How to Go from Creating on the Side to Earning Millions with Sponsorships -Justin Moore is RightOffTrack | Anya Smith

Anya Smith (00:01.693)
Hey friends and welcome back to RightOffTrack, the podcast that dives deep into the untold stories of those who've dared to venture off the beaten path. I'm your host Anya Smith and today we have someone who's not just walk the walk, but also talk the talk in the world of brand sponsorships. Meet Justin Moore, the sponsorship coach and the mastermind behind Creator Wizard. This is a man along with his incredible wife April.

who has turned the art of brand partnerships into a multimillion dollar canvas. You know how some people have snack for something? Well, Justin's got a knack for making deals that don't just pay the bills, but fill the vault. We're talking a whopping $4 million in personal earnings and another $3 million for other creators through his influencer marketing agency. But here's the kicker.

Justin's not just another creator. He's been on both sides of the table. He knows why big brand A chooses influencer B and not C. It's like he's got the cheat codes to the sponsorship game. And get this, he's on a mission, a mission to help creators, whether you're just starting out or already a big shot, land one million, okay, sorry, I'm gonna start that. And get this, he's on the mission, a mission to help creators, whether you're just starting out or already a big shot.

land 1 million paid branding partnerships by 2032. So if you've ever wondered why you're not landing those dream deals, stick around. Today's episode might just have the answers you've been searching for. So without further ado, let's welcome the man, the myth, the sponsorship legend, Justin Moore. Welcome.

Justin Moore (01:42.215)
What an intro, Anya. Thank you. Can you be my personal hype woman whenever I come on a podcast or something? That was amazing.

Anya Smith (01:46.073)
Yeah, I love that. Yes, everything is for your use. So feel free to record that, play that in the morning to start your day. But so excited to have you here. And just quick shout out to Tim Beeler for introducing us. He, I call him the strategy detective. He is somebody I learned from a lot. And if you are looking for strategies around social media, his podcast episodes here too. But he introduced us and I saw your content and was thinking, yes, how amazing that somebody talks about this

Justin Moore (01:53.947)
Yeah, yeah.

Anya Smith (02:15.689)
challenging subject and helped others because you and I both know, although I'm much more early in the process, that it's hard to create content and even harder to monetize it. So I'm really excited to dive into this topic of sponsorship and all the ins and downs of it that you've learned about.

Justin Moore (02:33.246)
Yeah, 100%. It's been made a lot of mistakes over the years as you have been in the game first channel in 2009, actually. So almost 15 years. So yeah, every mistake you can think of, we made it. And that's definitely what led us here today.

Anya Smith (02:42.901)
Wow.

Anya Smith (02:50.321)
I love it. And I'm curious, so I know that just, you know, having my husband earn money and myself as well, for me to decide to create content is still risque, right? With kids on a table, it's a challenging move to say, hey, I have this vision purpose, I'm gonna start it out. But the two of you decided to do it together, which is incredible. What was that process like? How did you decide to go and take that leap?

Justin Moore (03:00.012)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (03:14.738)
Yeah, so to clarify, we definitely didn't both quit at the same time. It was very much it was very much kind of a gradual roll out of the of the we're going to do this full time plan. But the quick story is, you know, my wife, April, started her first YouTube channel in 2009. So, you know, again, this was very, very early. This was again back before there was a partner program back before you could make money on AdSense. It purely was for a hobby as basically everyone.

Anya Smith (03:21.145)
Okay, okay, awesome.

Okay.

Anya Smith (03:33.214)
Okay.

Anya Smith (03:38.613)
Wow.

Justin Moore (03:44.494)
who started on YouTube back in the day, you know, that was, it was the passion that drove a lot of the early videos that she made. And so for the longest time, this was not an income generating endeavor. It was very much like, primarily she was stoked to get free stuff. Like, let's be real here. You know, like she had, you know, her channel all around beauty and fashion and cosmetics and all that stuff. And that was her first channel.

Anya Smith (03:49.043)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (04:13.29)
And so initially it was just brands offering to send free products. And, you know, again, we were in our early 20s living basically paycheck to paycheck. And so free makeup is expensive, as you know. And and so she was just like free hair curler, free cosmetic. Sure. Send it over. I'm stoked. Right. And so it really wasn't. And so I was, you know, in the background, she, you know, she was a preschool teacher. I was in I just graduated. And so I was working in medical devices.

Anya Smith (04:23.806)
Yeah

Anya Smith (04:29.49)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (04:39.506)
And so that was like what we thought our life was going to be like that. Truly like that was we never thought that like social media was going to be something we could drive income from. And so it wasn't until fast forward into our journey several years that the first brand offered to compensate her. I was again very much in the in the in the background. But when that first brand came and said, hey, we're actually going to pay you to talk about us in a video. That's when she came to me. And by this time, I was in business school. And so here I am, Mr. MBA.

Anya Smith (04:41.726)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (05:07.862)
I can read this contract. Sure. Let me sure I can help you, honey. Like, I had no idea what I was doing. Like, oh, yeah, 200 bucks, 500 bucks. Sure. That sounds reasonable. Right. And so. And so yeah, those early contracts that we signed, we tried to I remember we tried to ask our family lawyer to like for help. And she was looking at these contracts like, what are you?

Anya Smith (05:17.384)
Right.

Justin Moore (05:29.718)
What is this that you're doing? This is so weird. Like, and she, you know, bless her heart. She tried to help. But again, it was the wild west. No one had any idea what we were doing back then. And so, you know, like I said, every mistake in the book, you know, we would turn on the TV and see April clips from April and of April's videos talking about a brand on a commercial. And we were like, wait, we, we weren't compensated for that and go, but sure enough, go back and look at the contract. And it was like, oh yeah, we signed those rights away for broadcast TV.

Anya Smith (05:52.299)
Ugh.

Justin Moore (05:56.854)
Um, you know, so it's like, I could tell like a hundred stories like that of like all the different mistakes, signing away exclusivity, you know, committing to only work with a brand for free product, you know, like, you know, giving away usage rights, like agreeing to do tons of work for very little pay. Um, and so, you know, just got, just kept learning, learning from these mistakes over and over and sharing these mistakes with friends who we've made in the industry. Um, and, and so again, um, you know, it wasn't until, you know,

Anya Smith (06:00.788)
Right.

Anya Smith (06:11.507)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (06:26.518)
2012 was when we put the plan into place to kind of, you know, we started to make pretty good money. We started, you know, got into the partner program on YouTube, started making quite a bit of money on the AdSense views, then started making brand partnership money. And so my wife quit her full-time job in 2012. And I, again, critically kept my full-time job, right? And so we had the benefits and all that stuff too. And so we enacted at that time a multi-year plan to be like, okay.

Anya Smith (06:48.03)
Right.

Justin Moore (06:56.518)
until I am making at least ten thousand dollars more incrementally on top of my current salary, I'm not going to quit because we wanted to weather the uncertainty. Right. So like, you know, yeah, I could quit and we're making good money. But like, what happens if that our viewership goes down or we're not making as much on sponsorships? And so that was really what happened. So we basically decided, OK, until that happened and if I hit that, I have to quit because otherwise I'm never going to do it. There's always going to be the risk and the

Anya Smith (07:04.561)
Yeah. Okay.

Anya Smith (07:21.937)
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Justin Moore (07:27.286)
Six weeks after my first son was born in April 2014, so I guess June, right around July 1st, 2014, that's when I quit. And it was terrifying on the other. Everyone in our lives, family, friends, they were like, are you high? You're quitting a six figure medical device job with benefits to be a YouTuber? What is wrong with you?

Anya Smith (07:32.479)
Hmm.

Anya Smith (07:52.221)
Yeah. You're an adult.

Justin Moore (07:54.11)
Right. They thought we were nuts. And again, remind you, this was 2014. This was not like today where it's like totally normalized to like be a creator and like make money and do courses and like all this stuff. Like no one was doing really no literally no one was doing. Very few people were doing. We had no role models doing this. And so it very much felt like we were kind of blazing a trail. And so I'll pause there because it's a it's a good story of like, but like really, it was a multi year process that we made this plan to when we both dove in to do it full time.

Anya Smith (08:02.3)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (08:21.969)
And I know your focus is on sponsorship, but could you share a little bit more, how did you keep improving your content, you know, and give us hope, you know, what were some of the challenging, difficult learnings along the way, or the motivators that kept you going through this grueling process, because not only, again, you are having a full-time job, but this itself is a full-time job on top of that. And now you and your wife are doing this content creation, and you're working full-time, and obviously trying to be human, and I saw that, like, what did that?

Justin Moore (08:32.226)
Hehehe

Anya Smith (08:52.221)
process looked like before you became the sponsorship pro.

Justin Moore (08:55.478)
Let me take you back because first of all, I'll say that I think my wife and I have always been hustlers. We look back at both of our childhoods and we were always very entrepreneurial, both of us. Before we were doing YouTube, my wife would go, this would be a thing we would do together, we would go to thrift stores and she would find designer jeans and resell them on eBay.

And I would do similar things like I was an art broker for a while where I would like go and find valuable art and sculptures at garage sales, estate sales, you know, swap meets and resell them at auction houses and eBay. So it's like we were always and this is just like one example of like I did car washes as a kid growing up. Like, so I think a lot of the it was in our DNA, both of us. And so when we like saw some early successes with YouTube and started making a few dollars.

Anya Smith (09:38.257)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (09:44.317)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (09:52.542)
we quickly realized like, wow, this could actually be a thing. Like if we got home from our nine to five and we spent our five to nine really hustling and burning the midnight oil trying to like make this a thing, this could be something, right? So we saw the kernels of success early. And I think the other thing that we both really liked about it was that, you look at the kind of traditional corporate path and it's like,

Your income is relatively capped. Like maybe you'll get the 3% cost of living upgrade, maybe a 5 to 10% raise each year, maybe. The only way that you could ever dream of getting a 20, 30, 50% raise is maybe switching companies. And even then it's like not, you know, guaranteed or anything like that. But with content creation, we were starting to get these very significant check sizes when we were doing these partnerships and it felt completely untethered to our.

Anya Smith (10:24.87)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Moore (10:52.954)
Like what would someone would be considered a normal amount to like make for, you know, like a day's work, right? And so we saw this kind of relatively like there was like no ceiling on our success potential and income potential. And so for us, like that was what got us most like willing to like really put the work in, really grind. And then that and to be fair, it was a grind. It was a grind on you for years and years and years.

Anya Smith (10:59.514)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (11:18.162)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (11:20.458)
You know, it wasn't this like stratospheric rise to like success all of a sudden overnight. We're making tens of thousands of dollars. No, it was like for years it was like 500 a month, thousand a month, which was meaningful. Like, you know, that was groceries. That was utilities. That was like going to rent like and that was super meaningful to us. And it was just it was just we were tickled by that. And so but it snowballed. It very much snowballed because a lot of the fruits of this hard work started to pay off over time.

Anya Smith (11:23.345)
Uh-huh.

Anya Smith (11:33.021)
Right.

Anya Smith (11:48.085)
If you don't mind me asking it, and you might have a hunch, maybe you do have thoughts on it, what drew, what formed maybe this entrepreneurial spirit in both of you? Was it, you know, people around you, was it just, you know, innate? Was it something that you think cultivated that mindset in you in April?

Justin Moore (12:04.446)
It's a great question. So both my wife and I actually had quite different upbringing. My wife has talked about this pretty candidly a lot on her content over the years that she grew up. Times were pretty tough for her family. So she was born in the Philippines, and she moved here when she was two. And assimilating into a new culture when you're young, especially for her mom and everything.

you know, was tough. It was very, very tough. And, you know, it was English was a second language to her growing up. So like in the early years. And so she always, especially when she got older and got to be an age where she could work for herself, you know, she was immediately wanting to work, wanting to earn money, wanted like, it was just that kind of that drive. And so her motivation, I think, was born out of very different life circumstances.

I on the other hand had a much different upbringing. Both my parents had traditional jobs. My dad was an engineer. But the difference is that they owned businesses. That was where it came from for me is that they owned three, multiple different businesses over the years, but mainly three super cuts franchises. And so like hair cutting salons. And so

Anya Smith (13:09.212)
Oh.

Anya Smith (13:17.045)
Okay, that's where your hair always looks great, right?

Justin Moore (13:20.89)
Yes, yeah, exactly. And so exactly. That's exactly what I'll know. I don't I have a barber now. Not I don't go to supercuts, I will say. Actually, the barber, he still comes to me during the during the he comes to my house. Like the pandemic, he started cutting hair like in people's houses. And then it got so awesome. I was like, wait, I could like pay a little bit extra for you to come to me. Like, I'm going to keep doing this. This is amazing. So it's a side story for another day. But but for me, I grew up seeing my parents in these kind of entrepreneurial settings.

Anya Smith (13:26.059)
Oh, okay.

Anya Smith (13:30.18)
Oh.

Anya Smith (13:43.269)
I love it.

Justin Moore (13:50.31)
And so I don't but again, like, I don't know, I always was very fascinated with making money, doing entrepreneurial things. And I think that just kind of carried on into, I think, if I had to pick one common theme for both my wife and I, I always looked at our nine to five job as the side hustle. I always I always thought like, this is just the thing I'm doing to keep the lights on like all these other

Anya Smith (14:12.669)
Oh, I love that.

Justin Moore (14:19.434)
you know, skunk works, you know, side like other things I'm doing to try and earn money. Those are the main thing that I just have to find it, find the thing that's going to hit until I can quit the nine to five, you know, so I never looked at it as like I wanted to climb the corporate ladder. Like I, I don't know. I don't know why, where that came from. But that was always our mindsets.

Anya Smith (14:32.274)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (14:41.685)
I love that because I felt that something was wrong when I was late 20s, early 30s, just waiting for retirement. Like, you know, working, everything on paper looks great. And I was like, okay, I can't wait a couple more decades and then I'll retire and then life will be good. And I realized that sounds crazy. You know, what am I doing with my life right now? There has to be more and not just, you know, as you know, there's so much work that you put in when you create your own content, you start your own thing. But at the same time, it feels

differently. The energy you get from creating something of your own is very different to like you work for somebody else and it's also probably never enough. You're always trying to reach something else, but you just feel probably a little bit different inside because the purpose isn't yours is for somebody else. So I definitely find that even though you probably work hard on both sides, how you feel about what you create is going to be different.

Justin Moore (15:32.626)
100% and I think that there's also a something very special when it's of your own volition and on your own timeline. Like it's very different for someone to tell you this thing has to be done by this date versus you just publish something every week or once every other week because that's what you do. That's what your own schedule that you held yourself to or you have a certain expectation of what you think your audience holds you to.

There's something very magical or different about you creating something from out of whole cloth versus being told what to do, I think.

Anya Smith (16:08.841)
Yeah. And I sidetracked us from the sponsorship conversation because you mentioned here you are an MBA, you look at this and it's a foreign language and you had this aha moment, you saw this dream big moment. What happened then? A lot of people are just like, okay, I'll figure this out and get back to business as usual. How did you decide to turn this into a bigger thing for yourself?

Justin Moore (16:30.582)
So what happened was, again, we've done to date, I think I just invoiced sponsorship number 540 personally, ourselves. So we've done a lot of sponsorships over the years. And so as you mentioned in the intro, been in the trenches basically for many years doing it ourselves, learned so much. But then I also have run this influencer marketing agency for seven years. And really, really quick story of why I started that, 2015,

Things are going really well with our personal channels. But I basically thought to myself, there's no way that this can continue forever. Like things are going well, but like I think it's time to like diversify, right? Like, you know, what happens if we, yeah, like figure out like how we can make different revenue streams that aren't reliant on our personal social channels. And so looked at this experience that we had doing deals and I was like, you know what? I think we're pretty good at this. Like brands keep, agencies keep coming back to us.

Anya Smith (17:11.663)
Like stock.

Anya Smith (17:24.309)
Hmm.

Justin Moore (17:26.97)
And they keep telling us they're like our favorite, we're their favorite people to work with. Like there's something there. Yeah, and so I was like, what if I just helped other creators get deals? Like what if I went to these brands that we were working with and be like, hey, it was so great working with you. Are you looking for more people? Because I also have all these friends that I think would be a great, and I'm gonna manage this for you. Because again, I was in product management, project management professionally, and I was like, I'm good at doing timelines, I'm good at managing.

Anya Smith (17:44.809)
Wow.

Wow.

Justin Moore (17:55.126)
Dead time, you know, the deadlines and all this stuff. So I could probably do that. And so I literally just called up our closest friends on YouTube at the time who were also creators and all this stuff. And I was like, hey, can I bring you business? Like, I don't, I, it's not, I'm not going to manage you, but can I put you in a deck and just say you're kind of like on our roster on a non-exclusively? And they're like, sure, you want to bring me to business? Why not? Like put me in a deck. And, and so I was like, okay. And so I like, that's literally, that's how I got the first deals. And I remember the first time

I convinced a brand to pay us $50,000. I remember that, like very, very like for the agency. And I thought to myself like, and they like wired us the money. And I was like, this is insane. Like they, I guess this business is working. Like it seems, you know, and it was like, I just remember that was the first big check that hit the account. And I was like, wow, this could work. This business will work. And so, and of course that was for like multiple creators and everything, but, and we were, you know, charging a percentage for the management to the campaign.

Anya Smith (18:28.451)
Oof.

Anya Smith (18:53.938)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (18:54.238)
But basically what happened is like I ran this agency for many years and exchanged literally thousands and thousands of emails with creators and realized very quickly that creators, most other creators do not understand how to do this either. That was what I thought that like we had all this experience, but like people were being super unprofessional, not communicative, it was taking forever them to respond. And like that is just like not acceptable, especially if there's like

Anya Smith (19:15.93)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Justin Moore (19:22.05)
thousands and tens of thousands of dollars on the line. And so what happened was, this is a story for another day, but the agency crashed and burned spectacularly right when COVID happened. And had to lay off all my employees. I had multiple full-time employees. It was awful. And I have a whole YouTube video on my channel if anyone's interested, maybe we can link in the show notes. But basically the real aha moment when I was in this kind of lowest time of my life

Anya Smith (19:34.11)
Mm.

Anya Smith (19:43.081)
Okay.

Justin Moore (19:51.938)
the agency crashed and burned. Things were still going okay for my wife and I, personal or personal channels and stuff like that. But I was like, what's the next chapter for me? I really didn't know. But that's when I thought, wow, I have these kind of two experience sets now, being a creator but also running the agency and kind of being behind the scenes in the boardrooms with these big brands and these big agencies and hearing how they're deciding how to allocate a million dollars for a campaign. Like with...

500,000 dollars. I've done some of these really, really large campaigns across 50, 100 creators, this type of thing. It's totally different than like paying one creator like $2,000 or something. Right. It's like so such a different conversation. And so I was like, you know, I think I'm just going to make some YouTube videos like about how to talk with brands, how to be on, you know, how to negotiate, how to price yourself, how to be on a phone call with the brand and be professional and like all these things that I was just like kind of scratching a creative itch more so than anything.

Anya Smith (20:21.044)
Right.

Anya Smith (20:25.458)
Wow.

Anya Smith (20:29.426)
Right.

Anya Smith (20:45.51)
Mm.

Justin Moore (20:47.35)
did not think this is gonna be my new business. It was like, let me just like, I need some creative outlet here. And to my surprise, people liked the videos. They started asking, oh, can you like make another video about this? Can you, they would DM me, hey, I don't have a manager and I have this like deal that I need help negotiating. Can you help me negotiate this? I'm like, can you coach me? Do you have a course? I'm like, what? This is bizarre. And so like it very much was.

Anya Smith (20:53.011)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (21:08.116)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (21:13.758)
born out of just this kind of very organic discovery that people need help with this. They don't, there's no, there's a lot of like, you know, the people who have millions of subscribers or followers, yeah, they have managers, but there's this whole long tail of creators who are, who are maybe not big enough yet to like get to that point, but they need help. They're making money, they're negotiating deals. And to a lot of them, they're, they're shooting in the dark.

Anya Smith (21:33.253)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (21:39.705)
Yeah. One question I had actually, I got it on the podcast the other day for myself and I want to ask you is, how do you, what, what gets people to think big? Because what I see from you is you're always strategically thinking about what's the opportunity. Like thinking big seems natural for you. Like, well, what is the potential? Yes, maybe I'm not there, but you seem to always have it. So why do some people not think big? And how could we encourage other people to think big?

Justin Moore (22:08.75)
I think you need to do inner child work. I'm serious. Like, so I think my ability to think big comes from feeling very supported to think big early in my life. And not everyone has that. I'm very self-aware of that. My parents were always supporting me, always saying, you can do anything, you can do this. Like you wanted, yeah, you know, this type of thing. And, you know, when I say that to people, like I have, like I,

Anya Smith (22:12.199)
Okay.

Justin Moore (22:37.518)
the reaction you just had, like, this is a really hard subject for a lot of people because a lot of people didn't have that growing up or they were told the opposite. Oh, like, you're stupid. You can't do this. You can't, you know, why are you, you know, like, you need to like go into the normal career path. Like, how could you do that? You know, this type of idea. And so one of the main pieces of advice to be able to think big is you have to go back to the beginning. You have to figure out what are my limiting beliefs that came during my formative years.

that are preventing me from thinking big. Because oftentimes it's our inner child telling us, like who are you to like, you know, dream big? Or who are you to try to see the potential in, you know, kind of thinking that you can have a larger impact than just your own little world. And I think that it's not an easy process. It's not something as simple as just journaling for a day or two. Maybe it requires more deep inner work or therapy or.

you're surrounding yourself with people who also think big and can lift you up. You know, you know, the one I've experienced a lot or not, not me personally, but like, you know, I've heard a lot is like a lot of creators don't have a supportive partner like their spouse or their girlfriend, their boyfriend, their fiancee thinks that they're what they're doing is stupid or like they don't support them or they're not making space.

Anya Smith (23:48.586)
Mm.

Justin Moore (24:00.65)
in their life to try to accomplish some of these objectives. And like, that's a really, really tough spot to be in. And I don't pretend that that's a small or easy to solve issue. But like, these are real obstacles that people experience that prevent them from thinking big. And it's not as simple as like, oh, just chat, GPT hacks. You know, this type of thing. It's like, no, like you got to you got to do some work, some inner work to figure out how you can clear space emotionally to be able to think big.

Anya Smith (24:12.262)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (24:22.164)
Right.

Anya Smith (24:28.554)
Yeah. I don't know if this will help anybody, but I recently found that, you know, I had my own inner issues. I was a foreign kid growing up, you know. I don't know what all the work is, but I realized something this birthday that was just in, again, September, a couple of weeks ago, that for the first time, usually on birthdays, I had this birthday blue moment where like I, for whatever reason, looking for people, they're like, congratulations, and I have this anticipation that my husband has to do these extraordinary things.

to make me feel a certain way. And I always feel like it doesn't live up, not because he's not great, he is, but it's just in my head. And I realized this year, this is my own issues, that I didn't have those blues. And maybe it's because I started this entrepreneurial journey and it was to your point of process where not a lot of people see your vision, although they support me just at a high level, like Anya, you can do it, but they don't get it to the same degree that I do. And despite having that, I still took action, still went through self-doubt.

still made it happen imperfectly step by step. And that process built in the confidence to say, it's okay to form your own reality without needing external validation. So sometimes for me, the work is not just going back, but actually actively trying and building something that gives me confidence in myself. And healing sometimes happens through action.

Justin Moore (25:45.558)
Gosh, that's so that's really, really an amazing, you know, self reflection because I appreciate your vulnerability there also, because, you know, I think, I think it's like, uh, people don't, they overlook the fact that being a creator is so lonely. Like it's most of the people in your life, friends, family, real, your real life just cannot, I did like, cannot identify or relate to the, the struggles.

whether it's tactical struggles with like maintaining a content cadence or more practical emotional struggles with imposter syndrome and feeling like you're not growing, just external social vanity metrics and social proof and looking at your peers and comparing yourself and all these things. And so what happens is for most of us who are especially on social media,

Anya Smith (26:35.856)
Ah.

Justin Moore (26:43.83)
The only metrics that we have to judge whether we're worthy or we're being successful is the views and the downloads and the likes and the comments and the engagement. And when the latest piece of content that we share doesn't get that, oh God, I suck. Okay, it's all going down for me. Like I'm gonna, you know, and it's just like this, you know, vicious cycle where you look in the mirror and think you suck. And it's really, really...

Anya Smith (26:52.798)
Mm-hmm.

Anya Smith (27:00.338)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (27:03.76)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (27:14.05)
easy to let that derail your big ideas and your big vision and the impact that you want to have, which is why it's so critical to surround yourself with a community who can help you understand the impact that you're having beyond the vanity metrics. And I think that that's like a really, I candidly, I'll say a surprising thing to me personally, because I've always been, I've all because of my upbringing.

I've always been very uninterested with the external metrics. And I think that comes off, I think. A lot in my content is like, if I let my ego get to me, there was a time where we were getting hundreds of thousands of views per video on our YouTube channel back in 2015, 2016 time frame. If you look at my creator wizard YouTube channel now, I'm getting hundreds, like 500 to 1,000 views. If I let my ego get to me,

I would be like, why isn't people watching me? Like I'm like boohoo, I cry myself to sleep. But it's a real thing. Like if I let that get to me, I would just like not post content anymore because I was too embarrassed. But like those 500 people or those 1000 people, they are like creators. And I'm like actually directly impacting people's lives, their livelihood, their bottom lines, their emotions, their confidence. And I know because people message me, they leave comments, they DM me, right? And so it's like, I think that

Anya Smith (28:15.571)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (28:29.329)
Yes.

Justin Moore (28:40.738)
big part of not burning out and doing this for the long run is finding a way to identify metrics, validation metrics for yourself that are detached from the social platforms. It's a really, really important point.

Anya Smith (28:55.369)
Yeah, can I add to that? The first day the podcast launched was a couple of weeks from now, I had this fear that nobody would care. Like I wanted, I had this lonely sense just in my life that I'm slightly crazy, that I'm always trying to learn and improve, but I didn't necessarily see people quite like that around me and I felt like, oh, if I tell people, like they were gonna feel like I'm trying to be pompous and whatnot. So I wanted the podcast to create a sense of support for people who maybe don't have that media in their life, that there is another way to live.

with their purpose in mind to go outside of corporate, to follow whatever brings them to life. I have my friend who does like a ayahuasca journey, talks about being like on that shaman journey. Whatever it is, I'm not judging, like you explore you. But the podcast is for that. And so, sorry, I lost my shot. So the podcast is around like supporting people on that journey and I lost my train of thought. So I'm gonna go to the next one and maybe you'll come back to me.

One question I also had in mind. Yeah, yeah.

Justin Moore (29:53.026)
Can I actually real quickly double-click on something? I'm totally derailing you right now, but I actually think it's interesting, especially since this is kind of a newer creative endeavor for you. There is one thing that you said to me that really was interesting. It's okay. You talked about your upbringing as a foreign kid, like coming and trying to assimilate into a society and the unique challenges that presents, especially for entrepreneurs.

Anya Smith (29:58.055)
No, please go-

Anya Smith (30:02.633)
Yeah. Oh, yes, I remembered. Sorry.

Anya Smith (30:12.338)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (30:23.41)
Um, that feels like a very, very interesting angle to lean into more because that, that is a, a very unique struggle that a lot of people experience. Um, and so this is completely unsolicited, but if I were you, I would explore leaning into that sub, that topic more because I think there's so many people that can identify with that.

Anya Smith (30:27.56)
Okay.

Anya Smith (30:33.68)
I love that.

Anya Smith (30:40.824)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (30:45.661)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (30:45.858)
the unique struggles that come with that, in terms of your accent and understanding the societal idiosyncrasies and trying to, your name is spelled differently. Or like, there's all these things that normal people, quote unquote, don't have to experience and can't really identify with. So, I don't know, just outside looking in, outside looking in, that's interesting, yeah.

Anya Smith (31:01.533)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (31:05.029)
I know, I appreciate that. Yeah. I appreciate that. I, yeah, thank you. Let me touch on that and then I'll remind you what I wanted to say. On the foreign kid side, you know what I recently had to reflect on is that the thing that I had to reframe in my head around that is that I don't fit in. I don't know if, and people get that from a variety of backgrounds. Like I, not just different schools, but different countries where I had to go back in and in Russia, I was no longer, I no longer fit in because I was an American kid.

Justin Moore (31:22.708)
Mm.

Anya Smith (31:33.901)
In the US, I was the Russian kid. And if we're in other countries, I was whoever. And so I had the sense that I don't fit in. The people don't like me. I came to the US with just my mom. So when I was looking for things I'm going to do in my life, I didn't have anybody who can relate to that experience in my family. I have a very loving family in Russia, but they couldn't relate. How do you choose schools in this country? How do you start a business? So I followed what I saw around me. That was OK, but I didn't necessarily see it another way.

the point of reflection is like, is this serving me anymore? And I had to say, you know what? That not fitting in is obviously not serving me. And is it even valid? Things that don't serve us, can we ask like, is that actually true? What if it isn't true? And I decided to think, well, actually I'm very likable. Not because I'm just like, you know, super duper tentacle human being, but I have things that I do like about myself. So why can't I pivot to the, I'm actually really likable. So the foreign kid part is there, but the sorry.

I got lost in another story. I was trying to mention that the first day of launch for the podcast, nobody watched it. Nobody watched it. The metrics were zero. And that was a point of reflection for me to say, should I continue? Because I already recorded 10 episodes. I did this from scratch. Like, I just got laid off. Should I even bother continuing? And I had to reflect, what is my purpose behind this work? Is it still meaningful to me? And I decided it is.

So that's why I continued even though day one, nobody watched it and it was completely soul crushing because I was like, this is the worst case scenario. I don't know if you've had those quote unquote failures. And then you realize it can only get better from here. I'm gonna keep learning, I'm gonna keep going. I'm gonna keep sharing this authentic, sometimes messed up, sometimes off script story so people can see themselves in it too.

Justin Moore (33:17.526)
Um, again, let's get some applause for the vulnerability here. Like you didn't, you didn't know I had the sound, the soundboard here, but, but now you do. Yeah. Um, okay. So you share a story of failure time for me. Um, so when I did decide to launch a course, um, I thought, man, this thing is going to do so well because I've had, I, I had all these people in my inbox and DMS and.

Anya Smith (33:23.925)
I didn't know, I love it, I'm not surprised.

Justin Moore (33:44.278)
people asking about a course, but like it's very different for someone to like, say you should make a course and for someone to actually take out their credit card and sign up for the course. Right. Like that's different. Right. Um, and so I basically kind of went into this whole four months, right. I, I listened to every podcast episode about launching a course and then sale copywriting and all, you know, making an email list and doing all the newsletter, you know, the sales sequences. And like I went, I did it. I did the thing on you. Right. And

Anya Smith (33:50.927)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Anya Smith (34:11.093)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Justin Moore (34:13.106)
And so I, in addition to all those things, I also talked a pretty big game to all the people around me, right, especially my wife, right? Like I, again, remember in the ashes of this gigantic failure of my agency, which was supposed to be the thing that diversified my family's income.

I felt a lot of pressure. A lot of it came internally for me, right? I felt a lot of pressure like, okay, this agency didn't work out, this next thing better, because I really wanna, you know, show my wife that I'm worthy. Remember, these were not things she was saying to me. This was like my own things of like feeling lesser than because I had this tremendous failure that she has supported me along the way for so many years, right? And so it was a lot of this pressure that I was putting on myself.

Anya Smith (34:54.695)
Mm. Right.

Justin Moore (35:09.522)
And so when the cart finally closed for my first course launch, I had three enrollments when I had this massive expectation of like, wow, what if I make

$100,000 on my first course launch or what if I have this type of thing and I was thinking about all these numbers and like, you know, because you see a lot of this hype on social media. My first course launch, right? It's like this whole thing. Yeah, it's like broke their website, right? And I was like, so I had these fantasies of what it could be, right? And when I quote unquote, only made $4,500 on the first after spending six months. Remember, to me, this was a failure.

Anya Smith (35:31.401)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (35:34.63)
the website.

Anya Smith (35:48.937)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (35:52.538)
Even though $4,500 as it seems is good money, but to me that was a failure relative to my expectations. And so I remember sitting back in my chair and the cart finally closed. And the only thing I could think in my head was what is April gonna think of me? That was all I could think of. And so I remember getting up from my chair, I walked out this door right here, I climbed the staircase up to our bedroom, she was in bed, and I just spilled the beans of what the final total was.

Anya Smith (35:57.426)
Right.

Justin Moore (36:21.326)
I still get choked up thinking about this, but she basically said to me, big things take time to build. And I cannot describe to you, number one, how much love I felt for her in that moment. Number two, how supported I felt. But also such a stark reminder of this fact that like,

all of the hype that you see of like entrepreneurs and creators doing these big things and having these amazing out financial outcomes. That is like the that is more the exception than the norm. It's actually more typical to have things start very, very slow and very small.

And that reminder is what allowed me to just, okay, I'm gonna double back down. I'm gonna double down on this. I'm gonna make sure that these three people have an absolutely amazing experience. My number one goal here is to get amazing outcomes for these people, get some amazing testimonials from them, you know, of how I helped them. And that's what I did. I worked my butt off to make sure that these people had these amazing experience. And it went from three to five in the next cohort to seven.

Anya Smith (37:21.417)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Moore (37:31.502)
to 16 to 42 to 48. So it's like, you know, and so it's like just a really good reminder that, and it took, you know, years for me to start having some of these, you know, large outcomes. And so for anyone listening that might be having a similar experience or, you know, like you, like you Anya, you know, you put a bunch of work into a creative project and it doesn't have the, you know, results that you're hoping for. It's just a reminder that like,

Anya Smith (37:33.941)
Hmm

Justin Moore (38:01.13)
you really do sometimes have to remind yourself that it's a marathon, not a sprint.

Anya Smith (38:05.936)
Thank you. I see you as a human.

Anya Smith (38:11.357)
Thank you. And just like celebrating April for being that partner, for showing up, because I'm sure it's challenging when your partner is also having big expectations, you root for them, you cheer for them, and you want to be there. So I love the strong partnership and support you both have for each other. It's amazing.

Justin Moore (38:11.615)
Yeah, of course.

Justin Moore (38:15.989)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (38:28.61)
Thank you. Yeah, I'm lucky. I'm a lucky man.

Anya Smith (38:31.817)
And one thing that makes me think about is everybody that I know that's very successful is their mindset towards failure. Like, yes, they have incredibly challenging things. Nobody that I know has just like, oh, it's just been a straight path. Like, everything I know has just worked out. It's been so easy. And so, but the mindset towards failure is huge. Like, people that I talk about, they're like, either it's like defeat is not an option, or they're like, it's just the next stepping stone. Have you kind of...

Justin Moore (38:44.613)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (38:54.486)
Hmm.

Anya Smith (38:57.673)
formed your own opinion on this whole failure thing and how you approach it, or have you seen yourself just act in light of these challenges? Or like this, maybe it's like you felt it, but you decided I'm still gonna go for it.

Justin Moore (39:10.738)
I felt it and I ultimately adopted a mindset that I believe was originally coined by Nelson Mandela, which was like, I'm either going to win or learn. I'm never losing. Right. And this philosophy has carried me so far in my life where it's like, okay, if something bad happens, yeah, that sucks. But now I know what not to do next time. And like, you know, looking at adversity.

Anya Smith (39:23.886)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Moore (39:40.294)
in the through that lens is so much more productive than Wallowing and don't get me wrong. Like I've been there. I've wallowed. I've been there You know and wallowing feels good and bad bittersweet at sometimes and so I'm not above that but it's like I just I Guess I feel such a larger mission of the impact that I want to have on people that

Anya Smith (39:44.349)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (40:06.494)
I feel it's irresponsible to spend too much time in that place, in that head space where I'm wallowing or feeling sorry for myself because there's so much to do. There's so many people I want to impact. There's so many things I want to write. I want to write a book. I want to do conferences. I want to speak. I want to like, I want to do all these things to have the impact that I want to and feeling sorry for myself just doesn't, won't, doesn't serve me. And so I know it's kind of a, an easy thing for, oh, easy for you to say, Justin, you've got this big audience and all this stuff too. But like

Anya Smith (40:22.068)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (40:35.966)
Again, like didn't start that way. Definitely didn't start that way. And even I, you know, have, you know, things that bummed me out. Candid moment here. I got my very first charge back on a credit card totally at last night. And I was like, I saw this come in from Stripe. I was like, and this person that this person did not ask for a refund. They just like.

Anya Smith (40:50.334)
Ah, ah, ah.

Justin Moore (40:58.486)
Did a charge. This is like the dirty stuff that like entrepreneurs don't you don't talk about. They don't hear about. But it's like I was I've been like so bummed for the last 24 hours. I was like, what the heck? Why wouldn't they do if they want a refund? I'll give them their money back. I don't want their money. Why do you got to go to the credit card and be like, you know, like.

Anya Smith (41:02.94)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (41:08.593)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Justin Moore (41:12.65)
dispute this transaction is so bizarre to me because that's so far outside of something I would ever do. Right. And so but it's like these things that you learn that you just like, okay, now I know what a credit card dispute process looks like and what the proof I have to provide and the transaction and the exchange, you know, this person has literally never logged into the course or the community. Like it's like crazy, you know, like, but again, it's just like, this is the stuff that comes up and you have to experience as an entrepreneur and I'm such a

Anya Smith (41:18.014)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (41:39.286)
Boy Scout when it comes to the I am an Eagle Scout. So but I'm so honest with this. I am an honest with this stuff. So it's like, it's, I feel so I'm like, wow, this, I feel so bad. Like I want to make sure this I make it right. And so it's just like all these things you kind of have to learn as a, as an entrepreneur and as a creator that you just until it happens, you don't know what you're going to do.

Anya Smith (41:56.581)
Yeah, I don't know if it's going to make you feel any better, but my life motto on people, and I get frustrated, it's like they're dealing in their own reality. So if that human being chose to act in a certain way, that's a reflection of how they perceive their own reality, that they can't make that interaction to go through the rules, follow the way that would be, you know, authentic and real, and how you feel like it's actually just human, right, that makes sense, but they then have to live in their reality. There's no point giving them that energy because

They're already creating a reality of self as part of this like action, like how they act. So like, I just feel like there's no point giving energy to those people. Like, yes, it sucks because you're questioning from your point of authenticity and honesty, why would I, but they live in their own reality and it's limiting them in their own way.

Justin Moore (42:39.862)
Yeah. It's a great, that's a very, very good point. I'm super glad you brought it up because the hard one of the hardest things is accepting that, um, you may never get the outcome or response that you want from certain people. Like the story I can tell this is like acceptance and approval of family and friends. Like it has for a long time. Um,

You know, people would just kind of poke us with a stick like, Oh, you still do that YouTube thing? You know, it's like it's like a it's like a novelty to them. Right. And. There's there's always this kind of tendency to want to prove them wrong, like, oh, I'm going to show them, like if I make this amount of money or if I quit my job or if I buy this material thing for my parents or like whatever, like then they'll finally get it. That like I'm doing I'm doing I'm making moves, you know.

Anya Smith (43:24.873)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (43:33.193)
Right?

Anya Smith (43:36.507)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (43:37.21)
And the hardest pill to swallow is like, because this has happened to us, that like, you can do those things. All the things that you thought would get you the approval or the respect from the people in your life that you want and you craved, and they still will never give you that. And it's really, really frustrating, but it's like, to be able to make peace with that is not easy, but it's better than living your whole life.

Anya Smith (43:50.664)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (44:07.718)
searching out for the approval of those people without realizing that it's elusive. It'll forever be elusive.

Anya Smith (44:13.733)
Yeah, the energy, like you're gonna, we only have one source of energy and we lose that. But to your point, it's human. I feel that way too. Like it's nice to be getting approval from people that you respect and you value. So it's very human, but I think to your point, it's so powerful to have that reflection. Can I touch on one subject that I've been just curious about? And then I promise we're gonna go into branding, I promise. But one thing that I actually admire the most about this journey, although it's challenging times, is how I hope they'll inspire my boys.

Justin Moore (44:29.844)
Yeah, of course.

Anya Smith (44:40.361)
So I'm a mom of our one and four year old. I'm a step mom to our 10 year old. Our 10 year old wants to be a research scientist YouTuber. And I want to show them in my example, however imperfect it is, that anything is possible. And I don't mean that in a cliche way, but I mean, if you work hard and you pivot and you learn like amazing things are possible, and I'm like, okay, Oliver, what are we gonna do? Like, let's create a tech channel. Let's start testing it out. Like, let's stop dreaming and start like acting. And so.

Justin Moore (44:47.651)
Wow.

Anya Smith (45:08.521)
To me, the biggest opportunity we have as parents is to make our children more resilient and give them examples of more of what's possible and not just like the limited, you know, just go to college, just get a good job, blah, checklist. Like we give them more opportunities through this path. So what have you seen like this lifestyle? How has it influenced your children? Like maybe the good and the bad.

Justin Moore (45:29.366)
All right, so I very much, yeah, of course. No, I very much respect that philosophy towards your own kids and feel very similarly. I mean, a concrete change that my wife and I made is previous to when we first had our kids, the old adage is like, you gotta open up a college savings account for them. That's what you're supposed to do. You open up the 529A, right?

Anya Smith (45:31.237)
If you don't mind us going there.

Anya Smith (45:51.569)
Yeah!

Justin Moore (45:55.306)
And that's what we did, of course. And so we've been contributing dutifully, contributing the money every month and all this stuff. Right. And a few years back, it was relatively recently, a few years back, we basically kind of had a moment where we were like. Number one, we feel like college is going to look a lot different in 10 years or our oldest is nine. So in nine years for him. Like, is he really going to want to go to college?

Like we did and marched the corporate path when his entire life, he's seen his parents be entrepreneurs. Is that really the best way to prepare him for adulthood, to like kind of force him down that path? Of course, if he wants to do it, of course we'll support him. But like, probably doesn't make sense for this money that we're contributing to his, you know, to help further him along in his life. Probably doesn't make sense to like contribute it to a...

Anya Smith (46:36.189)
Right. Yeah.

Justin Moore (46:50.686)
a type of account where he can only use it for qualified educational purposes. What if he wants to start a business? Are we going to prevent him from using that money to kind of try and do that? Dabble here and there? Probably doesn't make sense. And so we stopped contributing to the 529 and moved those contributions over to a more liquid account. And so yeah, we don't have the tax deferred advantages of that, but like probably makes more sense for him to have access to those funds if he wants to pursue something entrepreneurial in his teenage years or something like that.

Anya Smith (47:09.427)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (47:20.578)
Because again, I look at my own upbringing and like I was doing those things, right? So wouldn't it be kind of hypocritical for us to not support that for our own kids? And so that's like a real practical example of how we're starting to think about what the not even I mean, we haven't even talked about like, what generative AI is going to mean for our kids and what jobs are going to be available in eight to 10 years for our children. Like, like if AI looks like it does now.

Imagine what it's going to be, how it's going to impact our lives in eight to 10 years. So I just think it's irresponsible as a parent to not try to start potentially gaming what a career and education will look like for their kids in the not so distant future. And so that's kind of where our heads are at.

Anya Smith (48:08.009)
Yeah. I love it. I love how you're just thinking beyond the convention, like what's really going to serve them. And to be honest, I still have money in the 529, but that is a very thought provoking idea. Like what is that serving? What could, yeah. Yeah.

Justin Moore (48:18.25)
We do, we do too. I mean, we have it in there cause you can't take it out, right? But it's like, you know, gotta stop, you know, stop. Yeah, and maybe we'll have to take the penalty. You know, maybe if they don't ultimately wanna do it, but yeah, food for thought.

Anya Smith (48:28.521)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (48:32.405)
I love it. Okay, now let's dive into the rating. I was just curious about the parenting side. So one thing I was asking for a friend, again, a friend, when is the right time to even, those of you, yes, that friend, asking for that friend, when is the right time to even starting to think about sponsorships? Like.

Justin Moore (48:41.715)
Those of you listening, she's pointing to herself. She's pointing to herself. Those of you listening.

Justin Moore (48:54.882)
So I also recently launched a podcast, shameless plug here. It's called Creator Debates. And every episode pits two high profile creators against each other to debate a hotly contested topic in the creator economy. Tagline, stupid arguments to help creators make smart decisions. And I got the show sponsored before I even launched. And so the quick story of that is

Anya Smith (49:01.918)
Love it.

Anya Smith (49:14.386)
Love it.

Justin Moore (49:24.822)
You know, I identified a sponsor who I already had an existing relationship with, and basically came to them with a pitch. And I said, hey, the future listeners of this show are your exact consumer persona. It's the exact type of people that you want as your customers. And the sponsor was ConvertKit, the email marketing software. And so I came to them with this pitch and I said, I literally was honest. I said, I have no idea how this is going to perform.

Anya Smith (49:46.31)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (49:53.786)
Literally zero. I don't know if anyone's going to listen. I don't or watch like I really don't know I think they probably will and to be fair again, I did have a little bit of a track record I have had a growing newsletter. I had a YouTube channel, etc um, you know, so where I built up some credibility So so there was a little bit of uh, you know success that I could point to But in terms of this new project, I had no idea right and so we basically just kind of shook hands We were like, okay Let's evaluate this every couple months every 30 days or whatever in the contract, you know

Anya Smith (49:55.75)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (50:22.858)
Anyone can cancel it with 30 days notice. But there we picked a number in terms of how much per episode. And let's just give it a shot. And a couple of things came from that. The show very much started out slow, much like yours did. But they were like, I have now told this story that I'm telling right now on probably 25 different podcasts. Because.

Anya Smith (50:30.302)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (50:49.599)
Ooh.

Justin Moore (50:51.754)
I was so appreciative of them taking a chance on me or seeing the potential in the show that they have now received so much more like impressions and awareness and exposure because of not just the sponsorship, but because I've told this dang story 25 times, right? And so I think that there's this halo effect, there's this afterglow that can sometimes happen when

someone takes a chance on a creator, that I don't think enough brands realize the benefits of really supporting someone when they're in their growing phase, especially if you can point to, wow, this could be something. I actually see a lot of potential in this idea. Let's just, even though the numbers might not make total sense right now, let's just give it a shot. And the happy ending is that they've gone on to, now they're the sponsor of season two of the podcast. So, it was just like a,

Anya Smith (51:48.501)
Woo!

Justin Moore (51:50.578)
Just yeah, so yeah, let me let me do the applause. I gotta I gotta I gotta pull in some sound effects for that one But but it just like goes to show you that like you don't actually Have to have any metrics to be able to pitch And so I think that there's like a really important learning lesson because people always ask me like how many followers how many downloads? How many views you need to have all this stuff to and I always

Anya Smith (51:54.549)
Much better, much better.

Justin Moore (52:14.694)
jokingly say zero. You have to have zero because if you can, your only responsibility and what this is a lot of what I teach is that you have to help them understand how they can achieve a business outcome. And this is what I, this was the pitch is like, Hey, you're trying to reach more creators, you know, who are business minded. Well, guess what? This format of the show, that's, this is the exact topic that we're going to be covering every single week. And so it'd be very advantageous for your brand to be aligned with, with this messaging. And so I think that

Anya Smith (52:16.264)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (52:25.587)
Right.

Justin Moore (52:44.33)
you know, a kind of a hyperbolic thing. Oh, zero followers, zero views, but like, I like it because it helps get people to think outside the box.

Anya Smith (52:52.737)
And what are maybe some common misconceptions? I'm looking at time and honestly, in a good way, we're not gonna be able to cover everything, but we have Justin, we have so many resources you can check out of his. So we'll mention where to find them in the moment, but maybe top misconceptions people have about branding that they should know right now. And then let's talk about where they can find all these other resources to dive in, to gorge out on your content to learn more.

Justin Moore (53:16.45)
Gorge, that's a great word. Yeah, I gotta use that one more. So I think pulling that thread of like not getting obsessed about your views, your following or your downloads or whatever. There are so many more things that brands and agencies value beyond those things that can get you repeat business. In fact, I was just on another podcast earlier today with someone on the brand side and

She was just like nodding her head, nodding her head over and over when I was talking about this, because again, I also ran an agency and so I've been on the other side of it. Like, if you can be the person who just like responds in a timely fashion, if you can be the person who is like professional, and if you can be the person who doesn't get insulted and like, oh, how dare you violate my creative genius? No, I'm not gonna do a 10 second voiceover.

Anya Smith (53:59.314)
What?

Anya Smith (54:04.425)
What?

Justin Moore (54:14.53)
No, I'm not going to edit out those 15 seconds. Like, how dare you? Right. Like if you can be not be that person. Trust me, you're going to get so much business because so many creators are that way. They make it they make it so difficult. They're devos or they're divas. I like to say when they work with you. And like I say this a lot, like probably 50 or 60 percent of the deals that my wife and I do on an ongoing basis each month are from partners that we've had a

decade long relationship with that just continue to reach out to us because they know that when they reach out to April and Justin, they're going to get, they know what the product is that they're going to receive high quality. They're going to hit every talking point. They're going to hit deadlines. We're not going to give them a bunch of flack when they ask for a few changes here and there. And so yeah, our viewership or our influence quote unquote may not be the stratospheric levels that it once was, but we've made more money every year.

Anya Smith (54:46.633)
Wow.

Anya Smith (54:55.858)
Yeah.

Justin Moore (55:13.683)
since we started. And it's largely not because of the metrics. It's because of what we represent as partners to these brands.

Anya Smith (55:22.549)
amazing. And I'm looking at you. I have your newsletter that I'm personally subscribing to. I'm learning from you. You have these recordings on your YouTube where people are asking you real questions. They're diving you through real emails, they're getting on sponsorships, and you're answering those like real like all the terms all the stuff like so much content check out where should people find you? I know also, you just mentioned that there's a sign up for your next course coming up that I like I put my name in there just FYI.

Justin Moore (55:46.09)
Yes, yes. Yes, I appreciate that. So honestly, creatorwizard.com slash join. That's my free newsletter. You know, if you're interested in anything I've talked about in terms of sponsorship strategy or videos around mindset and all this stuff, I send it out every week. Actually, the main reason that you should join Anya is because every Thursday, I send you paid sponsorship opportunities for free.

Anya Smith (55:55.121)
Yeah. Okay.

Justin Moore (56:14.942)
So like a brand who is like literally saying, hey, we have money, we're trying to pay you, click here, apply, right? And so there's absolutely no reason not to sign up. And yeah, as you mentioned, my course is called Brand Deal Wizard. I really don't talk about my paid stuff very much because I say this a lot, like I literally don't care if 99% of people never pay me a dime. That's not why I'm doing this. You know, if, you know, speaking to the kind of abundance mindset, like,

There will always be people who want to pay you for pay you for something for more detailed support. And so that's why I give away so much for free is because like regardless of like how much you give away for free, there's always someone like, hey, but my situation is different. Can you help me? And so that's what your paint stuff should be for. And so, yeah, just create a wizard dot com slash join.

Anya Smith (56:47.666)
Right.

Anya Smith (57:01.21)
Yeah. And just to speak to that, you decided to say yes to this podcast. Obviously, yes, Tim introduced us. But you're like, OK. I'm just starting. OK, I'm going to give you a chance. Looking at everything and starting.

Justin Moore (57:12.878)
Yeah, 100%. And you want to know one thing I really loved about this conversation, Anya, is it went places that I don't normally get to go. And I think that that's for anyone also listening who wants to shoot their shot on a collaboration or something like that. That's the angle. It's like, how can I help give this person, because you probably know, most of the podcasts I go on, I talk about sponsorships. I talk all, that's kind of the things I talk about all the time, but like.

Anya Smith (57:39.334)
Yes, yes.

Justin Moore (57:40.534)
I got to dive in, we got to dive into some real deep stuff that I don't normally get to discuss. And so, like, I really appreciate you for that. And yeah, that's always like a fun change of scenery.

Anya Smith (57:52.133)
Yeah. Yeah, we relate to humans. Like we need to start seeing people as people who are vulnerable and flawed and are trying their best, whether it's to connect with them as their creators, but also just like, hey, you can also aspire to this because everybody is just human. And treat other people like Justin, of humanity and respect and kindness also as a finder. Okay, Justin, you've been so lovely. We end every show with three rapid fire questions or just the short response. So whenever you're ready.

Justin Moore (57:56.075)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Moore (58:09.218)
Totally.

Justin Moore (58:14.062)
100%.

Anya Smith (58:21.737)
We'll jump into that.

Justin Moore (58:23.018)
Let's go, let's get the timer going.

Anya Smith (58:25.069)
Okay, if you could partner with any brand, real or fictional, what would it be and why?

Justin Moore (58:32.342)
real or fictional? Oh my God, this is actually a hard question. Okay, so I was in a metal band in high school. And so probably it would be Fender. I would say probably, yeah, but this is totally unrelated to my current content, but I'm a musician at heart.

Anya Smith (58:38.725)
Hahaha

Anya Smith (58:43.444)
Oh, okay.

Anya Smith (58:49.621)
Okay.

Anya Smith (58:55.793)
Hey, if Fender's listening, just so you know, there's a deal right here. Think about the diverse aspects of this. Okay, lovely. How did the wizard logo and idea come into your mind for this business?

Justin Moore (58:57.422)
Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

Justin Moore (59:10.126)
Oh my gosh. So I actually, this is something that I spent a lot of time thinking about the name of the company. And I did think, is the URL available? Can I get the social handles? You know, I was thinking like I wanted something that had the word creator in it because I knew who I wanted to serve. I wanted something that could potentially have a mascot. So a wizard, that's cool. And a wizard is...

both ways, like a wizard as in like a magician wizard, but also in computer speak, because I'm an engineer by background, a wizard is something that takes you through something step by step, like a wizard on a software setup or something. And so I just loved the, I loved all those aspects about it and the URL was available. So that's where it came from. But the latest version of the logo came from, I think maybe a year into the journey, I worked with the designer to kind of encapsulate both.

Anya Smith (59:43.311)
Oh, okay. Yeah.

Justin Moore (01:00:01.154)
the creator aspect, but also the money. I have this cool little animation now of like dollars and camera, you know, picture and all that stuff too. So yeah, I have fun with it.

Anya Smith (01:00:10.553)
Okay, last but not least in the positive context going off track is

Justin Moore (01:00:19.23)
endless possibilities. Going off track means that you are doing something, you're going on a trail that has not been trodden before. And I think that that's when exciting things happen.

Anya Smith (01:00:33.845)
Beautiful. Justin, thank you so much. This was beautiful. And to our audience, thank you again for joining us. Our mission of Right Off Track is to inspire people to live more fulfilling lives and to embrace their unique journey. So if this resonates with you and you got something out of this episode, I would so appreciate if you took just a minute, share it to somebody else, a friend, a colleague, somebody who's maybe embracing their journey as well. And I would so appreciate that. Justin, again, thank you so much for your time. And everybody, thank you for coming off track with us. We look forward to having you next time. Take care.

Justin Moore (01:01:01.91)
Thanks again Anya.

Anya Smith (01:01:03.133)
My pleasure.