IAM2520 – Bouncing Back After Breaks: Reignite Your Routine

In this special episode, Gresham Harkless reflects on the unexpected difficulty of gaining traction and closing his first sale. Despite consistent effort and staying committed, he admits that the process has been tougher and slower than anticipated.

He shares his experience with a promising candidate who has likely ghosted him, an example of the hesitation he’s noticing more frequently in today’s uncertain economic climate.

Gresham acknowledges that while the market plays a role, it's on him to adapt and adjust rather than make excuses.

He highlights the importance of focusing more on sales, reducing operational distractions, and leaning into higher-performing lead sources like FTD.

Gresham is recalibrating his approach with a mindset of resilience, experimentation, and self-awareness, looking for focused, strategic shifts that will help him turn persistence into progress.

Check out our CEO Hack Buzz Newsletter–our premium newsletter with hacks and nuggets to level up your organization. Sign up HERE. 

I AM CEO Handbook Volume 3 is HERE and it's FREE. Get your copy here: http://cbnation.co/iamceo3. Get the 100+ things that you can learn from 1600 business podcasts we recorded. Hear Gresh's story, learn the 16 business pillars from the podcast, find out about CBNation Architects and why you might be one and so much more. Did we mention it was FREE? Download it today!

Transcription:

The full transcription is only available to CBNation Library Members. Sign up today!

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 00:29

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.

And just like that, it's day 196 of the Franchise Broker Journey. So I'm knocking on the door to day 200, which is wild.

I think it's even wilder that I haven't been able to get much traction. But I think it's also very interesting that I'm not the only one. It's a case of kind of where we are. I had a candidate.

My candidate, I think, has now ghosted me. I can't get a hold of him. He was the farthest along in the journey.

So it's definitely, you know, I wasn't super positive or super, I didn't expect.

I didn't have high expectations as far as him getting over the finish line. But I was really hoping that he would, because I definitely want him to.

But I also thought he was kind of throwing out a little bit of hesitations around doing that without directly saying that which sometimes happen along the process and along the journey.

[restrict paid=”true”]

But it's very interesting like kind of where I'm at and I'm still trying to navigate ultimately like where I am where I want to be and what steps.

I ultimately want to take with that just kind of having that understanding that I do have another candidate that's, hopefully going through the process.

I have to check with her. I have a meeting with her every Thursday just to see how those things are going.

But yeah, it's just very interesting to kind of see and navigate exactly what this is going to look like in terms of the process and the journey and what it means, what it doesn't mean.

Where I should take the next steps, where I shouldn't take the next steps, what it's ultimately going to look like, what's happening in the industry.

There's just so many moving parts with this. But I do still fully feel like this is definitely in line with where my superpowers are.

I just think that it's a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. And I think that, what's happening, with the economy, I guess, is also playing a really big part.

But, I know that you never make excuses, no matter what the economy, what's happening with the economy, you have to adjust and change and shift, but you continue to kind of do what you can do to get to where you need to be.

And that's kind of ultimately where I'm at. It's like, I feel like, that Mike Tyson quote that I've probably said many times is that everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.

And I feel like I've been punched in the face and, getting up and just saying, okay, so what's the next move?

And I think that you can't have the same strategy. You got to tweak your strategy. So that's ultimately like where we're at from a Google ads standpoint and just tweaking some of the things that we're doing to try to get better and higher quality.

People go through the process, but I think I also have to kind of tweak ultimately what I'm doing in certain processes.

So one of the best candidates I had also came from FTD. So looking into FTDs and how to navigate that is also going to be a really big step along this journey.

So we'll ultimately see how all these things happen, what it ultimately looks like, but I think just having a very focused, probably approach to, everything that we're doing is going to be huge.

I think I need to spend so much more time on sales that it's crazy if I could get rid of all the things with these operations I'm doing meeting with clients, things like that, that would be amazing.

I think it would just free me up to really do the thing that I need to do and ultimately that I'm really good at doing.

And I think that being able to kind of break things up, how I've broken things up, I don't think that I need to move away from that.

I think I need to lean more into that because it's going to allow us to make sure we're hedging our bets and putting our energies in the right place.

So we'll just see how these things go and then we'll take it from there. Again, 196 days from training and not one sale.

That's wild to me. It's not, it's not unusual because I've heard people that don't get sales within the first year.

I'm just very shocked that that's ultimately, where I'm at, but we'll see how these next things go and, get any kind of feed, fill up that funnel, and then we'll just take it from there.

Please let me know if there's anything I could do to help. And of course, looking forward to giving you more and more updates.

Outro 05:56

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 iamceo.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.

[/restrict]