IAM2652 – Unlocking Success: A Broker’s Journey on Day 297

In this episode, Gresh discusses the importance of execution over merely having a playbook, noting that while the franchising model supplies a detailed roadmap, success hinges on the founder’s ability to actually implement it.

He also mentions challenges such as client layoffs, under‑delivering strategy sessions, and weighing the ROI of a mentorship program he feels isn’t paying off.

Despite the hurdles, Gresh emphasizes the power of networking. He recounts gaining referrals through a BNI group, which led to a promising conversation about a potential franchisor.

He acknowledges that consistent outreach—especially to people affected by layoffs—is essential, even if the volume of responses can be low. Looking ahead, he plans to focus his time on networking, continue incremental outreach.

• 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. 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 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 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.

And you realize that at the end of the day, All you can do is just do the best that you can. You know, you try to build it up and I have to do all those things and I have to get the leads, get the opportunities. And you just continue to kind of just chop at the tree.

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It's not always easy. I reached out to one of the clients. He was like, hey, reach back out to me in 60 days because I had to lay a bunch of people off. So you continue to kind of just touch base with people.

But I had a call with the person that was doing the strategy, didn't really do much with the strategy, honestly. So it was just upon me to take that strategy and kind of run with it.

So, you know, you pay the money to kind of, you know, get you know the software and all the things and you get logged in but the reality of everything is that it happens with execution that's just the reality that's one of the funny things about franchising is that they literally give you the playbook and you just have to execute on the playbook.

But not everybody can execute on the playbook so that's where execution isn't being the thing that ultimately separates so you have an idea of exactly what to do so now I just have to kind of you know employ that myself.

It looks like I'm not going to continue on with the program that I was in, Margie, because I just think that, you know, I can't say that there's a lot of ROI that kind of comes from that.

So I want to put, you know, the team in place to see kind of what happens and continue to kind of just take one step in front of the other and see what happens. But yeah, I mean, I mean, that's kind of like mostly of the updates.

It's like continue to kind of do like outreaches to people that have been or potentially getting laid off and just see what happens. But I've gotten some conversations, but honestly haven't got as much as I did anywhere else.

So it's just like one of those things where you just have to talk to a lot of people. And I did get some referrals though from BNI.
So I joined networking group, literally got in, got a referral. And then I actually had a conversation last week or the week before last, maybe with somebody who said that they were interested in maybe franchising their business.

So we'll see how all those things happen and just take it a step at a time and then go from there. So yeah, that's it.
Seems like the networking is where I should have been spending time and where I will be spending time. Just like that, you get two referrals and you just kind of take it a step at a time.

So we'll see what happens and I'll take it from there. 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 04:22
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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