IAM2566 – Mastering the Art of Broker Meetings

In this special episode, Gresham Harkless is having a powerful realization—he’s not just building a business, he’s stepping into his true calling.

After connecting with another nearby broker, he sees clearly how fast the Franchise Brokers Association is evolving, moving toward a model that elevates content creators and influencer-type leaders.

Gresham is embracing his role as a connector, the person who brings the right people together and tells the stories that matter.

He’s exploring the co-brokering model to create more opportunities through collaboration rather than competition, and he envisions building a platform where his strength in content and connections can shine.

By integrating this approach into his “CEO Hacks” brand, he’s unlocking a bigger vision: helping entrepreneurs find the right franchise could be one of the ultimate hacks for success.

Gresham is leaning into what lights him up—storytelling, connecting, and creating—and recognizing that this is his sweet spot.

• 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 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.

Day 223 of this Franchise Broker Journey. And I actually met yesterday with a fellow broker that's located not too far from me.

One of the really big things that we kind of just shattered around is just the state of FBA and some of the things that they're working on.

Our organization seems to be moving really, really fast. We're doing lots of different things, and they're literally shifting as they go.

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I think one of the really interesting things that I'm starting to see is that they're moving fast. They're moving fast towards, I think, creating more influencer-type individuals.

And I think that's something that I really want to look into. And I think sometimes it's not necessarily being the person that's guiding people through and knows all the information.

Sometimes it's just being the glue between franchise and the individual, and maybe even the broker at that time.

So, one of the things I really kind of looked into was the co-brokering program and see what I could actually do to kind of create more opportunities.

I'm really interested in this and seeing if I can build myself into being that kind of go-to person, not because I'm the go-to person, but because I've interviewed so many people, I've created so much content that it ends up being, I can spend more of my time there. I think that's my sweet spot.

I think that's what I'm able to do and I'm capable of doing. It's just a matter of finding an opportunity to do that.

So that's something I'm really looking into. And honestly, if you really think about it, if I approach it from that perspective, what you're really looking at is like an extended affiliate program.

Even though I may not want to admit it, maybe in the grand scheme of things, it's really looking into this as an extension of the CEO hacks, where maybe one of the CEO hacks is actually finding somebody to help you out with finding a franchise.

That could be one of the hacks. And I really think that that's something really cool that I could probably do.

But I frankly also think that being able to, how do I put this, being able to step into everything that I'm doing and really get into my sweet spot is going to be the best thing that I can make happen.

So, I'm constantly kind of thinking through this. And I, again, I thought I would have some low-hanging fruit at the beginning, and I'd be able to just, leverage into that.

But sometimes those things don't happen because you haven't let go of the things that you wanted to let go of.

So, it makes me wonder if that's really where I need to go and really need to spend more time on developing and creating this content, and see what might ultimately happen from there.

I feel like I've cultivated and built a pretty good platform and have an opportunity to really shine and grow.

So, we'll just see how all these things happen. More than anything else, I'm excited about the next steps, excited, excited about seeing what's going to happen. And then you just ultimately kind of take it from there.

But yeah, that's pretty much my update and pretty much all the things that I have going on, and we'll see what happens from here.

But I'm really leaning more and more into this like content creator role. I think I'm, I think I enjoy the idea and the opportunity to get to be a broker. But I think I enjoy more just doing the content creation.

I love getting somebody through the process and being able to kind of have them on the podcast and be able to say, hey, what did you do?

How did you do it? What did you make happen? And I think that's one of the more exciting roles that I'd be in if I had to choose either or.

The matchmaking and all those things are cool. And I think that being able to kind of like have those connections would really be good.

But I think being able to kind of like partner with a broker or two or maybe three or four, I don't know, you know, whatever that might look like, it might be more of what I want to do.

So, we'll ultimately see what happens. And then, you know, I'll just take it from there. But, excited about the opportunity, excited about taking it further. And then I'm excited to just see, like, where and how all this evolves.

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 05:48

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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