The Buttoned Up Podcast | Best Practices For A Modern Entrepreneur | Interview with Antonio Centeno

This post is an interview transcript. Click here to listen to Brock’s interview with Antonio Centeno over at The Buttoned Up Podcast

Brock: We’re with Antonio Centeno founder of Real Men Real Style. Antonio, thanks for coming to the show.

Antonio: Hey, I’m happy to be here, Brock.

Brock: So, I know you told your background and your story on other interviews or podcasts before, but for people who don’t know you, can you give us the cliff notes like what were you doing before you started your business and why did you choose to make the transition to self-employment and building a business?

Antonio: Well, that all started on a planet named Krypton. And, I have launched into space and… [Laughs].

No, it didn’t start there, but, no, you know for me it – I fell into space, I came in got a fancy degree MBA out of Texas. And I thought I’m just going to get into the men style space. I like suits I thought I would go in kind of more as a mercenary I saw an opportunity. And when I mean mercenary I mean the sense of I just saw an opportunity, I thought I could go in.

I had met a custom – a traveling custom clothier that told me he was making about $300,000 to $400,000 a year working six months out of the year. And, he had a fourth-grade education in India and I was like, you know, if I take my fancy degree and I go into this industry, it seems like it was just being run by a lot of people that I just didn’t necessarily think saw the big picture.

So, my first company, Tailored Suit was what I try to grow and I realized very quickly, it’s a very hard industry. And there were a lot of reasons that things were done in a certain way. But, you know I was able to make a go of it. It ended up not surviving and I ended up shutting down that business, but from the ashes kind of like the Phoenix, I realized you know I’m pretty good at creating content and I’m pretty good at you to know even getting in front of the camera, I didn’t mind giving presentations. I love actually giving presentations to people.

So, I’m like what if I turn this into, you know, because the one thing I did create out of the Tailored Suit was my marketing company, Real Men Real Style and that was the reason that company existed is I couldn’t afford to hire a legitimate marketing company, so I’ll create my own and just have two jobs and I found that I was pretty good at it.

And a guy named Brett McKay reached out to me with the Art of Manliness. He said, “Hey, you’re a pretty good writer. Can you come write for me?” But, what Brett didn’t know was I hated writing. And, I would write, but it wasn’t something I really enjoyed or wanted to do. So, after I’d written, you know, probably close to a hundred articles on men style, I was pretty burnt out on that and just started making the video and the video really took off.

Now, the articles did fine and Real Men Real Style was getting good traffic, is the sense of a blog, but it was going into YouTube that we really started to get noticed and get picked up. And now, I’ve kind of created the entire Real Men Real Style brand.

And my — what separates me from all the other guys out there is really we cover the basics and we do it on multiple platforms in a way that I never talk down to men, I always assume that you know, they’ve got a great skill maybe in computer programming or maybe they’re really good, you know, and maybe they are scientists and they study how to purify water. So, they’re really smart in some ways, but when it comes to clothing and style they don’t know anything. And in fact, they’re maybe intimidated or they’re turned off by fashion and I try to make it relevant and I try to make it right brain.

So, I use science and I have a background in Evolutionary Biology and I use my background as a former marine to leverage military history. So, I make it relevant, I make it acceptable, and I make it something that they actually enjoy starting to learn. And then, boom, I, you know, from a guy that used to hate style, now all of a sudden you’ve got a guy that’s dressing better than anyone and he’s getting compliments, he’s getting people come up and ask them how did you, you know, how do you put this all together. And at that point, he just points them right to my website.

Brock: Nice. That’s awesome.

Was there like a conscious transition point where you were – because I know you started Real Men Real Style as like a content marketing platform for Tailored Suit. Was there – was that a long transition or was there a point where you’re like, okay, actually Real Men Real Style is more of a lucrative business or more what I want to do compared to the tailoring business?

Antonio: Well, I think the, you know, the point is you keep hitting your head up against the wall and you realized that you’re making more money doing this than — there were – there were a couple of things, but one is when I look at my clothier and I mean we did really well one month. I remember we did well over a hundred thousand in sales, but my expenses were over a hundred thousand. In fact, you know I’d lost ten thousand dollars that month.

And it was little things like that that you’re like I can’t make that up in volume and this is not going to go well versus whenever I started doing my first promotion with Real Men Real Style, I had a company pay me three thousand dollars to talk about a pair of shoes. And I was just like, whoa. And that didn’t require much time or much effort. I enjoyed it and they kept coming back for more.

And, you know, you realized that I can put ten hours in here and I’m making, you know, ten dollars or I can put ten hours in here and I’m making ten thousand. And then, it becomes pretty obvious that path you need to go down.

Brock: Yeah. That makes sense. Yes, the margins on a digital media business are just totally different than the margins on like a physical product business.

Antonio: Yeah. And it’s not like everyone sees success in, you know, those high margin industries. Kind of like with software, you’ll have a lot more failures and it’s pretty easy to get out there and I mean sell one suit and you can make money because you can differentiate yourself you can hassle harder you can talk to more leads. So, they’re different businesses, but what you realize is sometimes it’s easy to do something or it feels easier and it’s not easy for everyone.

Like I said, you know for me to be able to create content to be able to talk about men style in a way that, you know, I enjoy what I talk about. I’ve done a lot of research on this and I can talk about it in a way that enough men find it interesting that I can build that audience and then turn that into a business.

Brock: Yeah. That makes sense.

And so, what you say you transition to Real Men Real Style and you were, you know, really one of the early I’d say, you know, now, there are so many blogs and YouTube channels, but you are one of the earlier adopters of I guess the – the website and YouTube format for teaching about men style. You started to see a lot of traction working with sponsors, you know there’s obviously a bunch of other revenue streams for people to do what we do.

And, I know you’ve – you’ve explored all of them, so was there like any significant turning points in terms of like when you start to work with partners or like at the beginning where you focused on ad revenue or how did – how did the I guess backend the financial part of it work at the beginning?

Antonio: Well, see the first thing and there was a number of aha moments. You know a guy named Pat Flynn introduced me to the idea of selling e-books and what blew me away is selling an e-book that literally cost, you know it wasn’t – it wasn’t a high ticket e-book. My first ebook was seventeen dollars. But, I simply took information that was freely available on my website and I packaged it up and sold it. And I resisted this for a long time because I was thinking, you know, why – I can’t do this to people, that’s like – I mean I just really viewed it as not.

And then, I, you know, I – I just thought that like why would I – something I give away for free, how could I package it up and sell it? And then, I heard the example of a bottled water and I was like, you’re exactly right. And then, I started thinking about when I went to college and how they, you know, I could have bought the books or picked them up from the library for free, but I still went there too because when you go to college you actually get a certificate you actually get access to the professor, you get access to the students and your peers.

And, I realized that education and teaching like sometimes it’s the convenience play. And that’s, you know, somebody just wants this all brought into a PDF download and they also like the idea that they could e-mail us maybe get some support some help or be able to answer specific questions and get kind of ushered to the front like the VIP experience.

So, I sold that e-book initially for seventeen bucks, then I increased the price at twenty-seven, then thirty-seven, then forty-seven. And then, we went back revamped it turned it into a course. And to this day, I sell that course for a hundred and ninety-seven dollars every single day.

And, you know it’s amazing when, you know, those sales happen and you realize, wow, that’s – I mean it’s not easy money, but it is because it’s been built off of the back of, you know, a year’s worth of work. But, when it starts to work, you realize that there are many different ways to monetize and to grow the business.

Brock: Yeah. That’s amazing.

Yeah. It is – I’ve heard people used the analogy of like athletes getting, you know, pay a lot of money for sponsorship and it’s like or you know say for one like a boxer being paid, you know, fifty million dollars for one fight. They’re not being paid for that two hours in the ring, they’re being paid for that thirty years of hard work you know and just happens to be culminating in that, you know, that one experience, so.

Antonio: Yeah. And the risk of the fact that only one out of thousand or one of, you know, ten thousand ever even get to that point.

Brock: Right. Yeah, exactly. So, it’s not – and that’s kind of what you’ve done you’ve built this basically encyclopedia online of-of men style advice and lifestyle advice and you know how you have options in terms of how you monetize it.

Antonio: Yeah. I mean it really just comes down to, you know, how can you find a way to provide value to – at the end of the day, you know, everyone freely gives me the money to purchase any of our products any of our advertising any of our – attend any of our events.

And, what people don’t see is all the times that we fail like nine out of ten times like I just had to close down one website that we had started – a question and answer website I started probably like four years ago, five years ago and I finally just shut it down even though it was getting a little bit of traffic, it just wasn’t worth the upkeep. It was getting, you know, filled with – like it was just getting penetrated by spam bots and stuff like that and like crypto trading stuff. I was just like kill this thing.

But, you know it – no one really talks about it, you know they see the victories and people hear about the success. But, you know as an entrepreneur, you’re going to start like most things you’ll try to – try to, it will not work out. And you just got to have the thick skin to keep moving on and realize that that failure doesn’t define you. It just kind of lets you know that, okay, that path at this point in time doesn’t work.

Brock: And so looking back now, I mean if you had to start over if you have to give advice to somebody just starting who want to be a constant creator or you know an influencer, do you think like creating the digital product is still a lucrative option? Do you think people should try t build a reputation online and work with sponsors like do you have any – any advice or any pitfalls you might try to avoid if you had to do it again?

Antonio: If I had to do it again, immediately I would say go find a problem a burning bleeding neck problem and find out, you know if the person you can solve it for has money and is willing to spend that money. That’s it. You know it’s not – I’m not going to tell you to go create, you know, everything changes and you can’t like – what I did in 2007, what I did in 2012, and what I’m doing in 2018 in making money they’re very different and things will change.

It used to be, you know, blogs were huge. And then, it became like there was a wave of, you know, the YouTube video, you know, has become huge. There was a time that you know, Tumblr was huge. And there-there are all these shifts. I get excited about seeing new things. Just, you know, watch – and I like to watch what my kids are getting into. My daughters love Musical.ly about a year-and-a-half ago. And I remember just seeing this thing, I’m thinking this is going to be big. Sure enough, you know that company got acquired I don’t know for like how many billions.

And, you seem like what it is people are on that’s – that’s the way that you reach them and then you figure out, you know, like what are – what’s the problem that I can solve for them that they’re willing to pay for because there are lots of problems that people have that no one is willing to pay for. And that’s what I see a lot of people go down there like they get passionate excited about something and then they realized no one is going to pay for this.

And, they put a lot of time a lot of money a lot of effort into it. Nope, you know, find out what that burning problem is. Don’t worry about the scale at this point, but find a way to solve that problem where literally people are throwing money at you to solve it and then you know you’ve got something.

Brock: Yeah. I like that.

One thing that seems to – that you seem to be good at or have maybe learned to do is to basically outsource and, you know, empower other people to do things that you either you don’t want to do or maybe that they’re better at and focus on the things that only you can do. And, that seems really hard and I’m mostly talking about myself here, but that seems really hard to do especially for like, you know, solopreneur types or entrepreneur types because it’s hard to let go of things and obviously you have to have some money if you’re going to pay somebody else to do some things.

So, how did you – do you have any tips for that just kind of offloading some of the tasks and hiring people?

Antonio: Well, I would say that you know, create a – create a list of things that you should not be doing, things that are – and put in – so, I put a thousand dollars an hour is what I rate my time at. Now, I don’t pay myself yet a thousand dollars an hour, but it’s something that there are just things I don’t do and I will just, you know, Tim Ferris I think said it like let little bad things happen. And, you know just realize, okay, like they’ll disappear it’s not that big of a deal.

But – but identify the things that you’re doing and, you know, that you just shouldn’t be doing, you know, that are hundred dollar issues or ten dollar issues. And I know it’s hard to hand off those hundred-dollar issues when you’re barely paying yourself ten dollars an hour. And I’m not saying do that, but I think it was in the book was it the Ent – the E-Myth Revisited which is kind of a hard read and not the best one, but it does have one amazing point – it has quite a few amazing points, but, yeah, I’m hard on that book, it’s great book. But, you know, there was one part about creating the organization chart before you have the organization.

And, you layout exactly where you envisioned things and be honest with yourself because when you start a company and you’re one person, you are the CEO you are the president, but you’re also the janitor and you’re also the computer repair guy and you’re also customer service. And so, lay all that out there and then look at where are you’re spending all of your time and you probably shouldn’t because initially you’ve got to – you’re probably not being the janitor much because I would rather answer – I wasn’t — like my office was, you know, or my home where I was doing the work was kind of – well, it wasn’t too bad, my wife is very nice was coming in and helping me clean.

But, I just realized, okay, that was my hack has I kept it in my house because I couldn’t afford an office. But, I quickly identify that I was spending most of my time, you know, in customer dealing with customers — customer service and engaging with them. I wasn’t thinking too much about strategy and you see you realize that you have a limited amount of time and you’ve got to focus in on initially your high-value things which for a lot of bootstrappers because you don’t have funding money is to actually get those sales in and then-then deliver those sales to keep the customer happy.

But, at a point, you start to actually make a little bit of money after, you know, and not everyone, some people will fail, but they fail quickly they move on. But at some point hopefully, you start making money and then, you start to say, you know what? I put some money aside and say it is worth me because I’m so – this thing is so painful. Like me answering phone calls, it interrupts my day and, you know, selling people on this, I need to hire a salesperson. Salespeople are one of the best people you can hire initially because they could sell your product.

And I tell you, you know, Terry and Bryan Adelman over at Menfluential Media was one of the best moves me and Aaron Marino ever made because those guys are working hard. And I write them huge checks – commissioned checks, but you know what? It doesn’t matter because they sell me better than I could ever myself and they are amazing. And I just found that I did not like to sell my services. I don’t like going back and forth. I don’t like having to try to convince somebody why I’m worth a certain amount for advertising and they came in and, boom, they solved that problem.

I hate it dealing with the tech issues. I remember one Christmas, this was back in 2008 or 2009, our website was hacked and it was Christmas morning and what was I doing? Christmas morning, I’m dealing with a hacking issue and it just ruined Christmas for me. And I’m like after that, I hired my tech guy, Yuri. And, you know, me I’d known Yuri for awhile, he was not a trained tech guy, but he’s smart. He’s a music major and I find certain people especially people that studied music actually can put together patterns deal with complexity. And so, he just – he’s like, hey, you know, you pay me good and you’re a nice guy and you’re a friend and, sure, I’ll do this work.

And then, it turned into, now, he’s full time for me and, you know, he’s been with me for, gosh, I’ve known Yuri for fifteen years, but he’s worked for me for a decade now. And, because he came in and he solved that problem and he grew into the role. And, I’ve actually got a list right now of like ten frustrations and I’m going to do a video of like what frustrates me and I’m paying bounties on people that could help me solve these problems.

Brock: That’s awesome. I like that idea just making a list of things that you shouldn’t be doing and then just tackling them one by one. It’s almost hard to prioritize that list.

Antonio: And it doesn’t have to be an employee. You know I know we’ve worked together because I didn’t want to write something and I try I’m like, you know you’re a good writer, I’ve got, you know, some extra money, you know, it’s like, yeah, I mean, yes, I’d like to keep it myself, but it’s like it’s worth me paying you to do this writing and you already know and I’ll pay you to set amount for this project. So, sometimes it’s, you know, just project-based.

But, I do like to eventually hire people full time because I want one hundred percent of their attention and I find that part-timers like you can hire someone, you know, at fifth – for twenty hours a week, but you only have twenty-five percent of their attention.

Brock: Interesting. Okay.

And have you hired usually people that you have met through other channels or, you know, people overseas or like how-how do you hire people?

Antonio: I reach out to my list. That’s always great – to reach out to your audience reach out to people that follow you already. But, we have – we have gone through a different recruiting services especially I use Chris – Chris Ducker’s virtual staff finder I’ve used over in the Philippines to find people. I’ve hired – I just ask people on my team if they know anyone great. I’ve used like I said I’ve actually used like where I talk to a group of people and just say, hey, like this one is a little bit hard to find, I’m willing to pay a thousand dollars referral fee. If I end up hiring and they work for me for a month. I’ll pay you a thousand dollars for referring them.

And, that gets a lot of people motivated because it’s pretty easy money and all they have to do is check their Rolodex and makes some great introduction.

Brock: Yeah. That’s a good tip.

And how do you manage because you have virtual people, you have part-time people overseas people in different time zones. How do you manage all of that, you know, versus the traditional set up of just having people in the office with you?

Antonio: Well, I try two things traditional. I mean there’s a reason that traditional set up work and that’s because everyone sat down and was in and around each other and work almost had to get done or you know they’d find ways to not do the work. But, what I do is, you know, one, I’ve – I have meetings. We have a Monday and a Wednesday full team meeting, everyone no matter where you’re at in the world. I’ve got Philippines, Ukraine, Canada, Texas which is kind of a country in of itself.

And, you know, just all over the place. I’ve got El Salvador, I’ve got my people. And we meet virtually for fifteen minutes twice – twice a week for fifteen minutes. And I keep the meeting short and it’s really that meeting is about big company direction, what we’ve got going on and it’s like we all let them know like they all know I’m not working tomorrow or I’m taking a family day.

So, you know it’s like things I’ll talk about that. Or if I let go of somebody, I’ll tell everyone why, why that happened and kind of explain it there, so they hear from the horse’s mouth. So, that’s only thirty minutes out of my work day I keep those two meetings. And everyone needs to be a hundred percent attendance rate.

Next up, I’ve got a specific team meeting and I always keep my meeting short. I try to like keep them standing too like I try to actually stand during my meetings so that reminds me that end this thing quick. And I go in and we’ve got a content team meeting, I’ve got my managers meetings and you know each of them fifteen sometimes longer sometimes thirty minutes, but-but I try to keep them – I’d rather have a few more meetings and keep them shorter than have like big long meetings.

And the way I look at it is for like heartbeats and the faster – if you got a high metabolism you’ve got a higher heartbeat usually. And that’s the way I look at it. I think I picked this up from – who is it? Verne Harnish? Verne Harnish, he talked about this in Scaling Up that basically you got to have that quick heartbeat and you got to have them, you know, have the company going like that.

Brock: Okay. Yeah. That makes sense.

And do you have any like software or tools that you can’t live without that helps you manage all of these?

Antonio: No, not really. I mean I wouldn’t say – I wouldn’t say I live without. I do not like to be dependent on software, but there is software because it changes and you got to find different dynamics. But, I will say that we-we use Skype for mostly one-on-ones. We use Zoom for our group meetings. I like Zoom because I can see the video and I want – it had – it was more – it was really a lot better than when we used to GoToMeeting and I did not like – I am very frustrated with GoToMeeting. But, Zoom, I’m very happy with.

I use a piece of software called Brightpod and it’s not – I never hear anyone talking about it. I think it’s based out of India. But, I love it because it had a calendar function which is a publisher. This was big that we had one calendar where everyone could go in and it only had our publishing schedule and nothing else. And so, we use this, you know, Brightpod works really well for us. And that’s pretty much, you know, and I – I try to keep things really simple. We use Google Docs still, you know, then – they’re great for sharing, but they can’t get overly complicated.

And, you know, we do have company standard operating procedures. I make everyone create a checklist of what they do. The incentive there is if you – everything you do is systemized. You can actually go on vacation because somebody else can cover your job, you know like little things like that are my incentives for getting people to do what I need them to do.

Brock: Yeah. I was – I was just going to ask about that because you seem to be first of all very family-oriented. I know you have kids and you spend a lot of time with them. And you guys also travel quite a bit and that seems to – you seem to be able to, you know, keep the place spinning while you’re traveling and while you’re hanging out with your family. So, is that mostly just because at this point you’ve kind of got the system down?

Antonio: Yeah. You know it’s never down, it’s constantly – everything changes. It’s constantly evolving. Just it’s — it’s like your car, you know once you get the car clean within a week or two like somehow it got dirty because you live in if you work in it, things happen. So, you’ve got to constantly run that thing to the carwash, you got take and clean it out yourself just because – just by stepping in you bring in dirt off the floor, just by eating in it somehow, you know, French fry got stuck, you know, on the side, you know, near — inside the bucket seat.

So, you have to, you know, this is something that’s ongoing. It truly never does end, but then you realize, hey, I can bring in somebody who can manage the systems of the company at some point. Probably not, you know, I’m not at that point yet, but I do expect to get there.

Brock: Yeah. That’s awesome.

Yeah. Switching gears time, but it’s actually funny time because today, you published a video that I contributed to on your channel and at least at, you know, the day that we’re recording this. And, you know, it was cool because, you know, it gave you a little bit of content, but also obviously gave me a lot of exposure because my channel is a little bit smaller. And, I think that kind of speaks to your general philosophy about what you call blue ocean strategy.

Antonio: Yeah.

Brock: Which was like one IBM concept and it’s kind of the rising type social shift type mentality where you don’t see people as competitors, but you know you-you practically work together with and promote other YouTubers and content creators. So, I know you’ve told the story a little bit or talked about this a little bit at Menfluential Conference, but can you talk about it a little bit?

Antonio: Yeah. The whole blue ocean thing, you know, it was two professors that wrote it. They wrote a whole book, but it really was wrapped up in a paper, so you can just do a quick Google search and find it.

But, the idea of it is that you can have a – like there’s red oceans and blue oceans. Red ocean if you can imagine there’s a whole bunch of sharks fighting over, you know, very limited food and they’re even attacking and killing each other. It’s just a place you don’t want to be.

When on the other side is this big blue ocean. And for some reason, the sharks decided to go over to the other area where there’s plentiful bounty and it’s just like, wow, like – and – and in fact, like once you go over to that blue ocean you realize that there is plenty for all and it would be great – in fact, you get lonely and you want to invite like select sharks over there so that you all can eat together and, you know, eventually, you know, grow and build up, you know, you know.

It’s just so many – and this changes and it – and it moves and in every industry, there’s a way to do something different that sets you apart from all the competition. And then, you can submit your niche and of course, things will change they’ll evolve, but as long as you keep approaching with that mentality, you’re always moving finding the blue ocean.

Brock: Yeah. I love that – that mentality and it’s been really cool to see people that come together. To me people who have been doing this for a long time at the Menfluential formerly StyleCon Conference, but then also to see people who get into that, you know, get into blogging and YouTubing and content creation or starting a brand and you meet them at – at the conference, you know, then a couple of years later, they have a business you know and they’re doing it full time.

So, I don’t know, it’s kind of funny because at one point I was the new, you know, I was the new guy and meeting you and Aaron and then everybody and now, it’s kind of cool to see some of the other newer guys you know making progress and – and they’re taking steps towards their dreams.

Antonio: Yeah. Yeah. Actually, you were there pretty early. I think you were – you attended VidCon with me and Aaron pretty early on, so.

Brock: Yeah. That was the first one on the backroom of a brewery.

Antonio: Yeah. Yeah. And now, as you see it just keeps growing every single year. I think we’re approaching – we’re, you know, God, we’re easily going to zero in on three hundred fifty people this year.

Brock: That’s awesome.

Antonio: Yeah. It’s going to be good.

Brock: So, other than the conference which is, you know, growing and something you’re actively involved in, what are you really excited about this year for the next couple of years with the Real Men Real Style or, you know, if there’s anything else that you’re doing in life?

Antonio: I’m trying to have a little bit more fun with the videos. You know so I think fun is something I’m trying to interject into the business. At the same time, I’ve got some challenges, you know things are changing and I felt that I systemize things to a point that – and then I took some time off, I mean I was traveling six months last year and my business made more money than it’s ever made. I made more money than I’ve ever made.

And everything was good except that I feel like I took my eye off the road a bit and now I’ve got to kind of correct it over because I can see that long-term things are going to be changing and I need to make sure that the car and make sure that everything is pointed in the right path. And part of that also is, you know, upgrading my business in the way it’s set up and looking to bring and create a team that is long-term sustainable. Ideally, a team that I walk into the room and I’m – I’m not the smartest guy in there or I am just simply kind of a fly on the wall being in awe of the team I’ve brought together and what they’re able to do.

Brock: Yeah. That’s cool. And do you think things are changing with the platforms or with the industry or in your life or I mean any – any other details or thoughts on how the landscape is changing?

Antonio: Well, you know it’s I would say that you know, interaction, you know e-mails – e-mails open rates are down. That I’ve seen that across and I’ve talked to guys like Derek Halpern, I’ve talked to my friend Kelsey Bratcher, you know over at two good – I think it was two gun souls – Two Guns Marketing. He was Infusionsoft marketer of the year.

So, seeing, you know, talking to these guys about what they’re seeing there, seeing that, you know, you know, over – overall open rates and just engagement for audiences hasn’t always worked out super well or has gone down. You know little things like that, I’m like, okay, I need to figure out new ways to better engage and to grow. And I’ve got – personally, you know, it’s like I have certain – I view them as like problems, but I also view them as challenges like how can I go in there and figure this out.

Brock: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve noticed that too with my e-mail list and I’ve – I was trying to figure it out, I was like is it the topics that I’m covering, my subject lines or you know, but, no, it seems like people are a little less interested in e-mails these days.

Antonio: I think that – I think that you know, what we’re seeing is it’s really reached a saturation point where people are just overwhelmed. There is too much out there from videos to podcasts to every platform.

So, what you’ve got to ask is that’s the reality, what can I do to shake it off to break out of it – and I realized it’s – it’s probably become more remarkable and, you know, it used to be remarkable was nice, but now it’s almost becoming mandatory.

So, there’s still like I get e-mails from Seth Godin and I still read everyone because his e-mails are remarkable. You know there are certain people who I continue to stay in touch with and follow because they are that good. And that’s what I’m realizing that if I want to stay on top, I’ve to become that good.

Brock: Yeah. That makes sense.

Is there anybody – is there anybody else like Seth Godin who you really look up to and follow consistently and maybe recommend to other people look to for advice?

Antonio: Well, if they’re a business owner, definitely go check out Andrew Warner over at Mixergy. His stuff is amazing and he interviews just all these great entrepreneurs. You know there’s – I’ve just actually talked with Yaro Starak. You know he’s out in Hawaii right now and you know he’s been doing this online thing for twenty years. And he runs Entrepreneurs Journey, amazing guy.

And what I, you know, talking with him we were at a conference in London together and it’s just interesting because he’s – he’s been doing this for twenty years online and he’s very – had — very, very successful. But for him, he watches these trends and these – things go in in cycles and he’s already seen three cycles. There is the internet 1.0, internet 2.0, and now, we’re kind of going into a new one and you’re seeing what was new or what was old is now new again. And it’s like things are reinvented but in a different way. And you see some people go under and you never – they never really regain their footing. Other people are very good at recreating themselves and kind of popping up there.

So, I plan on being one of those guys that’s very good at recreating themselves. I had some success with internet 2.0 and I’m looking at with internet 3.0 being really at even a higher part in this wave that’s going to be happening.

Brock: Nice. Awesome.

Cool, man. Well, we’re excited to see what you do with the business and everything else going forward and we’ll link to all of your various properties in the show notes. But, where – where should people go if they want to get to know you?

Antonio: Just type in Real Men Real Style or Antonio Centeno, they’ll find me.

Brock: Cool. Well, thanks for coming on the show.

Antonio: Yeah. Good to talk to you, Brock. Take care.

Thank you for listening to the Buttoned Up podcast, a collaboration between Jon Shanahan of the Kavalier and Brock McGoff of Modest Man and we’ll see you next week.