Sara Sheehan’s guest in this episode is marketing mastermind Gresh Harkless. Gresham (Gresh) Harkless Jr. is the founder of Blue 16 Media and CB Nation. He works with business owners as their marketing agency, creating websites, handling SEO, and ensuring they understand what their digital marketing is doing for them. Gresh talks about how he found his purpose and the career he has today.
Gresh explains why he believes in the idea that if you run your race, you can’t lose. Running your own race involves an inward focus on our gifts and talents and Gresh has done a lot of that inward examination as he moved through education and fought to find where his passion and career could intersect. He shares not only his work and study journey with Sara but the moment when he was ten years old that defined the passion that ignites him even now and guides his career.
In this episode, Sara Sheehan learns why Gresh is so passionate about communication and bringing his own “secret sauce” to his work. He explains where he heard the term “content-based networking” and how it’s a powerful tool for collaboration between business owners and entrepreneurs. Gresh’s insight into digital marketing and the unique path he has carved for himself by following his own path makes for a compelling story. He has practical information and, more importantly, inspiration to offer listeners.
About Gresh Harkless:
Gresham “Gresh” W. Harkless Jr. is the founder of Blue16 Media and CBNation. Blue16 Media uses media & technology to change lives. These media properties include Blue16 Marketing – a digital marketing agency providing digital marketing services including web design, website support & SEO services. CBNation consists of media properties (blogs, podcasts and videos) helping the business community succeed. Central to Blue16’s marketing philosophy is that You Are a Media Company and that every organization is in the media business and can strategically leverage marketing tools, platforms, and “ingredients” to reach their goals.
Gresh is a proud graduate of Howard University & Georgetown University. He was selected in 2022 as a 50+ Black Marketer on the Rise in the Influencer & Media Innovators category. He also is a graduate of the 2020 Leadership Center for Excellence Young Professionals Program in 2016, and he was recognized for being 40 Under 40 in Northern Virginia in 2022 and Alexandria in 2020. He has recorded over 1600 podcast episodes of the I AM CEO Podcast and shared the 100+ business lessons he has learned from recording the episodes in the I AM CEO Handbook Volume 3.
Resources discussed in this episode:
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Contact Sara Sheehan | Sara Sheehan Consulting:
Contact Gresham (Gresh) Harkless Jr. | Founder of CEO Blog Nation & Media Consultant at Blue 16 Media:
- Website: IAmGresh.com
- Podcast: I Am CEO
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Transcript
Sara Sheehan: [00:00:05] Hi there, I’m Sara Sheehan and welcome to my podcast Transformational Thinkers with Sara Sheehan. Today I’m talking with my friend and marketing mastermind, Gresh Harkless about his business, working with business owners as their marketing agency, creating websites, handling SEO and maintaining them as well as so very much more. I feel a great need to read his bio because it’s so impressive. So here it goes. Gresham (Gresh) W Harkless Jr is the founder of Blue 16 Media and CB Nation. Blue 16 Media uses media and technology to change lives. These media properties include Blue 16 Marketing, a digital marketing agency providing digital marketing services including web design, web support, and SEO services. CB Nation consists of media properties, blogs, podcasts, and videos helping the business community succeed. Central to Blue 16’s marketing philosophy is that you are a media company and that every organization is in the media business and can strategically leverage marketing tools, platforms, and the ingredients to reach their goals. Gresh is a proud graduate of Howard University and Georgetown University. He was selected as the 2022 and 2022 as a 50-plus Black marketer on the rise in the Influencer and Media Innovators category. He also is a graduate of the 2020 Leadership Center for Excellence Young Professionals Program in 2016, and he was recognized for being 40 under 40 in Northern Virginia in 2022 and Alexandria in 2020. He has recorded over 1600 podcast episodes of the I Am CEO podcast, and shared the 100 plus business lessons he’s learned from recording the episodes in the I Am CEO Handbook Volume Three, which I can attest is full of gems. Gresh, I am so excited to have you here today, and what I find so fascinating about you is that there are so many layers to you and what makes you unique, and I would love to have the opportunity to dive into that a little bit more today. How does that sound?
Gresh Harkless: [00:02:53] Sounds awesome. Sarah, thanks so much for having me on.
Sara Sheehan: [00:02:56] Excellent, Gresh. I love the thought if you run your race, you can’t lose. That is so powerful. How would you describe to one of our listeners what running your race is?
Gresh Harkless: [00:03:13] Yeah, I think running your race is probably sometimes one of the most difficult things that people have to do. Because a lot of it is not externally focused, it’s actually inwardly focused and it’s usually inwardly focused on, you know, who you are, your gifts, your talents, all the things that kind of light you up a lot of times, your experiences and things that you go through. So a lot of what I believe your race is, is you making a decision on, like, what path you’re going to run, what things you’re going to do. And I say so many times that when you’re running your race, we can get so caught up in looking next to us, side, you know, left side, right side and saying, okay, this person’s doing that really well, let me try to mimic and do exactly what they’re doing. But that’s not staying true to like our gifts, our experiences, who we are. And I always say, if you run your own race, you can’t lose because no one can be you like you can. And if we have an understanding of who we are and what really lights us up, what really gets us going, what we’re really comes naturally and in flow, then that is, I think, some evidence of what our race is.
Sara Sheehan: [00:04:16] That is beautifully said. And so if you were to explain the race that you’re on in life, otherwise you might say, the path that you were chosen to run by God, how would you characterize that?
Gresh Harkless: [00:04:38] Yeah, I think so many times I truly believe we all have God given gifts and abilities, and I feel like a lot of times they come up before we’re even aware of what they are. So for me, like I, like many other people, was trying to understand, like, you know, what is my gift? What is my thing? Who am I? What is my race? And I came back to a story that happened when I was ten years old. So my dad was in the military, and he went to an entirely different country because he was in the Air Force. So he got reassigned for a year. And at that time, I started what eventually became a family newspaper. And that family newspaper was covering all the things that were going on in our family. I used to sprinkle in some sports and some history and just different things like that. But it was my way to connect with, you know, my dad, to let him know some of the things that were going on in our family, but in kind of entrepreneurial form. I also sold the subscriptions and like to kind of get it all in context, and I might be dating myself by saying we didn’t have Zoom, Skype, FaceTime, like all these different tools that we have to instantly connect with people all across the world. So we had AOL Instant Messenger as long as no one called we were okay, but that was usually what and how we communicated with my dad. You know, we’d talk with them on the phone, we would send emails and things like that. But it was really that family newspaper that I think was my thing that gave me a little bit of evidence of like what my race was. Being and thinking about that, you know, as I grew up, I started to to say like, hey, this is kind of a unique story.
Gresh Harkless: [00:06:09] And my mom kept all like two years of those that I was doing. So I had like a digital, well, I eventually had a digital copy of those, but it started to give me an idea of like, okay, you really like writing, you really like creating things. And those were just like some of the things that came up for me consistently. So when I was unsure of like, what exactly I wanted to major in, for example, I started to go back to that story and it started to give me a little bit more of a North Star of like, okay, this is what and who you are, so maybe you should lean more into that. When I’m trying to make sometimes business decisions about what I’m going to do, it was those things that I was kind of filtering through, like ten year old Gresh of like, this is maybe your superpower, and this is something that you should lean more into because it happens naturally. You weren’t doing it because people were cheering for you. You did it just because it just naturally came. And I felt like those are kind of like those seeds that made me think that, okay, this is my race. This is, you know, we have fancy words like content creators and things like that we use now, but that was something that I wasn’t thinking about then. I was just thinking about, how can I get a newspaper out? Can I cover the squirrel that got into my grandma’s house and make it something exciting? So those were like some of the things that kind of planted the seeds for that.
Sara Sheehan: [00:07:21] That is a beautiful story. I love hearing the personal side so very much. Talk with me. You started to share a little bit about early glimpses that help you to understand what your race is. So talk with me a little bit about your time in college and higher education, the degrees that you got from both Howard and Georgetown, and how that plays in to the story around your race.
Gresh Harkless: [00:07:57] Yeah. So I grew up in Northern Virginia, so I didn’t go too, too far from home. But I was definitely, you know, homesick, you know, and just adjusting to what that looked like. But I think one of the biggest things that I imagine people go through in college is kind of like that identity and trying to figure out who you are. So compounding upon that, I feel like everything happened so fast. Like before I knew it, I was in college and trying to figure out what I wanted to do and be and grow up into and all those things, and I came in as an undecided major. So I wasn’t really sure, like what I wanted to kind of major in, but, you know, I touched on it a little bit, like I started to say, okay, I don’t know what I want to do, but I know this is at least a glimpse into who I am. So I toyed with, you know, entrepreneurship as a, I think at Howard we could only do it for a minor, so toyed with that eventually, but I decided to settle and decide on English. And I decided on English largely because of what I talked about, like the family newspaper. But I was also very interested in just like, reading and writing and stories and all those things.
Gresh Harkless: [00:09:04] And that always compelled me and I, at that time, I wasn’t bold enough to get a journalism degree. I wanted to do journalism, but I didn’t know, like what that industry would be or what that would look like. But I’ve always felt like I’ve had like that journalism kind of mindset. But I decided to do English because I felt like that was a little bit more of a skill, a Swiss Army knife. And so that’s what I ended up majoring in. But funny story and funny only now, it wasn’t funny then, is that I remember my freshman English professor completely destroyed my English papers and I remember it being a lot more, I said, I always joke now, I said, it looked a lot more like a crime scene than anything else. And I remember talking with her, it’s like, okay, well, you know, I love, I like doing this, so like, what am I doing wrong? And she said, basically, like, no one kind of taught you the rules. So I actually spent a lot of time, like, really studying myself to some degree. Like a lot of the rules of English, like the power of commas and semicolons and all those things, because I wanted to get better at something that I felt like was part of who I was. But I didn’t know, like all the rules or no one really kind of taught me those rules and things like that.
Gresh Harkless: [00:10:15] So anyways, I ended up becoming an English major, and that kind of fueled me, you know, had a really great experience at Howard. And I felt like I really was able to find that identity. I was able to be myself and understand who I was. I did everything from pledging to joining a fraternity, to being on student government, things I was adamant about not doing, I said I wouldn’t do, I ended up doing, and that was just part of that experience. But I think throughout those four years, it really put me in a place where, because I had done things that I didn’t think I wanted to do, it gave me more of a sense of who I was. It gave me more of a sense of my identity. As much as we try to find who we are, sometimes I feel like when we’re not who we are, that’s when we start to realize and appreciate who we are. So some of those experiences just put me in a place where I was like, okay, this is Gresh, I’m learning more about who I am. And so I applied to a bunch of law schools because I thought I wanted to go to law school at the time, got a ton of rejections.
Gresh Harkless: [00:11:16] I said that I would only go to law school if I got a full ride to go to law school. I got a partial, got a lot of rejections, I got into one school, I think I got a waitlist, and then I got a partial scholarship to one school. I think the University of Miami, I believe. But I decided not to go. I said, I don’t really know why I want to go to law school very similarly to how I entered undergrad. And I said, well, I might want to do something around sports because I’ll always love sports. So let me pursue this degree that I heard about called a sports management degree. And so I got my Master’s in sports management from Georgetown. And during that time, I realized that that’s not really what I wanted to do, but I also took a lot of business classes, and that’s where those entrepreneurship plans were stoked even more. And I always say it’s like business school for jocks. So I went into that and that’s where I kind of emerged. And, you know, after that it was a rocky road. But I felt like I had a lot more identity into who I am. And I felt like a lot of those answers came from me kind of using that filter. Long-winded answer, but hopefully that that tells you that.
Sara Sheehan: [00:12:17] It’s a great answer because it’s your answer. It’s the right one. Absolutely. It’s very interesting to me that you did sports management, though, at the Master’s level and the points that you delve into there about entrepreneurial and business classes. And so you’ve absolutely applied that in what you’re doing. Clearly. Very interesting. How would you share what you’re passionate about? What really lights your fire?
Gresh Harkless: [00:12:52] Yeah, I think it’s ultimately the stories. And when I started to really, I always say like I started to do, years later, I started to do like freelance writing. So I wrote around a bunch of different topics. I wrote everything from reviews at restaurants to, you know, I went to school events and I would talk about an author that came to talk to the kid, just everything. I literally wrote about all those things. But I always say, like, I felt at home when I was interviewing entrepreneurs and business owners. So it was me kind of on that quest to kind of understand what that is, what that looks like, but also learn what were good kind of traits or characteristics or things that entrepreneurs or successful business owners would adopt. And I really became, for lack of a better term, obsessed with that. And that’s where that kind of lit me up. So it wasn’t, I always thought I was going to potentially be a sports agent or a sports writer or something along those lines, but I started to see kind of like those, I guess, those seeds planted, and I started to meld it into my own race where it was like, okay, like I’m interested in stories and and I’m interested in business and entrepreneurship.
Gresh Harkless: [00:14:03] Like I had to choose one or the other. That was my mindset initially. But it was like as you start to get older and you start to realize, like, especially around journalism, there’s so much disruption. Things are a lot different with, you know, technology and all those things. I started to realize like, hey, maybe you can kind of create your own recipe. And to change, like how you’re approaching even your life, your profession and the things that light you up. So that’s a lot of where that came about is just like, okay, I don’t have to choose either/or, I could actually choose both, it may be better and start to try to look at things differently and execute in a unique way. And that’s kind of like how I stepped into that. And that’s what ended up becoming my passion is like staying true to my race, but at the same time being obsessed with like the stories, with learning, with asking questions, just all those things that journalists would do, but bring it into that business world and kind of do it in a unique way. So I think that’s what lights me up more than anything else is that and the innovation and things like that.
Sara Sheehan: [00:15:03] Fascinating. I definitely see that you’re doing it. You’re bringing your passion to life in your work and what you do without question. You’re definitely using those skills.
Gresh Harkless: [00:15:17] Thank you.
Sara Sheehan: [00:15:18] Absolutely. Talk with me, Gresh, about what your secret sauce is and why it’s so important.
Gresh Harkless: [00:15:25] Yeah, it’s so funny, I think a lot of my secret sauce comes from, you know, that ten year old Gresh. And a lot of what I think is embedded, I guess, within, you know, Blue 16 and CB Nation is, I like to call it a media company mindset. And it’s the same idea of like being maybe a content creator, but I’m really big into like leveraging. And I feel like using content for what I believe is like the greater good to help support the people that you’re serving. And I think that so many times we look at content as something you have to check off or something you have to do, but I really think it has a very impactful opportunity if, you know, if it’s used in that way. And so when I look at my secret sauce, I think a lot of it has to be not choosing either/or, but actually both of them, and figuring out how can I create content, but how can I also serve the audience that I’m, you know, wanting to serve? How can I also potentially drive home more opportunities for digital marketing, or how can I even create new products or services? So I try to really not think either/or, have really abundant mindset to everything that I’m doing and meld those things together into what I think is a secret sauce and a new recipe. So it’s not choosing either/or. It’s really saying, okay, this is content I can create. What are my goals? Like, what am I trying to create, do with this content and working backwards from there. Do I want to meet more people? Like, one of the things I did with the podcast is I said, okay, I’m in a lot of boards, I’m in a lot of networking groups, I’m just overextended and I’m tired. Why don’t I try to take my podcast and create it as a way for me to network and connect with people? And so it just, starting to like look at things from like that media company mindset and seeing like how you can create win, win, win opportunities and maybe be able to do something completely different.
Sara Sheehan: [00:17:17] Absolutely. Having a podcast in and of itself is such a great content vehicle because just like we’re doing here today, you gave me the opportunity on your I Am CEO podcast. And here we are today and I asked you if you would be a guest on mine. I think it is such a powerful opportunity to give someone an opportunity to reach an entirely new group of listeners.
Gresh Harkless: [00:17:51] Absolutely. And I think too, like one of the guests I had, he had this phrase called content based networking. And I think it’s one of the most powerful things because I think in this day and age, we all have microphones. That’s one of the beauties of the phone, is that now we get to collaborate in different ways. So why not be able to have that opportunity to build connections, relationships in a different way? We don’t have to pass each other business cards. We can hop on each other’s podcasts and we have that opportunity to collaborate.
Sara Sheehan: [00:18:17] Absolutely. And so, Gresh, talk with me a little bit about Blue 16 media and CB Nation in terms of how they fit in.
Gresh Harkless: [00:18:27] Yeah, so I think that, kind of like what I alluded to, is every time I’m like, okay, what is my next step? What should I do? I’m really big into to trying to figure out, like, how can I take from what I feel like are my superpowers, but also things that I want to do to try to impact. So I had CB Nation, which was started before the digital marketing company, and CB Nation was literally started out with me really interviewing people the, I didn’t even know podcast at the time, it was just me using and creating blog content, interviewing business owners and posting it. What really changed things was I tore my Achilles tendon while I was playing basketball, and when I tore my Achilles tendon, I was, I went through like a dark period because I was like, not really happy because I did, I felt like I made bold moves and they didn’t work out. And I was literally without a, well, partially without all my Achilles. So it was a partial tear. But that’s what kind of planted the seeds for CEO Blog Nation, which became CB Nation and all those. So I was already working on that, you know, learning about entrepreneurship and business, saying, I want to start something.
Gresh Harkless: [00:19:36] And on the other side, I started to, I’ve always been like a techie. I’ve always been interested in technology and computers and things like that. So I would work on websites not thinking that was of any value. It was only years later, after having a job while freelancing and doing all these other things, that I met somebody from a networking group, and my way to kind of get through to him was actually to say, hey, you know, your website’s not up to par. And I was working an outside sales job at the time, and I was like, okay, well, I want to try to sell you advertising. So I’m going to talk about your website to hopefully sell you advertising. And when that happened, I got into the door and spoke with him. He didn’t want to talk about advertising. He wanted to talk about the SEO work. So that’s where I started to do more SEO work. So all while I’m still doing a lot of the freelance writing and all these things, and I started doing digital marketing, the digital marketing starts to kind of take off a lot more than other things. So fast forward a lot of years. I’m like, okay, I’m overextended. I’m doing too many things. I have a lot of, you know, I’m way overextended, way more overextended that I want to be in two things that I’m chasing.
Gresh Harkless: [00:20:46] And I kind of came back to it like, okay, if I was going to blow up my digital marketing company, how would I do that? And a lot of that was like, okay, I would probably try to invest into something that can connect me with more entrepreneurs and business owners. I’d probably try to get an entrepreneur magazine or something along those lines. And then when I started to think about it, I was like, okay, I’m building something that is probably very close to what I would want to invest in, and that’s where those two things kind of meld together. It’s like, okay, you have the services that you provide, but you really want to showcase people that you might end up working with. At the very least, you get the opportunity to kind of provide support for the community. So that’s where those two things kind of came together, where it wasn’t either/or, it was actually both and better. And it allowed me and everybody else to be a lot more strategic with what we’re doing.
Sara Sheehan: [00:21:37] That’s fascinating to learn more about. And so can you tell me if Blue 16 and CB Nation, are they passion projects for you or..? How do they fit in with your secret sauce? Or maybe they are your secret sauce in essence. Tell me more about that.
Gresh Harkless: [00:22:02] So I absolutely believe it is part of my secret sauce. I think it’s the differentiator. So the secret sauce, the thing that sets us apart, it makes us unique, because I think so many times with digital marketers, which has become a lot more prevalent than it was when I started, you know, ten years ago, it becomes less of like, oh, I can just help you build a website. It becomes more of like, oh, you’re doing some really awesome things with love. You know, by the way, we do help support with X, Y and Z and A, B and C, but I would love to have you on my podcast. I think you have a phenomenal story. I think you’re doing phenomenal things, so we’d love to showcase you. And I think it’s a way to also help to build those connections and those relationships, but also to get our name out there. So everything’s powered by Blue 16, and that’s by design as well too. So that again, investments into like other streams of marketing and other ways the market may not be able, be in alignment with what we’re trying to build. So it’s definitely in alignment with, you know, our secret sauce. And I see it as basically like a marketing opportunity. But I think one of the beautiful things is we’re hoping to launch more and more type of products and services to help support CB Nation as well too, so that we have the services but we also have other opportunities and things that we can build from there.
Sara Sheehan: [00:23:16] Excellent. Is it fair to say that you are providing content through CB Nation that is educational for anyone that really wants to learn and grow? They want to grow as a business leader. They want to be a better leader. They want people to want to work with them. That you have a much higher standard for what you’re doing. You’re trying to share content that would help people learn and grow.
Gresh Harkless: [00:23:55] Absolutely. Sara. It’s so funny. I say, like, at the heart of, like, every interview or every piece of content, I’m always that annoying kid that’s in class that continues to raise their hand and ask about why, how do you do this, and all those things. So I feel like I’m tapping into that with everything that we create and like our, I call it our success equation, I say visibility plus resources times connections equals success. And the whole idea of that is that every piece of content we want to hit one of those three pieces, if not more than one. So we’re either telling a story about a CEO, entrepreneur and business owner. And I think even in that it could be very lonely starting a business. It could be very lonely if you’re innovating or doing anything. I think you have a lot of peace. And this is why I kind of touched on that networking group, because I only believe I was more able to achieve more success because I was in the room with people that were already doing it. And like things have changed, obviously with some of the ways that we connect. But I think I wanted to tap into that, oh, if I’m having a bad day or a bad month or even a bad year of my business, I’m not necessarily doing it wrong. It’s kind of part of the process, part of the step. So I wanted to kind of get a lot of that information out there. Of course, the resources, you know, we don’t know about all the organizations or the software or the tools, tips, tidbits, whatever it is, I call them CEO hacks that we can lean on. So let’s start to get a lot of that information out there. And then connections is everything that’s at the humanistic part of what we’re doing, I think. I love the opportunity we get to do this now, but how can I bring all those things together so that I can help these business owners, who I think are the true superheroes, be able to succeed even more?
Sara Sheehan: [00:25:41] That’s very powerful. Can you talk with me about what some of your big aspirational goals are right now and what you’re working on?
Gresh Harkless: [00:25:54] Yeah, I think the most immediate thing that we’re really trying to work on is after hitting 1600 episodes, I took a step back and I paused new recordings for a year and really started to work on, like, mining the information of all the podcasts and information. And we came out with, you know, 16 kind of foundational elements. And some of them, or most of them, are covered in the I Am CEO Handbook Volume Three, and some of those things are valuable. But one of the things I think that is really impactful is what I call the CEO hacks. And those are the apps, books, habits, software, things that can make you more effective and efficient. So we’re doing some really cool things around them. Starting to compile a lot of the CEO hacks that are available, but also drilling down. I think it’s really cool to know about these software, but I think one of the things that a lot of SaaS companies kind of struggle with is starting to bridge the gap of like how you can actually execute that within your organization. So we’re hoping to kind of bridge the gap as far as like making it more of a directory, potentially tapping in certain like AI chats for people to be able to find the specific hack that can help them with their business, but different things like that to be able to make it easier at the end of the day for people to find the things that they need in order to succeed.
Gresh Harkless: [00:27:10] And I think that’s really exciting because I think all these hacks, there’s so many things out there that people don’t even know about, and we want to try to bridge that gap and make it a little bit easier for people to be able to not just know about them, but also be able to use and execute them, to be able to have a higher level of degree of success. But I think everything goes back to ten year old Gresh for me overall. It’s like, how can I start to really approach that in terms of creating media to help to create a solution? As a kid, my idea was like, how can I reach out to my dad? How can I generate a little revenue and money? That was my problem. That was the solution. So the same way that I look at that, I look at a lot of things that are happening in the world. So I definitely see us launching more media properties around specific niche communities. That’s definitely, you know, aspirational. But a lot of what we’re trying to do is in align with that media company mindset.
Sara Sheehan: [00:28:05] Outstanding. And so one thing I want to make sure that I do with you is give you an opportunity to share about a couple of client success stories, if you will, where you share the client, you don’t have to say the whole name. You could give one part of it or characterize it however you’d like, where you share what their biggest problem was at the time, the solution that you helped them with and what their results were in the end.
Gresh Harkless: [00:28:38] Yeah, absolutely. I think one of my favorite clients, usually, especially from a digital marketing standpoint, some of our best clients are, I say, people that know enough to be dangerous. Those people that know enough to be dangerous and those organizations are often people that have had a less than ideal experience with digital marketers in the past. If you can’t tell, I do like to talk a little bit, and I do like to make sure that I over-explain a lot of the things that are happening, I think to the detriment of a lot of clients, as people don’t have as much communication about what’s happening, and even not just communicating just to say like certain, they say legalese in business and law. So I don’t know if it’s marketese or whatever words that people don’t understand. So what I really try to do is try to communicate, and we try to communicate to people to let them know what’s happening. So one of my absolute favorite clients is a plumbing company out of Ohio, and she did not have a great experience with SEO. Really, honestly, her SEO rankings were tanking and a lot of them were tanking because in SEO, there’s something that’s called duplicate content. What people sometimes try to do is they will take a page on their site, and if they’re trying to show up locally and in certain cities and states and zip codes and things like that, they’ll literally just take that content, copy it over to another page, they’ll change the city, the city and the state and that’s it.
Gresh Harkless: [00:30:01] So all the content is pretty much the same across the site. So this person actually employed a SEO that was not really doing what’s in their best interest. And it’s really detrimental because not only does it rank, does it tank their pages, it can take all their entire site. So that was something that we were able to kind of step in and do, really just change those things around to create unique content across the site. But I think also to just optimize it to increase the page speed on the site, to do all those things to help the site to rank higher. And I think that I really get saddened because a lot of business owners and CEOs and entrepreneurs don’t really realize that when they’re not aware of what’s happening on their site, or they’re not aware of what’s happening in their business, even asking those questions or they don’t understand sometimes what’s happening, it goes a long way towards like continuing to ask questions, continue to say, I don’t understand this, can you explain this to me like I’m a five year old? That’s okay, because there’s unfortunately a lot of people that do take advantage of CEOs, entrepreneurs and business owners.
Gresh Harkless: [00:31:11] And right in line with what I talk about with CB Nation, it’s all about like helping these business owners to succeed. And we try to do that in the best way possible. But that’s just, you know, one example that I had, we had a sports, a nationwide, they were actually global, they did stuff in other countries, but they were a soccer company and they also had a bad experience. Another one of those I know enough to be dangerous. I know something’s not right, but I don’t know exactly what it is. But this was in relation to like building the website. They didn’t have access to updating websites. They didn’t have access to any of the aspects of the site. So what we really try to do is transition them over to something that, to WordPress, which is more of a content management system, that we could not only support them, but they can also do the updates themselves. We can be on call if they need something. We don’t necessarily have to do everything. And just those things are huge because you own your business. Why not be able to own certain updates to your website? And if you need help, just be able to call people. So those are some of my favorite clients just because it’s like a bad relationship or sometimes a bad ex where you’re like, I don’t want to date anymore. I don’t want to deal with any other marketers. I don’t want to talk to anybody. I don’t want to do anything. And those end up coming from like referrals because they’re really strong relationships and connections that we’ve been able to build. But those really are people that can and still are clients for years and years and years, largely because we take a step forward. We really try to have those communication and we try to make sure that we are helping to support them to succeed in the way that they want to succeed.
Sara Sheehan: [00:32:42] Fantastic. Those are two great, great stories, and they show that how your expertise helped them to uncover a root cause that you are able to fix. And resolve the problem for them. So that’s huge. Is there anything else, Gresh, that’s on your mind that you would like to share about you, your business? What’s coming up for the year?
Gresh Harkless: [00:33:14] You know, I think one of my favorite quotes that I always kind of come back to, and this was right in line with running your own race, is don’t tell me that the sky is the limit when there’s footprints on the moon. And the reason that I bring that up is because especially depending on where you are in the journey of business, entrepreneurship, life at that, there can be a lot of people that aren’t necessarily cheering you on. And I had to experience that to some degree, especially when I started my business and said, this is what I want to do. This is my race. This is the essence of who I am. I did get pushback from that, and I just want to bring that up, because a lot of times when you’re starting something new, you’re trying to innovate, whether you’re trying to get a new job or you’re trying to start a new hobby, or you’re learning to do something completely new for the first time, or you’re trying to level up, whatever that is, I love this quote because I think there’s so many times that we think that something is not possible, and that stops us in our tracks from ever trying.
Gresh Harkless: [00:34:15] So I would just encourage anybody to, there was once a time where, you know, we weren’t going to reach the moon. There was once a time that we weren’t going to be able to fly and the Wright brothers were able to make that. There’s all these instances in history where people say that that’s not possible, that’s not going to happen. But I just would encourage everybody to make sure that you do take it upon yourself to say, I’m going to try and I’m going to try to make that happen. I’m going to try to do whatever it is I’m achieving, because there’s a lot more naysayers than sometimes there are cheerleaders. But I think if you continue to drive home and do the things that you’re hoping to do, some of those naysayers become cheerleaders. And that’s when it becomes really awesome. But even if it doesn’t, you know there’s no worse regret than not trying. So try those things, do those things, and don’t let the naysayers stop you in your tracks.
Sara Sheehan: [00:35:02] That is absolutely beautiful and so very touching to hear and to end on. And so with that, I would love to give you a chance to share how our listeners can find you. What’s the best way for them to reach out to you? Is there an email or a Calendly link?
Gresh Harkless: [00:35:23] Yeah, absolutely. Probably to make it easier for everybody, I have kind of a landing page called I am Gresh dot com – that’s IAmGresh.com – that has links to set up a time to schedule with me, has links to the podcast, digital marketing, the e-book as well too, lots and lots of things that are there and make it super easy. But obviously I’m in the web design business, so I have a lot of different sites, but that is kind of the easiest way for you to find me and things that we’re working on.
Sara Sheehan: [00:35:53] Super fantastic. I can’t thank you enough for giving me some time today, Gresh, and I can’t wait to share our podcast with our listeners.
Gresh Harkless: [00:36:05] I appreciate you. Thank you for the opportunity.
Sara Sheehan: [00:36:06] Excellent. Thank you so much for listening to Episode Eleven, Running Your Own Race with Gresh Harkless. Here are the three takeaways from today’s session. Embrace your uniqueness. Learn from Gresh’s philosophy of running your own race, focusing on innate gifts, and carving your path in business and life. Two) Content as a bridge. Discover the strategic importance of content-based networking and how it can revolutionize your connections and collaborations. Three) Leverage your secret sauce. Gain insights into developing products and services that complement your brand’s essence. Just as Gresh did with his blend of storytelling and business acumen. Thanks so much for tuning in today. I’m really thrilled to be able to share this wonderful conversation with you. As always, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you never miss an episode.
