IAM2646 – The Transformative Power of Change

In this special episode, Gresham discusses how change is inherently messy: altering one part of a business triggers a domino effect that ripples throughout the whole operation.

As his original marketing company, Blue 16 Media, morphed into an umbrella brand with multiple niche services, he recognized gaps and inefficiencies that needed new solutions.

Scaling back in one area led to staff turnover, prompting him to emphasize accountability—whether you’re a solo practitioner, franchisee, or business owner—because doing the same thing will never produce different results. He stresses the importance of foundational fixes before sustainable growth can happen.

• Blue Star Franchise: bluestarfranchise.com
• Browse the Franchise Inventory: bluestarfranchise.com/franchise
• Is franchising right for you? Check this out to see: bluestarfranchise.com/assessment
• Franchise CEO (A CBNation Site – coming soon) – 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 subsite within CB Nation called a franchise CEO.

So you'll see some links in the show notes related to that. But I just want 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 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. It 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.

So change is hard because change is hard. And I think that as you kind of go through any type of journey, you start to realize that One of the reasons that people don't like change is because change doesn't just change what you're changing. Change changes other things as well, too.

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There ends up being a domino effect. So as we've had to make some shifts and changes in the marketing business, it's affected everything as a whole. Blue 16 Media has become a lot more of an umbrella brand with different kind of niche, micro, laser-focused business offerings.

And as we've kind of evolved and changed and done a lot of those things, started to see and uncover that things aren't done as well as I would like them to be.
And as we start to scale and grow and try to, you know, compound upon what we're doing, it's forced me to kind of start to look at that and start to say, hey, Maybe this is something that we need to do in a different way.

Maybe this is something that we need to explore amongst a different path. And I think once you get into this space, that's when you start to evaluate things in a different way. It's like to uncover things.

You say, hey, we need to change these things. And as a result of the change, change creates other change. And sometimes that change is not It's not necessarily one thing you want to create and change the one thing in order to hopefully fix some things. But sometimes as a result, you know, that starts to happen.

So we had to make some scaling back within the marketing business. And as a result, someone decided that, hey, this isn't for me. And that happens. But I think that's where you start to really have to hold and have that accountability within your organization, have that accountability for yourself.

So whether you're a solo practitioner, franchise owner, or you're running your own business, you start to realize that, hey, we have to make these changes because you can't continue to do the same thing and expect a different result. especially when a lot of those things are ultimately foundational and need to be fixed overall.

So that's where we're ultimately at and where we have to ultimately make those changes and adjustments and go from there. So we want to continue to adjust that, continue to change that, continue to make sure that we're doing the things that we need to do to be better.

And when we do that, I think it's just going to create that foundational level so we're able to to, you know, grow and expand. So that's, that's, you know, kind of where we're at, what we want to do. And, you know, we just want to take it a step at a time and continue to kind of get better. So we'll take it there and we'll see, you know, what will happen.

But a lot of times that change is difficult because you're not failing. but you're not necessarily succeeding. You might be leaning towards failure, but you haven't necessarily failed. So sometimes it takes that moment where you say, hey, this is not it.

that you start to redirect. And I had that moment myself. And it started to give me the realization that the model that we were trying to work into wasn't working. It wasn't the model itself.

It's just it needed to be completely rebuilt. And when you start to realize that, you start to realize that, hey, I can do this better. I can do it in a more intentful way. And that's what we ultimately want to do.

So yeah, that's what I'm working on right now. 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 05:15
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 bluesixtymedia.com.

This has been the I AM CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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