IAM2534 – BNI Mastery: Achieving Milestones

In this special episode, Gresham Harkless reflects on reaching the 200-day milestone in building his franchise brokerage business, sharing both the challenges and growth he experienced along the way.

Gresham highlights the overwhelming influx of emails, ranging from newsletters to campaign-related messages, that have made managing communications increasingly difficult.

He's running campaigns and has a developing pipeline of 5-6 potential candidates, though conversions are taking time.

Gresham is also reconsidering joining a BNI chapter, something he found valuable in the past, but is now looking for a virtual, noon-time group that fits his current parenting schedule.

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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.

Just like that, day 200 is the milestone day of the franchise brokerage, and I actually wanted to talk about multiple things.

But I also wanted to say, just the sheer number of emails that you get, like in this it ends up being like a junk email, like there's so many different newsletters and so many things that are popping in now to my email box that it's in and of itself insane.

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Don't don't get me wrong. I'm also running my campaigns and things like that. So, sometimes you see emails from that, but just like the sheer number of emails that I'm getting in addition to the other emails I'm getting, ends up being really, really is it being a lot?

But, in the grand scheme of things, I've been back and forth around joining a BNI chapter.

It's probably one of the first things I should have done, but again, give me the six months, give me the time to, get the little one a little bit older.

He's starting to sleep a little bit better the last two days. But yeah, just going through the journey of starting the business and what that looks like.

Before when I started my business, I started in BNI. This one started without BNI and I think I'm going to end up going back to BNI.

I've been back and forth. I found a chapter I thought was a really strong chapter that I could join.

But the thing about it is it's had an awkward time. It was at 10, I think 15 my time, which is not an ideal time to block out the portion of my day.

But I wanted to join one that was at lunchtime. Join one at lunchtime, you have that block of time.

Early morning is not going to work as well with dropping the older son off and then, of course, have the younger son, so those probably won't work as well, although those are probably more ideal.

So looking for something that is ideally local, but is fully virtual and meets at about that 12 times is probably what I want to do.

Also, knowing that something's going to be B2B and B2C focus is probably also going to be really good.

So that's a little bit more of what I'm looking at right now. Overall, I mean, I think that I'm happy that I'm at 200 days.

I don't necessarily feel like I'm further along than I would have been if I would have started today.

And that's kind of like one of the more disheartening things. However, I know that I am because I at least have people in the pipeline.

I at least have two, I would say maybe three. I say if I were to look at my pipeline, I think I might have five to six candidates that could, get over the finish line, but they just might take longer.

So I think that's the interesting thing about this entire journey is just like ultimately what that looks like and what that can end up being.

So I just need to continue to kind of check in with people, see how things are going, and then we'll just see how everything kind of goes from there.

But, 200 days and my further ahead than I would have been if I would have started now. I don't know if I would have started now.

I probably would have started maybe next month. But we'll just see how this is, what this looks like.

I think, I always say the Mike Tyson quote, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. I've been punched in my face, and let's just see how I respond from that after.

And we'll ultimately kind of take it from there. So 200 days, a blessing, a curse at times, but in all seriousness, no, I'm really excited around this, what this is gonna look like.

I think this is my next phase into entrepreneurship, what that looks like. So yeah, I'm just excited around everything and see what happens for me.

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 05:26

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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