How I Launched A Successful Personal Brand Consultancy And Defining The Industry
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
First and foremost, I would like to thank the StarterStory team for the opportunity to share my business and well, my story. My name is Isaac Mashman and I am the founder of Mashman Consulting Group based out of Little Rock, Arkansas. My primary focus is on helping emerging and established public figures optimize and scale their personal brands.
It was one crazy journey to get where I am today and I would like to be as specific as possible to share the ups and downs, the challenges, and the successes. MCG, which is the acronym for Mashman Consulting Group, is the evolution of my now-dissolved public relations firm, Mashman Ventures. I first got involved in the world of business in 2017 as a high school student.
I'm not one of those entrepreneurs who was a D or F student, no I graduated top 10 of my class with a 4.44 weighted GPA and was on track to get a full-ride scholarship to the University of Central Florida or Florida State University. Heading into my senior year, I was lost and confused. I didn't have a clearly defined path laid out ahead of me despite planning on going to university.
I was an entrepreneur at heart, however, and have the typical story of mowing lawns over the summer and doing whatever I could to make a few dollars. It was nice having a degree of flexibility and some extra cash in my pocket as a kid. I eventually found the world of network marketing and was influenced by young professionals slightly older than me at the time who I thought were making good money.
So, rather than going to college, I took the path less taken and followed in their footsteps. I went from company to company, four different times, did podcast management, tried my hand at dropshipping, and even worked in the music industry where I was in the process of launching a record label and managing musical talent.
In 2020 right at the start of the COVID pandemic, I made the mutual decision with the artist I was managing to cancel the concert we were planning on throwing. We wanted to wait to see just how bad the pandemic was. Needless to say, by doing this, the artist eventually lost his passion and I came to the conclusion that there wasn't a firm business model for the record label I wanted to build.
Knowing from previous experiences that I hated doing for you services and that I didn't want to have a typical social media marketing agency for businesses, I stumbled into the field of public relations, hence my firm was born. I built that over the span of four years and developed a team and a solid reputation, but at its core, the business service that we were providing was consulting. We were working with public figures on their personal brands. In 2024 I felt like I needed a change.
That spark was gone and the work that I so dearly loved had lost its meaning. So, I dissolved that venture and started my current consulting firm, Mashman Consulting Group. This is what I am building today, and is what will eventually be the number 1 personal brand consultancy worldwide and have a team of 500 consultants. I founded MCG on July 18th, 2024 with a soft launch in May.
The premise of this business is to offer custom-tailored, high-quality, high-intensity consultations to people who are struggling to build their personal brands or are facing specific challenges and want to take them to the next level. This can be business owners, creators, authors, podcasters, and any other professional who understands the value that their personal brand holds in today's market.
How did you come up with your business idea?
My entire entrepreneurial journey can be defined by the pursuit of clarity. I wanted to answer more questions than create questions to be answered. I know that is a little bit of a mouthful, but when I was building my public relations firm my marketing was lackluster because it wasn't clearly defined. I would present the business as “Mashman Ventures is a public relations firm that specializes in personal branding and we offer consultations to our clients.” I knew that could be better.
When I decided to dissolve my firm publicly it was a huge undertaking for me and a massive leap of faith, because up until that point, it was my vehicle to future endeavors. The way that I could make money for investments, startups, and real estate, but in my gut, I knew the grass was in fact greener. I ran from the idea of launching a consultancy for the longest time because I questioned my own capabilities.
It's kind of like the person who launches a social media course before they build their own social media pages. I needed to have validation and edification from enough people who could back up my own claims. I had been building my personal brand from the moment I first got involved with business and had serviced countless clients so this year I finally stepped into what I call my “executive era” with the understanding I was as a matter of fact an expert in personal branding.
You don't call yourself an expert yourself, but when enough people do, well, the rest is history. I took inspiration from some of the largest consulting firms in the world such as McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group. Their primary focus is in business management consulting and they work with some of the largest corporations and governments around the globe.
Personal branding is rather niche, and the industry itself is relatively new. The term personal brand was coined by a man named Tom Peters in 1997 in his article “The Brand Called You” which was published in FastCompany. He is by definition The Godfather of the industry and his frameworks and thought leadership are indisputable.
I knew that the name needed to be concise, the domain available, and the social media easy to remember. I wanted to build a corporation. A business that I could pass down for generations to come and step into that old Americana Legacy perspective. Again, it should be easy to remember and clearly defined. I decided on the name Mashman Consulting Group because this business is bigger than me. I am building a team of MCG Consultants that adopt our framework and resources and go out and service clients of their own.
The long-term vision is to make MCG the industry standard and that if somebody is certified through us, they are naturally trusted and better than any of our competitors. This is why I created what is called Identity Positioning, our proprietary macroscopic strategy for personal branding which takes the personality of the individual and combines that with their professional successes to position them in such a way where they can be trusted, display competence, and develop a faithful following. I'll likely talk more about that here in a couple of minutes.
Give us a step-by-step process for how you built the first version of your product.
This business Is 100% bootstrapped and I retain 100% ownership. How can you name a business after yourself if you share equity? The wonderful thing about consulting is the overhead is extremely low. You're offering high-ticket services in exchange for low-cost expenses. It is a wonderful business model when you're somebody with capabilities.
Obvious startup costs would be the application fees, the website domain and hosting, your email services, task management, and technology needed for a function like your phone and laptop. All in all, it cost me less than $1,000 to launch this new business. One of the mistakes I made in my other businesses was a lack of organization, automation, and systems. I learned from this mistake so my earliest focuses were on setting a framework that could easily be scaled.
If I brought on a new consultant tomorrow, I would be able to create a new email and give them access to our CRM and software. They would be good to go. There would be SOPs in place and training resources available.
One such step that I did differently this time around was rather than pay to have a service form the LLC for me, I paid the state filing fees and applied for the EIN with Uncle Sam, and other requirements like the beneficial ownership information with FinCEN myself. This also saved money and only took less than an hour of my time. The requirements to get a piece of paper that says you are an official Incorporated entity are ridiculously low, but then it is up to you to build your business and give it meaning.
I did decide that I wanted a physical headquarters. Now this business can work 100% remotely so this overhead was a personal decision that I made to not only boost my credibility but to give myself a physical presence in the city of Little Rock Arkansas. A central hub that I could invite clients to. I believe many businesses today that live in the internet space, lose out on so many opportunities at the local level, and lack that official feeling that traditional companies have.
I wanted my office space to invoke a feeling of competence, increase my vibration every time I walked through the door, and be a space that was my own which could Inspire any clients who I bring in. It also gives me the ability to make tremendous offers. For example, I recently made the offer to my network that if you are an out-of-state professional who comes into Little Rock Arkansas to work with me, I will consult you for absolutely free.
My office space is less than $1,000 a month which is covered by one consulting session alone, and I already have plans of scaling into a larger space in 2025 to create a podcasting studio, a place for webinars, and office spaces for consultants if I so choose to build a local team.
In terms of the time it took to develop our service, I cannot offer a specific time frame as it is the accumulation of years worth of experience, observation, and study. I've been consulting clients for half a decade now and it took me quite a bit of time to feel confident in making this my primary offering.
Aligning my personal brand with my business is a decision I made early on as you have a tremendous amount of leverage with your personal brand in terms of driving awareness, traffic, and giving trust to any startup you latch your name on to. I understand that many people who start out, might not be able to offer high-ticket consulting themselves and would rather start with a done-for-you service or a lower price tag which is perfectly respectable.
Another blessing was not having to build everything from scratch. I took the technological stack from my public relations firm and rebranded it all for this new company. My website already had the build-out, so the only thing that was new was the social media pages and directory listings which are a free way of getting traction. I also submitted several press releases using pr.com and promoted the hell out of it using my personal social media pages and email list. I turned it into quite the spectacle.
How did you “launch” the business?
In May of 2024, I made the public announcement that I was dissolving my firm and launching something new. This got a basic degree of awareness flowing in anticipation. In July when I got all of the paperwork and it was 100% legitimate, that was when I started marketing Mashman Consulting Group.
Soft launch versus hard launch. I took the time in May and June to begin establishing a digital presence online, move into my office space, and start feeding Google with information related to this new business. I wrote several blog articles, as I mentioned, created directory listings, submitted press releases and started telling previous clients and prospects alike, about this new engagement.
Thankfully, there weren't any necessary obstacles or things that I would do differently as I learned from my previous pivots. I had the infrastructure, the brand, the visibility, and then my next focus was finding the first couple of clients who we could work with. Having a track record, I leaned into the idea of my initial prospects being some of the earliest clients of this new business.
This was an effective selling technique as well as a way of attaching their own success to the success of MCG. As soon as my services were completed with them, I had them record testimonials and leave me reviews which served as third party edification. Within 3 months, the business appeared as if it was around for years and was already a trusted, vetted, personal brand consultancy. Amazing right?
I'm also very grateful for the initial interest I had as well as the appreciation others showed for my ethical approach to personal branding. There are so many business owners out there who are in this industry or the public relations space who engage in unethical pay-to-win tactics such as paying for press, paying for followers, and setting expectations which cannot simply be met in the time frames given. People were excited for me.
I initially went on a podcast tour and was doing interviews that felt like every single day talking about MCG, writing more articles on industry subject matter, for example why you would hire a personal brand consultant, why you should build your personal brand, and how our approach is better than others. Additionally, I recorded various corporate information videos on similar subject matter which are visible on the company's YouTube page and are ranking in search. All of these strategies have in common is they are absolutely free which is wonderful.
As revenue continues to increase, we will likely expand into paid advertising and potentially traditional forms of advertising such as Billboards and things that I could leverage offline and turn into online marketing campaigns. I wouldn't be able to do this if I chose not to do my office space and have a presence in a city, albeit, 99% of our clients are from around the world.
As of today, I am personally working with roughly 10 clients per month for a basis of $10,000 per month. I am only able to consult a maximum of 20 per month, which means I am capped at revenue, hence, why expanding our team and training platform is paramount.
How did you land your first customers?
I landed MCG’s first client within a week or so of making the announcement. This isn't reasonable for everyone however, as I had already built out my network and had some interest from people who wanted to work with me. This is important to know. I leaned into the fact that these early clients would be a part of this new adventure and made them feel a sense of attachment to our growth.
The idea of this business model is that we come in and solve our client's highest value personal branding problem through one-on-one consultations. Our work is done through Google Meet and our consultations are untimed so we're not like your lawyer who's going to up the invoice after the 2-hour mark, albeit most of our sessions last anywhere from an hour and a half to two and a half hours. If a client comes in with 100 questions, they leave with 100 answers, and their highest value problem solved.
This is important to note as we do not charge by the hour because it can create a sense of mistrust between the service provider and the clients as if you're holding back information in order to make more money. We do not charge on retainer because all of our sessions come with homework in a series of tasks that the client has to implement before we can move forward with their strategy.
In the past, I would have clients pay to keep me on retainer but a lot of times in between our consultations to the next, there would be several tasks that would not get done which would hinder our results. Now we offer consultations a la carte and a client can purchase multiple sessions in advance and they have up to 6 months to redeem them.
This is great because it doesn't require them to use them all up in the first month or two, as well as gives them flexibility in control, and locks in their price. For example, if a client were to pay $1,000 for a consultation with me as the founder, and 90 days from now I increase the rate to $1,500, they still have purchased multiple consultations in advance at the old rate.
After the first month, we introduced our New Client Onboarding Survey which has 30 questions that all prospects of the firm have to answer. This gives us better insights into where they are in their own personal branding process, their problems, their ambitions, and their driving forces. We are able to send them this onboarding survey and collect an immense amount of data which helps us improve the service to them and raise awareness about some of the things that we might be able to cover on a call.
Like a startup raising capital, we also have an overview presentation which is a recording I did over what is effectively our pitch deck, taking the prospect from point A, our firm’s story to point Z, and how we can service them. I'm quite proud of this presentation as it acts as a wonderful marketing tool in the event that we do not have a one-on-one sales call with them.
Reverse engineer the things that work. Look for other successful companies and startups that you can mimic and adopt some of the strategies that they have applied in order to see success.
How have you grown your business?
For the next 12 months or so, Mashman Consulting Group’s revenue will scale through my own personal brand’s growth. I know that this is not necessarily a sustainable model to bring us to the nine-figure mark by 2035, however, for the initial buzz and surges, I'm relying on my personal brand as the founder and will be engaging in thought leadership pieces, podcast interviews, content creation, and so on. anytime I speak on stage I will have instant authority and be able to raise awareness about MCG.
By the end of the year, I will begin interviewing prospective consultants and have already submitted a hiring post that has garnered over 50 applications. We are also about to bring on our Chief Operating Officer, who joins me from Mashman Ventures. I am quite excited about this partnership as he will allow me to focus more on the front end as he handles the interview process and gets new consultants trained and integrated with our systems. You know, all of those business things that aren't fun.
I would like to share some insights into how we plan on scaling the Consultants team as that is our primary source of business. We do have a training platform called UnrivaledMCG which is full of evergreen and ever-growing resources for the ambitious individual who either isn't in a place to work with us in a one-on-one fashion, or would like to take those resources and information and apply them to their own strategy. This will be launching before the end of the year and I expect it will make up about 30% of our business and revenue. We are providing programs covering public speaking, social media, general personal brand advice, etc., at varying price points.
There are so many professionals who are looking to get into the personal brand coaching or consulting space but in doing so they would have to create their own strategy, their own brand, and their own resources to provide services to their clients. Our goal is to bring these individuals to the MCG ecosystem and give them the launch pad they need to have clients within the first couple weeks of getting started.
This gives them instant credibility and the ability to make money for themselves. Now, we do not plan on offering a salary for any consultants which means that the role is 100% commission based at least for the foreseeable future. I am toying with the idea of making Consultant Partners part salary part commission with a higher percentage.
The consultant comes into the team, closes a client and receives roughly 60% of the revenue generated and the other 40% goes towards overhead and paying for all of the necessary applications and resources, such as our CRM, meeting software, and recording hosting as all clients receive lifetime access to their sessions. This is sustainable and scalable as the initial cost is low outside of time, and they are paying for their association through revenue share.
What problem are you solving and is there a need? You'll have to go through and decide your business model, your pricing point, and the name. With so many different moving parts, you will not have all of the answers immediately.
Give us a breakdown of your revenue & financials.
I typically charge $1,000 to $1,500 for a consultation. Our consultants starting out will be charging $500 with a scaling rate based on experience and previous successes. As of today, I am personally working with roughly 10 clients per month for a basis of $10,000 per month. I am only able to consult a maximum of 20 per month, which means I am capped at revenue, hence, why expanding our team and training platform is paramount.
A challenge in the consulting business is without expanding your team or having digital products, the scalability of that business is rather Limited. You can increase the cost per session so for example I could charge $1,500 and generate $15,000, or I could have 10 consultants working with clients of their own offering consultations and the firm gets a cut of every transaction.
There are three main ways we're getting paid. Founder consultations, the consultants' team, and the training platform. Again, this is why the infrastructure was so important as I can't scale the business alone to the point where I want it to be.
Our overhead is less than $1,500 a month which means we have an 85% profit margin that is much higher than most businesses. So where does all of that profit go? Travel expenses for speaking engagements, office supplies, paying for additional systems, and eventually advertising.
I am also planning on having a professional agency redesign the company website, investing heavily in our artificial intelligence chatbot KPI, and expanding our training platform and hiring external experts to come in and share their expertise for our clients in proprietary training. This business is low-quantity, high-quality, rather than high-quantity, average-quality.
What does the future look like?
Scaling. I've set forth the public goal that by 2035 Mashman Consulting Group will be the number one personal brand consulting firm worldwide, and we'll have a team of 500 Consultants working for us. I mentioned this several times in this article already. Then, in the next 12 months, I plan on scaling the consultants’ team to 20 members as well as hitting multiple six figures of revenue.
I plan on not only leveraging my personal brand, but seeking organic strategies such as domain authority and high-ranking articles, as well as increasing the number of places we are being seen in such as selling from stage. When our Chief Operating Officer comes on, I've already spoken with him about being the secondary face of the company and leveraging his own personal brand to build awareness about MCG.
Circling back, I created our Identity Positioning strategy to serve as not only a fresh perspective on the subject, but to set the standard in the industry. There isn't some formal process to be a certified personal brand consultant or some Collegiate exam such as the bar exam that you have to take to practice in this industry.
I believe that Identity Positioning will allow us to be the people who set the internationally recognized standard for personal brand professionals. I will do whatever is in my power to make this happen.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
Do not overlook legal red tape. Ensure that your business has a clearly defined privacy policy, refund policy, and contracts, and be clear in the expectations that you are setting for clients and consumers alike. You want to avoid any risk of legal litigation as well as maintain customer satisfaction. You would think that this step isn't needed early on, but I would make the argument that it is more important than ever in those beginning stages.
Most people are good, but there will come a time where you have that one person who is unsatisfied in life and uses your business as a scapegoat in order to feel more powerful. Legal red tape is one such way to protect the house and protect what you are building.
I would recommend hiring and paying for a consultation with a lawyer to discuss some of the most important things you need to implement and keeping one on call as needs arise.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
Launching a new business is a huge undertaking so you have to be ready. There is absolutely nothing wrong with working for another person, or being an intrapreneur, but if you are set on launching your own company, you need to have a clear deliverable in sight. What problem are you solving and is there a need? You'll have to go through and decide your business model, your pricing point, and the name. With so many different moving parts, you will not have all of the answers immediately.
Reverse engineer the things that work. Look for other successful companies and startups that you can mimic and adopt some of the strategies that they have applied in order to see success. This is something that I do to this day. I will take somebody or something and emulate it in the best way possible, leaving out all of the things that they did that did not work. My specialty is personal branding, so I would start showcasing your step-by-step journey as you launch this new endeavor.
People like to have something to follow and live vicariously through so if you can leverage your personal brand to drive awareness towards your business, you're in a fantastic spot that most people aren't. Additionally, from a branding standpoint, find a name that is not taken. Look for a website URL that you can purchase, make sure you can secure all of the same social media handles, and create that seamless omnipresent brand for your business.
Despite what people say online, competition does exist and you should be paying attention to the market. Maybe you don't want to get involved with an industry that is already hyper saturated, and if you do, understand the uphill battle that you will be faced with. I believe in you, and I believe that whatever you put your mind to and you execute towards you will achieve. I hope my interview with Starter Story proved insightful and actionable. Much love!
Where can we go to learn more?
- Personal website
- Company website
- Overview Presentation
- Personal LinkedIn
- Company LinkedIn
- Personal Instagram
- Company Instagram
- Personal Twitter/X
- Company Twitter/X
- Personal Facebook
- Company Facebook
- Personal YouTube
- Company YouTube
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
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