Episode 02 — Who is Jason Grider?

Before building one of East Idaho's top-producing real estate teams, Jason Grider was just a kid from Salt Lake City who loved skiing and spending time with friends. In Episode 2 of The Success Blueprint Podcast, co-host Morgan Peterson flips the script and turns the mic on his business partner for an honest, unfiltered look at the journey that brought Jason from the ski slopes of the Wasatch to the Idaho Falls real estate market.

Jason's path to real estate was anything but direct. He spent nearly two decades in sales — from selling time-management seminars for Franklin Covey to pitching timeshares in Draper, Utah, to building a career as a medical device representative working in operating rooms across multiple states. Each chapter taught him something different: how to manage his time, how to read people, how to follow up consistently, and how to care more about the client than the commission.

It was that last lesson — learned from a physical therapist named Don who ran a small outpatient clinic — that quietly became the foundation of how Jason operates in real estate today. When a good agent he knew named Sean Anderson called and asked if he'd ever thought about real estate, Jason did the math, made the leap, and never looked back. Well — almost never. His former medical sales company called twice that first year asking him to return. He declined both times, and went on to earn Rookie of the Year for the entire KW Northwest region with 62 transactions in his first twelve months.

This episode is also the origin story of the Grider & Peterson partnership. Jason shares what really happened on that March Madness trip to Phoenix — the one where two guys who barely knew each other shared a hotel room, sat next to a trombone section for four hours, and came home with a business plan. Morgan had approached him in a snowy parking lot. Amy Grider asked one question: "Which one will you have more fun with?" The answer was obvious.

Jason also opens up about what he believes separates agents who sell 15 homes a year from agents who sell 50 — and it isn't talent. It's consistency and follow-through, applied every single day even when business is busy and it's the last thing you want to do. For agents considering joining a team in East Idaho, for buyers and sellers who want to understand who they're working with, or for anyone who's ever made a career change on faith and a spreadsheet — this episode delivers.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Growing up in Salt Lake City: skiing, friendship, and the foundations of who Jason is
• Early sales career: Franklin Covey, timeshares, copiers, and what each one taught him
• Why he pursued medical device sales and what it was like working inside operating rooms
• Moving to Idaho Falls and how a smaller airport changed everything
• The leap from medical sales to real estate — and nearly going back
• Earning KW Northwest Rookie of the Year with 62 transactions as a first-year buyer agent
• The March Madness trip that turned two acquaintances into business partners
• Why consistency — not talent — is the real difference-maker in real estate
• The Grider & Peterson team culture: why fun and growth aren't opposites
• Where Jason sees the team heading and what it means to build something people don't want to leave

Referenced or related resources:

• Franklin Covey — Time Management & Productivity
• National Association of Realtors (NAR)
• Keller Williams Realty
• eXp Realty
• The Success Blueprint Podcast — All Episodes
• Search Homes in Idaho Falls

Transcript

Morgan: Welcome back to the Success Blueprint Podcast. I'm Morgan Peterson, here with my business partner Jason Grider. Jason, I have some questions for you. I want to dive in and get to know you a little bit.

Jason: Are these prepared questions, or...

Morgan: Yeah, we wrote these down about five minutes ago, so we're good. I know you pretty well, but I want you to share your story — not from the very beginning, we don't have that much time — but back a ways. Let's start with high school. What was life like? What were you into?

Jason: High school for me was definitely a different experience than what my own kids had here. My kids were always into sports, climbing, horses — my daughter rode horses. But for me, it was all about friends. I played a little soccer in the early years and golf in high school, but I only did those sports because my friends were doing them. I honestly have no idea how good my high school football team was. I think I went to two games, and both times I left in the first quarter to go meet friends somewhere else.

I grew up in Salt Lake, in the Holiday area on the east side, and the big thing was just getting outside — skiing, mountain biking, whatever we could do outdoors. I went to Olympus High School and it just wasn't that football-game culture for my group. We were a ski crew.

Morgan: Why did friends matter so much to you back then?

Jason: It was kind of my escape. My parents were fantastic — I couldn't have been more blessed — but I was the youngest by a lot. My siblings were all substantially older, so as I was growing up they were all adults with their own families. I always joke that instead of having three siblings and two parents, I had five parents. So I almost grew up as an only child, and friends filled that space. I spent a lot of time with really good people.

Morgan: Talk about skiing. How much were you actually up there?

Jason: I'd like to say more than I did. Probably twenty to thirty times a year. We had passes and living in Salt Lake, you're about thirty minutes from seven different ski resorts. We'd usually go to Snowbird, Alta, or Park City. My winter and summer friend groups were a little different, actually — some of my summer friends were on basketball teams or just didn't ski. But skiing was the anchor for those winters.

Morgan: You're super organized and business-minded now. Were you always that way, or was that something you developed?

Jason: I've never liked chaos, and I think that's been in me since I was a kid. My mom never had to bug me much about cleaning up, but it wasn't because I wanted a clean room — it was because I wanted to know where things were. We didn't have a lot growing up, and if I owned something, I'd paid for it and I wasn't going to lose it. So everything had a place.

As for being driven — that grew over time, mostly out of necessity. Back then I was more like, "Let's go hang out and have a good time." My wife was actually always the driven, competitive one. I hated losing, but I didn't have that same fire she had. That came later.

Morgan: How were you as a student?

Jason: Okay. My grades were decent, but I think high school just wasn't that hard versus me being particularly smart. I took my backpack home with books maybe three or four times my entire high school career. Testing came fairly easy to me. I think my GPA was around a 3.4.

Morgan: My parents would have been thrilled with that.

Jason: I wasn't in AP classes or anything. I didn't have a clear direction. My dad was a pressman at the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News his whole career, and I knew pretty early that wasn't the path I wanted — I'd seen his hours and schedule. So after high school I went on a mission to Ireland, came back, and enrolled at Salt Lake Community College and then transferred to the University of Utah. Not because I had a plan, just because that felt like the next step.

Morgan: Did the mission change your direction at all?

Jason: It taught me empathy more than anything. Just learning to put yourself in someone else's position, to understand that everyone is going through something even when they look fine on the outside. I came back a little less judgmental, and I think that fed directly into sales later. It changed how I approached people.

At the time I thought I wanted to go into physical therapy — that's why I transferred to the U. They had a great program, but while I was looking at it they switched it from a bachelor's to a master's to a doctorate. Four years became six years became eight. I was like, I'm not sure about that. So I got a job at an outpatient physical therapy clinic for a year just to see if it was something I really wanted to do. Realized it wasn't.

Morgan: What was your first real sales job?

Jason: Franklin Covey — it was Franklin Institute at the time. I was selling their time management seminars. My territory was Washington DC. I'd basically call companies to get them to send employees to the seminar, and I quickly figured out that government employees near the end of their fiscal year had budget to burn. They'd say, "Sure, send everybody." I found my little niche.

They eventually merged with another company and needed to cut the combined sales force in half. They offered severance and I took it. Looking back, I learned more from that job than I gave it credit for at the time. I sold the seminar, so I had to go through it. A lot of that time management thinking stuck — the task lists, the prioritization. I still use some of those habits.

Morgan: We've talked about this — sometimes it's education, sometimes it's just entertainment. If you don't implement it, you paid for a pretty expensive vacation.

Jason: Exactly. You go to a seminar, feel great for a couple of days, come home, and life goes right back to how it was. It only helps if something actually changes.

After Franklin Covey I picked up a quick job selling timeshares, just while I found something better. Thought I'd be there a month or two and ended up staying about seven or eight months. It was in Draper, Utah — not at a resort, just a little office selling Worldmark/Trendwest memberships. People would come in thinking they were getting a free gift card or a cruise that they'd probably never take, and our job was to close them on a package. Smallest package was ten thousand dollars. We had about ninety minutes to get there. I was maybe twenty-three years old.

Morgan: Did you believe in what you were selling?

Jason: Not really, which is partly why I eventually moved on. After that I sold Rico copiers with Lanier Worldwide for about a year. I thought it was a step up toward the corporate world. But what I was really doing was trying to get my foot in the door for medical sales.

Back when I was working for that physical therapist, he took us into an OR to observe a surgery — a total knee replacement. We stood against the wall, didn't say a word, just watched. And I noticed these two medical reps in there with a laser pointer, helping the scrub tech lay out instrumentation so everything was ready when the surgeon needed it. I thought, that's interesting — it's kind of healthcare, but it's sales. After the surgery I asked one of them about it. He explained it and I was immediately interested.

Every medical sales company I called told me the same two things: finish your degree and get more outside sales experience. That's exactly why I took the copier job.

Morgan: And then you got into medical sales.

Jason: Got hired by a company called Synthes, out of Switzerland. They sold plates and screws for bone fixation — cranial maxillofacial, trauma, spine. I covered half of Utah in the cranial maxillofacial division. You'd be in the OR helping make sure the right instrumentation was ready for surgery. It was fascinating. I loved working with the surgeons, loved the environment.

After about six years there I transitioned to a company called MTF — they worked with allograft tissue. Donated bone, ligaments, and tendons from people who had passed. They can't charge for the donated tissue itself, but there's significant processing and testing on the back end to make it safe for use, and that's what we covered. My territory expanded to a few states and I started traveling more regularly.

Morgan: So what was life like by this point? You were married, had kids?

Jason: Yeah, Amy and I got married right around that transition from timeshares to Lanier, and we started having kids pretty quickly — not entirely planned, but it happened. We were living in Draper. It was early 2000s, markets were going up, and we'd buy a house, live in it a couple years, sell it, and roll into the next one. Amy was actually in real estate at the time — she sat a model home for a builder called Holmes Homes down there. So ironically she was the agent when we first got married. It never crossed my mind to do it myself.

The thing that eventually forced the issue was travel. When we decided to move to Idaho Falls — my territory was wide enough that I could live anywhere in it, and Amy is from Idaho Falls, so she said let's try it — I didn't really think through how small the airport was here. Back then there were maybe two or three flights a day. What had been two-to-three day trips started becoming Monday afternoon to Friday because I was losing a day on each end just in connections and layovers. I went from traveling Tuesday through Thursday to Monday through Friday, basically every week.

Morgan: And that's when the math changed.

Jason: That's when everything changed. I was missing my daughter's equestrian events, my son's lacrosse games, my youngest son just getting into little league. I was hearing about it on the phone and seeing photos my wife texted me. I wanted to actually be there.

We were even looking at moving back to Utah to shorten those travel days. We'd contacted an agent to give us a ballpark on our house — that was Sean Anderson, whose wife happened to be good friends with Amy. He already knew the situation. He called me and said, "Have you ever thought about real estate?" I hadn't. Not for a second.

But I sat down and did the math. He told me about the splits, buyer agent versus listing agent, what it would realistically take. I ran the numbers on what I needed to replace my income — and not just income, but benefits, insurance, all the things that come with a traditional sales role. Took me a few months to really decide, but he was talking about building a team the Keller Williams way: dedicated buyer agents and listing agents. I didn't even know who Gary Keller was at the time. But I ran the numbers and told Sean, "I need to do about a hundred transactions as a buyer agent to hit my number." He said, "Let's go."

Little did I know that's almost impossible in year one.

Morgan: When did you realize that?

Jason: Pretty fast. I was only a few months in, down at a conference in Arizona — I think that might actually be where I first met you, at that family reunion event. I was in a car with agents from another team who'd been in the business for years. They asked me my goals, I said a hundred transactions as a buyer agent, and they looked at me like I was out of my mind. They said the best buyer agents on their team — out of like twenty agents, after years of running — might hit fifty to sixty on a great year. The good ones were typically doing thirty to forty.

I was rattled. But I just kind of put my head down and kept going.

Morgan: Did you second-guess it?

Jason: A little. My former medical sales company called me twice in that first year asking me to come back. About a year and a half in, those calls stopped. But at that point it was partly pride — I had made this decision on my own, and I was not going to go back admitting it didn't work. I'd also gotten a taste of the flexibility. Even though you work a lot of hours as an agent, if you're in town you can break away for a game, show up for dinner, and go meet a client at eight o'clock after. You can't do that on a corporate travel schedule.

About eight or nine months in I hired a showing assistant — a woman named Megan who was working the front desk at Keller Williams and had just gotten her license. I walked out of a meeting where someone mentioned it, found her at the desk, said "Hey, do you have a second?" and offered her a job right there. Didn't even know her. Turned out she was fantastic — smart, great with people, incredible follow-up. I got really lucky on that one.

I ended up closing 62 transactions that first year. Fell short of my goal and was a little frustrated, even though everyone at KW was patting me on the back. Turned out I'd won Rookie of the Year for the entire KW Northwest region — Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana. I got a couple of plaques. But I was more focused on where I fell short than what I'd done.

Morgan: And then how did we end up together?

Jason: I'd been a buyer agent for about four years and then switched over to listings. Was on a team I was happy with for about a year and a half. Then they announced a merger with another team that just wasn't the right fit for me. I was pretty upfront about it — told the team leader almost immediately that it looked like I needed to dust off my resume. Stayed on for a couple months to be fair and to really see what the new structure looked like, but it became clear. I'd learned a lot there, had great people around me, and I was grateful. But it was time.

I had a few people reach out once the news got around. I honestly thought I might just go out on my own. And then you grabbed me in the parking lot.

Morgan: You came to me.

Jason: You found me. In the snow. And you said let's just talk before I did anything else.

Morgan: And then I invited you to March Madness.

Jason: Which was the most forward, low-key, kind of insane thing. Two guys who'd had a few dinners together — I think our big shared memory was crab cake eggs benedict every morning at that conference in New Orleans — and you're like, "Hey, you want to go to March Madness? Just go figure things out." I said yeah. My wife said, "You're sharing a hotel room with someone you barely know?" I said, "Yeah, let's just go figure it out."

Day one was just getting to know each other. We also had incredible seats — I thought I'd scored big — and we were planted right in the middle of the trombone section. Just surrounded by the band on both sides. So that was something.

Day two we actually sat down, hashed out what a partnership could look like, talked through the vision. And when I got home, Amy asked me one question: "Which one will you have more fun with?" I said, "Morgan, a hundred percent." She said, "Do that. Because the last five years you haven't had fun." Six months into the partnership she mentioned that I was coming home happy instead of just beaten down. So that was a good sign.

Morgan: You did tell me you liked me better than you thought you would.

Jason: I meant that as a compliment, I promise. I knew we'd get along and have fun — the fact that it exceeded that was the point. It just didn't land right. But yes — it's been awesome. We've had some misses along the way, some great people who've moved on, but I'm really excited where the team is right now.

Morgan: When agents come to our team — people who are making the same kind of leap you made — what do you tell them?

Jason: Leaving something stable is hard. I knew real estate could be great, but I also knew the majority of people who try it don't make it. The 80/20 rule is real: 20% of agents sell 80% of the business. That's still true. But if you put your head down and get to work, you can get to the right side of that line. I'm not doing anything special. I'm actually a bit of an introvert. If I can do it, most people can.

The thing that made the biggest difference for me wasn't cold calls — Morgan made far more calls than I ever did. My thing was follow-up. Never miss a chance to follow up. Every meeting ended with a specific next step, and my goal was always to beat the deadline I'd set. If I said I'd have an answer by noon tomorrow, I'd get it to them the same night or first thing in the morning. Every time. That consistency, applied to every single client, on every transaction — that's what compounds.

Morgan: And you think consistency is really what separates agents?

Jason: Without a doubt. The difference between someone selling fifteen homes a year and someone selling fifty isn't skill — it's consistency. Two agents with identical talent, and the one who shows up every day and does the thing nobody else wants to do is going to sell three times as much. It's not more complicated than that. And real estate is interesting because everyone's goals are different. Some people are supplementing income and that's fine. But for the people who need it to be their livelihood — and we've seen it change people's lives — consistency is the whole game. You can read about it on our blog or hear more on the podcast, but it always comes back to that.

Morgan: Where do you see the team going?

Jason: I'm not worried about being the biggest team in East Idaho. Our goal from the beginning has been to create an environment where people can grow and hit the goals they actually want to hit — and not dread Mondays. I love walking in and seeing the team. That's what I want to protect.

If we can get to around fifteen full-time agents — maybe double or triple where we are right now — that opens up what we can offer back to the team and to our clients. Things like client appreciation events, deeper resources, better systems. Right now we're very available and hands-on with everyone, but growing a little lets us give even more. If you want to know more about what that looks like, the Join Our Team page is a good place to start.

Morgan: Last question — same one you asked me. What's been the blueprint to your success?

Jason: I'd first say success is still something I'm working toward. I don't have it all figured out. But what's gotten me here is two things: consistency, and knowing my why.

When I left medical sales, I was in my forties. That's a late time to make a big change. But I left something I genuinely loved because family mattered more. That perspective gave me fuel. When I knew why I was doing this — so I could be there for my kids' games, for dinner, for the things that were slipping by — it made it a lot easier to do the hard stuff every day.

You and I have been to a lot of seminars and read a lot of books. When you boil it all down, success comes to those who are willing to be consistent in the one thing other people aren't willing to do. Find that thing, don't miss a day, and you'll get better and better at it. That's really it.

One person that always comes to mind is a physical therapist named Don I worked for early in my career. He showed me that if you take care of the client — even if it costs you a little time or money that day — they come back, they refer, and it pays off down the road. That's been a guiding principle ever since.

And honestly — and I know this might be a little bit of a gush — but working with you has taught me that you can work hard and have fun at the same time. Before that, it was always work or play. Separate things. You showed me those can live together, and that changed a lot. When other agents tell us we "have too much fun," I take that as a win.

Morgan: There was actually one agent who said that made him mad.

Jason: If you have to tell people you're fun, maybe you're not as fun as you thought.

Morgan: Well, I look forward to doing more of these with you. Future guests, future conversations — it's going to be a great ride.

Jason: I'm in. Let's do it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Who is Jason Grider and what is his background before real estate? Jason Grider is co-founder and partner at Grider & Peterson Real Estate, based in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Before real estate, Jason spent nearly two decades in sales — including roles at Franklin Covey, in timeshare sales, selling commercial copiers, and most significantly as a medical device representative with Synthes and MTF, working in operating rooms across multiple states. He moved to Idaho Falls around 2009 and transitioned into real estate in his early forties, earning Rookie of the Year for the entire Keller Williams Northwest region in his first year with 62 transactions.

Q: How did Jason Grider get into real estate? Jason's move into real estate was driven by family. As a medical sales rep based in Idaho Falls, he was traveling two to three days every week, missing games, recitals, and everyday moments with his three kids. When a local agent named Sean Anderson reached out and suggested he consider real estate, Jason ran the numbers, made the leap, and never looked back — even when his former company called asking him to return. You can hear the full story in Episode 02 of The Success Blueprint Podcast, or learn more about working with Jason by visiting the Who We Are page.

Q: What does Jason Grider believe is the key to success in real estate? Jason points to two things above everything else: consistency and knowing your why. In his first year as a buyer agent, his edge wasn't volume of cold calls — it was relentless follow-up. He made it a personal standard to always beat the deadline he'd set with a client, delivering answers and updates ahead of schedule on every single transaction. He believes the gap between an agent selling 15 homes a year and one selling 50 isn't talent — it's whether they show up and do the unglamorous work every day. For agents curious about what that looks like inside a team environment, the Grider & Peterson Join Our Team page has more details.

Q: How did the Grider & Peterson partnership come together? The short version: a snowy parking lot conversation, one March Madness trip to Phoenix, and a question from Jason's wife. Morgan Peterson approached Jason when Jason was weighing his next move after a team merger didn't fit. They barely knew each other — a few shared dinners at industry events — but Morgan suggested they go spend a few days at March Madness to talk it through with no distractions. Jason came home leaning toward the partnership, his wife Amy asked which option would be more fun, and the answer was clear. Six months in, Amy told Jason he was coming home happy again for the first time in years. Learn more about the team they've built together at griderpeterson.com, or connect with them directly.