IAM2469 – Overcome the Feeling of Being Behind

In this special episode, Gresham Harkless offers a thoughtful and vulnerable update on the emotional and practical challenges he's facing.

He reflects on the frustration of feeling like he should be further ahead, despite putting in consistent effort, and how that mindset can cloud the real progress being made.

Gresham emphasizes the importance of the three core elements in the franchise process—mindset, money, and motivation— in evaluating candidates and maintaining his momentum.

He shares examples of how deals have stalled or fallen through due to candidates lacking one of these elements, highlighting the unpredictable nature of the business.

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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 00:26

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 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 is day 151 of this franchise broker journey. And I actually wanted to talk about like these feelings that you have sometimes when you feel like you should be further along.

And I feel like sometimes I even get in that space. I feel like I'm somewhat in that space now.

But talking through this definitely helps out. where I feel like I should be further than where I am right now.

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And because of that, that sometimes can get you in a place where you're not pouring positivity.

You're not looking at things holistically as what you're having, as you're being further along than you were ever before.

And I think yesterday even I had a good call with a potential candidate. I also checked in with my existing candidate that's kind of going through the process.

And just overall, you have these people that kind of get through, you know, the journey and get through that process.

And you hear these numbers and these numbers are like, hey, I want to try to minimize that by generating my own leads.

And the reality is that it may be better to buy leads. And the reason I bring that up is because if you're gonna end up being, and granted, I'm just getting started.

So that's where you don't wanna say that, okay, because of the first five or six months into this journey, I didn't close the deals in less than that ratio that I receive.

And that means that it's, you know, I'm a failure, it's not working out. No, all actuality, the reality, reality, the reality is that it does take time to see what you can do to improve.

And I've already made a small adjustment, but I want to continue to kind of work through these things and see what can happen.

So again, I'm fully locked in on getting that first deal. I can't control things outside of things that are on my day to day.

But It's something that I really want to make sure that I am kind of staying true to this overall process.

The overall steps along the journey and what I can do to kind of make that happen.

It's wild to me that even just from one of the things that we try to do is have partners from a financial standpoint.

So we can kind of have an idea like where we are related to this journey.

Like if a candidate has the potential finance, then we want to try to make sure that we are making those connections.

And then also we want to make sure that there's mindset, money and motivation in order to get started with this franchise broker journey.

And you want to make sure that you have all three, because if you don't have one of the three, then things can kind of fall by the wayside.

So you're constantly kind of checking in on those things, making sure that it's all OK.

The mindset, money, and motivation end up being those three big things that we really try to focus on in the beginning.

And I'm finding that sometimes we, you know, you don't have the motivation.

Like I had one of the first candidates I had through the process that I was about to introduce to the resorts didn't necessarily have the motivation.

And I think the motivation was she wanted to do her own thing. She didn't necessarily want to do franchise.

She eventually ended up telling me after she kind of ghosted me for a little bit. I was able to kind of get a hold of her and that's where she told me the money part.

You know I have a candidate right now that's kind of going through the process. He may not necessarily have the money although he does have some assets that he doesn't want to use.

So it just puts it in a place where you know he doesn't necessarily have the money potentially that he has to that he needs to kind of get started.

And then And then the last thing is just the mindset. And sometimes, I think this is along the lines of where people sometimes don't.

They won't release the idea of like being their own business owner, being their own boss.

And that's a mindset thing. It's a mentality thing. And that's a really huge part as well, too.

So with that being said, like, I think you have to make sure that you're continuing to kind of go through the process and do the things that you're doing.

But you also have to realize that you're exactly where you're supposed to be.

And that's a reminder that I keep telling myself is that, hey, I should have been racking in three, four deals by now and have zero deals right now.

So that's very, very real as far as this process. And I think that the struggles are something that, want to you want to kind of talk about because this is not easy.

And I think the hardest part is that you don't get that instant feedback. A lot of times you're talking with somebody, you take them through the process.

You don't find out until later that they're not financially set up or that they decide that, hey, I really don't want to do this.

But literally you had conversations that said the exact opposite in the beginning.

So I think that's one of the most challenging things about this. It's such a long sales process.

The things can drop off before you get to the finish line. So, that's part of why they pay us the big bucks, I guess you could say.

And we'll see what happens from there. But I'm trying to get my mindset in the right place to continue to excel.

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

Outro 06:40

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.

Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe and leave us a five-star rating. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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