He now targets people who publicly ask franchising‑related questions on podcasts, social media, and newsletters, aiming for a handful of high‑quality conversations each week instead of a high volume of low‑quality leads.
To sustain this pipeline, he aggregates prospects from YouTube, his newsletter, Facebook groups, and other social channels into a single master list. While he feels “nine months behind schedule,” he believes the slower, relationship‑focused approach will reduce wasted effort and generate better long‑term opportunities.
- 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
Check out our CEO Hack Buzz Newsletter–our premium newsletter with hacks and nuggets to level up your organization. Sign up HERE.
I AM CEO Handbook Volume 3 is HERE and it's FREE. Get your copy here: http://cbnation.co/iamceo3. Get the 100+ things that you can learn from 1600 business podcasts we recorded. Hear Gresh's story, learn the 16 business pillars from the podcast, find out about CBNation Architects and why you might be one and so much more. Did we mention it was FREE? Download it today!
Transcription:
The full transcription is only available to CBNation Library Members. Sign up today!
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 IAMCEO podcast.
Gresham Harkless 00:28
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the IAMCEO podcast.
And this is a special episode of our IAMCEO 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 BlueStar Franchise.
We're also going to do a kind of subsite within CB nation, Franchise CEO. So you'll see some links in the show notes related to that.
But I just want 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 who 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 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. It 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. Day 247, looking for leads online.
So this is something that I wanted to kind of do to kind of restart everything, you know, within that first month or the first week, really.
[restrict paid=”true”]
It's all been about, like, how can I find some leads, find some leads online that I can potentially have conversations with? And I did have one of these last week where I had a conversation about him more or less taking his business and converting it into a franchise.
Not sure if he's further along enough in the journey to be able to do that, but it's something that he's at least having conversations about.
So I had a conversation with him. I consider that to be a lead because I had the conversation. Do I know or think that he's going to continue on? No.
But here's the difference, because what I used to do is that we were paying out for Google Ads, the Google Ads were, you know, getting some conversations, some correct phone numbers, sometimes not.
And I think that's where a lot of the updates and changes need to be where you know you try to follow up with these people and then you don't get the right number you know just whatever happens and I think one of the better leads that I had he's completely flaky so that didn't end up working out either so it's good potential candidate I think but he just didn't seem to be serious and he didn't really reply back or do any of those things.
So I think it's one of those things where you figure out who your ideal clients are, but I think the best way to kind of get started, especially if you don't need it, but you just kind of do those things to lean more into that.
So what I found is that searching online was one of the better ways that I found to generate more leads and opportunities.
So when I decided to kind of pause on the Google ads, I wanted to lean back into, you know, doing the social search that I was doing and seeing what people would raise their hand.
You know, I had one conversation, I had another person, she had reached out to me to be on my podcast and I saw that she had asked a question around franchising a business and starting a business without a job or getting financing when a person doesn't have a job and things like that.
So I started to really, you know, just look into these things and cultivate those relationships, see what happens. And I think that what's interesting is that you feel like you have to put and pour this money into your business, into ads.
But what happens is you get to a point where you say, if I can have at least five lead conversations, then that's gonna be worthwhile. So that's something I started to look into, not necessarily saying, how can I get more leads, but how can I get more quality conversations?
And more quality conversations doesn't necessarily come from that cold networking, but I believe that helps you to fill it to the top of your funnel.
So that's where I kind of completely changed things. I started to look and say, okay, let me approach things in a different way.
Let's build up this list from this list that's been cultivated.
And that list includes social media. That list includes newsletter. That list includes, you know, Facebook and relationships and things like that. And just see what happens from there.
So that's how I approach it as a little bit more of a long-term type of focus. And with that, it makes it a little bit more, Frustrating because I'm trying to move faster because I feel like I'm nine months behind schedule.
And yeah, it just changes things. But I think that these conversations are going to be a lot more quality.
I'm going to be spending probably less time calling people that aren't answering, don't even have a great phone number, and spend more time cultivating those potential quality conversations that I'm having through referrals or through social search.
So definitely slower moving, but I think that it should open up better opportunities. It's gonna probably move a little bit slower, but we'll just, you know, see what happens.
But that's, you know, where I'm at, just taking it day at a time and then we'll move from here.
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 05:51
Thank you for listening to the IAMCEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co.
IAMCEO is not just a phrase; it's a community. Want to level up your business even more? Read blogs, listen to podcasts, and watch videos at CBNation.co. Also, check out our IAMCEO Facebook group.
This has been the IAMCEO podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.
[/restrict]