Why I Walked Through Hell (& Why I'd Do It Again)

In April of 2014, my partner and I left the real estate franchise we had been with for more than 14 years. Leaving was the most difficult decision I had ever made personally, and the 6 months that followed were the most harrowing of my entire career. The days were emotionally draining. Every penny we had went into making the business work. The workload was almost physically impossible, arriving at the office by 5am and working until midnight on many nights. For my business partner and I, it took a toll on business, our families, every relationship we had, and on our lives. There were very few evenings in those early months in which I did not cry myself to sleep at night. 

Today, just two years and 3 months later, our company is thriving. We have 400 agents. We help more than 3000 families a year with their real estate dreams. Our agents are happy. We are adding offices. I no longer worry about how we will make payroll on Friday. We are the largest independent real estate brand in Massachusetts based on transactions closed.

We are less than 30 days away from our day in court with our former franchisor. The press now calls daily for interviews because the repercussions of this case potentially create havoc on non-competition terms within franchise agreements as well as the ability for franchisors to create staggered franchise agreements which create No Way Out circumstances for the operators, thereby driving the value of the franchises down significantly. Not only that, current franchisees call and email regularly confirming court dates so that they can witness firsthand the testimony of all the parties, because this case effects them too.

This article is not about He-Said, She-Said, although I've embedded some of the recent articles on our case so that you can get the gist as to why we left. This article is about inspiration. It's about the positive lessons I learned by walking through hell to leave a system we deemed unfair, and why I would do it all again if given the chance.

Here are 5 lessons learned from walking through hell:

Whose Fight Is This?: On the day we left our franchise, we had 267 agents. Within 30 days, we lost roughly 70 of those agents, many who decided to join newly established office locations the franchise opened after we left. The hardest part of losing these agents is that many were very close friends. We had celebrated births, weddings, college graduations together over 14 years. When they left, it felt like I was losing a little piece of my soul. On the other hand, we had almost 200 agents that stayed with us, and have since added around 200 more. One of the greatest lessons for me was realizing that just because it's my fight, doesn't make it someone else’s. If a bully hurts me, and you are my friend, the fight is my fight with the bully, not yours. It took me a while to be at peace with this, but I've grown into a person who works hard every day to no longer judge people's actions, ever. I have learned to love, support, and embrace those who chose to make my fight their fight. As well, I've learned to also love, support, and embrace those who couldn't take on the fight with me. I've come to see that everyone in the world is fighting a fight of some kind, and sometimes there's just not enough room to take on someone else's too. Two years later, I'm a girl who gets it.

People are People: I do not have a discriminatory bone in my body when it comes to skin color, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or the like. I love people for who they are. Two years ago, I was the kind of girl that created and held friendships based on where people chose to work. We could be best friends, as long as you worked at my real estate company (assuming you were in the business), but God forbid you left for another company, I'd probably never chat with you again. How absurd! I no longer care where people work. I've got an amazing value proposition at my independent real estate company, and the 400 agents who work here agree. My value proposition might not work for everyone, and I’ve learned how to be totally cool with that. Now, when I determine the friendships I nurture and the ones I let go of, the company they work for has zero weight in determining the outcome. One of my best friends works at Sotheby’s. He's a competitor. I can't imagine what life would be like without him, and it's crazy to me now that 2 years ago I would have dropped him like a hot potato for not working at my firm. Another amazing long-term friend opened a Century 21, and I couldn't be more proud as I watch her business thrive. So, I've learned to become the kind of girl that will totally try to recruit you if you are in real estate in Massachusetts, but no longer is joining my firm a pre-cursor to a potential friendship.

You Are Not So Perfect: One of the reasons we left our franchise is because we wanted to grow and our franchise no longer wanted us to, and they did everything in their power to keep us from getting bigger. We told them on many occasions, that if they would just give us wings, we would keep on soaring. They didn't listen. They assumed that we would comply because we were handcuffed into staggered contracts that left no way out. We got out anyway. For all the time and effort they spent trying to stop us from growing, they could have helped us get wings so together we could grow and soar. This has been one of the most important lessons for my business, because I've come to learn that it's easy to end up on the wrong side of this. Every single day in business, there are people who tell us how things could be better. Listen! That's not to say that you have to agree or that you have to change, but at least listen! As much as I can say that my former franchise had lots of flaws, the really important lesson for me is that my company probably does too!  For example, one complaint I often got from agents is that we didn't pay fast enough. We had a three day turn time on commission checks. Agents kept saying three days is too long. Now, in my mind, I thought to myself, in the real world of corporate America, you get paid every two weeks, how is 3 days bad? However, enough people said three days was too long, that we fixed the system, now offering e-checks and one day turn times. As business owners, we all want to believe we are the cat’s meow, but in truth, we all have flaws, and rather than ignore, refute, and deny, it often makes better sense to listen and fix the problem.

My Mentor: The hardest part of leaving my former franchise was the fact that my mentor, for whom I still have the greatest amount of admiration and respect, was and is deeply enmeshed into the franchise network. I knew that by leaving the franchise, I'd be leaving my mentor too, FOREVER. He was a mentor that took me under his wing, and who made me believe I was somebody when nobody else ever did up to that point. He offered advice on how to be a better speaker. We bounced recruiting ideas off of each other. He always took my call, answered my questions, and spent time with me when he could. When push came to shove, I didn't care about the brand name, nor the tools, nor anything the system had to offer, but I cared deeply about the fact that by leaving, I was going to hurt my mentor. I haven't spoken to him since I left, and I doubt I ever will. But, what I hope is that someday, I get the opportunity to nurture someone who is very much like me in business, and that he or she goes off and does something really big and audacious to make me proud. Because what I came to realize is that the reason he mentored me to begin with is because he saw a little bit of himself in me, and that little piece of him in me, was precisely the same piece that prompted me to leave a franchise model that couldn’t support my dreams. In other words, I came to realize that he had taught me well. Although the move I made most likely hurt him emotionally and in business, it's the same exact move he would have made if he were in my shoes. The lesson for me was this; a really great mentor may very well put you in a position where the very principles he taught you will create a dichotomy of personal interests that will eventually separate you.

Stand Up: So, I'm a roll with the punches kind of girl. For 14 years, I spent millions of dollars buying into a franchise name. I loved the other owners within the network. I appreciated the fact that it was a known name in real estate. I had no problem selling the name, combined with our own office tools, training, and technology, to build one of the largest real estate firms in Massachusetts. As much as I loved being part of the franchise, there were multiple occasions in which the local Regional Directors of the system made it abundantly clear that we were not loved back. When you really, really, really, love and care for someone (be it a human or a brand), you might deal with it when they throw a punch. In fact, you probably deal with it after they throw a few punches. Then you get really tired and you realize that if you comply (for us complying meant staying small), you won't get punched as much. Then you tell yourself that life is easier if you just stop trying to go after your dream. Months, sometimes years, go by where shrinking into their mold seems much wiser than going after your big dream. Nobody ever wants to go to school knowing that the only way to deal with the bully is to punch back. Life is much easier just avoiding the bully all together. But then one day you wake up and you realize that you used to love going to work every day. You remember a time in which you had a burning spark to make a crater sized impact on the entire industry. Yet, the only thing stopping you is that damned bully. So you head to the school yard ready to give your best fight, or die trying. The greatest lesson of all for me in this long journey has been this; stand up, stand up, stand up. I'm still that girl that will roll with the punches, but baby, not for long. Push me hard enough and I will totally stand up and push back. I've come to learn that I can do really hard things in life, and come out stronger, wiser, and better than before.

So, I've put some links here to the most recent articles about our pending litigation. I don't like to get into the hairy details with people about the who, what, when, where and why. For me, none of it matters. Regardless of what happens in the next 30 days, we’ve won. I've won. The lessons learned in the last two years are, in my mind, the equivalent of a Harvard MBA. So, yah, I walked through hell and I've still got a few feet to go, but would I do it again? Absolutely. Positively. No question. Yes.

Sometimes you just have to stand up.

Recent Updates on Litigation: 

Banker and Tradesman 

Boston Business Journal

Stacey Alcorn is the author of REACH! - Dream, Stretch, Achieve Influence and travels the world showing businessentrepreneurs how to REACH!. Stacey is a regular contributor to EntrepreneurandHuffington Post and has a weekly podcast series entitled Leaders and Legends on iTunes. She is addicted to awesome shoes, reading, writing, cool people, and building business empires, including the 3rd largest real estate firm in Massachusetts, LAER Realty Partners, closing more than $1B in real estate sales annually.  Her WHY is her 6 year old daughter, Oshyn.