Nationwide Reach With a Personal Touch
By Jack Criss
SmallTown Hunting Properties and Real Estate, LLC describes itself on the company’s Facebook page as a “comprehensive Real Estate Brokerage Firm that represents buying and selling of farmland, recreational, timberland, equity shares, homes with acreage, commercial and residential properties.” All of that is certainly true and accurate—but it really doesn’t touch the true scope, expertise and professionalism of this two-year old company.
“Three guys, Cody Kelley, Chris Ashley and Keith Burgess, all previously worked for Primos Hunting for many years and were television personalities,” says Brett Boykin, a Cleveland resident (and SouthGroup Insurance executive), one of the company’s owners and Vice-President of Operations.
“When the three left Primos eight years ago they started a TV show called SmallTown Hunting which airs on the Sportsman Channel and other social media outlets—pretty much on any hunting media platform. Well, Cody Kelley and I had played baseball together at Delta State University and had kept up our friendship over the years and began talking about starting a real estate company. A lot of the viewers who were watching ‘SmallTown Hunting’ were the same clientele that would be in the market for hunting or recreational land and those three were also expert marketers and had acquired a number of sponsors. SmallTown Hunting had captured that market. They had, essentially, built a TV show as well as a marketing company,” says Boykin.
“So, after several meetings and planning sessions we decided to start a real estate company. That’s when the work began for about eight months, and a lot of late nighters, working to build the assets of the company from the marketing materials to procedures and work flows. We knew we needed to build out the company as best as possible for preparation on the real estate side.
“We knew, however, that we needed to partner up with someone strong on the land, real estate side and that’s when we partnered up with Michael Oswalt and Adam Hester, two seasoned real estate agents who had been doing it for years and are some of the best in their profession. We were grateful that they saw and shared our same vision for the company. With them on board, we had developed the full team of six total owners and literally knocked it out of the park,” says Boykin. “Our executive team was complete and, within a few weeks after sharpening things up with Michael and Adam, we went live on Facebook on August 10, 2022 where we now have over 40,000 followers and growing. We came out of the gate very strong because we already had in place one of the best marketing teams you could ever want as well as two of the best real estate brokers in the country.
Boykin says SmallTown Hunting Properties and Real Estate uses state-of-the-art technology and people to use it, including an in-house team of videographers, editors, graphic designers and drone operators—among other professionals—to showcase available properties and market them. “We act as a marketing one-stop shop for our agents,” he notes. “We can compete with the best of the best. Our market is primarily land, with some residential, including a lot of equity shares and recreational land tracks for hunting.”
The name “SmallTown” was specifically chosen for the business because of the values that the owners believe in and share with their clients.
“You do what you say you’re going to do, for example,” says Boykin. “Honesty, integrity, hard work—that’s our mentality. Those are the kinds of values still found in most American small towns today and we thought it was appropriate for our name. We believe in supporting the communities we work in. Our home office is located in Flora, which is the type of town that best aligns with our company. Our company motto is ‘The Small Town Way.’ We have high ambitions for our company, though, and the plan is to go nationwide and we’re getting there pretty quickly. Currently, we have three other offices in Mississippi besides Flora, and they’re in Meridian, Cleveland and Oxford. But we also have offices in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri, Idaho and Louisiana.”
The company continues to grow, which is part of SmallTown’s strategy said Boykin.
“We’ve done very well and this year, through May, we’ve done as much business as we did all of last year,” said Boykin. “And I urge people who are interested to go to our website at www.smalltownproperties.com to see what’s available and to learn more about our company. We’ve got clients from all over the country and we’re constantly hiring new agents out of state. We don’t just hire anybody, though, and those we do undergo rigorous training. In fact, we just hired a Director of Brokerage Development to facilitate that growth and help in business development.”
Cody Kelley, the Vice-President of Marketing for SmallTown, says providing more for the agents than what they’re used to getting is an integral part of the business. “Our expectations were that we would be successful with that mindset,” said Kelley. “We knew the business would go well, and it has. We’ll keep adding new agents and providing excellent service as we continue to grow nationwide.”
Kelley adds that he, Chris and Keith still do their sports TV show, “SmallTown Hunting” on the Sportsman Channel four times a week as well as a digital streaming series called “SmallTown Life” which airs on several platforms, including YouTube. This show is a major marketing tool for our real estate company’s clients because we are able to advertise their properties on national television to a large audience,” says Kelley. “We work tirelessly to put as many eyeballs to look at our clients’ properties.”
“In my opinion, we have put together a true ‘dream team’ here at SmallTown Hunting Properties and Real Estate,” says Kelley. “From the company leadership, to the agents, to the marketing—collectively we’ve done work like this for years and now we’re blessed to be able to do it together and with our newer hires, all believers in our vision and extremely talented in their own rights.”
Co-founder of the company, and licensed broker, Adam Hester, says that he believes SmallTown’s success is, as stated by Boykin and Kelley, the collective result of the whole team.
“Everybody has their role and they do it extremely well,” he says. “When that happens, the client benefits. We have the same goals in mind for our clients and you can’t stress how important that is in a business like ours. We say that, ‘Every property has a story—let us tell yours today,’ and I don’t think there’s a better team that can do that like the group we have assembled at SmallTown. Whether it’s two or two-thousand acres, we tell a story in our marketing—and that comes across in the work. It’s not the size of the property; it’s taking care of the client.”
“We go above and beyond at SmallTown Hunting Properties and Real Estate,” says Boykin. “Take a look at our website, see for yourself and then give us a call.”
effort for us,” she says.
