At the beginning of the year I left my former broker for a better business opportunity with the new Keller Williams office in town.  I wasn't alone.  I was one of about ten that left the agency over a period of months.  What I marvel at is the treatment that we received from our former broker and several of his key management personnel. 

We are independent business people and we left for a better opportunity.  When discussing this opportunity with him he simply dismissed us and bid us adieu.  Not a better offer.  Not a discussion about what it would take to keep us. Nothing.  That is not remarkable but what is incredible is how we have been treated by his management team since. 

We are ignored by the broker and his team at local functions.  We are treated as those we don't exist.  They pretend as though they don't even know us.  This behavior doesn't bother me much since I was only employed there two years.  There are others that were fiercely loyal to this broker for decades and went above and beyond over the years to help this man and his business.  After that loyalty they were cast aside and now are shunned by the broker and his team.  One of my colleagues ran into this man at the dentist office last week and was completely ignored by this fellow.  After twenty years this is how he was treated.

I was amazed when I left that the next day I was uninvited by the brokers wife as a handshake member of her Point2Agent site.  I left the company and now she pretended I was no longer in business.  You gotta wonder why they didn't unsubscribe from MLS in protest since they were pretending we were no longer there.

The amazing thing is that they still don't see their behavior.  But others do.  The recruiting continues and people have seen the behavior and acted accordingly.  Others will follow.

I spent 18 years in the corporate world and every time I left a job for a better position I turned in my notice and my current employer would then celebrate my new opportunity with a send off party.  This occurred four different times although in my new position I was competing with my former employer.  Several of the parties were memorable.  I was always treated professionally at industry functions by my former employers and I'm still very good friends with several of them after all these years,

Should I expect this from my former broker?  Not at all.  Would I expect that I would be treated professionally at industry functions by my former broker?  Absolutely.  Can he do this almost a year later.  Not even close.  Would my colleagues that spent twenty years with him expect to be treated professionally by this man and his team at local functions?  Absolutely.  Are they?  Not at all.

We were simply pursuing a better business opportunity and one that this man wouldn't discuss when confronted with the issue.  Now he pretends we don't exist.

So I wonder what is it about Keller Williams that brings out the worst in former broker's?  I only have a single answer and I better keep it to myself since the answer involves professionalism, business acumen, and human decency.

Of course, in the end it has helped KW recruit and made us wildly successful in a matter of months in our little town.