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How Franchises Build Wealth (And Why Vending Was a Costly Lesson)

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Show Summary

In this episode of the Real Estate Pros Podcast, host Q Edmonds speaks with franchise consultant Chrystal Bell about her journey from corporate America to entrepreneurship. Chrystal shares her experiences in the franchise world, the importance of strategic planning in business, and how to overcome adversity. She emphasizes the significance of building strong relationships in business and the importance of financial literacy and building generational wealth. Chrystal also discusses her mission to help others navigate the franchise landscape and create successful business opportunities.

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    Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

    Chrystal Bell (00:00)
    The salesperson sold me a dream. He’s like, you want flexible schedule.

    lucrative, no employees, filling things one time a week. I’m like, yes, that’s what I need. I have two little kids. I want to be able to do this. And so he’s like, okay, let’s start with six machines. You’ll, you’ll be great. And I realized very quickly, you can’t make money on six machines. You in order to make a strong business, you have to have more. And so within six months, I had 50 machines.

    And then I no longer had a flexible schedule. no longer had what he had told me vending was.

    Quentin Edmonds (02:05)
    Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I am excited to be here today. I have a fantastic guest that’s going to talk about franchises. And listen, there’s a lot of negative connotations out there when it comes to franchising. And I think once you hear I talk eloquently about it, it may dispel some of those notions and connotations. And so I am so super excited to introduce you all to

    Ms. Chrystal Bell. Ms. Chrystal, how you doing today, man?

    Chrystal Bell (02:36)
    Great. Thank you for having me today. I appreciate it.

    Quentin Edmonds (02:39)
    Absolutely. So glad you’re here. Thank you for making time. Everybody don’t need to know your business, but listen, I appreciate you making time. I really do. So let’s do this. Let’s dive into it. I want you to tell the people what your main focus is these days. I would love a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got into this space. We love origin stories. And then what part of the world you’re in geographically or where you’re rooted at, you know, maybe I’ll say it that way, where the business is.

    Chrystal Bell (03:07)
    got into franchise consulting because I’ve actually purchased multiple franchises out there. And what I didn’t realize is that consulting is a group of people that want to help people get into franchising appropriately. Like you can go in and find franchise Gator and there’s thousands of franchise opportunities available, but you don’t know where to start. You don’t know what’s available. And so I want to

    help people strategically look at a franchise. Is this gonna fit my lifestyle and my goals and not, ooh, is this a fun little project? Is that something I wanna do? So there’s a sales process and the people at the end of the franchise, they’re salespeople. They’re there to sell you a dream and my goal is I wanna keep you grounded while you’re going through that process because I’ve been sold into a concept that I wasn’t particularly…

    that wouldn’t have met my goals, wouldn’t have met what I actually wanted. And so I want to be there to help prevent people from following the shiny object and actually focusing on how is this gonna diversify my portfolio and how is it gonna make me wealth? So that’s how I helped.

    Quentin Edmonds (04:14)
    I love it,

    I love it. Now don’t know if you missed, if you said it and I missed it, but how did you get into the franchise world? Like where did this passion come from? Did you stumble into it? Was this like you targeted it? And it was like, no, this is where I’m going. Like tell me a little bit, how did franchise world come?

    Chrystal Bell (04:29)
    ⁓ I actually worked in the veterinary industry. I was a practice manager, managed 30 employees, and I realized I was done. I didn’t want to be in corporate America anymore. I wanted to own that piece of my own business, my own whatever’s out there. And so I purchased an existing franchise in property management, which is how I got my real estate license, how I got into this world. And

    Quentin Edmonds (04:36)
    Yeah.

    Chrystal Bell (05:43)
    That’s how I got in. I realized very quickly after I purchased this business that I am not the right person for property management. It was a very rough, very difficult industry for me to be in personally, but I’m not going to let my business fail. I grew that. I more than doubled my contracts with that property management company. And then I looked at is, you know what, what’s my exit strategy? So I sold that business.

    and then took that money and then kept looking for more businesses. So really, I’m great at the startup, I’m great at purchasing franchises, and so I wanted to help people do the same thing. This is how I grew my wealth. This is how I went from corporate America into something that now I have a flexible schedule, I can do what I wanna do, and I have a team of people that can manage my businesses.

    Quentin Edmonds (06:33)
    I love it. love it. ⁓ mean, veterinarian, veterinarian, industry, ⁓ didn’t want to be in that corporate world, that corporate kind of cycle. ⁓ And I love how you pivoted. And I have a saying, Ms. Chrystal, that I say probably once every episode, is that destiny has no wasted moments. Right? Meaning no matter what we go through in life,

    Chrystal Bell (06:45)
    Mm-hmm.

    Yeah.

    Quentin Edmonds (06:57)
    Destiny has a way of the amalgamation of who we are today. We just pick up skills, we pick up mindsets, and it kind of grounds us. And I know you’re talking about people being, keeping people grounded. Destiny has a way of grounding you, right? And so I would love to know, during this transition, during these moments within your life, to where you are now, what has it taught you about you? Has it taught you humility? Has it taught you consistency? Has it taught you discipline? Like what have these moments taught you about yourself?

    Chrystal Bell (07:10)
    Mm-hmm.

    It has actually taught me how to grow through struggle. mean, everybody, the biggest thing people are afraid of is that struggle, risk, taking that risk. And I’ve taken that risk multiple times now with multiple different businesses. And now I know, I can trust myself. I can say, you know, I know how to analyze this. I know how I am gonna be able to use this business to my advantage.

    now I can work through it and it’s not so scary. That first business or that first whatever you’re trying to do that you’ve never done, you need that struggle. You need to feel that up and down, the adrenaline of a high and that struggle with the low to be able to know where you are and how you’re going to deal with everything in life.

    Quentin Edmonds (08:13)
    Yeah. Oh, you said something that is so good. You said, can trust myself. man, through, so I have a saying where I say failure is fertilizing, right? Like sometimes when you fail, it’s just a fertilizer to help you succeed. And we know fertilizer, when you examine it, it’s like mess. It’s actually, some of it is like poop. You know what saying? Like, it’s, right, you know. And so things get messy sometimes. Things get stinky sometimes.

    Chrystal Bell (08:22)
    Mm-hmm.

    Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

    Quentin Edmonds (08:40)
    And you, if you want to, you would do everything to avoid it because who wants to go through that? But when you put roots in it and let it teach you, it actually grows you to a place you never would imagine. And so when you said you can trust yourself, I think through the process, people’s confidence starts to build. Because one thing is what makes us feel self-confident is when we’re working a tool that we just don’t know how to work just yet. Right? It’s like, know, you heard people say this drill or this hamper is going to work.

    Chrystal Bell (08:57)
    Mm-hmm.

    Quentin Edmonds (09:09)
    but you hold it in your hand like, I just don’t know how to use it just yet. But once you start working it, you get right proficient, you’re proficient with the tool. And so that’s how you start knowing how to trust yourself. Cause like you said, multiple businesses, you’ve got right, I imagine proficient at what you do. And so it’s now it’s like, give me the hammer, give me the tool, move on the way. I got this, you know? And so I love it. I love how you said that you can trust yourself. So how has Adversely looked in your world? Like if you had to frame it,

    Chrystal Bell (09:13)
    Mm-hmm.

    Mm-hmm.

    Quentin Edmonds (09:38)
    How, like walk me through you overcoming adversity. And I asked that, cause you talked about the shiny object. Some people want to look at the success, but don’t respect the journey. Like the journey, it’s all about the journey to get to success. So how has adversity looked for you?

    Chrystal Bell (10:25)
    I there’s always adversity with anything that you try. I would say my biggest opportunity for adversity was my second business that I purchased or that I started from ground level. It was a franchise. It was in vending. And everybody comes to me and is like, tell me about vending. Everybody wants to be in vending machines. I hated it. The salesperson, this is why I got into consulting.

    The salesperson sold me a dream. He’s like, you want flexible schedule.

    lucrative, no employees, filling things one time a week. I’m like, yes, that’s what I need. I have two little kids. I want to be able to do this. And so he’s like, okay, let’s start with six machines. You’ll, you’ll be great. And I realized very quickly, you can’t make money on six machines. You in order to make a strong business, you have to have more. And so within six months, I had 50 machines.

    And then I no longer had a flexible schedule. no longer had what he had told me vending was.

    So I had a warehouse full of food. had, ⁓ different locations I was driving to. I was repairing machines. I was filling machines. I had to order all the food and the drinks. And surprisingly, they don’t last long. They’re 90 day turns before you start expiring things. So you had to plan and say, okay, where am going to put this food before it expires? So

    you know, he sold me the dream. I realized what I needed is not what he sold me. So, but at the same time I bought this business. I had a huge contract with the school district and COVID happened. And so as soon as the school shut down, I lost half of my business. So it’s things like that that I had to just roll with the punches. Luckily I was able to get through the COVID.

    shut down for the schools because I had other contracts with essential businesses and they were the ones that kept me alive and kept me going through. then at the very end, it’s like, okay, he sold me this dream, but this is not what my reality wanted to be. That was not my goal. And so I was able to sell it and make a really good profit on it because everybody wants to be inventing. Even if I said, this is not what people tell you on TikTok. This is something different, but

    Quentin Edmonds (12:34)
    Yeah.

    Chrystal Bell (12:35)
    You know that that adversity helped me understand. I want to help people evaluate business appropriately, not listen to whoever’s on Tick Tock or whoever’s on Instagram saying this is the business you need to be in because of XYZ. I want to be there and say, OK, no, no. What is your true goal? What is your what do you want in life if you want a flexible schedule and all of this?

    It’s not vending. If you want to make a lot of money, it’s not vending. You know, that kind of thing is what I want to do to help people.

    Quentin Edmonds (13:07)
    Yeah. I love it. ⁓ I love it. So let me ask you now, you’re in the franchise world, like, then it ain’t it, corporate market ain’t it. Now we’re in the franchise world. It seems like this is it. What is the next real goal for you? Like, what are you looking to solve at scale next?

    Chrystal Bell (13:22)
    So my goal, honestly, is I have two kids. I want generational wealth for them. I want them, honestly. I don’t know if they’re gonna go to college because I know you can do a lot more if you have your own businesses. So they both are very entrepreneurial. They’re very young still, but they already know how to start a business. They know how to price things. They know product turn. They know all of that stuff. So my goal is how can I support them?

    to be business owners. I don’t need them to clock in and out Monday through Friday. How can they, and the good thing is they show their friends, hey, look what I sold today or look what I made today. And my true goal is how can I help younger generations that don’t learn finance, they don’t learn money, they don’t learn anything about business in schools? How can I help them?

    Quentin Edmonds (14:13)
    So I’m going ask, are you open to adopting? And I’m asking for myself. Are you looking for any, are you looking for a third child? listen, the way you talk about setting up generational wealth and teaching, listen, you can adopt a man. I’m messing around. No, that’s amazing. I love that perspective that you have for your kids. And I just love it. I mean, I just love it. There’s so much I can say about that. Because you know, a lot of us would soul the college dream.

    And then so many people came out, you know, with student loans and different names and because they wasn’t toward financial wealth. So their parents didn’t have enough, maybe saved at the start. It’s just all the different things. So I, I, again, I love that perspective and it’s something that we’re trying to do without son. So I hate sure. ⁓ and so you want to teach people, teaching your kids, want to teach people franchise model. want to hear your perspective when it comes to relationship building.

    Chrystal Bell (14:55)
    Yes.

    Yes.

    Mm-hmm. Yeah.

    Quentin Edmonds (15:10)
    within business, within just in totality, also within business. I tell people like, you can’t divorce yourself from business. So relationships, how you build relationships with yourself, with your kids, with anybody, it has similar ways of how you build business relationships. And so I just want to hear your perspective, like blend the world for me with just relationships and business relationships. What’s your philosophy? How do you go about

    Chrystal Bell (16:14)
    I’m a natural networker, so I know that even though I talk to people, I don’t know if you’ve ever gone to like a tabletop networking. It’s just business cards being handed out and that is not how you do relationships. And I know that not everybody needs a business, not everybody needs a franchise, but if you start to understand and meet all of these people.

    I have an, I’m in three different networking groups and we all know what everybody does. So we’re all salespeople for each other. So if I have ⁓ somebody looking for a roofer, I know exactly who I would recommend because I, he’s helped me. He knows everything about my family. He is there to be that person that I want to refer. It’s not going to be like, you know what? have this business card. Maybe try him.

    Like that’s not important. I want to be able to give people names of people I know, like, and trust because that’s how you grow. And it’s actually benefited me to have those relationships because you know what, five years from now, somebody may say, my gosh, you were talking about looking at business. still, you need to talk to Chrystal, you know? And that’s, that’s important. It’s important to do that in your own industry. I’ve been in real estate and

    A lot of real estate people aren’t willing to share business cards of each other and that’s not how you do business. I don’t know anything about land deals, so I’m gonna hand it to somebody that does. Or they don’t know anything about property management, so they can send people to me. And how can we help each other grow as business? Don’t ever look at anybody as competition. Always look at how can I help you? And they’ll eventually start learning, okay.

    She’s actually looking at this the way people should be and I want to reciprocate.

    Quentin Edmonds (18:01)
    Yeah. So it’s not about competition, it’s about collaboration. That’s what it’s about.

    Chrystal Bell (18:04)
    Absolutely,

    100%. Always collaboration.

    Quentin Edmonds (18:07)
    But yeah, I love that. So Ms. Chrystal, let me ask you, is there any topic that I have not brought up that you would like to talk about? Or is there any other words of like education, motivation, inspiration that you want to say? I kind of just want to open up the floor for maybe something that’s on your heart and your brain, something you feel like people need to hear.

    Chrystal Bell (18:26)
    The biggest thing is people, a lot of people know about real estate. They understand I can invest money into this house or this multiplex or whatever that looks like. Not very many people look at wealth generation or portfolio diversification through business. And a lot of people, when they think of owning a business, they think I need to work 40 hours a week in this business and it’s gonna take up all my time. But if you’re able to just like,

    purchasing a house and using a mortgage, you can do the same thing with a franchise that you can leverage an SBA loan, put a very small investment in from your own personal funds, and you can find a business or a franchise that you may be able to operate at 15 to 20 hours a week as additional cashflow because if the real estate market is down or if you get laid off from your corporate job, you have a backup plan. You have plan B.

    And that is important to me. I think everybody needs a plan B because not everybody, some things are gonna happen and how are you gonna make sure you have money coming into you? And I think that’s important. So have a plan B.

    Quentin Edmonds (19:34)
    Absolutely. So well said. Again, thank you for being here. If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you, Ms. Chrystal?

    Chrystal Bell (19:47)
    So I own Aspen Business Consultants. We are a no-cost franchise consulting business. We want to help people just look at different business opportunities. We don’t deal with fast food, which is where most people think franchising is, and we don’t deal with liquor stores and convenience stores. We focus on franchises that are actually going to give you better profit margins than fast food.

    Quentin Edmonds (19:52)
    .

    Chrystal Bell (20:12)
    And so we look at home services, beauty and health, wellness, ⁓ fitness, all of that stuff. We look at everything else and it’s no cost. it’s like, okay, how can I help these people that just want to look at it? And there’s no commitment. You don’t have to buy. Let’s just listen and see how we can diversify what’s out there. So they can contact me on my phone number, 970.

    four zero, my goodness. ⁓

    Quentin Edmonds (20:43)
    If

    you can’t remember it, send it to me later. be big shock to the process. But I did come down to sing, but yeah.

    Chrystal Bell (20:47)
    Yeah

    Yeah, or they can go on to AspenBusinessConsultants.com, fill out a form and I am there. yes.

    Quentin Edmonds (20:57)
    Gotcha, gotcha. We’ll get

    that number from you. Listen, I’ve been there. We’ll get that number from you. That way we can make sure we post it. I’m still stuck on the no-cost part. I’m like, ⁓ like she doubling down on really wanting to help people. my goodness, girl. So yeah, absolutely. Ms. Chrystal, please allow me to say three things to you. First, thank you for your time. Time is a precious commodity. You could have been doing anything you want to with your time, but you made a commitment to be here. So thank you. Thank you so much for your time.

    Secondly, thank you for your story. I believe stories are so powerful because they plant a seed in people and we never know what growth possibilities are going to come from that, but there’s a seed in people and sometimes it’s course correction. Sometimes it’s literally light bulb moments that they hear and it’s like, wow, why didn’t I think of that? So thank you so much for sharing your story. Lastly, thank you for your perspective, for your mindset and bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly appreciate you, man.

    Chrystal Bell (21:52)
    I appreciate you. Thank you for all of this. This is awesome.

    Quentin Edmonds (21:55)
    Absolutely. So listen, y’all heard Ms. Chrystal. Y’all can’t tell me y’all ain’t get value from that. Y’all got the value. Check the show notes. I’ll make sure her number’s in the show notes. I’ll get it from her. Check the show notes. Definitely check our Aspen Business Consultant, our no-cost model. Y’all listen, like, come on, check her out. And listen, definitely check her out, but make sure you are subscribed here, because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people. For Ms. Chrystal, I thank you again. And everyone else, listen.

    Y’all have a fantastic

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