IAM2335 – Fundamental Question for Entrepreneurs: “What Problem are You Solving?”

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Transcription:

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Intro 00:01

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:29

Entrepreneurship is a journey. What problem are you solving? So that's one of the themes that really came up as I was starting to drill down into the content, the information from each of the episodes.

And I was super excited about a year or so ago to really create space in order to do that and as I talked about last episode.

One of the things that I really wanted to do is evaluate how I was coming about with this podcast.

It's been, or will be 7 years in terms of doing this app, these interviews, which is crazy that doing a daily podcast or somewhat daily podcast for that long.

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And it speaks to the amount of episodes that I've had 2340, this episode is actually 2335. And this is going to close out the year.

So I definitely want to wish you a happy new year. I definitely want to make sure that you're prosperous in this new year, that you get to continue to innovate, you get to continue to make the mark that you ultimately want to make.

But one of the reasons I really want to talk about asking what problems that you're solving, understanding the entrepreneurship as a journey, is because we have to evolve and we have to change.

And I'm going through that period now, literally as we're speaking, I have a newborn and me and my wife are welcoming a new baby into the world.

And I think one of the things that I'm excited about with this is that it just helps you to evaluate things in a different way.

You look at the world in a different way whenever you have a new addition to your life or anything is disruptive or changes and disruption is not a bad word.

Disruption is just speaking to shifting the way that you're doing things. And I think disruption is actually a good thing in a lot of cases, because disruption to me signifies that you're getting refocused on what you're ultimately doing.

And that's why I say, what problem are you solving? So one of the things that I really wanted to do with these episodes is first of all to experiment.

I think that getting space and time to experiment, continue with the podcast interviews so you'll still be able to hear really great interviews from phenomenal people which we always try to do is to really highlight the holistic aspect of entrepreneurship and business.

But one of the things I think is some really great opportunity, as I mentioned, franchising, also looking into different ways to kind of have these recordings.

Are these recordings going to be more solo episodes? Are they going to be a build up, a build off of something that was mentioned in previous episodes.

I think that's something I'm really excited about is starting to drill down into these episodes to get that golden nugget and have and riff off of that golden nugget in some of these episodes.

So I'm looking forward to those things, but more than anything else, we really want to get down in on the problem that we're solving.

It's always been the goal for these episodes to really help people to level up within their life, their business, and everything in between.

So how do you go from point A to point B to point C and so on and so forth. And I really wanted these episodes to kind of do that.

As you start to hear somebody's journey, you get to have that transition of seeing like how they went from where they hope to be and where they ultimately were to where they are now and continue to kind of hear that journey.

So that's why I'm also looking forward to like having previous guests come back on the show to give a recap, talk about some of the changes and things that happened within their lives.

So there's a lot of different things that I'm really hoping to do with the podcast, but I think more than anything else is giving myself space to really ultimately do that.

And I think that's what next year will ultimately be. Does it mean it's going to be the last year of the podcast?

I don't think so, because I love the medium. I love everything about podcasting, because I think it's just a phenomenal opportunity to get to really collaborate, co-create, to show your expertise, your knowledge, and all those things coming together end up being really, really special.

So I love everything about the medium, but I think that there's always time and space to say and evaluate what you're doing, how you're doing, and if there's a better way to do it.

So I look forward to Tony 25 being ultimately that. And I think it will be a phenomenal way to kind of check in, to make sure that we are solving problems and really be really drilled down on that.

One of the things that started to come about that we're starting to transition more into is helping out these builders become architects.

How do we help people that are working more in the business and want to transition to working more on the business?

And what does that look like? And I think that's something that I'm gonna really have as kind of like the north star to every piece of content that we try to create.

It's like, how do we help out with that transition? How does this piece of content ultimately do that?

And I think one of the things that I want to, again, hammer home is asking what problem are you solving?

So when you're thinking about your business, you're thinking about ultimately everything that you're doing, asking yourself what problem are you solving is going to be one of the huge things that's going to allow you to make sure that you are doing things in alignment.

And even from our digital marketing perspective, as we start to retool, we've implemented EOS, which is a whole another episode that I can literally talk about.

But going through that transition as a team of starting to create a better system and process around everything that we're doing, it's so important that we don't lose sight of the problem that we're solving.

We're asking that on a regular basis. I just really spoke with our leadership and I talked about that.

I talked about making sure that we are asking, just like the little kid, why, why, why, why, why?

Why are we doing this? Why are we doing that? What problem are you solving? And I think the more that we're able to understand that internally as a team.

But also from a organizational perspective, it's just going to allow us to make sure that we're drilling down. It's so easy to fall in love. I love, I have ideas for days and I have different perspectives for days.

And I do feel like it's going to ultimately solve problems. And that's something that fuels me.

But when you start to really ask that question, you can drill down and get really close to the issue that's at hand.

And I think sometimes when we try out things, it doesn't work out. Sometimes it does. And I think it's having space in order to do that.

So that's a lot of what this podcast will ultimately end up turning into. But don't get me wrong, we're definitely going to have one, at least one of those 6 questions, 16 questions that we kind of go through for the podcast.

But more than probably anything else, one of the things that we're really focusing on is gonna be the CEO Hacks.

CEO hacks are the apps, books, habits, software tools, things that you lean on that can make you more effective and efficient.

It could be a book that literally will change the way that you see life and business and everything in between.

It could be a nugget just from an episode that you really want to make sure that you share.

But I think the really big thing that we want to try to do is make sure that we are being focused on these problems, seeing what hacks are out there to help us to solve those problems.

And as we drill down and create content around that, it's going to be definitely an exciting time.

So I'm looking forward to really being able to do that and to expand and see what things come down to pike.

But again, I just want to wish you a happy new year. It's an exciting time. So I look forward to continuing on this journey with you and see what kind of happens from there.

So there's just Gresh signing out. I hope you have a phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal 2025.

I wish you a happy new year and look forward to talk to you tomorrow, the day after that, the day after that, and so on and so forth.

Outro 07:37

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO  Podcast powered by CBNation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

Don't forget to schedule your complimentary digital marketing consultation at blues16media.com. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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