Ben Riekhof: What Real Estate Training Is Actually Missing
There is a story a lot of real estate agents know by heart, even if they have never told it out loud.
You get your license. You find a brokerage. Someone tells you to get out there and talk to people. You try. It does not quite work. You wonder if you are cut out for this. You wonder if everyone feels this lost in the beginning, or if it is just you.
It is not just you. And Ben Riekhof is proof.
Ben spent a decade teaching high school French in Atlanta before he made the jump to real estate. His first year in the business, he survived on luck. He landed a few transactions through an HOA board connection, told himself he had figured things out, and then watched a potential client walk away because he had no idea what a listing presentation was.
He Googled it. One year into his real estate career.
That moment was the turning point. Not because it was embarrassing, but because it was clarifying. Ben did not need more motivation. He needed more structure.
What Changes When You Have Real Training
Ben eventually landed at Justin Landis Group, and the difference was immediate. In his first month, he learned more than he had in his entire first year. The team had systems, language, and a shared understanding of what the job actually required.
But even with that foundation, something was still holding him back. He was not talking to the people he knew. He kept his personal relationships and his professional identity completely separate, convinced that reaching out to friends for business would feel pushy and transactional.
The shift came when he stopped thinking about it as asking for business and started thinking about it as being a resource. He reached out to people and told them simply: he was not calling to sell them a house. He just wanted to be the person they called when they had a question, needed a vendor recommendation, or wanted to understand what was happening in the market.
That reframe changed everything. Ben started making 50 to 60 of those calls a week. Referrals started coming in. During COVID, he was running around showing houses every single day, and every one of those appointments traced back to a relationship he had deliberately built.
He had found the repeatable process. And he wanted to bottle it.
Building Training That Actually Leads Somewhere
Ben came to Justin with an idea: they had something worth teaching. The relationship-first approach that had transformed his business was not being taught anywhere else, at least not in a way that actually helped agents apply it.
What Ben found when he started evaluating outside training options was discouraging. Most real estate education felt like an afterthought, recycled presentations from instructors who had not sold a house in years. The content was not connected to the current market. It was not connected to the real pressures agents face. It was just there.
So when a Director of Training position opened at JLG, Ben took it. And he built something different.
The Elevate and Advance program walks agents through every piece of the buying and selling process while simultaneously tracking their progress on relationship-building conversations. Not one or the other. Both, at the same time, because that is how the business actually works. Knowing how to do the job gives agents the confidence to go have conversations. Having conversations gives them the real-world context to understand what they are learning. The two feed each other.
Every instructor in the program is still in production. Ben is still in production. The managing brokers in both offices still sell houses. That is not a coincidence. It is a philosophy. You cannot teach a market you are not in.
The Programs Taking Agents Further
Elevate and Advance is the foundation, but it is not the only option. Ben has built a full library of CE classes covering everything from investor strategies to buyer consultations to FMLS hacks. He runs Propel, a group productivity coaching experience that brings in rotating speakers based on what the current market demands, and actually refunds agents who hit 80 percent of their conversation goals.
He also does one-on-one coaching, something he spent a year training specifically to do. The distinction matters to him: training is about process, and coaching is about the individual. Where are you now? Where do you want to be? What is actually in the way?
The results show up in the numbers. Bolst had the lowest days on market among the top 20 Atlanta brokerages last year. Agents who struggled at other brokerages for years have found their footing through these programs and climbed into the top 10 of individual producers at the brokerage. Former students have become mentors.
The Real Thing Holding Agents Back
When Justin asked Ben what he sees holding most agents back, Ben did not hesitate. It is confidence. Not ability. Confidence.
Social media has created a distorted picture of what this job looks like. It looks easy from the outside. It looks like showing beautiful homes and closing deals and building a lifestyle. The reality is that real estate exists because buying and selling property is genuinely hard, and agents are in the middle of challenging conversations, difficult negotiations, and high-stakes decisions every single day.
The agents who last are the ones who understand that clearly, who have the process knowledge to operate with confidence, and who have built real relationships with people who trust them.
That is what the training is designed to build.
If you are an agent looking for a brokerage that takes your growth seriously, Bolst is currently accepting mentorship calls. Book yours at bolst.homes and learn how the training, the community, and the approach can change the trajectory of your career.
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Justin Landis is the founder of Justin Landis Group and Bolst, two of Atlanta's leading real estate companies. He lives in Atlanta with his wife and three daughters and has been selling Atlanta real estate since 2008.
