Creating a Personal Brand with Isaac Mashman

Isaac Mashman1:54

Little bit. Yeah, Brady, thank you for having me on, man. You know a little bit about me. I've been in business since 2017. I say in business, but I would rather use the term, kind of trying a bunch of different things. I launched my first company in 2020, but got involved with entrepreneurship and the idea of, you know, running my own company while I was still a senior in high school. Up until that point, you know, I was going to school to get good grades. Like, I'm not one of those entrepreneurs, you can say, that was a D or F student. No, I was going to school to literally go to college, graduated [top of] my class, like, 4.44 weighted GPA.

Like, I was serious about it. I have one C in my life. I just remember going through a difficult time and I saw that there were these kids who were around my age, a little bit older, who were seeing success, who were making more money than my mom made. I was like, man, why am I going to go to college? Money was a driving factor at that point. I was going through some other difficult times. Looking back, I realized that it was more therapy for me than anything. So over the span of a couple of years, I started building up my personal brand. But I was also trying a bunch of different business models.

I got involved with half a dozen businesses in the span of three months, or three years rather, not three months. Managing artists for six months, wanted to pursue a record label, started a clothing line, did a little bit of coaching, did a little bit of media work. What I was doing is I wasn't getting far in any of these different things, but I was learning. I was understanding what I was good at, what I could do, what I wanted to do, what I absolutely despised and hated, and just getting experience. I was seeing my personal brand grow just as Isaac Mashman, somebody who was actually just building up a name, not for one particular business model or one particular thing, but just for being me and being myself.

So I noticed, towards the end of 2019, beginning of 2020, that [this] was a business that other people needed. So that's why I launched my public relations firm.

Isaac Mashman4:27

Right. Well, I personally didn't go down to college right afterwards, but I did hold two jobs. I had two jobs. My first job was at Sonny's BBQ, a barbecue joint, a well-known chain in the South. Then I also worked at Publix, which is a grocery store, as an overnight stock clerk, and I only lasted three months. I didn't get fired. I just simply hated it. It got way too repetitive for me to do. So I was like, you know what? I'm not exercising my brain. I also don't like taking orders. It's kind of ironic though, because I'm naturally good at understanding orders and doing it, but I absolutely despise the process.

So I had the option of going to college, but everybody was telling me, hey, go to college, go to college, get a degree, but nobody told me what happened afterwards. What do you do with that degree? Because the people that I was closest to had college degrees, but they weren't putting it to use. They weren't putting it to work. Now, having that credibility, at the end of the day, it's personal development. I like to say that the center of all achievement is personal growth. Going to college, you're increasing your valuation as an individual to the marketplace. Why would someone want to work with you? That's why a degree from Harvard is worth more than a degree from a community college.

I'm not saying that to be disrespectful, but to be truthful. So I personally think that being comfortable and getting in a spot to where you have this cushion, it's the same thing with being comfortable with your body at a specific weight. You're not ripped and toned with muscle, but you're also not fat. You're just kind of gliding by, living that mediocre average life. Personally, for the lifestyle that I'm trying to live and for the lives that I'm trying to change in the future, I'm doing a lot of what I'm doing to set the example and to show that it is in fact possible to go from a relatively low point.

I don't come from a dirt poor household where we were sharing a room with 20 people [and the room was a bathroom], but I do remember going to school with Walmart shoes and just remembering that this kind of sucks. It's not that there's anything wrong with Walmart shoes, but when you see kids wearing $200 pairs of Jordans, you see what is possible, and then you realize how far away you are from it. But in actuality, you're closer than you think. You're literally a decision away.

Isaac Mashman7:12

Now, I know that sounds kind of ironic. Now, what I mean by avoiding failure is, there's this quote, I don't know if it was Einstein who made the quote or some other philosopher or person, but the quote goes something like, the fool doesn't learn from his mistakes, the smart person learns from his own mistakes, and the genius learns from the mistakes of others. So the entire point of personal growth, and this goes back to me saying the center of all achievement is personal growth, is because if somebody else has already failed over the span of 20 years or 30 years or 40 years, or they already have the results, they have the experience, they're at the top of the top, then why would I want to learn from their experiences and not make the same mistakes and failures that they have made in the past?

Now in my own personal life, you can't prevent all failure. You can't, that's to be expected, but I've also come to embrace it, understand it, and kind of say, okay, this is what I learned from this and this is how I'm going to lower the chances of it happening again. From there, man, it's like if you're walking in the house and keep stubbing your toe on the end table, you can either change the path of where you're walking, so you're not stubbing your toe on the same piece of furniture, or you move the piece of furniture, and you don't just keep stubbing your toe time after time after time again.

Isaac Mashman9:07

Oh, vital. Honestly, without it, I wouldn't be on the path I'm on. One of the first businesses that I got into was network marketing. I got in and out of the industry, let's see, four different times in three different companies in the span of two years. The one thing about network marketing and MLM was it got me introduced to the concept of money, and it also got me introduced to the concept of personal development. Understanding that there's more to life than just struggle and stagnancy and living your life, not even improving yourself. Most people go living day to day to where it's like, if something happens, they're going to blow that little thing up, and then they're not going to even learn from it and they wonder why it happened to begin with.

I'm all about kind of mitigating that and preventing that mistake and preventing that thing from ever occurring in the first place. So personal development has been huge. I don't have particular mentors that are physical. People that I know one on one, who I have meetings with and conversations with, I haven't invested in one of those. I've had men and role models in the past who have played that kind of role. But looking back, I realized that the men who I viewed [as role models] were more like a father figure to me, because a little known fact of my story is I didn't grow up with a biological father.

He was out of the picture. So I looked at these men and these figures who were achieving success in different areas of life as role models and as mentors. But when it comes to study, I find virtual mentors and I find people who have the results that I want in life. If I'm not comfortable switching places with you in that particular area that I'm trying to learn from, I will not learn from the individual. I'm super arrogant in the way of, I'm not going to learn from somebody making $10,000 a month, I'm going to learn from the person making a million or 100,000, I'm going for the top dogs, because at the end of the day, a lot of information is regurgitated down.

It's second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth hand generation information. That rhymes. But you think about it, man, you play telephone back in the day in school. You start with one sentence and you're like, the sentence is the cow jumped over the moon, and then by the end, when it gets to you, you're at the end of the room, the cow jumped over the moon turned into the pink unicorn drinks Starbucks. Like, it's something entirely different. That's an outlier, and it's an example, but every single time that information gets passed down, it gets watered down, just like ice in a drink. So I find the people who have the results, I'm big on the reading, I have some books over here.

Just got done reading Grant Cardone's The 10X Rule. [You swear by it?] I tried to read that too. Fantastic book, man. What was interesting is a lot of what he talked about in that book were concepts and ways of thinking that I was already adopting prior to even reading the book, because success leaves clues and a lot of high performers operate in very similar ways. They speak of the same things, they just use different words. But no, man, personal development has been vital because if you were to talk to me four years ago, five years ago, when I was in my sophomore, junior year of high school or even the beginning of my senior year of high school, I was completely different.

I was always that leader and always that confident kid in the sense of, hey, if the team members of my project aren't pulling their end, I'm going to end up doing it. But I was never that, like, entrepreneurial, let me go get it type of kid.

Isaac Mashman12:53

Yeah, well, and let me digress for a second. There were points in my life where, you know, I started a lawn business over the summer. Like, I had entrepreneurial tendencies. I was kind of that kid who was always looking to kind of be a little bit different in that regard, of doing things that kind of kept me entertained. But when it comes to, like, actually being able to get on a phone call and sell somebody or be comfortable behind a camera, that kind of thing, I wasn't always that way. But when it comes to accepting and embracing help, it was understanding that I didn't know everything.

There's a point that is very humbling. It's a very humbling experience when you understand that there is more that you can learn. Like, I can remember some of the first sales calls I was on, and I'm like, or even prior to getting them on a call, I just didn't know how to get them on a call. I would send out three paragraphs to promote a product or to promote my company. They're like, okay, what is this kid doing? Then I understood that I wasn't getting results. So because I was getting that lack thereof, I was like, okay, I can learn and I need to learn and put focus on this particular area of life.

I think a man especially, man, I'm sure that you could probably relate to this. It's like having emotions or crying or learning or not knowing it all is looked down upon. I imagine some of the men in your life probably were Jack of all trades. They wanted to fix everything around the house because they felt like if they paid somebody, they were less of a man. In actuality, it's not about being less of a man, it's just simply allocating your time and allocating your resources.

Isaac Mashman15:03

It's honestly not taking themselves seriously. They still look like a mediocre person. In order to really effectively brand yourself, I always work with the clients who are willing to be the best, the best of the best. Like, they are the go-to people. Even if they're not to that point yet, we're still going to brand them in a way to where they are working to become that expert, to become that go-to individual. So most people don't embrace the fact that it's okay to be super confident in where you're going, in your direction, because they're like, oh, I can't really be that person. But you have to understand that all of these people who we study and we look to, who have the results that we [want], they started in a very similar place.

They didn't know what they were doing and they finally committed to their growth, they committed to their business, and they made it happen. So that's one thing. The other thing is looking like everybody else. Now I like to say that one of my biggest business philosophies is thinking outside of the box. What can you do that your competitors aren't doing? Or what websites, for example, especially for personal branding or company branding, what websites can you get on that other people might be on, that most competitors or most people wouldn't take the time to even appear on? So to give you an example, the Better Business Bureau.

People who are business owners, especially internet based ventures, don't think about the BBB. I asked my grandmother, I was like, hey grandma, do you know what the Better Business Bureau is? She's like, yeah, I do actually. It's a reputable household name that is 100% free to get your company listed on, yet it boosts your credibility because it shows when somebody researches your company that you're on the Better Business Bureau. You have an A minus rating or an A rating or even a B rating, but regardless, thinking outside of the box with your personal brand and also just committing and making the decision are some big, big things. I always start with education and mindset.

Isaac Mashman17:43

Yeah, well, man, I've been very consistent with my content over the past couple of months, but it wasn't always that way. There were points where I was super consistent for a week or two and then I would drop off. It was very cycle-like. It was never me not doing content because I thought that it wouldn't take off or it wasn't performing as I expected. It was that I was lazy. I didn't prioritize it and I was confused. So once I got that clarity was when I was able to really start being consistent and start putting out more content and engaging with the right people and getting on the right podcasts.

But people have to go into this with the understanding that it's going to take time. Even if you pay somebody like me to train you and to work with you and strategize your brand and give you insights on what platforms to get on, you're not going to be building your credibility and actually seeing results for six to 12 months. Then from there, you're still going to be building it up. You're still going to be working on it. It's something that, this is a beautiful thing about personal branding, is there's always a higher level. Even Kim Kardashian, if she wanted to, she could get on every single talk show in America and become a bigger celebrity than she already is.

But again, she would have to make the decision to. It's right there, it's possible. So to anybody who's not getting the results in a quick amount of time, I'd honestly say that you're probably not doing what you should be doing. You're marketing the same content to the same 100 people. These 100 people know your name, know who you are, and are getting value from you. But you're not having one-on-one relationships with them, or you're not talking to them, showing that you actually care and actually building a community and getting those people to share your content, getting those people to truly respect you. A lot of people say blast and do content every single day, multiple times a day, taking the whole Gary Vaynerchuk influencer approach. But I don't see the point if you're not reaching new people.

Isaac Mashman19:29

Branding is about credibility. Branding and marketing aren't [the same thing], they're two separate things. A lot of times people say that marketing is underneath branding, or some people, depending on who you talk to, would say that branding is underneath, or that branding is above marketing, but they're brother and sister. How you brand yourself is how you market yourself, and it affects the relationship. You don't see Rolls-Royce running television ads, or you don't see Rolls-Royce promoting themselves during the Super Bowl. You watch the Super Bowl, you see Bud Light, Budweiser, Coors Light, and all these other brands for America. But you don't see those brands advertising at the PGA Tour, the Masters.

You see Rolex, you see Calvin Klein, you see companies that have a higher brand equity, and that influences the way they market themselves. So when you're building your brand, there's so many different tips and tricks and strategies, but just go into it and understand that it will take time. It's also about the effort. It's not about working harder, though. It is about working smarter. That goes directly back to thinking outside of the box.

Isaac Mashman21:16

Yeah, you have to have an intention with what you do in life, not just in relationships. When you're talking to somebody, what is the intention of getting on a phone call? This is something I noticed I was doing too much of. I was getting on phone calls with a bunch of people that I would be able to give value to, but they're not people who would work with me. It's like I was giving more than I was receiving, or there was no balance in it. But when it comes to talking to people, you have to understand that yes, it will be more time consuming, but it's going to pay off because you're laying down the foundation.

A lot of people get consumed with the numbers. They see 100,000 followers on Instagram on an influencer page, or they see business owners who have a million or a couple hundred thousand followers and have been building their brands for the past decade. You're two years into this or a year into this and you're like, shit, I'm not there yet. So stop paying attention to the numbers. Numbers do matter. Don't get me wrong. I will always tell you that numbers do matter, but the relationships are what will build those numbers over time. Let's say you talk to 100 new people every month, you develop genuine relationships.

Then you provide value to those 100 people with the content that you're producing, every single one of those people shares your content with another friend, your audience just doubled to 200. You do that again over a 30 day period, now it doubled to 400. I talk about the power of three, you send out three new messages to three new people every single day. By the end of the month, you have 90 new people. You only have an audience size of 300. You get 90 new followers. You just grew your audience by 33%, 34%. From there, it's just about repetition. Yes, it takes time, but you're meaning to tell me that if you were to do this for a year and get to 10,000 followers, that it wouldn't be worth your time?

Even if you work with 1% of that audience, you're still going to be making, working with 100 people, 1000 bucks a piece. You just made 100 grand, and a year's worth of effort in building relationships isn't worth your time? You know what I'm saying? Going into it again, your perspective of where and how you start is vital.

Isaac Mashman23:56

This is when your intention is vital, because you have to have an intention and a reason for being on the platform, because most people are spending eight hours a day building up an audience there, but they're not getting any results with it. So you have to understand that, hey, if I invest this amount of time, I'm going to be getting this amount of results in return. I personally love the platform. I think it's going to be around. It was just a matter of time before an audio platform really took off. I've seen a couple come and go. There's this one platform a couple of years ago that was audio only.

It wasn't like a voice chat room, but it was, you send audio messages on the feed. The platform ended up dissolving. So I was like, I was just waiting. I actually had the name of the platform in my mind. I got the username, I got the domain. I was like, man, if I get a little bit more money, a little bit more time, I think I might make this platform happen. I see Clubhouse. I'm like, sweet. Somebody did it for me. I don't have to worry about it. It's a personal branding machine. It honestly is because every single time you join a room and you become one of the speakers, you're automatically viewed as an expert panelist because you're talking and everybody else is listening.

So you're in a room with 200 people. There are only 15 panelists. Look at the ratio. It's a one to 10 ratio. So every single audience member will be getting value from you and viewing you as that person who's worth following. That is the core of building up a brand from the ground up. That is it. That is how you establish reputation. I was even able to close a client in Austria through Clubhouse. I just got done working with him the other day, man. It wasn't the biggest client, but then I also made an introduction to another guy. That could potentially result in a five-figure deal, $10,000, training his company on personal branding and internal marketing structure of a company.

So it's like, again, what are you doing this for? Are you going into it to give or are you going into it to take? Right? Again, going back to relationships, there's a balance between giving and taking. You should always give before you take. That's how those relationships strengthen because if you come across as this overly aggressive marketer, then people will be able to sniff you out and they won't want to work with you.

Isaac Mashman26:51

This is the one time in the one platform that a guru that doesn't know shit can be a guru. This is the truth because if you're [asked] questions and you're not able to provide an answer for the field that you're in and for what you're talking about, then come on. Now, in a lot of the information too, I'm like, I'm a branding expert, I'm a PR expert, and they're answering these questions with the most basic of information that I can teach my niece, you know what I'm saying? So I think that going into it and providing value is great. Actually demonstrating your expertise is great.

Yeah, man, I've experienced a couple of people and I'm not saying the names. But you know, I think about some of the people who I've done research on in the past week, I put four people on blast on my story the other day. I didn't list off their names, but they bought all of their followers, and they're naming themselves the personal branding expert, and they have 150,000 followers, and they gained 50% plus of their audience in one week in 2019. Their brand is losing [2,700] every single week.

Isaac Mashman28:18

That's something that has been a work in progress for me because I was never the kind of kid to set goals. I had general ideas in my mind, but now that I've started to set goals, like yearly, and then maybe I have a general direction of what I'm working towards in the future, it's been working and paying off. So I set the goal of 24 podcast interviews by the end of 2021 and then I got on six podcast interviews the first two weeks in 2021. I was like, this goal is too small, so I tripled it to 72. Now that I'm keeping track, I actually have, and this isn't about numbers.

This is about numbers, but it isn't. It's about what value I can give, how much exposure I can get to my name, and how I can scale my brand to increase my impact. But I have a list right here of all the podcasts that I've been on and it goes on for a couple of pages.

Isaac Mashman29:08

You see that I have it listed up to 72, acting as if I've already achieved it. I don't know what person is going to take up that line in my notebook, but I know I will do it. So goal setting is something that is powerful if you stick to them. If you don't stick to the goals, they're useless.

Isaac Mashman30:11

Absolutely. I take a little bit more of an aggressive approach when it comes to the way that I think and act, in the sense of, I don't think I deserve anything, and some people would say that this is positive. Some people would say that I'm a freaking psychopath for acting this way or I'm too hard on myself, and maybe that's true. I'm not to the psychopath answer, but to that, maybe I'm too hard on myself. But I honestly don't think I deserve anything unless I work for it. It's like doing this, I'm not about to hit 24 podcasts, because I could do that in the first quarter.

By the end of March, I'll probably have about 14 to 16 interviews that I've done. I'm doing six a month. Then what, I hit 24 and I take the other eight months off? No, this is a progressive series of actions that add up over time. That's how you hit momentum. You don't hit momentum. You get 24 podcasts done, you're like, all right, my goal's set, I'm good for 2022, and then you lose all of that momentum. So what's going to end up happening is by me sticking to this, I'm going to be on 72 podcasts and then I'll be able to get on a higher level show.

I'll be able to get on a higher tier show. Then my brand will continue growing in momentum. If I was to stop at 24, none of that compound effect would take place.

Isaac Mashman32:36

Number one is Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill. Some people argue against his credibility, but the concepts of the book stand true. That's really just the thinking aspect. A lot of information that I've learned [has been like that]. It really didn't help me at the time. But then down the road a year goes by and all of a sudden I'm having a conversation. That one thing I read comes up in my mind, or I understand that the subconscious mind really picked up on more than I understood at the time. Right. So the concept of decision making is something I heard from a lot of my mentors.

They're like, make the decision, make the decision, make the decision. It hit me a couple of weeks ago that I made the decision and that's why my results have been bigger than the people who didn't make the decision, who I met a couple years ago. So Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. This isn't a book, but I would also say that there are audios by Earl Nightingale and Napoleon Hill himself on SoundCloud that you can find, go find those audios, download them. You know, pirate, I'm not going to say pirate them, but like download them from SoundCloud, you know what I'm saying? Save them so you keep those forever.

The Way of the Wolf, Jordan Belfort, the [Straight Line] method, he talks about that. That book completely changed my life when it comes to sales. It put sales in a systematic way of doing things. I also read Rich Dad Poor Dad. That was one of those books that was like a stereotypical book that every entrepreneur recommends. But one that isn't stereotypical is, give me a second, I'm going to grab it. Sam Walton's Made in America. Now, this book is like 300 pages long and Sam Walton was the founder of Walmart. He was dying of cancer in the 90s. So he was like, his kids were like, you need to go ahead and make an autobiography or biography of your life, sharing your skills and your talents and the lessons that you've learned.

So he put this book together, one of the most successful men of his time and of all time arguably, literally gave you the blueprint in this book. So that was tremendous. So Sam Walton, Made in America.

Isaac Mashman35:02

Live up to my potential. That is also my purpose. But I would argue that that is my definition of success because that means I'm consistently working towards something more. Even if I hit a new level, there's another level that I can obtain afterwards. I would honestly say that is what success means to me. That covers all areas of life, from health, physical health, mental health, emotional health, to relationships to money. Being able to live a better life of freedom. Even once I get to that level, I can make more money to give back, [and] the impact scales. I don't have to worry about being some horrible human being. I know who I am. So the more money I get, then I know the more good [I can do].

Isaac Mashman36:06

You can find me literally everywhere at Isaac Mashman, ISAAC, M-A-S-H-M-A-N. In the business of personal branding, I need to be able to be found easily. So you can also go to my website, isaacmashman.com. I do have another podcast called Chase the Vision with Isaac Mashman, available everywhere. Brady, it's been an absolute honor, brother. I am truly grateful to be on.

Isaac Mashman36:35

Yeah, it's basically a platform for me to share all of my experiences and knowledge and business life and personal growth. Going back to me being a believer in personal growth, I have experiences that people can learn from. If I'm able to share that, [I can] help you save time, help you cut time frames, and get to your results and get to where you want to go quicker.