The Story of Five Pillars

Shelby’s First Year (Solo)

“Palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy… nervous, but on the surface looking calm and ready…”

Yep, year 1 of Real Estate is basically an Eminem song. My first day at Keller Williams Realty was mid-January of 2018 and, just like every newb agent, had no idea what to do with my hands. After going to a few slow-paced trainings at my firm and Googling “how to be a real estate agent,” I realized I was NOT on track to becoming a badass agent.

What I needed was to find the agents who were actually killing it, absorb everything, and implement it aggressively. I did exactly that. I capped in 6 months, hired a Transaction Coordinator, and within 12 months was KW Rookie of the Year for the Carolinas Region, closing 48 transactions as a solo agent. I also built my own real estate portfolio, ending year one with 16 rental properties.

Founding Five Pillars

Midway through my first year, I met Michael Glaspie, an active-duty Special Forces soldier. He was exactly the type of A-player I wanted to share the path to greatness with. When Mike got his license, he asked if I’d consider starting a team... fast forward 12 seconds and Five Pillars was born.

We founded the group with two core goals:

1. Bridge the gap between Agents, Investors & Military Members and help them build real wealth.
2. Create a hub for badass entrepreneurs to kickstart their businesses and thrive alongside peers.

Mike and I were fire and gasoline. We went on Spartan races, devoured books, and built a tight-knit family. We ended our first team year with 128 closings between 7 agents, added 80 rentals to our portfolios, and transitioned to eXp Realty.

Growing the Team

The momentum continued to build and our energy was contagious. Our agents were performing, investing, taking action, and making things happen. We were everywhere you looked: in-person, on socials, on podcasts.

With that, go-getters were coming out of the woodwork wanting to work with us or join us. But for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction: midway through the year, team growing pains hit me like a freight truck. Expanded to Charlotte right as my BiggerPockets podcast episode went live, and the floodgates busted wide open.

Our Evolution

By Year 3, we had a full staff: COO, transaction coordinators, listing coordinator, admin assistants, marketing director, and social media manager. We had the trampoline, the trampoline out back, the keg in the office... but it was paid for by massive 50/50 splits.

We realized splits are the enemy of freedom. We wanted our agents to keep their hard-earned money and build their own empires. So, we made a radical decision: help our admin staff start their own businesses, have agents hire them directly, and remove team splits entirely while leveraging eXp’s cloud system. We kept the value and removed the splits. That is the modern Five Pillars.

Our Vision

Our vision is to continue to be a hub for the most badass humans to build their businesses, thrive with like-minded people, and choose to **BE MORE** in life. All the value that helped us grow from zero to 100+ agents in 4 years is packaged and made completely free for our agents.