How Thomas Went From 3 Sales His First Year in the Business to Over $3M GCI While Exiting Production

I'm super excited to be able to spend a little bit of time with Thomas Elrod, Another case study. And Thomas, why don't you just kick us off a couple minutes on, like, how'd you get into real estate? You know, give us the hook where the business is today so we'll have people actually watch the entire video. Kind of just set the stage for us.

So I got into business in April of 2010. I was in the automotive industry. And then September of 2008 happened, and everything came to a screeching halt. And a lot of car dealers lost their dealerships, about 3,000 across the United States. And the dealership that I was with, family owned and operated, lost our business as well. After 11 years, I felt like I'd been cheated on and I wanted to do something different. And I own some personal real estate, but I didn't have a license. I didn't know anything about it. So December of 2009, I went and signed up at the local real estate school, got my license. February, March in the mail, and April 1st, I hung it with Keller Williams Realty. And Yeah, I sold three houses in 2010, my first year. Three, I think one was to my friend, one was to a girlfriend at the time. And my dad let me sell one of his rental properties. So started off, you know, just on fire. And now I didn't start off very well. And I thought I knew everything about every dang thing out there as far as sales and didn't really need anybody's help. So I didn't get a coach or get any help in 2010, obviously, because I was closed. Three houses, didn't get any help in 2011. Did sell 21 houses that year. 19 were buyers and two were sellers. So I was in the car a lot. And then 2012, 27 transactions. And it started to become about 50, 50 between sellers and buyers. And then I finally hired an assistant in late 2012 and started opening up my mind that maybe I didn't know everything. And I always tell people I've got a PhD in dumb when it comes to real estate. I've done every dumb thing you can possibly do and didn't want to do that anymore. And so I knew that the wheel had been created a long time ago and I didn't need to go recreate the wheel. And so I started looking for talent and coaches and people in our area and outside of our area, across the country. And you were with ReMax and you were in our area and you were doing big things and we were At a top agent panel in Charlotte. And after the top agent panel, we got the chance to go across the street to a restaurant and just have a beer together. And you asked me a question that changed my life. You asked me, so are you still in production? And I said, what do you mean am I still in production? Everybody's in production, you big dummy. And come to find out not everyone's in production. That people tend to go from at some point. I think we all are technicians before we become business owners and we're in the business working, learning it. And then at some point there's a mindset shift and a paradigm shift where you become a business owner and run it like a business. And that's what I needed. That's what I was missing.

Yeah. So when we first started working together, I think that was July 2014. I remember that because I had, I never go to those stupid top agent panels. And like, I don't even know why. I mean you definitely, you've got my cell phone number and you. And you got me there. You're super persuasive. And I think we formally started working together in like November 2014. And then what did you want to achieve when we first started working together? Like what was like the immediate things you wanted to achieve first working together?

Well, the first thing really was I had to get some tracking around business. I had to get some clarity. The old saying clarity is power. And I didn't have the clarity. So I didn't have the power. I knew that we were putting a lot of business under contract. I just didn't know really how much money I was making, where the leads were being tracked, what the lead sources were for our types of business. And about 95% of our business was prospecting based. I wasn't a big fan of marketing. I didn't want to spend any marketing dollars. I wanted to just pick up the 500 pound phone and call expireds for sell by owners. Anyone who called on one of our yard signs. And at the time we only ran one yard sign. And we'll talk about that later on. Something that you introduced to our team that made a big difference. And I just didn't have any clarity on my business. And I needed some trackers. And I think you came up with this ultimate business tracker. The ultimate. And it was better than what I had. It definitely was better than what I had because I do know that you have to have measurables and you have to know where you're going versus where you've been. And I Had no idea. I was just in the gsd, get stuff done mode. Just call another person, get another listing, get another buyer, get it under contract and get it to close and collect a check. And that's all that I understood. And that was a technician mindset.

Yeah. So you mentioned that. The shift from. So talk, talk through that a little bit. How was that showing up? The fact that you were like the ultimate technician and you're one of the best that I know in the technician role. And it is this like double ed sword. And I've seen you just like, you can jump back in and just like slice it up as the technician. But talk about that, like, what, what does that do to your life in real estate when you're just. When you're successful, you're selling a lot of homes, but you're stuck in the technician role?

Well, when I, when I started real estate in 2010, I weighed 187 pounds and I definitely put on some weight, put on some stress. I couldn't scale the business. There was an old saying that someone told me a long time ago, you can work like 10 men and women or you can teach 10 men and women how to work. And I was working like 10 men and women and had no life at all. 80, 90 hours a week. Taking it home to bed, waking up with it, and really just losing my health, losing a lot of personal relationships through friends and family because I was so caught up in the grind that I didn't even have time to come up above water and get some fresh air and see what I was doing and being able to even measure what I had been doing to see the results. And it's not healthy to just keep your head down for three or four or five years and not come 30,000ft up and look down on what you've built. And that's what you gave me the ability to do, was to look down on the business 30,000ft up and make decisions that impact those 10, 20 plus people that are on our team now.

Yeah, awesome. Let's dig a little bit into, like maybe two or three focus areas that you can, you know, really put it, put a finger on that that moved things for you most dramatically. What are, what are the things that really, really had an impact in the business?

Well, getting a marketing side of the business. We had a prospecting based culture, prospecting based company. Like I said, 95% of our business was prospecting based. Whether it was picking up the phone, ringing a doorbell or door knocking really hard, or wearing your name badge and not being a secret agent. The challenge that we were having was we had no Internet presence, we had no marketing presence at all. And so by having the prospecting based business that was marketing enhanced, thank goodness that we got together that time period because now it's paying big dividends having both. So that was the biggest thing for me. I ran one sign in the yard. You had this program where it was yard marketing and it was three signs in the yard, three different calls to action, three times the amount of calls. I mean, that was a big impact. And really just learning to think like a coach instead of a player, a head coach of a team versus a player or an owner of a team or versus a player. And that was huge. Huge for myself. And that was where we began to go from like I said, the 27 sides, 75 sides, to 128 sides, to 151 sides, to 228 sides, to 300 plus sides. Last year, pending and closed, that was where we began to make big strides and have the life by design, not by default have the business owner coach mindset versus being the technician, being in the weeds and losing my health and losing some very valuable relationships. Yeah.

And there's something I see in you that I really, really admire and you mentioned it a little bit. But I want you to tell.

I'm.

Going to lead you into a story that I think you'll tell. It's this coach and you say, you know, I could. I've seen you work like 10 men and I've also seen you pour into, you know, up to 20 people at a time. And in terms of like just thinking bigger picture, like what, what's the. You say it best. So I want to tee it up like, you know, you, you, you have a belief. We share the same belief from, with our Creator. There will be an end on our earth here. And pick it up. Because I think it's such a good visual.

Yeah. I'm a Christian. I believe that Jesus Christ came and died for our sins. And I do believe that when we pass away, we're gonna look down on earth immediately. I don't think it's gonna be everything's gonna come to revelations and all that. I believe it's gonna happen immediately and we're gonna look down on earth side by side and we're gonna look and see where Thomas Elrod made a difference in people's lives and anywhere that I made a difference in their life or their spouse's life or a significant other, a friend or a family member, a child. A grandchild anywhere that I made a difference. I believe there's going to be a flicker of light. And I call it lamp lighting. I believe that we were put here to love our brothers and sisters and to lamp light for each other, to light each other's lamps. And I believe that if we don't have a lot of flickers of light when we're looking down with our maker beside us, that he's going to say, hey, I've got a pretty dark spot for you right over here because you were selfish and all you thought about was yourself. And that's not. That was one of my big shifts was let me pour into others lamplight. And that's ultimately that's why we're here, because we can't take this stuff with us. Right?

Yeah. And I think it's worth spending a couple minutes on. You know, we both network with teams across the country and I see a lot of team leaders that, you know, they build their team to a certain point. Maybe it's set up on the right economic model, maybe not. Maybe they're able to get out of production, maybe they're not. But they don't treat their teams with like, okay, I'm gonna let up on production, but I'm gonna take on this 10 times more like responsibility to coach you and feed into you and do it in a way where I don't know if you're gonna leave next month. So talk about that. Like, what can we learn from the coach's heart? Like, you're willing to have tough conversations with people because you love them. And I think a lot of team leaders struggle with them, so. Because I think it goes into the. One of the things that we worked on was the mindset. Shift technician to manager to leader. Talk about that.

Yeah, I think when we. When I had Elrod Real estate experts, that's what it was named, I was building a shrine into myself. And it talks about it in the Bible about building a shrine. And it was all about me. And I realized that at the end of the day, buyers and sellers are not our clients, not coaches and owners. The team members are our clients. It's our job to serve our clients, which are our agents and our administrative team to serve them at the highest level. And I think about Jesus and I think about his 12 disciples, and I think about before he was taken to the cross, before the last supper, he washed his disciples feet and he was always bringing value to everyone else around him. And my goal every morning when I wake up is to bring so much value to our team members that they outgrow me because of me, and they may leave. And if they do, you know what? Great. I want them to go on in Lamplight and do bigger things, make a difference and take what they've learned and apply it and do their own thing. And I think that sometimes we get caught up in building shrines into ourselves. And the crazy thing about it, Lars, is if we just focused on serving our team members and coming from curiosity, coming from a coach's heart, coming from what their big why is, what gets them up every day and motivates them. Because we all know that it's different things for different people, being able to learn them and coach them at a pace that's comfortable for them, and that's going to get them ultimately to their goals personally and professionally. And I think that's where we get so confused, is we get so caught up in the professional part of this business, we forget about the personal part. And I've had conversations with other business owners before, and I'd let them know your personal life does affect your professional life, and your professional life does affect your personal life. And they go hand in hand, whether we like it or not. And it's our job as the leaders, the coaches, the owners to be cognizant of that.

Yeah, that's awesome. There's so much I want to go into there, and I want to respect your time, talk a little bit about results and in a way, like, how has, you know, maybe two years before you formed High Performance Real Estate Advisors to when High Performance Real Estate, when that started, and now, like, brag a little bit on, you know, it's the 10 people. Like, what is February like, the month we're recording this, and what does it look like? It really is like a. It wasn't an easy time building this thing. And now. And now, you know, the results are coming around. So talk about, you know, the results, but specifically how your role has changed.

Well, you got to break down to breakthrough, and there's been a lot of breaking down to break through. And obviously, number one is not giving up. I always think about, what would I go do next? And at the end of the day, too much is given, much is required, and I've been given a lot, and it has gotten easier. You know, it's the whole. We hear teamwork makes the dream work and all these different sayings, and at the end of the day, it's so true. And rowing the boat across the Atlantic Ocean to say England is a lot easier to row with. 20 people in the boat versus three or four or five, and you get there a lot quicker. It's a lot more fun. And it's fun to do something together. I mean, it's fun to. We just had a high performance baby a couple days ago. We, you know, our family's growing, no pun intended. And for the month of January, you're right. We're right here in February. For the month of January, we pended 311 a day for 31 days for over $10 million in volume. And that's the fun part. And it takes a little bit of work. Anything takes a little bit of work. I say the only place that success comes before or hard work comes before success is in the dictionary. Right. It is hard work. And at the end of the day, when you get to the other side and get to the top of the mountain, it's a beautiful thing. And it's a beautiful thing to watch others grow. That's what motivates me now is just watching them grow and being a part of that, that's more rewarding than any check that I can take home.

Yeah. And how many agents did the.31?

5.

Yeah. So it really is. I mean, to think of when you were in production, how much effort it took to. It would take you, well, for a few years. It took you a whole year to get 31 under contract, right? Me too. That's awesome. When we first started having conversations so between, like that beer at that hotel, July to November, when we started working together, what was going on in your mind around objections? Like, is like, is the crap he's telling me true? Like, what were the objections you were thinking about not working together?

Oh, I thought you were crazy. I mean, honestly, I was like, there's no way I can let go. There's no way I. I got to be on the. I had anxiety for a while there. My palms, My palms are getting sweaty just thinking about it now that I wasn't on the phones every day from 8 to 12, that I was going to trust the process. And thank you, God, that you came in my life, because I would still be in the weeds and I'd probably be £300 by now, and I probably wouldn't have any friends or family. And now I've got a personal trainer, I've got friends, I've got family, I've got a big high performance family. And God is good. And thanks to the coaching and the systems and having a map, having some direction, we are able to scale this thing. And the exciting part is That I can actually see now with all the systems and inspecting what we expect and the accountability that we can scale high performance real estate to a thousand sides, to 4,000 sides, to 10,000 sides. And luckily I'm young enough to watch it happen and let some of the people that I've poured into pay it forward to those that are coming on down the road. And that's the commitment that when I sit down and we go through our core values and we bring them on, they say, they always ask me, they say, Thomas, that was really powerful. That changed my family's life, that changed my kids life, that changed my parents life. How can I repay you? And I always say just pay it forward. Pay it forward to the team members that are coming on here. And that's what's happening now as we speak. We've got members outside of the doors on the other side of this camera that are out there paying it forward to the newer agents and newer administrative team members because they are fulfilling their part of the obligation on repaying me back, which they don't owe me anything and they feel like they do. And so it's kind of taking a, kind of taking a life on its own. Lars. It's kind of just taking a life on its own. And I can see at some point in the next couple of years being completely out of the business and the business running on its own, promoting within for team members to come in and step into positions that are in leadership roles. And that's really exciting.

Yeah.

And I want to, I want to.

Brag on you for a second. And it's in the context of the comment you made about, you know, it still makes your palms wet. You're probably the best lead converter I know. So for you not to do the thing that you're, you're really, really good at and to push yourselves to grow in ways that are really uncomfortable. I obviously know your numbers. Hprea met with over a thousand buyers and sellers last year and I know you met some of them, but how many of those 1,000 plus buyers and sellers did you meet with last year?

Me personally?

Yeah. First, first time meeting them, first consult.

Probably 10. Yeah, maybe, maybe 20. 20 would. 20, 20 people would be all of it.

Yeah. And so, and to think of where you, that, that technician to, you know, coach mindset. So it's not like you're, you know, you're not doing everything all day long. You're, you take on a lot of responsibility, but you are just helping others to, you know, to meet a thousand potential New buyers and sellers in a single year, you know, is just astronomical. So that's just. That is just you, you know, really leading in the team for them to be able to take the baton. Any comments on the, you know, the team doing that level of appointment setting?

Yeah. First off, if you do it all, you'll keep it small. Right. And many hands make light work. I always say that. And it's kind of like your child. If you. If you're always there running behind your child with the training wheels on the bicycle and you never take the training wheels off and you're always holding the handlebars, they're never going to get the confidence to keep pedaling and let that bike take control of itself. And. And those training wheels stay off the ground. And you're really doing your agents and your team members, your family and your friends a disservice. You're stealing from them. You're stealing from their growth. You're stealing from them. Being able to lamp light into others, to pour into others. If you keep it all to yourself, then what good is it? And that's not what we're here for. And so it's hard. I mean, it's still hard to this day. I want to take the ball and slam dunk it. And part of that's my ego. And we know what ego stands for, right? Edging God out. Right. And I want to go slam dunk it because I used to love the feeling of jumping from the free throw line, doing the Michael Jordan slam dunking it. And at the end of the day, if I'm the one doing that, then they're never going to get the confidence. They're never going to be able to pay it forward. They're never going to be able to point into others. And you're never going to be able to build a team that is sustainable, that has a guaranteed income for the rest of your life, whether you stay in it or step out.

Yeah. Let me ask you, in terms of real Estate B school, what's been your favorite part of real Estate B school?

Well, the people, the coaches. I love the intensive workshops. I haven't missed. I don't think I missed any since 2014. I love the calls. I love the Toolbox Facebook page. I'm on there constantly. And I like the fact that rebs isn't just about business. There's a lot of happy birthdays and welcome to the group, and everything is open. I want to make that clear. A lot of people think that, well, there's an agenda there. And I'll be honest, Lars. I kind of thought that in the beginning when you and I first started talking, I was like, well, what's his agenda? What's he really trying to sell or what? You know, who's he partnered up with? And these different types of vendors. And come to find out, you weren't receiving a penny from any of them that I knew of. And you were very transparent. You were very open about everything. Like, here it is. Here it is. Guaranteed sale. You wanna know how it works? Here it is. You want to know how yard marketing works? Here it is. You want to know how the trackers work? Here it is. Like you, everything. There's nothing that's. That's hidden or we're going to keep this little piece of real estate over here. We're not going to share this over here. It's a. It's open. And I love that. I love that everyone is vulnerable. We all realize that we're failing forward. Some of us are failing forward faster than others, and that helps each other out as well, that we all are having challenges and that it's lonely when you're at the top or when you're in an industry and you can't have people to talk to. And what's great is if I'm having a challenge or I'm having a bad day, I can message one of the coaches, I can message you. I can message anybody in rebs and say, hey, I'm just in a funk today. And every single time I. I get out of that funk or I get that challenge answered or I get a different perspective that makes me from being stuck to going a different direction so that I can get unstuck, so that I'm not stressing over it. And it's been very, very, very powerful. It's changed my life.

Yeah. And the cool thing that I'll add on that is that I've seen you, I think you're naturally a giver, and in real estate, B school. I've seen you do that with others come along, maybe a team leader that can't possibly comprehend getting out of production, scaling their business to over 3 million in GCI, and they can't comprehend it. And you'll come along and say, hey, listen, dude, I sold three freaking homes my first year. You know, like, and you're just open about your strengths and your weaknesses, and you're like, hey, listen, you. You got to do this, this, and this. And, you know, with our. I don't need to say his name, but you came right alongside a Guy, your best man in his wedding, you know, and he. It's just. I see that within real estate B school, and it's really unique, I think, to our community. I haven't seen it in any other coaching program.

Yeah. Yeah. And one of the things that you kept saying from the very beginning that really stuck with me. You said, thomas, what got you here isn't going to get you there. What got you here isn't going to get you to where you're going. Yes, this has worked. And it's kind of like that. The three steps of leadership, right? I do it, we do it, then they do it. And the big shift is from the we do it to they do it. And that was powerful for me. And the crazy thing about it is what got us, got me here to the 3 million in GCI close last year isn't going to get to the 10 million GCI closed at 1000 units. It's going to be something different. And it's going to be most likely I'm going to have to let go of being the outside sales coach, inside sales coach. Some of the things that I'm doing now is and give those reins to someone else. And we'll probably have to have a reminder in this conversation again. Maybe you'll have to play this video because that's going to be tough again. And if I don't do it, then I'm slowing the growth of everyone else down. And that's just as bad, if not worse.

Yeah. Let me ask you, as we kind of kind of wrap up here, who would you recommend real estate B school to and why?

I mean, I'd recommend anyone that's in real estate. Whether it's your first day. If I had to do it all over again, I would have loved to have been in Rebs in April 1st of 2010, would have loved to have been there and had a coach. I didn't get a coach for three or four years, and I'm wondering how much I cost myself. I mean, probably you and I would be doing this video zoom from the island of St. Thomas if I had gotten into Rebs in 2010 and got a coach, because I'd be sipping my ties right now and the team back in Charlotte would be running on its own and I'd be collecting mailbox money. And so I slowed myself down as well as the team. And so people can't afford not to get into reps if they're in real estate. They need to be. They need to be in rebs. And I'm not pitching that. Lars didn't pay me to say that. You owe it to yourself, you owe it to your family to do, to get into rebs and be a part of the rebs family.

Yeah, that's awesome. I appreciate that. What parting thought would you have for someone who wants to take this leap, you know, to building something beyond themselves and they're struggling, you know, maybe they're a top producing agent and traditional success in our industry. I just believe it sucks. You know, selling 25 to 30 homes a year means you're working, you know, eight days a week and you're just not, not present in any area of your life. What advice would you give to someone that's achieved that top producer status and they want to shift to business ownership?

I mean, number one, you can be anywhere you want to be. In three to five years, you can be anywhere. And I think people are just afraid to take their. They want control, complete control. And at the end of the day, we don't control the markets, we don't control anything. We think we do. And at the end of the day, it's realizing what your strengths are and what you're good at and magnifying that, focusing on that, looking at your three year goals. Where do you want to be three years from now? Do you really still want to be in that transaction treadmill or. If I told you that 36 months from now, three years from now, you could be at 3 million GCI, a thousand consults, appointments being met, and you're involved in 10 to 20 of them total. Who, who wouldn't want to sign up for that? And so my recommendation is that get in revs, get a coach and embrace it. What is the worst thing that could happen and what is the best thing that could happen? Right.

That's awesome. And I just, I think the world of you. And you know, if you're watching this and you know something in Thomas's story, you know, maybe you're at that struggling point, like where it was just slow starting and maybe mentally, you know, you're starting to make that shift. Like, man, this isn't what I thought it would be. And it's harder than like the real estate school told me it was going to be. You know, the next step is to just reach out to us. You know, it's a conversation. There's not an obligation. It's a business growth strategy session. Just go to realestatebschool.com it's obvious there. It's the only way you can take a next step with us is to get on to a conversation about where you are now, to Thomas's point, where you want to be in three years, and then what's holding you back? And let's put a plan together to get there. You know, it's. It's that a lot of people overestimate what you could do in a year, and they underestimate what they can do in three years. And three years from now, you could do anything you want as long as you're on the right path. So go to realestatebschool.com Thomas, I appreciate you more than I probably tell you. I appreciate you, and I appreciate you just being open about your faith, about your business struggles. And I know a lot of folks are going to have just some real big impact with our time together.

Thanks, brother. My pleasure.

All right. Bye.