IAM2392 – Unveiling Day 28: Franchise Broker Chronicles

Gresham Harkless reflects on his journey as he approaches the 30-day mark of his current business phase, feeling like time has moved quickly.

Gresham shares that he feels a bit “in-between,” trying to transition but unsure whether he can meet his goal by the end of the year, as he initially intended.

He mentions a podcast he hosted about being an AI-first company, discussing how AI can help humans focus on more meaningful tasks rather than replace them.

Gresham emphasizes the importance of moving forward despite uncertainty, as it will ultimately benefit him in the long run.

Despite feeling overwhelmed, he acknowledges the need to recalibrate, reassess his priorities, and keep progressing.

• 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 00:28

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.

All right so it's day 28. I believe this broker journey is hard to believe. I'm almost at 30 days. It feels like it's been a lot longer.

I literally got done with my workout. I'm about to go wake up my son but wanted to just kind of go through some of the things that were kind of coming up for me.

One of the big things is he or she who chases 2 rabbits catches none. I feel like I'm in this place where I'm catching 2, trying to catch 2 rabbits.

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I think I have to kind of just be honest about where I want to transition and move things. And, I think that's just the reality of like kind of where I'm at.

And yeah, it becomes difficult when you're in this space because you're still trying to get things in place with Blue16 Media, Blue16 Marketing, actually even the branding and using the language and things like that are something that you know I'm having to transition.

But it's also like getting the team internally understanding exactly where things are going and I think a lot of it is just me, being completely honest about where it is that we are going and what we ultimately want to do.

I do feel like we're maybe 2 to 3 clients away from where I would like to be. And that should definitely be the focus going into the end of the year.

But I also feel as if we have to make that transition. And that's where I'm at this strange kind of in-between place.

And I was thinking I wanted to get it done by the end of the year. That's why I had it set as a 12-week year.

But the reality is that it may take a little bit longer. So the big thing that's coming up definitely for me now too, is I have a podcast.

If I remember, I'll try to put it in the show notes about being an AI-first company where I had a guest on the show that talked around how he's very embedded in AI, but talked about how he changed the culture in his company.

And that's something that I definitely want to do. I think that there's a lot of kind of misinformation around AI and even the way that it's being used and how it can be used.

And I feel like AI allows us to spend more time doing the human things rather than replacing those things.

But I think it requires a change, and people aren't always open to change. So I think we have to definitely be aware of that before we make any adjustments or changes or things happen.

So it's a lot of things that are happening at the same time. I think the thing that is important for me is just not to get overwhelmed, to just take one step at a time and remember that I moved before I was ready.

This wasn't the ideal time, but I feel like by me taking a step now or taking a step even 30 days ago or pretty much 2 months ago, it's going to put me in a place where in 6 months to a year.

I'm gonna be a lot further along than I would have been if I had just started, you know, maybe in, I think, maybe April might've been that time. That would have been really ideal.

So also, one other thing I haven't really talked about, I think, is that I also have a rental and that's not even going as well as I wanted to go.

So that's a whole nother thing, a whole another podcast is like how, not only are you chasing 2 rabbits, I might be chasing like 4 of them.

And I think it's important to just kind of make sure that I am taking a step back, recalibrating, doing the things that I ultimately need to do and just ultimately kind of go from there.

So it's definitely a challenge, definitely something I'm continuing to kind of work on and we'll just kind of see.

But, I think leveraging AI, using it first, I actually just put ChatGPT. I upgraded it and also put it on my phone so that I can kind of chat with it.

You go to that first to kind of see what problems to kind of solve and then just ultimately kind of go from there. So that's what I'm going through and then we'll kind of see what happens.

But I wanted to do this quick video before I wake up my son, since I didn't get to do it a little bit earlier.

Outro 05:38

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast, powered by CB Nation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AMCEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

Don't forget to schedule your complimentary digital marketing consultation at Blue16Media.com. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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