STERLING, VA — Growing up, Chanel Grant and her sister Lauren Williamson watched their parents be entrepreneurs and build businesses. They even had a business in Sterling and lived there for a while.
Although the family moved on with the business and the sisters went to college, they later came back to the thought of doing business together.
“My mom, my sister and I were just talking, like that was so much fun when we were in business together. Let’s do it again. And we all were working full-time corporate jobs,” Grant told Patch.
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The sisters, with their mother Toya Evans, decided to pursue franchising as an easy way to get back into business. Rather than starting a business concept from scratch, franchises provided them with a “blueprint,” and all they had to do was carry out the blueprint.
Their franchise ownership business, Healthy Living Ventures, focuses on franchises that promote healthy living. Today, the family owns three Hand and Stone Massage and Facial Spas, including the latest opening at Sterling’s Cascade Overlook Town Center.
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“There weren’t too many other places, like other franchise locations, for folks to get facials and things,” said Grant. “This is very near and dear to our hearts, because we lived here for several years, so it’s nice to kind of bring something back to the community that I grew up in.”
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In addition, the family owns six Tropical Smoothie Cafes, with traditional locations in Prince George’s County, Maryland and others on military bases like the Pentagon, Andrews Air Force Base and Fort Belvoir. They also recently opened VIO Med Spa in Woodbridge.
Hand and Stone Massage and Facial Spa, a franchise focused on providing massage and facial services, goes along with the family’s healthy living business mindset. Grant said the aesthetics of the spas appealed to them, and they wanted to bring healthy lifestyle products and services to the community in an available territory. Guests at Hand and Stone can get a la carte services, but it also has a membership program to receive a one-hour massage or signature facial each month.
“What I love about the membership is it kind of forces you to slow down for at least one hour that month,” said Grant. “And if anyone is like me, you can look up and looked up in July is over, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God. Like, what have I done for myself?’ I just think that the membership kind of commits you to say, I’m gonna at least take that one hour for myself.”
On running businesses with family, Grant says, “we just have a really great dynamic.”
“Everyone has their own role, and that helps. But we’re able to kind of bounce back and forth between being mom and daughters and then being business partners, and we just all align so well.” said Grant. “We joke sometimes, if you spoke to one of us, you’ve pretty much spoken to all of us, because we’re that aligned in the way that we think, the way we strategize.”
Along with running businesses, the sisters started an online course to help others get into franchise owning, especially women and people of color. Their course, “So You Want to Buy a Franchise?” seeks to address underrepresentation of African American franchise owners.
“Our biggest passion is around getting more women and minorities in the industry,” said Grant. “We go to some conferences, and we’re just so underrepresented that is kind of what fuels us, so we take mentoring calls happily.”
They often field mentoring calls each week from prospective franchisees, encouraging them to believe in themselves and whichever higher power they believe in. To date, Grant and Williamson have taught dozens of potential franchise owners about the path to owning a business.
“For us, it’s just important to share how we get it and how someone else can do it,” said Grant. “I think that’s probably one of the most rewarding between that and helping our employees develop, but seeing someone else that I’ve talked to on the phone say, ‘hey, I ended up opening that location,’ it’s just the most rewarding thing.”
As for their future as business owners? Grant expects the family’s entrepreneurship journey to continue as long as they are passionate about running businesses.
“We’re having fun with it,” said Grant. “We’ll keep rolling until it’s not fun anymore.”
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