We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Charlton Moore. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Charlton below.

Charlton , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

The ability to delay pleasure. In a society that revolves around instant gratification, understanding that long term goals rarely bare fruit along your journey is a major key to maintaining consistency. The fact is that most people give up after the beginning thrill dies down. Being content in your own mind is a super power.

Charlton , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I have been surrounded by music since I was a child. The ability to create and express oneself is uniquely human, and I have always known that it would be a part of me for the rest of my life. I studied music from childhood to college and continue to do so today. The journey never ends.

I have never been the corporate type or, for that matter, anything overly organized. I am glad I realized that about myself early on. I have had many chances to live a life of quiet desperation on what was always marketed as a “safe” path. Following music school, I had the incredible opportunity to work with the legendary instrument designer Greg Bennett. Yes, you can drop out of school, get a good job, and work your way up the corporate ladder, but that was never my personality. I am grateful for my post-college apprentice role, because I could have easily been left behind due to my unwillingness to follow the conventional career path. I am the oldest of the millennials, so even though I now work with modern marketing tools, I was raised in the music industry with a “old school” mindset. I spend 6 years in my 20’s traveling this country in a van full of gear visiting musical instrument stores.  I’ve visited thousands of stores in North America and a great many of them still work with me to this day.  Never underestimate the power of human interaction and genuine passion in a screen-dominated world.

Over the last 8 years I started a music publishing company that I work on in the evenings and weekends.  We have over 1,000 pieces of music in our catalog, as well as credits from major advertisements, live television, streaming services, billboard artists, YouTube channels, and many other mediums where video is created and shared. I needed to create something unique while training to one day own the instrument brands. Tonal Autonomy is exactly what its name implies. It is a publishing house embracing the new world in which old monopolies no longer control the airwaves. We are a group of extremely talented and dedicated independent musicians who collaborate in the music publishing and licensing market. I knew the business model would not work until we had at least 1,000 pieces of music, so the goal has been to expand the catalog every day for years. That means years of daily studio sessions with no payoff. Operating primarily on educated faith.

When the catalog grew to a monetizable size, I was about 5 years into the Publishing journey, and, as fate would have it, this was also the moment when we tragically lost my late mentor and friend, Greg Bennett. I had a home-based business that took several years to get to the point where it could actually operate as a business, and then out of nowhere, it was my time to take over Franklin Strap, Glider Capo, and Ethan Hart Guitars. It’s now been 3 years since myself and my best friend Greg Lancaster partnered up take the brands under our own wings.  I still say today that if I’m able to balance both entities then there’s nothing I can’t do.  This has been and still is an uphill battle but I thank God it’s all in the industry I love and have given my life to.

Today, Franklin Strap & Glider Capo is proud to supply thousands of the world’s most impressive brick and mortar retailers. We have actual brands with an identity, a design perspective, and a story, rather than a collection of unrelated stuff imported from faceless manufacturers to fill shelves for capital firms that have nothing in common with their customers. When I read the countless emails I receive from guitar players sending me pictures of a dozen different Franklin Straps matching every guitar they own, it is difficult not to cry. I am 37 now, and after 15 years in this industry on the professional level, things have not gotten any easier. Every day, many problems are solved and even more challenges emerge. This is not for everyone, but I will say that I am grateful that I do not feel like I am working every day of the week. I genuinely enjoy what I do, and I am far from finished.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Rationalizing failure is a modern human trait that I desperately needed to shake. One day I arrived at the warehouse around 9:13 AM. Greg Bennett obviously didn’t care I was late but as a thought exercise he asked why I was late. I don’t quite remember exactly what I said but it was something about red lights and traffic. He asked if this was my first interaction with red lights and traffic and I of course didn’t understand the question. The point of the exercise was to see if I would just admit that I left my house 15 minutes late.

The moral of the story is that it’s always best to invest in people and not things. Greg Bennett wanted to change my thought process to make me a better person instead of enable self-defeating thinking. When you fail, which you will daily, look yourself in the mirror and admit it. If you don’t keep yourself healthy don’t say it’s because you’re busy. If you’re not spending enough time with a loved one, don’t say it’s because you work a lot. If you didn’t work hard enough to accomplish a goal don’t blame the system. Admit the actual truth and if you don’t know the truth, explore your mind more and it will come. Trust me, in the long run, you’ll be much more content with yourself and the victories will come. Even if you’re still failing at the same old things at least you’re not lying to yourself as to why. The lie may give you short term relief but at what cost?

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Sales is not a division within a company. Everything is sales. Accounts payable/receivable is sales, trade skills is sales, marketing is sales etc…Sales is NOT convincing. If you must convince then you have an inferior product or service. Sales is helping. Sales is solving problems. I’m told all the time by dealers or reps of ours that I’m the best sales guy they ever met and I always say the same thing. No I’m not. I’ve never sold a thing in my entire life. I solve problems and I explain products that I myself am extremely passionate about. If my passion and enthusiasm carries over to you then wonderful. I talk about things I love for a living and if a consequence of that is solving someone’s problem then I’ve just created a consumer and not a sale. Those are two very different things.

Contact Info:

• Website: franklinstrap.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/c_mozie/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FranklinStrap/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlton-moore-1aa21b169/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@tonalmusicinc
• Other: tonalautonomy.com https://www.instagram.com/tonalautonomy/ https://www.instagram.com/franklinstrap/ tonalmusicinc.com