IAM2672 – The Truth About Franchise Ownership and Management

The Journey and Vision: Debunking the Passive Myth

Gresham Harkless opens the episode, which is a snippet from his “I am SEO podcast” (Episode 2287), by immediately tackling a core misconception: the idea of 100% passive franchising. He emphasizes that anyone suggesting a candidate can buy a franchise and be completely uninvolved is doing a disservice to both the candidate and the brand. He then introduces his personal project, Blue Star Franchise, and explains that he is documenting his start-up journey to offer listeners an honest, insider look at building a franchise business. This documentation, which will be shared on a “Franchise SEO” sub-site within CB Nation, is intended to be a helpful roadmap for others considering entrepreneurship.

Realities of Time, Ambition, and Investment

Reflecting on his journey, Harkless stresses that success in any new venture, especially franchising, requires a significant time investment—often “twice as much” time as initially anticipated. He reiterates the lesson learned from franchisees and industry sources that “100% passive” simply doesn't exist. Instead, he explains that early in a franchise's life, an owner must either put in the time personally or pay someone else to do so, ensuring that manager is truly invested in the success of the business. He notes that the closest examples to passive income, like vending or Amazon storefronts, still demand some time, contrasting this with the often-required hands-on approach and due diligence of brand-centric franchises.

Protecting the Brand and the Entrepreneurial Mindset

The final message is a blend of encouragement and caution, underscoring the importance of having the right entrepreneurial mindset. Harkless advises listeners to truly understand what they are doing and to align their actions with their goals for success. He concludes by pointing out that reputable franchisors also engage in their own rigorous due diligence. They want to ensure a candidate will be a successful partner who protects the brand, not just someone checking off boxes to get in. Ultimately, he encourages “builders” to continue their work and “run your own race,” equipped with the understanding that high ambition requires patience and real effort.

Previous Episode: https://iamceo.co/iam2671-documenting-the-journey-to-build-a-sustainable-model/

• 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 00:00

I think those people are getting into franchising and thinking that, hey, I want to get enfranchised. I don't want to do any are involved. And when he did, I think anybody, you know, having that conversation or representing in that way is doing a disservice to the person, the candidate, but also doing a disservice to the brand as well to.

Hello, hello. This is Gresh from theI Am CEO podcast, and this is a special episode, episode number 2287 of our I am SEO podcast. And this is actually going to be a snippet of a snippet. So this week I'm just doing an intro because I've been starting to document my journey to starting what is now called Blue Star Franchise.

We're also going to do a kind of sub site within CB nation called, franchise SEO. So you'll see some links in the show notes related to that. But just wanted to give you a little bit more insight, maybe a little bit more, covering some of the aspects of why I'm actually doing this. Because one of the things I was doing as I was going through trying to start up this new business was realizing and hearing from the founder of 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 in this 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 gonna post this. So I'll have that information as 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. Needs you to be your unique self. So make sure to run your own race because nobody can run your race like you.There's Gresh signing out. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day

Gresham Harkless 01:52

It's 344 of this franchise proper journey and, wanted to go through what I think might be the last days, at least when the Sunlight Daily Record is set for, like I've done, consuming maybe 300 or so of these different recordings. And, as I'm getting towards the end of the year, and, 365 days is hard to believe 21 days left.

I figure, it's 20, 20, 21 days left. So what? I figured I'd probably do. I start to, talk about some of the things that I've learned from franchising, like, you know, step back on the journey, talk about, like, house about it. Okay. But series and shake up the industry and all those things. Then that happened and that was that vision that I have.

And I've always had high ambition. But I think even you realize it's worth doing. And, you know, it takes a lot. It takes more time. And sometimes you anticipate, you know, it's you believe, you know, you're going to work on something. So it's kind of works. You know, you got to it's kind of it's yeah, I think that's twice as much is an important, and half the time that you think it's going to work.

And that's just got kind of a general rule that you have. But I still have the patience and I still have those ambitions. Now, I feel like even with the Chase, I feel like I just think it's time. Time is such a valuable thing. I think one of the misconceptions around franchising is that there's a lot of, semi passive or, you know, basically completely passive, 100% passive.

And it's funny because I had somebody working on, a project, it's kind of consulting with me. and one of the things he put on the forum was 100% passive was like, no, you don't want to talk about passive, because that doesn't really exist. Franchising. And that's the thing that I've learned by hearing from source, but also hearing from franchisees, over and over again, there's no such thing as 100% passive.

You have to put some time in that. Don't you want to start to scale away from the amount of time that you're putting in? But the reality is that usually, in the beginning, you're either put in time or you're paying for somebody to put in time, and you gotta make sure that the person that you're paying the time is actually going to be the person that can make it, you know, make something.

Often what you find is that there's a lot of, people that already know who they're going to bring on for the franchise. So you have your your manager or the, owner operator or whoever it is, or part owner operator, whatever it is. And sometimes even these brands require that you have a percentage of or the person that's in that seat, and they want to make sure they're invested as far as, like the success of the business.

And, you know, that's one of the big things that I think is a huge misconception is that you can just, you know, buy a franchise and you don't have to do anything that's very far from the truth. And I think that, of course, the more established the brand, the more you assume, the stronger the process is. The things are in place.

And I think sometimes that's a great fit for sometimes for some people, sometimes it's not. So it's just important to kind of truly understand what you're doing. Take a creature like be a success at a quarter and in alignment with, reaching that, like being a success. It's important to just, like, keep that in mind. like how you ultimately do that.

And I think one of the things to keep in mind is that there is not this 100% passive franchise. And I think that the closest thing that sometimes you have, I've done a video about has been, venting to Amazon, storefronts. And I haven't seen like, exactly like what the jury is on those. But with the machines it's pretty predictable.

You get the machines, you put them in locations, and then you when you start to generate revenue from there. so those are the closest things that you see, but even those require some time. It's like no matter zero time at all. I think even like if we go away from franchises, we talk about things like blogs. It's like that.

Usually you are building up the traffic, things to go there. So after you start getting traffic and absolutely start ranking for keywords, things like that. But the reality is that you have to continue to continue to keep doing that, until you get to a point where you can start to, generate revenue. So it's important to kind of look at all those things, kind of keep that in mind, continue to kind of, you know, sharpen the saw.

But I think those people that are getting into franchising and thinking that, hey, I want to get to franchises that don't want to do our inventory waiting, I think anybody, you know, having that conversation or presenting it that way is doing a disservice to the person candidates, but also doing a disservice to the brand as well to and I think I think, the sauce do a good job of guiding people through that process, truly understand that it kind of sniff it out because also, from their perspective, they want to make sure the person that is coming on is going to help.

The brand is going to be successful, not necessarily just checking off, you know, a few boxes so that they can get in. They want to make sure that they're protecting the brand as well too. So they're also going through their due diligence. So I think it's important to kind of understand that whole entrepreneurship asset. The things that I've learned, you know, for being in the spot that there's not those you pay money that sit with these franchises.