Gresh highlights the eight business pillars that can help entrepreneurs evolve from builders to architects and ultimately become industry rockstars and luminaries.
He discusses the necessity of creating space for innovation, the role of self-care in maintaining entrepreneurial success, and her morning routine that supports her well-being.
Gresh also shares practical tools and success stories from her digital marketing experience, emphasizing integrity and client satisfaction.
This episode is a must-listen for entrepreneurs looking to leverage these pillars to elevate their business.
Episode Link: The Marketing Maverick
Business Pillar: Human/People & Entrepreneurship/Journey
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Full Interview:
Transcription:
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Gresham Harkless 00:00
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. And I wanted to share with you one of the episodes that I was a guest on for someone else's podcast. I always talk about how important it is to build a media company. One of the next best things you can do is be on somebody else's media company.
So I had the pleasure of being a guest on this podcast, and I wanted to share a little snippet with you because it would help support the Eight business pillars we've really been trying to focus on with a lot more of our content, a lot more of the solo episodes that I'm doing.
So make sure of course, that you subscribe to our podcast, but of course you take some time out, check out the show notes, subscribe to the podcast that I've been featured on as well, too, and get to learn about some of those eight business pillars.
And how you can continue to leverage and build that up. So you can go from builder to architect to a course at rockstar and luminary. So this is Gresh signing out. I hope you enjoy this I AM CEO special episode.
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One of the things that I did is we're repurposing episodes this year because we hit 1600 episodes. So I actually created some space and this is going to be, one of the. Things that just create space so that it allows you to really lean more into finding new solutions.
And I think that me, even with the podcast, I was going, going, going, I was kind of like, I don't want to say and hamster reel, but, just having the, doing that many episodes, you get through a certain flow.
So what I took upon myself is to do is disrupt that flow. And so I created and found, by going through all the podcasts, all the, show notes, the hacks and the nuggets that people shared is home 16 kind of business pillars. And 1 of the big things is exactly what I'm talking about, which we don't necessarily do is, I think once you especially have a level of success or get into a certain flow, we talked about a little bit about disruption and changing things and pivoting.
A lot of times we forget that we have to create some space in order for that to happen. And that could be, pausing, just from the day to day activities that we've done. It could be a week away. It could be, you even just doing that on a daily basis of just taking that time to say, this is my morning and I'm going to spend the 1st hour of my morning just, thinking brainstorming, meditating, praying, whatever it might be creating that space for that to happen is going to be so huge.
So, I don't want to minimize that impactful nature of being able to create space. And then I think 1 of the other things that I think really. Stuck with B is I'm a huge like sports fan. So, during the pandemic a lot of people watch the last dance and that was 1 of my favorite shows talked about Michael Jordan and just all of those things.
And he's, he had this quote where he says there is no I and team, but there's an eye and when, and I took that as being 1 of the business pillars is that there's an eye and when and what I mean by that is different than what he meant. But I think it's The phrase that we forget and we forget about, which is filling your own cup, putting on your own oxygen mask.
Self care is something that came out a lot during the pandemic, where we're so many times, especially entrepreneurial people are so much pouring into other people. They're giving so much of themselves that they forget exactly what it is. And why they're doing the things that they do and what they're doing.
So I say that to say that, you want to make sure that you remember that there is an I in win. And for the sake of your audience, for the sake of your team members, for the sake of yourself, your family, whatever, whoever's in your life, you want to make sure that you do fill up your cup, because that allows you that opportunity to win.
To give more and more and more towards other people. And I think when you're able to understand at least those two things, it, it really sets you on a different trajectory because I think you get to lead in a, in a, in a different way because you know that you have, given so much and you also know, how to pause and give those pivots and those changes on a daily basis or even, on a on a yearly basis.
Dr. Caroline Iscovitz 03:44
Yeah, absolutely. Everything you said there, I was just like, yes. And yes, because part of my timeline is putting yourself at the top of the priority list and being a former therapist and just in giving and service and everything along those lines, I think to entrepreneurs, just like you said, business owners, you're giving so much of yourself.
And it's so crucial to have that time and space. I think every day But it, I think there's a lot of misconceptions of what self-care is. It's have to go away for a week or a spa or like this or that or a bath. And it's also setting those boundaries. It's also taking care of yourself and knowing, okay, this is my sacred time.
Nobody can bother me in this five minutes. Even if that's all you have, it's still being able to create that because it is going to impact you and compound if you don't do something about it. So I'm so glad we're talking about that. And what are some of the things that you personally do when it comes to your well-being, making sure that you're taking care of yourself with everything you have going on?
Gresham Harkless 04:41
Yes, yes, yes. It's so important when I talked about and one of the things that came up during the podcast, I think it made me lean more, even more into it. Was my morning routine and I think realizing that your morning routine sometimes doesn't start that morning. It starts the day before. So, sometimes the night before you just planning and knowing the things that you're going to do.
But for me, I would say I echo exactly what you say is it doesn't necessarily have to be 100Million hour bazillion times. You don't have to go and fly on a plane to go to this far out. Retreat in nature to be able to have that self-care. You can do that in very little. So, for me, I wake up fairly early.
And then I get up, I basically, read my Bible. I do all the things that I need to do as far as brushing my teeth, doing all those things. And then I take my dog out. And then I usually go from there and then just come back and get everything that I need to get started.
So I have my protein shake. I have my tea and usually I have a huge overly sized gallon of water that I usually try to drink within the day. So I usually do all of those things just to get me started. But I think that being able to check in and have that time, even if it sometimes gets wacky, or it doesn't go according to plan.
It's big that I have at least. Some things that are part of that, that helps out before I meet with my wife and I take my son to school, just all of those things come after the fact, but I try to get a little bit of time before it gets a little bit too noisy in life. And that's been huge. But I go to the gym regularly, like two to three times a week.
I am a huge Epsom salt bath person so that my body can recover. So I'm definitely that person. And I will say this, like I actually am still working on, I don't see Sleep as well, generally. So I'm, it's why it's so important for me to take care of those things so that I can like, have those spaces.
And I know that people are saying, people might say, Hey, you need to get, 8.5, hours of sleep and, things like that. And I think that one of the big things that I've learned is that it doesn't necessarily have to be the same for everybody. You wanna make sure that you're getting your rest, you just might have to do it in a different way.
So that's been, what I've been doing. And that's what's worked for me.
Dr. Caroline Iscovitz 06:42
And so with everything that you have learned through this journey, what would you say are some of the best tools that you've used to build your podcast, the handbook, everything, all your services, everything you do?
Gresham Harkless 06:54
Hands down, I would say probably the 2 biggest things that have helped me, especially with a podcast creating a daily podcast and doing that is no small feat.
I, of course, have a team. So I don't want to zoom past the fact that it's not just me, editing the podcast, creating the show notes and things like that. That's been super helpful. But I would say from a very, maybe the hack standpoint and tools that you can implement. 1st of all, my scheduler, I use Acuity.
Acuity scheduling, which is now owned by Squarespace. That's been huge for me, but I know a lot of people use Calendly. That's another big and popular one. what that does, especially if you have guests that are, or even people, and you're having meetings with people from different time zones. I'm terrible at figuring out what time zone they are, and when they're not, I always end up an hour late or hour early for whatever meeting I was in. supposed to be at.
So that link just allows you to have the person click. It goes directly on your calendar. It goes directly on their calendar and you guys can both meet so you can automate a lot of the things within that. I have it set up to, connect with my newsletter and all these different things.
So it's very, very cool. Has been a huge, huge, huge time saver. The other big thing is really big into using Base Camp. So other forms of Base Camp are Asana. There's Click Up. There's a lot of different tools that you can use. It's basically a project management software. So what has helped, especially from a digital marketing standpoint is any project that we work on gets its own Base Camp and basically its own project.
So everybody who's on the team has access to it. We all communicate directly through there. What that has done is it allowed me not to get caught in every doing everything. Everything doesn't go through my, everything is in base camp as much as possible and what that really has opened up is for 1 things aren't in my head because I mentioned about the whole scheduling.
Sometimes that goes well, most of the time it doesn't. But I think 2, it allows me to know that. Okay. I think I talked with talk with this person about X, Y, and Z, but I can't remember if it's 2 years. If it's 3 years, if it's yesterday, I can go back and see a lot of that communication.
So it doesn't necessarily mean that I know about all the things, but I know where to find all the things, which I think has been extremely freeing and powerful for me. So if I could take, those two things maybe three things, including the team that has been huge for me to continue to keep, hopefully, rock and roll.
Dr. Caroline Iscovitz 09:12
Yeah, no, that's big. I definitely need a team working on that one, but being able to just help and also have things organized, because you're right. When you're dealing with so many different time zones, it can be so confusing of trying to figure it out. And it's here's the calendar, figure it out yourself.
So it just makes it a little bit easier, but I love that you are in the digital marketing space, and I would love for you to just share one or two client success stories with us to see the amazing work that you are doing.
Gresham Harkless 09:37
Yeah. So. My best clients are, I say, people that know enough to be dangerous and often have had a less than ideal experience with digital marketing.
And this is a lot of times where I like to connect with a lot of other marketers is because I'm very much so I try to approach things from an abundance mindset where I feel like there's more than enough opportunity to serve in different ways as digital marketing has grown tremendously.
I've been in business for 10 years, so it's way different than what it was 10 years ago. And some might argue 10 minutes ago, it's way different. So one of my best referrals I actually had from somebody who was on my show who also is a fellow podcaster, this Teresa, she introduced me to a plumber that was in Massachusetts and this plumber hadn't, they hadn't had a really great experience with digital marketing because it really was the SEO piece.
Which if you're super familiar with SEO, all it stands for is search engine optimization, helping you to rank when people are searching for you online. There's good and bad ways that you can do that. But for clients, sometimes it's hard to get a handle on what exactly a SEO or an agency is doing. So we try to pride ourselves on being and communicating, providing reports, providing, meetings, just any of those things that kind of help, alleviate any of that to make it a lot more tangible and have a greater Experience, but that has been my client for the last, 4 or 5 years, largely because we've been able to continue to help improve.
But I think what really stuck with me and why I consider it more of a success story than other is because. She had a bad experience. And often when people have a bad experience, they don't want anything to do with it. Just imagine it being like a bad breakup. Once you have a bad breakup, you don't want to date again.
It's just not a great experience. So I think getting that opportunity and being able to understand that. It was a frustration over not getting the results that she wanted. The person did a lot of, they call it black hat practices, which are not, ethical practices within the SEO world.
So, put her behind a ball, but we were able to help clean that up, help improve her rankings and help her to help her and the whole team to get more opportunity. So that's been probably 1 of my success stories that I really hang my hat on is because it's not. Sometimes of course you want to have the success, but sometimes I think it's just being able to have that connection in that relationship and being trusted and knowing that you're a person of integrity that I feel isn't done a lot in my industry.
So, that's been huge for me. And it's something that, hopefully, continue to have more and more of those, stories that you could share.
Dr. Caroline Iscovitz 12:05
I appreciate that too, because I think a lot of people do have a bad experience with digital marketing because of just different situations, but I love that you were able to turn it around for her and give her a new perspective on it, but also be able to help her and get her where she wanted to be.
And it goes back to integrity just knowing you're doing the right thing. There is no black market or anything along those lines.
Gresham Harkless 12:27
Hello, hello, this is Gresh again, and I hope you enjoyed that special episode of the I am CEO podcast. Just like I mentioned in the beginning, we're really trying to laser focus on these eight pillars and show you as a builder, how you can leverage these. Eight pillars and really level up there. So it helps you level up your business and organization.
So hope you enjoyed this episode. And definitely please check out the show notes. So you can learn more about the pillar, learn more about the person that I guessed it on their episode. And of course, learn more, a little bit more about us as well, too. This is grass signing out. I'll be up a phenomenal rest of the day.
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