Pressure Testing The Deep End Rebrand

Isaac Mashman4:56

Man, I feel like it gets the blood flowing. Kind of keeps the energy flowing. I think that a little bit of butting heads is productive. Look, we were butting heads last time I was on the call with you, or last time I did. Last time we did. Yeah. It worked out great for me. So let's do it again.

Isaac Mashman5:52

What do you want to do? Let's treat this like a case study. I've been watching some mock case studies from McKinsey lately. Why don't you start with the name and let's see if I can figure out the why.

Isaac Mashman6:06

Well, we'll figure it out. We'll see. We'll see.

Isaac Mashman6:26

So the Deep End with Eric Triplett. OK, so I'm not going to promise that I'm going to be 100% high energy this entire time, because the one thing I've noticed in our interactions, even in person, is [that I'm] somebody [who likes] to stop and think it over. I like to digest things and look for a little bit of a deeper meaning. My initial concerns with the podcast rebrand with the Deep End: it doesn't have anything to do with the prior IP and the Pond Digger mantra and all of that. I actually think it's a good thing that you're moving away from it, because the Pond Digger is your LLC.

It's your business. It's your pond business. It's what you use to make money. It's what your trucks are labeled with. It's what people know when they introduce you at the different water feature events. They say, "Eric Triplett, the Pond Digger." Notice they say Eric Triplett first, they don't say the Pond Digger first, which, if you pay attention to how people introduce you, is how they do it. But I think moving away and separating the Pond Digger and the podcast is wonderful, actually, because it gives you something else to promote that still keeps a similar brand and imagery, especially because the Deep End infers water, which ties directly and parallel to your business and what you're doing as your profession.

But my initial concern with the podcast name would be, are you fighting other people for that name? So what I would do, prior to launching it, what I would typically do with a client, is go to Spotify, iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you could go, Google, even ChatGPT, Grok, etc. I would type in "podcasts named the Deep End." I would initially see if there were any competitors, other people who had that idea. I haven't launched my new podcast yet. I went through several different ideas and different names, some of them were complex, some of them were simple, some of them were taken. Anytime they were taken, I couldn't use that, because I'd be fighting people in terms of the algorithm. But all in all, I'm actually quite a fan of that new name. I do have the initial concern of it being taken, though.

Isaac Mashman10:35

Yeah, and I think there's symbolism too that you mentioned that I didn't even catch initially, which was, whenever you're starting a business, whenever you're building your personal brand, which is my arena primarily, you're diving into the deep end. There's that analogy, that example that people always say, you're diving into the deep end of the pool, you sink or you swim. I think in terms of the conversations and the directions of the interviews and the conversations that you have moving forward, you can shift to an even more detailed, in-depth [approach] than you could incorporate. So what was your deep end moment, for example? I feel like this would be a good time for us to slow down a little bit and then jump into the next part, because this marks the beginning of my big podcast work for 2026.

You're the first show. The Pond Digger, or the Deep End with Eric Triplett, is officially the first podcast that I'm going on for this tour. What I'm doing in 2026, I don't have the time frame yet because I want to make sure I launch it right. I'm launching a new podcast. That podcast is called Executive Status with Isaac Mashman. I'm shifting my branding from more of the online entrepreneur [persona] into more of an executive corporate image. One of the questions that I'm going to be asking people is, what was the time that you essentially went all in? You became an executive of your life, of your personal brand.

I don't have the exact question done yet, but having something unique for your podcast [matters], because there's so many great shows out there. They ask similar questions at the end, like Lewis Howes on The School of Greatness, who ends every episode with one specific question. I believe the question is framed in the following manner: if you were to get rid of all of your intellectual property, all of your content, but you could only leave one thing for the rest of the world to have from you after you die, what would that piece of content be? That gives people and listeners something to look forward to at the very end.

There's so many cool ways that you could move forward with this idea. So I like it. I wouldn't even be concerned with it being in play and having some copyright infringement or some trademark or stuff like that. Aquaman is a great example. But again, Aquaman is a character. So if you already use the likeness of the comic book character, that's one thing, but the copyright office and everything, they're very particular about what is a trademark phrase. Like, I might not be able to trademark "personal branding," but I could trademark the strategy Identity Positioning™, which I created for personal branding. So yeah, a lot of cool avenues of conversation we could go down.

Isaac Mashman14:26

So if we're continuing the, let me call it an audit, like I would typically do. Yeah. What is the intention behind this rebrand? Cause you've had something that worked. So now you're changing the direction of something that was working. It's one thing if you were to change it if it wasn't working, but it's worked for you for two decades. So what is the shift here? What is the motivation? From there, we could kind of reverse engineer what that logo might need to look like, because you say, [trident]. I haven't seen it before, but you say [trident]. I do not think about DC comic books and Aquaman.

I think about Navy SEALs. That's just my own personal way that my brain functions. But I would wonder, and question you on, what is the intention behind this rebrand?

Isaac Mashman17:28

Okay, I love that, because what you're talking about is mass market appeal to a degree. I say mass market, but mass market within the blue collar contractor space, because the water feature industry, pond diggers, pond contractors, that's such a small fraction. This is actually a point that I asked you about a couple of weeks ago. You had me review one of the funnels for the Contractor Conspiracy. I don't remember the exact title, but that's essentially what it was. One of the questions and points of feedback that I gave you was, is this for pond guys? Is this for water feature experts, or is this for generalized contractors?

[When I was at] the Water Garden Expo back in February, Chris came up to me, and he didn't make an introduction, but he put something in my brain about outdoor lighting. He's like, "Hey, you could possibly speak with these guys." It's a different blue collar service, a different blue collar area, but still the things and the areas of training that you're talking about with your generalized Training with Triplett can apply not only to pond guys and water feature experts, but it can also apply to landscapers and plumbers, even electricians, et cetera. So it's like you're opening up the ballpark to where you could expand and help and impact people outside of the industry.

So I think that direction is awesome. The Deep End also keeps the initial influence of where you come from in the water feature space. So I do like that.

Isaac Mashman21:38

Yeah. I think that's wise. I'm not somebody who likes micro-niching down. What you've been doing up until this point is what I would call a micro-niche. You see people out there like, "niche down, niche down." But there are levels of niching. You could get super specific and super narrow and only focus on one industry. You could focus on a variety of industries that fall underneath one umbrella, because I would say that landscaping, pest control, outdoor lighting, pond features, all of that, falls underneath one general umbrella of, like, keeping up with your home. This could be relative and subjective to a point. But I think that broadening the appeal could be a good direction, whenever you get the book done, which I'm going to continue to push you to do, and continue to do the contest.

But I would take a step back and ask you, why is that even important for you to reach more people? Why is that something you're thinking about? Because obviously you said that it's not really for vanity. So that leaves two other areas, money and mission. You have three big motivators in life, money, mission and vanity. So is it money or is it mission or a combination of both? Like what is the reasoning behind the broader appeal pursuit?

Isaac Mashman25:39

I'm wondering how we can tie in the conspiracy aspect with the Deep End as well, or if that needs to remain separate, but I do like the idea of the broader market appeal. I think that would also open up more doors for you to where you could speak at more conventions, even outside of the water garden space. Because I've been at three events now. I spoke at the Atlantic-Oase conference last year in Denver, and spoke at it again this year in Cleveland. Thanks to you. I have to give credit where credit is due. It's amazing, the power of podcasting. If we could talk about [it], this is a master class in personal branding.

I think I need to explain a little bit why I even set this goal. I made the announcement today. I'm going to continue promoting it over the next couple of days and throughout 2026, but it's been a year of solitude for me. It's been a very quiet year. I published the second edition of my book at the beginning of this year.

Isaac Mashman26:35

A lot of growing as a young man, as a young professional, as a businessman, and I kept thinking to myself, okay, what do I want to do to relaunch back into this? What do I want to really do? I'll be a little transparent here. I was like, okay, I could write another book. I did start it and I'm working on it. That'll come out sometime next year. But I was like, outside of a book, what if I do a podcast tour? And don't just do, like, I've aimed for a hundred interviews in one year before, and I haven't hit that mark. It's not that I couldn't have gotten on a hundred shows.

Getting on shows is easy. It's not [that] I didn't have the discipline, I have the endurance, but I didn't have the fortitude. So I was thinking, and I was talking with my business partner, Eric.

Isaac Mashman27:22

I was talking with him, and I was like, Eric, what if I did 365 shows in one year? Not only podcasts, but media appearances, interviews, articles, et cetera, because it's a test of fortitude and endurance, and it will build that discipline, and it'll show that I can do it. But also, it means that I'll be able to say I'm one of, if not the most interviewed personal branding leader in the entire space up until this point. That's a huge point of promotion. But there's also a lack of understanding about what personal branding is. I was talking to you after my presentation, I believe, and to a few different people after my presentation in Cleveland this year.

I was like, man, I feel like I'm a couple years ahead of the curve. I'm talking about personal branding and social media and content creation and distribution and positioning and all these other subjects, which are great. But I don't think it's really clicking yet. Part of doing this tour is to essentially saturate the market and increase the education around the subject, because personal branding is beneficial not only to the contractor, the business owner, the professional, the influencer, but it applies to the school teacher. It applies to the young student who's in college or in high school, trying to get accolades and get recommendations to go to colleges and stuff like that.

So doing this tour is allowing me to increase the awareness. That's my mission piece. The vanity piece is awesome because I'll be able to say, yeah, I did 365 interviews in one year. So no, I quite like the new direction. It's better than I thought it would be. That's not saying that I doubted you for one second, Eric. Yes, I thought it would have something else that I feel like I would be arguing with you more [about], but rather than arguing, I'm thinking about optimization now.

Isaac Mashman31:26

Yeah, well, and that shift goes back to what I argue personal branding is, and I say that your personal brand is you. It's not just your profession. One of the unique differentiators between my philosophy of personal branding and a lot of other people online, and a lot of my competition or counterparts or whatever, that are in the space, is they have a very narrow perspective. It's interesting, because you've lately been getting into psychology quite a bit. You had me take the Enneagram test, and you said, hey, I think you're probably a type three, or the third personality type. I took the test. That's exactly what I was.

But I've been diving deep into the origins of public relations. I've been doing this for the past couple of years, coming from a background in public relations. Edward Bernays is considered the father of public relations. A lot of people don't know him, but a lot of people are influenced by him. They don't even realize or recognize this. The guy died 20, 30 years ago. I think he died in the 80s or 90s, but Edward Bernays is considered the father of public relations. So if you think about prior to World War II, the word propaganda didn't exist outside of a religious sense from the Vatican and the Catholic Church, but he took propaganda and the idea of advertising and marketing and made it public.

He was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, and everybody knows Freud, but they don't realize that Freud was made successful because of his nephew Edward Bernays. He consulted for, like, Herbert Hoover, Coolidge, all of those presidents. So to give a good example of this, like we all know the big American breakfast. You go to Waffle House, you go to IHOP, you have bacon, eggs, pancakes, waffles, et cetera. Prior to a specific campaign, and I believe it was in the 40s or 50s, Americans used to eat like a bagel and orange juice and coffee for breakfast. It wasn't anything substantial. He was hired by, I believe it was [Beech-Nut], a meatpacking company, to increase sales for meat.

What Edward Bernays did is he got notes of endorsement from a thousand different doctors. If we think about influencer marketing, he was way ahead of the curve in terms of endorsements and influencer marketing back in the day. He got a thousand letters from a thousand doctors saying that eating a large and hearty breakfast was healthy. It was good. You had calories. You could sustain yourself. You could sustain your energy. So the general public, they saw, oh, doctors are saying that eggs and bacon and all this crap to start off the day is good. So let me do that. He also influenced, like, women, [when only men] used to smoke.

If you think about the old Western movies, you only saw men smoking. John Wayne. He had the Marlboros. But he did different campaigns that made smoking for women look thin and [in style]. It's fascinating when you take a step back and you realize kind of how our empire and civilization in the 21st century are being moved and whatnot. But I talk about that because in his book, Crystallizing Public Opinion, he talks about how when you have an idea, you have two different options. You could present your idea and in doing so, discredit another party. By doing so, you're making enemies. Or you could present a new idea and make it the most commonly accepted idea.

So to go back to my point on personal branding, a lot of my competitors, they talk about how personal branding is only about your professional line. It's about your Instagram page. It's about your social media. In my book and in my paper, Identity Positioning™, a macroscopic view on personal branding, I talk about how your personal brand started the moment you were born. I say it's not just about your profession, because you can pivot multiple times in your life and your career. You can go from business to business to business, and people will still know you for you. I think this new pivot for you, moving a little bit away from the water garden space and the Pond Digger and moving to this, will open up so many different doorways for you to speak at not only pond events and pond expos, but you could speak at any event now.

You could speak at these cons and shift your training with Triplett to not just working with these pond professionals, but working with all sorts of different contractors. Again, 10,000 contractors in the pond space, or the million plus that are in all of these different industries. So it's awesome. That's mightily beneficial, if I do say so.

Isaac Mashman39:57

Yeah, and it's not that there's a right way and a wrong way oftentimes. Sometimes there is, like it's black and white, like this is [ethical], this is unethical. In certain sales techniques, you could argue [they're] unethical, the persuasion type, depending on the intention. Like, for example, just because you can sell somebody something doesn't mean that you need to sell them that thing if they don't genuinely need it. So I think that there are different schools of thought which allow you to present your own perspective and your own knowledge and your own intellectual property and techniques and such, which I think is good. If I could go back to the Deep End, the good thing is the domain is available, thedeepend.com.

It's a premium domain that will cost you $70,000. So just want to let you know about that. The domain is available. [thedeependpodcast.com] is a premium domain that will cost you $4,000. So we might be sitting around and coming up with some different domain ideas if you were to get a separate domain for the show, like Deep End Podcast with Eric Triplett, albeit it's very, very long. So we might sit off air and come up with some ideas there.

Isaac Mashman42:10

Dennis Yu. Yeah. Dennis had Dennis-Yu.com for years. It wasn't until, I think, last year that he actually was able to get DennisYu.com, and he's one of the best people to follow in terms of SEO and all of the deeper intricacies of how Google functions on the back end, which I know some about, but I don't know nearly as much as him. Yeah, he's absolutely right. I want to do the real Eric Triplett, but doing EricTriplettOfficial.com would be good. But that would also be the same argument I have for securing social media handles. If your social media handle is taken, you're able to put "official" at the end.

So let's say it was Isaac Mashman and there was another Isaac Mashman, albeit my name is very, very unique. I would do Isaac Mashman Official, and you put official or real at the very end, because you want to make sure the algorithm is promoting you and people aren't going and typing in "official" or "the real Eric Triplett." They're just going to Instagram or Facebook and typing in Eric Triplett or Isaac Mashman. So that is a strategy and a technique I holistically endorse. The good thing is, what I would do is continue paying attention every year, and EricTriplett.com is expiring in April of this upcoming year.

So if the guy doesn't renew it, it'll enter into a 90-day cool-off period and then go back to the market. So I would be on the lookout for that around June or July next year and see if you could snag it. Maybe the guy will forget to.

Isaac Mashman44:47

Yeah, which I would recommend. Again, we need to think about personal brand, which is you, versus company brand. This is what I said on the interview that we did two years ago. I said that your personal brand is not the Pond Digger. The Pond Digger is an extension of your personal brand. I would argue and say that you need to differentiate those more than ever, especially because you have other guys working for you. You can't say you'll [never] sell it, but it's like your products and the Helix and everything, the systems, they're all underneath the Pond Digger. If you're moving into this generalized direction, there's definitely some mesh and some parallels between the content you'd be producing.

But I think having a separate page for your company brand and for your personal brand would be more paramount than ever. I would say you need to have different Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn accounts, et cetera, for Eric Triplett, slash Eric Triplett Official, where available. Then you have a separate page, or like on Facebook or LinkedIn, you can create company pages that are still connected to your personal page for the Pond Digger, which is your LLC. So I would say that accepting that it's going to take you more time would be good, but I think leveraging some of the new features would also be wise. So for example, you can collaborate with other accounts now.

So you could have two separate accounts. I would start with maybe a personal page for Eric Triplett. I'd be hesitant on changing the username for your Instagram page, the Pond Digger, just in case by some happenstance you're not able to get that username again, but you could create a separate page specifically for your personal brand. Then on the Pond Digger, you start talking specifically about the pond and water garden industry, et cetera. Then on your personal page, you talk about contractor sales, psychology, the things you speak about, et cetera. That might be something worth exploring, albeit it does take more work.

Isaac Mashman46:43

[No] problem. Well, and you mentioned Gary V, and you kind of shoot yourself in the foot there, because Gary Vaynerchuk has his personal pages, and then he has VaynerMedia and VaynerSports and Vayner everything else. He has separate teams that are dedicated to those pages specifically. So I think that if you were to follow Gary's advice, you'd realize that his advice is exactly what I would be telling you. So be careful who you align with, Eric.

Isaac Mashman47:40

I usually keep X for keeping up with the news and such. I haven't created much of it in a while.

Isaac Mashman48:12

So you [want] a seamless brand, and right now it sounds like it's not really seamless. Because again, if you were to tell somebody, "Hey, go give me a follow on social media," you're saying, "Hey, you can follow me at Training with Triplett on TikTok. You can follow me at the Pond Digger on Instagram. You can follow me at Eric Triplett on Facebook." It creates confusion, and the more steps people have to jump through, the more hoops they have to go through, the less likely they are to actually fulfill it and go through to the end, which is the follow. So if you think about, like, at these expos, having a QR code, or when you're speaking, you're saying at the very end.

So at my speech in Cleveland, I said, hey, you can purchase my book, go on Amazon, type in my name, you'll be able to find it. You could go and follow me everywhere across social media at Isaac Mashman. It needs to be as seamless for you as well. So I think moving towards Eric Triplett and then making it known that, hey, the Pond Digger is my company, again, is what I would suggest you do. I'm looking at your LinkedIn real quick.

Isaac Mashman49:11

Yeah, we need to work on your marketing message though. "Contractor business coach" doesn't do much for me. You do have a personal page, but you don't have a company page set up. I don't think [that's] problematic.

Isaac Mashman49:31

Well, I couldn't find it with [the Deep End]. So, damn it, I've got to find it somewhere else, Eric. You know how I am. But no, these are [minor].

Isaac Mashman49:45

It's not the initial name that I would go for, but it's not a bad name by any means. My only point of contention with the Deep End is that it's being used primarily by other people. For example, there's a Christian rapper, Lecrae, and his podcast is the Deep End with Lecrae. Okay, so that's something you need to think about. Now, there could be some benefit there, which, again, I probably wouldn't tell my client this, but there could be a benefit there, because when people are searching up the Deep End with Lecrae or whatnot, your show might show up, especially if it's a celebrity figure that has more traction.

You might be able to get some organic reach there based off of people searching it up for somebody else's show. But that's really my only point of contention. In terms of the branding, I think it's a good move to move away from the Pond Digger.

Isaac Mashman51:18

So I'm not factoring in speaking engagements. I am factoring in any interview-style engagement. So that could be a written article. It's not a quote in the media. If I get quoted in Forbes or Entrepreneur this upcoming year, I'm not going to factor that in. But if I do have a full-length interview on any of these platforms, I am counting it. I'm counting it.

Isaac Mashman51:46

Yep, interview or article, not something that I write that just is, this is a lesson on personal branding. It needs to be a little bit about me and needs to have information about personal branding. Because the goal of this [tour] isn't just massive exposure for my own personal brand. By the end of this year, if I'm on 365 shows and the average show even has 10 listeners (let's say it only has 10 listeners), that's 3,000-plus people, but most likely some shows will have 100, some will have 1,000. I might try to go and get on some of my larger connections and see what strings I can pull.

I want massive exposure, but I also want massive awareness on personal branding. Podcasting will be the main method of transport, so to speak, that I'm [using] this year. Then interviews, [yes]. Public speaking engagements, I'm not counting. I would say that maybe if I was to get on a panel somewhere that might count, but [only if] I'm being featured, in terms of what I'm counting. It was originally only going to be podcasting, and I was like, okay, what if I do press articles and stuff, so that's kind of where I shifted a little bit. So I said 365 days, 365 interviews, so it's definitely a very big goal that I know I can do, but I might end up hiring an assistant to help me land some shows. I don't know.

Isaac Mashman53:32

Well, I think a good direction here, because I've been treating this conversation almost like impromptu consultation, right, pulling up different social media pages, seeing what ways we could optimize it. My work very rarely is purely about creation. It's not just about positioning, and it's not very often that I get a client who hasn't been on social media or is only on one page, so I'd have to create everything for them and go through all those steps. You've already had the foundation laid, so now we need to optimize that foundation and build off of it. So I think right now what we could benefit from is maybe coming up with a marketing message for this new direction, which could very well be challenging but could also be a lot of fun.

Because right now, you have "come join my free FB group for contractors" on Facebook, and you have the link, but I don't know anything else about you. So I think that might be something we need to think about.

Isaac Mashman54:29

That's on your Facebook and on your LinkedIn, you only have business contractor coach. That doesn't tell me anything about you. Now, in my proprietary strategy, it's called Identity Positioning™. This is a big conversation point that I'll be talking about this upcoming year, or this year. Identity Positioning™ is a proprietary strategy for personal branding. So if we think about the word personal brand and we split it right down the middle, you have personal on the left, you have brand on the right. A lot of times personal branding guys, people talking about it, only focus on the right side. They focus on the brand, how you can make money, how you can make other people money, your profession.

But what about the personal identity? The fact that you're a father, the fact that you have a ranch, the fact that you're a husband, the fact that you like biking. You have all these different interests about you. For example, like if you go out to the bar and you pay attention to what that person drinks. It's funny because Gary Vaynerchuk spoke about that in some of these water feature events and stuff, which I'm still kicking myself over, because I beat Gary to this industry. I'm like, man, it makes me so happy there. But I think coming up with a new marketing message, right, how we can take your identity and position it in a professional manner that ties together your personality and your personal self with your profession would be worth exploring.

For example, if we were to go to my page, I always have "addicted to coffee." Then I'll say, "I help emerging and established public figures optimize, position, and scale their personal brands." So I have a personal hook and a professional punchline. To anybody listening, I would say adopting this would be very wise too. It's like, are you an outdoorsman? Do you like to travel? Talk about things that you're comfortable sharing online. So for example, if you're a mother, but you don't want to talk about your children online, don't include that you're a mother, talk about something else that is unique to you that other people will find interesting.

Now, why is this important? It's important because it builds your [rapport]. Eric, if you're approaching this broader spectrum, this broader group of people, then you need to be able to connect with more people. Because now you don't share your profession anymore. You share aspects of the profession, but you don't just share the pond garden industry point of your career. So you could connect on some of the trauma, you could connect on some of the pain points, but I would encourage you now to start connecting as the individual, as the man.

Isaac Mashman1:01:32

So there are several different ways you could go about it. Number one is something I talked about in my book, audio branding. But I'm, bum bum bum, what is that? I don't remember. God damn it, Eric. [McDonald's.]

Isaac Mashman1:01:51

Yeah, yeah. Nonetheless, if you were to hear that though, and the actual, not my awful, awful take. Okay. I'm in business and consulting. I'm not in music, for a very specific reason. Now, I could probably sing, get me behind a mic, and we could talk about AI and AI music. Okay. So I talked about audio branding and all that. Yes, you are. I'm loving it. Right. Or [Safelite], Safelite repair, Safelite replace, it's like these jingles and stuff that create, almost in time, an emotional trigger whenever you hear them. When you're going to choose that company, you have that subconscious connection to it. So in your new show, I think that having an intro and an outro that is unique to you, which you could use AI to even create, or have somebody make for you, would be wise, to signal that, hey, I'm tuning into the Deep End with Eric.

I need to lock in. Because if you're thinking about it, people will be in their trucks, they'll be on job sites, they'll be listening to it when they're building ponds, they'll be biking. Like whenever I'm biking or hiking, I'll turn on a show or an audiobook. So having an intro or an outro that is music, that's one thing, one strategy you could have.

Isaac Mashman1:03:02

Now you could take that a step further and do a voiceover with that intro and outro. So for example, you could have, hey, and you could either record this yourself or you could have somebody voiceover it for you. You could say, "You're now tuning in to the Deep End with Eric Triplett." You could talk about how this is the show for the contractor, the people that are out getting their hands dirty, that are knocking on doors, that are selling, that are talking to people. You could have a voiceover that kind of highlights what the show covers and discusses. Or you could take that intro, which would probably be between 45 seconds and a minute long.

Every episode that you open up, you could say, "Hey, what's up, everyone? Eric Triplett, you're now listening to the Deep End podcast," if you're new to the show. This is something that Andy Frisella does on Real AF. He had the MFCEO Project and now he has Real AF, and I listen religiously to his show. He says that, hey, we have a couple different formats of show. Some days we'll have Real Talk, which is just me talking for 10 to 15 minutes, ranting, talking about something that's on my mind that you need to know. Sometimes we have 75 Hard verses, where I talk about people who completed the 75 Hard program, and other times we have CTI, which is Cruise the Internet.

We talk about different current events, talk about our perspectives and how we can fix this shit. What I just told you, Eric, was almost verbatim what he says on [the show].

Isaac Mashman1:04:56

What is the show primarily listed as? Business and finance, most likely. Then the secondary category would be self-improvement, if you're thinking about the podcast directories and how it comes up. So what I would do is I would say, hey, the Deep End podcast is primarily a business and entrepreneurship show. Sometimes, coming off of the back end of what I've been doing for years, I had the Pond Digger podcast, I was talking to pond guys, I'm still going to talk to pond guys every now and again. I don't want you guys that are listening, the longtime listeners, to feel left out. You do that for the next six months.

Then heading into 2027, you drop that entirely, because people will now know what to expect with the show. But for the next six months, you say, hey, I'm still going to be talking about the water feature industry and pond contracting and some advice, but I'm not going to be talking about it as frequently. What I want to do now is cast a wider net. I want to talk about business. I want to talk about entrepreneurship. I want to talk about other contractors and their experience. I want to interview these people. I want to dive deep with them and understand their story, what they know from a variety of different industries, so we can all become better.

What I would do is I would create a movement behind the Deep End. I would turn this into something to where, if you paid attention to my post today that I made on the [Gram], it's called the Inevitable Tour 365. That's what I'm calling it, Inevitable 365. My favorite thing you've done so far. I appreciate that. And I was talking to Eric (Eric Chow, my business partner), and I told him, I said, Eric, the reason this will work is I'm going to turn this into a movement. I talk about this in the book, which he edited for me. He contributed a little bit here and there.

He wrote the foreword of my book. And one of the sub-chapters that we talked about and that I covered, I haven't leveraged yet. I haven't really leveraged it. I haven't created a movement. On the first page of my book, when you open it up, I feel like this is important, in the opening words. I'll read two separate things. Number one, this is the opening words, my manifesto: what if there was something so powerful that you could get nations to do your bidding, millions of people to follow you and be able to have a direct impact on the world's future landscape? What I also talked about is a concept that can drive a mission forward and bring awareness to a cause so much so that people are waking up asking what they can do to support it.

That right there is talking about creating a movement around your personal brand, around what you stand for, around your principles, around your characteristics, around your beliefs, around your code of ethics, et cetera. So what I would do is I would create an introduction for the Deep End that encourages people to not only tune in and listen, but also to share it, because it will be beneficial to everybody else that they share it with. If you think about Andy Frisella, like if we reverse engineer what he's done with 1st Phorm, with what he's done with his podcast, he says, hey, personal excellence is the ultimate rebellion.

Exactly. He turned it into a movement. The movement is how you get into all of these different spheres and spaces. So I know that was a long-winded way of saying that, of what you could do, but we would need to sit down and really come up with a really kick-ass copy and introduction. But what I would tell you to do is sit in front of your microphone for a couple of hours. I would just record a bunch of different intros. You don't plan anything out. You just record a bunch of them, whatever comes to your mind. Then you go back through and you pick the one that you like the most and you fine-tune it from there.

Because I can't tell you what to say, because I don't know the exact ideas that are flowing through your head for the podcast. I know a good amount of them because you were telling me. But that's what I would do. Then eventually you'll find one that clicks and one that you think sounds good, and one that you could continue saying over and over again and not get tired of. That would incorporate the movement piece, that would incorporate the new direction for the people who are currently listening to your show. I would incorporate the outcome, the reason people are listening: what do you want people to take away from the show?

What is the ROI of their time investment? That would be what emotionally triggers people to give you a chance, for new listeners, and continue keeping people coming back.

Isaac Mashman1:13:00

He's not shutting down Real AF, but he's relaunching the MFCEO Project.

Isaac Mashman1:13:08

With something else that he's been [hinting at] that I have no clue what it is. So he's relaunching the MFCEO Project. He's also doing a new, we're about, yeah, I've got to check my email. I'm subscribed to his email list for that very reason. But you're essentially reverse engineering what worked for him, and that is how I developed and gained most of my knowledge. Then once I reverse engineered and got the foundation, I was able to dive deeper and create my own IP and create my own identity and create these things that are unique to my own perspective on the subject of personal branding. So I think that what you're engaging in is what I talk about in my book.

It's fascinating because I do these interviews, man, and every single time I do, I'm like, damn, I talked about that in my book. I talked about that in my book. I talked about that in my book. Almost every single thing, even as specific as audio branding or controversy with purpose, which is what you're doing. You're creating controversy with this post. Because how many of the wonderful people that go and attend your sessions that you speak at are going to be like, what the hell, man? Exactly. I just saw him speak in Cleveland and now he's shutting down the show two months later. What? But that is controversy with purpose, because then you'll be able to come out at the beginning of January and say, guess what?

I'm not leaving you guys in the dark. So I think, man, I like that. What you could do is keep it on the same feed. [You] keep it on the [Pond Digger] feed, do all that. Update the visuals and the cover art. We need to sit down and make sure we come up with a good cover art for you, though. It has to have your face, we need to get a little bit in depth with that. Creating a new trailer and all those intricacies and things which you're probably already thinking of. But I love that idea so much. Andy Frisella, I don't want to use the word fan, but supporter. Yeah, I love Andy. I mean.

Isaac Mashman1:17:30

Eric killed the Pond Digger. That would be like the first episode title or something like that. You take 20 minutes and talk about it. But I love that idea. I love that you're pulling in these different strategies and these different avenues too. Yeah, 45 to 60 seconds is what I would say the length would be if you have a voiceover, but otherwise just, like, for example, I had an audio producer, Mitchell Hines, who created the intro and outro for my new show and such. The other cool thing is that I've started to lean into AI and I've created entire albums using AI. Some of them I've written, some of them were ChatGPT, some of it was unique, different music branded to me that I have full licensing of.

There's a really awesome app called Suno. Suno AI, it's like 10 bucks a month, and you have full commercial rights if you're on the premium plan to use any of the music. So I've created entire albums that are up on Spotify that I'm able to use as walkout material for speeches and keynotes. I'm able to use for vlogs and interviews. I'm able to use for social media and my stories, all of it. We're entering into a really, really interesting time which kind of pulls me back to something. I'm going to put you on the spot here, because anybody listening to this episode, I want you to reach out to Eric if you think this would be a cool idea.

Eric, what did I tell you the first night in Cleveland? I told you that you could create an AI consultant or an AI bot that is trained off of all of your different materials that you could use for contractors in your group, that they could have, like, Eric Triplett on demand 24/7 they could mastermind with?

Isaac Mashman1:20:13

So I don't know. They, well, it's the same thing with consulting. Like if you think about my business, it's information primarily. It's strategy and consulting. You think about the big consulting firms, McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, these are massive, massive companies whose primary offering is the brains of these consultants, these ideas. If you have this AI that is trained on every piece of personal branding material known to man, couldn't it exceed and do better than you? I think there are different schools of thought in terms of where people think AI is going to go. Some people think it's going to replace everybody, some people think it'll replace some people, which furthers my argument that everybody should be building their personal brand, because of your personality.

You are the product, if you think about it, [which] means that you are unique, and that is your selling point. So what we've done is we've just gone ahead of the curve, and I created a custom GPT that's trained off of all of our material. It's not trained off of, like, 100% of everything, because I have to build a custom dashboard and all that shit, which is expensive. But it's trained on my book, it's trained on my essays, it's trained on some of the proprietary MCG stuff, and it's an AI chatbot called Identity Positioner™. My strategy is Identity Positioning™. The AI consultant is Identity Positioner™.

If you interact with it, it will actually give you a full audit that is based off of five different categories, like reputational risks, seamless branding, your marketing message and everything. It will give you a full consultation like you would do with me. I'm like, if I'm going to go obsolete for this and I'm only going to make money public speaking and with my books, I might as well create the thing that puts me out of business.

Isaac Mashman1:23:43

That'll be my plan. See, that is actually one of my criticisms and something that I talked with Eric about after the fact. Now it's like, this is a big learning lesson for me. Something I also talked about in my book, which is edification. I said, I'm realizing that I'm coming into these, coming in front of these people that have never heard of me before. See, there are a lot of different variables to being a public speaker. Sometimes, like if you use Tony Robbins, every single person and their brother, whether you're in self-development or you're not, knows who Tony Robbins is. That's just clear because he's a celebrity figure.

Not everybody is a celebrity figure. They could be a celebrity in their space. You, for example, everybody knows who you are. So you might not need that edification, that initial introduction, but I, for example, coming into your space, nobody knows who I am outside of a couple select people. So that means that there's a lot of confusion, there's a lot of questions that are coming up in the minds of those sitting down in the audience, like, who is this guy? Then that falls upon the shoulders of the speaker or the presenter to try to convince the person that I am worth listening to. So I think that one of my requirements for future events is I have to be edified by somebody else. I have to be introduced on stage or prior to my session by somebody at the conference, at the event.

Isaac Mashman1:25:35

I do like that idea. That's something I actually haven't thought about before. I've thought about the walkout music and the edification aspect, but I haven't thought about having a video that is self-produced by me or my team that would serve as that edification piece. So I'm going to take that idea.

Isaac Mashman1:25:55

This is my give back. Well, yeah, and public speaking is something, [so] I'm in the process of looking for a new agent. I want somebody to better represent me. Essentially, the bigger you help me get, the more money you're going to get paid. Because public speaking is something that I definitely want to do more of, these high-caliber speeches where I'm getting paid for them. I was speaking with Andy Korr, who was one of the speakers at the conference this year. He actually got booked for the Atlantic-Oase professional conference in Cleveland through a speakers bureau, and so I'm like, okay, well, I need to get on these. But they're also very challenging to get on.

Isaac Mashman1:26:55

I loved him. Yeah. But imagine how much more impactful it would have been if he was edified. So these are just different pieces of information, which I'll probably relay to Caitlyn and the team and stuff for the next year, something that would just really make things pop and be even better. But no, I like that idea for having that video set up because, again, it's like people aren't going to always know who you are. At a certain point, like my goal here is to become the number one personal branding expert worldwide. That is my public goal, that I'm building MCG to be the McKinsey of personal branding, and be the firm and the person who makes it synonymous [with personal branding] and taught in schools, taught in colleges, taught everywhere.

I'm even reaching out to one of the co-founders of the school that I went to growing up, and I want them to create a podcasting club. I'm going to reach out to him about maybe doing a keynote next time I'm in Jacksonville, Florida, to speak to juniors and seniors, and just really, man, being the person who [leads it], because personal branding is relatively new. The phrase is only 30 years old. It was created by a business management consultant named Tom Peters, who also, ironically, did some consulting for McKinsey back in 1997. Not many people know this. They see all these people talking about personal branding, but in it, he talked about how corporate executives could essentially, like, become the brand.

It didn't have a definition. He just used the term personal branding loosely, but then it's kind of fallen onto people like Gary Vee, who really pushed the idea of personal branding to the general public in the entrepreneur space, but not the general public in terms of every consumer worldwide. So it's a fun little challenge.

Isaac Mashman1:32:13

Yeah. Logistics, man. Suck. It's such a blessing. I think that this entire business is a little bit of a curse because I can't view things normally anymore. It was really awesome. I think the story is worth sharing. After my session, I was feeling a little bit down about it, because I was like, man, I feel like this isn't resonating as deeply as it should be. Whether that was maybe my communication could have been better, maybe it was a lack of understanding, I'm not sure. It was great after the fact, because I started running into people who attended my class. They were like, man, I was thinking about this.

I was talking with them about personal branding back in the room. Then we toured the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. One of the guys who was at my class, he was like, man, I'm thinking about it. This entire museum is personal branding. It's like, music isn't physical. You can't touch music, but he's like, we're in a museum filled with it. Now I was like, exactly. We're walking by all these different things, from Elvis to Post Malone to the Bee Gees or whatever else, all the different things, like the top floor of the museum at this point was dedicated to Bon Jovi. I'm like, this is personal branding.

That is the philosophy of personal branding. It's not just about social media and shit. It's about lasting impact, lasting influence, lasting. I titled the book fame and influence because without influence, fame is hollow. Without fame, influence doesn't have reach. It's like combining those two is how you position yourself to be somebody who changes the world. The 365, from a logistical standpoint, means that I have to be doing a show every day, or if I'm not doing a show every day, I need to have a day where I'm doing two, three, four, five at a time. I don't exactly know how I'm going to make it happen, but I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired and not really hitting it big.

So this is my home run. Fuck it. I'm going for it. Swing. It's a lot of fun. So Eric, man, I really appreciate you, man, for opening up the door two years ago. We've been at three events together now as speakers. I have a feeling that that's just the beginning of more to come.

Isaac Mashman1:36:13

I do. I really sincerely appreciate it. That's the movement piece. Getting other people in who believe in your journey and believe in what you're doing is ultimately what business is all about. It's about making introductions, about relationships. That's something I didn't realize and recognize enough of early on. One of my commitments this year is fostering those deeper relationships. I definitely want to throw Eric, my Eric Chow, to you later this year, because we have a big announcement for MCG, an official announcement, bringing him on board. There's a lot of stuff that it's going to be exciting to do. So I'm going to throw him to the wolves and you're the wolf.

I'm going to say, Eric, sink or swim. It's time for you to start being [in there], because if you think about building a company, you can be the sole person behind that company, but that's very hollow. That means that without you, the company loses meaning. One of the things, even though Mashman Consulting Group is named after me, I'm building it to where other people are involved. Every consultant we hire and train and bring on is an associate of Mashman Consulting Group. Their personal brand is going to speak volumes about the company that they work for. With [him] in an executive role, he is going to be on the corporate side and be that corporate image.

I could be the front runner who contributes the publicity, and he could talk about the corporate side of things. So there are so many different layers to this, man, and I'm thinking in ways that I've never thought about before. I think a lot of that has come from being in rooms and having dinners with presidents of companies doing $50 million a year, man. It's really a blessing and I'm excited. I need to revamp my media kit. I haven't touched that yet. So, God, man, creating more work for you. Oh, yeah.

Isaac Mashman1:38:26

That's okay. I will have to tie out before my event or before I come on. No, it's awesome. You already know I'm [game], man, and I've missed out on opportunities for being too slow in the past, and this year is really about speed and really leaning into the point of making it inevitable to win. Like it's a given. It's already happened.

Isaac Mashman1:39:01

Not yet. I have to set up a phone call with her. I'm going to be writing several different articles for her. So that's one of your check-offs. You see what I mean? I'll have you tell her that.

Isaac Mashman1:39:24

You can find me everywhere at Isaac Mashman. Every social media platform imaginable. If you are a podcast host and you're specifically wanting to get me on your show, you could reach out at bookings@isaacmashman.com. Cool. All right, man. Any final words? No, brother. I appreciate the opportunity, excited for these quarterly interviews and excited to fist bump and share beer at another event.

Isaac Mashman1:40:22

Yes, and then as soon as I got it, you hopped in. So I haven't had a chance to check it out yet.

Isaac Mashman1:41:59

Gig with LCR. Cool. I'm game, and I don't want to put a timeline. I kept saying it would be out by the end of the year, but I need to, I want to really invest. I decided to get rid of my office. It was just overhead that I didn't need. So, honestly, I had my office for vanity. I was like, let me get the skyscraper office. I'm like, what am I ever doing consulting in person? Never. It's like I'm doing all my consultations virtually. One of the things that I want to do this year is in-person consulting. So I'm actually flying out to clients and getting them in person.

So I think that I'll probably, I would like to have my show done by quarter two. I'd like to have another book done by quarter two. I think the podcast is more important than the book, bro. Yeah. Yeah. That's the other thing. I need to fucking lean in on this more too. It's like I wrote this behemoth of a book and it's like, I need to promote it more.

Isaac Mashman1:43:12

Yeah. Yeah. It's been, shit, three years since I had my show. The thing I like about podcasting more than other formats of media is that it gives you something consistently to promote. It's the best way to consistently promote people. It's not just a short reel or video. It's something that people are purposely going out of their way to tune into. Like, I purposely go in every Thursday or whatnot, and I'll tune into Andy's show. He's the main show I listen to now, but I'll go out of my way to listen to his show, and I'll specifically search it up to see if a new episode drops.

That's the benefit here. If you could create that with the Deep End too, and having those different formats and stuff, man, it's huge. I'm excited though for this new direction too. I like it. It falls in line with what I preach too. I might do a little bit more research on the Deep End too and see what competitive advantages we could give to you.

Isaac Mashman1:44:32

Apparently. I like rebranding things and bringing new awareness to the subjects, because the premise with Executive Status is, like, we're all executives in our own life. And in the intro, what I'll talk about is how, up until this point, you had a bunch of guys in black and white suits and shit like that. It's like, no, entrepreneurs now need to lean into, you know, what does that lifestyle look like? How do they talk? How do you speak? How do you act? How do you smell? What do you do? And you're arguably an executive, even if you're an influencer. You're an executive of that business. So I don't know exactly how I'm going to frame it.

Isaac Mashman1:45:30

Well, any time you're, like, experiencing, here we go, anytime you're, this is okay. This is where I go in and dive a little bit deeper and stuff. I haven't talked about this publicly yet. So this is my vault. One of the things that I'm playing with is the idea of the mask in the mirror, and this is how I end my book. I talk in the final chapter, it's The Mask in the Mirror, and I talk about essentially authenticity without saying authenticity, because I fucking hate that word. I despise it. It's one of my least favorite words of all time. But you have the mask, which you portray to society, of what you want to appear as, and then you have the mirror and the actual reflection you see looking back at you.

Isaac Mashman1:47:51

That was actually Sarah Weichmann who took it. It was funny though, on my flight home, I remember taking that picture. I'm just teasing.

Isaac Mashman1:48:27

I'm excited, man. I'm excited. I'm a little bit, not overwhelmed, but I'm curious to see how it all pans out. I haven't felt this way in my career in quite some time. So that's how I know I'm in a good spot.