After graduating high school at 17, Jordan Boyes made a beeline from his tiny hometown of Kelvington, Saskatchewan to the province’s biggest city, Saskatoon. It is a path taken by many a prairie boy, but few end up making the same splash that Boyes has. Now in his seventh year in the industry, Boyes is in charge of his own growing brokerage and is the City of Bridges’ number one agent.

Boyes says he always knew he would be involved in real estate in some capacity, but his first job saw him working at the central warehouse for CO-OP, where Boyes eventually worked his way up into the shipping and receiving department. At 19, Boyes first floated the idea to his family and colleagues that he was thinking of getting his real estate license, but he was told unanimously that he was too young.

He then did what anyone in that situation would do: he started online gambling.
Boyes was turned on to the lucrative possibilities of playing online poker by one of his CO-OP co-workers, who had begun working less and less because he was making more money at home.

“I got quite intrigued by it,” Boyes says. “I taught myself how to play and a few months after that I quit as well. I did that for four and a half years.”

Boyes had considerable success as a card shark, but in 2010, when the online gambling industry began looking less stable, he decided to finally make the switch to real estate and place his next bet on himself. Boyes obtained his real estate license and was hired by a local independent brokerage, Hallmark. Within his first two years he was Hallmark’s top producer.

Boyes credits his rise to putting in countless hours of hard work.

“I’d phone up agents and volunteer to do their open houses or their running around if they had a sign call or a buyer they were too busy with. I just made sure I was available.” For six months, Boyes was managing six open houses every weekend.

In May 2015, after Boyes had strung together another three years as Hallmark’s top agent, the company was acquired by Royal LePage. Not sensing much of an advantage in having a national brand name behind him, Boyes decided to form his own company, Boyes Group Realty.

“I feel people, more and more in this industry, are choosing the individual – not the sign on the lawn. It’s what you teach your agents and the service they provide their clients that keeps people coming back.”

Boyes has made agent education the lynchpin of his brokerage. He is especially adept at mentoring new agents who, like Boyes, may be new to the city or starting from scratch.

“That’s where I think my advantage is,” he says. “I can show them from the ground up how to create a database, how to work open houses, how to cold call, how to generate leads online. I think I’m a good trainer in that aspect because I started from nothing and taught myself how to do it.”

Another lesson Boyes hammers into his agents is, no matter how good business is today, to constantly be prospecting.

“The most important thing is to work even harder when you’re busy so that funnel of prospects never ends. That is how we have been able to stay so busy, even during the slower times. That is a key part to every single day – follow-up, following up new leads, asking for referrals from past clients – to ensure we never have those up and down lows.”

Boyes’ well-trained team has in fact been weathering the soft Saskatoon market with considerable success. Despite sales in the city remaining flat for the past two years, Boyes Group has seen its business increase significantly. The company has partnered with more than 20 local developers in its attempt to increase its market share and become the first option for consumers in the city.

Complacency, however, is not an emotion Boyes is accustomed to feeling.
“Not that I’m never happy, but if I sell five houses today, come tomorrow that’s done. That’s yesterday. I’m always looking ahead and trying to get more people in that pipeline,” Boyes says.

Some may wonder if he ever misses his days spent gambling in front of a laptop, filling his bank account from the comfort of his own bed. But leisure is of little interest to Boyes, who appears to have found his true calling.

“I still put in 14, 16 hours a day,” he says. “I never feel that desire to get away or feel like I’m burning out, so I actually get more stressed and anxious when I’m away. I just end up wanting to come back.”