Interview with Franklin McMahon of Franklin McMahon Studios and Media Artist Secrets
Today Mike McAllens interview guest is Franklin McMahon who is the producer and host of Media Artist Secrets. Frank is a director, producer, writer, podcaster, actor, designer, photographer, and career development speaker and coach, Franklin McMahon. Very interesting guy and I hope you enjoy the interview. If you have any questions or comments please email MeetingsPodcast@gmail.com or contact Frank directly
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Transcripts:
Mike McAllen: Welcome back to Meetings Podcast. This is Mike McAllen from Grass Shack Events and Media and today’s guest is based in Portland, Maine. He’s a director, producer, writer, podcaster, actor, designer, photographer, and career development speaker and coach, Franklin McMahon.
Hi Frank.
Franklin McMahon: Wow. How’s it going, Mike? Man, I think that may be sound exhausted just listening to you – to all the things that I do. No wonder I don’t sleep.
Mike McAllen: I can’t believe I did it in one breath. That’s amazing. Yes.
Franklin McMahon: Wow.
Mike McAllen: You’re up to a lot of things.
Franklin McMahon: Yes, I’d like to keep myself busy and you know, a lot of caffeine to keep that pumping and yes, it’s fun. It’s all you know, media artistry I think. It’s a lot of you know, there’s so much to do these days in so many different venues and avenues to take that you know, why limit yourself to one or two things?
Mike McAllen: Right. Well I first heard about you at the Podcast Expo where I was turned on to your podcast Media Artist Secrets which I really enjoy and I wish you’d do more of them. But – and then I – you know, because I have a production company. I do events and I don’t know if you knew this but I do events basically meeting production and video production and some new media production too with my company and I started – I was sitting in like [Indiscernible] [0:01:18] suites and places and I’m looking through magazines and you’re like in all these magazines. I didn’t even know that you know, you’re like here he is again, you know because you’re all over the place. So you are a busy a guy.
Franklin McMahon: Well you know Cosmo loves my you know, relationship tip so I do a lot of writing for them. No, I don’t really write for them. So – but yes, I write for – I mean I write what I know about – I do a lot of reviews for you know, products you know, editing and video and multimedia and stuff and I’ve been writing – I actually went to school for Journalism and I’m not really sure why but it just seemed like at that time, that was the most interesting thing that it didn’t really have like you know, a lot of multimedia classes but it did help me with getting some of my writing jobs going and I’ve been writing for magazines for years. I started writing for Amiga Magazines back when the Amiga computer was out. I wrote for Amazing Computing and all these Amiga you know type magazines and then kind of dovetailed into other magazines like Digital Content Producer and Millimeter, you know, more broadcast stuff. So – but it’s fun. It’s great to you know, keep an eye on the industry and a lot of companies now like Adobe and other ones, you know, they’ll have me see stuff before it’s even out, you know. They’ll do it and show me, you know, what they’re working on and stuff and it’s pretty cool to get that insight and actually offer some feedback on some of the tools that you know, once they come out and launch, it’s pretty cool to see them come to fruition.
Mike McAllen: That is – yes. That’ quite an opportunity to be able to see that kind of stuff. So backing up a little bit, so can you tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of your background and path besides you did that journalism path to become a creative genius as you are now?
Franklin McMahon: I – whoa, I’m a creative genius.
Mike McAllen: I got to – I forgot to add that to the intro. I’m sorry.
Franklin McMahon: Yes. You know, I didn’t really know what I want. You know, out of high school – I was going too far back but out of high school, I didn’t really know what I want to do and journalism seemed most compelling but I found myself getting involved in Public Access TV and I would sit through you know, college courses and school and you know, it was interesting. Of course you had to take a lot of extra stuff, you know, Math courses and everything but you had to focus on your major and I found myself getting really excited about going home and doing Public Access stuff. You know, doing stuff for the local community channel and that really sparked me into – and I had been like a film maker, you know, doing a little 60-millimeter or 80-millimeter films for years and then I decided to get into cable television. I don’t know how many years ago now but – and did that for a number of years. I ran a cable TV station in Rhode Island – in [Wesley], Rhode Island and that’s where I learned the most.
We did all kinds of productions. We did live telethons, new shows, you know, tons and tons of stuff, live stuff, shots stuff, you know, a lot during the day and then at night, we would do creative projects. We did a lot of mini-series, short movies and stuff and it was really kind of a training ground and then I got – eventually I got into broadcast television. We’re working for the local Fox affiliate and you know, did a lot of that stuff works, you know, the local commercials that you see locally wherever you are and then dovetailed into the web around 2000 I think, 1999 something like that. I was partying too at that time at 1999. It was a joke in there somewhere but I stepped on it. So I became a creative director for MaineToday.com actually, in-charge of their web division. We had a lot of big clients and it was awesome but then I start to really get a little bored with you know, ramping up my career as a creative director and a production manager and I found that I was in a meeting all the time.
So I ended up leaving that job. That was the last job I worked for the man and decided to you know, open up a photography studio. So I focused on that for a while kind of applying a lot of my background in storytelling to the photographic medium and that’s when podcasting kind of kicked in around 2005, 2006 and I was like wow, this is such an amazing new thing and I can apply a lot of my broadcast background skills, audio and video production to this new thing and I’ve been doing that ever since. So in recent years, I’ve been doing more multimedia. I do HD production as far as shooting commercials and stuff for clients to a ton of podcast production. I do some design, I still do photography. I’m a guru as far as creative development. I love helping you know, creative artists through Media Artist Secrets. You know, I’d tag them the audio so now I do a video show of it and also a blog at FranklinMcMahon.com which is really geared toward helping you know, creative people market themselves and that’s the synopsis of my life in 2 minutes or less I think.
Mike McAllen: All right, well it’s nice talking to you and …
Franklin McMahon: I got to go.
Mike McAllen: No, I really like the new Media Artist Secrets. I’m bummed that I can’t listen to it on my iPod – I mean as I’m doing my daily …
Franklin McMahon: Well you are not the only one that complains. I’m actually getting people who are like well you know, you need to do the audio one more so I can just listen to it in my car and stuff and I do want to get back to that. I’m busy with a lot of stuff. So I want to you know, I think what I do most now is the blog. I think it’s a little easier for me to write an article …
Mike McAllen: Yes.
Franklin McMahon: … and get content out there that way then produce a podcast. So anyone who says, oh I miss the audio version, I encourage them to check out the blog because that is pretty much the audio version now in text form and the video, I’ve only done I think five or six episodes. It’s just ramping up but I want to have some fun with that and I do want to get back to doing more of the audio versions.
Mike McAllen: I did like the last Media Artist Secrets where you kind of walked in a circle as you talked. I really liked that because it kept it kind of interesting in the background. Not that you weren’t interesting to listen to but you know, because you’re not a talking head. You really – that was clever the way you did that.
Franklin McMahon: Yes, I tried to mix it up a little and keep it – because with video, you want to keep it a little bit engaging and not have it – you know, I thought about shooting in a studio but I tried to have an interesting background because you know, you’re just watching someone talk and …
Mike McAllen: Yes. No, I agree. I think it’s – you’re really smart by doing that. So a lot of podcasting questions I have for you but what – how’s podcasting helped you just in your business?
Franklin McMahon: Well it’s – to me it’s one of the primary ways to get your brand out there to a global audience. I think it is you know, it’s so untapped by a lot of businesses. I think you know, some businesses they may not understand, you know, they’ve heard of it and I think a lot of people are on you know, Twitter and Facebook and you know, they’re a lot of times focused on their social media, you know, I got to get on Twitter, I got to get on Twitter but sometimes they miss podcasting because when I started podcasting, it was mainly producing my own shows and then I kind of started doing it for clients and I had a lot of success in getting clients’ message out there.
A lot of clients and a lot of businesses can position themselves as an expert and produce an entertaining show whether it’s audio or video and that brings people to your brand. People really gather around that. It’s personal, it’s intimate whether you have your headphones on or you’re listening to an audio podcast or you’re watching someone on a video podcast; it’s very, very compelling. And plus the ability to subscribe, I think it is the other key because even, you know, YouTube you can subscribe to a channel and you can you know, click favorites and stuff but there’s nothing as compelling as booting up iTunes and news shows downloaded and of to a show that you’ve subscribed to and to me that’s very compelling and plus the reach. I mean iTunes is in like 20 or 30 countries. I mean once you get your show into iTunes, I mean it’s pretty unlimited as far as the reach and you know, people can search around and look for new shows and stuff and I don’t know. It’s just pretty amazing.
Mike McAllen: So for your clients, what kind of stuff are you producing for them for – in podcasting, video and audio obviously I guess and a lot of videos. So what do they – give me an example of like what one of your clients has asked for or you’ve …
Franklin McMahon: Well some of them are – there’s a couple of different levels. Some are you know, the most basic where they have content that they just need it edited together or their video they just want an intro and then I’ll deploy it that way. Sometimes they want me to actually host the show for them. CreativeCOW is a prime example. That’s a client that you know, they wanted me to host their weekly news show, tech news, interview, people in the industry, you know, people who are Oscar winners and Emmy winners and people who are really are quite acclaimed in the industry and kind of you know, really get into the nuts and bolts of the creative process and we’ve had a lot of success with that, you know. We started with the original creative, we got a new show and then you know, they branched off into doing you know, flash shows, after effects, you know, videos, audio – I mean if you do a search for CreativeCOW now in iTunes, they probably have about 15 shows …
Mike McAllen: Wow.
Franklin McMahon: … and they’d all started from the, you know, the initial show that we did which was the news show and they got such great traction from that, that it kind of blossomed and you know, that’s one example of doing it for a client and also some of it is shooting, you know and some of these can be internet or you know, out there in the world too. Some of the stuff I do is internal work for companies where they want to do a podcast. They want people inside their building to subscribe to it and get the latest episode but they don’t necessarily want to go out public into iTunes. So I’ll do a lot of stuff internally for companies, produce it either a video podcast, you know, get a cast or interview principles and you know, things like that, you know people work at the company and produce it just for their company as either a training tool or to get information out or to have maybe the CEO get the message out that’s more personal. It’s a great way to kind of – and it’s fun because employees you know, they have their iPods, they can kind of download it right onto the device. They can watch on their computer and you know, there’s just so many ways you can take a podcast in so many different directions for a business.
Mike McAllen: How do you normally – do you set up an RSS feed internally for them or is it just something they …
Franklin McMahon: Yes, I’ll do all the coding and all the, you know, RSS feed and stuff. So you know, it can rest on their server and I’ll update it, you know, we’ll do a news show and then upload it to their server if they have it hosted, you know, if they have the content hosted somewhere, you know, we’ll put it there. So you know, RSS is just a basic, you know, it’s just the basic code for it and as long as it’s on their server and they can control who has access to it, it can be kept internal.
Mike McAllen: It’s very cool. Very, very cool. So you’ve done a bunch of shows then that I have listened to besides Media Artist Secrets who have Rumor Girls …
Franklin McMahon: Yes.
Mike McAllen: … talk a little bit about your other shows that you’ve done.
Franklin McMahon: Well we’ve started Rumor Girls – I’m trying to think what year. I’m thinking maybe 2006 or 2007 and – well actually the first show I did – after Media Artist Secrets was the Mary and Karla Show and that show is still in iTunes. It’s still in there or somewhere. There’s – we started with an audio version and we started to do a video version and it was very much the perfect storm because right when I started producing the video version of that which is two girls just kind of you know, talking about their lives and stuff. After we started producing the video, the video iPod had just been released. I think it was that holiday season and suddenly you could get these shows downloaded to your iPod and watch them on your iPod and now it doesn’t sound that amazing these days with you know, iPhones and all kinds of devices.
Mike McAllen: Yes, yes.
Franklin McMahon: But back then, it was like oh my God. You can actually carry a TV show along with you and there was a few speed bumps because the format we were you know, shooting in was not compatible with the iPod. You had to do a certain way of encoding it and stuff to make it compatible. So we kind of fixed that pretty quickly. And then you know that Christmas, everyone got video iPods. It was you know, searching for content and immediately just went to the, you know, the shows that I was producing. So it was just like the right place at the right time. We had ramped up the show and at the same time you know, Adam Curry was a fan and a great supporter who had done PodShow and was instrumental in actually creating the RSS with Dave Winer.
So he was you know, a real leader in that whole industry and having him behind us and you know, he would do the daily source code podcast and mention us and you know, it was just – it was a mix of several different elements all coming together and it’s such an exciting time although what happened was the show got so popular that we started to do it as a business. We decided to sign on with PodShow and make it an income generating thing with sponsors and – but it didn’t really work too well with Mary and Karla. We had some conflicts with you know – because we’re just doing it as friends and just having some fun. So we ended up not doing that show anymore because we couldn’t really work it out as a business because it – you know, transitioning from a fun thing to a business is sometimes kind of tough.
Now at the same time, we started ramping up another show called Rumor Girls with Karla and her sister Karen and we went to PodShow and we said you know what we really focus on this show now, you know, can we work up a contract and have this be our show that we’re going to work with PodShow with and they said great. They said whatever you’re producing, we want to be a part of it and I said the same thing. I said you know what; I want to be a part of PodShow as well. So then we had a great run of at least 3 years or so. We did multiple versions. We did an audio version called Rumor Girls Uncut. We did the video version. We did an HD version. We did Rumor Girls Diaries which was the – you know, the girls just doing their own show through you know, a basic webcam and it was you know, it topped the charts all around the world. We had great sponsors, we had 20th Century Fox, [Splendor], Shell, GoDaddy, you know, it was awesome. It was a lot of fun.
Mike McAllen: And that must be very cool too because you can just focus on your own – just the production and of the podcast and not have to worry about the business side of trying to get sponsors and things. They take care of that for you.
Franklin McMahon: Yes and you never know what’s going to hit and that’s you know, one suggestion I would give to listeners is that you know, at that time there was this podcast site called Odeo and you might remember it.
Mike McAllen: Yes, yes.
Franklin McMahon: And it wasn’t that successful. They were kind of doing a lot of the same things that PodShow was doing and then iTunes took off. So you know but the company started this little side project, it was called Twitter and you know, it was just this little fun thing, they were kind of goofing around with it on the side. So Odeo, they ended up selling that and of course Twitter you know, really took off and that’s the same thing with you know, my show is you know, Media Artist Secrets, I was – it was fairly successful but nothing nearer Rumor Girls and Media Artist Secrets was you know a lot of planning, I would really write scripts and give great advice and stuff and then on the side out of this fun thing with two girls chatting for 10 minutes …
Mike McAllen: Right.
Franklin McMahon: … and that’s why it really took off. So you never know. You have to have a lot of irons into the fire and you know, you never know what the public is going to go for.
Mike McAllen: Yes always a pretty face works though, Frank.
Franklin McMahon: That is true if we’ve learned nothing else from podcasting. So Rumor Girls was one of the most popular. What else have I done? Secrets of Second Life and what else have I done? I have to look.
Mike McAllen: Did you [cross talk] photography, one or two or no?
Franklin McMahon: I did one called pod model which – it was one of the first enhanced podcasts. Enhanced podcasts are back in the day were – it was an audio podcast but it had visuals. So you would see a picture come up and you could time it. You could actually time it to go along with the music and that was pretty cool. We did ShowGirls which was a lot of the principles in PodShow. We had Angie B. and Kelly Lewis and a bunch of – and Soccergirl all doing kind of a similar to this weekend tech although we talk about news stuff and we’d sit around a round table and just discuss stuff and of course CreativeCOW which has been very popular as well.
Mike McAllen: Would people Skype in for that round table or was it – were you actually all in the same place?
Franklin McMahon: We’d all Skype in and we had different time zones and it was tricky. I think we had about seven or eight of us and those you know, all of these are still in iTunes. You know, we had Kelly Lewis and Cher from Rock and Roll TV, Rumor Girls, Angie B. and – I don’t know. It was just awesome. It was just kind of a great way to kind of pull together a lot of the, you know, people who had been really successful in PodShow and get them together and talk in a round table discussion.
Mike McAllen: Now you’re still working with PodShow or is that …
Franklin McMahon: I am actually, yes. With as far as Rumor Girls, we actually – we decided to take a break and this was now a year ago or more because we ended up getting very busy with a lot of our own personal projects. I mean we all worked and have careers and stuff and you know, we – almost we’re going to decide we have to quit all our you know, careers and do Rumor Girls full-time but we said you know, let’s take a break and plus, we we’re getting a little burnt out, myself especially because we were producing like four or five different Rumor Girls shows and it was such a huge part of our life. I was like let’s take a breather because we went over 3 years with no breaks. We just – we recorded every single week and travel …
Mike McAllen: Wherever you were.
Franklin McMahon: … oh yes. So we took a breather and then we just got busy. We have not gotten back to it as of yet. That’s the thing we need to do a triumph of return but you know, we’ve all been busy and you know, that show has really helped me a lot with you know, working with my clients and getting the word out for the stuff that I’ve done. You know, I mentioned in podcast books and a lot of people come to me as one of the, you know, podcasts.
Mike McAllen: That’s right.
Franklin McMahon: People know, you know, what they’re doing just because I’ve been in it so long so …
Mike McAllen: Yes.
Franklin McMahon: … yes.
Mike McAllen: I remember you winning the big award with that first Podcast Expo.
Franklin McMahon: Yes.
Mike McAllen: You guys won like best something rather but for Media Artist Secrets you won, right?
Franklin McMahon: I won for Media Artist Secrets. I think we won for ShowGirls actually. I think we won – I forget what year it was but that show was very popular so yes, it was a blast going to the Podcast Expo. We’d go there every year or the New Media Expo and it was great to you know, to talk and you know, talk to you for example and meet you and meet everyone every year who had been doing this stuff …
Mike McAllen: Right.
Franklin McMahon: … and had been in that world and you know, trade stories and party and check out the events and stuff. So it’s very fun.
Mike McAllen: Yes, it was the good life. The …
Franklin McMahon: I’m still [hung-over].
Mike McAllen: … yes. It was such a nice community of people because it was small enough where you could really kind of get to know not everybody but kind of got to know people.
Franklin McMahon: Oh and to answer your question, I don’t know if I did. I am still working with PodShow which is now Mevio. I produce content for them and one of the most you know, successful shows is Women of YouTube which is a show that I produce weekly which is a showcase of female producers. It’s you know, some of them are musicians, comedians, and stuff and we’ve been running that through Mevio and also through iTunes for – I don’t know how many years maybe a year and a half. That’s – we’re up to 300 and some episodes or more. So …
Mike McAllen: Wow.
Franklin McMahon: … so a pretty good run. It’s no best of YouTube. That’s like the top of podcast but that’s also produced through Mevio. That’s kind of an inspiration because that’s a very, very successful and – but Women of YouTube is pretty successful too. It’s a lot of fun to produce.
Mike McAllen: Cool, very cool. So tell us a little bit more about Franklin McMahon’s Studio. So what do you do? What’s your unique selling proposition? How do you sell your company?
Franklin McMahon: Well I may – you know, it’s funny because when you read that intro, it’s like how do I boil that down to you know …
Mike McAllen: Yes.
Franklin McMahon: … an elevator pitch but I’m a new media producer and I really work with companies to kind of get their brand out there in unique ways and be a multimedia video, audio, and stuff. I do some social media. I have so many clients that come to me and say, oh we need to get out there with social media and a lot of what I teach my clients is marketing because I think you know, you can get out there with you know, social media and get on Facebook, get on Twitter but it’s very similar to Photoshop and graphic design. People wanted to learn graphic design so they buy Photoshop. So the problem is they’ve completely missed learning you know, graphic design. Typography, color theory, you know, designing on grids, all of these stuff. They kind of think that Photoshop will just you know, show them all that stuff and Photoshop is really a tool.
You have to learn graphic design and then once you get a powerful tool like Photoshop then you’re really cooking with gas. It’s the same thing with social media. You need to have a good plan in place; some good marketing ideas and stuff and then you go to the tools. You go to Twitter and you go to Facebook. I think a lot of you know people, they jump on Twitter. If they have a social media guru who kind of get some set up and you know, they play around in Twitter and then you know, you talk to them 6 months later they’re like, well I’m on Twitter but I’m not really doing too much with it when these are such incredible tools to kind of you know, get the word out. But anyway, I don’t know why I got into that social media sidetrack but …
Mike McAllen: No, it’s true though. I mean it kind of like ties together. So that’s – you’re right. You should have little strategy behind it if you’re going to jump into it. I mean a lot of people like you know, you or me kind of early adopters on this stuff and then we get kind of just rolling along with it but a lot of people like you said just kind of dived in and you know, don’t really strategize what they’re going to do.
Franklin McMahon: Yes. It’s good to have that background. I mean I worked with my clients on really marketing and figuring out what they want to get across and then figuring out how that’s going to deploy. It could be via photography, web design, I have several web designers that work with me and you know, if a client comes to me and wants a site, they want video clips; we’ll shoot the video, audio podcast or video podcast. So a lot of it is getting the message across for clients making sure that their story is compelling because we want to go beyond the normal – you know, you’re on the social media stuff, you got the website going, you know, we wanted to be personal sometimes.
Quite often we position the people as an expert on their topic and get them producing a show that draws a big audience into their brand and this is something that’s very new to a business as they’re usually focused on their content and their widgets that they’re selling but they, you know, they should stop and say you know what, I can really spread the word and help people and get some information out there and that’s when – a lot of the people who are successful in the web, almost all of them have been giving out a lot of advice and info in creating a real community and that’s definitely the way to do it these days.
Mike McAllen: Sure, sure. So I see that you’re one of the stars of Willard Beach TV. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that. I read you know, I watch the show too. I hadn’t heard of it until I looked through this to do this interview.
Franklin McMahon: Yes.
Mike McAllen: And then I saw that you are Sebastian Couture and …
Franklin McMahon: Yes.
Mike McAllen: … and I wonder is it based off the real Franklin McMahon? Did you sell a bunch of Apple stock at the right time and now living a life of luxury and all this media stuff? It’s just you know [cross talk] kicks.
Franklin McMahon: It’s just a blurry line. Where did Sebastian start and Franklin begin? I don’t even know but it’s nice of you to put actor in my bio because I – you know, I’ve done some stuff for fun in the past and – but I always thought that you know, it would be very tricky to learn a lot of pages and pages of dialog …
Mike McAllen: Yes.
Franklin McMahon: … and they did auditions for Willard Beach and the address is WillardBeach.TV is the website and they’ve done like several seasons. Kate Kaminski and Betsy Carson are the producers and I went to the audition and I actually – I’ve known them a while and it was an improv audition. I remember it was like a blinding snowstorm, they did it down the street at this bar called The Empire and I walked in and I said you know, I’m here to audition. I didn’t know what I was doing but apparently I nailed it because they did cast me and I am this character and actually next month, I’ll have some more episodes that would feature me. The one that came out this week actually depending on when you’re listening is it features me yelling at my pool guy which is pretty interesting.
Mike McAllen: Yes [Indiscernible] [0:26:20].
Franklin McMahon: But the whole story is very organic because all the dialog is improv. It’s very similar to Curb Your Enthusiasm. So, you know, we have a basic idea of what’s going to happen and I only mentioned Curb Your Enthusiasm because that seems to be exactly what they do. They have a couple of plot points that they know are happening but the rest is all improv and that’s what the dialog is and it’s very refreshing and freeing and very creative and I would you know, mention to any creative artist is to get into some of these other areas that you’re not familiar with like acting because you really get a hold of the creative process and I’m so used to being behind the camera and directing and checking with the audio guy and saying action and do another take to be in front of the camera where I have a lot less control. I mean I have control over my own performance but you know, I’m not really worried about where the camera is or the lighting and stuff. You know, you’re very vulnerable but it’s also very freeing and it’s very interesting to be on the other side of that type of production and I think that helps me grow creatively just trying stuff like that. So …
Mike McAllen: Sure.
Franklin McMahon: … but it’s a lot of fun. So …
Mike McAllen: That’ so cool. Yes. That’s great. That’s a great advice to try new things basically.
Franklin McMahon: Yes, why not?
Mike McAllen: So can you give us some tips or tricks for creatives maybe helping them in some way to become a better?
Franklin McMahon: Let’s see. Well I would say, you know, we use the term you know rock star a lot in business, you know. That guy is a real rock star and you know – and I just did a blogpost about this recently and I got a lot of good response and you know, it’s embracing your ego. A lot of creative people are wired to be very humble and the thing I learned years ago, the most important thing was to be shameless because I grew up like most creative artists, being very humble about what I do, very low key, you know. If I get compliments, I’d say oh well you know, thanks anyhow and they’d say you’re awesome. Your stuff is really great and I’d say oh you know, it’s okay. So – but I found that I was really downplaying my craft and downplaying my work and it wasn’t working to my advantage. Certainly not to grow a business and then I figured out if I kind of amp up my ego a little, promoted myself a little bit, get out there a little bit and really talked highly of what I did, that confidence really instilled a lot of great stuff with people I meet.
So if I would meet a potential client, they would get very excited because I was so passionate about what I was doing. And instead of being like you know kind of a wallflower and hanging in the background, I was more out, front and center and I ended up doing a lot of speaking, public speaking on this stuff that I do which is extremely helpful. That’s another thing that kind of get out of your comfort zone and just to kind of actually you know, speak about what you do because you’re going to learn by teaching and the more you teach people and tell people, the more you kind of learn about yourself.
But you know, kind of position yourself as a rock star. Start to really play the role. I mean you know, if you’re in a band – I mean if you look at some of the big bands over the decades, some of them are not – especially Vantastic. I mean their music is okay and I just read an article about Kiss – not to dump on Kiss because I love Kiss and man, they – if anyone is, you know, a benchmark for branding and marketing, it is Kiss and Kiss is – they’re an okay band. They’re trying to get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and you know, there are some – the board members are like wow, you know they’re not very good and that maybe the case but man, they bring it.
Mike McAllen: Yes.
Franklin McMahon: They perform, they work it, they market it, they’ve been doing it for decades, and that is something to learn from, you know. It’s like really work it because talent is kind of a smaller part of the equation. If you have that tenacity – I remember an interview with Paul Newman in the After Studio, when Paul Newman first started, he was very – I mean he’s always been handsome but he was kind of a pretty boy and very handsome and was not that great of an actor. So they asked him, you know, what was your secret and he said tenacity. He said he just kept going at it. He kept pushing, he kept going forward, he became a better actor, and that really worked for him because his looks were actually working against him and he would actually get mad at other actors who were way more talented at acting but were more demure. They didn’t really push. They kind of you know, waited for auditions to come in. They didn’t really you know, get out and market themselves. So embrace your ego and become a rock star is one tip I would say.
Mike McAllen: Yes. That’s great. That’s a great tip. Great, great. So what’s next for you? What’s on the horizon for Franklin McMahon?
Franklin McMahon: Well a lot more you know, doing productions for clients, ramping up Media Artist Secrets, the video podcast, expanding the blog. I want to you know, get some guest posters in there, you know, get people really – you know, kind of starting a discussion. I want to kind of open it up to maybe have some message boards and some ways to kind of interact on the website. I think you know – and doing a lot of video production. I mean that’s really ramping up substantially. I’d love to get back into doing short films or a series. I’d like to do a continuing narrative for the web or for broadcast which is a series which I’ve done years ago in cable but do that again because I love working with characters and scripts and actors and stuff. So a lot of that and a lot of podcast production. Like I said, I have a lot of great clients and a lot of people who come to me to do podcast consulting. If they have any questions, they’ll come to me or if they want me to produce stuff. You know, it’s just a great way to kind of get the word out about everything.
Mike McAllen: Yes, fantastic. So where can people get a hold of you? Where can they find you?
Franklin McMahon: I have two websites, FMStudio.com is my studio site which has all the you know, services and stuff and things that I do and some bio info. You see a lot of my photography. I do fashion photography. We didn’t really touch on it but I’ve been doing that for years and it’s fantastic. I love it and the website has a lot of that and it has a lot of my writing from different magazines and stuff. And then my blog, FranklinMcMahon.com has you know, articles, video, everything designed for creative career inspiration but I’m finding a lot of business people are visiting. You know, they’re just regular business people. They’re getting a lot of inspiration from it. I mean it’s geared toward really ramping up your career making sure that you get out there and you know, exchanging ideas and stuff. So FranklinMcMahon.com is the – you know, the main thing I’m focused on with you know, helping people.
Mike McAllen: Yes.
Franklin McMahon: I want everyone to be a big rock star and have a big career and you know and make sure they’re very successful and have abundance.
Mike McAllen: No, I do. I love reading your blog and I also love – like I said, I love the Media Artist Secrets and I think my career really was stalled when you stop to doing that because creative inspiration is lost.
Franklin McMahon: Oh no. I’m sorry.
Mike McAllen: So that’s – you have to keep that in your mind when you think I have nothing to do with this week. So …
Franklin McMahon: Now, I have the pressure. Now I have to keep you motivated. That is my inspiration. I’m inspiring people but my inspiration is keeping Mike motivated.
Mike McAllen: All right, Frank. Thank you so much for talking with me today and …
Franklin McMahon: Thank you. I had a great time. It was a lot of fun.
Mike McAllen: … and hopefully we could do it again.
Franklin McMahon: Yes, definitely anytime.
Mike McAllen: I’m sure you have a lot of cool stuff will come out of the Franklin McMahon Studios. So …
Franklin McMahon: Yes and I love to chat, as you can see so, anytime. I’d love to come back.
Mike McAllen: All right. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.
Franklin McMahon: Thanks.
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