IAM2666 – Revisiting Ads: A Bold Move?

In this special episode, Gresham shares the current challenges he faces, which involve a massive reboot and resetting of his existing digital marketing and web support businesses.

This phase requires exhausting work to undo old processes and establish a clear new direction for success, which he is exploring through updated strategies like testing smaller budget Facebook ads rather than relying on expensive, less successful lead portals. His goal is to organically generate opportunities, avoiding external lead dependence to ensure better alignment and a higher chance of ultimate success for his new business direction.

He recognizes that this is not a completely clean slate but rather an opportunity to approach an existing business with a fresh “CEO” mindset, acknowledging past mistakes to unlearn and correct processes. Although he sees significant excitement and opportunity, this reboot necessitates dedicated work to untrain himself and his team, creating an entirely different operational environment one step at a time. Gresh plans to share continued updates on his progress, including his explorations into new advertising support, as he navigates this hectic yet promising transitional period.

• 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 Jr. 00:26
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 subcite 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 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 I'm at this point now the baby I have him in my lap he hit the stop button of course when you hit the stop button you can't be recording this layout but I'm at this point where I'm later than resetting a lot of things.

And it's very exhausting just because I think it's also setting you have to do the work to reset to undo the things but I think also you have to kind of understand like where you're going, what you want to do, how you want that to happen, and really just kind of have those conversations. So I'm at this point now where it's just like, okay, what do I need to do? How do I need to do it?

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How do I make that happen? That's what made me kind of look at ads, but maybe doing ads in a different way. I think, you know, we were very much so set on having like a sizable budget, but even just starting with maybe the five hours, a week, five hours a day through Facebook ads could be a way to kind of build out that momentum. And I think one of the things that I'm seeing is that there's not a lot of traction.

If you don't do anything but ads, you could buy leads and buy those leads. You've got to work those leads. But again, I didn't want to go that route. I still am at the point where I don't want to go that route.

I'd rather organically get opportunities than, I think, depend on lead portals which are there to pump out leads and not be able to be put in a place where I can ultimately succeed. So that's ultimately where I'm at, just continue to kind of process these things and you know as I reboot. The digital marketing business, the web support business, just all these things are being rebooted at the same time. So it's definitely like a hectic time.

You know, it becomes really hard to like unlearn the things that you do. But I think also you have to know what mistakes that you've made and be able to correct them. But the thing is, I don't think we're starting from scratch. I think that a lot of times when you're starting a business from scratch, you're like, okay, but what do I do?

So you're ultimately buying into a business that you've been working and saying, okay, I'm going to put on another cap. I'm going to approach it in a different way. I'm going to be a different CEO to see what happens from there. There's some excitement there, because I think they'll see, I definitely see opportunity there.

But it does mean that there's work to do, and there's work to untrain yourself, untrain the people on the team, and just create a whole entirely different environment. So looking forward to that, looking forward to taking a step at a time. And I'm looking at ads, maybe Facebook ads. I talked with a guy who I thought could do all these things, but he seems like he's going at a snail's pace.

So I had to kind of look. 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 04:56
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 imceo.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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