawl in this crawl space. It's like whatever we had to do, you did it. And so it really just developed this trust level where I knew he's trying to do the best possible, and I know he will do anything that it takes to succeed.
Jarrod Thomas: No, I appreciate that for sure.
Justin Landis: Awesome, Jarrod. Thanks so much for being here today. I really appreciate your time and I'm glad we got to share this. Your insights are so valuable from both your career and all the agents you've seen. And it's awesome to be able to share this in a podcast format so other agents can learn from it. So thanks a bunch.
Jarrod Thomas: My pleasure.
