IAM2583 – Staying Strong on Day 239: A Motivational Journey

In this special episode, Gresham Harkless reflects deeply on his resistance to the common business advice of buying leads, expressing a clear desire to grow his business through organic, relationship-based methods rather than transactional lead generation.

He emphasizes the importance of quality over quantity in conversations, stating that he'd rather have a handful of meaningful, high-value interactions than many shallow ones.

Gresham acknowledges that the value of BNI is heavily dependent on the culture and engagement of its members, and he's prepared to give it a few months to evaluate whether it aligns with his goals.

In addition, he highlights the flexibility, authenticity, and long-term vision of creating a business driven by purpose and trust rather than quick wins.

• 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.

So once again, I'm hearing this idea of like buying leads. We actually had, helps in sport or training.

I think it's training call. I listened to most of them. I haven't actually been in and as engaged, but I just listened because I figured there's things you could take in, year stuff over and over again.

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The basic idea is that you got to buy leads. That's the one thing that kind of resonated, is that you have to buy leads.

You just have to buy leads. You have to buy leads, and I just shudder at that. I think that's the thing that I wanted to change.

That's the thing I wanted to challenge. I think that you have to get it, you get in this place where you are ultimately paying for, it's a question of do you want to have, and I guess I need to really figure out what that number is.

Cause I'd rather have five quality conversations over having multiple non-quality conversations.

And I think that's somewhat of the challenge is being able to kind of just say, this is just volume versus this is quality.

And I think if you can sit down and refine what that looks like, then that's going to be the way I do not want to buy leads.

I did not get into this to buy leads, to be very honest. Like if I was in a point where I had to buy leads, I probably would just organically do this.

And I think that's where I've been leaning towards anyways. It's just like really getting into the organic part.

I've been back and forth around the BNI aspect, just because I think you join BNI, you want to do it from a place of being able to kind of give and impact people.

And I took a look, and there's a Florida chapter that I was thinking of joining. And if in terms of joining that Florida chapter, I would be able to be able to build out relationships with people that are in Florida.

I think that would be awesome. But I also am very aware that you want to make sure that you're pushing the culture in the right way that you want to.

I think if I found this opportunity, I would definitely jump on it. I think if I were able to build a relationship with the people that are in the chapter, that'll be phenomenal.

But I think the flexibility is going to be one of the biggest things that I look for, because I don't know if this is going to work.

And if BNI doesn't work, I don't know yet. I'll find out in three months. I might.

I think you can find out very quickly if people have potential people that are looking for businesses.

But I've had conversations, and no one has referred me as of yet. But I know that that happens as a result of being able to kind of fulfill a need.

I think what's so funny is that the times that I've been in BNI that has worked well have been times where I've had a referral in hand when I joined a chapter.

Whether that referral closes or not, I'm not sure. But I think that's one of the interesting things around this is that I'm looking for people that want to basically start businesses.

And that's where I need to kind of be people that are having those conversations people say it's not a B2C play, I think it definitely is a B2C and B2B play.

I mean, that's where, you know, being in a BNI ends up being very valuable, but it's only as valuable as the members that are in the chapter.

So that's something that I have to kind of keep in mind. If you're going to be there weekly, if you're going to be a part of the chapter, you want to make sure that you're engaged and you're doing those things.

So, we'll see how everything goes and how everything flows. I know there's more value, of course, in terms of being a member than just somebody that's visiting. It looks like they're just kind of pulling from.

But I do genuinely just want to talk with people and to see if it's a great fit. So, we'll see how everything pans out and how everything goes.

But I'm going to continue to chop up the tree and do the things that I can do to try to get better. And we'll ultimately just take it 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 05:45

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.

Want to level up your business even more? Read blogs, listen to podcasts, and watch videos at CBNation.co. Also, check out our I AM CEO Facebook group. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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