IAM2594 – Is the Agency Model a Relic of the Past?

In this special episode, Gresham Harkless reflects on the evolving nature of the traditional agency model, questioning whether it's truly obsolete or simply transforming.

He shares that his move into franchise brokerage was driven by a desire to break away from the often rigid and inefficient agency structure and to build something that leveraged his marketing expertise into ownership and long-term value.

He emphasizes that while AI has certainly disrupted the industry by offering fast, accessible tools, it lacks the nuance, context, and experience that seasoned professionals bring.

Gresham believes there's a critical need for tools and resources, like CEO Hacks, that help distill information and guide decision-making amid the overwhelming flood of new technologies.

• 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.

There's a post that I saw someone posted on LinkedIn around the agency model being dead, being a relic of the past.

I think that was the phrase that was used. And it's interesting because one of the reasons I went into this franchise brokerage business was.

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Because I sensed that there was going to definitely be some disruptions and changes in the agency model. It was a really, really difficult cyberspace model.

It was extremely challenging. But with that being said, I saw like some opportunity to really what I always wanted to do, which was take marketing and be able to leverage it into your own properties.

And that's what kind of led me to this. It's franchise brokerage business.

And what I don't want to lose sight of, and I think that's one of the reasons I keep going back to say, hey, I don't want to do that, is because one of the reasons I started this was not just to create these opportunities, but it's actually to change the entire model.

So, it was definitely more of an ambitious undertaking that I had. And I think when I look at it, I just, wonder maybe if, in fact, that is the case where this agency model is starting to kind of go by the wayside.

But I also think that it's not. Because I think that AI definitely has its advantages.

You can take your URL, you can put it through the website. But I think the question is, AI also hallucinates.

AI also doesn't tell you exactly what is the actuality of what it is that you're doing.

I'm not going to go as extreme and say it's a spammer, but when we look at it, we want to make sure that it's accurate with what we're looking for and what we're trying to accomplish.

And I think whenever we see, you have to have the knowledge and information and experience to be able to push back against AI, push back against other experts, frankly, as well, to say, hey, that's not true.

And I think one of the things that ends up being missing is that you don't have that unless you have that experience.

Going into this franchise brokerage business, it was pretty much like looking at that and saying like, hey, there definitely is and will always be a need for somebody who knows marketing and be able to say this is going to be the next thing, or they missed that, or this was missed, or whatever it might be.

I think that one of the things that people underestimate is like sometimes, and don't get me wrong, there's definitely models that are being created.

But sometimes people that are using in marketing and business don't even have the expertise and knowledge to be able to improve that.

So, to be able to know what to ask or what to prompt or do those things.

So, it's I think there's definitely, will, and always there is and always will be a place. But there's being so much.

I think the interesting thing is that people think that you could just use chat to put everything in.

But there's definitely better models for different situations and different places.

So, it's definitely in the wild, wild west. And I think with there being so much stuff, people are going to be overwhelmed.

But now they're going to be more overwhelmed. And so, what tools should I use?

And that's where I think something like CEO Hacks ends up being. extremely valuable because it gets to distill some of that information down.

Distill that information down. Distill the information so that people can kind of know what tool could be used for what exact thing.

But again, you still have to have some knowledge around what it is that you're doing. You want to be able to monitor the intern, as I like to call AI, really smart intern at that.

But in franchising, I still think that there's a tremendous opportunity when you're able to couple these things together so that you can continue to move forward, continue to provide value.

So, it's interesting. It's an interesting idea, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it has legs.

But as with any disruption, a lot of times, the quality is going to take over more than anything else.

And if the quality is not there, then there's going to be some problems. So, you just take it a step at a time, you see what happens, and then you go 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 06:06

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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