#210: New fatherhood and my next product (Justin Moore live from VidSummit)

Justin Moore [00:00:00]:
And I'm just like at the phase of my life where I just value less stress over control.

Jay Clouse [00:00:18]:
Hello, my friend. Welcome back to another episode of Creator Science. I am sitting here live at VidSummit 2024. I'm sitting next to my good friends, Justin Moore, Trent Hare, and Jake Thomas, all members of the lab, which is exciting having a little lab powwow here. You should join the lab if you haven't already. Go to creativescience.com/lab. Anyway, keeping with tradition, had a conversation with Justin here at the conference. We talked about 2 major things.

Jay Clouse [00:00:42]:
1, being a new parent and a creator. That's the first half of our conversation. And the second half of our conversation is all about a new product that I am building behind the scenes and really excited about and even more excited about after talking to Justin and talking to Jake and Trent here. So I think you're really gonna enjoy it. If you are not interested in the parenting content, you can probably skip forward to about minute 15 or 20 here in the conversation. But if you're up for the ride and ready to listen, let's get into it. Let's talk to Justin. Here at VidSummit with my BFF, mister Justin Moore.

Justin Moore [00:01:19]:
What's going on, man? Friend of the podcast. Excited to be back at it. Friend of the pod is kind of a thing now. Right?

Jay Clouse [00:01:25]:
Yeah. I let I think so. I mean, like, absolutely the most repeat guest. That must say something.

Justin Moore [00:01:30]:
You must kinda like me.

Jay Clouse [00:01:32]:
And the people like you. Okay.

Justin Moore [00:01:34]:
The people.

Jay Clouse [00:01:35]:
The people. They're saying we need more Justin.

Justin Moore [00:01:37]:
Okay. Well, I love to hear it and I'm glad glad to be back.

Jay Clouse [00:01:41]:
I feel I'm feeling less existential at VidSummit than our conversation at Craft and Commerce. Is that the last place we talked? We definitely talked to CEX. CEX.

Justin Moore [00:01:51]:
Yeah. I guess we did do one at, did we do one at Craft and Commerce? I can't remember. They're all blurring together now.

Jay Clouse [00:01:55]:
I don't remember. I remember. Why

Justin Moore [00:01:57]:
what were you feeling existential about last time? I forget.

Jay Clouse [00:02:01]:
I think I was in one of those stages where I'm like, do I wanna just burn my whole business down?

Justin Moore [00:02:05]:
I think also it was before Nora was born.

Jay Clouse [00:02:07]:
It was before Nora was born. So now I'm like existential in like a real way in a positive way. Yeah. Because there's actually new existential being, but, yeah, first time away.

Justin Moore [00:02:18]:
Talk more about that. Talk more about how your mindset has shifted since she was born. Okay.

Jay Clouse [00:02:22]:
This is a good segue into the conversation. So when you go on paternity leave, and I'm using that term very generously because, you know, my paternity leave was I'm not taking any calls for about 8 weeks. So there were no like synchronous calls during that period of time, but I was still like very active in the community. I changed the expectation of, hey, I'm going to be here, but you should expect like a 2 to 3 day response time for me and the community. Otherwise, you know, like I was still publishing. I wanted to keep up with the long form schedule. All this to say, having a child and the new demands of that Becomes really obvious what areas of the business, like still are really dependent on me. And it has me thinking about new projects and how I prioritize them when I green light them, what I prioritize in the business generally.

Jay Clouse [00:03:15]:
Because, you know, even new projects should be prioritized behind improvements that have a big impact but less effort. So I've been doing a lot of behind the scenes stuff, but I always wanna do new stuff.

Justin Moore [00:03:28]:
Dude, well, it's all it's novel. It's shiny. Real quickly, do you feel like you adhered to the 2 to 3 day turnaround time? Or were, like, were you pretty good about those guardrails or no?

Jay Clouse [00:03:38]:
In some cases, I was just looking for what free time would pop up with the baby. And so sometimes I would get messages from like VIP members of the community. There'd be really long, really specific, really in-depth. And I would need to dedicate real mind space to that. And it would take me, you know, 2 days to get to that point. Other times, I would get a message that I knew I could answer in 30 seconds, and that happens all the time. Mal's changing a diaper. Great.

Jay Clouse [00:04:05]:
Let me respond to this message.

Justin Moore [00:04:07]:
Let me let me ask you something. Okay. I'm gonna describe something that happened to me when I when I had my kids in the beginning. And it's not something I'm, like, super proud to admit, but it was, like, a real thing, which was just, like, obviously, I was, like, so such a beautiful time, and I was so immersed in the moment. But at the same time, I had spent my life up to that point being super extremely online

Jay Clouse [00:04:28]:
Yeah.

Justin Moore [00:04:28]:
And, like, responding and commenting and, like, working, grinding all the time. Right? And there absolutely was times where it was, like, my mind would wander and I would just be, like, the business. Like, what's going on with the business? And I feel, like, I'm not giving the business enough time and, like and it was, like, a conscious thing where I had to be, like, no. I'm, like, holding my child right now and this is more important. And it's, like, hard to, like, not let your mind wander because it's also existential because it's like money. Are we okay? Like, are we gonna be able to, like, pay our bills? And, like, did you have stuff like that that happened?

Jay Clouse [00:04:59]:
Oh, totally. In the very beginning, like, literally at the hospital, it was such an extreme experience that for the first couple of days at the hospital, I was like, I actually don't know if I'll ever think about the business again. How will I ever get myself to care about work? Because why does that matter at all? Totally. It was such a, like, identity and worldview shifting experience. I was like, work is the silliest thing in the world. What is this video game I've been playing? Yep. And then, like, things kind of reverted closer to normal and have continued to revert closer to normal over time. And yeah, I mean, there's a lot of thinking time.

Jay Clouse [00:05:39]:
It's much harder to find execution time right now, but there's a lot of kind of mindless time that I can't help but my mind wandering back to the business, which I it's actually kind of nice because, you know, it gives me a chance to really think from different angles and prioritize and like organize in my mind. And then when I do find a solid uninterrupted 20 minutes, it's a very efficient period of execution, but it's really hard to find deep work time. It's really hard to find J time because both those things feel selfish now. And that's a struggle that I'm having is because I think I need both of those things to be okay. You know,

Justin Moore [00:06:20]:
what would you do with J time? What would that be filled with previously?

Jay Clouse [00:06:24]:
Mostly exercise. It's like going for a long walk, which would happen out of the house. So if I do that, I am 20 to 30 minutes away from being able to get back to the house to help Mal with something if she needs it. Or it'd be working out in the garage. I have a great home gym, so I can go out there and that's actually very close at hand. So that's probably a little bit easier to do, but I do a lot of my best thinking and, I almost wanna say like healing on long walks really need it to like feel like myself. Otherwise, I get grumpy and irritable, but again, it feels like selfish to do those things. So I struggle with it and we don't have a set routine yet.

Jay Clouse [00:07:06]:
What we need to get to is where we have just like this unspoken agreement that during this period of time, Jay has 60 minutes to do what he needs to do. And since we don't have it as an unspoken reliable thing every day, it's like a conversation and I have to like muster up the courage. Not that Mal makes me feel any type of way, but I feel like, okay. I'm going to ask for this period of time that makes me feel selfish. Yeah. And it feels like yeah. It's it's not ideal yet.

Justin Moore [00:07:35]:
Well, if it makes you feel any better, I think you and I are very similar and that we feel very empathetic. Even now being at this conference, I feel selfish. I feel like I I was I think I was telling you, like, you know, my kids forgot their backpacks. I take my kids to school every day, and so it's a routine. And so my wife, you know, was taking them and they, like, forgot the backpacks because everything was crazy and getting out the door. And they had a whole thing and it was, like, getting racing back home. And and I just felt terrible because I'm, like, not there to help out. And it's, like, it's, like, a real thing.

Justin Moore [00:08:03]:
And so, like, I wanna, like, acknowledge that that feeling that you feel about wanting to be there all the time helping. That's, like, at least I feel that a lot. For me, the routine that my wife and I settled into was that I would take my sons on really long walks, or my first son at least, really long walk, like, an hour and a half every morning in the stroller. We would go do our, like, loop around our neighborhood. We'd go to the dog park. He'd, like, look at the dogs and, like, that became, like, a really reliable way for her to get time. Yeah. You know? And so it's, like, I I think that that's absolutely, like, a good plan.

Justin Moore [00:08:39]:
But also, the thing that I'll say is that I do feel like it's a unique challenge for when you're self employed. Because it's one thing when you have, like, parental leave, when you know that that, like, going back to your job is, like, looming. But when you don't have that, like, date or that deadline and you're self employed, it's really easy for it to just, like, all blur together and there to be no discernible routine that you fall into.

Jay Clouse [00:09:07]:
Yeah. And

Justin Moore [00:09:07]:
that, I think, is a trap. So it's, like, having that conversation, I think, is important.

Jay Clouse [00:09:11]:
Taking the stroller out for a walk would be a good idea. Yeah. I should do that. I've been waiting for the period of time where she's more comfortable and, like, I have this tactical baby gear, baby carrier. And I'm like, I can't wait until she can just sit comfortably in this for an hour and I can walk, do a ruck with the baby. But she's not quite big enough to make that work yet. But I could just do the stroller. Obviously, just do the stroller.

Jay Clouse [00:09:31]:
Okay. This is a good idea.

Justin Moore [00:09:32]:
And she'll like sleep. Yeah. The whole time is she won't be fussing really. Yeah. And, like, at least my sons loved it. They love looking up and the sky and the birds and, like, they're not really fussing Yeah. When they're out in the walk.

Jay Clouse [00:09:45]:
So Here's something that I wanna get your perspective on because you're a father and your oldest son is how old? 13. 10. Okay. So 10 years you've had children and that's like most of your creator career. Correct. And what is surprising to me is all the like loudest, most popular voices in our space. Not all of them. A lot of them don't have kids or don't talk about being a parent.

Jay Clouse [00:10:11]:
And I can't help but see how that's going to color my entire existence as a creator for the rest of time. Not that I wanna make content about my kids, but it's hard to understand why people give business advice without sharing it through the lens of being a parent. It seems like people aren't doing that and it's a different reality. Have you felt any type of way about this?

Justin Moore [00:10:37]:
So the way I felt about it has been usually in private feeling like I can't keep up with people who don't have kids and who are, like, constantly have their foot on the accelerator, with content or their business and things like that. And, yeah, in my in my moments of, like, frustration when I it's like there's lots of stuff to do family wise, I feel like, man, I would love to, like, sit down and, like, write right now. I would love to sit down and, like, film a video, but, like, things are more pressing right now. I gotta do all these other things. And, like, I think for a long time, I felt a way about it. But I think I shifted my mindset pretty early on that, like, that's just, like, not my path. Yeah. My path is to, like, be a dad, and I love being a dad.

Justin Moore [00:11:19]:
And the moments that I have with my kids and being involved with them, especially as they got all older and, like because, like, honestly, when my kids got older and they started getting involved in activities, like, you have to shut down sports practice, scouting. Like, there's just a lot of obligations or not even obligations. It's just, like, responsibilities, things involved with them. And, like, to your going back to your feeling in the hospital that first day, that's what takes over.

Jay Clouse [00:11:41]:
It's

Justin Moore [00:11:41]:
just, like, this is really what matters. It's not, like, the business will always be there. And, like, of course, here here's one thing that I'll say is that for the first couple of years, we completely lost ourselves in being parents. And it really didn't feel like we had an identity outside of being a parent. And there was somewhere around the, like, 2 to 2 and a half year mark when our kids were that age, where both my wife and I, our minds started going back to like, oh, like, it's okay to have, like, an identity outside of being a parent. Like, it's okay to, like, have professional aspirations to want to, like, do these other things and like, and yet it's this really tricky balance because you feel a guilt. It's like any time spent letting your mind wander to that is like time spent away from like being the most dedicated parent you can possibly be. And so I do think that that's like a tricky balance that I think you'll probably experience, and that's like a normal thing.

Jay Clouse [00:12:38]:
Yeah. I need to figure that out because the other the other trap I could see myself falling into is like child as project. Like, I want to hold space and create the conditions for her to be the best thing she can be without it becoming like about me and a project where I'm trying to push her towards some developmental milestones because I want her to be the best kid that could be. You know what I mean? It's it's a weird balance, but you know, there's the stories of like the extreme successful college football quarterbacks whose parents like had the lifting at like age 5 and then they burned out because it's like an insanely unsustainable way to raise a child. I think I'm aware enough that I'm not going to fall into that. I've identified that as potential risk a long time ago, but I'm such a type a organized project minded person that when I get thinking about like, oh, developmental milestones, like what should she be doing? What should we be working on? I need to find the right balance of doing those things and doing them for her

Justin Moore [00:13:36]:
and not for me. There's been a really interesting shift for my kids, I would say, like, actually somewhat recently over the last couple of years, where for the first, definitely, like, 6 years of their life, a lot of their identity is wrapped up in who you are as a parent. And they mirror a lot of your behaviors and and your tendencies and things like that because they really don't know much else. And then somewhere around 7 or so, at least has been our experience, they start to develop really unique identities and idiosyncrasies. And they'll just start saying things that are like, where would that come from? Like, I don't think that's something I ever would have done. And it's really surprising and exciting because it's like, wow, they're developed they're like a different person than I am. And so at that point, it shifts to becoming like, how can I grow and support their interests? Whereas, like like, I don't know. I never would've maybe thought that that would've been my life, but, like, it seems like they're really into it.

Justin Moore [00:14:38]:
So I'm gonna support

Jay Clouse [00:14:39]:
that. Yeah.

Justin Moore [00:14:39]:
And so it's this really humbling moment where you realize, like, wow, they're actually like a separate being outside of who I am. Yeah. And that's where you can't manage the project because it's more about, like, realizing that they're going to ultimately become a different person.

Jay Clouse [00:14:54]:
You're no longer the foreman or something. There's some metaphor here. Yeah. Probably. It's exciting. It's a whole new world and, yeah. It has me thinking I've talked about this in a couple of recent episodes like more and more it has me thinking about any project that I make, it needs to be made from the standpoint of this needs to be sustainable in a world where it doesn't require all of my own time. Like I want to be able to build things that I can see a future where I'm not at the controls of that thing either.

Jay Clouse [00:15:26]:
And in our style of business, that's uniquely hard, but I think those are fun constraints to build behind. And, you know, I understand why people build things, sell things, take time off, and that's changed my perspective a lot.

Justin Moore [00:15:38]:
You know, by virtue of having been, I don't know. I don't know why in my mind, I'm thinking during this conversation that like you and I are kind of at opposite ends of the spectrum right now. You're just starting in your parenthood journey, and we're maybe more like in the middle of it. Right? Where it's like we're past the, like, really young diaper phase, you know, really the phase where I was, like, worried about every little thing that I saw. What's that on her skin? What is that normal? Is this thing? You know, like, you know, I very much was, like, I'm past that process where I'm, like, they're they'll be fine. Like, it'll, you know, rub some dirt on it. They'll be fine. Now, I'm thinking, like, wow.

Justin Moore [00:16:13]:
I've got, like, 8 years left with my oldest before he, like, goes to college. So now, I'm in this phase where I'm thinking, like, I absolutely want to maximize time, really, truly now Yeah. Where it's, like, wow. It's, like, like, he's been alive longer than the amount of time I have left before he moves the house. I don't know why he leaves the house. That's why it's, like, weird that I'm thinking that. But now more than ever, I'm thinking, how do I set up a life and a business to a place where, like, I really can truly maximize that time with him? And so it's shifted from, like, are we gonna be okay? Do we have enough money? To more, like, I don't know if we'll have enough money, but, like, I'm okay with that uncertainty because it's, like, more important to just, like, do those things and we'll, like, figure it out.

Jay Clouse [00:16:59]:
Just a quick break for our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. And now back to the show. You're so good at, like, hiring and outsourcing though and delegating and trusting. I feel like you've delegated most things out of your hands as like, at least as like an accountable person. You probably have a lot of oversight and stuff, but it doesn't seem like there's a lot in your business at this point that if you don't do it, it can't be done. But I don't have the perspective of being inside your business either. I mean, like the book is one thing that that's obviously you, the concept of the event that's coming from you. But even once you like conceptualize the event, you're like, let me hire Sarah.

Jay Clouse [00:17:37]:
Let me have my team be involved in the process of doing this. Like, you've done a really good job of you just do a good job of getting it out of your hands and into other people's hands.

Justin Moore [00:17:45]:
I appreciate that, man. I think that when I was not that way for a long time and I feel as though once I ultimately let go of certain projects and I saw the fruits of that, and I was like, wow, this person actually thought up better ideas than I could have done myself. I feel like you and I are similar in the kinda type a perfectionism type personalities. But once I let go a little bit and I saw that it became better than I could have maybe crafted it to become, I was able to mentally say, okay. Well, if I let go of of other projects, it's absolutely going to happen where it's actually a bad outcome, where I I do delegate and it's actually, wow. Actually, they did a bad job. But the upside of it potentially being better is like a risk I'm willing to take versus like trying to cling on to everything. And it's, that's definitely happened.

Justin Moore [00:18:38]:
Like I've definitely hired people. It didn't work out and it sucked and I feel like I lost time, but at the same time, I'm also a lot happier. I have a lot more peace or I'm not working as much at night as I used to. I'm not stressing out like I used to. And I'm just like at the phase of my life where I just don't, I value less stress over control.

Jay Clouse [00:18:58]:
Yeah. Well, it's aspirational. I'm, I'm modeling after, I would like to model after it. I'm seeing it as something I want to model after. But we're, we're getting there. I mean, we've, we've definitely done that on the YouTube side of things. But the great thing about that was I didn't have those skill sets in the beginning. So like if I wanted video to happen, I needed to hire people who were great at it.

Jay Clouse [00:19:18]:
Whereas a lot of stuff in my business, I figured out the process. I figured out how to do it. And now it's like being willing to find the right person, get on the same page with them, trust that they can do it. And it's been a harder thing, but it's certainly doable. And everyone that I've I that I have in the company right now, incredibly talented people. They do such great work. So I'm I'm getting closer, but still too much of a bottleneck on things.

Justin Moore [00:19:40]:
If you could think of one discrete project that would be delegatable, is there one that jumps out in your mind?

Jay Clouse [00:19:46]:
That we're currently doing? I don't know. One thing that I've been doing recently is outsourcing more design of, like like, creation of assets that are very design oriented and saying like, this is a long form piece of content. Let's make this into something visual for LinkedIn. And that's been awesome because it's like still my IP, my ideas, and just like in this new wrapper that fits in this context and it's working really well. So that's, that's a small, small example, but if I were to do like an event, you know, that would be something that I would have a dedicated team member and or like a third party partner right away. I don't know if I'll do that. You know, the thing I'm thinking about that we were talking about is this new like program that I want to run and in the beginning, like that's going to be me running and instructing in that program. But we talked about like the framework behind that.

Jay Clouse [00:20:40]:
I might hire Charlotte to help me really crystallize that, but like still pretty me oriented. The one thing I am thinking about though, can I build a framework, create IP and make that a program that someday I'm not teaching it and not in the sense of it's a self paced thing that has my name and face teaching it? That's one possible future. Could it be a framework that I teach other people to teach inside the company or independently? There's this really great episode of tropical MBA. Do you know that podcast? Yeah.

Justin Moore [00:21:13]:
I do. Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:21:14]:
I think it's called like, what's the Michael Jordan of business models and the business model they talk about a lot is certification programs, which is like a brilliant, amazing business model that is not dependent on an individual, but it is heavily dependent on strong IP. And so with future education in the business, I'm thinking about strong frameworks in IP that I created, but I don't necessarily need to teach. Another great person who does this is Mike Mihalowitz. Yep. His book Profit First. And then he had a recent one that came out too.

Justin Moore [00:21:48]:
This next. He has Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:21:50]:
He has

Justin Moore [00:21:50]:
a lot of different books.

Jay Clouse [00:21:51]:
He basically creates IP, writes a book about it. And then to my understanding, and he's gonna be on the podcast soon, I'm gonna ask a lot of questions about this. But it's my understanding, he partners with some third party who then will do the delivery of implementing that framework to other people. Right. Which I think is a brilliant model if you wanna write books and, like, develop IP. So that's that's what I'm thinking about for my future in this business and maybe even outside of this business one day is create the IP, package it, deliver in the beginning to like really test it, but then figure out how does this go beyond me. I've spoken quite

Justin Moore [00:22:24]:
a bit actually with, the president of his Profit First Professionals company.

Jay Clouse [00:22:28]:
Oh, tell me about this.

Justin Moore [00:22:29]:
So so it is very a very brilliant model. So you're right. He has different entities that he partners with, and they have entirely separate p and l's. They have a very interesting business arrangement, and they have conferences, and they have all everything wrapped up around each book. And so this is his model. He he's an author, and he goes out and he forges these, like, joint ventures, basically, with different entities. It's it's pretty interesting. And I mean, it's funny because as you're thinking, it's like, I guess this is kind of what I've done with Wizards Guild too.

Justin Moore [00:22:55]:
Totally. With sponsorship coaching. Yep. It's like I don't do it anymore.

Jay Clouse [00:22:58]:
You have your rope method? I have my You have your sponsorship wheel?

Justin Moore [00:23:01]:
I have it, and then I have coaches on my team who who deliver it on my behalf. And it feels great. It feels awesome. We're getting outcomes for people. And, you know, I think can we can we actually talk about your idea Yeah. For your program? Is that okay?

Jay Clouse [00:23:14]:
Yeah.

Justin Moore [00:23:15]:
I don't wanna, like, air this if

Jay Clouse [00:23:16]:
you were We're really we're really bearing the lead here.

Justin Moore [00:23:18]:
Okay. We're we're bearing the lead because we were talking about this on the bus last night. I just feel like it's too good of an idea not to workshop live. Okay. So, you've got the URL.

Jay Clouse [00:23:26]:
I've got the URL. That's the first step of any business. Yes.

Justin Moore [00:23:28]:
It's fine. You've bought a very expensive URL already. And we've discussed that there's gonna be a wait list on it now

Jay Clouse [00:23:35]:
for people

Justin Moore [00:23:36]:
who are interested in this. But before we say the URL, let's hit me with the idea.

Jay Clouse [00:23:40]:
Okay. So I would say the core of what I help a lot of creators do already is figure out what is the business model behind the content that I create. Like, I have so many people that come to me who have built an audience, they have attention, and they have like a pretty clear idea of what is it that people come to me to help them with, but their method of delivering that outcome is in content and scattered across like years and whatever of effort. But what they don't have is, like, a really clear signature product. Maybe they have multiple products. I mean, I started this way where I had, like, a ton of workshops. I do a bunch of one off things and they all sell to some degree, especially at the launch, but they don't have the signature product that is this well articulated, well executed core outcome that their business promises in the form of, hey, just buy this and we'll get you the fast track to it. If, for example, the overall promise of creator science was become a professional creator.

Jay Clouse [00:24:37]:
That's like the key insight behind all of our content, but a signature product for that business should be like a 0 to 1. We'll get you to that point. If you just want to pay for the fastest, best, most efficient delivery of that outcome, here's the best way to do it. People who are doing this really well are like Tiago Forte with building a second brain. And you end up seeing these models where you have a promise of an overall company, a product that delivers on that promise, and then the name of the company, the name of the product, it all kind of becomes synonymous and it all becomes its own top of funnel, where the product is so good that it actually pulls in new customers to itself and new consumers of the free content into the business. It's a really elegant business model that I think a lot of creators can do. And it pairs really nicely with what you do because these creators, they have like this two sided opportunity of what is the offering that I inherently can offer my audience to work with me directly, but at the same time, I'm capturing all this attention. Who else is that attention valuable to? You know, you have your model of what is it? It's like allies.

Justin Moore [00:25:40]:
It's, I call it my PSA, your products, your sponsors, and

Jay Clouse [00:25:44]:
your alliances. Product sponsors and alliances. So where I think like your core really is, is like sponsors. And I think the product side of things is what I've helped a lot of people with, because I really, really believe in the power of a direct to audience relationship. And so anyways, this is a long way of saying, I wanna help people develop their signature product and do that from a agnostic lens of what is the form factor of that product. I'm not gonna say you should build a course or you should build a membership or you should build a paid email. I think it could be any one of those things. And I think every creator is different.

Jay Clouse [00:26:19]:
They have different constraints, different audiences, different interests. And what I really help a lot of people in the lab do or just even creators I cross paths with is ask them some questions to identify what those constraints are and then prescribe what I think is the best model, the best form factor of a signature product for them both in, like, what is the actual form factor, but also what is the outcome that you're promising.

Justin Moore [00:26:41]:
So to me, where my mind instantly goes is, okay, now for the next 4 weeks or 6 weeks, you're gonna go on these walks with Nora in her stroller, and you're gonna think about what this framework is. Because you have this method of sitting down with someone, doing a hot seat in the lab, talking to people on your YouTube channel, and just being really good at asking these pointed questions about, like, how did you do that? What tell me about your business. What what are all the different inputs and outputs? And, like, why are people coming to you, following you, and then being able to say, here's what I think you should do. And there is some sort of framework that exists.

Jay Clouse [00:27:17]:
I'm sure It's there. Yeah.

Justin Moore [00:27:18]:
It's there. It's just a matter of articulating it, codifying it, working with someone like Charlotte to, you know, visualize it, you know, this type of thing. And being able to ultimately, one day, just ingest all of those data points and say, okay, here's what I think would be the best move for you, given all everything that you've told me. That seems like a hugely valuable exercise.

Jay Clouse [00:27:40]:
It's also like the most fun thing that I do. It's like a really fun puzzle for me to solve with people because the outcome is like so outsized for them. I was in Patty Galloway's first accelerator program. I also helped Patty a lot with how he formed that accelerator program and the outcome of that. I mean, we talked to him last night at dinner. Like the outcome of that has been insane for his business. Now I'm not taking credit for that. I played a small role in it, but in the beginning, when you help people form what that thing should look like And it goes so well that they say, I'm not gonna create something new after this.

Jay Clouse [00:28:15]:
I'm just gonna make this better and better and better. Like the real leverage for creators is when you get multiple years into the same product and you're getting better and better results all the time, more and more results, it's not building a ton of new products. It's it's building this one really, really key thing. And eventually there is some good arguments you made to say, okay, if this is a signature product and it is a higher price thing, let's get someone a smaller piece of that outcome at a smaller investment just to build the trust that we can deliver on this higher price thing. But I really wanna focus on that one signature product.

Justin Moore [00:28:48]:
You know, I I can say just anecdotal evidence of this one product focus thing. It has an exponential impact, both on student outcomes as well. If it's a course on student outcomes and honestly like sales, because I had my, my talk yesterday, here at VidSummit and I had a ton of my students in the audience. Right? And it was like, I didn't plant these people. They were just, like, you know, people I may have worked with who went through my program 3 years ago or 2 years ago. And literally, these were people who were standing up and be like, literally, some of them took the microphone and like, these were my results. Like, one of my students stood up and was like, I just got my first 6 figure deal and everyone was like, woo. You know, this type of thing.

Justin Moore [00:29:28]:
And it was like, those are the things that only happen with time if you're helping people achieve a transformation, if that's your signature product. And I just don't think that that happens if you have a suite of 10 products.

Jay Clouse [00:29:39]:
No, it doesn't. And and if you do have a suite of 10 products, people don't know how to be an effective advocate for you. Because not only am I, if I come into your ecosystem and you have a bunch of products, not only is it confusing to me what to recommend, but if I'm trying to be an advocate for somebody, the more legible their offer is to me as a third party, that better I am gonna be at advocating for it. So your students, I bet they're raving about Grand Deal Wizards, soon it will be Wizards Guild. And, you know, you and I were talking that those things might even get closer and closer together over time because there is like this 80, 20. I know in my business, you know, I made a post that creator HQ crossed 6 figures in digital product sales, but the lab is almost at $900,000 all time. It's like a clear 80, 20, almost 90, 10 of products revenue in my business is the lab, my membership. And it makes such a huge difference.

Jay Clouse [00:30:30]:
I can see a world where the signature product thing even dwarfs the lab though, where it becomes this extra meta thing of my signature product is the signature product thing.

Justin Moore [00:30:38]:
You know, one one thing that I think is really important to remember, especially if you're a creator maybe listening who is feels as though they're in a space that's really saturated, is that if you're trying to stand out in your industry or your niche, not only are there 100 or thousands of other people that you're trying to stand out, but if you have 20 things, and everyone has 20 things, it's so difficult to obtain mind share with the general viewership or the general customer base that you could work with, that it's just so hard to stand out. And so you have to give yourself a fighting chance of just have it being very, very clear to people. Even I have people who come in and say, even amongst the 2 products that I have, I used to have 3, and I got rid of the one of them, the gifted to paid intro course. And now I just have the 2 things. And even that, I'm just like, I don't know. I wish maybe it was just like one thing and it was like, you know, maybe like different versions of the one thing.

Jay Clouse [00:31:34]:
Yeah.

Justin Moore [00:31:35]:
It's just like, you have to give yourself the best chance possible to just like be very clear. What is the offer?

Jay Clouse [00:31:40]:
Yeah. I think a lot of people create multiple things and the better strategy is multiple tiers or access points to the single thing. You know, we had this conversation when you did Wizards Guild. Oh, dude. You helped me

Justin Moore [00:31:51]:
so much with that. Oh my God.

Jay Clouse [00:31:52]:
Do you wanna tell that story?

Justin Moore [00:31:53]:
I actually do wanna tell that story because I called Jay. I was at my my son had a water park. Let's let's do this full circle. I was like You were at a water park. At a water park because my son was at a birthday party, and I was like had this thing in my brain where I could not stop thinking about it. And I literally called you with, like, water slides slooshing in the background. It was loud. And I was like, yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:32:11]:
I was like, can you please go on mute?

Justin Moore [00:32:14]:
And I was like, Jay, help me. I can't figure and so where we ultimately netted out was like, okay. I had this private sponsorship coaching, which was Wizards Guild. And I was thinking about creating a group coaching version of it, where it was like not your deals weren't private. You could still get support from us. But when we answered you, it was other people could benefit from that, like, negotiation that you're doing. And I was thinking about calling it something else. I was thinking about calling it spellbound, actually.

Justin Moore [00:32:38]:
And you were like, don't do that. This is a very similar offer to the other one. It's just in a different format. Just call it the same thing. It's wizard's guild, except this is group coaching and the other one is private support, private coaching, basically. And I was like, that's brilliant. But I couldn't see it from the outside looking in. And it was like your your point was that you're just gonna confuse people the more you like add new names to things.

Jay Clouse [00:33:01]:
Yeah. When you have multiple named products, you're gonna end up with like multiple named landing pages. And so, now I'm gonna have to bounce between 2 literal landing pages to understand which of these products is best for me. It's a bad user experience to compare the 2 when the outcome ultimately is the same. It's just like what is the delivery mechanism that's different between these 2. And one delivery mechanism is a little bit more higher touch, a little bit more private, and so that comes at a higher price. And so being able to just compare those 2 delivery mechanisms side by side on a single uniform sales page with one promise makes a lot of sense for a lot of people.

Justin Moore [00:33:32]:
You know, the more I think about this, your signature product is so much my, like, IP and mind share of what you've built to date with your business, the people that you're interviewing. It's such a clear value proposition to me for you to be able to say, I have talked with literally 100 of people at this point.

Jay Clouse [00:33:51]:
Literally 100, probably 1000.

Justin Moore [00:33:52]:
You know, I can identify a through line, a common denominator of key things that I've realized, you know, talking with so many people in their businesses of how they've been successful, I now have developed this framework that I believe is robust, where I can basically take anyone through this process, this black box basically, and help you develop your own signature product. That to me feels so. And I hope I think you should write a book called Signature Product.

Jay Clouse [00:34:20]:
Books around frameworks are the way to write books.

Justin Moore [00:34:22]:
I mean and now, we're gonna reveal that there's a wait list

Jay Clouse [00:34:27]:
Oh, yeah.

Justin Moore [00:34:28]:
For your program. And what is the URL? Signatureproduct.com. Okay.

Jay Clouse [00:34:32]:
So if you're interested in this, at the beginning of this, and this is might be an interesting, like, end of the conversation if you have time. I think in the beginning, I'm gonna do this as a live cohort with a small number of people. So it'll be like a signature product mastermind where it's gonna be very high touch because I won't have all of this framework articulated yet, but I do it live in real time. But I can only do that with a certain small number of people. So I think in the beginning, I'll probably do a small cohort where it's very high touch. It's very personal with me. We work through what should your signature product be. And by the end of that program, you should have the form factor, probably the price point, the name of it, which all those things I think are material decisions to make for your signature products.

Jay Clouse [00:35:18]:
I know like price point and names seem like, it seems kinda minor. Right? I disagree. I think like a really great signature product has a really great name. I think the product's price point needs to make a lot of sense for your audience, for your business over the long term. And that's stuff I have a lot of fun talking about. So if you're interested in that, go to signatureproduct.com, add yourself to the wait list and I'll let you know when we're gonna do that cohort.

Justin Moore [00:35:39]:
One thing that I think this program will help a lot of people with is just, like, deciding that you're gonna do this. Yeah. Because I think for a lot of people, like, I I just wanna like, a little meta example here is, like, I don't know that you knew I was gonna put you on the spot to, like, make a wait list with this URL, but it was, like, I think part of this creator game, part of this solopreneur game is just, like, stop being paralyzed by, like, should I, should I not, should I talk about this until it's, like, ready? Like, you know, we're just kinda rolling with it. Right? F it. We'll do it live kind of approach. And to me, choosing to go through a program like that is a decision to, like, okay, I need to take action here. I built up something valuable. You know, I have built up influence or I built people trust my recommendations or I I need to do something with this audience that I've built.

Justin Moore [00:36:25]:
I don't know what that thing is. Choosing to go through a mastermind like that or an accelerator like that is a choice to, like, okay. It's it's now like, I need to do something here. Like, I can't just build an audience forever. I can't just, like, you know, it's okay to, like, want to derive a livelihood or derive an income from this influence that I built. And I think that that's as or more important than, like, figuring out what the thing is. It's just like choosing to take this step in your business. Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:36:51]:
And a lot of people have, they come to me and they're at like 50% fidelity and they're like totally paralyzed at that 50%. And it becomes so clear to me from that point, like, how do we get this to a 100% with a couple of questions? Had a conversation with a guy at dinner last night who has a membership. I love talking about memberships. He was telling me like, well, we have monthly membership and an annual membership and people churn at about 2 and a half months. And I said, okay, well, what's, you know, what's the take rate on monthly versus annual? Well, about 5% of people are annual. To me, I'm like, that's a huge red flag. You should have way more people on annual. You're positioning this as something that people can get the value out of in less than 3 months and that's what's happening.

Jay Clouse [00:37:31]:
So we talked through like, okay, this is a positioning issue. What's the name of the product? His name of the product actually made a lot of sense for for something that could be positioned as a longer term membership. These are just fun things for me. So like how do I take that out of my mind and put it into a framework? That's the next step.

Justin Moore [00:37:44]:
Oh, I have I just had a great idea. Okay. So you should have, in my mind, 2 different versions of this program, ultimately. Where the first one is I take you from 0 to 1, and the second one is I take you from 0.5 to 1. Like a narrowing down Because what you just described is an optimization Yeah. And positioning challenge. And I think there's a lot of people in both camps.

Jay Clouse [00:38:07]:
There are. Yeah.

Justin Moore [00:38:07]:
And you would run that. So you would take people halfway through your framework, those people, and then other people through the full framework.

Jay Clouse [00:38:15]:
Yeah.

Justin Moore [00:38:15]:
Because there's a different I think it would be interesting to actually so I would probably participate in that one, where it was like, I feel like I'm, like, halfway through figuring something out, and it's more of, like, a challenge of, like, okay, things are kind of working right now, but how can we, like, get this thing full throttle?

Jay Clouse [00:38:31]:
Yeah.

Justin Moore [00:38:32]:
That feels like a slightly different challenge than, like, figuring out what the signature product is.

Jay Clouse [00:38:36]:
Yeah. I agree. I think that's probably I'm very particular with language. So as I was thinking about this, I'm calling a signature product mastermind right now because to me, the like optimization, it needs a little bit more personalized attention because there's more constraints, there's more nuance and consideration. And I think ultimately there might be like signature product accelerator and a signature product mastermind, and the mastermind will be for people who are further down the line and they are trying to like really dial it in. And I think I'm gonna start there because I do wanna start with people who are a little bit further because it's a harder thing to solve for. And I think it will help me cement that framework and get it on paper a little bit better.

Justin Moore [00:39:18]:
Sounds like a great idea. Where do I sign? Signatureproduct.com. Love it. Can't wait for the first one.

Jay Clouse [00:39:24]:
I'll send you an invoice after we after we stop recording. Just kidding. But I love that. Like, at this event, you've had people, like, purchase, like, on the spot.

Justin Moore [00:39:31]:
Dude, it was wild, man. I decided to create a random promo code last minute. I was like, maybe I should do a discount code. And like I had we had literally people walking out out of the event being like, I'm trying to use the promo code and it's like not working. Can you help me? But I pulled up the laptop, got in some purchase on the spot. We had several people. It was crazy, dude. That's awesome.

Jay Clouse [00:39:49]:
So I hope I have the same success at my talk today.

Justin Moore [00:39:52]:
You are absolutely do you have a discount code? Ready?

Jay Clouse [00:39:54]:
I don't. I don't. But I could put one together.

Justin Moore [00:39:56]:
And it's gonna be around memberships?

Jay Clouse [00:39:58]:
Yeah. It probably makes sense for the membership course.

Justin Moore [00:40:01]:
The Build A Beloved membership? Yeah. Make a VidSummit promo code. Yeah. I'll do that. Real quickly. I'll do that. This was fun. This is fun.

Justin Moore [00:40:07]:
Justin, thanks for hanging. Dude, signatureproduct.com. Signatureproduct.com. Until next time.

Jay Clouse [00:40:13]:
Until next time.