IAM2454 – Unlocking Success in Your Brokerage Journey

Gresham Harkless reflects on his 55-day journey into franchise brokerage, sharing insights from a recent, unexpectedly powerful coaching session.

He realizes his true passion lies in being a “connection broker” — someone who thrives by linking people, tools, opportunities, and solutions across all areas of his work, from franchise consulting to digital marketing.

Gresham also acknowledges a major challenge: the day-to-day operational grind often pulls him away from that core purpose.

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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 00:26

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.

Just like that, I started to look at the days. It's actually day probably 55 of this franchise brokerage journey.

And it's crazy. It's going to be basically 60 days in about a week or so. So one of the things that came up for me yesterday is I actually had a coaching session.

So a person's going through their their, I guess, opportunity to get their coaching certification.

So they were offering a coaching session or a few coaching sessions. So I'm going through those. I had my first one.

It was 30 minutes didn't have like high expectations. I thought I was going to walk away with, okay, this is what my plan of action is.

And it actually was really powerful because we talked a lot around head versus heart.

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And one of the things that I really liked about the coaching session is it was probably one of the first coaching sessions that I had where it wasn't about the person telling me what to do.

It was very much so asking questions, not leading, not guiding, not giving insight, but literally saying, Why is that coming up for you? What are you thinking about that?

This stuck out to me. Why did you say that? And just like really guiding me through.

So it was really powerful because I don't know yet I've had coaching sessions that have actually been that.

Most of them have been, I think, more consultancy. This is probably one of the first ones that I've had where it's just like literally you talk and it wasn't, she didn't of course say that.

But it was like the idea where I was not waiting for the person to talk.

I was literally just having a conversation myself. So kind of like a, a solo podcast, essentially, where you're kind of thinking through those things and you're seeing what's coming up.

But I think the really big thing is that you would say things and she would pick up on those things and ask you a little bit more about that.

Like, that's a unique word that you use. Why do you use that? So I say all that to say, like, one of the things that came up is my head versus my heart.

I'm very much so in my head in terms of like being very strategic. And I think that's very necessary in a lot of the work that I do and the way that I approach the work that I do.

However, when you're thinking of like where you ultimately want to go, sometimes you can be so much in your head, you're ignoring your heart.

And I think that one of the really strong breakthroughs that came up for me is like understanding like where my heart is leading me and figure out exactly how you use your head strategically to get there.

And that's one of the things I kind of said at the end. And it really felt good saying it because I think I get so lost in this either or, and we all do, where it has to be either head or heart.

It has to be either work or life. It has to be either up or down. And we get in these dichotomies of it has to be either or.

But what if you can use both and have it actually be better? And so for somebody like me, especially that's involved in a lot of things, it's figuring out, what exactly does that look like?

And what probably is going to be coming up is this idea of being a connection broker.

Something that, a seed that was planted. And it's essentially my way of just saying that my job is just to connect people, places, things, all the nouns, I guess you could say.

It's really to understand that, okay, this person has this problem with me.

Oh, I know somebody that can do that. Or I know this course, or I know this, that, or the third.

But it's really understanding that the power, the energy that I get is actually in connecting probably more than anything else.

And I think that might evolve and that might change, but I feel like that's what's coming up for me right now.

So I feel very much so like there's so, so, so many opportunities that are literally right before me.

And I see like how these things are coming together, but it's just bringing those things together.

So that's something that really is coming up for me. How does that manifest itself?

I'm not exactly sure, but that's something I'm going to be working on definitely this weekend.

It's just like sifting through those things. How does that, how is that relevant to like Blue Star?

I mean, Blue Star is essentially you're a franchise broker, so you're finding those opportunities and you're making that connection.

How does it connect with CEO hacks? It's like, you know, these apps, software books, all these things that people can leverage and you just have to make that connection.

You have been able to build a network of people that you've connected with.

How do you make that connection? Digital marketing, how are you helping people to find the businesses that you're serving?

So all of that connection piece is really what lights me up more than anything else.

But I think one of the things that came up is I feel like I get bogged down in the day to day.

It's like, I have to get an email address or I have to get a phone number or a password or just all those things and our clients don't reply back.

So that's what ends up bogging me down more than anything else.

So it's like, how do I figure out how to get past that so that I can be that connection broker that I ultimately want to be? So that's the challenge and that's what's exciting.

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 Blue 16 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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