The Journey and Vision
Gresham Harkless opens the segment by discussing his current need to reconfigure and reboot his entire business. He notes that what brought him to his current level of success is not what will take him to the next level. This insight is driving him to look at things and operate differently, posing the challenge of “how to unlearn the things that you've been doing.”
He introduces this content as a special episode and a snippet documenting his journey into starting a new venture called Blue Star Franchise, which will also lead to a sub-site/channel called Franchise CEO within CB Nation. His purpose is to document this building-out process to be helpful for others considering franchises or starting any type of business.
Challenges, Learnings, and Real-World Results
Harkless candidly shares that the journey has not gone the way he wanted, leading to a feeling of scrambling over the last three to six months. He realizes that while he has been testing things (like DMs) on a low scale, the core problem is the need to put more “gasoline on the fire”—to test things with enough energy/money to truly see if they work and then iterate.
He explains that he's had to reboot the entire business because things weren't performing at the desired level. This rebuild has required him to spend more time there, which has had a domino effect, pulling him away from dedicating sufficient time to the new broker business. Personal responsibilities, like having a new baby, further contribute to feeling “fractured and very split”.
Re-Prioritization and Forward Momentum
Harkless is at a crossroads, questioning how to do what needs to be done. He is wondering if leaning on his current team—including a good VA and his integrator—can help take the business to the next level. He acknowledges that scaling has been challenging and he has had to have difficult conversations to get where he needs to be.
He concludes that the central issue is not just direction, but the “figuring out part”—reconfiguring the entire operation. He recognizes that reaching a level of success requires asking, “How do I take it to the next level?” Moving forward, he must continue to ask himself, “What do I want and how do I make that happen?” and commit to taking it a day at a time.
Previous Episode: https://iamceo.co/iam2665-running-the-long%e2%80%91term-race-in-business/
- Blue Star Franchise: bluestarfranchise.com
- Browse the Franchise Inventory: bluestarfranchise.com/franchise
- Is franchising right for you? Check this out to see: bluestarfranchise.com/assessment
- Franchise CEO (A CBNation Site – coming soon) – franchiseceo.co
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Transcription:
Gresham Harkless:
It's not even just a direction thing. It's the figuring out part. Like I'm really reconfiguring this thing as, you know, I go. And in doing that, it's like, okay, well, what you were doing maybe isn't what's going to take you to the next level. When you start to realize that, you start to say, okay, I have to look at things and operate differently, but how do I operate differently? How do you unlearn the things that you've been doing? Foreign.
CEO podcast and this is a special episode, episode number 2287 of our IM 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'll 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 her Glennard post is. 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 Grass signing out. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of day.
And with that, I don't know what day it is, but it's been a lot of days. I'll tell you that of this franchise broker journey, I have to do the math and start to calculate. I like this tool now. It's like this tool now allows you to put in the date so I can start putting the dates, figure out exactly where I was, what I was doing to kind of look through this journey. And I pretty much want to delete all these, honestly, just because I think it hasn't gone the way that I wanted to in the journey. When you go through the journey, you want to see there be some type of
End of the road where you say, hey, this is success. This is what it looks like. This is how he did it. This is what he does. And I just been scrambling, honestly, probably for the last three to six months, maybe been testing out things, don't get me wrong, but I've been doing DMs, things like that on a very low scale. But I think the problem that I run into is that I do have to put a little bit more gasoline on the fire. So when I test out something, you test out something with some gas, even if that gas is a few dollars, so you can see if it works. If it doesn't work, then you have to iterate and continue to kind of do that. That's the secret to doing this. Obviously, if you're having a franchise, the idea is that the. The franchise Zor already has done those things. But it's very interesting just because as I go through this, I realize I have my shirt on inside out for my workout. It's just one of those things where you continue to chop at the tree and I think you do it at a different scale. So I've been back and forth about, hey, digital marketing is my bread and butter. This is where it is. But I think that I haven't been able to put as much time and energy into the other things because I've had to reboot the entire business.
And when you reboot the business, it's usually not because things are performing at the level you want to perform. Usually it's not. And what I realized is that I could spend more time probably putting energy into the things that I need to. To. To scale up rather than what I've been doing. So I think that's ultimately, like, where I'm at. I'm wondering if myself in a really good VA and my integrator and a couple people on the team can really, like, take this thing to another level. And I think that's ultimately like, where I'm at, where, you know, this is not, you know, what I want it to be, what I need it to be. And I think that, you know, sometimes you have those difficult conversations, which I've had a bunch of them, and I might have to have another one today to get to where you need to be. I think being able to kind of lean on the team, you know, lean on the people that are left on the team, is definitely something that, you know, has been challenging to kind of do just because we haven't scaled the way that we needed to. And I think that it's left it so that I have not been able to even devote as much time as I wanted to to the broker business. And with me not being able to vote that time, then it just creates this domino effect, because the whole idea was to bring, you know, a team on so that I can start to focus on this business.
But as this business doesn't do what I needed to do, doesn't scale or grow to the level that I needed to grow, it's forced me to spend more time there. Spending more time there has meant that I'm not, you know, focusing as much on the other parts of the business. And also, you know, what's also pulling is having that, you know, the new baby and then juggling all the things that life entails as well, too. It's made it so that you become very fractured and very split into things that you're doing. So I'm left at kind of like a crossroads of, like, how do I do what needs to be done in the way that I need it to be done? And it's not even just a direction thing. It's the figuring out part. Like, I'm really reconfiguring this thing as, you know, I go. And in doing that, it's like, okay, well, what you were doing, maybe, is it what's going to take you to the next level? When you start to realize that, you start to say, okay, I have to look at things and operate differently, but how do I operate differently? How do you unlearn the things that you've been doing? This got you to a level of success, don't get me wrong, but it's not getting you to that next level.
And I think this is what a lot of people do when they go through different, you know, marks and, you know, whatever, you know, landmark they hit is that you reach that level of success and you realize, how do I take it to the next level? I think that's ultimately where I'm at and, you know, just have to continue to ask myself, what do I want and how do I make that happen? I think those two things coming together is one of the biggest things that I need to kind of focus on. So we'll see what happens. I'll take it a day at a time, and we'll go from here.
