How can you generate multiple streams of income through franchising or passive investments? What should you do BEFORE quitting your job to do these activities?
That’s exactly what my friend, Chaz Wolfe, serial entrepreneur and business leader, shares with us in this episode, including the #1 thing that has helped him become a millionaire by age 29. Tune in now!
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Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Leveraging Your Business And Investments With Chaz Wolfe
I have got a special guest here, someone that I’m excited to have on because this guy does not play at crazy little tiny sandbox level here. This guy is awesome. We have a Chaz Wolfe here. He’s a high-performing serial entrepreneur. There’s no doubt. This guy has built multiple and even sold multiple seven-figure businesses. He has everything from real estate investing, consulting, franchises, and things like that we will talk about today. He’s also amazingly, not a successful business owner but very disciplined in his own life and that’s something that I also admire him as well, is that he’s not someone who wears himself out and works hard. He’s a guy that excels in all areas of his life. I’m excited to have you here, Chaz. Welcome to the show.
I appreciate being here. It’s great to be back together after you being on my show. It was a great relationship and we are happy to be back with you.
We had a ton of fun on your show too, so I’m excited to see what we do here as well. Give them a little bit more about your background because you were a millionaire by age 29, which is amazing. We share that similarity but tell us more about your story.
I grew up in a single mom family and that comes with all the general things that you might think about. My mom worked hard in 2 and 3 jobs but had no financial education to be able to pass on because it wasn’t given to her either. She did pass on her work ethic, commitment, and grit to life. If I was going to go get anything, it was going to be because I went and got it, not because I waited or expected anybody to give it to me.
That parlayed right into a lot of things in my life. The sales career, eventually getting into business ownership, eventually getting into investing in real estate, and all the things that you mentioned. At 24 years old, I left a six-figure sales corporate job. I was leading and building sales teams and opened up my first franchise.
It seems to be an easy exit from the corporate world as a franchise system and built seven locations of edible arrangements. It’s a gift brand. I still owned a couple of those here today, but did that in my twenties and had 7 locations over 3 states and 60 to 65 employees. I’m about 10 or 11 years into that journey but 5 or 6 years ago, I started a journey in real estate and didn’t know what to do, but I knew I needed assets and other things to pay me. I’m sure a lot like your readers, they are getting that place and they got to get things figured out, whether it’s a job or the business that they have and maybe have a little bit of money or maybe have some gumption that they can do more.
That’s where it was for real estate for me. I started buying some single-family homes. I ended up buying some small multi-family. I ended up getting into a short-term rental. That’s parlayed into investing in some different real estate companies. The mindset that maybe a year after even with your show that I had then was I knew that there was a better way, whether it was the job that I had or the initial businesses. I knew that I wasn’t done. I have got kids. I knew that there had to be an easier way to make money or maybe not easier, but a more secure passive way that I could build and then that would also benefit my kids and my grandkids. Hopefully, that gives a little bit of the background.
I was going to ask you that because you have been very successful in business already, and then to say, “I’m going to start venturing out and doing some of this as well.” That was my question to you. What was that motivation like? What was that a-ha moment of, “I can hustle and grind and use that grit that my mom taught me to build this thing to multiple 7, 8, or 9-figure businesses,” yet you still wanted to go do outside investing as well? At least more passive, something that doesn’t take away your attention too much.
If I only still had the job, maybe some readers do or built multiple businesses, I was a fan of having lots of different things working on my behalf. Me working on my behalf. Like you said, that grit and work ethic, I don’t think that will ever go away. I love actively building things. I also knew that like I’m limited. Inside a business, I’m limited until I can build a team. Outside of business, leveraging resources is the best thing. That’s my team personally.
All my little dollar team members. Not that I put my teams to work for me, but collectively we are working together as the benefit. With money, I put those suckers to work for me, and there are certain investments that I make that I’m involved with and maybe that require a certain acumen or understanding of that business. There are other ones where I’m like, “Here’s the check. My mailbox is right over there. Send me the monthly, quarterly, or whatever it is return.”
We were talking about this before you went on the air. Especially when you have more money and you are successful. I’m sure there are lots of financial guys that enter your life. It could be that local Northwestern Mutual guy that says like, “We are college buddies together and we should do this.” Did you ever have experiences like that where financial advisors say, “We need to sit down. I will show you something cool?”
You are right. I have had a couple of buddies and that’s always fine. Every 20, 21, 22, 23, or 24-year-old guy has sold insurance, financial services, or some cold call thing, which is great. You cut your teeth. I did the same thing with sales. I sold insurance and then eventually advertising. I don’t hate those guys. It’s the experience of they are regurgitating whatever it is that they have been told.
That part never set well with me. What stems from your message is like the same old garbage. It’s like everybody is in this line and I recognize everybody in this line. I’m like, “Let me go over here to this line.” One specific example that I can remember, I had 1 or 2 locations of my franchise at that time. I’m maybe 25 or 26 years old. I’m doing over seven figures in my business. I’m not crushing or making $1 million a year, but personally, we are doing okay. I’m doing pretty well.
I meet this guy at a networking event and he’s a financial advisor. I’m like, “I want to sit down with you too. This is great. When we sit down, you will show me your accounts. Show me where you have your money.” He was like, “Excuse me. Why would you ask me that?” I don’t know if you know what to say at that moment. “How dare I?” was the thought and I thought that was odd that he wouldn’t share. Not that he needed to consistently have more money than me. I know that there are plenty of guys out there that have a little bit of an ego where they are like, “If this guy hasn’t made more money than me, he can’t teach me anything.’
I don’t believe that, but I do believe like show me what you have done, and maybe it’s what I want to do too. Maybe it’s not, but how can you advise me if you haven’t at least done it for you? I love how you call yourself the non-financial advisor because for me all these years, I knew that I could make more money myself in a business or investing.
To have somebody like you in my life several years ago to say, “You are right. You can so let me partner with you in that way.” Not necessarily try to fit you into my box that everybody else is lined up for. Let’s come over here, let’s get creative, and let’s look at your specific situation. That would have been incredible, and I probably would be even further from where I am now compared to several years ago.
It’s a very interesting perspective. I love that. I want to go along with that like going along with your lines versus trying to go that route. You have done some things like franchising and whatnot. I know we have had a few topics on this show before too because, for some people, that seems like it could be a big benefit.
There are some time commitments that are in there. Some people feel like they are maybe too busy to take on anything and they need to get their little team of Benjamins working for them. Get their money to work for them instead. For those that maybe have a little extra time on the side, they could build something part-time. What advice would you give to them?
There are a lot of people who leave corporate jobs unto starting a business or a franchise specifically. I don’t necessarily think that you have to. It comes down to the system or the involvement. If the reader is considering this, I would ask them to ask themselves, “What is your skillset?” For me particularly at that time, I had a skillset in sales and marketing and so technically, I could have bought the location that I did and kept my job.
If I had a little different job, maybe I could have been a little bit more flexible in calling on corporate accounts and getting other people to order. Growing the business without having to physically be there because it was an existing business. There was already a team there in place. There’s always going to be turnover and things that you got to do to keep a business going, but I could have totally done that.
Eventually, I had four locations and I remember sitting on the couch going, “I’m bored.” It’s not because I wasn’t enthralled with the business. I had built some great teams and stuff so I know that it can be done because, at that moment, I had four franchises. I went back to work at the job I left three and a half years before that.
In that same couple-of-year period, I have four locations. I’m working a sales job. I have built 3 new locations and/or bought 1. I bought 1 and built 2 in 3 different cities. I had seven locations. I also started a real estate company. That’s a little bit crazy. I understand. Maybe that’s not the reader, but my point is that you can purchase a business. I would maybe eventually say an existing business. You don’t have to build it ground up if you are going to keep your job, but that’s possible. A lot of people do that.
I have noticed the more money you are willing to put into it, the more passive that franchise can become too. It seems like the more the lower price franchise, the ones you have to put a lot more time and energy into whereas with the other one, you can get more of your money working for you inside of it.
It’s maybe going back to purchasing something that’s already existing. If you are purchasing a franchise, number one, there’s a system or at least there should be. That’s an existing system, process, ideas, marketing, and things that corporate provides for you. If you can purchase an existing business, an already existing location of whatever this franchise is, you purchase something already in motion. It probably doesn’t need you to be in it as a mom-and-pop owner, although you probably could. You could still operate at a high level in your job and be a facilitator of people at that point.
There’s likely already a manager there that’s already running the show, running things in that location. It’s much easier. That’s almost like a turnkey type of system.
When you talk about passive income, there are varying degrees of how much you invest, what the return is, and what the involvement is. Those are the three factors maybe. There are lots of different ways. That’s my encouragement through you to your readers. Whether you consider yourself a business person, people person, or salesperson owning a business, there are lots of benefits to owning a business, but you don’t have to necessarily leave your job.
There was a huge benefit when I had both. I was much more bankable to be able to continue to grow even though I was still doing well. There are certain key factors of a W-2 that the reader right now could still benefit from. They don’t have to necessarily leave their job to be able to have side passive income or they are involved in. It’s not necessarily passive, but it’s a business.
That was one thing I noticed, too, when we coached some clients that have businesses, but also have that W-2 employment. They are like, “I’m thinking about quitting my job and going full-time to this.” I’m like, “Before you do that, let’s get every dollar to the bank will give us first, and then you can quit.” It’s so much easier to get it when you have that boring little job that gives you that steady little paycheck versus when you go into more 1099. Maybe you have a W-2 through your businesses, but for the most part, “Thanks. Love it,” when you have that boring W-2 job.
It’s consistency. That’s what they want to make sure you can make that payment. Here’s what practically it provides to the bank in that scenario. It provides a way for you to say in your business plan that you don’t need to pay yourself at least for a period of time. Whether you do or not, it doesn’t matter. If you do not have a job when you are doing the business plan and then the bank’s giving you a loan, SBA, or whatever, then they automatically take a certain percentage.
Whether you pay yourself or not, that’s how they are going to calculate whether they are going to do the deal or not, or how much they are willing to do the deal. If you have a side job and then this business, you have a plan around how those things can work together and you can still keep your job and then effectively run the business, usually they will allow you to allocate those funds back into the business and not have to allow it to be like owner income.
To play a little bit off the words I said earlier in the show, run your business because you want to, not because you have to because you don’t financially need the money from the business to be able to operate it.
Which is how an investor operates anyway. I’m putting my money to work not because I necessarily need those little dollars to come back. It’s more so of a long-term play of, “I like the little dollars. I want those little dollars to grow up and be bigger dollars,” but it’s discipline. It’s choice of discipline at that moment to choose this one thing now that maybe pays me a little bit, but over the course of time, it’s a business that’s being built or it’s an asset that later down the road is going to be worth more or that will sell. There are lots of long-term effects now even if the money passively is “little.”
Chaz, before I ask you the literal multimillion-dollar question for you in your life. How can people follow you or where can they find more information about you?
We are on all social media. Facebook is Chaz Wolfe and Instagram is Gathering The Kings. Gathering The Kings is the name of the podcast as well, and the name of our mastermind group for 7 and 8-figure owners. They can find us on TikTok as well, @ChazWolfe_Kings. We are out there. We want to be able to help entrepreneurs. We want to be able to connect and inspire people to reach their potential. Sometimes that looks like investing, sometimes that looks like leveraging time and key relationships like we are here now and pressing into those people that are around you and that can help you grow.
Gathering The Kings Podcast is a great podcast. I was on it and it’s a great thing to follow. I know you attract good high-level-quality people to your group too. They’re real sincere authentic people. The multimillion-dollar question for you is what do you attribute that’s helped you to create those multimillions in your life? Somebody might say like, “You are naturally good at business. You got that business acumen.” Even though your background would say differently, what would you say is for you that has helped you create that success?
It’s about greater or lesser desire. I don’t think that, as you said, with a single-mom family upbringing, I didn’t have a financial understanding. Nobody’s wealthy in my family, so I had to learn all these things. In order to learn them, I had to want to learn them. That’s the desire. If you don’t have a desire to either be better as a human, dad, husband, or productive citizen, that might look like to you purchasing a business and impacting more people in your community or making an investment. Whatever the thing is, you have to have the desire to either want more, be better, level up, or whatever you want to call it. It’s about greater or lesser desire, and I will leave you with a phrase. It’s, “People do what they want to do.”
The people that are reading right now will figure out ways whether that’s through you, connecting with you, or reading this. If they want to create passive income, they will do it. If they don’t, they won’t. I know that sounds like over simple, but I’m telling you right now if the desire gets hot enough, action starts to happen. That could be reaching out to Chris or getting on his website or whatever action that you need to take as a reader. The point is that if the desire is great enough, you will do it every single time.
It’s true. It’s sad how simple some of these little actions are because we have had so many people that have joined our family and will become our clients that said, “I have been reading this for a while and I finally decided maybe I will reach out like they have been asking. Maybe I will send an email.” Something as simple as an email changed the course of their life. It took that desire. The desire for passive income had to be bigger than moving their fingers to type an email. That’s pretty sad when I think about it that way.
It is, but you are 100% true. Their desire to either not change, not rock the boat, or be embarrassed potentially to reach out and have somebody look at their situation. All of that, that’s a greater desire at the moment. They need to flip the script and go, “I have a greater desire to become wealthy or create passive income,” or those two things. What do those two things give you? Time back with your family. To be able to pour into your church and community. Whatever you want to go do, you can’t because you don’t have passive income. Let’s be honest.
Whatever you want to go do, you can't because you don't have passive income. Click To TweetIt’s all about desire. You, too, were right. I knew it. He told me over and over in that song. I didn’t pick it up until just now. Chaz, I appreciate your time here with us. Chaz said it all like, “What’s your desire? What is it you truly want?” If something that Chaz said resonates with you and you are like, “That’s what I need,” do that. Go to his website. Go follow his podcast. Check that stuff out. Find ways to change your life now because it’s not about being a hearer of the word, it’s about being a doer as well. Go and make it a wonderful and prosperous week and we will see you later.
Important Links
- Chaz Wolfe
- Chaz Wolfe – Facebook
- Gathering The Kings – Instagram
- Gathering The Kings Podcast
- Gathering The Kings Mastermind Group
- @ChazWolfe_Kings – TikTok
- www.GatheringTheKings.com
About Chaz Wolfe
Chaz Wolfe is a high performing, serial entrepreneur. He has built, purchased & sold multiple 7 figure ventures in franchising, real estate and consulting. Chaz is a studied and accomplished professional who values discipline & integrity. He’s an operations & process maximizer and an award winning sales and business mind. Chaz is known to push the limits of work ethic, mindset and results. As a dynamic leader, consultant & speaker he has helped both domestic and international organizations achieve massive levels of growth and success!