IAM2581 – Turning Loss into Celebration!

In this special episode, Gresham Harkless shares an update on his 231-day journey as a broker, describing the emotional ups and downs of working with candidates who show initial interest, then back out, only to sometimes return unexpectedly.

He emphasizes the unpredictability of the process and how gut instincts, while not always definitive, often reveal early red flags in a candidate’s engagement.

Gresham noted that while some candidates are not fully committed, offering small, low-risk projects or educational resources can serve as meaningful touchpoints to keep prospects engaged and gradually increase buy-in.

He sees opportunity in creating more educational content to pre-qualify leads and support prospects while preserving his energy and time.

Gresham maintains a practical and evolving mindset, recognizing the value in lessons learned and choosing to celebrate clarity — even when it comes from a lost opportunity.

• 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.

All right, now it's day 231 of this broker journey. And I lost another candidate, but then I think the candidate I was talking to came back.

So very topsy-turvy kind of time. I think the candidate, it's so funny, like you go through this process and you see things and you see things and you're like, that doesn't seem quite right.

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Or this person isn't doing those things, but sometimes you can sometimes get people to do some type of, like in the digital marketing world.

I can sometimes get people to do some type of project or something, or something small, even if they're not all the way in on doing something; sometimes you can make that happen.

Not in any sleazy way, but just in the terms of saying, like, hey, this small thing can actually help you to improve this broker journey.

I'm seeing like these sales. There's no like in between. You're either all in or you're not. I think that you can, of course, create things that can kind of help out as far as that process and ultimately what that looks like.

But you're pretty much providing your services for free, and you only get payment if somebody gets across that finish line.

There's a whole kind of opportunity, I think, where there is like not necessarily wage. Bless you. Just got my little co-host with me.

There's not necessarily ways that you can definitely get closer to that finish line by buying anything, but you can learn more.

So, there's a lot of edu edutainment, maybe opportunity or definitely an education opportunity.

So, with that being said, that's kind of a little bit more of what I'm looking into. So when I think of taking the last candidate, I think I'm going to have not official, but probably will be.

I think some of that is because I celebrated because I kind of knew.

And I think that's what, you know, you sat down with, now you respect the process because you can always be wrong.

But at the end of the day, you're kind of like, okay, well, that this doesn't seem to be going the way that I think it's going.

And now you want to, of course, be able to kind of go through the process and just ask those questions and be more direct. Like, hey, it seems like you're kind of maybe not doing this.

And she gave me a lot of reasons why she needed to take time out for this or take time out for that.

Then I found out that know you wanted to respect their process because they're already franchisors, and to go through ultimately what that looks like.

So, you just take it one step at a time, you do what you can, and then you go from there, but I think overall like I'm I won't say I'm shocked, it's just very interesting.

So, when I'm looking at approaching this, I see why people say it's a volume thing.

It's a quality of leads that are volume. So, you're just trying to talk as many people as possible.

But if you can somehow increase that quality, then I think you can increase the process, increase your time.

Because here's the thing, I'm not going to be able, I don't want to at least, do this completely full-time.

And I think that's the reality that I came to because my thought was like, hey, I start this, I bring this on, create it into an agency, generate quality leads, and be able to bring on people that can do those things very similar to the person that was the person that had actually trained us.

But what I'm starting to realize, what I'm starting to see is that it's not that easy. And I think that even just getting leads for yourself is in and of itself a challenge, but that's where we could see some change.

We'll see what ultimately happens. And, I just got to lean more into like all these things that I'm doing, and then we'll take it from there.

The little ones getting restless. So that's basically that's why I'm celebrating the lost opportunity, because it's something that I kind of gauged.

And even with my kids that disappeared and came back, I still have my doubts there, too. So, we'll see how everything goes and just take it one step at a time.

And, yeah. It's a journey, but I think that recalibrating is going to be the best thing that I can possibly do.

So, I started to take some steps to do that, and we'll just kind of take it from there.

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 06:14

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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