The Land & Farm Niche: How Hunting an 800-Deal Real Estate

Welcome back to the Hunt for Success podcast. Today I have an actual legend with me — Lynn Jared, who owns a real estate brokerage with over 90 agents concentrated in land and farms, hosts the Long Beard Legends YouTube channel, and got his turkey grand slam in two years. Lynn, welcome to the show.

Born and raised right here in Cookeville, Tennessee — all 52 years. We started our real estate brokerage back in 2022. First year we did right at 500 transactions. Next year right at 750. Last year, 2025, we did a little over 800. This year, year-to-year, we’re 57% over pace of the prior year.

Upper Cumberland is kind of a bubble. My wife and I go to a lot of masterminds across the United States and we hear the pain from other brokerages — up there. Our little area, people are just flooding in. We’re about an hour east of Nashville, hour and a half west of Knoxville, right on I-40 with I-111 cutting through. We’re a little behind the curve on growth, but catching up fast.

With most businesses it’s really been our culture. We’ve had high-producing agents reach out and we just knew they wouldn’t be a great culture fit. About 75% of our agents are two years or newer — we’re the place for the new ones. Most of the agencies around here, I call it the “chip in a chair” mentality. You can hang your license, sounds great, basically no training. We’ve got morning huddles every single day Monday through Friday, lunch and learns, everything. They’re investments to us.

We’ve got team leaders over each of our tiers. Once an agent exceeds so many million in business, they move up tiers and their splits get better. The team leaders are in direct contact with their tier — they understand what each one is seeing and struggling with. We set the morning huddles from that feedback. Monday admin meeting we noticed our contract-to-close fall-through number had been creeping up over the last couple of quarters. So now we’re sitting down to figure out whether it’s lack of pre-closing education — agents getting under contract, then moving on to the next deal instead of shepherding this one to close.

The biggest misconception of a real estate agent is “I just want to be my own boss so I can set my schedule.” That’s the furthest thing from the truth. But where they really fail is they don’t have enough funds on hand to make it through the first three years before the uptick. When you start out, you’re not walking, you’re crawling. It’s the third or fourth year that the climb starts — same as the car business I came out of. Took me six-plus years before people started calling me for trade-in advice.

We started a lead-gen team about four years ago. It was failing. My wife came to me and said, “I need you to take this over.” First thing I thought was, is this going to come into my hunting? Into my golfing? But I sat down with it and I’m like — this is the car business. New agents come out of boot camp with no sphere; we can hand them leads and follow-up training. Since I took it over we’re profitable. First half year I did 67 closings out of it. Last year, 120. This year it looks like 150 to 160 closings just off the lead-gen team.

The car guy comes out of me a little bit. I have to tone it down. But they’ve taken on the phone training, understanding it all comes back to asking questions, shutting up, and listening.

My grandpa was what we’d call a horse trader. We used to kid when he’d show up to functions, what truck he’d be in, what he was trading. I’d ask him, “Paul, what do you think that truck’s worth?” He’d say, “Son, it’s only worth what somebody’s willing to give.” That mentality — and the years in the car business — that’s where it came from. Three years selling cars in Sparta, Tennessee and I was making six figures. People didn’t believe it. I’d tell them: the guy in overalls has cash and is looking for a three-quarter ton diesel. You sell him the truck.

Land and farms was the love of being outdoors, plus knowing my wife was going to take care of the residential side. She’s pretty much the number one agent in this area — friends call her to sell their house, not me. I’ve sold multiple farms where during the process the buyer says, “Hey, can you help me set this up? I want to be able to kill deer.” I grab Onyx, walk it, look at pinch points. They’d say, “Man, you live on that little map.” Well, I’ve been doing it for a while.

My wife still jokes that she can’t believe my parents let me out in the woods at seven years old with a shotgun by myself. I lived on a farm — that’s just what we did. Probably contributes to me wearing hearing aids now. Killed my first buck at ten. My dad worked, my mom stayed at home, and we were in the woods every Saturday. Church on Sunday, then sneak away Sunday afternoon for a little more stand time. My dad’s the main reason I got into hunting.

I was supposed to get the grand slam in one year but the Osceola guy pushed me off, so I had to do it the next year. Best hunt out of all of them was the Merriam. I killed it in South Dakota in the Black Hills on public land.

I took a buddy. Stayed in a cabin in the foothills. First morning, early May, I look at the weather and tell him, “It’s cold here tonight, wonder what these birds are going to do.” Next morning at 4 AM he yells, “You gotta come out here.” Three inches of snow on the ground. He says, “If these were Easterns they wouldn’t gobble for two weeks.” We hunted anyway. Couldn’t get one that first day. Next day, still snow, walking public land, finally got one to gobble. The terrain out there is rocky and flat with mounds of rocks between sections. We kept those mounds between us and him. He eased up over a rock, hunkered down slow and looked at me — “He’s right there.” By the time I got up he was seven yards from me. Killed him about an eighth of a mile from Mount Rushmore. Got pictures of me with the bird, Mount Rushmore over my shoulder.

My buddy killed his Merriam that afternoon. We headed straight to Kansas and both killed Rios within two days. Some of the best seven days of my life.

Next on the World Slam is the Gould’s and the Ocellated in Mexico. Buddies of mine had trips booked and the guides told them: don’t come right now. They pick you up at the airport in a safari vehicle and the cartels know that’s Americans going to an outfitter. So a lot of folks pushed it off. Still on my bucket list — if I get across the border I’m trying to get both in the same window.

I started bowhunting at 12 or 13. The season opened sooner — easier to be in the woods, not as cold — but my dad didn’t care much for it. Easier to shoot at 125 yards than 25. Now I love to bow hunt. That rush of figuring out how to get closer — when can you draw, when do you hold. Bowhunting hands down is the greatest way to kill a whitetail. I’m shooting a Mathews Lift. Been a BowTech man seven or eight years before that. The Lift came out, I shot it, and I’m like — that’s nice. As you get older you can’t pull poundage like you used to, and the Lift still gets pretty good speeds.

My plan this year is to bowhunt turkeys without a blind. Tennessee lets us kill two — opening morning I’ll have the shotgun with my son, hopefully drop one. After that I’m carrying the bow. It’s a challenge. Turkey can see you make any move.

I used to tell my son: if you fart in the woods, a deer can smell it and a turkey can see it. Just because that turkey’s back is to you doesn’t mean he can’t see you. Their head is flat — they can almost see 360 degrees.

My first bird, my dad killed his first bird within 30 minutes of mine. Sitting at the base of the same big oak. I called one up, killed him. We’re high-fiving, talking about how great the morning was. Then my dad goes, “One just gobbled.” I’m like, how far was he? “I think he’s just out on that ridge.” I got the mouth call out, he hammered, we sat right back down on the same tree, my bird laying beside me. Bird came out the same way. He shot and killed his. Doubled up for our first birds ever. Thirty-something years ago.

I’m a run-and-gunner. Mornings I’m patient — if I get on birds early I’m setting up, getting on him tight, knowing when he flies down. But if he’s not vocal or won’t come in by 90 minutes, I’m gone. Next ridge. Find a bird that wants to play. Cover ground. By 9:30 or 10 I’ll go back to the original ridge in case the hens left him.

Last year opening morning, six hens pitched out of the roost with a bird and took him in the opposite direction from my calling as fast as they could. I was back in the truck within the first hour. Drove 45 minutes to another farm, sat down, killed a bird within an hour. I get impatient. But if I know I’ve got other farms with birds on them, I’m going to find one that wants to play.

Hardest bird I’ve ever hunted — Alabama Eastern out of Talladega National Forest. Vocal on the roost, not vocal on the ground. Almost feels like a different species from the Easterns we have in Tennessee. Public land, called to constantly, kitchen-and-sink thrown at them — they get educated really, really quick. Took me four or five years to crack one.

My wife will eat wild turkey — only meat from the woods she’ll touch. When I kill one the first thing she says is, “Are you going to eat that?” Filet that breast up and deep fry it, she’s ready to go.

Hobbies matter. I go from turkey hunting to golf until deer season starts. My wife had zero hobbies until she took up pottery two years ago — now she’s got her own spinning table, her own kiln, makes them and gives them away. Club gifts, candle bases for a local nonprofit. The thing she tells me about horses: somebody has to take care of them. That’s part of a hobby — like I take care of my hunting property and put in the food plots.

My dad’s now 78 and I took him back to the family farm last Tuesday — first time he’d been down there in seven years. He retired early, didn’t really have hobbies except for hunting. Watching the decline of his physical abilities — my wife and I talk about it all the time. We’ve got bucket lists. I don’t know if we’ll ever fully retire. In our industry we can scale it to whatever pace we want. I’ll never lose the joy of watching somebody buy a farm, even at 80.

I sold a guy a piece of property about 400 to 500 yards from the farm I hunt. Two years after he bought it he sends me a picture of a deer he killed. I was hunting the same deer — had been on my property early season, he killed him during the rut. He’d broken off a couple of points. I sent him my trail-camera picture. He goes, “You gotta be kidding me.” Helped another buddy set up a stand at a pinch point — his wife killed her first deer right where I told him to hang it. I get just as much joy from somebody else killing one I helped set up.

Biggest thing I carry from hunting to business is relationships. I’ve got three guys on the hunting side — we’re in a thread together, sending Onyx pictures, “What do you think, this is where I’m getting him.” All of them very knowledgeable. I’m the dumbest guy in the thread — they say I’m just the lucky one. Same on the business side. Two or three guys I text: “This is my situation, how would you handle this?” I don’t put them in the same thread. I want the variables. I don’t want one guy nodding along with another. The hunting thread is the opposite — I put them all together because they’ll fuss at each other, “no, you don’t want that stand, the wind swirls there.” That part I like.

Most of the people in my corner have earned my trust over years. Masterminds — you take a lot away, but not all of it. We’re so sphere-based we’re not a turn-and-burn shop, so the numbers don’t always jive. A few times I’ve thought, “Hey, this guy might be one to lean on” and after a few conversations I removed myself. Back to my bread-and-butter — guys who have my best interest.

The guys in my corner know me personally, not just the business. They know where my wife and I want this to take us. Hard to take advice from someone who doesn’t know your outlook.

Closing wisdom: get out there. My dad used to tell me on cold winter mornings — “Son, you can’t kill ‘em from the house.” On the business side, golden rule. Treat people like you want to be treated. Sometimes it’s tough — you make tough decisions, you don’t always get treated well back. But have a good heart. If someone leaves, tell them, “I was blessed you were here.” And take a kid hunting. I try every year to take somebody who’s never hunted. Got two guys lined up right now.

Thanks, Lynn. Thanks for being on and for everything you shared. There’s people listening who are going to take something from this.

Sounds great, Sam. Just give me a shout.