Streamlining Your Freelance Workflow: How Mike Cervantes Manages Thousands of Projects Per Year

[00:00:00] Brian: Hello and welcome to the six Figure Creative Podcast. I am your host, Brian Hood. If this is your first time listening to the show, first of all, welcome. Thanks for joining me on the show today. This podcast is for creative freelancers who are trying to earn more money without selling their soul. If that sounds like you, you are in the right place.

[00:00:15] Brian: Unfortunately, you're on the wrong episode. This is a part two of the conversation we had last week with Mike Cervantes, which is a multi six. Freelance master engineer. Wonderful conversation. Got a lot of great feedback from that. Mike is a long time listener to the show. Well, it was like a two hour conversation that we had.

[00:00:29] Brian: I don't know what it got edited down to timeline-wise, but it turned into two part episodes. So this is the continuation of last week's episode. So if you didn't listen to that, go listen to episode 248 before you listen to this episode or else it just kind of comes on in the middle of the conversation.

[00:00:42] Brian: Not the smoothest transition between episode to episode, but what can you do when you're in the middle of a, a long, great conversation. this episode we talked more about the system side of things. Like how does he actually. Run his business from a system standpoint, especially as someone who is already making multiple six figures a year and somebody who is still on pace to grow an additional 40% this [00:01:00] year, that's a big growth spurt for somebody who's already at multiple six figures.

[00:01:03] Brian: It's not that big if you're only doing like 50, 60,000 a year. Although it's, still pretty decent growth for anybody, but especially for somebody already doing multiple six figures. We talked about the systems he's using for that. We talked about the future we see for his business and we also even talked about whether or not he can become a one person seven figure freelancer. fascinating conversation, in my opinion for my audio nerds. We also get into the weeds a little bit with sodium atmos, which is just definitely not something we never talk about on the show.

[00:01:27] Brian: Never having the past, I don't think. But for select few of our listeners who are the audio nerds from our background, you'll love that part of the conversation. life update really quick. Been in hardcore hiring mode for six figure creative right now.

[00:01:37] Brian: We just hired, a full-time person who starts, yesterday by the time this episode airs. They should be the first day Monday, and then there should be a new job, description up for another position that we're hiring for. If you are somebody who is amazing at sales, Talk to me, go to six figure creative.com/hiring.

[00:01:54] Brian: That should forward to whatever position we're open, that's open right now. Um, maybe if you're listening to this episode, years in the Future and we're not hiring for that role [00:02:00] anymore, hopefully that page will still forward to something that has jobs that we're hiring for. I still have this to hire for and one or two more positions to hire for this year, and then probably even a couple more by the end of the year.

[00:02:10] Brian: So this is a big growth year for Six Figure Creative. If you're interested in working here, awesome company, awesome founder. Hi, that's me. Uh, just go to six figure creative.com/hiring. I will say this, hiring is a lot of work for somebody who has like avoided hiring full-time people avoided, really scaling the team out for way too long.

[00:02:26] Brian: it's been a huge detriment to my growth. And again, something I wanna talk about more and more, as I learn more about actually growing, managing, leading a. That's an area that I'm growing with personally right now, and I'm learning a lot in that area. So I'll have some stuff to talk about there, especially as I learn things the hard way, which I tend to do.

[00:02:42] Brian: So again, if you wanna work for a six figure creative, I'm hiring for a sales rep right now. Somebody who is a great people person. Somebody who is, a natural salesperson, someone who's preferably sold a lot of products or services in the past. It starts as part-time. If you're good at it, it pays incredibly well, probably about a [00:03:00] full-time income from part-time work.

[00:03:01] Brian: if you can hit your KPIs, but again, just go to 600 creative.com/hiring if you're interested in that. if you're not interested or if you've already applied, let's move on to my conversation continuing part two from last week with with Mike Cervantes of the Foxboro Mastering Studio. I'd love to know some things around capacity management. as a freelancer who wants to make more money, not just you, just all of us, there comes a time where we hit the top of, the top of what we can reasonably handle.

[00:03:24] Brian: And then we go above that and then we start dropping the ball. We start letting people down. We start hurting our brand. We start putting bad taste in mouth, potentially ruining relationships. and I'd love to know how you look at capacity management because you've scaled every year.

[00:03:38] Brian: You said you're up like 30, 40% this year compared to last year. You did really well last year. So I'd love to know like how do you gauge what is considered like an appropriate capacity for someone like you?

[00:03:48] Mike: to start, I guess it's taken some time to figure out, my personal capacity of what I feel comfortable doing every day and, when I can legitimately feel good telling my wife, you know, I'll be done at six or six [00:04:00] 30. Which is, you know, when I try to be done.

[00:04:02] Mike: But, with that though, as a business that grows, you're always gonna experience growing pains and there's another one coming around the corner every year, every month. There's always something going on.

[00:04:13] Mike: So, currently. I mean, I feel like every year I always tell myself I'm maxed out automation wise. I can't think of anything else, and then soon enough I think of something new and then we get it figured out.

[00:04:24] Mike: Trello is like, what I truly look at every day, just all the automations we have in there so we don't drop balls. that, and tons of zappier, zaps. I mean, that's, truly what it is. You know, Inside of my Trello, we have two different columns, basically what's been booked and then projects that are ready for mastering.

[00:04:42] Mike: What makes a project ready for mastering is, if we have the file. so if we have the mix file, then it goes in that column. But once it goes in that column, it automatically organizes it based on the deadline date. So that way if I'm looking at my calendar and it's [00:05:00] full of all this stuff, I can at least go to Trello and say well, what has to be done today? And then it will tell me exactly what needs to be done today. And then that way I'm always, getting stuff done that needs to be done today. And the reason why we created that was because I was getting super busy and for whatever reason, this one day, it was a Friday, of course, three quarters of my day was working on projects that weren't even due.

[00:05:24] Mike: it was one of those, like, super busy weeks. close to the 80 something song week. we got through the whole day, but there was this one thing where it was like, oh shoot, he's actually due today.

[00:05:33] Mike: It's six 30. We just gotta get it done. And I just did the project for him. He was super happy and we, we were able to get it across the line for him on time. But just systems, systems and, having an assistant was really, great for me. Especially when my daughter was born.

[00:05:49] Mike: That was unbelievable. I think not having assistant now it's a little bit more freeing for me because I don't have to manage somebody else to do tasks that, you know, I [00:06:00] can do myself. But because I know my personal limits now of what I can handle in a day, you know, and especially being a dad now, that's a whole different life having to do that after work, and be a husband.

[00:06:12] Mike: So I'm just a little bit more conscious of when I should do something, how I should do. I'm kind of a morning guy. I don't mind getting up at four in the morning. So if I know I have a bunch of files that are just sitting in my Dropbox don't mind getting up at four and just working on stuff.

[00:06:27] Mike: I love coffee, so getting up to just drink a cup of coffee sounds pretty awesome. There's many ways to do it, but I could probably count on, four fingers, the amount of times where we've had to reschedule somebody because there's just not enough time. And what's funny about that, not to go back to analog, but that's when I was working in analog I just couldn't do all the print time, you'd be working on an album, it's a Friday, and then that guy calls and he just wants a little bit more bass or top end and it's like, well dude, I have [00:07:00] to print this other album, you know, or all these other projects and then I have to print your album, this is gonna take so much time outta my day just to print.

[00:07:07] Mike: So, that was, one of the many reasons why I decided to really switch Back to All in the Box because workflow. Just keeping everybody happy.

[00:07:18] Brian: And having multiple rigs in the box is not nearly as expensive as having multiple rigs where you have racks and racks of really expensive gear That's where the ROI and having a second rig is not quite as appealing as just having a second computer with a second set of plug-in licenses,

[00:07:34] Mike: that's actually something that I considered doing with analog was buying a whole second rig because I really did like my analog gear. I had, you might have to pull the gear slot alert out on this one, I had some, uh, spectrasonics comp limiters and I had, a lavry gold and, really nice cables and it sounded fantastic and everything and, putting, the prices together, it was like, yeah, you know, this would make sense to have a second [00:08:00] rig.

[00:08:00] Mike: You know? I could probably do it. but another laundry list of reasons why in the box just made way more sense. And quite frankly, it sounds better. So eat it. Analog lovers.

[00:08:13] Brian: So you mentioned, um, using Trello as a way to kind of gauge your capacity. So you set it up to where like, this is the stuff I have to do today and it's organized by due date, so I know kind of how to prioritize my day. Do you have any other kinda like systems or rules in place that are like helping you monitor your workload?

[00:08:28] Brian: Like I will only allow up to 30 songs in a day, anything past that and I have to turn it down, or I will only allow a certain number of songs in a week, or I put it all on my calendar. That way I know when I've hit capacity. Like Is there anything around that and if not, have you thought about moving forward as you grow and scale what that might look like?

[00:08:44] Mike: The only thing that's monitoring it is me because personally, that's just the best thing. just my mental capacity as well. I had a business manager a couple years ago that, you know, was Remo and they did a great job, shout out to Jim. And one of the things that they [00:09:00] started doing was like I would leave the studio and see that a bunch of people book stuff for the next day.

[00:09:06] Mike: And I had a mental idea of the order of my day the next day, and then I'd come in the studio and it was completely like organized the wrong way. it was very early on in our relationship and they didn't really know all this stuff, but it was just kind of like, I need to be able to do this because I just know what's going on a little bit more. And I know the client I know that this guy has a writing session at noon usually. So I need to get him a master before that so that he can do his writing session, but they didn't know that.

[00:09:34] Mike: They're just thinking, oh, we can do it in the afternoon. So with Jenny, that's one of the things that we're going to lead into, is managing some capacity. And, she's definitely in this role for the long haul and having her kind of know the clients even more on a personal level, is the goal to help with all that.

[00:09:52] Brian: I would love to talk a bit about sustainable growth you've mentioned you did multiple six figures last year. You're on trajectory to [00:10:00] beat that by 40% so far, Q1 this year. And I'd love to know like how you think about planning to sustain this, kind of high volume business model long term.

[00:10:08] Brian: Like any challenges you foresee how you tend to address those? Like how do you expect to keep this up for the long haul? Cause that's part of your success by the way, like you are successful as you are because. You have not been distracted by shiny objects like a lot of us are, myself included. You're a customer of a couple of my shiny objects like FFA I see you in the long haul in this role, but how do you keep up the sustainable growth so that you don't plateau, you don't burn out, et cetera.

[00:10:31] Mike: You need to love what you do every day, and you need to love the people that you work with. And that is how you will sustain this. if you keep loving it and having passion for it, you're just gonna keep delivering good results and treating people right. And again, I hate to beat a dead horse here, but it seems to be the theme of what I'm saying is just, treating people right, doing good work and people will keep coming back.

[00:10:56] Mike: that's as much as I'll share of what Hank told me. Not to say that there's [00:11:00] some, secrets that I'm not gonna share, but that's the gist of what he explained to me. And I think that was really good advice. And again, I'm still that advice.

[00:11:08] Brian: I mean, that's fantastic advice it's in line with what I've heard other people with long successful careers, and I think the second part of that's probably harder than the first part. I think a lot of people listening to the show, they already do what they love. this is why the sign behind me says it takes more than passion and I refer to that sign all the damn time because we all come into this with a passion first approach.

[00:11:27] Brian: then we get slapped in the face of all the logistics and the realities of running a real business, especially as we get more and more successful that second part, making sure we work with people that we enjoy, We forget that because we see the numbers going up into the right.

[00:11:40] Brian: We see the income going up into the right, we see the lead generation and all the, effort and activities we've done finally paying off. And then we find that we slowly lose passion for this. And I've seen so many people burn out that are eventually successful in their creative field because that second part, working with people that you enjoy being around is ignored.

[00:11:57] Brian: You fail. I'm not saying you, Mike, I'm saying you, the listener, [00:12:00] the other people listening to the show right now, you failed to reject those who are not a good fit for you because you can't turn down the money even if you don't need it. for some weird reason, whether it's like money issues in your head from your upbringing or childhood, and you just can't ever say no to money or whether it's, you don't wanna let people down.

[00:12:17] Brian: So you don't know how to say no to people. Whatever the reasoning is, you start taking on more and more of those projects with those clients that wear away at your soul. And that is the fastest path to burnout and career stalling. So I think that's wonderful advice. I do have a second kind of follow up question to this It was kinda like my question around challenges you foresee in the future.

[00:12:35] Brian: I cannot see a future where AI isn't affecting the mastering world. It's already affected the low end of the market you know, if you're the cheap, fiver mastering engineer, you're getting swept away by things like lander.com, which is like the big AI mastering, it's been around for years now.

[00:12:51] Brian: It keeps getting better and better and better. How do you see yourself dealing with those sorts of challenges in this industry?

[00:12:57] Mike: Ai and I have swung fist with each [00:13:00] other a few times here, and I'm happy to report that I haven't lost once. And in fact, it's happened a few times where I've delivered a master and the client was like, oh man, you totally beat Laar. And I didn't even know that they had done it before.

[00:13:15] Mike: So, I've been thinking about this for a little bit kind of my answer to it is, I think right now with AI mastering, if it was that simple, then mixers could. Which don't get me wrong. And I'm not trying to offend any mixer who's really good, cuz I work with really good mixers where I've just added half a percent of what was needed.

[00:13:36] Mike: But I heard it from somebody say, as long as there are basket weavers in the world, I think there's still gonna be mastering engineers, like real mastering engineers.

[00:13:46] Mike: So I kind of feel, the same way. You know, I think we're still gonna be around. I think the other part of it too is atmos, it's a new thing, a good phrase somebody said is immersive, audio is the future.

[00:13:58] Mike: whether it's for video [00:14:00] games or music, I think it will be there in some existence. Whether it's, the only thing is really the question on everybody's mind in the music world right now. With that being said, it's a pretty complicated beast and I feel like if AI can't still beat us in the stereo world, I don't see them beating us in, more complicated world like Atmos.

[00:14:18] Mike: So I'm gonna stop throwing shade at AI mastering. But, I think AI in general, the chat G b T thing has really made me think a lot about a lot of different things going on good and bad. but yeah, I guess that's of my answer right now.

[00:14:35] Brian: So you see yourself being willing to pivot to other things if needed, like doing mastering for video games, mastering for movies, mastering for other things, if for some reason. The music industry or some of these other areas that might not have the budgets start being cannibalized by AI or something like that.

[00:14:50] Brian: You see yourself willing to make those sorts of moves.

[00:14:52] Mike: Yeah. I mean, if I have to, I don't see AI taking over just quite yet for mastering at least.[00:15:00] I mean, I, I understand what they're doing. you know, I understand like the logic behind it because of a number of things, but, I think the question, in everybody's mind right now is Atmos, as opposed to, is AI gonna replace me because. Sure there's a lot of possibilities with ai, but I think in the engineering world, I think it's more of is Atmos really gonna be the next thing? And the only thing, I think that's the, the bigger question in everybody's mind right now. And it's the bigger question on my mind to be quite frank.

[00:15:26] Mike: Just because that is a huge hurdle. That's a whole new world. Just doing the little bit that I have done in Atmos. and to be quite frank, nobody's really figured it out for music. my realtor, he was an audio engineer, very talented And you know, he was like, Hey, what's the deal with Atmos?

[00:15:43] Mike: You know, kind of Came at me like Jerry Seinfeld style and, it was just like, what's the deal with Atmos? Like, why does it sound so bad?

[00:15:49] Brian: I am glad he asked that cuz I've, thought the exact same thing to myself.

[00:15:53] Mike: there's good things about Atmos. I will absolutely say that but there's definitely a huge laundry list of things that [00:16:00] needs to get figured out. And time's just gonna tell whether or not those things get figured out and whether or not that's the future for music.

[00:16:07] Mike: And again, that's the question on everybody's mind. Is it gonna get figured out? You know, Is it gonna start sounding good? Is it gonna be the thing that we all have to buy? 12 speakers, at least, you know, and if you're not doing it, are you gonna be replaced? That's really where the fear is, is like, if I stand here and stick the stereo until I die, will I be able to retire in the music industry?

[00:16:28] Mike: That's really a, big question on people's minds

[00:16:31] Brian: for our non audio and non-music listeners, can you just do a quick, like atmos for dummies, what that is so people kind of understand what you're saying here.

[00:16:37] Mike: yeah. So Dolby Atmos it, it is for movies, so it's something that, you know, you can go to a movie theater and see like Ironman hear him fly across you, it's been around for a number of years for movies, but it has now, over the last two years, been more popular with music if we think about regular music, stereo is just left and right. [00:17:00] Atmos is actually seven speakers around you, the minimum seven around you, four above you, and then a sub warfare channel. So that it is immersive 3D audio So everybody's thinking, oh, that's surround well, Surround was just speakers that were around you.

[00:17:15] Mike: But adding height channels allows you multiple phantom centers and object points to be a three-dimensional world of audio. To really hear it that way for music or movies, you need to be in a room like that with a lot of speakers or set up something at home. There are sound bars that will shoot sound from your soundbar to the ceiling and make it sound like atmos, but it's not true atmo still.

[00:17:41] Mike: And then on top of that, apple has what's called spatial audio, which, AirPods can do. And that is just another thing that I call it like extra juice that Apple puts on your experience of hearing atmos. And it's kind of a [00:18:00] mystery of what it's doing. Some people have worked very, very hard to figure out what's going on with it and this is one of the things to point out, like on the laundry list of things that need to get figured out, is that, you know, when I deliver an utmost master deliverable, it was mastered to be.

[00:18:18] Mike: Per the Dolby Specks. So it sounds the way it does, just the way it does. But when it gets played on Apple, it will sound different in the headphones, which is not, 7.4 0.1 or 7.1 per four. It's just on your headphones. It's in Boral. So it's trying to sound like real atmos. But when we're doing a master in Atmos, or you know, if somebody's doing a mix in Atmos, you kind of have to play a weird fine line of like, I needed to sound like the original mix, stereo mix, but then I have to listen to what it would sound like in Apple Spatial.

[00:18:53] Mike: Therefore I have to make decisions based on that. So there's really no like, what are we aiming for?

[00:18:59] Brian: this is my hot take.[00:19:00] It reminds me of like early in the music days, everything was mono. It was just one channel and everything was panned to one channel. So all drums, vocals, bass, guitar, whatever.

[00:19:09] Brian: Instruments back then were on one channel and it worked fine, but it really lacked any separation whatsoever. And when they launched stereo, which is like you have a left speaker and a right speaker, which is what almost all audio you've probably ever heard in your life or most audio you've ever heard in your life is mixed to you have a left speaker and a right speaker, which actually gives you essentially three channels.

[00:19:27] Brian: You have the right left and you have the middle. And it took a long time for the audio industry to figure out what the hell to do with that. It was really stupid early on where you'd have all drums panned to the right, all bass guitar panned to the left. because they're just trying to figure it out still.

[00:19:40] Brian: And now we've really have a really standardized way of how we mix audio in a, stereo space where you generally. Certain elements to the right and left. You have certain elements in the center and it's pretty well standardized.

[00:19:50] Brian: Well, don't have that in Atmos yet, and this is a huge side tangent to the general business discussion, but we still have a lot of audio engineers in our Audi, in our, uh, listener space, so I'm willing to talk about it. [00:20:00] So it's probably gonna be a while before we figure out where do things even go in a huge space when it comes to music, and then how is that processed for other consumption on other devices?

[00:20:09] Brian: So there's a lot of unknowns there. Atmos aside, where do you see yourself and your business kind of growing to in the next five to 10 years? are there any other services and things you wanna kind of explore in the future?

[00:20:19] Mike: No, I mean, I think, kind of where I'm at is sitting and processing what's gonna happen with Atmos. Again, I don't want to talk too much about it, but that is where things are at right now. kind of The future for me at least is, Jenny has become the manager.

[00:20:33] Mike: she started her role here it's a very exciting time for someone to take over that part of the business. we have actually just started the very beginning process of buying land to build a home. that is where I will be building hopefully the last studio. Maybe not. We'll see, the last iteration of the Foxboro, which will be a very nice room.

[00:20:56] Mike: where I see. Taking me is just, working there and, whether it [00:21:00] is an atmos or just stereo forever, you know, that's fine too. It will be wired for Atmos. It'll be ready for that if it becomes the thing. And maybe I will have an assistant again soon.

[00:21:10] Mike: Not too sure about that yet. whether or not that assistant becomes another engineer just kind of depends on a couple, game plans and ideas I have for the growth of the Foxboro.

[00:21:20] Brian: you don't have to answer to this, but do you see yourself getting to become a seven figure mastering studio with a single engineer just yourself, the future? Or do you think you have to hire additional engineers for that?

[00:21:30] Mike: I would absolutely have to hire someone else to do that. I think it is possible based on, one of the meetings that you and I had just kind of talking about stuff really put the possibility in my mind. And yeah, I would absolutely have to have somebody help me, whether it's assisting or doing more mastering too.

[00:21:50] Mike: it's pretty crazy, like how there are so many mastering engineers that are still so busy, you know, and there's so much music. I heard a number of how many songs get uploaded to [00:22:00] Spotify every day.

[00:22:01] Mike: And it's like, it's an absurd amount songs and, I think there's plenty of room for more growth here at the Foxboro and, and more people.

[00:22:09] Mike: I can definitely handle it and I think especially with my team, which is just me and my manager, I think we can handle it

[00:22:16] Brian: Google says it's anywhere from 50,000 to a hundred thousand songs per day on Spotify being uploaded. So just gotta capture a relatively small amount of that for you to be a seven figure mastering engineer.

[00:22:28] Mike: I think the question too is do I wanna be, that's another question that I've asked myself is as cool as that would be, sure I could handle it and we, could handle it as a business, you know, a studio. think the question at that point is like what does that mean?

[00:22:41] Mike: Does that mean I have less time with my family, less personal time? Am I gonna be more stressed? Is my work gonna suffer? if we're going on the theme of the Dead Horse, I'm beaten. That's a huge reason why I am talking to you, you know? Or even, doing what I'm doing is I'm doing great work and I'm [00:23:00] doing everything I can to get better and better.

[00:23:02] Mike: But if I am boggled down so much, to hit that goal, you know, am I gonna be able to repeat it again? those are questions that go through mind when I think about the possibilities of the foxboro and then of course it's like, well, would have to hire somebody,

[00:23:14] Brian: I think the entrepreneur space, not enough people ask themselves the question of do I actually want that? this is like the unofficial tagline, or one of the unofficial taglines for this podcast is like, Our goal is to help you make more money without selling your soul.

[00:23:24] Brian: And I feel like at a certain point, growth for growth sakes as a creative freelancer is essentially as close to selling your soul as I can imagine. Only because it directly opposes your mentor's advice, which I think was very great advice, is doing work you love with people that you love. And I think if you were just trying to scale for scale's sake, and you just want to hit that seven figure number, so you can say, I'm a one person mastering engineer studio that broke seven figures in a year, then you're gonna have to take on a lot of those projects that you didn't wanna otherwise take on.

[00:23:50] Brian: Or if you have the mantra in your head that I have to grow every year, I can't have a down year, or I can't have a sideways year as a business because if you're not growing or dying, that's, I think, a pretty [00:24:00] toxic way to look at your business as a freelancer. Because at a certain point, we have to say, enough is enough in that we are happy with where we're at.

[00:24:07] Brian: And that the endless pursuit of bigger and better and greater and higher and more and more and more and more and more and more is not always the best thing for our mental health, which means it's not the best for our businesses because as freelancers, we are our business. It's not the same in other businesses.

[00:24:22] Brian: Apple is not one person. Spotify is not one person. It's thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people make up that business. And if one person is unhealthy or if a lot of people are unhealthy, they can just churn the person out. They're not productive anymore. Let's bring some new fresh talent in, right?

[00:24:37] Brian: But it's freelancers, this one person. Who's in charge of our futures. We have to really protect that one asset of ourselves. So I think you're asking the right questions, Mike, and that's, a very mature way to look at it.

[00:24:47] Mike: I have something to admit is that I am actually towards the end of listening have a hard time reading books and finding time to read books, but I am listening to the E-Myth Revisited right now and I'm kind of like [00:25:00] kicking myself cuz I wish I would've read it years ago. it's an incredible book and I really, really do encourage anybody who's, at that point of before they're scaling or just I, I think anybody in any, part of their entrepreneur journey.

[00:25:11] Mike: But it's made me realize like, yeah, you have to have a team if you want to grow it. And it's very important to make sure that everybody has their role and they know their role and that you stay out of someone else's role And I've seen that, you know, when there's too many cooks in the kitchen and, with my manager Jenny coming on board recently, that's like the third iteration of that role.

[00:25:34] Mike: you know, we're gonna just nip it in the bud. And I, completely believe in her that she's the person for this. but in the other iterations I've been in and out of it and it's gotten chaotic and, it's almost turned into just let me do it. But, like you said, apple, it's just not one person.

[00:25:50] Mike: It's tons of different people. The Amazon Prime experience is unbelievable, but, having some knowledge of the logistics of FedEx, I kind of understand [00:26:00] like what's going on at Amazon Prime, like how it's all working together. And it, it just fascinates me how those systems work.

[00:26:06] Mike: Watching, the movie the Founder about the McDonald's story whatever that dude's name was, I mean, that's, pretty cool to like, see how that kind of worked out. And like, you know, even they talk about it in the EMyth Revisited, the idea of building a business like that.

[00:26:20] Mike: I'll tell you what, if I hit seven figures on my own as the only seven figure mastering engineer, which probably I wouldn't be the only one, but, you'll be seeing me probably like on a hospital bed or something like that at that point I'd be like, Hey guys, I made it.

[00:26:35] Brian: Retired early by medical decision.

[00:26:38] Mike: Yeah.

[00:26:39] Brian: I love that you're finally reading that. Any service-based business out there who is doing well, especially high volume business model. Like you, Mike has to read this book, and I cannot believe you haven't read this yet, because we've mentioned it. It's probably one of the top five most mentioned books in our podcast backlog.

[00:26:55] Brian: And as someone who has said they listened to every episode of the podcast, I cannot believe you've made it [00:27:00] this far. We're 248 episodes in, you're finally showing up on that podcast and you're just now listening to that damn book.

[00:27:06] Mike: let me tell you

[00:27:06] Mike: why, though. Let me tell you why I postponed it because this is really dumb cuz it said it was written in 2004, but I have read and listened to How to Win Friends, which is such an old book, you know? And, that book is incredible too. And I listened to the version, how to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital World, like the, revised version or whatever.

[00:27:28] Mike: The more modern one. But just for whatever reason I was like, oh, this book is maybe a little bit old. And I think I read something on the cover about how McDonald's and I'm just like, I'm not trying to be McDonald's, you know? But I highly recommend it. Just get an audible account, which is what I have.

[00:27:43] Mike: You get a book for free, you gotta turn the guy's voice speed up to 1.3 at least. he's a little slow, but, he's got a great

[00:27:50] Mike: voice at

[00:27:51] Brian: you're used to listen to this podcast cuz I talk faster than pretty much any podcaster

[00:27:55] Brian: I listen to because I listen to everything at two x speeds. just generally [00:28:00] speaking, this is almost always true. If you keep hearing about a business book it's old as you should absolutely to or read that book because that means it has stood the test of time.

[00:28:10] Brian: I cannot tell you how many books come out that are brand spanking new and hot that are forgotten about because they're kind of fluff junk content. So eth Visited and How To Wins Friends and Influence People. Two books I highly recommend. And if you need a little primer or just like a, quick taste of this, go way back on our backlog when we used to be called the Six Figure Home Studio.

[00:28:26] Brian: It's in the same podcast feed you're listening to right now, or it's on the same YouTube channel you're watching now. If you're on YouTube right now, it's episode 110. It's called the four E-Myth Personality Types. Business Owners Need to Nurture or Reign in, and it's super helpful I think for anyone who's kind of like in that place where you're, things are starting to take off and something's not working, and it's almost always one of those first four personality types.

[00:28:47] Brian: It's either not nurtured or it's not rained in. So that's a good one. Maybe we'll bring that back for a replay episode in the near future. So Mike, this is the longest conversation I think I've had on this podcast. I've really enjoyed it. This will probably be turned into a two-parter just [00:29:00] because of the length of it. Where would you like people to go to connect with you, or what action would you like them to take?

[00:29:05] Mike: Yeah, I'm only active on Instagram once a day, so DMing is not really the greatest thing on Instagram, but go follow us at least. if you wanna DM me, that's fine, I'll just understand it'll take some time. And that is at the Foxboro on Instagram. It's F o x B o r o. And then my website, you can go there.

[00:29:25] Mike: It's the foxboro.com. If you want to go to the contact section it's at the bottom of the website, that'll send an email to me and my manager, just so it at least notifies both of us that you've reached out. And yeah, I'm happy to talk to anybody about anything, if you've got a comment about my sweatshirt or you know, my AirPods, if you're watching on YouTube, whatever you want to talk about, happy to talk to you.

[00:29:49] Brian: It's a lovely sweatshirt and AirPods are the best 200 plus dollars investment I've made in the past three years since I bought them the AirPods Pro. All the links that he mentioned will be on the show notesPage@sixfigurecreative.com [00:30:00] slash 2 48.

[00:30:01] Brian: Just the numbers 2 48. And that way you can just click the link in there to go to his Instagram or click the link in there to go to his website. And you don't have to like thumb through your fat fingers trying to type out, a full URL or a full search in Instagram cuz he'll typo it I'm sure. But Mike, it's been a pleasure.

[00:30:14] Brian: I'm glad to have you on and we'll have to have you back in the future. Okay, man.

[00:30:17] Mike: Please do. Thank you.