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IAM2197 – The Importance of having a Solid Marketing Foundation

Promotional graphic for Season 7, Episode 2197 of "I Am CEO." Features Gresham Harkless Jr. and Omar Angri discussing the importance of a solid marketing foundation.

In this episode, Gresham Harkless emphasizes the importance of having a solid marketing foundation, likening it to the crust of a dessert that holds everything together.

He focuses on essential elements like website support and SEO to ensure businesses can handle opportunities effectively.

Gresham highlights the importance of building a strong foundation for marketing, the concept of “spaciousness” in business growth, and his personal philosophy on running one's own race.

Business Pillar: Visibility

Episode Link: Margin Business

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Transcription:

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Gresham Harkless Teaser 00:00

A lot of what we do is to help people build what is that foundation for that marketing strategy that you're gonna have.

So if you think of it just like a dessert, think about it as like the crust, the thing that's gonna hold everything together because you wanna have that strong foundation.

So that you can get those clients and customers so that you aren't overrun by those opportunities. So we focus on the website. We focus on the website support

Intro 00:34

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 could 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 8 business pillars we've really been trying to focus on with a lot more of our content and 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.

And subscribe to the podcast that I've been featured on as well too and get to learn about some of those 8 business pillars and how you can continue to leverage and build that up so you can go from builder to architect to, of course, at rock star luminary.

So this is Gresh signing out. I hope you enjoy this I AM CEO special episode.

Omar Angri 01:27

What is your superpower within these two companies? I mean, I can already tell because you're very energetic. You have one thousand six hundred podcasts.

That means you are throwing the media out very, very well and very detailed and structured, and this is how it works as well. But please tell me in your own words.

Gresham Harkless 01:46

Yeah. Absolutely. I think what we do, especially from the Blue16 Media standpoint, is really helping people to build what I like to call a foundation.

[restrict paid=”true”]

So I give a talk often where I say everybody's in the media business, and I compare your marketing strategy because my mom's sweet potato pie is my absolute favorite.

So it could be chocolate cake. It could be whatever it is. But what I really recommend to people is that they look at building that out just like they're building their own recipe.

And they're figuring out what ingredients are essential. You have to put all the things in place. You have to mix it perfectly.

Most people when they wanna build things, they'll go to the grocery store. They'll go to grocery store hungry, so to speak, and they'll put everything into their cart. I need to do a podcast. I need to write a book. I need to have a Facebook group. I need to have a YouTube they do all of the things.

And where I think it help hurts definitely, people is that they don't have a real, honest look at at the time and energy that it puts in, but also the resources that you have available to you.

So a lot of what we do is to help people build what is that foundation for that marketing strategy that you're gonna have.

So if you think of it just like a dessert, think about it as like the crust, the thing that's gonna hold everything together because you wanna have that strong foundation so that you can get those clients and customers so that you aren't overrun by those opportunities.

So we focus on the website. We focus on the website support and we definitely focus on the SEO as well too because I feel like those are basically foundational things to help those brands grow.

If you really think of some of the sometimes the best and most popular, media brands that they have a strong social media present, but you don't know where they're sending people to.

If you have a really strong podcast, you're getting all these downloads, but you don't necessarily have, a site or a a business or anything along those lines connected to that.

It's really thinking about that strong foundational piece and how that goes hand in hand with all the work that the ingredients can do so that you can, at the end of the day, hit your goals.

Omar Angri 04:01

Okay. Okay. That's, already, really good. So and there is, I mean, the two companies are actually, they provide different services and have different values. Correct?

Gresham Harkless 04:13

Correct. Correct.

Omar Angri 04:14

Okay. Okay. Okay. That's already yeah.

Gresham Harkless 04:18

Yeah. And Blue16 Media is more service based and okay, CB Nation is more product based. So we produce a lot of content. We create a lot of content for the business community.

And then like I like I mentioned offline, we were talking about taking a lot of the 1600 episodes, the things that I've learned from the 1600 episodes.

I'm hoping to launch an e-book that talks about a lot of those things. I have a list of a hundred and plus nuggets and things that I've learned from the podcast.

So hopefully working on creating, like, eventually, like a library of information that will be accessible to people that are looking to grow that community.

But it's definitely more product based versus a service based business that I think Blue16 is.

Omar Angri 04:59

So hundred nuggets is really good. That would be that's really amazing. I mean, I would love to hear, like, at least three of it.

Gresham Harkless 05:08

Yeah. Three of them. So three of my most favorite ones are, the one that probably came to me and I'm actually in this process now is this concept an and idea of spaciousness.

The whole idea is that especially if you after you get past, I would say, the first three to five years in business, often the things that will get you to where you wanna go are gonna be different than the things that got you to where you are at this present moment. Exactly.

So you have create sometimes spaciousness to understand what those things are, to understand, like, what all the aspects of business are.

So I think it's so valuable when you create this spaciousness, that hustle mentality. And don't get me wrong, you still will work hard.

It's just a different type of hustle. It's a different type of, work hard work that you're putting into your business.

But I think you have to create that spacious sense. You have to pause. You have to get away sometimes from your business so that you can actually work on your business rather than in your business.

So that's one of the most powerful, things that I've heard consistently throughout the show. The next thing I will say, and we've heard it so many times, is the power of morning routines.

And what I've definitely learned from regular basis because what it does is it allows you that routine on a regular basis because what it does is it allows you to be more present and sometimes the problems that we have to solve, the fires we have to put out.

If you're worrying about, hey, what time am I gonna wake up tomorrow when you should and potentially should put that on autopilot and know that your alarm's gonna go off this time, you're gonna wake up, you're gonna do this, you're gonna wake up and do that, it allows you to be more present.

I think it allows you to get that space, again, going back to the spaciousness so that you can tackle the day and you can have more energy to put towards, those problems and things that happen.

You know, nature that you need to be to work on the business. And if I could pick one more thing is one of my favorite things to say more than anything else.

And it's that if you run your own race, you can't lose. And what I mean by that and one of the best questions that I ask on the show is I ask everybody what does being a CEO mean to them. It's called the I AM CEO Podcast.

But the spirit of that question is that there's not one set way to run your business. And I think as we're seeing in so many different ways, entrepreneurship is growing where you have people that are going to different countries every week, where you have people that are in the more traditional brick and mortars.

You have the people that are are everything in between. You have the people that are one person million dollar businesses.

You have the person that are consultants. So understanding that your race is your race. And once you get clear on what your race is, the way that you execute that race is gonna be different.

So I think those are probably the three biggest things that I took away from the podcast. And of course, there's loads and loads and more. I could go on and on and on, but I wanna make sure that I hope you get an opportunity to come back on.

Omar Angri 08:08

No. No. This is what I was three is it's really good already. And the last one I like it a lot because, and this is always what I think everyone is fighting with a little bit because you tend to look at other races.

And you don't you need to look at your race, and that's the most important one. Because if you tend to look at other races, you will forget about your own and maybe you fall down or something like that.

But this is what we don't want, so you need to really take care of yourself. And others have other ambition, other God gave them maybe more, gave them maybe less.

We don't know about that. So this is, we leave this to God and really focus on our road. And this is a I like this this really a lot.

So where can anybody get hold of you who's interested in meeting you, maybe talking with you, or maybe ask about your services?

Gresham Harkless 09:03

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. You definitely mentioned it at the beginning. Like, I have a site that is kind of a hub for everything I'm working on. It's iamgresh.com that has links to Blue16 Media, to CB Nation, to the podcast.

It even has links to the hundred plus things that I learned from the episodes and also the e-book and all those things will will be hosted there.

So that's the best place, but of course, you go to blue16media.com, cbnation.co too.

Omar Angri 09:29

Great. And you need as well to update us on the on the book. Once the book is coming out the book is called I AM Gresh or?

Gresham Harkless 09:37

It's gonna be called the I AM CEO, handbook volume three. So it's gonna be an adaptation of that, and then we're gonna I'm gonna build up from there.

Omar Angri 09:46

Amazing. I really like it. I really like it. So one more thing. If you had the attention of the whole world for five minutes, what would you say? What is your message to the world?

Gresham Harkless 09:57

Yeah. Absolutely. I think one of my favorite quotes in addition to the, if you're running your own race, you couldn't lose, you can't lose. My thing is, don't tell me the sky is the limit if their footprints because there's footprints on the moon.

And I think it's that mentality that would I believe it's truly an entrepreneurial mentality where there's so many people saying things can't be done.

They're saying that you can't do things. I heard it. I'm sure you probably have heard it as well, Omar.

And I think it's those people that decide that, hey, I'm gonna try and see, and it's okay to fail. It's okay that things don't go the way that you want them to go, but there's no worse pain than the pain of regret.

So if you say that, hey, I am going to try and see what I can do. I'm gonna see how far this business can go.

I'm gonna see how far this organization can make it, what impact I can make, then I think that you're truly making a big change.

But I think you're also symbolizing somebody who desires to go forward. And I think that means more than everything else.

So if I had the eyes and ears of everybody, that's something I would say, whatever that thing is, whatever your god given thing is, as you talked about Omar, go for it, try it and see.

And I think that you can get a lot farther than sometimes we give ourselves credit for.

Omar Angri 11:04

Great. I really like it. And there is as well what we do at the end of the podcast, normally, we put your picture and where we put a quote on it and we we put it everywhere on the social media.

So for you, it most probably will be the race. You have to run your own race. I really like it. This is definitely the quote what I'm gonna, use for this one. Yeah.

Gresham Harkless 11:28

Yes. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Omar Angri 11:28

This was amazing. It's we should do another one, a little bit down the line because I'm very interested how your companies are gonna triple and quadruple and success is on the way when you really want it.

So for everyone, this is how you really want it. So for everyone, this is how you how you should do it.

Check out Gresham. He's definitely, very ambitious. I've seen not too many who's doing one podcast a day. So really content monster. So, yeah, thank you so much, Gresham.

Outro 12:02

Hello. 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 8 pillars to show you as a builder how you can leverage these 8 pillars and really level up there so it helps to 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 guested on their episode, and of course, learn more a little bit more about us as well too.

This is Gresh signing out. Hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Title: Transcript - Tue, 06 Aug 2024 03:26:10 GMT

Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2024 03:26:10 GMT, Duration: [00:12:36.40]

[00:00:00.10] - Gresham Harkless

A lot of what we do is to help people build what is that foundation for that that, that marketing strategy that you're gonna have. So if you think of it just like a dessert, think about it as like the crust, the thing that's gonna hold everything together because you wanna have that strong foundation so that you can get those clients and customers so that you aren't overrun by those opportunities. So we focus on the website. We focus on the website support

[00:00:34.29] - Intro

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 could 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 and 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 and 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 kinda leverage and build that up so you can go from builder to architect to, of course, at rock star luminary. So this is Greg signing up. I hope you enjoy this I am CEO special episode.

[00:01:27.20] - Omar Angri

What is your superpower within these two companies? I mean, I can already tell because you're very energetic. You have one thousand six hundred podcasts. That means you are throwing the media out very, very well and very detailed and structured, and this is how it works as well. But please tell me in your own words.

[00:01:46.90] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. I think what we do, especially from the Blue sixteen media standpoint, is really helping people to build what I like to call a foundation. So I I give a talk often where I say everybody's in the media business, and I compare your marketing strategy because my mom's sweet potato pie is my absolute favorite. So it could be, you know, chocolate cake. It could be whatever it is. But what I really recommend to people is that they look at building that out just like they're building their own recipe. And they're figuring out what ingredients are essential. You have to, you know, put all the things in place. You have to mix it perfectly. Most people when they wanna build things, they'll go to the grocery store. They'll go to grocery store hungry, so to speak, and they'll put everything into their cart. I need to do a podcast. I need to write a book. I need to have a Facebook group. I need to have a YouTube they do all of the things. And where I think it help hurts definitely, people is that they don't have a real, honest look at at the time and energy that it puts in, but also the resources that you have available to you. So a lot of what we do is to help people build what is that foundation for that that, that marketing strategy that you're gonna have. So if you think of it just like a dessert, think about it as like the crust, the thing that's gonna hold everything together because you wanna have that strong foundation so that you can get those clients and customers so that you aren't overrun by those opportunities. So we focus on the website. We focus on the website support and we definitely focus on the SEO as well too because I feel like those are basically foundational things to help those brands grow. If you really think of some of the sometimes the best and most popular, media brands that they have a strong social media present, but you don't know where they're sending people to. If you have a really strong podcast, you're getting all these downloads, but you don't necessarily have, a site or a a business or anything along those lines connected to that. It's really thinking about that strong foundational piece and how that goes hand in hand with all the work that the ingredients can do so that you can, at the end of

[00:03:59.59] - Intro

the day, hit your goals.

[00:04:01.19] - Omar Angri

Okay. Okay. That's, already, really good. So and there is, I mean, the two companies are actually, they provide different services and have different values. Correct?

[00:04:13.50] - Gresham Harkless

Correct. Correct.

[00:04:14.59] - Omar Angri

Okay. Okay. Okay. That's that's already yeah.

[00:04:18.89] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And Blue sixteen Media is more service based and Okay. CB Nation is more product based. So we produce a lot of content. We create a lot of content for the business community. And then like I like I mentioned offline, we were talking about taking a lot of the sixteen hundred episodes, the things that I've learned from the sixteen hundred episodes. I'm hoping to launch an ebook that talks about a lot of those things. I have a list of a hundred and plus, you know, nuggets and things that I've learned from the podcast. So hopefully working on creating, like, eventually, like, a library of information that will be accessible to people that are looking to kinda grow that community. But it's definitely more product based versus a service based business that I think Blue sixteen is.

[00:04:59.00] - Omar Angri

So hundred nuggets hundred nuggets is really good, you know. That would be that's really amazing. I mean, I I would I would love to hear, like, at least three of it.

[00:05:08.69] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Three of them. So three of my my my most favorite ones are, the one that probably came to me and I'm actually in this process now is this concept an and idea of spaciousness. The whole idea is that especially if you after you get past, I would say, the first three to five years in business, often the things that will get you to where you wanna go are gonna be different than the things that got you to where you are at this present moment. Exactly. So you have create sometimes spaciousness to understand what those things are, to understand, like, what all the aspects of business are. So I think it's so valuable when you create this spaciousness, that kinda hustle mentality. And don't get me wrong, you still will work hard. It's just a different type of hustle. It's a different type of, work hard work that you're putting into your business. But I think you have to create that spacious sense. You have to pause. You have to get away sometimes from your business so that you can actually work on your business rather than in your business. So that's one of the most, you know, powerful, things that I've, you know, heard consistently throughout the show. The next thing I will say, and we've heard it so many times, is the power of morning routines. And what I've definitely learned from, you know, regular basis because what it does is it allows you that routine on a regular basis because what it does is it allows you to be more present and sometimes the problems that we have to solve, the fires we have to put out. If you're worrying about, hey, what time am I gonna wake up tomorrow when you should and potentially should put that on autopilot and and know that your alarm's gonna go off this time, you're gonna wake up, you're gonna do this, you're gonna wake up and do that, it allows you to be more present. I think it allows you to get that space, again, going back to the spaciousness so that you can tackle the day and you can have more energy to put towards, those problems and things that happen. You know, nature that you need to be to work on the business. And if I could pick, you know, one more thing is one of my favorite things to say more than anything else. And it's that if you if you run your own race, you can't lose. And what I mean by that and and one of the best questions that I ask on the show is I ask everybody what does being a CEO mean to them. It's called the I am CEO podcast. But the spirit of that question is that there's not one set way to run your business. And I think as we're seeing in so many different ways, entrepreneurship is growing where you have people that are going to different countries every week, where you have people that are in the more traditional brick and mortar mo motor mortars. You have the people that are are everything in between. You have the people that are one person million dollar businesses. You have the person that are consultants. So understanding that that your race is your race. And once you get clear on what your race is, the way that you execute that race is gonna be different. So I think those are probably the the three biggest things that I took away from the podcast. And, of course, there's loads and loads and more. I could go on and on and on, but I wanna make sure that I hope you get an opportunity to come back on.

[00:08:08.00] - Omar Angri

No. No. This is what I was you know, three is it's really good already. And the last one, I I like it a lot because, and this is always what I think everyone is fighting with a little bit, you know, because you you tend to look at other races, you know. And you don't you need to look at your race, and that's that's the most important one. Because if you tend to look at other races, you you will forget about your your own, you know, and maybe you, you know, you fall down or or something like that. But this is what we don't want, so you need to really take care of yourself. And, you know, others have other ambition, other other you know, God gave gave them maybe more, gave them maybe less. We don't know about that. So this is, we we we leave this to God and and really focus on on our on our road. And this is a I like this this this really a lot. So where where can anybody get hold of you who who's interested in meeting you, maybe talking with you, or maybe ask about your services?

[00:09:03.00] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. You definitely mentioned it at the beginning. Like, I have a site that is kind of a hub for everything I'm working on. It's I am gresch dot com that has links to Blue sixteen Media, to CB Nation, to the podcast. It even has links to the the hundred plus things that I learned from the from the episodes and also, you know, the ebook and all those things will will be hosted there. So that's the best place, but, of course, you go to blue sixteen media dot com, c v nation dot co too.

[00:09:29.39] - Omar Angri

Great. And you need as well to update us on the on the book. Once the book is coming out the book is called I Am Gresh or?

[00:09:37.20] - Gresham Harkless

It's gonna be called the I Am CEO, handbook volume three. So it's gonna be an adaptation of that, and then we're gonna I'm gonna build up from there. Amazing.

[00:09:46.70] - Omar Angri

I really like it. I really like it. So one more thing. If you had the attention of the whole world for five minutes, what would you say? What is your message to the world?

[00:09:57.10] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. I think one of my favorite quotes, you know, in addition to the, if you're running your own race, you couldn't lose, you you can't lose. My thing is, don't tell me the sky is the limit if their footprints because there's footprints on the moon. And I think it's that mentality that would I believe it's truly an entrepreneurial mentality where there's so many people saying things can't be done. They're saying that you can't do things. I heard it. I'm I'm sure you probably have heard it as well, Omar. Sure. And I think it's those people that decide that, hey, I'm gonna try and see, and it's okay to fail. It's okay that things don't go the way that you want them to go, but there's no worse pain than the pain of regret. So if you say that, hey, I am going to try and see what I can do. I'm gonna see how far this business can go. I'm gonna see how far this organization can make it, what impact I can make, then I think that you're truly making a a big change. But I think you're also symbolizing somebody who desires to go forward. And I think that means more than everything else. So if I had the the eyes and ears of everybody, that's something I would say, whatever that thing is, whatever your god given thing is, as you talked about Omar, go for it, try it and see. See. And I I think that you can get a lot farther than sometimes we give ourselves credit

[00:11:04.89] - Omar Angri

for. Great. I really like it. And there is as well what we do at the end of the podcast, normally, we we put your picture and where we put a quote quote on it and we we put it everywhere on the on the social media. So for you, it most probably will be the the race. You have to run your own race. I really like it. You know? This is, definitely the quote what I'm gonna, use for this one. Yeah. Yes. Thank you so much. I

[00:11:28.29] - Gresham Harkless

appreciate it.

[00:11:28.70] - Omar Angri

This was this was amazing. You know? It's, we we should do another one, a little bit down down the line because I'm very interested how your companies are gonna triple and quadruple and, you know, success is, is on the way when you when you really want it. So for everyone, this is how you you really want it. So for everyone, this is how you how you should do it. You know? Check out Gresham. He's definitely, very ambitious. I've seen not too many who's doing one podcast a day. So really content monster. So, yeah, thank you so much, Gresham. Hello.

[00:12:02.20] - Intro

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresha 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 to show you as a builder how you can leverage these eight pillars and really level up there so it helps to 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 guested on their episode, and, of course, learn more a little bit more about us as well too. This is Grass signing out. Hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

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