Twenty Years in IT and the Slow Realization That Something Was Missing
Valerie's professional biography sounds like success. Twenty-plus years in the software development and database management world. More than a decade at her most recent company. Client services work that demanded consistency and precision.
"I've been at that one job for 12 plus years... 20 plus years in the software development database management arena."
But there was something underneath it. A remote work arrangement that had her at home for over a decade, doing careful, technical work with limited human contact. By her own account, that environment suited a certain version of herself.
"Working a job for 20 years where I was more client services um in an IT role very isolated kind of nurtured my introverted self."
The problem is that nurturing an introverted self is not the same as fulfillment. What Valerie actually wanted, she came to realize, was to help people in a way that was tangible and personal. That feeling was never part of the IT work.
"I truly found this is something I'm passionate about. And then it it kind of also showed me, you know, how maybe not happy I was with my current, you know, like what I was doing for a living, you know, because I didn't have that same passion."
What she did have a passion for, it turned out, had been hiding in plain sight for years.
The Side Hobby That Became a Business
Valerie had been shopping estate sales for a long time. Not occasionally, but consistently, the way people pursue the things they genuinely love.
"On the side, something that I was really passionate about was just shopping estate sales."
When she and her family moved to Jacksonville and settled in, the hobby took on a new dimension.
"Once we moved to Jacksonville and sort of put down roots, it sort of grew into, okay, with one of my family members, we got a small booth at a local antique shop."
She describes estate sale shopping as the thing that got her out of the house during years of remote work, the social ritual that balanced what was otherwise a fairly isolated professional life.
"That was kind of like my social outlet because I was a remote employee for 10 plus years... other than seeing my dogs most days, you know, like I was at home working. And so the estate sales kind of became sort of my social outlet."
A hobby. A social outlet. A small side project with a family member at a local antique shop. None of this looks like the foundation of a business from the outside. But from the inside, Valerie already had everything that matters: genuine passion, deep familiarity with the market, and an understanding of what estate sale customers actually want. What she didn't yet have was a framework for turning it into something scalable.
That changed when she connected with Franchise Empire.
Why the Franchise Route Made Sense for Someone Who Could Have Gone It Alone
One of the most honest things Valerie says in her story is also one of the most important: she acknowledges that she probably could have started an independent estate sale business from scratch. She just didn't want to.
"Could I have started a business from scratch? Yes. But I think as you and I talked, kind of stepping into sort of that proven model and being able to just apply what you learn and with how I sort of operate and am like it just was a really good fit for me."
That framing, a proven model I can apply rather than a system I have to invent, is the right way to think about franchising for someone who already understands their industry. Valerie didn't need to be taught that estate sales matter or that customers value expertise and care. She knew all of that. What a franchise gave her was the operational infrastructure, the brand recognition, the technology, and the support network she didn't have to build from zero.
The community element turned out to matter just as much as the systems.
"Just having that support system of other owners that you can talk through things with... it's been nice to just kind of have that sense of community with other owners."
For someone who had spent a decade working remotely in relative isolation, that community wasn't a small perk. It was a structural shift in how she showed up for her work every day.
How Traditional Franchise Brokerage Differs from What Franchise Empire Does
Valerie's path to Blue Moon Estate Sales didn't start with a franchise search. It started with a coaching conversation about turning her antique side hustle into a full-time career. Near the end of that call, her advisor asked a question that changed everything: "Do you know that there's an estate sale franchise?"
That kind of connection, between what a person genuinely loves and what franchise systems exist to support it, doesn't happen by accident. It happens when an advisor is paying close enough attention to hear what a client actually cares about, not just what they're explicitly asking for.
That's the structural difference between what Franchise Empire does and what traditional franchise brokerage typically offers.
There are over 4,000 franchise brands in the United States. Traditional brokers often present a catalog of options based on what's available and what pays the highest referral fee at closing. Many have never personally owned a franchise. Their financial incentive is to close a deal, not necessarily to find the right match. And in most cases, the support disappears the moment the agreement is signed, leaving the new owner to navigate entity setup, operations, hiring, and marketing without a guide.
What Valerie found was the opposite of that. Founded by Tariq Johnson, a former corporate professional who made the leap to franchise ownership himself, Franchise Empire is built around a three-step framework: Find a Winning Franchise, Launch and Get Profitable, and Scale Your Locations. The process continues through every phase, not just the selection stage.
For Valerie, the ongoing support wasn't abstract. She described her advisor as a crucial "neutral sounding board" throughout the emotional process of leaving a career she had built over two decades.
"It really helped to have somebody to kind of relate what I was going through at the time."
The Morning Her Boss Offered Her a Raise
Every franchise owner has a version of the moment when the old life tries one last time to hold on. For Valerie, that moment came with thirty minutes to spare.
"I had the call scheduled with our sales director to to commit to buying that first territory and had a call with my boss 30 minutes before where I got a sizable raise."
Thirty minutes before committing to the franchise, her employer offered her more money to stay. The timing was not subtle.
"I was just like, okay, it really doesn't change things, but oh gosh, you know, this is seriously right now, like I literally have a call 30 minutes where I'm going to commit to leaving this job."
She didn't cancel the call. She thought through what the raise actually changed, and the answer she kept coming back to was the same one she had reached over months of coaching and research.
"I just go back to what I came back to and I said, 'What does this change about why I started working with [my advisor] in the first place?' And it didn't change anything... I think ultimately what you said would have still ended up happening another year from now. I I mean, I just it would have been like a band-aid, but it wouldn't have, you know, solved the problem or been a solution."
A raise doesn't solve an unfulfilled career. It delays the reckoning. Valerie knew the difference, took the call, and signed.
Building the Business: What the Franchise System Actually Delivered
Once Valerie was in, the Blue Moon Estate Sales system did what franchise systems are supposed to do: it removed obstacles that would have cost an independent operator months to solve.
"I had a call with my FBC, franchise business consultant, who's kind of just my lifeline to the franchise. And the support that I get from the franchisor has just been, you know, incredible."
The technology stack was a particular advantage, both as an operational tool and as a client-facing differentiator.
"Being able to tap into all the technology they offer too has been great and a selling point for our sales, too."
Hiring, which is one of the most time-consuming early challenges for any service business, was also supported through the franchisor's infrastructure.
"Through the franchisor there was a career platform that we were able to utilize... I was able to get the jobs posted on both the Blue Moon estate sales.com website as well as hitting all the other sites like Indeed, Zip Recruiter, and Monster."
She ultimately found her initial team of five through a single early hire's personal network, a common story in service businesses where referrals drive quality staffing. The ongoing challenge, finding reliable part-time cashiers for weekend sale days, is a real operational reality in the estate sale space, and one she is actively working through.
The Five-Star Review That Made It Real
Momentum came quickly. One sale in January. One in February. Two in March. Three booked for April, with the second territory also active.
But the number that meant the most wasn't a revenue figure.
"I read this phenomenal five-star review she left and it about had me in tears. Like, it touched me that much that she took the time to do that and what an impact, you know, we had had on her and you just can't put a—I mean, you can't value that."
Estate sales happen during some of the most emotionally loaded transitions in a person's life. Clearing out a parent's home, settling an estate, downsizing after decades in one place. The work isn't just logistics. It's accompaniment through something hard.
"Being able to help people during a time of transition that's normally a really stressful period and just try to take that burden off of them... I don't feel that way anymore. Like that unfulfilled feeling or like that's completely gone and that's been wonderful."
The unfulfilled feeling. Gone. That is the return on twenty years of working toward something that never quite fit.
What Valerie Would Tell Someone Sitting Where She Sat
Valerie is direct about what it actually takes, and she doesn't soften it.
"It's going to be a lot of hard work, but to me it's just it's been worth it... fueled that hustle and you know the the day the long days you know pretty much working seven days a week."
She's also direct about mindset as a business asset.
"No time for negative thoughts here. Like you can't let that stuff creep in because it can just, you know, sort of stop you in your tracks."
And on the bigger question of whether the leap is worth taking:
"Follow your heart and know that it is not going to necessarily be easy. It's going to be a lot of hard work, but to me, it's just it's been worth it."
That advice is not directed at people who want an easy path. It's directed at people who are willing to do the work but haven't yet found the thing worth doing it for. Valerie found that thing. She had been carrying it as a weekend hobby for years before she understood it was a business.
What Valerie's Story Means for You
Twenty years in a career that didn't feel like enough. A hobby that turned out to be a calling. An advisor who asked the right question at the right time.
If you have something in your life that you keep coming back to, something you do for its own sake even when no one is paying you for it, Valerie's story is an argument for taking it seriously. Not every passion becomes a franchise. But the right franchise, matched to the right person, can turn a twenty-year detour into the thing you were always supposed to be doing.
Hundreds of Franchise Empire clients have found that match. The path looked different for each of them. The process for finding it is the same.
Ready to Find Yours?
If something in Valerie's story sounds familiar, the right next step is a real conversation with someone who will listen to what you actually care about and show you where it maps onto a proven system.
Schedule a Free Call with Our Franchise Brokers ->
No pressure. No guesswork. Just the kind of honest, attentive conversation that helped Valerie discover an estate sale franchise was waiting for someone exactly like her.
