So many people are asking why I left FFPS, I thought it was time to go public with my reasons for resigning as Webmaster. First of all, yes it is true, I left - quietly, so it would not cause a panic. Almost a month later, the reasons and impact of that decision are detailed below.

The Venture Begins

In September, 2003, together with Jeff and Canela Segal, I helped form Freedom Foreclosure Prevention Services. I created all the initial website designs and structures, along with the Members Only Area that so many raved about. The “What’s New” page was filled every month of the changes that were happening with all the sites and supporting documents. My involvement with the company was stated as a “partner”, but that agreement was only verbal; nothing was ever documented on paper.

Outsourcing Designs and Programming

Eventually the requests for high-end programming and design became overbearing, so they were outsourced to another team. That team reprogrammed the sites in a way that they became over-complicated and a big problem to make any updates by standard means. At times it took me several hours just to find where to update a word, link or sentence within one page.

Requests for guidance from the programming manager were ignored, except to say his programmer would take care of it. That meant more waiting time, additional company expense and potential problems when other things got messed up in the process. Yes, that happens all too often, so I gave up my title as Project Manager and turned it over to Jeff so he could handle the programmers.

Work and Income Stop

By September, 2008, there was little left for me to do, other than monitor support tickets. The volume of tickets related to programming issues were increasing, so I created an account for the programming manager to handle those requests.

That left me with nothing to do, which translated into nothing to be paid for, so I submitted my resignation as Webmaster on September 24, 2008. I did not announce it to the world because it would cause panic amongst many of the consultants. Some were already leaving and canceling their web hosting that I provided for them through Website Managers.

Since large percentage of my new clients were FFPS consultants who set up blogs or lead capture pages, those cancellations had a large impact on my hosting business too, so that also went away. My servers were transferred either to Host Gator, the company who houses and maintains them, or to other clients who wanted them.

I also disabled all my FFPS websites because I did not feel comfortable promoting the consultant program since I was no longer involved with FFPS, plus the commission payments were being delayed to a point where I knew there were internal problems. Although delayed, I got paid for my last 2 referrals.

No Work + No Income = Time to Move On

By the time I resigned, I had formed another company, Short Sale Holdings, to process short sales. Those leads would initially come from the declined Loss Mitigation applications at FFPS. Once the site went online, I was approached by Donna Atwater, CEO of American Loss Mitigation Services, to help sell their Short Sales Investor Training program. I have seen short sales training before, so I investigated to see why this one is different.

The training is more detailed than ANY I had seen previously, but they had no marketing set up to promote it. Being that I felt comfortable helping with the sales, I gathered as much information as possible about it and built a sales page on my new site. That was accepted so well that Donna and her partner chose me as their exclusive vendor for their training program.

Moving Forward

With all that in place, there is no reason to return to FFPS and every reason to move forward. Sure it is a big change, from setting my own business aside for 5 years and relying on a single source of income, to starting over. I am confident though that it was a good change and look forward to building the business into one that will once again provide not only for my family, but also for those who join and help us promote the services.

Jim Hutchinson, Founder / CEO
Short Sale Holdings, LLC
Website Managers, LLC