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As a co-owner of Tomlin St Cyr Real Estate Services, Ali St Cyr works not just with one parent, but two. Her father, John Tomlin, and mother, Holly Tomlin, founded the Tampa-based company in 2016. But they came from different work backgrounds and leaned on St Cyr’s real estate expertise — she had previously worked for Coldwell Banker — as they got the new family business up and running.
St Cyr says working with family members, particularly one’s parents, doesn’t have to be as tricky as it sounds. The key is to check emotional baggage at the door and think of yourselves as business partners first and foremost.
“In a family, some things can be very dramatic, but it can't be that way in business,” she says. "Basically, I've had to build an entire new relationship with my parents, which is cool because I've learned a lot about how their mindset works in a way that I anticipated would be very different when we started this.”
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