IAM2560 – Starting Anew: Embrace the Reset Button

In this special episode, Gresham Harkless reflects deeply on the concept of starting anew, particularly in light of the uneven success between his digital marketing efforts, which are gaining traction, and his franchise brokering business, which hasn’t met expectations.

He emphasizes the difficulty, but necessity of sometimes stopping what’s not working and starting anew, while still leveraging the lessons and small wins gained along the way.

Gresham reconnects with the determined, focused attitude he had when first launching his business, locking in despite a lack of support or recognition.

He aims to pivot toward creating meaningful content, nurturing referral relationships, and embracing a new approach that aligns better with his goals.

• Blue Star Franchise: http://bluestarfranchise.com
• Browse the Franchise Inventory: https://bluestarfranchise.com/franchise
• Is franchising right for you? Check this out to see: http://bluestarfranchise.com/assessment
• Franchise CEO (A CBNation Site – coming soon) – http://franchiseceo.co

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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 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.

I said that I wanted to talk a little bit more about starting anew. And a lot of times when you're not having the success that you want to have in certain aspects, some aspects, the digital marketing is starting to hum along, but the franchise brokering business has definitely not been where I wanted it to be.

And I often say it's a lot easier to start anew when you're not getting the traction that you want. So many times, you want to take some of the things that are going well and try to lean into those.

But often, I think at some point you have to say, OK, this isn't working. So let me stop doing what I'm doing and let me move on to the next thing.

And I think that's kind of where I'm at. It's funny because I was just listening, this is just after I went to sleep at the Oklahoma City Thunder's loss game one.

Halliburton hit a game winner, and I was listening to his post-game before I watched the game winner.

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He was saying that over the summer, a lot of the media, a lot of the people out there said that it was a fluke, that they didn't belong there, and all these things.

And they said that they took it upon themselves to really say that, hey, we're going to prove that to you, we really thrive on the doubters. He didn't say the haters.

He didn't say it exactly in this way, but a lot of times, that ends up being the fuel for you to be able to do the things that you need to do.

And funny enough, when I first started my business, that was pretty much how I approached things.

I really got locked in. I said, OK, everybody's not celebrating me.

No one's saying you're doing good or you should be doing this. So how do you lean into that?

So, I think tapping more into that might be something that will be really good for me.

Something that when you think back to starting something new, what are the things that are in your DNA that gets you going, gets you to where you ultimately want to be?

And I think that that ends up being one of those big things. It's like being able to say, this is where I'm at, and this is what's happening.

In this journey, being able to say, let me take the wins as I can take the wins.

But frankly, I haven't gotten to where I want to be. So if I want to change things, how do I start anew, essentially, and take some of the good?

Let's just start out from scratch again. And I think that's really, really hard, because I feel like you're battling with this, I should be here, or I should have done this, or I should have done that.

But you also take peace in knowing that you have talked with people and said they haven't made deals in their first year, and they just learned a lot.

And so, what I ultimately say, and what I always ask my 10-year-old self, what would 10-year-old Gresh do who signed the family newspaper?

And he would definitely say, like, play the long game, build up this foundation. Because if you're able to build it up in such a great way, then you're going to be able to get opportunities, and opportunities that no one else would probably be getting.

And I think that's the way I've started to look at this a little bit more and saying, OK, how can I create this content, build referral relationships, and do it that way?

And that's a little bit of a different and unique way than I've been doing in the past.

So, I'm looking forward to really taking those steps, taking that journey, and seeing ultimately what it's going to be.

I think in the grand scheme of things, I was really, it's something where if I tap into that, a lot of people don't believe that you can do this, especially now that you've got a rough start.

A lot of people don't believe that you can do it. People are saying that, and you start to get in that space.

For me, it really helps out because it helps me to lock in. I think that's one of the things that I remember in the very beginning stage when I started the digital marketing company, I felt like I didn't have as much support as I wanted to.

So, whether right or wrong, I'd had some support, but it wasn't to go that route. So, I was locked in where I wasn't telling anybody much of anything. I wasn't having conversations with people as much.

I was listening to advice, don't get me wrong, but I was very locked in on this is what I need to do.

So, in the grand scheme of things, it's very much so a similar space. I'm not hearing as many doubters because I've been able to have some success.

But at the end of the day, I don't want to hear that. I want to lock in, and I'll use it as getting the opportunity, getting that rejection from the BNI chapter, not directly, but just one person at least that made me not want to apply there made me say, okay, let me step into what this is supposed to be going to look like.

And I'm definitely going to lean into this and see what happens. But yeah, I'm very much so going to take that with it and put that chip on my shoulder.

And I'm going to use this to kind of feel myself forward because that's ultimately what I need to kind of get me going.

And that's probably the old inner athlete in me, it's like let me prove the doubters wrong and show them exactly why I feel like I'm as good as I can be, and I will definitely improve that.

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 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.

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