Business for Self-Employed Creatives

Fernando Delgado is an Emmy Award-winning audio consultant and owner of Stickman Sound in Las Vegas. He's an audio expert who truly loves what he does, and he recently developed a remote recording solution that allows people to stay home without sacrificing sound quality. He also happens to be a great human in general with some wonderful business advice.

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Connect with me through your favorite platform: https://pods.link/aardvarkgirl

Connect with Fernando:

Stickman Sound

Instagram @stickmansound

Twitter @stickman_sound

Facebook @stickmansound

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00:23 How Fernando started his career in TV & Film audio. "I think the sound thing really just came from my music passion. I had planned on being a recording engineer, a music engineer. It just didn't pan out that way."

03:27 About mentoring others: "The people that helped me helped me by sharing what they knew. I have found over the course of my career that you get better at what you do when you can explain it in a way that somebody that doesn't think like you understands. Teaching has been a big part of who I am as a professional, selfishly so that I can understand what I'm doing even better."

04:52 On sharing opportunities with others: "I don't consider my peers to be competition, I just consider them to be my peers."

06:29 The great feeling that comes with turning down work that you don't connect with personally. "I actually wish that I had achieved this state of mind years ago, because I think I would have found happiness, like real happiness a lot sooner in my adult life as well. Today, my kids are older, and I feel a personal sense of responsibility to work on stuff that makes me prideful, so that I can invest myself into it a little bit more. And I also care about, you know, when my son asks me what I did today, I don't want to be embarrassed."

10:18 "If you're at the very beginning of your career, be frugal. The better you can be with your money, the more you can wait for those opportunities that you are really hoping for."

12:24 Adapting a business to the changing world & industry.

14:49 Using challenges from the pandemic to create a new remote recording system that allows people to get the same quality sound they need without having to have an engineer in the room.

18:11 "We all work in a service business. Our job is to serve the client, and every client is going to need to be served a little bit differently. So it's imperative upon us as being professionals to say, 'Okay, what is it that you need? Here are the skillsets that I have that can solve that problem or bring you whatever that outcome or solution you're looking for.' And that's how I approach every job. I think that's also why I'm so versatile and can bounce from one area of television to another."

20:36 Dedicating time to spend with family: "I know a lot of people have suffered with their relationships. I have not. We're closer today, I think, than when we met, which is amazing, because we've been together 21 years. And I'm closer with my kids. I know my kids, like what they're into and how they're doing. And it's not just a quick side conversation anymore. That's been great."

22:26 "I treat my engineering like a lot of people treat the gym. I get up in the morning and I'm doing gear exercises, and I'm always trying to learn new software."

25:03 "If you're a business owner, you need to be money smart."