IAM2604 – How Brokers Recharge for Success

In this special episode, Gresh gave a candid update reflecting on the near‑one‑year mark of his franchise‑broker experience.

He admits to feeling a “massive flop” and battling imposter syndrome, noting that the lack of closed deals has made it hard to contribute in broker calls.

Despite this, he identifies concrete strategies to turn the tide: leveraging LinkedIn outreach, creating consistent content (especially videos), tapping social‑media searches and Google Ads for lead generation, and launching a regular newsletter.

He also plans to focus on networking, referrals, and co‑brokering—acting as a lead‑generation specialist while letting others handle the client‑guiding process.

• 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. Grush 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 subsite within CB Nation called 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.

Gresham Harkless 01:28
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 just like that, it's day 251 or 252 of the Franchise Brokers Journey. And I'm knocking on the reality that I'm literally what, 30, 60 days from it being one full year of doing this. And it is wild. And I feel like I've had a massive flop.

And I think that's what happens. And what's happened to me in the last two months, probably, is that I'm just like, wait a minute, this is not working. What do I do? And I think that as Things have changed and things have progressed.

[restrict paid=”true”]

Like I have, you know, every Friday I usually try to go and at least listen to, you know, what's said during the call. I just feel like I get more knowledge and information.

I'm not able to dial in as much as I would have wanted to, but I'm able to kind of listen a little bit more to see what might be a really good fit for me and what I can implement, what I can learn from other brokers.

I don't share as much, frankly, because I don't feel like I have a lot to share, just because I haven't had a lot of traction.

So I think that's part of that imposter syndrome that I feel like comes up a lot, especially like during these calls is I feel like I do probably have some insight, but you know, I've kind of had the caveat for everything.

It's like, I haven't made a sale, I haven't made a deal. And I think it's getting past that, that is the ultimate kind of challenge. I think it was like an interesting time to come into this, honestly, it was, you know, it was, Yeah, I don't know.

I guess this is a whole different climate. But one of the things that I heard one of the top brokers mention was that maybe the broker networks, or not the broker networks, the meeting portals may kind of be going by the wayside.

And that's very interesting. And like all the things that I heard that were talked about during the meeting are actually right in line with my strengths, which is why I thought I would be a good fit.

But again, I thought I would get some loving and fruit, you know, before I had to kind of lean into that. But With that being said, what happens, happens.

I mean, what I can definitely do is lean into creating more content now, doing what I said I was gonna do, creating more content, being active online and seeing what happens.

I think if I can do a combination of LinkedIn outreach along with content creation and networking and maybe social search, that might be the best kind of four things that I can do to kind of get things going for me.

I saw the best quality came from the social searches, I think. After that, it was probably Google Ads. And then after that, that was probably it.

What I think that I can do that is a combination is, you know, doing a kind of a five, this is five things actually, but I'm gonna call it, you know, networking for networking. referrals, so building relationships and networking.

I think after that, it's going to be trying to leverage LinkedIn, you know, for those layoffs and see what might come about from that. Then it's going to be content creation.

That's going to be another really big part of what I want to do. And then, you know, searching on social media and saying, hey, you know, you said that you were interested in this or you just got recently laid off or whatever that is and might look like.

I want to start doing like DMs and things around that. That was probably the number one thing that I feel like I did that got the most qualified candidates that didn't get over the finish line, but they were closer than the rest.

But one of the things with that content creation is creating videos, but also leveraging this newsletter. So bringing and putting together this newsletter is going to be another really big thing that I want to do.

I'm actually going to, I think the best thing I can do is start to leverage our team, leverage Mercy especially to be able to kind of create and send out this newsletter on a consistent basis, because I'm not doing it on a consistent basis. I think she can do a better job of doing that and tweaking it and improving it and things like that.

So I'm going to really lean into what I can do and what I can delegate consistently so that I can lean more into the things that are really where my strengths are.

I also think that it's going to be very important for me to kind of look into this co-brokering program and being able to kind of broker with other brokers and just be the lead generation person.

I think guiding people through the process is probably not my sweet spot. If I had to pick one spot, it doesn't look like lead generation is because I'm not generating my leads.

But funny enough, when I went through and I looked at the total number of leads that I had, I had about 200 or so leads, which is not a lot.

But even in 10 months, you're talking about 20 per month. So if I had 20 leads per month, that means I was able to generate leads. This is including what you paid and purchased.

But about 20 leads per month ends up being a really big thing. So it's just a matter of me. 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 06:40
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.

[/restrict]