Michael Mackie is a renaissance marketer and media expert who has interviewed just about every famous person you’ve ever thought of twice. He’s taken his wealth of experience and applied it to creating and improving your personal brand. Get ready for quick, captivating and clickable content. In today’s marketing tip, let’s talk about your brand standards!
Transcript:
Welcome to the Small Business Miracles podcast.
I’m Jeff Randolph.
This small business podcast is brought to you by EAG Advertising and Marketing.
We’re gonna talk about marketing and we’re also here to celebrate entrepreneurs.
We have marketing news and advice that business owners can use to keep moving forward.
This week we’re talking with media personality and personal branding expert Michael Mackey.
But first, I’ve got another small business marketing tip to talk about.
For today’s marketing tip, we’re talking about standards.
That’s what the menu is gonna be.
Simple, elegant, easy to read and maintain consistent standards.
And specifically, we’re talking about your brand standards.
You may have a marketing department that already serves as your brand police and they monitor
everything to make sure your logo and image are being used correctly.
That’s a good thing.
Great job.
Thanks for having that department out there looking out for your brand image.
Now for everyone else, service and standards are far more important.
It’s time to pay attention to your standards.
Now, first, why?
Most estimates range between and ad messages that each of us are exposed to
on a daily basis.
That’s a lot.
to individual brand messages that you’re seeing out there confusing you.
Now as a brand, if the message you put out there, that’s the images, the logo, your brand
colors, all of that, if it isn’t consistent, our human brains as customers have to work
that much harder to put your message into the right brand bucket.
In short, you spend more money and aren’t as effective if your messaging and your visual
elements aren’t consistent.
So that’s why.
What are brand standards?
They’re really just a document that locks down the way you describe your company and
your services, your logo and image and icons, the colors you use, the way you take and present
pictures and videos, everything important about the written and visual elements of the
brand.
That gives everyone who has a reason to use your brand a roadmap for the right way to
do it so that you stay consistent.
Not difficult to put together, but really important.
And maintain consistent standards.
Your brand.
We’re here on the featured interview section and I am here with Michael Mackey.
Michael, welcome to the show.
Shalom.
It’s good to be here.
Very happy to have you on the show.
First, tell me how I define you because you’re a digital content and videography guru at
Lilly and James.
You’re an entertainment and writer for the pitch in Kansas City.
You fill in at KMBZ radio.
You’re a travel writer, a personal branding expert.
I’m not sure if my question is like, how do I define you or what box do I put you in?
There’s so many.
I prefer the term media darling.
I feel like that is all encompassing and sort of.
Yeah, that’s that’s right there.
So Michael Mackey, media darling, media darling, checks, checks all the boxes, gets there.
You’ve been on a personal branding mission to tell everybody about personal branding
and great topic because there are so many professions where that that definitely comes
into play.
Let me let me dive into it with with that, you know, from from lawyers to real estate
agents, they’re probably doing personal branding.
They may or may not be comfortable with that.
Let’s let’s back up.
Define it.
What is personal branding?
Why should people care?
I joke.
This is my this is my this is my little joke about it.
It’s personal branding is like that old philosophical adage where if a tree falls in the woods and
no one hears it, does it make a sound?
Well, personal branding is like if you do all these really great, amazing, phenomenal,
outstanding things that no one knows about them, did they actually happen?
Does anyone care?
So basically, my job is to find really mindful, really strategic ways to shamelessly, blatantly
promote someone without anyone knowing they’re being shamelessly blatantly promoted.
So that is what I do day in and day out.
And it’s if you would have asked me two years ago if I would have gotten to be really good
at personal branding, I would have been like, you’re nuts.
But then a funny thing happened.
I realized that everybody has a story and I am really good in writing in different people’s
voices.
Like this morning I worked on this just a for instance, this morning I worked on an
architect, an author and a cybersecurity expert.
So that’s a really broad, that’s broad, that’s a really rando mixed bag.
And it’s also very schizophrenic in that I have to write for so many different voices.
And I will guarantee you there is no one out there who cannot benefit from some sort of
nuanced or finessed personal branding.
Yeah.
And so and you’re you’re able to write in their voices and can kind of coach them through
it.
How how deep does personal branding go?
What are the kind of elements that we’re talking about here?
Well it’s anything from just putting yourself out there a little bit more.
It basically breaks down to people can see if you’re being your authentic, best, genuine
self.
Right.
And so that is kind of what I want to capture and put out into the blogosphere, the universe,
the ether, whatever you want to call it.
And I don’t want it to ever feel like it’s an ad for you because after a while people
will just literally start scrolling by oh there’s that guy.
Yeah they tune that out.
Right.
We get numb to that after all of the messages we get exposed to on a daily basis.
Exactly.
So I think that that is if you just keep putting out the same content, the same content, if
you keep putting out the same content, the same content and it is just all you all the
time it seems pretty disingenuous.
So I like to have I call it haha I call it infotainment.
It is a very good blend of sort of what the who the person is, what they do, what they
bring to the table, but more importantly some sort of insight into like you glean some info
or you glean some some things about what they what they’re really good at.
The fact that they’re thought leaders in their space.
Tell me about because I think when we’ve had to work with business owners of different
kinds and there are there are those those professions where you are the it’s your name
on the marquee right there is there is some element of personal brand that goes along
with that and some professionals if you’re a lawyer if you’re in real estate if you’re
a financial planner if you’re an architect if you’re any of these professions where you
know I’m the one out there there’s some reluctance right where where you go oh gosh I don’t know
if I is it me do I need to be this or would people care about me and and they hesitate
to go forward and kind of put themselves out there.
Do you do you run into that how do you how do you cope with that you would be surprised
at the amount of companies that hire us to promote their company via their people and
you mentioned several of them like real estate agencies have hired us to just promote you
know up and coming million dollars you know like luxury real estate agents or mortgage
brokers oh here’s a good one law firms a lot of law firms hire us to let’s say they have
three or four junior partners who currently have no gravitas they have no following they
have no anything but the company knows that in three or four years they’re going to hit
that corner on that yeah they’re going to hit that corner office and by then we have
built their brand so not only do they have a following but they are like I said a thought
leader in their space and they have the wherewithal to you know sort of promote their brand and
and promote the law firm that they work for so it’s like a good solid one two punch gotcha
and and do you did they hesitate does it do you have to drag them kicking and screaming
to this or do they look at the kind of tactics that you’re putting together and go all right
yeah I get it I can see where we’re going nine out of ten times people realize that
there’s power and just promotion but it’s how we do it and what we’re putting out there
it’s never going to be hello my baby hello my darling hello my ragtime gal we’re never
going to do that it is always very low key and strategic and again we don’t throw stuff
against a wall to see what sticks there’s a tried and true proven formula to making
sure that someone’s following is grow growing as well as what they’re putting out into the
universe it’s all about really good content that is consistent and makes you want to find
out more like you here’s a perfect example I had zero following on LinkedIn when I started
this journey and by osmosis because the owner of my company she is you know the queen of
LinkedIn I gleaned all that stuff by osmosis so accidentally I became I started building
my personal brand to now it’s almost at followers from like I mean yeah yeah it’s
a pretty good uptick in that’s that’s bad that’s not that’s yeah nothing to write home
about but it’s it’s been a good journey and now now I know when to post what to post what
hashtags to use and that is all stuff that people need to know because they’re just otherwise
they’re just flailing around right you have to give some kind of structure and direction
and let’s let’s talk about content for a minute because like quick captivating clickable that’s
the the style of content today say it loud quick captivating clickable and as you stare
at like your past body of work right and all of the the commercials you’ve written the
the blogs you’ve written those kind of things because you know I do a little bit of homework
on this show it’s not it’s not nothing thank you you’ve really been there for a really
long time like that seems to be the the the style that appeals to everybody today seems
to have caught up to where you are talk about your approach to storytelling and copywriting
and how you how you do all of that a lot of times to be perfectly honest I write as
fast as I possibly can and I’ve done that pretty much for the last years I write
everything as fast as I possibly can and don’t even worry about word smithing or punctuation
or anything and then I just let it marinate for like a day because I’ve found that and
also I write first thing in the morning like if you have to if you ask me to write anything
after three o’clock forget about it but I want to tell a genuinely good imminently relatable
story to the to the people to the masses right and I think that over the last couple years
writing in so many different voices which and that doesn’t just happen overnight it
takes me a good couple months to really get in the groove of who they are and what they
do but it’s become sort of my ipso facto claim to fame if you will sell and it’s become
a it’s become a really good niche and it’s one of we’re one of the only agencies in
town that does it I kind of feel like being able to write in someone else’s voice is there’s
a little bit of acting involved in that right you’re playing a role you’re playing them
to a certain extent yeah it’s theater do you do you have that background or is that do
you think that’s where it came from or do you think it’s just like let me figure out
who is this person and let me try to crawl inside their brain I that’s hilarious that
you asked that because I got my degree in broadcasting with a minor in theater and in
French so I always joke that I’m destined to work on a TV sitcom in Quebec yes there’s
one place there’s that skill set that is yeah that is the perfect trifecta but I have always
had the wherewithal I’ve always as a media trainer and that’s what I did for countless
years my entire job was just making people feel comfortable in front of the camera I
can talk to anybody about anything for any length of time and make them feel right at
home and so if you put a camera up in front of somebody and they are freaking out I will
talk them off the ledge out of times outstanding man that’s a guy that bang up
job let me switch to a little bit of like business advice and and pick pick your brain
about the the best business advice you’ve ever received is there is there some kind
of learning out there some kind of lesson that you’ve taken with you this throughout
your your many and varied career I took a I took a improv class million years
ago because I thought that would teach me a few things that I should be a quick little
quicker on my feet and they ingrained in my essence to never say no to anything it’s
a yes and it is a yes and never say no because no gets you nowhere so I don’t care what
if anybody goes out of their way to invite me to something I will go because they had
they were gracious enough to invite I would go to the I would go to the opening of an
envelope if you invite me so interesting so that translates into this because the the
yes and kind of strategy for for improv is you know if you’re in a conversation you
say yes you whatever it is they throw at you you say yes and let me add this on to it but
you translate that into the the real world where you’re like an invitation I have to
I have to go people now there is something to be said for kissing babies and shaking
hands I guess so and and and hobbing and knobbing and doing all the things like put me in a
room and I will just work that room till I’m blue in the face to put yourself out there
and and when you’re working and like the personal branding space and talking to those clients
are you able to get that kind of message across to him too to say no no put yourself out there
get it get go physically go go there talk to people I think they’re I think most personal
potential personal branding clients are a little they think it’s going to be flaring
razzle dazzle and you know sequins and sparkles and it’s not that at all I mean it can be
if that’s what they want but it’s it’s it’s really it’s taken down a notch and it’s like
I said it is it is them but just elevated for the masses and making sure that what they’re
what we’re putting out for them resonates with a lot of people and it also shows them
in the best possible light again their best authentic genuine their authentic genuine
not to beat people overhead with that beat people over the head with that but that’s
that’s the gist of the whole thing yeah well and that’s that’s the secret if it if it comes
off as anything but it goes downhill really fast really fast all right well you know Michael
Mackey let’s go into the lightning round let’s let’s okay let’s take a drink of water first
please do this is we’ve talked about improv and and that’s that’s going to that training
will serve you well here okay all right I’m sitting down I’m ready um you focused you
interview people and let me let me get a little bit of background because you have interviewed
like all of the stars ever twice or several times right that’s my tagline you name the
celebrity I probably interviewed them twice and then that goes way back into a TV career
and and making sure that you’re talking to like literal stars literal literal stars ten
ten academy award winners but who’s counting man that’s yeah that’s that’s one or two more
than than me I’ll admit to that and you’ve had a ton of brushes with greatness who is
that interview that got away the one that man I really wish I would have been able to
talk to that person Dolly Parton oh you know it’s not over yet it is not Dolly Parton is
at the pinnacle the zenith if you will of celebs that I’ve been in the same room with
Dolly several times I’ve just never had the chance to interview her but she is at the
absolute top of the mountain that would have been the one and she was just in town like
about a month ago and don’t think I didn’t try every possible avenue to secure that interview
but it was it was it was impossible well may may the odds be ever in your favor I will
is God is my witness interview Dolly before I or before she dies God rest her soul she’s
not she’s gonna be here forever she’s going to be like share and live forever Betty White
yeah absolutely % tell me about the dream interview like man this would be this would
be it um it would have to be somebody at the apex of what they are doing so I like a like
a super super a listy star like I’ve interviewed plenty of like the Cameron Diaz’s and Jennifer
Lopez’s and Jennifer Aniston’s but I’m trying to think like who would be at the absolute
probably like uh I don’t know this is just the first person popped in my mind probably
like a Tom Cruise oh really yeah yeah yeah like some mega mega mega known throughout
the world that would be quite the feather in my cap is the strategy then to uh like
like go hard hitting or or are you there to riff and improv and have a great time and
just have good product at the end riff improv have a good time because you only have four
minutes yeah yeah yeah when I tell you I can’t tell you the amount of times that I have stepped
in front of a snippy PR wonk with a clipboard and they say you have four minutes with Miss
Lopez and then they shove you in a room and next thing you know you are sitting just like
I am sitting next to you there’s Jennifer Lopez and they start the clock the minute
the microphone goes on yeah so you have to be dazzling you have to be jazz hand spirit
fingers immediately on I turn on that Vanna white charm and go hoping praying that I get
a couple good sound bites and some whimsical charm and carasma out of her man and so next
question uh you’ve you have interviewed all of these great people um between the two of
us in this room um we have both won a total of eight Emmys now with my zero and your eight
that’s pretty powerful tell me uh like the experience of having that kind of hardware
and to to have been you know in in the room with all of those people and potentially be
remembered um how how has that changed you uh is is has that how do you how do you deal
with that I was and I joke that I was the reverse Susan Lucci because the very first
thing that I ever entered back in I think one and then I never won another Emmy for
like years and I kept entering and so I was like well I’m destined to win just one
one and one and just one would do it but I can still say Emmy award winner and then a
funny thing happened then I started branching out to my skill set I started doing some philanthropic
videos I started doing I started hosting things and little by little I ratchet so if you look
at the my mantle filled with Emmys right right you’ll see that it’s just it’s not just like
hosting or there’s stuff in there for promotion there’s PSA is there’s producing so I’d like
to think that I’m a renaissance man when it comes to that it’s it’s I’m blessed and highly
favored when it comes to winning all those and don’t think I don’t know it that’s well
it’s it’s good to stay humble especially with with that kind of like track record so thank
God I’m here that’s right I tell people well tell me tell me this uh if if you could star
on any game show past or present what would be that game show uh Plinko it would be prices
prices right Plinko and one of my gal pals was actually on when they first I think they
introduced it in like and I think she was on in like and won like $that was
before you know they had the huge million dollar slots but she like and so I’ve I remember
watching that as a year old and being like I’m so I’ve never been more jealous of another
human being in my entire life there’s not strategy to that that’s it that’s unless I’m
wrong unless there’s a where the cards not cards it’s where the Plinko chip fall falls
or the chip falls I would I worked with a casino at one point and craps is one of those
games where there’s you know it’s chance there’s a dice it hits a table and the table looks
a lot like the the foam padding in our our soundproofing this right so that it bounces
off of that at a random angle and they’re talking about like uh cheaters and how here’s
how you throw the dice if you want to control where that die goes and and what number it
comes up on and so there was cheating at games that I thought there’s literally no way you
could cheat at this maybe there is a Plinko opportunity here where you put a little spin
on the puck oh I don’t know that’s a good question now I’m gonna have to go back and
I bet you if you google Plinko strategy oh there’s got to be a Plinko strategy but wait
I never knew that there was a strategy to throwing dice it’s it’s a fascinating world
when you get into the here’s how we catch cheaters but you know same same thing here
you could look at the the casino gaming industry pubs and go oh here’s where you place the
the slots that pay off so that you know you’ve got more eye traffic and it’s a fascinating
world the deeper you go into anything the more fascinating it gets god I love slots
I love slots so much I go into I go into any casino with bucks and I leave my wallet
in the car when that bucks is gone I’m your fun is over my fun is over no matter
how even if security is escorting you out with all of your winning or if you have zero
what is the most you’ve ever won oh in a casino three hundred and fifty dollars and and that’s
that’s again a craps table but like at the time I was I was just but a young lad working
in the gaming industry in the in a market in the marketing world and you you start looking
down at the table and I immediately calculate how many hours I have to work to get what’s
at risk on the table right now like my brain just does that and immediately my heart starts
to pound out of my chest and I go and we’re done pull all that down please I’m out of
here I can’t I can’t keep doing that so there’s a there’s a low risk tolerance thing for me
there I think I had a jackpot I’m a baby jackpot once it was like four hundred dollars and
I cashed out oh I would be ran ran out of the casino before it yeah there’s the there’s
the saying that you know if you’re playing with house money and then there’s a there’s
a reason it’s called house money it will soon become house money again so yeah spectacular
let’s talk about AI for a second AI has been in most of the marketing tools we deal with
for a long time now but we’re now at a point where when you talk to somebody about AI there’s
somewhere between tremendously paranoid because the singularity is coming and they will be
our robot overlords or it’s a game changer for knowledge and it’s going to take us everywhere
do you have a perspective on AI I think it’s a helpful tool but I am not worried about
it in the slightest I really think it’s there just to help sort of push things along like
if you’re if you’re a writer with writer’s block it’ll help that slump or whatever but
% you can’t you cannot I can spy AI a mil don’t tell me you can’t either I can spy
yeah a million miles away yes no and and yeah you’ve whether whether it’s grading an exam
where somebody has used AI or if it’s looking at a photo and you go why does that person
have six fingers that’s weird like yes you can you can spot it but but what if and I’m
just saying what if that it’s the idea of AI to go hey let’s let’s put let’s put six
fingers on that photo we won’t show that we we can you know do five let’s just put six
fingers out there we’ll keep we’ll keep everybody at bay I never thought about that you never
I guess it’s something to look forward maybe everyone should have six figures in Photoshop
it’s a conspiracy in the six fingers okay I’m gonna start looking for those do you know
oh that person’s beyond beyond the lookout did you have a coach or a teacher in life
who taught you something that’s stuck with you to this day hmm my dad on the very first
day of kindergarten this is a good story my dad on the very first day of kindergarten
woke me up early made me a bowl of cereal and we sat in our literal pantry and he had
Jerry rigged some he had Jerry rigged a record player in the pantry and every morning while
I sat and ate my cereal as a burgeoning five-year-old he would play a record it was the word of
the day and every day I would sit there and it was like the it was the same thing over
and over but it was like um the word of the day is loquacious loquacious can you say loquacious
loquacious meaning talkative or chatty and then they would use it in the sentence and
so every day I would sit there you know for five minutes while I was eating my cereal
and I would learn a word of the day and so at five years old I was already like a Mensa
member right and you know I would go in and you know if my kindergarten teacher was being
quiet I was like why are you so taciturn today and she’d be like what is happening child
prodigy and I wasn’t you know because I learned the word of the day so oh my my oh my dad
yeah my word my vocabulary my extensive litany of words that I use so many words I you know
I like that story it gives me a great sense of pride as well because the I got a note
from a daycare teacher at one point when my daughter was you know pre-k and and said yeah
she used the word antagonize today correctly so whatever you’re doing yeah keep it up so
yeah no I like that lesson that’s a good what was the story behind why she used antagonize
that’s what I want when when when when you’re in the infant room or whatever when you’re
in the toddler room and somebody takes your your toys and you you have to you know be
the one who tells on someone else you know so-and-so is antagonizing me today like that’s
a it works for me I’m pretty proud of that one I would pat yourself on the back multiple
times that’s that there’s there are a few of those there are a few of those props props
pops let’s let’s let me give this question out if if we give you the power to change
the world in some way some some way to change the world to make it a better place what would
you do it’s a lot of power to have I think people need to experience other cultures I
think people need to experience other ways of life other walks of life I would make travel
mandatory mandatory travel yeah and I can’t think for the life of me I had it in my head
but it just popped out I can’t remember the quote from Mark Twain about travel but that
always I always that always resonated with me like that’s basically how I how and why
I became a travel writer is because I wanted to experience there were so many places that
I had not seen visited and that I wanted other people to experience along with me on that
journey yeah yeah it’s it’s easy to hate an entire group of people until you meet them
until you meet them until you are immersed in all things wherever they’re at and whatever
they’re doing yeah I yeah I’ll live in that world I’ll live in the mandatory travel world
that’ll work for me mandatory travel Michael Mackey I’m taking you out of the lightning
round you’ve you’ve crushed it as always no sweat hey tell tell people where they can
find you if they want more information personal branding on following you where do they go
what do they do well if you are interested in personal branding you can check out the
agency that I work for it’s called Lillian James creative and that is Lillian James creative
dot com or if you’d like to find me on the LinkedIn’s you can find me Michael Mackey
or Michael Mackey dot com which is sort of become my namesake on the radio like literally
that like that’s the thing yeah my name is one name like share Madonna or charo it’s
Michael Mackey dot com so that’s that’s that’s a good way to put it all right thanks for
being with us today on the podcast.
And that is our show thanks to our guest Michael Mackey and thank you for listening to the
small business miracles podcast remember to subscribe leave us a five-star rating and
review drop us a line on the website at E A G A D V dot com if you have any thoughts until
then we’ll be out here helping entrepreneurs with another small business miracle.