IAM2545 – Embracing Innovation Like Never Before

Gresham Harkless reflects on a pivotal transition toward simplifying and refocusing his strategy.

He acknowledges the need to scale back temporarily on Google Ads, recognizing that without a clearly defined and responsive client avatar, those efforts serve as inefficient amplifiers.

Gresham shifts his attention toward organic and relationship-driven methods, particularly leveraging the podcast and blog as tools for discovery, outreach, and opportunity generation.

Gresham emphasizes the importance of identifying a real, urgent pain point, such as layoffs or workforce reductions, that can prompt quicker decisions from potential clients seeking career reinvention through franchising.

He plans to reengage with past podcast guests and consolidate client information using tools like Pipedrive, aiming to create a more organized and effective system for tracking and nurturing relationships.

Moreover, his focus is on letting go of tactics that aren’t producing meaningful results and doubling down on the strategies that align with his long-term vision, creating a more intentional and efficient approach moving forward.

• 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.

Now it's day 206 of this franchise broker journey. And it's kind of like this opportunity for new beginnings, where a lot of what we're doing is going to be focusing on leveraging the podcast, the blog, just all these different mediums that we have see if we can start generating some opportunities there.

I think we're going to scale back on the Google Ads at least temporarily and probably scale a little bit more into looking at the ways that we can get a better, more focused avatar, lean into that avatar, and from that avatar, be able to use Google Ads from there.

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So, using Google Ads is kind of like the amplifier, but not having that foundation.

So, this is like one-on-one marketing where, a lot of times, when you have your ideal client, you're able to work backwards from there.

But a lot of times, people don't have their ideal client. This is kind of like what I'm working through myself, where I had an idea of who I wanted to target, but there's not as much speed with that actual avatar.

So, we're looking for a big pain point, big problem that we can solve. So, thinking along the lines of layoffs and reduction of forces and things like that are going to be the biggest things that are going to cause people to make that quicker decision.

So, now it's just a matter of understanding that and being able to refine and target that, and then just ultimately go from there. So, I'm going to leverage, hopefully, the podcast as a really great way to do that.

I want to really reach out to existing clients and customers, or people that actually take that back, people that have been on the podcast.

I think one of my 12-week year goals was to create a place where all of the existing clients and customers that we work with are all consolidated.

I think I found a tool to do that. I think I'm going to be able to use that and Pipedrive to be able to make that happen. It's just continuing to kind of work through these things and see what ultimately happens.

I think there's a lot of moving parts and a lot of things that are happening, but we just want to kind of get back to simplicity, let go of those things that aren't really working for us, and then be able to lean into the things that are.

So, we'll see what happens and goes from there. And then, it'll be a good experience for sure.

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 04:06

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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