Isaac Mashman Explains Using HARO to Market a Podcast

Isaac Mashman0:41

Yeah, Ashley. Number one, thank you so much for inviting me on. What I got going on right now? What do I do? I'm a public relations professional. I run a public relations firm, Mashman Ventures. I launched that in 2020. But whereas normal public relations firms focus on corporations, bridging the gap between the consumer and the corporation, I specialize in and emphasize personal brands, working with people who are building out their personal brands, becoming a person of credibility. So it's been really, really great over the past couple of years doing that. Also, I have a podcast, I recently published a book, and really just a lot of different things are in motion.

Isaac Mashman1:31

Yes, wow, you did your research. Nobody has actually mentioned that before in a question, but I did start doing it for musicians. I managed an artist for about six months, and then I decided, and this was right in the middle of the pandemic. Honestly, I think if the pandemic didn't happen, I might have continued to pursue it, because we actually had to cancel two concerts because of it.

Isaac Mashman2:01

We later on parted ways, and then that kind of triggered me getting involved with the average individual, or the entrepreneur, or the business owner, and really branching out into other fields, other niches, other industries. So yeah, music has always been a massive part of my life.

Isaac Mashman2:21

It only made sense for me to get involved with music. But after realizing how shady the industry is, that there was no real effective way for a record label to win and an artist to win without being 100% independent, I was like, you know what, this isn't for me.

Isaac Mashman2:51

In my early years in business, I was trying every single thing that I could possibly try. I would do drop shipping. I did network marketing, three different companies, [four times]. I wanted to go ahead and run a media agency, not a public relations firm, but like a [social] media agency doing social media management, managing an artist, wanting to do a record label. But every single time I did one of these aspects and one of these new ventures, I learned about it. I learned how it works. I also was able to gauge how long it would take me to actually see revenue, because you can decide what your price is, what you're charging.

But at the end of the day, too, you have to take into consideration competitors. You have to take into consideration how long other people have taken to get to the place where they're at. For a record label, for example, it would take me probably five to 10 years to really start making any decent revenue from the company, as well as having enough to give to the artist that I was managing in it. It's very reliant on one or two people. So it just didn't have that scalability that I really desired.

Isaac Mashman4:04

Yeah. Well, I am 21. I normally don't start off with the age, because unfortunately, you say your age to somebody and they're going to automatically discredit you as somebody who's ignorant, or you don't have experience here, you don't know what you're talking about, which isn't the case with me. But I am young, and I got started in business in 2017. Yeah. Well, funny enough, we're doing a show for podcasts, for RSS, and that's awesome, because one of my first ever ventures was having a podcast.

Isaac Mashman5:04

Amidst those troubled times, I fell in love with the idea of entrepreneurship, like founding a business, because up until that point, I was a great student. Straight A's. I had one C in my life. The moment I got that report card that said C plus or C minus, it was like [the end of the world]. I had to go to school to get a tutor. I had to stay after, and I never got a C in my life again. But at the end of the day, my mom said, go to school, get good grades, get a scholarship. I was one SAT test away from that.

Isaac Mashman5:45

I saw that, combined with these young 20, 22 year old kids making $10,000 a month, traveling, doing things that nobody in my life and my family had ever done before. I saw that as a way to jump in and do something different, do something new. And so my senior year of high school, I took some of those entrepreneurial tendencies that I had. I was a kid who had the idea of running my own pin company. I had a lawn business, a couple of different things when I was younger. It wasn't until 2017 when I finally was able to define what exactly I was and what exactly I did.

Isaac Mashman7:00

My first ever podcast was called The Isaac Mashman Show. I scrubbed the internet clean of it. You can only find one episode of it right now. That was when I re-released it with my current podcast, Chase the Vision with Isaac Mashman. But I launched it. I don't even know quite why I launched it. That was during the period where I was spotting these other entrepreneurs who had strong personal brands and starting to reverse engineer what they did. Some of the people that I started following, they got on Twitter first. So I started a Twitter account. I started building Twitter. I saw that they had a podcast.

I'm like, well, they did it, so why can't I do it? Now, the production sucked. It was a very rocky beginning, but I would be in computer class editing my audio on a free Audacity [download]. To this day, I still use Audacity, because why not? Or I have my head of audio edit the episodes. But it started out with sharing it with my friends at school. I remember getting screenshots from my friends at the time listening to my podcast in the car. I'm like, this is kind of cool. Then from there, I kind of latched on to that emotional feeling of, okay, I'm doing something and other people are engaging with it.

This is kind of cool. Is this scalable? Then from there, that's when I started to build up my personal brand online outside of just my friend group, and started to connect on LinkedIn and Twitter with more people, and build out my audience and continue that content creation.

Isaac Mashman8:22

So Chase the Vision with Isaac Mashman actually was launched in 2019, almost an entire year before I launched Mashman Ventures and incorporated that. Now, Mashman Ventures is a public relations firm, but it had a couple different iterations, actually. Prior to getting incorporated, it went from being Mashman Media, and then I was like, Mashman Coaching. Then I was like, Mashman Ventures, because I was going through this evolutionary process of, I wanted to do something that is scalable and also something that has not been done before or isn't easily duplicatable. Because I see a lot of these other entrepreneurs that focus on a couple of different services, a couple of business models, and I'm like, I don't want to put myself in a box.

I don't want to put myself only in the field of media. I don't want to put myself only as a coach, because I'm not a coach. So actually, if you go to my Twitter account for Mashman Ventures, you'll see that it was launched and created in 2018, probably way before, two years before my company, because the handle at the time was at [Mashman Media]. So it's been a really, really fun process. I know it sounds a little bit all over the place. But I think that sometimes when you're doing something that's never been done before, you don't have that [clear] path, that [clear] direction, that blueprint, so to speak, or that mentorship, so it is going to be chaotic. Then from there, that chaos is going to bring about something that's great. I think that's what happened.

Isaac Mashman10:12

Yeah, well, HARO, HelpAReporter.com, is an exceptional way to get in contact with people that are normally out of reach or not easily accessible because they want to be private. As a journalist, I could only imagine what the journalists for Good Morning America get hit with every single day when it comes to, hey, feature my story, I want to be on the show, I want to be on the show, et cetera. I'm sure Michael Strahan gets messages every single day from people trying to slide into the DMs and into the show network. But HARO, I found by accident. I was researching ways to get into the press for free, because that's a big part of my personal branding strategy, my marketing tactic with Mashman Ventures.

Hey, I haven't spent any money on paid press out of pocket. I think that's exceptional compared to a lot of the other pay-to-win strategies that happen today. So when it comes to HARO, whenever I see a story that has to do with a podcaster or a podcast or a niche or anything that is relatable to me, I'm going to put myself out there and include that I'm a podcast host in the pitch. So it doesn't matter if the query is podcast related or not, the person reading it is likely to check out my podcast, because I included the direct link. I've been able to get into, I would say, a dozen articles over the past year using HARO, and it's really an underrated tool. It just takes time, and it's commitment.

Isaac Mashman11:42

Well, it's super simple. You can set up the notifications per day of, okay, this is the specific industry, or this is the topic that I want to receive queries on. Then you get an email multiple times. I have it set to where I get one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one at night. So I mean, I get blasted with HARO every single day of the week, but it's cool. It's Monday through Friday. Then from there, I see, hey, how to get guests, or how to get high level people. For example, your query was, what are some tips for a [podcaster]? I was like, well, a lot of people go about finding guests for their show the wrong way and approach them as fans rather than as their equals.

Then from there, you just see those queries, and you respond to them with a catchy subject line. Then within your actual pitch, that's when you get specific and you say, hey, this is me, this is my pitch, this is why you should listen to me. But you always lead with your pitch first, and you don't need to send two pages. You need to get, you're nodding your head, because you know what I'm talking about. Yeah. [People] sell themselves all too much. But the entire point of building out your personal brand is to sell yourself to where somebody could Google your name or Google your business or Google your podcast.

They don't need to ask you additional questions, because they can find the information about you, because your personal brand or your company's brand is doing the speaking.

Isaac Mashman13:06

1 million percent. I think a podcast in 2021, 2022, and moving forward for, I would say, the next decade is going to be a really great way to establish credibility. I've had opportunities come to me because of my podcast, i.e., us getting connected and doing this podcast interview right here, connecting with my audience, connecting with your audience, etc. I've been able to become an early beta user for different applications. I've been able to do audio courses for companies and create a residual stream of income because of my podcast. So it's a way for you to connect with the people who are already following you, or connect with new people, new prospective fans and followers, and actually share unique things about you that they [wouldn't] get through a simple picture or story post or something like that.

You're able to share unique stories about a life experience or something of the matter, or talk about things that you specialize in. It's really cool.

Isaac Mashman14:19

I'm somebody who doesn't do any sponsorships or ads on my show. Rather, actually, every single episode, I'll say, hey, I would appreciate it if you shared the show, you left a review, you liked it, you sent it to a friend, if you got any value from it. I'm not running advertisements, taking up your time. Just because I know personally, my listener habits and behaviors are, if I hear an ad, I'm going to skip it. Even if I'm out for a walk, I'm going to skip 15 seconds, 15 seconds, 15 seconds, oh, went a little bit too far back, 15 seconds, because I'm not one to sit through and listen to ads.

I'm the kind of guy where if I see a sponsored thing, I'm not going to click on it. I just avoid sponsors, I avoid ads. I think the reason I'm like that is because I'm doing it from a business standpoint. So I'm like, I'm fine, I don't care. The revenue that I generate was from the opportunities that came my way because of my podcast, where they reached out to me using the RSS feed email that I have for Chase the Vision, and also from the people who were clients, or who were previously guests, actually, excuse me. So for example, actually, if you and I were to start working together, that would be a direct result of my podcast. My podcast is the reason that we would be working together, because that's how we connected on a deeper level.

Isaac Mashman15:45

It's really serving multiple purposes. There isn't just one all-inclusive reason to have a podcast. It's an entire umbrella of reasons why, and benefits and pros, and virtually no cons, which is awesome and not easy to come by.

Isaac Mashman16:04

So I would immediately look at what you want to do, at your goals. The reason I say that you need to start with your goals, and this isn't some cliche, motivational, [rah-rah] type of thing, is you need to understand how big you want to play it. Do you want to play it to where you're trying to become a celebrity, or maybe have a million followers or 10 million followers, or take your business to nine figures? Or do you want to simply become well-known on a local level? That will also determine your actual strategy moving forward for social media and going out in public to network.

So myself personally, I want to take it as big as I can get. I want to [live up] to my potential. I really want to take this to the highest degree possible. So I know that my strategies aren't going to be limited to my city, to my local neighbors, to my neighborhood, to my business on a local level. My business is remote. It's international, not national and not local. So always start with your goals and understand where you want to go with it. Then understand what you want to be known as. Now, your personal brand is who you are, not just what you do. A lot of people only build out their personal brands for what they specialize in, but if they ever want to pivot in the future, what ends up happening is, the people who are following them for the value in a specific field, when you do a pivot, they're going to unfollow you, because you're no longer providing value to them and serving their best interests.

But if you were to build out your personal brand for who you are, connect on the fact that you drink your coffee black without sugar, connect on the fact that you're a huge Lord of the Rings fan, or connect on the fact that you love to travel, and here are some of the places you've been, and somebody else is like, I've been there too, I've been in that diner, that coffee shop, I too drink my coffee black, that connects somebody and makes them become an acquaintance. Even though you've never met them, they become your acquaintance, and then they become your friend. Then, because of your social media content, they eventually become your best friend, and you might not even know they exist.

But because of your content, that rapport is built. So that is going to be what establishes longevity in the long term. So always start with your goals, and then start putting yourself out there. Those are some of the initial tips that I'll give. But again, I could go in a million directions with that as well, because there are so many important things and steps that come into personal branding.

Isaac Mashman18:22

I would say immediately. That should be one of the first things you do. If anything, it's going to take time to build up momentum for your podcast. It took me a year and a half of my podcast [before] getting consistent and starting to get people to listen. And I'd promote it every single time I went out, to every person I talked to. Hey, did you know I have a podcast? No, I didn't. Well, here's the link. Something like that. So I would say getting started early on is going to give you an advantage, considering 4 billion people are going to be on social media by 2025.

That's a massive amount of noise that you're going to have to cut through. So why not take the advantage today and get started? Because otherwise, what will happen, Ashley, do you know this, is you're going to say, I'll start the podcast when, I'll start it when my business is at X point or when I'm at this point. And then you'll get there, and you'll be like, yeah, I got all these other things going, because you're naturally going to get more things on your plate, and then you're not going to do it. So I would say start now, cut through the excuses, and, you know, it's going to suck initially.

[That's okay], right? It's going to suck. That's the beautiful thing, because that allows for growth. That allows you to understand the areas of improvement. Then from there, you could eventually get bigger guests, more numbers.

Isaac Mashman19:51

Yes, well, hey, I'm honored that you brought that up, actually, and I'm not sure if this is going to be on video, but I have a copy right here to my right, Personal Branding: A Manifesto on Fame and Influence. Now, what I'm holding is an [advance] copy, not for resale, but I launched this book on November 1st, 2021. The premise of this book is to focus on the what and the why. What is personal branding? Why is it important? Why should you be building it? It's not so much emphasizing the how. Now, I do touch on branding. I do touch on marketing strategies, but I really want people to understand why they need to be building out their personal brand, and what their personal brand [is].

There are a lot of misconceptions. People oftentimes think that a company brand is the equivalent to your personal brand. [They're] two entirely separate entities. They think that you're starting a personal brand. No, you've had your personal brand. So I break down some of those things in an untypical way, and from there people can start to understand why it's important, and then some of the next steps that they should take.

Isaac Mashman20:54

Yeah, well, thank you again, Ashley. You can find me literally everywhere at Isaac Mashman. If you like podcasts, Chase the Vision with Isaac Mashman, and you can get a copy of my book, Personal Branding: A Manifesto on Fame and Influence, on Amazon, [Apple Books], and my own website at IsaacMashman.com/book.

Isaac Mashman21:17

That's an interesting question that I've never been asked before. Again, you're coming with the heat today, Ashley. Whenever we have a conversation, it's always going to be good. [I'm] blessed to [be] here. I really can't think of anything, but if I could close with something, I would say, at the center of all achievement is personal growth. The reason that's important is because of my age. I am relatively young, but I've been able to shave off decades of my life in a positive way. Not shave off in a sense of I have less [time], but I have more experience, more knowledge, and more, I guess you could say, livelihood. I have more potential because of personal development and because of learning from other people who have already made the mistakes.