IAM2407 – Franchise Success: Embracing Challenges

Gresham Harkless discusses how challenging it can be to stay motivated, even when doing something like working out. He compares this to the challenges faced in business, such as losing clients, broken systems, and missed deals.

He emphasizes the importance of not comparing oneself to others, which can lead to frustration and distraction.

Gresham shares a lesson from a coach who identified three types of people: starters, maintainers, and finishers.

Throughout the journey, Gresham mentions how doing the hard, consistent tasks, even when they’re uncomfortable, ultimately pays off and builds the foundation for future success.

Furthermore, he encourages others to stay true to their race and focus on the daily steps that lead to long-term growth and opportunity.

• 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 00:01

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

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 Blue Star Franchise.

We're also going to do a kind of sub site within CB Nation 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.

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh here, and it's day, I believe, 36 of the Franchise Broker journey. And you'll hear my alarm probably go off as I'm recording this.

But in the grand scheme of things, I had many things that I wanted to talk about today, but I think the biggest one is really doing the hard things.

Today was workout day. I didn't really feel like doing the workout. Honestly, it took me a while to kind of get up.

And I went through the workout, wasn't a strenuous workout for most of my body. I think I'm just tired just because there's so many different things that are happening.

And I think that's a lot of what you kind of go through when you're doing anything. Like there's not always the sunshine and rainbows and gumdrops that you feel like entrepreneurship always is.

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You're not always closing a sale. Sometimes you're losing clients. Sometimes things are breaking in your products or your process or your systems or things like that.

And I think that's part of the journey that a lot of people don't really talk about. But it's definitely it.

There's the deal that is about to close that doesn't close at the 23rd and a half hour. There is the person that says that they want to continue and they don't continue.

So all those things kind of happen. And I think one of the things that you want to just be cognizant of, and I'm being very cognizant of, is just trying to do the consistent things.

One of the classmates I was with, he was able to close two deals, which is awesome, awesome, awesome.

And I think sometimes you fall into this place of, what am I doing wrong? What could I be doing better?

And that's just me being completely honest. And I think a lot of that is being locked in on other people's race.

So you have to be locked in on your race. I've said it many times and will continue to say it many times is, you can't if you run your own race, you can't lose.

And so many times we get locked in on other people's races and other people's things and opportunities and things like that.

And I, for one, am one of the most. Oh, there's a squirrel. And I'm that person. And I feel like the world is filled with tremendous opportunity.

But there's so much to say for focusing the power, focusing the power of just like locking in on a specific target.

And I lose, that focus often. And That's why I have an accountability coach. That's why I try to do the things on a daily basis that are keeping me focused.

But I think there's also space and time to just be able to create, just to say, hey, let's just try this out and see what happens.

And I think that that's, for me, sometimes the most exciting thing. Many people, I had a coaching session a long time ago, and the coach says everybody's either a starter, maintainer or finisher.

And we get energy from one of those things. Like you can do all those things, but usually you get energy from one of those three things.

And mine is definitely a starter. I'm a starter. I love starting stuff. I just I just get excited about those things.

But the maintainer and the finisher are the ones that you either need on your team. You don't necessarily need to be that, I would say.

But you need to be kind of in recognition of like where you get your energy, because sometimes people are not really good at starting stuff.

So they need a starter to start them. Then they can maintain it. Or if they're a finisher, maybe they can finish them.

One of the hacks that the coach was telling me is that in order to start something, you have to finish something.

So that's where I try to get more energy around. It's like I have to close this door in order to open up this next door.

And that's where a lot of things have happened, even with starting the business and things like that.

And when you start to kind of get in that place, it reminds you of the overall journey of entrepreneurship and business.

But it also reminds you of the ability to kind of focus on the day to day, stay true to your race and do sometimes the things that are difficult and hard that you don't frankly want to do, like a workout, for example.

And I think once you start to do those things that you sometimes don't want to do, you're fully capable of doing what you just don't want to do, you don't feel like doing them.

And you do that, you get energy. And I think when you might have those doubts and worries, insecurities, imposter syndrome, whatever it might be, that's when you lean into doing those hard things.

You do those consistent things that you know you need to do to be successful. So often in business, you're talking about prospecting, you're talking about lead generation, you're talking about doing the video of promoting yourself.

All those things that we don't always do as entrepreneurs, business owners, we really want to kind of lean into doing so.

That's the really big thing to kind of keep in mind is like leaning into that. I'm getting focused on those things and just ultimately kind of going from there.

So, with that being said, this is kind of like a bunch of different, thoughts, because I feel like I'm pulled in a lot of different directions right now.

And one of the things that I'm really trying to stay true to is just doing the daily things, doing the things I don't necessarily, quote-unquote, want to do, because those are things that are going to open up more opportunities.

And it's really getting focused on laying the bricks of the foundation for six months, a year, two years down the line and building it the right way, and that's ultimately what I'm trying to do here.

Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help. And of course, looking forward to giving you more and more updates.

Outro 06:40

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CB Nation 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 Blue16Media.com. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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