IAM2310 – Staying Present: Overcoming Startup Challenges

In this special episode of the I Am CEO podcast, Gresh introduces the journey of starting the Bluestar franchise and announces the launch of a new sub-site within CBNation called Franchise CEO.

Inspired by the founder of the Franchise Brokers Association, Gresh aims to document this journey to assist those starting franchises or any business.

He shares snippets from the initial videos and encourages subscribing to their YouTube channel.

Gresh emphasizes the importance of uniqueness and running one's own race.

He discusses the experiences on day eight of starting the Bluestar franchise, highlighting the excitement and challenges faced.

Gresh stresses the importance of staying present, documenting the behind-the-scenes process, and focusing on daily wins. Despite slow progress and no sales yet, remains persistent, balancing multiple businesses and using the 12-week year concept to stay focused.

He emphasizes the need for experimenting, testing, and adjusting strategies, and the significance of consistent effort in achieving success.

• 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 FBA, 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 and 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. All right, all right.

Gresham Harkless 01:27

So this is day eight of starting Bluestar franchise, and I'm definitely excited about everything that I'm working on. I'm trying to stay present as possible.

I know I have a tendency to get frustrated, you know, very quickly if things don't go as quickly as I want. So that's one of the things I really want to document.

Like, a lot of times people don't see the behind-the-scenes of, like, you start a business, you tell people and then you get business directly.

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This is definitely more of a slow burn, I guess people would say. And that is a process that's going to definitely test me from, I guess mental, emotional, all the different types of routes.

But one of the things that I always have to do to kind of stay present is just kind of remember the things that I need to kind of focus on on a day-to-day basis and try to look at those as wins.

Like even, you know, reaching out to people, that ends up being a win. Even people that sign up on my calendar, that ends up being a win, even having an opportunity on my calendar ends up being a win.

But one of the things that's really kind of, you know, pushing me a little bit more, this might be the case if you have another business.

And you're still kind of a little bit more embedded in that business or frankly, if you have a full-time job, a 9 to 5.

And you're trying to add on this business onto everything else you're doing is there's not, it feels like there's not enough hours in the day.

And I was literally talking to my wife yesterday and I was like, I don't know how I'm gonna, you know, focus on all this.

Like mind you, we just got back traveling and I hopped in, had a zoom call right when we got back. Then I had some other things to do.

I had a meeting with some of the team members. So going back and forth between the different businesses, you know, is definitely, you know, a little bit of a challenge.

So it's something that I'm continuing to kind of work through. But you know, the biggest thing is just to stay present.

And that's the challenge, like how do you stay present on a day-to-day basis to ensure that you are doing the things consistently to help you out.

And that's why I go back to that 12 week year because every week, every day, every week I, it really makes me to be a lot more intentional because the idea of the 12 week year is that every week is essentially like a month.

So you're not going to spend a lot of time dabbling with things that are not working within a week because that week is so powerful because you're trying to get things done in a lot quicker way.

And even if you don't ultimately hit your goal, because I'm a big proponent of reaching or setting goals that you're not going to hit.

Not that I want to do that, but just that's just like how my makeup kind of is and probably a lot of type A people, it's going to be the same, but it's just like being able to be present in the day to day, know what you're going to do on a day to day basis.

And I think that helps out a lot because I know that even if I don't get to where I want to go, if I get, I think within the 12 week, 12 week year, it talks around getting like 80 to 90% completion because most people suffer with execution.

So while you're thinking about all the things that you want to do, understand and break it down to like how you can execute on a daily basis if it's just an hour, if it's just a minute, it's just 10 minutes or, or if it's a full day.

Frankly, figure out how you can execute and what you can execute on. And then what you might have to do week to week is, which I'm going through is just saying, okay, this didn't work like the cold outreach that we did.

The cold outreach emails that I was doing, they didn't really give us give me any opportunities, but activity on Facebook groups did.

So does it mean that I stopped the cold outreach? Not necessarily. Even though we look at it from a month, but maybe I just don't have that be the primary.

So I'm in this constant change of experimenting, testing things out, moving fast, breaking things, making mistakes to see what could kind of come up from that.

So it's an exciting time. It can also be a very frustrating time because sometimes when you go through that experimentation, things don't always work out. Things don't work out as quickly as you want them to work.

So you have to make those adjustments. So that's where I'm kind of mad, just honestly being, you know, very transparent, hopefully on the journey, haven't made any sales, haven't gotten anybody past that first call.

Have done a lot of cold outreaches, have talked to some people from a networking group, have had some potential opportunities, but nothing big.

But I'm just trying to continue to kind of fill up my pipeline that's the focus of now to try to build up that foundation and then hopefully kind of go from there.

I need to also release some of these videos as well so that, you know, a lot of that is being published.

But with that being said, that's basically it just continue to kind of, you know, chopping at the tree and know that it's not, you know, I think the quote is it doesn't.

The tree doesn't fall because of the last hit. The tree falls from all the hits that you had prior to that.

So continue to hit that ax over and over again so that it can ultimately make the tree fall.

So that's it. This is Gresh signing out. Have to hop on a call and we'll talk with you later.

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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