IAM2378 – The Importance of Hiring People Better than You

On day 23, Gresham Harkless reflects on the challenges and growth he’s experiencing during the early stages of launching his Blue Star Franchise.

Gresham has many ideas and projects, including his digital marketing business, a brokerage, a subscription service called CEO Flicks, and affiliate partnerships.

He recognizes that to scale the business successfully, he needs people who are better than him in certain areas.

Gresham emphasizes the importance of learning from others by asking questions and not being afraid to admit when he doesn’t know something.

Moreover, Gresham highlights the importance of not being the smartest person in the room. As the business grows, he desires to find and hire people who are experts in areas where he is not, ensuring that his team is full of talented individuals who can complement his strengths.

• 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 00:28

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.

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh, this is day 23 of starting Blue Star Franchise. It's hard to believe it's been almost three weeks or so since starting everything and lots of things are happening.

I'm a little bit later in terms of getting and recording this, but I wanted to, of course, record this to give you a little bit more of like what's going on in my head.

I'm somebody who's always involved in a lot of different things. I always have a lot of different ideas, but I have kind of three, four things that I work on.

And I think those three things sometimes, or four things really even, can sometimes kind of compete for what you're looking for. One of the big things that you hear often is that it's really hard to chase two rabbits.

And I'm experiencing that a little bit too. So that's where I've really approached things from more of a long-term focus and the vision that I have for the business and the brands and what that's going to look like, how they're going to interplay and kind of affect one another.

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One of the big things that you really want to do and I struggle with mightily is being able to kind of focus I wanted to be able to kind of ease myself a little bit more out of the digital marketing business, but still it's kind of pulling me back.

There's things that need to be done and I'm not sure the best way to kind of handle that transition as you start to get the team in place, but it still requires a lot of you because there are some things that are missing in your business.

And I think whenever you do start something, the longer that you do it, you get so embedded in it, it becomes harder and harder and harder to kind of transition and becomes harder and harder and harder to kind of like walk away from that.

And that's one of the things that was honestly like a big concern around, starting the brokerage business, because a lot of the brokerage businesses become largely relationship focused, which of course is great, but it does require you to spend your time there.

So one of the things that was really in the back of my head when I started this brokerage is like, how can I leverage a team to be able to kind of help support me and what I'm ultimately hoping to do.

A lot of my superpower comes around creating content, and I feel like I can do that fairly quickly and easily.

I'm not always the greatest content, but content nevertheless, I've never had issues figuring out how to create content.

I think we can always improve it, make it better, but as far as creating it as I'm doing right now, it isn't a heavy lift, so to speak. I think one of the big struggles is like, how do I have all those other complementary pieces to be able to build out the business?

And I think that's where the struggle has come in, is like making sure that you're bringing people on that are better than you in those other aspects.

Because I do have that baseline of digital marketing. I do know the analytics and to be able to ask those questions. I think, honestly, probably my biggest superpower is just being able to ask questions of things and being OK with not being the smartest person.

It's just saying, OK, I don't understand this. I don't understand that. I have a question around this, I have a question around that. I'm probably the person that's going to raise their hand the most.

And I often say that it's the journalist in me that is that annoying kid in the class that asks the question.

So the thing I really wanted to hammer home with this this update is really, first and foremost, how important it is to be the one that is not the smartest person in the room.

If you're the smartest person in the room, the saying is, find another room, because you don't want to be the smartest person in the room.

So as you're starting to grow, whatever it is that you're building, and me, looking at the brokerage, I'm trying to find smarter and better people that can complement and be better than am.

But as I transition, my really big focus is like, how do I complement each of these businesses? One being a little bit more of a subscription and membership, which is the CEO Flicks, which I'm dubbing the Netflix for business or nicknaming the Netflix for business.

It's having the digital marketing company being able to service the clients and customers we want to work with.

And then, of course, being able to have the brokerage and one of the other small things is kind of just like the affiliate partnerships, the CEO hacks and things like that.

So you're kind of looking at four different things. And the biggest thing for me has been like not trying to do all the things. So how do I get the right people in the right place so that we can all succeed?

And how can I stick to my core, which is a lot of times that being able to be the journalist, being able to be the content creator, being able to be the manager of these things and setting that vision.

And that's a lot of where my superpower is. But It's important, you know, as a leader that you start to build that team and build that opportunity for people to succeed.

But, first and foremost, let's not bury the lead. The most important thing is to get that first sale. And that's what I'm completely focused on is like, how can I get that first opportunity for Blue Star?

Because I truly feel like that will open everything up. My goal was to, of course, get those two by the end of the year, but it's we're just going to see where they continue to do the things and be active to see what we can do to make it work.

So this is Gresh signing out. Again, another update a little bit everywhere, but that's a little bit how it is sometimes running a business.

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 06:48

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.

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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