IAM2517 – What Would a 10-Year-Old Gresh Do?

Gresham Harkless reflects on his 190-day journey as a franchise broker, expresses his frustration for initially straying from the path he instinctively knew was right, and leans into content creation and digital storytelling.

After investing in Google Ads with underwhelming results, he’s considering pausing them to reallocate resources toward more authentic and impactful efforts, like publishing educational content on franchising.

Gresham realizes that his true superpower lies in creating meaningful content that positions him as a knowledgeable authority.

He recognizes a significant gap in the franchising industry for quality content and expert-led digital marketing, and now feels compelled to fill that void.

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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 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.

Now, what would 10 year old Gresh do? Having been now 190 days into this franchise broker journey, I feel like I have a lot more perspective than I did when I started.

And I feel like even when I started it, I think I'm somewhat frustrated with myself because I knew the path that I should have went and I didn't go down that path.

I decided to go down a different path. Why? Because I had some revenue to kind of work into it.

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So with that being said, I put some money into Google ads and it has not gone the way that I wanted to go.

So I'm really strongly thinking about pausing those ads. creating the, taking that aspen and putting it someplace else.

One of the things I did do was I also invested into YouTube course and thought around doing some content around franchising and franchise brokering, what that looks like, all these videos that I haven't really been publishing as I'm thinking of doing that.

So anytime I have like some challenges, I always talk on podcasts that I've been a guest on is that I go back and ask, what would 10 year old Gresh do?

10-year-old Gresh is the one that started a family newspaper because he wanted to make a little extra coin, and he wanted to connect with his dad because he was in a different country. 10-year-old Gresh started a family newspaper.

So why not do the same thing? And I think that is me operating from my superpower from being 10-year-old Gresh. 10-year-old Gresh is still within not 10-year-old Gresh anymore.

A little bit longer in the tooth. But with that being said, I think that one of the things that was my biggest superpower, my biggest advantage in coming to this was that I thought I could do the digital marketing piece.

The digital marketing piece has not panned out how I wanted it to, and I'm kind of a little bit frustrated honestly by that, that it hasn't gotten anywhere there.

But a lot of times it's the market telling you ultimately like what's there. Don't get me wrong, I still need to go do the leads and all, take those opportunities and continue to kind of look through those things to make sure that these leads that I got are numb, are good, are quality.

But with that being said, I still feel like I've always seen the gap as far as like being content that could be great.

Most places have a lot, have the, the dearth of content that needs to be created. And I think that that's something that I hope we have to lean into.

So, me having done these videos for such a long period of time, it's like, I have a lot of information here just around franchising and what that should look like.

But I haven't really done a lot of authority positioning where I've talked a little bit more around the things that I know around franchising.

It's been talking about around, around my journey. So, There might be an opportunity there just to kind of go a little bit more in depth over at the latest in franchising and create some content around there and see what that looks like.

I think that that is one of the big gaps that I saw. I felt when I stepped into this, I felt like there wasn't any marketers in this franchise world, which is kind of weird to me, because I feel like there's an opportunity there.

But I've also had conversations around authority positioning, around like how you can create authority by being able to kind of be the go-to expert around that specific topic.

So that's something that I'm really going to look into. I'm going to do a tremendous amount of research, some content there.

I'm probably going to drive a lot of the Google ads that I've been doing. and just say, hey, let's go into the things that I know.

If you're gonna go down, go down swinging and go down in the way that you should go.

And when I stepped to this, one of the things that people said is like, you'll be able to create a lot of content.

I have not created a lot of content, but it doesn't mean that I won't create a lot of content.

So looking forward to doing that, looking forward to seeing ultimately what this looks like.

But frankly, looking forward to being 10 year old Gresh again and being able to say that, hey, the thing that you're looking for is already here.

I actually have a quote somewhere that says, what you seek is seeking you.

So that means a lot of times we're looking for something, but the thing that we're seeking is actually the thing that's right in front of us.

So maybe the thing is right in front of us, the whole front of me the whole time, and the reason that I had a certain amount of money, that ended up being not to my advantage because it didn't allow me to grow in the way that I wanted to grow.

So now, looking at things differently, it's like, how can I hustle around this?

How can I hustle around this related to content and creation and around there and just do things in a different way?

So I'm looking at things, looking at re-shifting things, looking at seeing how I can optimize the things that I'm doing and frankly, looking at how I can be my best self in the best way.

So yeah, that's kind of the realization I had and I need to lean into that and we'll ultimately kind of take it from there.

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 06:09

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 Blue16Media.com. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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