Guest Info

We have interviewed over 1,000 guests and we work to continually improve it.

Those more than 5 years along the journey and have architected success in their own way and want to share their story, journey, and the pearls of wisdom. We often will call them “Architects or CBNation Architects.” We are especially excited to have guests based in the Washington DC, Maryland & Virginia areas, creators, and previous contributors to our sites, but we are always looking for remarkable stories and great insights that will help our “Builders or CBNation Builders” “level up along the journey.

• Listeners of the show (CBNation Builders): Driven startup CEOs who are within their first 5 years of business and want to build their organization to the next level while transforming themselves in their own unique way.
• Guests of the show (CBNation Architects): Those more than 5 years along the journey that have architected their success.

Most interviews will be around 15-30 minutes, but we will have 60 minutes blocked out, and the final episode will go live around 16 minutes (audio) and close to as-is for the video at a later date.

Here are the questions we will ask. Although it will be very conversational and the questions overlap by design.

• CEO Story: Can you give us a quick peak into your story, background and what led you to begin with everything you are working on?
• Serving Clients: Tell us about your business/organization and what products and services you provide? Sometimes you can touch on your process too.
• Secret Sauce: What makes you and/or your organization unique? Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)? Your distinguisher or differentiator
• CEO Hack: What is your one favorite business resource or life/business hack that has helped you as a CEO? (Tangible thing e.g., book, app, habit) We are really looking for something that is not widely known or used. If you have something that helps other business owners. Even better 😊
• CEO Nugget: What golden nugget do you have that you would give to entrepreneurs and business owners? What would you tell your younger business self? What would you tell your favorite client? (e.g., word of wisdom or piece of advice, thing you wish went differently) Especially if you work with other business owners, we would like you to speak from your zone of genius. If you are a marketer, what marketing nugget do you have? If you are a HR professional, what hiring nugget or piece of advice do you have? Are you an author, what nugget can we get from your book?
• CEO Definition (Our Big Question): What does being a CEO mean to you? Take a look at what some guests have said HERE (https://www.instagram.com/iamceo.co/) OR the podcast Mashups here: https://ceochat.co/category/i-am-ceo/
• Anything additional? AND What is the best way to get in contact with you?
• Bonus section (OPTIONAL) – 5-10-minute-deep dive on something from the interview and/or something mentioned during the show.
• Offline on the form (OPTIONAL): Have someone to recommend being on the show? This person will also receive notification about being on the show.

1. The first step is you probably received some outreach about featuring you on the podcast via e-mail, social media, etc.
2. If interested, we will have an optional 10-15-minute connection/brainstorming session. You can schedule here: https://iamceo.co/guest/introcall15.
3. You will complete the form (you may have to scroll down) and after you complete the form, you will schedule a time available for you on the calendar: http://iamceo.co/guest.

We have over 100k downloads and estimate it's a couple hundred downloads for each episode. Our episodes feed across our different CBNation sites. Each episode goes to our different podcast directories.

We will also provide some sharable content when your podcast goes live.

Squadcast. We will meet on Zoom and move to Squadcast. Ideally, we would like to do audio AND video. Please Note: Squadcast DOESN'T support virtual backgrounds. For the quality of the interview, we would recommend you to join online via your computer. I usually take the lead from the guests on the show so if you want to do just audio, that’s fine.

Gresh will brush his hair and come prepared to do both audio and video. However, if you just want to do audio that is fine too. Ideally, the interview will be both audio and video. 

We usually recommend using Chrome Browser as it works best with Squadcast but also using headphones and a microphone if you can. Check out some equipment here.

The interviews will take place on Monday afternoons or Fridays. Each scheduled block will be for 60 minutes (you can add a deep dive conversation for 10 minutes too) but for the interview itself we will shoot for 15-30 minutes.

The best interviews are around 15-25 minutes and super conversational.

Typically, during the interview, we can give you an approximate date, but sometimes booked 1-3 months in advance so after your interview, it may not go live for 4-12 weeks from the date of recording.

After you complete our form, you will be forwarded to a private scheduling link where you will pick a time for the interview.

Here's a general outline of how our time together will go:

• 5-10 minutes: Reconnection, questions, mic check, etc
• 15-30 minutes: Interview
• 5-10 minutes: Bonus Section (Optional)
• 5-10 minutes: Final connections details

We would also recommend checking out this (4 Steps on How to be a Great Podcast Guest and this (Squadcast How to be a Great Guest).

We would recommend restarting your computer/device before the episode and making sure that your phone is silenced and all tabs and computer programs are closed.

All you will have to do is make sure that you have the link to your scheduled time and you will click the link (you may have to click twice) to enter the zoom room and then we will give you a link for Squadcast.

Be yourself because everyone else is already taken.

But come prepared to have a great conversation and just think of it as 2 friends being in a coffee shop.

We usually recommend using Chrome Browser as it works best with Squadcast but also using headphones and a microphone if you can. Check out some equipment here.

We would also recommend checking out this (4 Steps on How to be a Great Podcast Guest and this (Squadcast How to be a Great Guest).

If you are guest, you will have an opportunity on the form when you complete it, but just in case it's after you've completed the interview–fill out our nomination form.

Yes, all our episodes are on our site. You also may subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and many many more, check out the list.

My name is Gresham Harkless Jr, but I go by Gresh.

You can check out my site http://iamgresh.com but my personal mission is to help create, connect, and collect to help people and organizations WIN. I do that in different ways but I manage, with a team, CBNation–a Business to Business (B2B) Brand/Global Content.

Based Chamber of Commerce with LOTS of content in blogs, videos, and podcasts. Our goal is to increase the business success rate. CBNation consists a lot of content–niche blogs (CEOBlognation.com), podcasts (CEOPodcasts.com) and videos (CBNation.tv). In 2018, I managed a podcast called CEO Chat which is a 30 minute to an hour-long podcast. Currently it features special episodes and information. I found that as much as I love listening to and hosting the interviews, they can sometimes be too long for me or others. So, I wanted to create something more laser focused. I also manage a digital marketing company called Blue16 Marketing (http://blue16marketing.com) under the umbrella of Blue16 Media (http://blue16media.com). The I AM CEO podcast is a way for me to network, connect and tell the stories of entrepreneurs and business owners. It is laser focused for those busy professionals (our CEO Chat podcast is typically 30-45 min). Typically, you can complete an episode between a client meeting, before you go to sleep or when you are walking the dog, etc. Also, it is a great opportunity to feature more entrepreneurs and business owners in our community and explore additional ways to collaborate (e.g., joint-ventures, email interviews, guest posts, book reviews, longer podcast interviews, video interviews, etc.). In addition, I get hope to help support CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners with their digital marketing especially website support and maintenance Blue16 Web Services (http://blue16web.com).