On Becoming an Influencer

Isaac Mashman0:40

I want to be known for. My name, who I am. Not for what I do, but for who I am. That's awesome. Who is Isaac Mashman? Man, I got a few different things going on. First and foremost, Shannon, thank you for inviting me on. I run a public relations firm that specializes in personal branding. I am an author, wrote my first book last year, podcast host, fellow podcaster, and content creator, and a variety of other things. But I love starting out with that question, actually, because it's something I always talk about with clients on virtually every podcast I do.

Isaac Mashman1:42

How long have you been podcasting? Oh, I've had my I had my first show in 2018, the very beginning and it was horrible. But I've had Chase the Vision with Isaac Mashman since 2019. So June 10th will mark three years of my one show just just celebrated a hundred.

Isaac Mashman2:16

Jeez. Well, here's the thing though. The interesting thing is I started it out and it was called something entirely different. Then I did a pivot with my personal brand, did a pivot with what I was pursuing professionally. Then I decided to rebrand the podcast and change it to a different name. So like the first 20 episodes are underneath a different title. I introduced it differently. But it was really a challenge being consistent with it because it takes so much time, but then also not even the editing and the uploading that's easy. But what's complicated is taking the time of your day to record it and to find the inspiration and the like kind of be in that energy of recording something that's high quality.

My show isn't always interviews either. So sometimes it's monologues, but how do I keep a 15 or 20 minute monologue going and talk about a subject that, at that moment I feel like I'm able to talk about for an extensive amount of time. But no, it was good. It was good. It's been a lot of fun and I'm looking to see what I don't know I do for the next hundred. It's actually a question is like how do you determine when a podcast is like something that you should stop doing or if you want to continue growing and so that's something I've been thinking about lately.

Isaac Mashman3:45

Well, a podcast too, it definitely benefits you from a credibility standpoint. Being able to say that you have a podcast so it positions you to where you can network with those people that are normally out of reach too. That's something I've done. I've had the opportunity of interviewing some people that, my girlfriend, for example, listened to. He was a band, he was in a band that she used to listen to when she was younger and he switched and now he's the head of music partnerships at Cameo. I'm like, I'm actually interviewing somebody that used to listen to in your emo teen years. So it's cool because it allows you to have a platform that you're delivering to somebody else.

But I think the fun of it too is seeing how big you can get it. That's for me like the satisfaction of knowing that, the sky's the limit in the sense of, there isn't anybody telling me I have to do this. So it's also a level of self-commitment and a way of growing and sharing and telling the world to and telling your business, your fellow colleagues, your clients that you're committed to something. I think that that is another benefit of a podcast. There are benefits that I could talk about for literally hours on end.

Isaac Mashman5:08

Yeah. That's something too that I think a lot of people spend an immense amount of time on early on and they strive for this level of perfection. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but having that strike for perfection, stand in the way of you and publishing a piece of content can also be detrimental. Because my first dozen episodes, I remember obsessing over every little detail. If you go back, well, you can't even go back because I scrubbed the internet clean on my first podcast, but you would hear dogs barking, birds chirping and everything else. I would say, and I would breathe and then I would edit that out and I'd be like, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this.

But Shina, the one thing I realized is that the only person who's paying attention to those little things were me. I was the only person paying attention to those details, but it does help you become a more effective speaker.

Isaac Mashman6:26

This is true, this is true. It affects your authority, I think. I just published an article on this the other day about how you can become a more effective speaker. I was like, there's a time for, and see I just said like right there, but there is a time for using those filler words and a lot of times we won't catch it, but when it comes to maintaining educated conversation and eliminating those filler words, then you're able to use an express or point better in a more authoritative way in a way that commands attention or respect. That's in my business, a personal branding. I don't run a public relations from that specializes in the corporation and the consumer, but more so the follower and the public figures.

So for example, the person listening to the podcast or let's say you have a celebrity in the person who is following in as a fan of the celebrity. A lot of it boils down to how you're positioning yourself as the individual and being able to maintain that conversation and speak from a point of, I am the authority or I am the person of credibility. I know what I'm talking about. It gets people to listen. Whereas speaking from that or or like, and it's one thing to say at every couple of minutes, but it's another thing. I remember back in high school, when certain people would present in front of the class they would say like every other sentence as if it was a comma.

I'm thinking to myself, oh my gosh, when is this going to be over? That's something that takes time to work on, but what is this uncount or you're speaking of?

Isaac Mashman8:53

So is that true? Let's have a conversation about that. Is it true every Canadian says A, like it's like a comma as well?

Isaac Mashman9:15

Times than somebody from out west. Are you bilingual? Can you speak French? No, I... That's not a.

Isaac Mashman10:34

It absolutely is. When I went to France back in 2019, it was such a weird, it was a culture shock for me from a multiple, multiple perspectives. But I'm so used to speaking Spanish because I studied Spanish in school and I continued to learn to where I have like that elementary school proficiency to where if I'm in an Uber. I'm trying to catch a ride, it's like I can communicate and say, it's good that day, that baby, that guy, or it's like I can speak enough to get me around and to order a sandwich. But when it comes to the pronunciation and the enunciation of ease, for example, it's like in Spanish you say E as in like grande, but in French the E is a lot of times it's almost like the U or the O sound or it's silent. Like this is mentally, it's messing up with my brain. So French is one of those languages at all.

Isaac Mashman13:04

Who they are ultimately, and that boils down to not just the profession of what they do. So for example, you could say, yeah, I'm running a public relations firm. I specialize in personal branding, but in conversation, I don't want people to just think of me for that. I want them to think of Isaac Mashman, my character, who I am, my trustworthy, am I credible, am I like, am I funny, can I have a conversation? Those sort of things. It's almost like going back to school and you have the class clown, or you have a friend group, and you have one friend that is more likely to go and cause trouble than the rest of the group.

That is a part of their personal brand, it's part of their character. So when it comes to working with clients, I don't want them to just express the professional side of things. That's where a lot of people go wrong today is they only talk about, I run funnels, I run marketing, I do this. There's no longevity in that because 10 years from now, let's say you pivot, you change that no longer interests you. The people who are connecting with you previously for what you did are no longer going to get value and hence, I'm following you forget about you disconnect. Or there are a lot of different brand accounts that you might subscribe to on YouTube.

But if I was to ask you to name any of the co-hosts or any of the hosts you wouldn't be able to, because you're only thinking about the brand, you're not thinking about the person behind it, which means that the brand goes up in smoke, the person goes up in smoke because they're forgotten. I always start with that. I want people to be known for who they are, not just for what they do, but what they do, the professional side has a time and a place because it adds credibility to their character. It adds a, this is a person who I can learn from and trust in this specific field, but that all boils down to positioning.

That's where I start at. Then I can get into the technical side of things of, well, are you competing with anybody else that has your name? Are you competing with another person? What have you done in the past that is going to build you and contribute to your credibility? Then how can you voice that to the public's viewpoint? The things that they might have overlooked. I had one client who I started working with who was a Canadian out of Toronto about 20 minutes away and come to find out she was mentioned in magazines and she's spoken at a conference in 500, 600 different places. She didn't even tell me about it until like two months into our work together.

I'm talking to her, Christina, why did you never tell me about this? She's like, just, I don't know. I'm thinking to myself that right there is a perfect example of a way that we could position you and say, Hey, she has spoken in front of hundreds of people before she's been featured in an HR magazine. That right there is a way that you can position yourself as somebody of authority as that public figure. Most people are afraid of putting the focus on themselves because they were raised to say don't seek attention or don't talk to strangers or don't talk about yourself when that's the one thing you should be doing. By extension you're going to be able to provide value and help other people in the process.

Isaac Mashman16:19

A lot of times this answer to my go ahead and brush people the wrong way, but every single person I work with, I always have them positioned as the public figure. You have to be the person that you are seeking the attention of. You are the person that people are coming and paying to see speak, rather than the person who is paying and seeing other people speak. That would be a perfect example of what I do and that can make a person uncomfortable because now they're saying, saying, oh, so not only just building out my personal brand. But you want me to actually be the person that everybody pays attention to absolutely, because you have to in order to get a massive amount of attention that translates into something.

Anybody can replace a minimum wage income or a six figure income by building up their personal brand to a certain degree in a certain level. You're known in the right network. You're known on your city. You're known locally. If you want to become well known to where you can accomplish the goals that you keep telling me of making millions of dollars or having millions of followers, then there is no other option than positioning yourself as that public figure. That boils down on a case to case basis of, well, if you're the dentist, then you are the number one dentist that everybody wants to follow and learn from that shares the facts.

But you're also the father, you're also the friend, you're also the teacher, you're also the person who people can follow and connect with. If you're the doctor, if you're the underwater basket weavers, stupid, stupid as it might sound, it's like, you can position yourself as the number one underwater basket weaver. Share your story as to how you got started. I can only think about the models that are well-known now because they look physically attractive in the public side. They have the physique. They look the part. But a decade from now, how many of them are still going to be relevant once the figure starts to not be as it was a decade ago?

Now, the way that you stay and you submit yourself as somebody that they're still going to follow and build out a fan imagine if a model shares their story and share how they got into modeling. Then they start to share about their passion or maybe a nonprofit or they share about you know their childhood then now you have people who are connecting with them for who they are not just for what they do professionally.

Isaac Mashman18:47

In a lot of cases, absolutely. It's also made agencies and talent and all this other thing. Not necessarily obsolete, but not as needed. Because anybody can build up their own personal brand and go viral and create content or get into the press and they don't necessarily need representation from it. But it definitely helps. Definitely can benefit and expedite your growth. I can think of somebody who is close to me as a model and he has an agent. He doesn't need the agent, but in order to get the results quicker while he's working a full time job doing everything else, having somebody else rooting for you is the same thing as having a team behind you and building a business.

You can build a business by yourself, but having a team of other people who are also sharing the same vision or the same goal and wanting to accomplish the same things can help you tremendously. Anybody today can become a celebrity, which is a wild thought because 50 years ago in Hollywood or TV television, you needed to have those connections because you couldn't just pick up the phone, go to LinkedIn, type in the owner of BET or the owner of entertainment or anything like that or the publicist and send them an email and send them a connection request. You couldn't do that 50 years ago. If you sent them a piece of mail, go in the trash and it wouldn't even get past the secretary. So it's like today that barrier to entry is so low.

Isaac Mashman20:57

Yeah, 100%. That's where word of mouth also comes in too, which I think is an underrated piece in today's world. Don't realize that word of mouth every single time somebody shares your post, that's a form of word of mouth. They might not be necessarily going to somebody and saying, you need to pick up this magazine or handing a physical magazine, but sharing an Instagram post is a way of saying, hey, watch this video, I watched it, you should watch it too. That is a form of word of mouth. That is so important. Even behind the scenes, for example, these models, it's funny that we're on this topic because I feel like models is such, I was just having a conversation about this with my girlfriend the other day of, whenever you're going.

You're modeling now, all of a sudden that photographer is going to tell another photographer, hey, you need to book this person. Hey, you need to book this person. This person behind the scenes, whenever they're going out for drinks, they're talking and they're saying, I just had the shoot with this guy, he's undiscovered, but he's going to be something. Now the peak's the interest and then the door gets open and then now.

Isaac Mashman22:22

That's a question. Well, and the other thing is I want to make it known to your personal brand, like what it is you've had it from the day you were born. We could go back to the time when Jesus walked the year or even percursing that to Nebuchadnezzar and all the kings of the old days in Mesopotamia. It's like I mentioned this in my book, Personal Branding, a manifesto on and fame and influence about how personal branding goes way back and to way prior to globalization and Napoleon Hill's thinking, Grrich, when he talks about personal branding, it goes way back when to where you had certain kings or chieftains that were more feared than others, certain that were more revered, kings stayed in power because of the divine right for hundreds of years through generations to generation to generation because of personal branding.

So your personal brand isn't something that you create yourself, your parents actually created it. But you being aware of your personal brand and the power it holds. Now you're able to direct and influence it. But it's not something that's like, a lot it's a misconception that people have whenever they say I have to create a new personal brand. No, you just have to direct the one that you've already had might evolve it. You might have an iteration of it. For example, my podcast, as I mentioned earlier, it was something different than it evolved into something new. I didn't create a new podcast. I did that in the past, but I knew I didn't need to.

I just needed to evolve it and change it, make it something a little bit different. That's, I think the point too, because you think about Dwayne the Rock Johnson, he started out doing football. Then he did WWE, but now he's doing acting and then he bought the XFL and then he did X, Y, and Z. But you don't know him for what he does, you know him for who he is. That's the perfect example that I could give as well.

Isaac Mashman25:06

I was working my entire time to go to college, to go and pursue a degree. In my senior year, I said, sorry, mom, I'm not doing it. I told my professor, I told my, guidance counselor and I was like, I'm not doing college. I'm not doing it. It's funny because this year would actually mark the four, it would mark my graduation here. Right now where I'm at. I was, I've been thinking about this a lot lately of, am I ahead or am I behind? What would have been different if I chose to go down that path, just as that fun, rhetorical question in my mind.

Isaac Mashman25:48

Well, the education I've gotten to has been free, which is interesting. I think too, it's like, I use the example of throw me in the room with anybody else who went to school for public relations. They might be able to answer some of the technical laws and such a little a bit more university standpoint, and might be able to provide the correct definition, but when it comes from an experienced standpoint, I have the time advantage on them. But it's also, I didn't want to measure my where I was going based off of where everybody else would. That's also what's kind of kept me going to where I might be moving faster and faster and faster than everybody else because I'm not, like I'm aware of that I might be ahead.

But I'm also aware that I'm behind somebody else, and that always gives you kind of a metric and understanding where you want to go.

Isaac Mashman27:21

Holy different types of education. I think that's something too that stands the same across the world, interestingly enough, speaking about languages and barriers and such of, I'm sure that it's the same in Canada. Colleges probably teach pretty much the same. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Brants are anywhere else in the UK. It's going to be the same following orders for somebody. Yeah. The capitulation of people. But no, interesting conversations. But it also boils down to having an understanding of marketing and having an understanding of human behavior. A lot of personal branding has to do with psychology and understanding how a human would potentially react than predicting the outcome of a post or predicting the outcome of a change to the brand or a change of the name, what is the perception?

You have to be able to predict that. It's something that, when I was younger, I used to pay attention to brands without even realizing it. Reading the Lysol bottle or reading the bottle and what the ingredients are and what the brand looked like or what they included on the bottle of Coca-Cola. Then it was the reason they made that look a certain way or chose that brand color was because of the psychological implication. Now I'm in the position to wear every single minor detail, whether it could be a spelling error in the bio to wear or an extra space or the photo doesn't show their face or something like that.

All of those little details add up. Most people today don't care. They don't care about those small details, but the small details can actually turn somebody off to where you no longer look like the person of authority. You look like just everybody else. Yeah, fascinating conversation.

Isaac Mashman30:28

There's this there's this indistinguishable line though that isn't firm. It's there's no it's a blurry line because there's no this is it of taking dude right now that example too far towards too dude like to where it's just goofy, towards like a gimmick, versus how it's something that can still be perceived or too professional to where it's professional, or you're leaning into, it's just white collar lawyer, or it's professional, but still personable. That's also like our job is to kind of determine where is that balance of professional, but personable. Where is that balance of goofy, but serious? Where is the line of, I am your friend, but I am also a teacher.

So it's like there are those different lines that every single thing you mentioned, the brand funnel earlier. I think of the chemistry of your personal brand, you have all these different pieces of the puzzle that fit together to make you or to make your brand or to make a company's brand. You ask somebody what the brand is, they would think about the name and the logo, they would very rarely answer that question with, oh, what the brand stands for. But they're subconsciously aware of it, but they don't consciously think of mentioning it.

Isaac Mashman32:51

Yet if she did do that post, let's say she just woke up in the morning, her hair is crazy, she really doesn't have any makeup on. She might have last night's makeup on, and she's sipping a cup of coffee like a photo like that. That would be the one thing though, that would absolutely blow up the internet. There again, there's there are these different cognitive biases talking about psychology. The halo effect, for example, is the reason celebrities exists. It's saying that because of one trait, because of maybe the followers, that person is somehow above us. Celebrities because of their fame, they're somehow better than the average person when simply not true, they're just another person that has a lot of attention or a lot of success.

But if he was to do that post, the media would completely tear it up because it's a typical of what she normally does. It's the same thing as if a lawyer, they definitely have a presentation to withhold and to maintain. It's also there's a time for your company brand, and then there's a time for your personal brand. They're two separate entities. So that lawyer, they might be representing the company and holding that persona. But personally, they might make a post and show they're out camping or they're what their family are at a nice dinner and that wouldn't be going against their brand because it's a part of it.

So interesting topic though of mentioning Kim Kay because now what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through and look at her Instagram and say, can I see her smiling and any of these? Well, I can actually do anyone smile.

Isaac Mashman34:17

But I get the point, yeah. I get the point and people have told me like smile, Isaac smile, and I'm like, no, I'm good. Like I'll do a smirk and stuff, but I very rarely like actually do like a full-grant smile. But at the same time, it's like those are the unique things.

Isaac Mashman35:04

More casual and look a certain way. But even then, if you had a, let's say a high profile lawyer that you would think to be suit and tie, there's a time to where they could throw in something personable. That would completely give people a different perspective of them. If anything, those personal posts would actually drive somebody to want to work with them all the more, because they're able to establish more rapport. They're able to establish more trust the deeper relationship and understanding with. That's why I love this because I have to think to myself, how would somebody perceive you? How would somebody perceive this, action and its reputation management and being aware of your reputation and how it is being managed and influencing and directing it. It's a lot of fun.

Isaac Mashman36:46

Well, clients, yes, personally, yes. It's one of those things to where, you don't let it get to you and actually you embrace it because you realize that you're being seen. As long as you're not doing something that is deserving of being trolled and sometimes there's a time and a place to do that to and to pull a PR stun or be more gimmicky to where you can do something kind of really gimmicky out of the blue to catch attention as a hook. But there's a difference between doing that actually being a gimmick yourself as a brand. I think about a couple years ago, there was a platform that precursed Instagram's reels called lasso and I was one of the star creators on it and my videos were picked up and I was putting out these motivational clips.

This person recorded a video and he ripped my channel apart. He ripped the platform apart, he ripped me apart and it was a 20 minute video and he got like 300,000 views on that video or something like that and I'm like like, that's the most exposure I think I've ever gotten. I'll take it. I'm giving myself the high five because I got noticed by this YouTuber and I'm like, all right, cool. I'm not, against that. But then you also have negative cases too. You have to be careful as it can also take a toll on somebody mentally and emotionally. I can understand that because now you have a thousand people saying, oh, you look ugly or oh, you gained weight or oh, you look like this.

So that's a lot of attention to where you have to make sure that you're not letting it impact you on a deep level. If anything, drive you forward on a positive in a positive way. So yeah, that's just one of the things that comes with it and comes.

Isaac Mashman38:32

Growing tremendously. Did you know that there is not one PR firm in the world that is worth a billion dollars? Fun fact, out of all these industries with billion dollar industries and even trillion dollars, there is not one billion dollar public relations firm. Edelman is the number one PR firm in the world and they're worth about 900 million in revenue. Now influencer marketing is increasingly affecting our everyday behavior and it scares me, which is funny. I'm saying that it scares me and it's something that I'm almost concerned about while I'm in industry and this is my bread and butter of what puts food on the table.

For example, my girlfriend will find recipes off of Pinterest and off of influencers. She'll make buying decisions off of influencers. That's happening to us on an everyday basis. That's why you ever see Shaquille O'Neal on a printer commercial. There's a printer commercial for Epson with Shaquille O'Neal. That is a form of influencer marketing. Now it would be celebrity marketing, but celebrities are influencers. Not all influencers are celebrities. So it is going to be growing. It's already, I believe an $8 billion industry, but it's going to be growing to 10 billion, 50 billion, 100 billion. As more percentages of the world are getting acclimated to the internet, we're going to see more influencers on international level, such as Africa.

Africa is being globalized right now and industrialized. That means that there are going to be more influencers on an international level that are influencing Western culture and Eastern culture and vice versa. I'm curious to see how it's going to affect people and kids. A decade from now, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, you asked a kid, what do you want to be? A football star, movie actress, a model, blah, blah, blah. Today, I want to be a YouTuber. I want to do what Mr. Beast does. So it's influencing our behavior. But then again, our behavior has always been influenced by Hollywood, but not to this level.

He had kids a decade, two decades ago that would go outside and play. When I was growing up, I would go outside and I'd be entertained by dirt today. I was somebody who even then, if my mom or grandparents were more technologically inclined in pro-technology, I still could have been behind the computer 24-7. But now a decade from now or next year even, you have these kids that are being born around this technology. So influencer marketing is affecting them as an infant. But there's also a lot of opportunity to make money and to be a nano influencer or micro influencer or to understand how you can monetize that attention to where you could run an advertisement for a podcast or make money from selling a book. All of these other aspects are literally hundreds of ways of monetization today, thousands.

Isaac Mashman41:42

Second. What's the resume? It's your personal brand. It's, yep, it's a representation of who you are and why somebody would care. Yeah. I've enjoyed this conversation, Shannon, I know what to expect, but we were able to have a technical conversation that oftentimes I don't get into its surface level, but this is a deeper conversation.

Isaac Mashman42:07

You can find me literally everywhere at Isaac Mashman, ISAAC, M-A-S-H-M-A-N. I have a podcast as well called Chase the Vision with Isaac Mashman and I publish my first book, Personal Branding and Manifesto on Fame and Influence last year, came the number new release in public relations on Amazon. You could find out on Amazon or going to my website.

Isaac Mashman42:32

Well, Shannon, thank you for having me on.