Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Chris McKellar. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Chris, appreciate you joining us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

We take the long road! Using top-caliber ingredients, we minimally process our ice cream. This stands in contradistinction to other ice creams on the market. We are artisans, not merely assemblers.

Chris, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’ve been a creative since childhood, always enrolled in art classes. At 15 I took up guitar and spent the next 20 years writing, recording, and performing music throughout the country. After high school I earned a business degree from Grand Valley State University. Along the journey I honed my skills in graphic and web design, starting a company that specialized in e-commerce web development. As my interest was piqued by food from my work and travel endeavors, I began learning how to cook – not intentionally, but out of a growing fascination for learning where ingredients come from, how to use them, and what differentiates the top-tier ingredients from run of the mill. I was hooked. After divesting my interest in the web development company, I took time to attend culinary school and began networking, which did not come naturally. This turn led to the birth of Love’s Ice Cream & Chocolate in 2013. Since its inception, Love’s has always marched to the beat of a different drummer. Opting for the path less traveled to bring customers something exceptional and rare in the world of treats: minimally processed. Currently I am working on two new startups. The first is in an advisory role for an ice cream startup called Protein Pints – an athletic recovery brand. Second, my own brainchild, a nutritional snack bar based on the macadamia nut. My food exploration journey is forever evolving. For the past three years, I have been intensely focused on applying my knowledge of ingredients, cooking, baking, and confectionery, and how it translates into human nutrition, especially in an ancestral / genetic context. I feel like I’m just getting started.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Make the main thing the main thing. I thought that if I built another something new, customers would come without question. After three years of operating as a craft ice cream maker, I ceded to the world’s beckoning to grow. I leased a 6X larger facility and opened a sister brand of Neapolitan-style pizza. I thought it was a match made in heaven: customers would come for a meal and leave with dessert. While it worked to an extent, it was difficult managing two entirely different concepts from the same space – shared kitchen and dining room (different service counters though). Two years later I decided that I was spinning my wheels due to the location, staffing, and demands on my time and I wasn’t interested in that compromised quality of life. With the approval of the landlord, I closed the pizza shop. Since I wasn’t allowed to operate a singular concept from this large lease area, I invested heavily again in a remodel project and opened a confectionery concept under the Love’s brand. Love’s is still known for ice cream, as the chocolate offering is always secondary in customers’ minds. That first decision to not keep the main thing the main thing has handicapped my capacity to focus on working on the ice cream side of the business, as my focus has been continually split by pizza, and now chocolate.

Can you talk to us about your experience with selling businesses?

I started an e-commerce web development company in 2007, selling it to a competitor in 2011. The transaction was fairly smooth, but the payout was not. Know your risks of seller financing. I was so set on seeing the deal through that I was willing to seller finance. There were months where the payment didn’t arrive and I questioned whether I would see it or future payments. Toward the end, as the buyer had more difficulty making the payments, they asked to settle on a final lump sum. While I ended up getting less than the original purchase price in total, I chose to accept the offer to mitigate further risk and put the whole transaction to rest. More recently I was approached about acquisition of my current company. While I had never set out to sell this business, thoughts of what possibilities could unfold began to burst like fireworks in my head. Through a couple months of negotiations, the deal ultimately fell through because on paper, the business doesn’t look as attractive. We maximized write-offs and consistently invested back into the business in order to uphold my values and commitment to excellence, creating a fulfilling company culture and business pursuit. In short, I didn’t build the business to sell. The big lesson here, which I am implementing now, is build the business to sell, even if you never plan on doing so. This puts you in a position with much more leverage, freedom, and peace of mind when the business can function all or largely in part with you absent. How? My recommendation is to read the E-Myth by Michael Gerber to gain a mindset for how to “systemitize” a business, and then work to methodically install processes that address every function in the business. Over time you can delegate areas of the operation and know that they are being managed in ways you designed.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lovesicecream.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lovesicecreamgr/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lovesicecreamgr
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismckellar/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/loves-ice-cream-grand-rapids

Image Credits
Ashley Wierenga