We were lucky to catch up with Isaac Mashman recently and have shared our conversation below.
Isaac, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.
I want to go back to before I started my public relations firm. Before my escapade in the music industry. Before I was in the network marketing profession. I was in my senior year of High School and I had the ambition of starting a clothing line. I thought it would be an easy way to build a brand and generate revenue. Obviously, things weren’t that simple, but it was my real start in the business world. In the past, I had my own lawn business over the summer and similar side hustles, but this was different.
I called it “Success Before Rest Apparel” or “SBR Apparel” for short. An acquaintance at the time created a logo with the letters B and R insight of a money sign. His parents printed the first couple of hoodies and t-shirts. I found a dropshipping site that would handle the website, printing, and distribution. All I had to do was make the sales. I was clueless but I was hungry. I launched an Instagram page, marketed it on Snapchat and to my personal pages, came up with more designs, and even partnered with a rapper up north for promotion.
One day, I logged into my account and saw roughly $4 on my dashboard. That meant I had made my first dollars online with my business. I was ecstatic because in my mind I knew that if I made $4, I could make $40 million. I went on to generate less than a hundred dollars with this venture before I went into a different profession, but I have my original hoodies hanging up in my office today as a reminder of where I started.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Although the Isaac Mashman today compared to the Isaac Mashman who was marketing the clothing line back then is very different, he is also very much the same. I come from a lower-middle-class, arguably upper-poverty-line family. During my childhood, I was raised by my mom and maternal grandparents as my mom divorced when I was a baby. It wasn’t until adulthood I even connected with my biological father. I find it important to mention this, as without the struggles I faced growing up, like not being able to go to the dentist, or seeing my grandparents’ house have leaks in the roof, I wouldn’t have felt hopeless and then motivated to find a different path for my life. A path towards freedom and seeing 20-something-year-olds making more money per month than anyone in my life ever had. The ability to travel and live a life I deemed worth living.
Like many business people, I was encouraged to go to college and I was well on my way to a full-ride scholarship when I chose business instead. I forsook my straight A’s and 4.0+ GPA for entrepreneurship. In a relatively short time span, I went from SBR Apparel to network marketing where I joined 3 different companies, 4 different times, played around with social media marketing and dropshipping, and got close to making a full-time gig in the music industry, but not as a musician, but as a manager and label executive.
The year was 2020, I was living in California with an old man, his 3 Boston terrier dogs, and 3 less-than-sober dudes. The Summer prior, I spent a few months in Bakersfield after being flown out to Vidcon 2019 by Facebook as one of their Star Creators on their startup Lasso. Lasso was the predecessor to Reels. Rather than flying home, I stayed in Cali. To make a long and eventful story short, I wound up traveling to France for a month, then back to Jacksonville, Florida, and finally back to Bakersfield in less than a year. What else do you do in California than start a record label!
I was managing three artists on and off and one of the artists was planning a concert in his home city of Fort Wayne, Indiana. He canvassed the area and nearly sold out of all of his tickets. Then COVID happened. Unsure of how deadly the virus was in the early days, out of caution we canceled the concert. The artist in the following months lost his passion for music, I was left confused about what to do next. I knew I didn’t want to start a social media agency and I didn’t want to work a job, so I ultimately stumbled on the idea of personal branding.
After all, most of my previous businesses were tied to my own personal brand and my friend group would always come to me with questions. So, amidst the pandemic, I launched Mashman Ventures. Some months later I defined it as a public relations firm, and within another year got our offering defined and sharpened. Since launch, we have worked with numerous professionals to create, maintain, and scale their personal brands on and offline. We’ve helped a fitness influencer launch his private coaching business, realtors hit viral videos, actors expand their virtual presence, executives connect with their audiences, and so many more.
Our business is broken into three parts. One part public relations firm, one part consultancy, and one part training platform. With a heavy emphasis on organic results, our focus is on making you press-worthy, not someone who has to pay for the press. There are so many people who feel trapped into buying their followers and success in front of rented cars, but we’d rather help those who want to become a public figure worth following.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
It is only right that as someone who focuses on personal branding, I take a minute to discuss how I built my own following and how you can take and apply the same principles.
Number one is diversification. You can not afford to only have a presence on one social media platform. Even early on, I was on Facebook, Twitter (X today), Linkedin, and Instagram. Today I would expand that to include YouTube, TikTok, etc. You should be omnipresent.
Number two, understand that everyone will start out as a stranger! People are afraid of following people first and reaching out. My best relationships including my fiancé today started out with me speaking up. Our accounts always start at zero and every single interaction you have on and offline will contribute to that number growing.
Number three, content! Great content will not help you grow by itself. You will need to ask those strangers like I said in the last example to engage. View the content you create to serve as a bridge to connect you with your audience. They will come to understand and connect with you more, as you share more aspects of what makes you, YOU!
With time you will come to understand what works better, how the algorithms work, and all of those finer details.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
This is less about unlearning and more about a story where I gained awareness around how I think and how you too may be limited,
I remember this one day when I was in the grocery store looking at cooking spices. Without thinking, my eyes dropped down to the bottom rack where the $1 GreatValue spices were. I stopped for a second when I realized that I hadn’t even considered, not even once, the high-quality selections. It may sound stupid, but at that moment I was astounded at how my family’s spending habits when I was a child were affecting me as an adult.
This is the same as a businessman, I can not simply make a business decision based on price, but rather on factors like efficiency and quality.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://isaacmashman.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/isaacmashman
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/isaacmashmanofficial
- Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/isaacmashman
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/isaacmashman
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/isaacmashman
- Other: Book: https://www.amazon.com/Personal-Branding-Manifesto-Fame-Influence/dp/0578320959
Image Credits
Isaac Mashman 2023