IAM2372 – Essential for Success in Franchise Broker Journey: CEO Time

Gresham Harkless discusses his day and shares insights about strategic planning, leadership, and working on versus in the business.

He mentions that his day is focused on meeting with his team at Blue 16 Marketing for strategic planning, which allows him to step back and focus on the bigger picture.

Gresham emphasizes the importance of “CEO Time”—dedicated time to think strategically and work on the business rather than getting bogged down by the tasks of the business itself.

Gresham reflects on the interconnectedness of the three main businesses he manages: CB Nation (content creation), his digital marketing company, and Blue Star (a franchise brokerage).

In addition, he highlights the challenge of balancing the demands of strategic thinking and execution but emphasizes how important it is to remain dialed into the business’s overall goals.

• 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 00:00

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 00:29

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, 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.

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh here and I'm recording this a little bit differently. Usually I record in the early morning. I'm recording a little bit more midday right before I actually do some podcast recordings.

And there wasn't any specific reason I want to do this differently. Just kind of like the day got away from me.

So I want to do a quick update, really. Today is a lot of strategic planning time to meet with the team for Blue 16 Marketing, and I haven't really had as much time. I wanted to kind of focus on Blue Star, the franchise brokerage.

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However, I have been really focused on making sure that I am intentional on how I'm going to spend that time with the strategic planning.

A lot of times it provides some space for me to kind of work a little bit more on the business rather than in the business.

And it's so important to make sure that you create that time, that space. Some people call it CEO time, but whatever you might call it, it's so important to make sure that you are thinking more working on the business rather than in the business.

Even if it's just an hour, if it's just 30 minutes for you to think strategically about what you're doing, to kind of get ahead while you're actually rolling up your sleeves and you're doing other things. Mondays is usually my day to kind of focus a little bit more on that.

It just allows my mind to kind of race to go through those different things and ends up becoming sometimes an exhausting thing because you're thinking about all the things in the future when you're trying to also just make sure that you're being present and to try to try to juggle all those things ends up being, you know, something that can be taxing.

But I marry those with the opportunity to be in my podcast mode because a lot of times I get to do those quote-unquote, more fun things, I guess you can say related to the business, but you have to really think strategically about the business.

So I feel like I have a really strong three business types and really just trying to bring all those things together, how to think strategically around how that's going to be and come to fruition.

So whether it be CB Nation and all the content that we create from the daily podcast, blogs, video content, or it is the digital marketing company, or of course now the franchise brokerage, I feel like those three are very much so intertwined.

So that it makes us better able to be able to serve the CEOs, entrepreneurs, business owners, actually heard the phrase, and I've heard it a few times, but it actually was said to me.

I can't remember who said it to me, but basically trying to create a flywheel. That flywheel has many different aspects that are very much so intertwined to be able to kind of serve that B2B space.

So I'm super excited to kind of employ that flywheel, kind of see like exactly how it takes shape.

But frankly, it has to going to require like a refresh of a lot of the brands and things that we're doing.

So that's also very exhausting just kind of thinking about that and what that's going to look like. But that's exactly why we do the things that we do, why we have to pivot and change.

Because we're, we're chasing the ability to be able to succeed, chasing the ability to be able to serve, to make an impact and of course be able to generate, more revenue.

So when we're trying to do all of those things, it's so important that we're dialed into what is going to help to serve our client and audience.

And as we have other members of the team, it's also so important for me to make sure everybody's dialed in as far as, like the things that are actually helping to solve problems to make us a better organization.

So that could get exhausting when you're trying to have those conversations, when you see all those things and you have to kind of execute, have that go throughout the team.

But that's part of like why you're. You are in the position that you're in. You're trying to create a kind of a plan or a strategy that you want the team to execute.

And it's so important to kind of stay dialed into that, which is why it's. It's vital to have that CEO time, that strategic planning, whatever, and however you might call it, essentially working more on the business than in the business, you create space for that.

It allows you to employ those things that you need to be to be successful. So this is my CEO time. I wanted to make sure that.

I emphasize that because as you start to work less in the business, you're going to create more space to work on the business and what that looks like in terms of solving big problems, thinking strategically about the business, thinking about ideas and being able to kind of implement those, those are going to be huge things that you're going to want to make sure that you do.

So with that being said, Gresh signing out and yeah, sure, you keep working and thinking about on versus in the business and how that can help you to kind of take things to another level.

It's one of the cool things about franchises is allow you a lot of times to be able to do more time towards, you know, working more on the business.

But frankly, there are a lot of people that are still working in the business and that's something you just want to kind of understand with your vision of what you want to have within your organization, in your life, frankly, and then kind of work backwards 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 06:32

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CBNation and Blue16 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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