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As a child, Chad Carroll never imagined that the work ethic he developed by playing golf 12 hours a day would one day lead him to become one of the top real estate agents in the country.
Today, Carroll is consistently ranked #1 as a Compass Florida agent and in the top 1% of agents nationwide, and leads his own premium team of approximately 45 agents and staff.
He was also named the second Inman Influencer and boasts 487,000 followers. Instagram.
“I was very competitive,” Carroll said of his youthful years spent playing golf, “and I think that made me a better businessman and taught me work ethic, dedication and organization.”
Without any role models in her family to guide her in pursuing a career in real estate, Carol has largely carved her own path, relying heavily on the hard work and dedication she has developed throughout her life.
Credit: Jeff Remus
Cut from different molds
Carol grew up in Bexley, a small town outside Columbus, Ohio, where “everyone knew each other,” she said.
Nearly everyone in Carol’s family worked in the medical field — her grandfather was a doctor, her father was a doctor, her mother was a nurse, her sister grew up to be an emergency physician, and her brother became a dentist — but Carol had no interest in medicine.
“I was kind of the black sheep,” he told Inman.
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Fascinated by the sport, Carol became an avid golfer at a young age and gave her all to the sport.
“I was traveling almost every week to play in different tournaments around the country,” Carroll explained.
Carol continued playing golf when she attended Florida Southern College, initially hoping to turn professional, but once she began competing at that level, Carol realized a career as a golfer might not be for her.
“At the professional level, you really need natural talent,” he told Inman, “and I just didn’t feel like I had it.”
Carol decided to transfer to Hofstra University on Long Island where she completed her undergraduate studies with a degree in Marketing and Business Management. After graduation, she worked briefly in marketing for a local aerospace defense company before moving back to Florida to pursue a career in commercial real estate at the urging of a friend’s father, who worked in the real estate industry and saw potential in Carol.
“He’s a super mogul in the commercial world,” Carroll said of his role model. “He owns about 350 to 400 shopping centers across the country and I always looked up to him as a business mentor. He thought I had what it took to get into real estate and I followed his lead. Thankfully, that led me into the residential industry, which I worked out for myself and here I am today.”
![](https://assets.inman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Chad-Carroll-Credit-Jeff-Remas8.jpeg)
Credit: Jeff Remus
Starting a career in difficult times
Carroll got into the residential real estate business around 2009, just after the Great Recession hit and the market hit bottom.
But rather than being discouraged by the overall market situation and the prospect of entering an industry that, at the time, was not very optimistic, Carroll turned what was perceived as a negative situation into an opportunity.
“It was right after the recession and a very tough time for the market,” Carroll says, “but my expenses were low and I was able to focus on learning the market and the players inside out, so when the market turned around I was in a good position to benefit.”
Carroll said he faced many disappointments in those early years, but he never let those disappointments get him down.
“A lot of the deals that I worked on didn’t come to fruition,” Carroll said. “I learned through those experiences how to control my emotions, keep my emotions in check, take those missed opportunities as lessons, learn from them, and become a better agent because of it.”
Looking back on the situation later, Carol asked herself the following questions: What could you have done differently? How could you improve? Is there something you can do to close that deal in the future? Or is it already over?
Carroll adapted his mindset to see the good in the bad, reinvested profits back into the business after deals were made, and set daily, weekly and monthly goals modeled on golf training.
For the first six or seven years of business, Carroll reinvested his profits and was eventually spending more than $1 million a year on marketing.
![](https://assets.inman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Photographer-is-Justin-Mein-1-scaled.jpeg)
Credit: Justin Main
Team growth
About five years into her business, Carol realised she could do so much more with the team around her.
“We’ve found having a team to be very beneficial,” Carroll said, “so we can cover more areas and we’re not limiting ourselves to one small area.”
“Plus, I realized I was becoming a really good agent and wanted to help other people become agents at that same level,” he added.
Some of Carroll’s teammates have been with him for nearly a decade now, he said.
“They’ve grown every year and it’s been really great to see that growth. That was my goal — to develop a great group of agents with a great work ethic and attention to detail.”
The team specializes in South Florida’s ultra-luxury market and has broken records in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties.
“We’re always striving to improve, capture more market share in different areas and do the best for our customers,” Carroll said.
In the near future, Carroll said he wants to continue to expand the team and its market share in a “very positive way,” with the team planning to expand into more markets in Florida, New York, the West Coast and Chicago over the next few years.
“I’d love to coach more people individually and show them how to compete at the high end of the market and what it takes,” Carroll told Inman. “Because I think a lot of people say they want to do it but don’t understand what it really takes to compete at that level every day. It’s easy to sell once, but it’s hard to stay at the top. I know very well how to navigate that system and I want to teach more people how to do it.”
![](https://assets.inman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Photographer-is-Justin-Mein-scaled.jpeg)
Credit: Justin Main
Social media
Carroll told Inman that using social media for his business has allowed him to reach potential high-end customers around the world, and it’s also helped him assemble a team to keep up with demand.
“We have done business with countless people. [who speak] “They speak all kinds of languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Hebrew,” Carroll said. “That’s one of the things I noticed. [through social media engagement] And we started integrating into the team. We have people who speak Russian, Portuguese, Spanish, etc. [agents who speak] Being able to speak a range of languages makes transactions go more smoothly. We strive to meet the expectations of our clients who want native speakers, and that has helped our business dramatically.”
In addition to connecting with new and existing clients, Carroll sees social media as a valuable motivational tool to help other agents reach new heights, especially when they learn how he had to make his way in the industry on his own but is now one of the top agents in the country.
“Every day I have people who say, ‘Tell me how to do it. Tell me what you did. Tell me how you did it,'” Carroll said. “These random people who follow me, I respond and give them advice.”
Maintaining transparency
In addition to his work ethic, Carroll says the secret to his success is being completely transparent with his clients and not giving in to what they want to hear.
“It sounds great, but the reality is it’s not,” Carroll said of other agents who appease clients while knowing it will make things worse in the long run. “Most of the time, I have to show my clients the reality today and explain why it is the way it is and what they can do about it. That’s why I never over-promise. I like to set expectations right and then over-deliver.”
Email Lillian Dickerson