IAM2531 – Embrace Change: Mastering the Art of Pivots

In this special episode, Gresham Harkless is in a transitional phase of his franchise broker journey, approaching day 197 with a mindset shift toward embracing the unpredictability and learning that comes with building a business.

Gresham explores the value of high-ticket sales through deeper, trust-based conversations rather than chasing volume.

Reflecting on his results so far, he highlights that out of roughly 200 leads, only a handful turned into quality conversations, and just one might be nearing a deal.

Gresham acknowledges that he's still in the early “baby giraffe” stage of development, unsteady but learning, and is increasingly drawn to a long-game approach where he acts as a connector and co-creator in the franchise industry.

Gresham intends to evolve into more of a “connection broker”, someone who doesn’t just sell but helps co-create opportunities by doing things differently, like strategic content creation and deeper, more intentional networking.

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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 00:29

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.

Embracing the chaos and the confusion, the pivots, the uncertainty, all the things that are happening with this business. I'm state 197 of this broker journey and I'm really settling into what is going to be that next pivot.

What I hope to do in this next week is just to make those small shifts and changes to test out this concept and this idea.

But I really believe there's something there around leveraging the podcast, using it as a relationship builder, maybe getting back into a networking group, and then just ultimately going from there.

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I think one of the things that I've seen and I know is that with being in a networking group, when you have a, I won't say a low ticket, but a medium ticket offer, sometimes doesn't make as much sense unless you get the volume of referrals.

But with something that's a little bit more high ticket, it's probably longer, it's probably less likely, but if you do get one close business, it ends up being everything.

So that's one of the things I'm ultimately looking at is like playing more of the long game, taking a step back and re-approaching these things from a newer perspective.

This newer perspective being that I am looking at building relationships. I am looking at getting a little bit more embedded in the franchise industry.

But frankly, I want to also do things that other people are not doing, which is the content creation, just being able to do the interviews, just all those things I end up thinking will play a really big part in terms of building out what will be that next step.

But it only happens if you kind of let go of the things that I was doing before. And I think that's kind of like where I am at stage-wise.

I think it probably won't come into full fruition until the end of the month or the beginning of next month.

But I think looking and staring at 200 days, having maybe one candidate that maybe is closer to the finish line than the other ones.

One candidate's gone, completely MIA, and a few, like, really quality candidates, I think, that I've talked to, but still not as many as I thought.

We're talking about maybe around five or so, five or six candidates that I've spoken with out of the 200 or so leads that I have.

So like breaking down that math, you say the math doesn't math because if you have 200 leads, you expect to close at least two deals on the other model.

What I really wanted to do was get it four deals. And so, I was trying to cut that maybe at least in half, but there's a lot that kind of is involved in that.

Like there's one of the things around the, these high ticket sales is it's a lot more relationship building.

It's a lot more, you want to go through the process and the steps, but you also want to get to know the person you want to build that bond, have that trust.

And that, I think that happens over a period of time. And, you don't always come in with that. You don't always do that well.

Sometimes it just takes, you know, time to be able to get comfortable. I think one of the things that I always remember when I first started the podcast I remember the second podcast that I did, I had a guest on the show, and I could not say her name.

I ended up posting on my Instagram because I could not get her name out. And I just kept messing it up. I had multiple screens.

I didn't have the name and the place that I wanted to have the name. And, it just wasn't a flow because it wasn't comfortable.

But as you start to get comfortable, I can do some of these completely in my sleep, largely because I've done so many.

So when you're starting out, you have to go through that baby giraffe stage. You're still trying to learn how to walk, you're trying to learn how to run, you're trying to learn how to do all those things, but you have to go through that stage.

So to be honest, I'm in that stage and still in that stage, but I think I would have approached it a lot differently.

And I did make some, some, some bets that I did outside of the grand scheme of things that I ended up doing, like kind of leaning a lot more into the Google ads to hopefully make that happen.

And I don't think anything's necessarily wrong with Google ads. I just think you're competing with, when you're swimming in the same direction as everybody else, it makes it a lot more difficult.

So what I really want to do is see what changes, what adjustments, and things that I can do to make everything better overall.

But I'm really looking forward to, you know, what this next level, this next stage is going to look like. I think it's going to be so much in alignment that it's going to happen naturally.

I think I'm really going to step into that connection broker that I wanted to kind of be, where it's not so much fit into this box, it's gonna be more or less, let's co-create, let's figure out how we can make these connections, these opportunities happen.

So I'm looking forward to that, and we'll just see what ultimately happens from there. But yeah, let's see, where everything takes us, and things will look phenomenal.

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 06:38

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.

Check out the latest and greatest apps, books, and habits to level up your business at ceohacks.co. This has been the I AM CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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