# 50 Listings, One Postcard, and a Kid Who Thought He Was a Genius

By Will Cupp (@willcupp) · Published 2026-10-01

Canonical: https://voce.com/@willcupp/listings-one-postcard-kid-thought-genius-ox1h69

---

**Story by Will Cupp Realtor**

**Serving the Sevierville, Pigeon forge , Gatlingburg and the East Tennessee areas.**

I know a guy.

Years ago, maybe a year or two into what we will generously call his illustrious real estate career, he had already made up his mind about one thing. If it had a map and parcel number down at the courthouse, he was going to try to sell it.

Now, if there happened to be a warm body attached to it, breathing, talking, or making some kind of noise on the telephone, that certainly helped. But if we are being completely honest, none of those things were absolute requirements.

He was hungry.

Or crazy.

Looking back, probably a healthy dose of both.

One day he went off to a real estate conference. Several great speakers were there. At least that is what he was told. His attention span in those days ran somewhere between one and two minutes, so by the time the last speaker stood up, he was probably closer to sleep than enlightenment.

Then the man said something that brought him right back to life.

“I am going to wrap this up, but before I go, I am going to give you one thing you can do to make money in this business.”

Well now.

That sounded like a dinner bell.

The kid was wide awake.

The speaker held up some goofy little postcard with maybe ten words on it and a phone number.

That was it.

No secret formula.

No fifty page marketing plan.

Just a little postcard.

The funny part is, by the time the kid got home, he had pretty much forgotten the whole thing.

But a wife has a way of jogging a man's memory.

She looked at him and said something like, “Well, you have been gone all day. What did you bring home that is going to help us make a living at this?”

That will wake you up too.

He thought for a minute.

The postcard.

That was about all he could remember.

So he said, “Get some postcards out, honey. I have an idea. Send one to every out of state property owner in the county.”

That was the grand business plan.

A postcard he barely remembered, a wife at the kitchen table, and an idea that might work.

Or might not.

If you have ever started a business, you probably know that feeling.

You are not always standing in some boardroom with charts and projections.

Sometimes you are standing in the kitchen trying to remember what you learned that day while your wife is waiting on an answer.

The postcards went out.

Then the phone started ringing.

And ringing.

And ringing.

My God in heaven.

Now imagine being young, new to the business, not exactly burdened down with experience, and suddenly the telephone will not stop.

What would you think?

Exactly.

The kid thought he was a genius.

Absolutely brilliant.

A regular real estate Boy Wonder.

Well...

Maybe really blessed.

But when you are young, it can be hard to tell the difference.

The office had just started a contest. One hundred dollars for every listing.

The kid had maybe five listings when all this started.

Before long, he had close to fifty.

The contest did not make it through the month.

They shut the thing down.

Probably before he bankrupted the office.

Now signs were going up everywhere.

Roads, hollers, fields, lots, strange little pieces of land God himself may have forgotten about.

His name was all over town.

And that is when people start doing something funny.

They start asking, “Who is this kid?”

That feels pretty good when nobody knew who you were six months earlier.

Problem was, the kid had no idea what he was doing.

None.

But I can tell you this, learning at that pace is quite the teacher.

Bat shit crazy is another way to describe it.

Because here is the part nobody puts in the success story.

About ninety percent of those listings were terrible.

Lots from hell.

Properties nobody wanted then and, if the signs had never been taken down, might still be listed today.

So now the same kid who had been praying for the phone to ring had fifty people calling wanting to know if he had any action.

Meanwhile, new people were calling wanting him to list something else.

He had signs going everywhere.

Phone calls everywhere.

Problems everywhere.

A regular Boy Wonder.

lol.

And somewhere in all that madness came the education.

Not the kind you get sitting in a classroom.

The kind that beats you over the head until you finally understand it.

More is not always better.

Being busy does not always mean you are doing well.

And having fifty listings does not mean much if nobody wants forty five of them.

It also teaches you something about service.

Every time you say yes to another person, you have just promised them a piece of your time.

That sounds simple.

It is not.

The kid probably broke even on those first few batches of postcards. By the time he paid for postage, signs, gas, advertising and whatever else his brilliant new business was eating up, there may not have been much left.

But the education?

Priceless.

He learned perception matters.

People started recognizing his name because they saw it everywhere.

That matters.

Before someone can hire you, they have to know you exist.

But he also learned something on the other side of that.

Being known is not the same as being good.

That takes longer.

Much longer.

And maybe that is where this story stops being about real estate.

Because anybody who has ever started something, built something, learned a trade, opened a business, changed careers, or just tried to make a better life knows this part.

You start out wanting every opportunity.

Every customer.

Every deal.

Every yes.

Then experience teaches you to be a little more careful about what you pray for.

You learn more is not always better.

You learn crazy is not a good place to live.

And if you are lucky, somewhere along the way you learn that you do not have to be a wonder child.

You just have to keep learning.

That kid was never much of a student in school.

If you had asked people who knew him then if real estate was going to become his life, some of them probably would have laughed you right off the porch.

But the ones who really knew him might have said something different.

He won't quit.

And if he wants it bad enough, he will give it everything he has.

Maybe that is the whole point of this long story.

Starting a business or learning a trade is an adventure.

Looking back, absolutely for the young at heart.

Not young in years.

Young enough to believe you can do something before you have any proof that you can.

Young enough to make a fool out of yourself and get up the next morning anyway.

Young enough to work seven days and around eighty hours a week, and somehow still believe the next phone call might change everything. Thats what luck looks like.

And do not be too surprised if you do all that and still do not become a Wonder Child overnight.

lol.

Most people don't.

Most people just keep showing up.

And every once in a while, if they hang around long enough, somebody looks across town and says...

Who is this kid?