IAM2457 – Mastering People Management in Just 158 Days

Gresham Harkless reflects candidly on the emotional and operational challenges of working as a business broker, especially after five to six months without closing a deal.

Gresham emphasizes that the most difficult aspect of the role is managing the human element—navigating silent objections, inconsistent communication, and the emotional ups and downs of clients.

Despite enjoying certain parts of the process, like presenting opportunities, he’s come to realize that his core strength and passion lie in lead generation and content creation.

Gresham successfully built a pipeline of around 20 prospects, but the time and energy required to manage those relationships have made him question whether this is the best use of his skills.

Finally, he acknowledges that aligning his work with his strengths, rather than forcing a full-cycle approach, may lead to more sustainable success.

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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 00:28

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.

It's, again, been this long, and I say this over and over again, knocking on your door, to probably about five or six months, which is insane, especially not having a closed deal.

Like I even, my classmates themselves, nobody has had, well, my one classmate, he has purchased one himself, a business opportunity.

Another one, he had a friend that also closed business. But even with that, it's like, man, this is definitely more challenging than I thought it would be.

And I think the part that is the hardest is the people part. The people part is the most challenging.

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I just kind of spoke a little bit about it just because there's so many different things you have to navigate and you want to do that in a short period of time.

But I almost think the time that they give to us to have those conversations is probably not enough.

I think maybe one of the things that has to happen as a broker is you have to navigate things a little bit more.

And while I do enjoy that aspect, of course, helping people kind of get over the finish line, I'm not a huge fan of the unspoken or the silent objections, I guess you can say, that those are kind of frustrating.

So you try to sniff those out as much as possible, but that's why people end up being more successful.

So as of recently, I'm thinking like of this process that I like, of this, broker journey.

The thing that I probably like most about it is the opportunity to do content creation, but also the opportunity to really, generate leads and opportunities.

So makes me wonder if, going through the entire process is ultimately something that I will stick with doing.

Like I mentioned in the very beginning, I'm trying to figure out where I wanted to kind of be in this process.

And I definitely think I want to take some people through. But I think, I think where my sweet spot is, is ultimately the lead generation.

And I think The more that I spend time here, the more I realize that I'd rather just be generating leads.

I think that that's where the big opportunity is. I think that you only know if those leads are quality if you're able to get through the process.

But I can say that I've generated a decent amount of, you know, leads, a decent amount of opportunities with some of the things that I've done.

I mean, I would say that If I have 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 or so, 20 or so people that We're kind of somewhere along the journey.

I have kind of different ways that I can kind of navigate this. So, because I can do co-brokering, maybe what I do is to try to find a more established broker and try to, I don't know.

I'm really torn because I don't want to, cause I would love to be able to teach people and bring people on a team as far as like a brokerage and be able to generate leads for them.

Which is a kind of a little bit of a different model, but without having to deal with that, maybe you can just partner and do something with a coworker program where there is a percentage of the leads.

But I think generating the leads is probably the thing that I'm most excited about, because you need to refine and look through those leads and see what might come about.

So I think that's where I'm going to skew towards. The way that I'm feeling right now, I feel like the biggest drag has been going through the process with the candidates and the candidates actually falling through and things like that.

It makes me wish that I spent more time generating more leads, doing more creative things, testing out different things.

And don't get me wrong, I have tested out things. I will continue to do that. I'm not saying I won't take people through the journey.

But I think the more time that I spend where my superpower and strength lies is not in guiding people through that process.

It's probably a lot more generating the leads if I had to pick one or the other.

I do enjoy, of course, having candidates and presenting to them and taking them through the process.

But I enjoy the presentation. But I think after the presentation, it's kind of not as I don't want to say not as exciting, but I think that when you don't have the back and forth conversation, you just kind of check it in.

You don't understand a lot of what's going on. And I thought about being on calls and things like that and what that would look like.

And I think the Zores have not necessarily put me on calls and maybe that's something I have to figure out a little bit more how to do that.

But yeah, I think that's just more time, more time takes you away from other things.

So it's hard to balance these things, but yeah, it's something that the people part is definitely challenging.

You are definitely managing the emotions and all the things as well too. So it's something not to forget when you're going through a journey like this or any journey.

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 06:47

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. Want to level up your business even more? Read blogs, listen to podcasts, and watch videos at CBNation.co.

Also, check out our I AM CEO Facebook group. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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