Good Neighbor Podcast: Colorado Springs
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Colorado Springs. Good Neighbor Podcast hosted by Tony Hills helps residents discover and connect with your local business owners in and around Colorado Springs, Colorado.
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Good Neighbor Podcast: Colorado Springs
EP #83: Snowboards, Pickleball, and Property Deals: Meet Jason from The Cutting Edge, Realtors
What makes Jason Lyman with The Cutting Edge, Realtors a good neighbor?
From snowboards to sold signs, Jason Lyman's journey into real estate defies conventional wisdom. What began as a chance encounter at an open house transformed into a thriving career built entirely on personal referrals and genuine connections.
"Every morning I wake up unemployed," Jason reveals with surprising candor about the commission-based nature of his work. This refreshing perspective comes from someone who abandoned a secure government position to pursue his passion, making this conversation particularly valuable for anyone contemplating a similar leap of faith. As a residential realtor with The Cutting Edge, Realtors in Colorado Springs, Jason dismantles the myth that real estate success comes easily, especially in today's shifting market.
The conversation takes fascinating turns through Jason's integration of his CrossFit community connections into his business strategy, sponsoring the Purple Mountain Throwdown competition, and finding fulfillment through understanding clients' deeper motivations rather than focusing solely on transactions. His personal journey through divorce while transitioning careers demonstrates remarkable resilience and vision—proving sometimes the riskiest decisions lead to the greatest rewards.
Whether you're considering a career change, curious about real estate market realities, or simply appreciate authenticity in business, this episode delivers valuable insights wrapped in an engaging personal story. Connect with Jason through thecuttingedgerealtors.com or his personal site at lyman-group.com to learn more about Colorado Springs real estate or to experience firsthand the culture that convinced him to bet on himself.
To learn more about The Cutting Edge, Realtors go to:
The Cutting Edge, Realtors
719-220-0541
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Tony Hills.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Are you looking for a great residential realtor? One might be closer than you think. Today I have the pleasure of introducing our good neighbor, jason Lyman, with the Cutting Edge Realtors. Jason, how's it going?
Speaker 3:It's going great man, beautiful day today and spring is on its way. I can't complain.
Speaker 2:Awesome. We are excited to learn about your business, so tell us about your company.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I'm a local residential realtor. I work with the Cutting Edge Realtors here in Colorado Springs. We are the largest independent brokerage. I've been with them for gosh seven, eight years now One year shorter than they've been established and so it's a great company, great people to work with and I absolutely love what I do.
Speaker 2:Okay, awesome. How did you get into this business?
Speaker 3:It's a funny story. I moved to Colorado Springs 11 years ago now. I met a realtor at an open house that my wife at the time and I had attended. He just got to talking. We became really good friends. My background prior to that I had done some regional banking stuff business banking, sales things like that. I had done some regional banking stuff business banking, sales things like that and he said to me one day as we were going to play golf, said that I should get my real estate license. And at the time I had a really well-paying job with the Air Force. I was a civilian logistics manager. But I gave it some thought and I wasn't really satisfied with what I was doing and so I decided to pursue this. I took the required coursework, got my real estate license and did it part-time for a couple of years.
Speaker 2:Okay, what are some myths or misconceptions in your industry?
Speaker 3:I think probably one of the biggest ones, especially right now, is that this job is easy and that anybody can do it. One of my mentors always says this is an easy job to get into. It's a really hard job to be successful at, and I think the myth especially with the market being so hot in 2019, 2021, even into 2022, it was a little easy you stick a sign in a yard and all of a sudden you got 20 offers. But now this is when the true professionals are standing out. This is a hard market to be in.
Speaker 3:If you're trying to sell a house, you know it's not. It's not the fastest process these days. It could be, but it could be a really slow process If you're working with buyers. Buyers have a lot of choices right now, which is which is good, because the buyers that are out there, they're the ones who the interest rates. While they are high, you know there are still some people who need to make moves, and so having a true professional by your side who knows the market intimately, who is familiar with what it takes to either buy or sell and has the right advice, that's really important.
Speaker 2:Who are your target customers and how do you attract them? Who are your?
Speaker 3:target customers and how do you attract them? I like to work with gosh. I work with a lot of people. My business is 100% based on referrals, so it's either past clients or it's people that they have sent business to me.
Speaker 3:I am really big and involved with the local CrossFit community here in Colorado Springs, so I enjoy working with people who are in that community as well, and I think that the reason I like that is is we're just very like-minded. You know, we we show up to do prospect workouts every day and those are hard things to do. We do them with each other and sometimes we don't feel like doing it, but we do it, and so I think building that level of trust with those folks that that's who I really enjoy working with. And as far as how I attract them, one of the things I've done last year and again this year is I'm the title sponsor for a really big two day CrossFit competition here in Colorado Springs called the Purple Mountain Throwdown, and that's enabled me to really get in front of a lot of different CrossFit gym communities and get my name out there. So that's just something that has really been great for the last couple of years.
Speaker 2:Okay, outside of work, what do you do for fun?
Speaker 3:In the wintertime, I love to snowboard, the reason that I moved to Colorado I'm originally from Colorado, but I grew up mostly in Ohio, Moved back here 11 years ago so that I could be closer to the mountains and world-class snowboarding. It's just something I'm extremely passionate about. In the summertime, I like to play golf and last summer I started playing pickleball and that is something that has just really taken over. What I love to do it's a group of friends and I really got into it. My company has a league that we started and we have all been a person and are really into it. I love it.
Speaker 2:Awesome, wow, everybody loves pickleball, right.
Speaker 3:It is. It's so funny. You know, I resisted for such a long time because everybody was talking about it and I just didn't really understand why the obsession with it until I, until I played a couple of times and I was like you know what this is great it's it's accessible, it's easy to learn, it's it's easy to improve and it's just a lot of fun I have. I have a lot of fun doing it. So that's that's probably my biggest hobby right now. That and again the CrossFit stuff.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's switch gears. Can you describe a hardship or life challenge you overcame? How it made you stronger? What comes to mind?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So for me, I think the thing that stands out most was when I decided to take the leap and start doing real estate full time. Real estate is a 100% commission job. I tell everybody every morning I wake up I'm unemployed, and so my goal for the day is I'm always looking for clients, I'm always looking to meet new people, and for me, it's not about selling the most houses, it's really about helping as many people as I can.
Speaker 3:And so I went through a divorce back in 2017. And I was, as I mentioned, doing real estate part-time. I had a really nice job with the government, great benefits. I also have two daughters and I had to provide for them financially and as well as insurance and things like that Realized. At the time, I couldn't continue to do both jobs.
Speaker 3:My real estate business was I can't say it was taking off, but it was definitely taking a good amount of my time outside of work. The smart move would have been to at the time would have been to discard my real estate license and just stay in the safe, comfortable job. But I didn't like the job. I would show up to work every day and I would sit outside of my building and just kind of dread going in and it wasn't like I had a hard job. In fact, it was the opposite the job. There was not a lot of work to do and so I would sit at a desk. I would be forced to sit at a desk for eight hours a day with not a lot to do, and so I thought about hanging up my real estate license.
Speaker 3:I went at the time I was with the Remax affiliate. I went and interviewed with a couple of different people and a friend of mine said that I should go and talk with the partners of this new company called the Cutting Edge. I went and met with three of the four partners and I left that meeting an hour and a half later, ready to quit my job and go all in, and that was the best decision I ever made. So you know that's. I think that says a lot about me and the fact that I will. I will follow my dreams and for my clients, you know, buying a house or selling a house, it's not just a financial transaction. There are a lot of emotions and things involved in that, and so that's what I try to get to the bottom of with my clients is what's the reason behind why you're doing what you're doing, and that, in turn, helps create a much less stressful transaction sometimes.
Speaker 2:Okay, jason, please tell us one thing they should remember about the Cutting Edge Realtors you remember about the Cutting Edge Realtors.
Speaker 3:So, for the Cutting Edge, the reason why I went there is I stepped into the building. It just felt different and it's hard to describe that. I've been to a lot of real estate offices in my time as a realtor. A lot of times it's very just not a lot of people in there, kind of a little cold maybe, but we have a different feel and a different environment, and that goes to the type of people that we choose to bring on, that we choose to work with. We have a culture that is second to none in my opinion, and it really shows in the clients that we have, the agents that we have and the production we have. It's not all about production, but, again, we are the number one independent brokerage in town and we've got around 150 agents that give or take at any point in time. But I think the reason that we're successful is because of that culture. Okay, okay, how can our listeners learn more about the Cutting Edge Realtors? So you can go to the company website, which is just thecuttingedgerealtorscom.
Speaker 3:I have a personal website for just myself and occasionally I'll have a small team that works with me as well, but that website is lyman-groupcom, and on both those websites you can search for homes. If you're a home seller or a home owner and you're curious to what the value is of your home, there's a tool on both of those websites that would enable you to do that. And then on my personal site, you're able to contact me directly either via email or via phone number. If you Google Jason Lyman Realtor, I'm usually the first one that comes up and it's got all my contact info on there. I tend to put my phone number pretty much anywhere and everywhere I can. It's public information, so those are probably the best ways.
Speaker 2:Okay, great Well, Jason, I really appreciate you being on the show. We wish you and your business much success moving forward.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate being here. I appreciate you Thanks.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPColoradoSpringscom. That's GNPColoradoSpringscom, or call 719-679-4720.