IAM2308 – Gresh’s Reflects on the Importance of Learning about Franchise Brands

In this special episode, Gresham Harkless reflects on the importance of learning about franchise brands and connecting with people in the industry, including ResiBrands.

He discusses a niche within the franchise space—helping businesses turn into franchises, focusing on unique execution rather than innovative products.

He emphasizes how businesses can succeed by uniquely executing ideas, even if the core product or service isn’t novel.

Gresham highlights resilience as a crucial trait for entrepreneurs, referencing a recent podcast interview discussing the importance of “grit.”

Furthermore, Gresham advocates that others stay focused on their purpose (the “why”) rather than becoming too attached to a specific approach (the “how”), as the path to success can evolve.

• Blue Star Franchise: http://bluestarfranchise.com
• Browse the Franchise Inventory: https://bluestarfranchise.com/franchise/
• Is franchising right for you? Check this out to see: http://bluestarfranchise.com/assessment
• Franchise CEO (A CBNation Site – coming soon) – http://franchiseceo.co

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Transcription:

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Intro 00:00

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast. And this is a special episode of our I AM CEO Podcast.

And this is actually going to be a snippet of a snippet, so to speak. I'm just doing an intro because I've been starting to document my journey into starting what is now called BlueStar franchise.

We're also going to do a kind of sub site within CBNation called Franchise CEO. So you'll see some links in the show notes related to that.

But just wanted to give you a little bit more insight, give you a little bit more color in some of the aspects of why I'm actually doing this.

Because one of the things I was doing as I was going through training to start up this new business was realizing and hearing from the founder of FB, the Franchise Brokers Association, that it'd be really cool to document your journey going through and building this out.

I think it's something that would be super helpful, obviously, for people that are looking for and thinking about starting franchises.

But frankly, if you're starting anything, any type of business, I think it's really cool to kind of just even see the journey and how it's been going from there.

So I'm going to share a few of those snippets from the, from the first couple of videos that have been created.

But definitely, of course, subscribe to our YouTube, check out a lot more where I figure out exactly where we're going to post this.

So I'll have that information that's available to you. But regardless, if you're a builder, continue to keep building, continue to do your thing. The world definitely needs exactly what you're trying to build.

It needs you to be your unique self. So make sure to run your own race, because nobody can run your race like you. This is Gresh signing out. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Gresham Harkless 01:26

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh here and I'm on day 9 of building the franchise brokerage business. When I was thinking about it, I felt like I hadn't done anything.

I feel like I did everything today, but I did do everything for the franchise brokerage business. But in reality, one of the things that is really important is that I continue to kind of learn about the brands and also connect with people to learn more about what their offering might be.

So I connected with ResiBrands, which is a really cool brand that I think that I want to do, do more of a deep dive on.

But I think one of the cool things that I learned about today was another opportunity for people that have businesses that really want to make their business into a franchise.

And this is kind of a niche within a niche that I never even thought about when I started the franchise brokerage.

So I was super excited to have that conversation to learn a little bit more about what might be really great candidates for that.

One of the things that really stuck with me that the, the area he's a business dev actually executive mentioned was that anytime you might come across a brand that maybe doesn't do anything that's necessarily unique.

But the way that they execute it is unique, I thought that really stuck with me because as you start to franchise your business, you want to have something that's within your secret sauce so that you can make it a little bit more special for other people.

He mentioned a few other things, but I thought it really stuck with me because I think so many times whenever you're building something, we forget about how important it is to not necessarily create something that's new and innovative with our products and services.

But how important it is to be able to execute it in a unique way, do it in such a way that you feel like maybe this is an opportunity that I never thought was possible.

Not that it's a new idea, but just the way that I execute it or the gap that I see in the market is something that can't be replicated or it's really hard to be replicated and you have this business case for it.

So I thought that was a pretty cool reminder for different candidates. But also frankly for anybody that's building a business on like how you can find that niche and that opportunity and kind of lean more into that.

So another day actually had my client call that got canceled unfortunately, and hopefully he'll get rescheduled. The candidate actually texted me and said that she couldn't make it.

So hopefully there's another follow up meeting that will happen. But this is part of it. This is part of the journey where sometimes you have a vision and you have things moving forward, but then there is a curve ball that happens.

So she had an emergency, couldn't hop on the call. So we'll see what happens from there, but it's just a reminder that you got to continue to be resilient.

Actually, I was on a podcast yesterday which was pretty cool, and he asked me a lot about resilience and especially being in the digital marketing world, you need to be very resilient.

But you find that in every aspect, aspect of the business so resilience is one of the really key parts. Angela Duckworth, I think, has a book.

She talks a lot around grit, how vital it is to have grit, and how vital it is for people that are successful.

Not that things always go the way that they want to go, but that they are resilient enough or they have enough grit to be able to move with the changes.

So I think that's one of the big things you have to have if you're starting a business. Things will not go the way you want it to go. Often they will fall and break, often over and over again.

And you have to be resistant. You have to dust yourself off, get up and do it again and do it again and do it again.

And sometimes you can't just do the same thing over again. Sometimes you may need to, but sometimes it's just understanding what you can take from it and pivoting and changing and moving from there.

So I thought that was really cool. But again, make sure that you're being resilient. If you're going through and building something, things do not always go the way that you want them to go.

And frankly, I feel like that's part of life. So especially when starting a business, you have to be flat, flexible.

You don't get attached to the how instead of the why. You know that the how might evolve and change the vehicle that you're doing.

Whatever it is that you're doing might evolve and change. So you have to be really flexible related to that.

So that's something that I've learned, something that I'll continue to do. And hopefully if you're starting something, you also tap into that and understand, like, how important it is to be flexible with everything that you're doing.

So this is Gresh signing out. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day. Please let me know if there's anything I could do to help. And of course, looking forward to giving you more and more updates.

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