IAM2608 – The Secret to Staying Consistent

In this special episode, Gresham Harkless Jr. shares about industry challenges, pointing out that decision‑making, confidence, and finances are tougher now than when he started training. Many newcomers feel uncertain about protecting their investment.

The message is to turn setbacks into “opportunities to improve,” stay “gung‑ho,” and focus on landing the first deal, then keep moving forward.

Gresham recognizes that the franchise landscape and the broader economy have shifted; success means evolving with those changes.

He sees content creation as a superpower. Gresham sees his strength in producing content that educates and supports others.

• 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 00:26
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 subcite within CB Nation called a 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 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 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. And then a continuation of what I was talking about. Day 252, I got cut off because I was just chatting.

But one of the things that came about, and I think one of the things that's not being said and talked about in this industry is that There are challenges in this industry.

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People are not making decisions like they did before. Coming into the business during this time is a challenging time both mentally and emotionally and financially.

If you made an investment into this, you're like, hey, did I just lose my money? It happens all the time.

I've talked to many people before this time and they struggled. So you never make excuses. You just make opportunities to improve. So I'm still gung-ho on getting these opportunities and things.

I said I wanted to five deals and obviously that looks a little bit more challenging, but you can't get the one deal. You just get the first deal and you just keep moving on from there.

And that's something that I really got to do is really hone in on what I want this to look like. Even if I'm not doing it all the way full time, I can still do a better job than what I've been doing.

I think understanding the changes that are happening, the shifts that are happening in the industry are going to be huge.

And realizing that, hey, this is not maybe the same type of world and economy or industry that it was literally when I started training.

And I think that that's a really powerful thing to keep in mind is that You have to evolve, but I think the way that it's evolving is right in line with my superpower.

And I think it's going to be so important for me to create content and create some information and just be able to be a resource to help people.

The best thing I can do is just help out people. I've always wanted to do that and that should come naturally. And I think with all this AI stuff, It's going to make it the content creation even easier and smoother.

So I'm super excited about doing some co-created pieces of content. I'm even more excited about doing some solo pieces of content.

And this really seeing what I can do to kind of get a little bit more headway. So it's not really clear exactly like how I'm going to do that, what it's going to look like, but, you know, you just try to, you know, get those things going as much as you can.

So, yeah, I mean, this is like exactly where I'm at, what I want to do and, you know, just kind of look into what's gonna be the best steps for me, but I think if I get in a space of just pure creation, it's always where I've felt like I've shined.

I just haven't had a way to call to action that I think would move people, but now I think I do. So yeah, let's see what happens, and then I'll just take it 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 04:25
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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