IAM2582 – Revamping Life: Day 238’s New Plan

In this special episode, Gresham Harkless recognizes a major gap in the franchising space: a lack of education-driven systems that help potential franchisees truly understand the process and opportunities.

He’s now focused on creating targeted content for three groups: laid-off professionals, people unhappy in their jobs, and business owners looking to expand.

Gresham plans to educate these audiences through content creation, live podcasting, and leveraging his media mindset to establish himself as a thought leader.

He’s also exploring joining a BNI chapter to deepen his network and foster referral relationships.

Moreover, Gresham embraces the “marathon, not sprint” mindset, committing to consistent outreach, value-driven content, and positioning himself not just as a broker but as a trusted advisor and connector in the franchising space.

• 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.

Today is day 238 of the Franchise Broker Journey, and it's the end of the 12-week year.

I have a day left before I start doing 12 weeks. It's 13th week. Jay-Z is like a rest week or whatever you need to do, week to get into what you're doing.

I might spend some time today working on this newsletter, get that up and going.

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I think that's the last part. But one of the things that I did, I played around with ChatGPT. I said, hey, I feel like there's a gap here. There's a gap related to leads.

I don't think it's just me that's not getting these quality leads. So, one of the things that I talked about doing is there's a lack of the gaps that it said, and I say, and I agree as well, too, is there's a lack of education-driven systems.

There's not a system that lets you learn a little bit more about franchising. Most people don't know around franchising.

And that's, I think that's where the biggest gap is. The only thing is it does take time to be able to build that out.

However, if you're seen as a kind of a guilty person and nobody else is doing it, then that could definitely, put you in a great place. There's niche personalization.

So, to be able to target specific people and speak directly to them based on one or two niche avatars.

I think those avatars are gonna be around people that are laid off or unhappy, and looking to leave.

But clearly, people that are laid off, people that are unhappy, and people that maybe want to add on businesses.

I like the idea of the influencer route, but I still think that that takes some time to develop.

So, that's very much so. So, I would say those are the three layoffs. People are experiencing layoffs, people that are unhappy in their current position.

And then, of course, people that want to add on the initial business, complementing the business as well.

Outreach and content creation. Franchise brokers really create content. So, I really want to do some really great content creation.

That's going to be the big thing, leveraging this podcast as those rise in line with who I am and my media company mindset, which I think is going to be huge.

And then, really, being more of a matchmaker. I don't want to be just a, I have a transactional business.

I definitely want to have a long-term business. I also think that looking into this networking group that's one of the reasons to do that is to really look into that transaction.

It's not just saying, hey, I just do this. So, I really think that there's a gap here that's aligned with who I want to be.

The thing that I think is funny about this whole thing is that I felt like it was going, I wanted to kind of get some quick wins.

So, because I try to get quick wins, I feel like I made a mistake in the beginning, but you let me learn.

I feel like it was going through and doing ads and things like that was going to give me that opportunity.

But I feel like the real opportunity was actually already in front of me. So, it was just a matter of sitting down and saying, okay, let's take this marathon mindset.

Let's take it a step at a time. Let's build relationships. That's create content and educate people. Let's have people be a lot more armed with information than they had been.

And I think by really leaning into that and looking at that process, it's gonna put me in a place where I will be able to definitely do it in a way that I think it needs to be done to be able to have success.

I think, and this is the funny thing, this is a business I would not just go all in on if you have something else.

I don't have anything else. Of course, you do what you have to do. But I think if this is something that I could take more of a longer-term approach to it, I would do that. It's long-term sales, it's high-ticket sales.

So, you should approach them in kind of much of the same way. I thought that there would be some quick wins that I would find, and I have not found those quick wins.

So now it's time for me to shift my focus and shift my aim of what I ultimately want to do. So, we'll see how everything happens.

But I think it aligns with everything that I've been doing. So that's the thing, like I just have to cultivate and refine the things that I've been working on already.

And I think it'll lead to some great opportunities, but it just has to be that marathon mindset. So, I have to switch gears. It's not a sprint.

It's not to get that quick sale, which is what the goal was. I burnt out from that, from the sprint. So, I took a little bit of a break, probably in the last month, 45 days or so. I haven't been as hard.

And I'm switching gears a little bit. So, I'm looking into the networking group, the BNI chapter.

Also, looking into executing this plan, and we'll see how everything goes from here. But I'm excited about what the opportunities will be, what they're going to look like in this second of the mix.

Oh yeah, and I'm also going live. I'm going live around podcasting a little bit later on. So, trying to tap into that connection broker, your connection broker mentality.

And I really want to make sure that I can do that as best as possible. So, I'll be going live a little bit later, too.

So, live for the first time. So also, getting outside of my comfort zone and doing new things too.

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 06:38

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.

Check out the latest and greatest apps, books, and habits to level up your business at CEOhacks.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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