IAM500 – Special Episode with Gresham Harkless

Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:30

Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO, podcast, TV nation blue 16 media and all of the awesome things that we're doing for entrepreneurs and business owners just like yourself to basically learn how to be more successful in resources and hearing stories and hearing about other entrepreneurs and business owners that can help us to reach our potential and even further than what our potential sometimes we think that we can achieve. So, this is a very, very special epis ode. This is episode number 500 of the I AM CEO podcast. This is our daily podcast, if you have not listened before, gives us an opportunity to really drill down and hear from entrepreneurs and business owners exactly what it is they do to be successful. Hear their stories and peel back that onion to hear overall exactly the things that they do to be effective and efficient and how we can learn from those entrepreneurs and business owners exactly how to do that. So if you haven't heard from me, my name is Gresham Harkless, Jr. Everyone calls me Gresh, have gradually everywhere on the site introduce myself as aggression. I started CB nation years ago, really as just a exploratory kind of project just to kind of get that writing bug that I have out, but also learn a lot about entrepreneurship and business about what it takes to be successful, how to be successful, even how not to be successful, sometimes what you learn, usually a lot better than anything else. But through this exploration of learning about entrepreneurship learned about how exactly I wanted to create a business what business I wanted to create, I started a digital marketing company called Blue 16 Media and from there, we basically focus on web design and SEO, primarily, and at the heart, usually say of our philosophy is that you are a media company mindset taking that same journalistic approach to your overall digital marketing strategy. Especially as the cost of what it takes to create video, create audio podcast, create blogs has decreased and continues to increase and probably will continue to decrease. We have a lot more power and accessibility probably to create and be our own media companies to help in this and that our message and get our stories heard. So with that being said, both of those are combined. That's really what I usually focus on more than anything else is these two opportunities. I'm really excited because this podcast as we close out the year in this century, this episode number 500, is gonna be probably the last solo podcast, you'll hear from me about what's going on in this year. So I wanted to kind of spend most of the time just to kind of ramp you up and get you ready for some of the things that we have that are going to be unfolding in the new year and in the new century, I can even say now to 2020 is around the corner. So completely awesome what I've been able to do, and it took a very long time, but get kind of very closely refined and simplify our overall approach and our strategy. As you heard me kind of talk about it from the I AM CEO podcast, the podcast you're listening to now really is the first thing that was created with both of those, I guess parts of the mission in mind. The overall mission is for us to increase the business success rate for millions of entrepreneurs and business owners. We're doing that basically by giving the opportunity for entrepreneurs and business owners to get that visibility, opportunity to talk about their stories, their background, what it is that they provide from a product or service standpoint with Arizona geniuses. Then the second part is really focused on resources and in hearing about what exactly we can do to be more successful as entrepreneurs and business owners what resources are available to us, whether it be organisations that join our networking events, or events in general. Or maybe it's an app that we should download or kind of some habit that we should have on a regular everyday basis to help increase our likelihood of success. I can't say how many times I've heard from entrepreneurs and business owners. I wish I knew that that existed or I wish I knew about your business or I didn't know exactly that you provide it that so we're not necessarily providing those services. We're providing a platform by which you can find out that information. So that's why we have lots of blog content, daily blogs, at least one per day, that will be continuing to happen into 2020 and we have a daily podcast that you're listening to now the I AM CEO podcast and our CEO chat podcast which is all under the umbrella of CEO podcast was sunset this past year 2019 and then it's going to be brought back out in 2020 as more of an experimental podcast. Originally, the goal was, for me to get the I AM CEO podcast up and running and probably about halfway through the year start to experiment a little bit more with the CEO chat pod cast. But with that being said, a lot of times you're very ambitious and how things are going to flow and go. It doesn't necessarily always go that way. So I've had to replace different people on the team, namely, podcast editor, so my heart is doing a phenomenal job of editing our podcast right now. I'm super excited that we were able to get him on the team and get everything up and going and we're also going to start doing more video content. So you can also see our team of vets helping out with a video content at the interviews for the I AM CEO podcast, start to regularly post that on our YouTube channels. So you will be able to see all that if you just go to ceopodcast.com. But the reason that I wanted to focus on that is because the team has literally been everything and keeping this show on the road and being able to make sure that you have the right people in place, but also as a person that is a leader and a person that's trying to make sure everything is going well. That vision is kind of executed on and also not just from my standpoint, but from everybody else on the team as well to just the vision that we have. So you also will hear and if you have emailed you, I'm sure you've heard the name and seen the name Mercy, she does a phenomenal job of organising our content and getting everything out that you basically see on a regular everyday basis. That's everything from the blogs, as I talked about from guest posts to email interviews that we're doing, the book reviews, just all that content that hits one, if not both parts of the mission, but also to our podcasts, our daily podcasts that we have going out, you'll see a lot of that content is coming specifically from Mercy's computer, basically. She's organising a lot of that content, responding to emails doing a phenomenal job. I definitely appreciate her for all the awesome things that we're doing. We're a small but mighty team, but we're getting a lot of content out there and hopefully providing a lot of value for entrepreneurs and business owners. We have those three different ways that we are creating content, if you didn't hear exactly what they are, you will see them anytime you basically go to a site, you'll see listen, read and watch and listen just as the podcast and read the blogs. Then we have the video, which is the podcasts that are also being played as well, too. So you have all those different ways that we're creating content for entrepreneurs and business owners. We're trying to touch on all those different senses, so to speak, so that people can kind of get the best possible quality content that you can get. Basically a lot of different ways, so you can again hit that mission, be successful in doing that in a very aggressive way. That's basically what we are working on and as you have known if you've listened to this podcast, the goal is to really hear the background here about our secret sauce and hear how what makes us unique in the very first part of the podcast. And our secret sauce is of course, when I usually talk about the you are a media company philosophy, taking your own medicine, preaching or practising exactly what you preach. That's exactly what we're trying to do from a Blue 16 Media standpoint, but also from a CB Nation standpoint, in trying to provide content to basically help out our target market, which is those CEOs, entrepreneurs and business owners. So you can definitely hear more about that if you go to like your media company.com You can check out our site and where we talk about that full actual philosophy and how we're executing that from a CV nation standpoint. But with that being said, one of the really great pillars that I'm looking forward to in 2020 is the second part of the podcast and these are 60 minute podcast rounds, 60 minutes or so but super laser focused because I really want the second part of the inner the interview to be really high value. I really want to be able to glean from the guests their zone of genius, everybody that's on the show, especially if they work in that b2b space, the business space, I really want to hear from them, what exact advice they would give for entrepreneurs and business owners based off their zone of genius? So that's why you're definitely gonna hear a lot of people that work with entrepreneurs and business owners on the show also because I'm from the DC, Maryland and Virginia area. You're also going to see people from the DC, Maryland and Virginia area that are on the show as well to to kind of have that local feeling. Finally, we're going to continue to feature people that had been featured on the site in many different ways. So that could have been somebody that was in has written a guest post it could be somebody that has or has been a part of our roundup posts, but again, these are different ways that we are creating content and hopefully creating get a lot of resources and value to help make these entrepreneurs and business owners more successful just like you. So with that being said, I go down the line, the very first thing I use, he asked if he listened to the podcast is for CEO hack, CEO hack is like an app, book or habit that you have, that helps to make you more effective and efficient. What we are starting to do going into 2020 is you're going to hear even more about CB Nation Plus, CB Nation Plus is kind of like our subscription or membership, where you get the opportunity to get really high value content. I actually thought about creating it an additional site that had even premium content. But when I started to do the homework and read, I realised that a lot of the foundation was built through CEO blog nation and CEO podcast and CB Nation TV. So I wanted to really incorporate a lot of the valuable content we were getting from the interviews from the site, within the existing sites, rather than reinvent the wheel just kind of provide some even premium content. You're definitely gonna see some digital marketing information, obviously. You're also going to hear a lot of insight from the guests that have been on the show people that have been featured on the show, some premium content and information like blogs and podcasts, and also some e-books and just lots of different things that we're doing to create content. We're hoping to do some regular events as well too, for members of CB Nation Plus, so you can always sign up free seven day trial, you'll hear this a lot just because we're really doing a big push on CB Nation Plus in the new year, because we think that there's a lot of premium and high quality content, we want to kind of aggregate and organise a little bit easier to be found for these entrepreneurs and business owners. So that could be resources that are available to you, other hacks that you should know about. But also just content that we have gotten from guests and people that we feel like we want to share out to those people that are once want to make that that additional investment. So CEO hack is going to be CB Nation Plus, be sure to sign up for this free seven day trial this year. Then this upcoming year and 2020 in this upcoming century, I should say again, too. Then the next thing you're going to look for is a CEO nugget. That's usually what I asked for people that have been on the show and I used to say that's a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. Or if you can even happen to a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self, and the CEO nugget that I wanted to touch on this year for this podcast is a lot along the lines of why I wanted to make a focus on that B2B space. We as entrepreneurs and business owners have so many things that are coming at us in order to try to create content to try to figure out exactly what we're trying to do to be successful that I love the opportunity to really get people that have on the show exactly. That opportunity to speak exactly to their zone of genius, or sometimes their current work or a lot of times their life work to determine that advice that we can get. So basically, if you knew the most successful person, and you knew exactly why they were successful, and you had the opportunity to ask them that one thing that one piece of advice, what would you ask them and that's the idea from the CEO nugget. So for me, as you have heard, we're web design and CEO company, I wanted to put on my Blue 16 Media hat and tell you a lot more about an SEO kind of tip. I talked about the your media company kind of mindset and approach that you should have. But I want to drill down even deeper to SEO, because I think one of the biggest things about SEO is that a lot of people don't take that kind of first initial step before they jump into oh, I want to rank for this or I want to rank for that. They don't necessarily do the homework and the due diligence to figure out exactly what they want to rank for in relation to how their customers and clients or people that they want to be found in front of are searching for and with SEO is becoming a lot more competitive to try to show up for certain keywords and really, the real nugget is when you drill down and do that work. The next step is figuring out what are the long tail searches that you can rank for and those longtail searches are often what you can rank for. Because the top level searches those plumber in Alexandria, Virginia, or maybe it's a an attorney in Washington, DC or dense is in Alexandria, Virginia, those searches are a lot more flooded for one and even kind of the overall anatomy of the search page has changed so dramatically that it's a lot harder to rank for that. But people are searching so much differently than they have when SEO was the first thing that you would try to do. You want to have that long term approach to your overall website and when you build a website, that's what you really want to think about. It's not the only thing definitely, again, check out the your media company mindset to hear more about that, but you really want to understand that it is a very, very important thing to kind of keep in mind. So that is the thing you want to take advantage of more than anything else. Find out those longtail searches, what are those sentences or phrases that your clients are using to be able to find you so make sure to do that. Last but not least my absolute favourite question the definition of what it means to be a CEO, we are hoping to have different CEOs, quote-unquote CEOs I say on this show, because we're looking to provide a holistic definition of what it means to be a CEO, entrepreneur and business owner. With that being said, a CEO to me is all about a mentality. It's a mentality that you have whether you have one employee you have zero employees, you don't even have a business yet, having that mentality on how to grow, how to see the forest for the trees and how to grow beyond what you can even see is how you can be a CEO. So with that being said, I'm wishing you a Happy Holidays and Happy New Year as well to please definitely come back to us in 2020 and beyond and also of course, please check out cbnation.co and then of course CB Nation Plus to get all your premium content. With that being said, this is Gresh signing out. Hope you have a phenomenal start to the new year.

Outro 16:23

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai