How Gresham Harkless Leverages AI to 10X His Business Without Working Harder

[00:00:00] I'm a big believer where I say like, everybody is a media company. Everybody's in the media business, and all that basically means is that we have like all these tools that we can create content instantly, and we sometimes build it up to be more than what it is. A lot of times just having a conversation with somebody, whether you're probably having conversations on a regular basis, the difference is, I hit record. You may not hit record.

Hector Hello, and welcome to another episode of the How to Scale a Business Podcast. My name is Hector Sia Esteban, and I'm your host for today. Our special guest is Mr. Gresham Harless. He is a the founder of Blue 16 Media, a podcast host. And, if I were to read all of his accolades, we'd be here, take up the whole podcast, but, has been featured on a, on a number of lists, received a bunch of awards, and, recognition for what he's been doing.

Hector Gresh, thanks for, for hanging out with us today.

Gresham Hector excited to be here and, you're far too kind. I'm, I'm very much so a busy body. That's the best way I define it.

Hector Yeah. And I'm, curious, you know, you are, I'll be honest, you're probably one of the youngest guests that we've had on the show and also, [00:01:00] you know, maybe one of the most delight if, that is a word, but give us some of the, key stops along the way on your journey.

Hector And then we'll sort of talk about, a little bit about what you're up to now.

Gresham Yeah, absolutely. You know, I, I appreciate you saying that. And, you know, I might sometimes feel young, sometimes I feel old. My knees right now are telling me that I'm a lot older than that. Sometimes I feel, but, you know, that's just the process of life.

Gresham But for me, like I always say I felt like my coming at age story, was, you know, when I was 10 years old, like I, I was a kid that did a lot of entrepreneurial things when I was younger, potato chips on the playground. you know, selling, beads, I would get beads and create necklaces and things like that.

Gresham So I did all those things as a, as a young kid. But I think when I was 10, my dad was in the military, so he got redirected, and moved to, an entirely different country for an entire year. so it was me and my mom and. We didn't have all these tools that we have before us now to instantly connect with somebody all the way across the world.

Gresham So at that time, I started a family newspaper. I was covering like all the things that were going on in my family. everything from squirrels getting into my [00:02:00] grandma's house to a wedding that didn't happen to my cousin being born and all these different things. I would just compile a lot of things. I always like to read a newspaper.

Gresham I said, Hey, it would be cool if I started one. nothing robust, just some clip art, Microsoft Word and, a snazzy monthly title, that I would have. And then I would just basically send these to my dad. But I also sold so that some of the subscriptions, so I only, I always usually bring that up is because I, I'm a big believer in like, if you don't know who you are, don't know what lights you up, what get you going.

Gresham Look back at when you were a kid, you probably just did stuff just to do it. And so while I was navigating, going through, you know, undergrad, I went to Howard University for my undergrad at Georgetown. Got my master's trying to figure out, Hey, who am I? What do I wanna do? What am I gonna do for the rest of my life?

Gresham I went back to that story and I always kind of filter whatever part of the journey my life is in through like, what would 10-year-old Gresh do? And that led me on the path to doing a lot of different things. I have a digital marketing business. I created a lot of content myself for entrepreneurs, CEOs, and business [00:03:00] owners.

Gresham I have a franchise brokerage business that I recently launched as well too. But I would just say I am super, if not crazy, passionate around entrepreneurship and business and just helping like CEOs, entrepreneurs and business owners like get to that next level.

Hector Yeah, I always am jealous of the people who, got to, you know, sell stuff on the playground.

Hector I went to a Catholic school and we would get expelled if we tried to tell Hustle like that because I was always like, damn, how come I didn't do that? And I was like, oh, yeah, they were coming down hard on those kids, And so, took me a, a couple of decades to sort of get my first taste at entrepreneurship.

Hector I'm curious for, for you, when you look at sort of the, all of the things that have sort of connected the businesses that you do, or if there's a sort of a common thread, whether it's in the way that you provide the service or even in the, way that you've sort of built the business, what might that common thread look like?

Gresham Yeah, I mean, I think the way I'm always asking myself, you know, that question, I think you always want to try to be like very anchored and, you know, moving from, purpose or moving [00:04:00] from alignment and strengths and things like that. I really think the content part is really, you know, a big aspect of everything, you know, that I try to do.

Gresham You know, now there's phrase called content creators. Everybody's a content creator, but I really love to write. I mean, it wasn't like I was creating content. I just absolutely love to write. I love to create, I love all those things. So when I, you know, think about like how all those things come together.

Gresham Like I'm a big believer where I say like, everybody is a media company. Everybody's in the media business. And all that basically means is that we have like all these tools that we can create content instantly and we sometimes build it up to be more than what it is. A lot of times just having a conversation with somebody whether.

Gresham You're probably having conversations on a regular basis. The difference is, I hit record, you may not hit record. And I think if we start to look at it from that standpoint, I think, you know, a lot of things start to open up. So I think my common thread and the way that I try to approach things is saying, Hey, there's a gap there.

Gresham There's an opportunity. Maybe there's not enough content being written. Maybe there's not enough information out there. So let me lean more into that and see how I could use my superpower there. So I [00:05:00] would say that's probably the common thing that I always do is like anything new I'm, I'm thinking about, it's just like, hey.

Gresham What's the content look like there? You know, how can I, you know, use my superpowers there?

Hector Yeah. It's interesting because that seems to be such a important part of business' sort of strategy. What's your media strategy, you know, and Right. You know, or what's your marketing strategy? And right after that it's like, okay, what's the media component of it?

Hector And it, it reminds me that decades ago it wasn't accessible. It wasn't possible. you had to pay to play to get access and sort of distribution. But now if a company is willing to not only put in the work, because I think that there's more than just effort that goes into it, but if they're willing to take the right sort of steps that they can kind of create that platform for themselves.

Hector And that can be a, you know, a great way to, it could really be a great point of leverage for whatever they wanna do with it.

Gresham Yeah, absolutely. And, and I think sometimes, and, and I think he said it so well, like, again, when I went into college, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I was, came in an undecided major, I ended up becoming an English [00:06:00] major.

Gresham I wanted to do journalism. And I started to read a lot around the journalism industry and, and what was happening. And, and you start to see now that a lot of people that were in journalism have transitioned into like writing business, blogs or, you know, just doing these things from a business standpoint.

Gresham That storytelling piece is such a huge thing. I think we forget that we literally have in our pockets one of the most powerful tools we've ever had, and we can right now create content that can be media, it can be a podcast, can be a vlog, whatever it is. And I think if we sometimes like don't, you know, put it on that pedestal, but we just start creating or start literally recording what we're doing, then I think some really phenomenal things can happen there.

Hector Yeah, I think people forget about the, power of stories. You know, we work with a lot of companies that they're, one of their first thoughts when we start talking to 'em is like, why would someone listen to a podcast about ours? Or why, what would we even talk about? and the thing is, is that obviously there's, you know, a ton of ways to train and educate and inform people.

Hector Also just a great [00:07:00] story for a great story sake. is valuable enough? is something worth You know, looking into, I think back to, you know, the squirrel in your grandma's, you know, house or you know, a cousin being born like these are, these are stories, but they matter to people. And if so, I think that that's sort of what, businesses, I think they have to open their eyes to that everybody has a story, some story that's compelling.

Hector It's just a matter of whether or not they're willing to put out share.

Gresham Yeah, absolutely. And, um, I, I, like you probably say, you, you need to be sharing that story and I think that's why you do all the awesome things that you're doing and know, I'm super excited to kind of be here today.

Hector Yeah. I think it's a, big change for people.

Hector I'm curious for you, when you look back at, you know, how business has evolved over the time that you've been in it and maybe how it stayed the same. What are some of the things that have, have remained consistent over your time? And then, you know, what are some things that you find yourself having to make adjustments to?

Gresham Yeah, I think that it, it's funny because it's been, you know, since I started my digital marketing business probably been, you know, close to like 12 years or so since I [00:08:00] started that. And I remember in the beginning stages like listening to people and say, Hey, you know, marketing are the same principles, just.

Gresham The ways that you're doing it are different. And I feel like that is the same thing I could say now. Now I'm a little bit more tenured, a little bit more seasoned, I guess you could say, in the game. so I think that's, you know, something that I've seen like at the end of the day, like I, you know, again, when I talk a lot with people, I say, Hey, you know, think about marketing, think about building your media company.

Gresham Very much so, like you're going to the grocery store to figure out what ingredients do I need to create the dish that I want. You have a goal, you have a target market, you have all those things you wanna get clear on. Just what has changed is probably going to be the ingredients that you choose. You have things like AI that allow you to be able to kind of mass produce even more content than you could in the past, but in the same breath, if you're not asking and answering those questions, which are.

Gresham Who's my target market? what are the goals that I have for the business? Am I trying to sell more books? Am I trying to get more people to buy my widget? Am I trying to go on a [00:09:00] speaking tour? Like those will vary, like how you're using that ingredient. And then of course, you just want to be honest around like what your resources are.

Gresham So 10 years, 15, 20 years ago, you had a budget. 20 years now and 20 years in the future, you're going to have a budget. So I think when you get honest and clear about those constraints, those things don't change. The way you leverage them might. So of course, you know, you have algorithms and all those things are changing.

Gresham They're constantly gonna be changing. The platforms potentially are gonna change in the future. But I think if you get to those core parts of like, you know, who you are and what you're trying to do, it ends up being very valuable. And I, and I'll say one other aspect that I think we, miss out on, and you touched on it, I, which I think is a huge thing.

Gresham As I say, we often forget about the human part of business. So those stories, you hear things about being authentic, you hear things about even sharing the things that don't go well, your failures, all those things. It all connects to that human part. And I think even though we have all this technology and things at our fingertips, as we saw during the pandemic.

Gresham [00:10:00] We crave and want that human part, you know, we are doing it differently, but we still want and need it, on I think a, a very humanistic level. So I think those are the things that, you know, are gonna be consistent. And I think while tools might amplify it, you don't wanna lose sight of like, why you're doing what you're doing and, and, and have that connects with that human level.

Hector Yeah. I think, you know, so much of what I've sort of been on this kick about is how, content can really create trust, you know, and how Separates somebody, especially in this, AI field world, in this, world where there's so much content, or even just call it distractions coming at us, that the things that are gonna stick are to your point, the things that are authentic.

Hector The things that align, the things that resonate. And it's, I, I don't know if to say it's a heart, it seems like it's just easier to do that sort of at scale or, you know, in a way that can affect lots of people through something like a video or content or, you know, pick your choice, right?

Hector Whether it's TikTok or Instagram or YouTube, but the ability to have your face there interacting and building that relationship with people [00:11:00] when you're not there. it just seems like a, like an over indexed, you know, like something that people should absolutely be taking advantage of that most, not say most a lot or too many aren't.

Gresham Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, a lot of times people get hesitant to say, Hey, you know, no one wants to hear my story. Like you said, you, you know, your client, or who wants to hear my story and things like that. But it is so funny that you will say your story sometimes a hundred times. You'll post it a million times on social and someone will be like, I never knew that about you.

Gresham And it's like, wait a minute. I've been posting it for the last, like 10 years. And it's like, I, you never saw that. But I think that speaks to one, you know, algorithms, those play a big part, but I think two like. We don't realize, like for on a marketing level, for things that kind of stick and people to kind of remember things and understand things, they have to hear it again and again and again.

Gresham That's one of those tried and true, you know, marketing, pillar lessons. You know, you have to, you know, it used to be seven and nine times or whatever that you had to say something, now you have to do it more than that. So it's the same idea, but you just have to do it differently. So I think [00:12:00] we shouldn't get, you know, caught up in saying.

Gresham Everybody knows it, or I've already said it, we just have to say it again and again and again. And then it might be the seventh time, it might be the hundredth time that somebody says, oh, that's what you're saying. I know somebody I connect you with, or I can use your products or services, or whatever that is.

Gresham So don't lose sight of that when you're, you know, continuing to trying to share who you are, what you do, and of course how you do it.

Hector Yeah. I think Google put out a, a study somewhere recently that it said something to the effect of. Over two hours worth of content and I could be overstating it, but it was a significant, it was a long amount of content, something like a few dozen times.

Hector And again, I'm probably saying that lower across. Over a dozen platforms. Right? So they're, they just like, say they need to see you on Facebook and then they see you over on LinkedIn and they need to see you on these different places because people are busy. The trust develops slowly and there's so much noise out there that,  I think that so many people expect that if we put out something one time, we make one post, everybody's gonna see it.

Hector And you being in this game long enough, you know, [00:13:00] that like almost nobody sees a singular post, you know? Yeah.

Gresham Yeah, absolutely. It is so funny. You, you listen to and hear those people that go viral and you're like, how did you do that one post and how did it go viral? And it's like, well, I've been doing this for about 15 years, or I tested out 70 different ways and it didn't work in the final one worked.

Gresham And it's so funny when you start to like realize the secret to the overnight successes. It takes 10 or 15 years. It's not that one time, it's doing it over and over again, getting better. Craft. You look at people like Mr. Beast, you, you really start to drill down into those stories, which is why I love podcasting because you start to drill down a little bit more into how a person got to where they were.

Gresham And it often is not, I woke up, I tried something, I hit it off, and then I don't have to do anything else. It's very rarely that. So I think it starts to give a reality on what that journey, what, you know, entrepreneurship and business ultimately looks like.

Hector Yeah, we. I had a failed digital marketing agency.

Hector Well, I don't know if it was a failed, it was just I continued to pivot, you know, pivot and pivot and pivot. You know, we did websites, we did social media, we did all these things. And one of the reasons that [00:14:00] I landed on, podcasts is something that I could be, you know, that I could feel aligned with is because of what you said and the depth that people can, Can go and, and can experience, you know, in a conversation, right? This one's only a half an hour, but people are spending hours listening to these. And the amount of trust and the, relationship that's built between the listener and that individual who is oftentimes a business owner, whoever it is, right?

Hector Whoever's on the other side of the mic, Even if it's one sided is so powerful. Right? That's why you see these, you know, these streamers that have people shutting down, you know, streets and blocks to come see them. It's like, it, it is that relationship that, although it is just one sided, I think they call it a, a parasocial relationship.

Hector it is a sort of relationship that can for sure get people to buy something, if not much more.

Gresham Yeah, it, it is so funny. And like in this day and age, that's why I love, you know, podcasting, you know, as a, a platform. 'cause you get, you know, we, we have more accessibility to people, to successful people, even non successsful people than we ever had, you know, at any other [00:15:00] time.

Gresham And I think that provides that opportunity to connect. But I think we as entrepreneurs, business owners, CEOs, whatever title we might give ourselves, that's why I think it's so imperative to kind of tell that story, to talk about those things. 'cause you know, We sometimes undersell and understate, you know, the genius or the experience that we have.

Gresham And I remember, like, especially in the beginning, I still remind myself of that, is you don't have to be the expert. And, and to some degree we can even argue if people are experts. Like I think the people that are the best of the best are constantly, constantly, constantly striving to get. But in order to share some of those things that you've done, you don't have to be a hundred million thousand miles, you know, down the way.

Gresham You just have to be one step ahead and when you start to realize that, it's like, Hey, I started a business. Yeah, it is day two, but I'm still further along the person that never started. And I think once we start to kind of like maybe just use the medium for what it is, I think some really phenomenal things could start to happen.

Hector Gretchen, when we get back from break, I'm curious. We've talked, you could, you could have. you could have listened to this first half of the [00:16:00] episode in 2025 when we're recording it, right? You know, December of 20 25, 20 35, 20 45. And I think that, you know, all of the advice that you've given, would be timeless.

Hector and also what's interesting about media and technology is that there's these timeless sort of strategies. And then there's also, you know, the time full tactics, you know, the things that are, coming out, the new stuff, things that, you know, where there's, I think Gary V called, you know, the gray space, right?

Hector Where, people aren't paying attention. when we get back from break, I'm curious about what you are experimenting with, what you're excited about in that regard, and maybe in what you're playing with there. So we're gonna get into that, right after this. Hey, all. Today's episode is brought to you by Amplify Media, and we are a podcast and content production company.

Hector Well, we like to think of ourselves as the CH fractional media part of your company because chances are, if you're listening to this, you probably have a passion, a product, a mission, a message, something you're trying to get out to the world, but you might not have the time, the team or the tech skills to be able to do it.

Hector If that's the case, we can help go to amplify media.com. That's A-M-P-L-A-F-Y media.com. You can also check the show notes for the link. And with that, let's get back [00:17:00] to Gresh.

Hector Resh, I'll just throw it out there. What is the, the thing that you find yourself playing with, experimenting, like what are you most bullish on when it comes to new tech, new tools, new, something that, that most people might consider new, even if it's not like that new to you. What are, what are you most excited about these days?

Gresham I hate to go to the default that if probably so many people say, but it's definitely around like ai, your chat gts and the, this technology. It's just really phenomenal. like what you can do. And I think it's probably the most phenomenal thing is like. tell you this, like one of the first jobs I had, you know, at school was at Yellow Book.

Gresham And Yellow Book had changed their name to Hibu. And I remember talking, I was a young, you know, scrappy, you know, salesperson and I didn't stay there long, but I was talking to some of the agents and they said, you know what's so funny is that when you go to people, it used to be that you would tell them, Hey, I wanna sell you an advertising yellow book.

Gresham And they're like, absolutely sure. I put my kids through college off of this yellow book. You talk to people of that generation, when you ask, Hey, do you know a plumber? [00:18:00] They're gonna go to the yellow book. Few years later you talk to people and you're like, Hey, you know, can you tell me about a plumber?

Gresham They're gonna go to the internet. You talk to younger people, they're gonna say, Hey, I'm gonna go on my phone and check. We're at this place now where people are using AI and, and so I say all that to say like, part of my exercise for myself is really to take the blinders off that I might even have, not that I use the yellow book, but I did use the internet.

Gresham I used my phone on like, what's even possible. So I think playing around, of course, with it to say, Hey, I want to create a blog post. That's all well and good, but there's just so much opportunity that I think. We haven't even scraped the surface. So that's something that, you know, you're constantly playing around with.

Gresham But you know, chat, GBT, you know, you barred all these are fueling a lot of these AI tools that are coming out, that are doing things as far as like repurposing content or transcribing podcast episodes or repurposing podcast episodes or I was just playing around with the tool where I wanted to talk around.

Gresham A AI vending that is like [00:19:00] a, a business opportunity. And I was like, Hey, can you take my face and turn it into like a Terminator picture? And I uploaded the face. So you just playing around with all those things of like, Hey, I have this idea, I have this vision. Before it was like, oh, I'm not gonna be able to do that, or it's gonna take too much time, or is it even worth it?

Gresham Now we have these things that are literally at our fingertips that we can kind of test out those ideas. So, very long-winded answer, but just fully playing out and just saying, Hey, what limits can I reduce? And can I just like get in that sandbox and just see what's possible.

Hector Yeah. I recently, created a website, sort of the content was written by, you know, was aided by ai, but it was one of the first times where the actual.

Hector The actual website was built and, you know, whether it was the images or the structure, all of this stuff, and, and it used, that would've taken months to be able to do, you know, I would've had to hire somebody to do it and maybe it would've never actually happened, but like over a weekend we were able to spit out an offer and, you know, spit out a new product line and, and it really is kind of removing the ceiling from what is [00:20:00] possible.

Hector also like I even, like from a personal standpoint, I had been putting off scheduling my kids' dentist appointments for like, it was like weeks. It was like, it was, it was way too long where I was like, okay, this is the kids that should not, should not be suffering because you don't want to go to Google, figure out, you know, because it was such a process where searching 'em up, then figuring out if they're in the right, you know, insurance thing, then figuring out which ones are closed and there was all of these sort of.

Hector things that needed to happen in order for me to just make the phone call. I asked, I use Gemini, you know, I'm sort of in the Google space, but I asked Gemini, you know, spit this out, find them. Here are the ones that we need, put it in a sheet. And I had a, a spreadsheet with how far they're away from our house, you know, which ones were for sure, you know, in our insurance.

Hector Like, and it was all done and it was so easy. And in like 15 minutes we have the point. And I'm sitting there thinking like. Damn. Like I could, I could have gotten this done so much quicker if I didn't have this false belief around how long or how much it was gonna take.

Gresham Yeah, absolutely. And I, I think that's where the opportunity [00:21:00] is.

Gresham It's like, what things are we pushing off? What things are we like, are we saying like, oh, that's just the way it always is, that we could be doing it in a different way. And it's like taking those binders off and, you know, I don't know, like Matrix red pill. Blue pill, like, which one are we gonna take?

Gresham We're kind of in this place where we start to look at things differently. But I think you can really go down, the rabbit hole and, and say, I wanna test out this pro, this you know, app, this project this, to do this thing, that thing. But I think to your point, I think the biggest opportunity is what are there that are pain points you have on a day-to-day basis?

Gresham What things have you been supposed to do for the last, 10 weeks that you haven't wanted to do. And I think we sometimes say like, I, I have to do it the way that I've always done it, so I don't want to do it. So I'm, you know, pushing that off or procrastinating around it. But that's where an opportunity where there may be technology that we're not even thinking about that can be created or frankly, you know, might be at our fingertips right now.

Hector Yeah, I think what's interesting is that people are starting to, play around with [00:22:00] it on a personal level, that's, that's sort of stage one. And then, you know, being able to get your organization or your team sort of utilizing it is the next piece. And then I think there becomes a place where if you can sort of implement and, and not, I don't know if replace is the right word, but we have a, you know, one process in our, business that we would sometimes pay.

Hector Thousands of dollars to a contractor to do, you know, every month. And it was a pretty, it was very important, very critical. But now we took that, that $2,000 a month payment and with a $20 a month chat, GPT subscription, we could do all of it and more. It just requires sort of laying, you know, some of the foundation and kind of creating some of the infrastructure to be able to do that.

Hector But we're, I don't even know what the percentage of saved, right, to go from 2000 to $20. Yeah. It's like there's so many opportunities in people's business where they've. Been doing it for so long, just because that's the way that it's been done. When, like you said, the paradigm has totally shifted and what is possible at a reasonable and, and a, price that, and a investment that [00:23:00] makes sense.

Hector Whether that's time or whatever. It's, I don't think like people's brains are even in the right ballpark of, of what's possible.

Gresham Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, you know, again, going back to that, that human part, there's a, human aspect that's very, very real where, I'm a big believer in that it's not either or, it's both and better.

Gresham And I think that a lot of that is around like being abundant, looking at things abundantly. And I think that it's being able to kind of save that time and money. So that it can be put towards other things. And you know, there's things that, you know, I think we forget, like the technology data human, like what's trending on Google?

Gresham What's trending on X? Which, you know, all these things are a direct. kind of snapshot of what's happening from a humanistic standpoint. So I think we, we always are asking like, is it the chicken and egg? Is it technology or is it the humans? I think that the technology, when it's used correctly, actually serves humans, and I think it allows us to be even more human.

Gresham Because we don't have to do those things that might be more menial or, you know, might make more time. But it requires us to [00:24:00] kind of let go of some of that fear be and more, and step into that abundance and just be open to like things changing, which is really, really hard and really, really difficult for, everybody.

Gresham You know, for a human, you know, standpoint, it's really hard to kind of do that. But I think once we start to have those conversations, start to see what's possible, I think, you know, things could be unleashed from there.

Hector Yeah, people always wonder about taking the human element out of it and I'm like, well, you know, the hundreds or thousands or pick up whatever time you wanna go back.

Hector People were building like houses with their hand. They're building buildings with their hand. Today we don't use, like, we could do that, but we use a crane or we use these tools. It because. It's not that humans aren't there, but it allows a different level of leverage or allows a different level of scale that wouldn't be possible.

Hector And so I think that if we're just trying to get back to baseline or we're just trying to stay at baseline, then yeah, we're gonna run into some issues. But if, all of a sudden we pull off the ceiling and we see that there's a totally new, there's just new, there's like new possibilities that weren't even conceivable before.

Hector well now like. Now we might be able to start to fix some of [00:25:00] this world that seems to be getting so crazy.

Gresham Yeah, absolutely. And you don't have your time and energy, like kind of in those things that, you know, aren't necessarily getting us closer to, to, to fixing and, and creating those solutions. So I think yeah, incredible opportunity if we lean into that.

Hector there's a lot of, whether it's administrative or research based, there's so many things that are taking people's time that if we can arm them with the right tools, they can, you know, really, really do a lot more, What other sort of, whether it be books or concepts or ideas, what other things are you sort of, excited about as we head into, you know, we're recording this the first week of December in 2025.

Hector What sort of things are you looking forward to, as we approach this new year?

Gresham I think one of the things like I, I ask on my pod, is I always ask for co hacks, which are productivity, efficiency hacks or apps, books, habits that people lean on that make them more effective and efficient.

Gresham So I've always loved spending time and geeking out honestly, on technology. Things that I haven't, you know, heard about before. But I will say one of the, and I literally just had a conversation around this, earlier today. I'm gonna go through my exercise towards the end of the year to [00:26:00] figure out what I wanna do.

Gresham I'm a big, I started to do the 12 week year. Which is basically that you, basically take a, quarter basically and make it into a year. You create plans. You, you can tweak and change and make adjustments really fast. But there's a book called, 10 X is Easier, and I believe it's Darienne Hardy that wrote it, I believe.

Gresham I'm blanking on the, name. Dan, Dan Sullivan basically. And, uh, Ben Hard. Dan Sullivan. That's where it is. Yeah, absolutely. I love that book because it kind of forces you to think differently about like how you're doing things. I think when you go back to the, and I forgot who wrote the other 10 x, book, but he's really big into sales.

Gresham Cardone Grant. Cardone. Cardone, yeah. Grant Cardone. He's pretty much like, Hey, if you want to do 10 x results, you need to put 10 x efforts in. So it's very much so on. Like what can you do, to see better results. I think the other book, I like it because it forces you to think differently.

Gresham Those old ways that we were doing things. You can get to TEDx, but if you have those constraints, so you can't change those constraints if you have only certain amount of. Hours in the day, and you have less than that to work on the business because you have [00:27:00] two kids, or you have, you know, this other job that you're trying to get to, to move to your side hustle, whatever it is that you're going through, you have to think differently on how you're gonna do that.

Gresham So that might be creating a better offer for the clients that you wanna serve. Maybe you're not gonna try to get 10 clients. You're gonna try to get one client and make it a a slam dunk offer that serves them so well. Or maybe it's an entirely different business. So I really like that and really kind of, working through that just because it allows you to kind of think differently on like how you're doing things.

Gresham And ultimately that's where that transformation is. So I'm literally like going through and filtering that, my thoughts to say like, where can I implement that better until my business going into this next year?

Hector Yeah, we are a big fan of Ben Hardy on this show. His new book, I think it's the Science of Scaling is what it is, what it's called.

Hector is a brilliant one too because, and what I love about Ben, and it's exactly what you talked about, is that he is not about working harder only, or like, that's not it. Right. Well, it's great about Grant is you read the book and it's like, okay. Work harder. Got it. You know,

Gresham show me the brick wall.

Gresham I'm running through it. Yeah. [00:28:00] And, and I

Hector think that, that, works to a point. And then you realize that there is a, a point where, where you need to work. Smart. and the, Ben Hardy's is a, Ben Hardy's book is a great, example of that. I've got two questions for you, as we get outta here, GSH.

Hector the first one is if people want to get more connected with you, follow up with you, go deeper. In your world, where's the best place for people to go?

Gresham Yeah, I have a site, I am gresh.com. I-A-M-G-R-E-S h.com that has links to the podcast, co hacks, digital marketing, all the different things that I'm working on, so you can find quick links to it there.

Hector Cool. And we'll link that up in the show notes as always. And, last question for you, Gresh. In your opinion, what is the secret to scaling a business?

Gresham The secret to scaling your business is going to ultimate the depend. That's one of the reasons I love having the podcast. 'cause you get to redefine like what it means to be a CEO entrepreneur, business owner.

Gresham And scaling can be different things to different people. I mean, we always talk from a business standpoint of scaling is like getting more revenue, more clients, more customers. But what if we look at it in a little bit of a different way? What if you wanna spend more time with your, your wife, your son, your daughter, and you wanted to scale your [00:29:00] time there?

Gresham So I think the idea is really the secret to it is being first and and foremost clear on what exactly scaling means to you. And then I think it means like really start to see like how you can maximize your time from there, because time is one of the most valuable resources. The more that you can kind of.

Gresham Maximize that, whether you're working in the business and doing more things or you're not working in the business and doing none of the things. I think that's the big thing, but I don't think there's one set answer, and I think that makes it difficult. But I think if we understand that and we can work backwards from the vision that we have for our life and our business, not either or, but both and better, then I think that's where really phenomenal things.

Gresham So I think the secret is, is just being able to answer that for yourself and then trying to maximize the time for.