IAM2632 – Day 281: Franchise Broker Journey

In this episode, Gresham walks listeners through his current stage: day 281 of his franchise‑broker path, experimenting with low‑cost investments to test scalability, and applying the “Who Not How” principle.

He draws parallels between franchise brokering and affiliate marketing, noting that both rely on cultivating long‑term relationships that culminate in sizable purchases.

Looking ahead, Harkless plans to bolster his outreach through newsletters, community‑building initiatives, and possibly leveraging existing team members as the “who” to drive growth.

With 12‑week goal frameworks focused on revenue rather than rigid tactics, he remains hopeful and committed to iterating on his strategy while inviting feedback and collaboration from his audience.

• Blue Star Franchise: bluestarfranchise.com
• Browse the Franchise Inventory: bluestarfranchise.com/franchise
• Is franchising right for you? Check this out to see: bluestarfranchise.com/assessment
• Franchise CEO (A CBNation Site – coming soon) – 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. Grist 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 subcite within CB Nation called a 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 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 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.

It's day 281 on this franchise broker journey and back and forth talking with the other marketing person. And I think one of the things that I'm trying to step more into, there's a book by I think Darian Hardy is his name, called Who Not How, as my little one's about to get up.

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I'm trying to record this really quick. But the idea of Who Not How is basically that you don't try to find how to do something, you try to find the who in the person, the who to do whatever it is that you wanna do. And I've tried to hire some who's and it has not worked out well. But with this being said, I'm thinking I'm gonna lean into that.

It's a low cost, low investment. I can just kind of see what happens from there. So with this, you know, who, not how you're looking at maybe the three 50, to maybe four 50 investment that is going to be, I would probably start with the three 50 and just see, like, see how it goes. I think that's the big thing that I would really try to do is try to create an opportunity to be able to kind of scale this out.

My other thought is that while he's doing this, I could also try to experiment someplace else in my own way and see like how the traffic and the opportunities happen and see if it, you know, if it would work out from an affiliate standpoint.

So yeah, I mean, I think that's ultimately where I'm at. It's just trying to leverage both of those, but there's no question. Like I put the franchise broker on the levels as far as the third thing.

But I actually think it might be number two, because I think while the affiliates is great, I think that. Funny enough, franchise brokering is similar to affiliate marketing in the sense that you are cultivating and developing a relationship because it's a bigger purchase, bigger investment, but you're still handing them off to the franchise.

Actually, one of the questions he asked was, had I closed any deals? I said, no, I hadn't closed any deals, but I have gotten two or three people to the finish line.

Sometimes you forget that. When I say the finish line, I've gotten them ultimately to not the finish line, but I've gotten them to be introduced to the broker, to the franchise.

So having done two or three of those, it's just a matter of, hey, Is this going to be something you want to do or something you don't want to do? And I think once it gets closer to, you know, that period of you making a decision, it's harder to, I won't say it was harder to influence.

I think if you have the weekly calls, you can do that. But if the weekly calls fall off, then it becomes a little bit more of a challenge.

So, but yeah. have that have some content that you know I created as well too so I'll probably just send that out to some other people and you know just ultimately kind of go from there but yeah this is the process is the steps and we'll see how everything goes from there I think I'm gonna you know make that investment see what happens.

And then we'll take it from there but one of the other things during the Friday call though, which is the new broker, I think they call it a new broker kind of match, not even mastermind. We just learned from the senior broker on a specific topic.

One of the things they talked about is like how now leads are closing. but these are closing at a longer period than they have.

So it's not like a, you know, you talk to somebody two, three months and then it closes. It ends up being that you talk to somebody and it could close, you know, years later. And that's wild to me. So the big part is to continue to stay engaged, to continue to stay connected.

Which is why I definitely wanted to do the newsletter and want to create some more things just to develop that opportunity to grow that offering. So grow that connection, grow that community.

And I really wanted to create a community, but I think that that's, that takes a lot of time and energy. I don't necessarily have to invest into that.

And again, with that, I'm going to be looking for a who, which I might already have the who on the team. But anyways, What's the one thing that by doing everything is easier and necessary? It ends up being the franchise broker business. However, the thing that helps me to sustain is going to be the digital marketing business.

The biggest upside I think out of everything is actually the affiliate market. So I go back and forth between these things, what to focus on, which is why I wanted to create my 12-week goals to be broader so that could be more focused on on what I'm, on the revenue number, what I'm trying to create rather than how I'm trying to create it. Cause sometimes I can box that in.

So, and it doesn't allow it to evolve and change with the 12 weeks. So we'll see what happens and, you know, ultimately kind of take it from here, but I'm pretty confident, hopeful in, you know, investing in this person, but at the end of the day, it's a load.

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

Outro 06:43
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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