Today we’d like to introduce you to Isaac Mashman.
Hi Isaac, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I sort of stumbled into the world of business and entrepreneurship. The reason I say stumbled is that nobody in my family had ambitions for either, and my early path was set in an entirely different direction. From my earliest memories, my mom and grandparents instilled in me to go to school, perform with excellence and get a scholarship for college. Reason being, they simply couldn’t afford to send me themselves. So, that’s exactly what I did. I went through, took advanced classes, and got accepted into some esteemed universities in Florida my senior year.
The thing was, childhood problems caught up with me, and between the confusion and stress attending college was the last on my list. This is when the stumbling came into play. Always being a semi-impressionable kid, I was looking for role models to frame myself after and saw a young guy on Instagram who had his own lawn business and apparel company. Not being too much older than I, I saw that as a eureka moment of “I can do this too!” In the past, I had some entrepreneurial ventures such as a summer lawn business, but I didn’t realize just what I had at the time.
Over the next several months, I made my first couple of apparel sales online, began expanding my personal brand and digital footprint, started studying business outside of my curriculum studies, and looked to network with others who had the results I wanted. Over the span of less than three years, I got involved with three different network marketing companies, looked to start nearly half a dozen business ventures, and took some leaps of faith that would make some label me as “out of my damn mind”. Although I didn’t get far in any of these things, I was becoming rich in experiences and in knowledge. For the first time, I was surrounded by people as crazy as myself and had validation in my pursuit of success and wealth. As I look back now, I realize I viewed business as my therapy and the solution to the lack of money growing up. I never liked going to school in second-hand clothes. Now, there isn’t anything inherently wrong with that, but when you see kids wearing shoes that cost more than your wardrobe, it takes a toll on you.
In early 2020, I was fresh out of ideas and trying to find my footing in life. I already sacrificed relationships, other opportunities and scholarships so I had to make it in this game of business. Somehow, things started to click in my brain. I reflected over what I had skills in and what people came to me for help in. That was branding and marketing. More specifically personal branding. As I tried all of my previous ventures, I was coming to learn what people went to school for, except my knowledge came from real-world experience. Seeing a demand and a growing need for people who can help with personal branding, I launched my public relations firm, Mashman Ventures on April 17, 2020 in the middle of the pandemic.
This is my current business, and the one thing I have stuck with, whereas all of my previous ones I stopped after a few months.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I have had my fair share of struggles while on my journey and anybody who says that there is such thing as overnight success clearly has never attempted to become successful themselves. I do not want to spend too much time talking about the negatives, but there have definitely been days of doubt, days of low finances, days where I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, and days where I wanted to give up, retire from business and live as a nomad in Asia.
My most painful struggle would have to be coming across as the black sheep of the family. To sacrifice a full-ride scholarship is not something my mom was and is proud of.
All of the other struggles pertain to the ways I thought and was raised to think. Successful people have a very peculiar mindset. They have a level of mental and personal control that most do not and their perception of money is also very different. I have been consistently working to reprogram my subconscious mind and am continuing to do so today.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
In a relatively short span of time, I have seen a lot of online entrepreneurs and so called “gurus” come and go. From get rich quick offers to $12,000 courses, I knew that that wasn’t the category I ever wanted to be in. I actually feared it, so much so I got to the point of overthinking my business and what I wanted to launch. No matter how far away I was from discovering my model, I made up my mind that I wanted a business that was scale-able to 9-figures, could be ever-evolving with time and could cover the aspects of my own personal ventures such as book sales or speaking engagements.
Although this added some extra time to my process in the beginning, I am confident in saying, in the long run it saved me infinitely more time and money. After taking into account what I was looking for, my small but respectable success with my own personal brand, and seeing the trends in the marketplace, I started my public relations firm Mashman Ventures on April 17th, 2020.
Traditional public relations firms put emphasis on companies and their relationship with the public. One such example is, let’s say a Fortune 500 company has a massive scandal, they move in and try to flood the marketplace with positive stories that influence the opinions of prospects and clients. This is also done with celebrities when accusations or arrests occur. That sounds super boring to me personally which is why through Mashman Ventures, we specialize in personal branding. We work with individuals who have the desire to be followed, in-demand, and respected to build their personal brands and give them a look and feel as if they’re already credible and established. We also do this for people who are established, finding weak points in their imagery, strategizing ways to increase their success in both the short and long haul.
We have done work with actors, other entrepreneurs, models, musicians and have even worked with blooming social media apps.
I personally have spent $0 on PR and all of $10 in ads going back to 2018, on building my company and personal brand. No fake followers. No immoral or unethical practices. All done with brute sweat, tears and a lot of thinking outside of the box. This is what makes us different. This is what makes me different. I am an ordinary guy who is demonstrating that it is possible to have extraordinary success.
Who else deserves credit in your story?
Admittedly, I wouldn’t be here without the help of some amazing people. From those I have never met in person who influenced my path to the mentors of my original network marketing company, it is the people who knew me before I knew myself that kept me going and supported me at my lowest of lows.
I also have to give credit to mentors dead and alive who don’t know I even exist. I am a huge believer in personal development, saying that “at the center of all achievement is personal growth.” I have been able to shave off decades of my journey by learning from the mistakes and experiences of others.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://isaacmashman.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/isaacmashman
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/theisaacmashman
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/isaacmashman
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/isaacmashman
- Other: https://isaacmashman.com/podcast
