IAM2580 – Stand Out and Embrace Your Uniqueness

In this special episode, Gresham Harkless is in a season of deep self-awareness and transition, navigating the balance between learning a new industry and staying true to who he is.

Gresham recalls a pivotal moment from his time with the Evolutionary Business Council, where he was reminded that he wasn’t meant to conform but to lead with distinction.

As he builds his presence in the franchise brokerage world, he’s realizing that some of the tools and systems he initially adopted, like an expensive all-in-one CRM, aren’t helping him thrive.

Gresham considers transitioning everything back to Pipedrive, a system he’s familiar with and can customize to better support his goals.

He aims to be part of the high-performing 20% by building his process, trusting his instincts, and staying adaptable.

• 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.

I had this idea that you hear about a lot is don't fit in when you were born to stand out.

I remember a long time ago, I was part of this organization called Evolutionary Business Council.

I remember I went to the conference. I was just saying, hey, I was talking with some of the people that were there.

Hey, I just don't know. I'm just trying to figure out how to fit in. It's like, don't fit in. Don't fit in when you were supposed to stand out, when you're born to stand out.

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And as I enter into this franchise brokerage world and start to really learn more about it, learn more about the brands, and more about how I can show up, I think one of the things that I'm still kind of in is figuring out, like, how do I fit in?

That's the thing that I'll ask. And you're not supposed to fit in, you're supposed to stand out.

And I think that that's one of the things that I have to kind of remind myself. And I think I remember when Luka Dončić got traded from the Dallas Mavericks to the Los Angeles Lakers.

That's one of the things LeBron said in the first kind of huddle that they had as a team before he played his first game.

And it's like, hey, you're supposed to stand out. You're supposed to do the things.

And by no means am I saying I'm Luka Dončić or anything like that, but I do feel like I have done things that are great, and I can bring that in.

It's just a matter of finding out and getting your sea legs in place. I use the phrase baby giraffe a lot in the very beginning.

And I feel like I've definitely slowed down as far as like my lead generation, but I also felt like I want to lean more into quality leads, having conversations, but really want to lean into like having those quality leads.

And I think part of that is just saying, okay, if everybody else is doing this thing, why am I going to do this, the same thing?

So, I think it's just really, sifting through these processes, these steps, and these things and seeing what works best overall.

So, I really want to take a step back from, I think, a lot of the things that I'm doing and just re-evaluate how I'm showing up, the CRM that I'm using, that I'm paying a couple hundred dollars per month that is supposed to help expedite deals, but they haven't expedited deals.

So, these things which are happening, I'm wondering if I should just bring it more in-house.

So, I'm very confused as far as what and how this is going to look. I really want to keep working hard and trying to figure out how best to do these things.

I'm still trying to navigate everything, and I think that's the challenge for me. It's just like, I feel like I wanted to run it as a separate business.

And I think it could be run as a separate business, but I feel like the people that are, like, for example, one of the candidates I had, she went through the process.

One of the first presentations that I gave, when she went through the presentation, I couldn't get a hold of her.

She eventually said, hey, I don't want to… I don't want to… I think she said she kind of wants to own her own thing.

She's an existing business owner. She didn't want to buy into a franchise. So, the interesting thing was that this person could potentially become somebody I have on the podcast.

It could potentially hear more information around our digital marketing and things like that.

So, but because this is all in one CRM, it just limits the things that I'm able to do.

So, when you start to kind of peel back the onion and see what's happening, you have to ask yourself, is this actually helping me get to where I want to be faster?

Or is it potentially an impediment to that? So that's something I definitely want to experiment with, is moving everything back into one consolidated CRM.

I think it's going to be Pipedrive since that's what I use. I just have to build up Pipedrive to be a lot more of what I need it to be.

I think I've seen everything that it is from Boss, but it's just a matter of now changing from there.

So yeah, I mean, that's just ultimately where I'm at. I'm seeing a lot of people are not making deals.

That's very much so an 80-20 rule, where you find that 20% of the people are driving 80% of the results.

And if I want to be in that 20%, I think I have to navigate things in my own flow in my own way, so that's something that I'm hopefully going to do.

And then we'll just kind of see how everything goes from here, but yeah, I have to make that tough decision, but I will, I can always go back and then just ultimately kind of take it from there.

Please let me know if there's anything I could do to help, and of course, looking forward to giving you more and more updates.

Outro 06:29

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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