IAM2525 – Embrace the Unexpected: Day 195 in Focus

Gresham Harkless reflects on reaching day 195 of his franchise broker journey, expressing disbelief at how quickly time has passed and how much he’s learned.

Despite his 11 years of experience in digital marketing, he admits that breaking into the franchise space has required a different mindset.

Initially, Gresham focuses on generating a high volume of leads, as advised early on, and he now realizes that lead quality is far more important.

He's now recognizing the need to lean into his strengths in content creation and storytelling to differentiate himself in a crowded, highly competitive market dominated by lead portals and big-budget advertisers.

Gresham aims to reposition himself by combining his marketing background with brokerage in a more aligned, value-driven way.

Check out our CEO Hack Buzz Newsletter–our premium newsletter with hacks and nuggets to level up your organization. Sign up HERE. 

I AM CEO Handbook Volume 3 is HERE and it's FREE. Get your copy here: http://cbnation.co/iamceo3. Get the 100+ things that you can learn from 1600 business podcasts we recorded. Hear Gresh's story, learn the 16 business pillars from the podcast, find out about CBNation Architects and why you might be one and so much more. Did we mention it was FREE? Download it today!

Transcription:

The full transcription is only available to CBNation Library Members. Sign up today!

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.

And just like that is day 195 of the Franchise Broker Journeys. I always start everything saying it's hard to believe it's day 195 because it frankly just is that so many days have passed.

I think that's what happens, especially during that first year, first six months, first year, honestly, probably, honestly, it's hard to believe that I've had a digital marketing business for 11 years.

[restrict paid=”true”]

That in and of itself is just insane. Cause I feel like I was just kind of getting started still kind of, reshifting things.

But one of the things that I've been very, very aware of now is, is the experimentation piece of being a broker.

I remember when I went through, determining whether or not I was going to be a broker.

I spoke with, I believe, somebody from BI who basically said, hey, this is the amount of leads that you're going to need.

And I took that to be the thing. I took that to say that the number of leads that you're going to get is going to be the biggest thing.

But funny enough, I actually spoke with somebody from Brandsurf, who I'm hoping to have on the podcast.

She has a franchise, she also does marketing herself, has a coaching. There's just lots of things.

She's a multifaceted entrepreneur, which is one of the reasons I said I was really excited to have her on the show.

Because I feel like she provides so much kind of more holistic perspective on what it means to own a franchise, but frankly to own a business and everything kind of in between.

But one of the things that really, stuck with me and speaking with her, she talked about quality.

And I didn't hear as many people say that. I've heard maybe one person say that, hey, maybe with your background, you can create content and things like that.

But I never really said that was going to be the first thing I did.

What I wanted to do was try to come in, Google Apps, reach out to people online, and just kind of go from there.

But now I'm seeing and feeling like there's a whole different shift I have to make. This is part of a pivot.

This is part of maybe an experimentation I can do over the next four weeks or next two weeks.

It's just to see how I could maybe build this out in a completely different way. I think the content is really going to be a big part of that.

So expect more videos from me, speaking around specific aspects of entrepreneurship and definitely around franchising as well too.

But I think just overall, just kind of getting into that realization that what I'm doing is not working.

So you have to pivot, scratch it, do things a little bit differently. So I met with the team Friday, that's what we talked a little bit about.

Yeah, we're just going to see how things can go in a different way. I think overall, I'm just not in that right spot.

I'm not in that right flow. And I thought I'd be able to get some low-hanging fruit and then pivot from there.

But I think what's happening is that you're competing with the lead portals. You're competing with the people that are just dumping lots and lots of money into franchising, into developing franchise leads.

And it's so funny, after I spoke with somebody and I talked around the, I spoke with somebody who's going to be on the podcast.

I talked with her a little bit more around how it was for her as a broker and things that I saw and so on and so forth.

I actually got a cold call from somebody who was trying to figure out how to be in our inventory so that we can share the brand.

And just like that, it was like back to back, it was saying hey what you're doing is probably not the right thing to do.

So you have to approach it a little bit differently, so with that being said, I want to completely change everything I don't know exactly how to change.

But the good thing is that when you're getting zero like anything you do differently is going to improve.

And we're not getting zero, we're actually getting leads, but it's not quality leads, and also there's a perception around people when you talk with them that they're going to continue.

They're going to have expectation that you could get a franchise for $10,000 and things like that.

And it'll probably be a feature video that I kind of go through, but yeah, there's a lot of like misconceptions around franchising as well, too.

What you're getting, what you're investing in, why you're investing in things like that.

So I think there's a lot of information that I want to start creating just to hopefully dispel some of those myths.

But also, I think it's going to be a great way to kind of collaborate with people, I've already done it a little bit.

I would say I probably have had maybe, just off the top of my head, I'm guessing maybe around 10 or so people, just around that.

So it's just, you know, segmenting those episodes, putting it on its own, I think URL, and then just ultimately going from there.

I think there's tremendous opportunity there. It's just a matter of doing it and doing it differently and doing it in a better way.

But I think using my superpowers and marrying this rather than approaching it in the way that I have is going to be the best way to do it. I gotta think differently, approach differently, and move differently.

So that's what I'm also gonna do. So looking forward to moving forward from 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 06:45

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.

[/restrict]