February 2023 Income At-A-Glance
Gross Income for February: $145,734
Total Expenses for February: $14,596
Total Net Profit for February: $131,138
Difference b/t February & January: -$23,553
% of net profit to overall gross revenue: 90%
Why We Publish An Income Report
This monthly income report is created for you, Fire Nation!
By documenting the struggles we encounter and the successes we celebrate as entrepreneurs every single month, we’re able to provide you with support – and a single resource – where we share what’s working, what’s not, and what’s possible.
There’s a lot of hard work that goes into learning and growing as an entrepreneur, especially when you’re just starting out. The most important part of the equation is that you’re able to pass on what you learn to others through teaching, which is what we aim to do here.
Check out all of our monthly income reports – from the very beginning!
Let’s IGNITE!
**We’ll receive a commission on the affiliate links below. If you click on my affiliate link and sign up for the products and services I trust and recommend, then I will earn a commission.
Ron Parisi’s Monthly Tax Tip
Hello, Fire Nation! Ron Parisi from CPA On Fire here with our February 2023 Tax and Accounting tip.
At CPA On Fire, we specialize in working with entrepreneurs to minimize their tax liability while keeping them in line with the ever-changing tax laws.
Our firm has been working with JLD & Kate at Entrepreneurs On Fire for years now, and they’ve included me in these monthly income reports with unlimited access to all their accounts so I can verify that what they report here is complete and accurate.
And because they believe in delivering an insane amount of value to you, my job doesn’t stop at the verification level; I also provide a new tax and accounting tip every month!
Ron’s February Tax Tip: Tax Day Liability
We have a timely topic since it’s mid-March 2023 and the big tax deadline – April 18, 2023 – is coming upon us fast!
Today, I want to talk about the #1 tax surprise entrepreneurs have shared with me over my long career: Tax Day Liability.
This may seem like a given.
However, I want to make you aware of the three “shocking” aspects of Tax Day Liability.
- Personal Net Income,
- Progressive Tax Rates, and
- 1st Quarter Tax Estimate Timing
Personal Net Income
The IRS looks at Personal Net Income (Not Cash) by Calendar Year.
The first thing to remember is whether you’re in an LLC, S Corp or Partnership, the IRS looks at your Personal Net Income by calendar year.
Entrepreneurs are often caught by surprise because they feel like they shouldn’t owe much in taxes because they used available cash to reinvest in their business.
However, the IRS doesn’t care how much money is in your bank account. They only care that you need to pay income tax based on earnings between January 1st and December 31st of the tax year.
Progressive Tax Rates – Substantial Impact as You Grow
As an entrepreneur makes more income, you can go from a 10%, 12%, 22%, 24% all the way up to a 37% tax bracket.
Plus, if you’re in California and New York, state tax rates can also be substantial.
Planning for growth also requires effective planning for this growing tax liability.
Coinciding 1st Quarter Tax Estimates
As highlighted above, a growing business may mean significant Tax Day liability.
And, don’t forget the “double whammy” of 1st Quarter Tax Estimates also being due!
Cash flow planning that contemplates both business needs and tax liabilities is essential long before mid-April.
Simply being aware is a great first step!
And you can prepare even now by working with your tax professional to understand tax day liability and run projections for 1st Quarter Estimates.
Ultimately, I suggest working with a tax professional throughout the year (quarterly works well) to project future taxes and look for tax planning opportunities.
Always a pleasure being with you, and until next month, you guys go out there and crush it!
Those of you in Fire Nation who are entrepreneurs and business owners and are looking to upgrade your financial operations in 2023, check out our website: CPAOnFire.com!
We’ve been able to get our clients amazing results and would love to help you out as well. Book a call through our website and let us show you how we can help your business grow.
What Went Down In February
Interview of the Month
How to Scale to a Million with Masterminds with Brad Hart and Jay Fiset
3 Value Bombs
- The thing that you must understand is that not all the heavy hitters have a mastermind that continues to renew on its own. Many of them have to just keep filling the funnel because the mastermind isn’t strong enough to keep people in it.
- When to start a mastermind is like that old proverb… Best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, and the second-best time is today. There’s no reason to hold back.
- The price should not be the question. We should really be starting with: what is the promise of the mastermind? What will be different in people’s lives if they participate for a year, or six months, or whatever your structure is?
Mastermind To Millions – An opportunity to get a ticket at the lowest price: 40% off! Definitely go VIP for the best possible experience!
Podcast Advertising with MowPod
Last year we tried something we’ve never done before: paid advertising for the podcast.
One of the many benefits of being a part of the HubSpot Podcast Network (HPN) is they offer amazing programs, like their podcast advertising match program.
They teamed up with MowPod, a company focused on helping you grow your podcast, and we had heard good things from other hosts in the network, so we decided to give it a try!
Our investment was $3k for September, and $3k spread out across all of Q4 – with HPN matching that – for a total of $6k for September, and $6k for Q4 (given the timing of when we decided to start, that’s how it worked out).
We made our goal SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound, which we believe it the only way to go anytime you’re testing anything – especially when there’s a monetary investment involved.
- Specific: To run 4 “subscriber campaigns” over 4 months to welcome new listeners into Fire Nation who are “qualified subscribers”; those spikes in subscribers will increase our ranking in the Business category (to #1), in turn giving us more visibility to attract more qualified subscribers (qualified subscriber = a subscriber who is genuinely interested in the show content and will remain a subscriber).
- Measurable: Two fold: Are we increasing subscriber counts, and are we hitting #1 in the Business category week over week
- Attainable: Given our fellow HPN hosts’ experiences with MowPod, we knew this was an attainable goal
- Relevant: Our #1 goal at EOFire has always been to continue to grow our listenership, and therefore the podcast, so this definitely checked the box of “relevant”
- Time-bound: The campaign would run from Sept – Dec 2022
Our hesitations with podcast advertising
We’d be remiss to not mention a couple of our biggest concerns (maybe even hesitations) with the campaign…
First: our existing number of subscribers and downloads.
In order for a subscriber campaign to work, you have to have large percentage increases in subscribers to make the jumps happen. Because our subscriber base is already so large, we were thinking it would take a much larger investment to consistently see jumps that would bring us to #1 in Business.
Second: we didn’t want subscribers just to have subscribers.
Our overall goal of the campaign was to hit #1 in Business consistently enough that we’d reap the benefits of the discoverability, resulting in even more qualified subscribers. We didn’t want to “buy subscribers” just to have them unsubscribe a week later. With advertising, you’re always going to be risking that outcome because you only have so much control over who sees your ads and decides to click.
Our hesitations aside, we were excited to try something new. We knew at the end of the campaign – at the very least – we’d have some really great lessons learned.
So what were the results?
To give us a baseline, we started out ranking around #100 in the Business charts on Apple Podcasts, peaking at #76 the month before, in August.
Within days of the campaign going live, we not only hit #1 in Careers and #19 in Business, we also had a day where we were welcoming over 400 new subscribers to the show.
While this was definitely a strong start, and a great sign, we expected that it would continue to look like this throughout the campaign (since our goal was to be consistent throughout the campaign – not have huge peaks and valleys).
But as the days rolled on, numbers continued to drop. By the end of September (and only about a week into the campaign), we were back down to where we started on the Business charts.
By the beginning of October we did manage to get back to #10 in Business, and saw another great jump in subscribers. But after reviewing our invoice, we found out that the campaign manager had spent our entire month’s budget in 1 day…
Anyone who is familiar with the Apple Podcasts algorithm knows that jumps like this can actually hurt you, which is why we were adamant about a consistent spend, not huge peaks and valleys.
MowPod took responsibility and restarted the campaign, but the following weeks weren’t what we had expected or hoped for.
Again, with our desire for an evenly spread out spend, we were getting feedback that this wouldn’t work for our podcast – mainly because of one of our original hesitations: our existing subscribers and downloads were high enough that our spend spread out daily over a month period wouldn’t move the needle.
So they recommended doing a larger spend every two months, which would result in a bigger spike for a day or two, then evening back out to where we were at previously. Again, not something we wanted to do.
By the time December rolled around and we looked at our overall charts, we realized that what we had predicted was true: this wasn’t the right campaign for our podcast.
Testing out new things is critical as a business owner. You never know what’s going to work for YOU until you try it, and for this reason, we’re really glad we tested out a campaign with MowPod.
Ultimately, we’ve decided not to continue with podcast advertising for our show because the results weren’t there for us. Lucky for us, our SMART goal served us very well, because it made our choice on whether to continue or not very clear.
8 Quotes From John Lee Dumas
In February Steve Pfrenzinger reached out and asked if I wanted to help him put together “The GREAT EIGHT Quotes from John Lee Dumas”.
I thought it sounded like a cool project, so I agreed!
Steve has been doing this for several influencers over on his LinkedIn profile; you can check out the other individuals he has featured by searching the hashtag #GreatEightQuotes on LinkedIn.
Also, quotes can be a funny thing… We all learn from those who came before us, and quotes are one thing that get passed down. These are definitely things you’ll find extremely familiar if you listen to Entrepreneurs On Fire. We hope you enjoy :)
- “The riches are in the niches.”
- “Become the #1 solution to a real problem.”
- “Focus: Follow One Course Until Success.”
- “Compare and despair; the only person you should be comparing yourself to is you yesterday.”
- “The key to success is taking action – not just talking about it.”
- “If you’re not willing to invest in yourself, why should anyone else?”
- “Successful people are always looking for ways to add value to others.”
- “Success is not a destination, it’s a journey.”
Have a quote from John you love and revisit often? Share it over on Steve’s LinkedIn post!
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February 2023 Income Breakdown*
Product/Service Income: $138,304
TOTAL Journal Sales: $2,154 | Total Journals Sold: 64
The Freedom Journal: Accomplish your #1 goal in 100 days!
- Total: $1,237 (36 Freedom Journals + 5 Digital Packs sold)
The Mastery Journal: Master Productivity, Discipline and Focus in 100 days!
- Total: $757 (18 Mastery Journals + 2 Digital Packs sold)
The Podcast Journal: Idea to Launch in 50 Days!
- Total: $160 (1 Podcast Journals + 2 Digital Packs sold)
Podcasters’ Paradise: The #1 Podcasting community in the world!
- Recurring: $8,818 (65 recurring)
- New members: $697 (1 new members)
- Total: $9,515
Real Revenue: Turn your BIG IDEA into Real Revenue
- Total: $0
Podcast Sponsorships: $126,593
Podcast Launch: Audiobook: $32 | eBook: $10
Free Courses that contribute to the above revenue:
Your Big Idea: Discover your big idea in under an hour!
Free Podcast Course: Create and launch your own podcast!
Funnel On Fire: Create a funnel that converts!
Affiliate Income: $7,430
*Affiliate links below – if you click on my affiliate link and sign up for the products and services I trust and recommend, then I will earn a commission.
Resources for Entrepreneurs: $7,048
- Audible: $17
- Bluehost: $0
- Click Funnels: $5,521
- Brand Builders: $1,375
- CovertKit: $15
- Coaching referrals: $120 (email me for an introduction to a mentor for overall online business or a Podcast focused mentor!)
Resources for Podcasters: $295
- Podcasting Press: $0
- Splasheo: $50
- Fusebox: $0
- Libsyn: $111 (Use promo code FIRE for the rest of this month & next free!)
- Repurpose House: $102
- UDemy Podcasting Course: $32
Other Resources: $87
- Amazon Associates: $77
- Other: $10
Total Gross Income in February: $145,734
Business Expenses: $11,633
- Advertising: $78
- Affiliate Commissions (Paradise): $45
- Cost of goods sold (Journals): $266
- Fulfillment: $0
- Consulting: $984
- Charitable Contributions: $100
- Design & Branding: $0
- Dues & Subscriptions: $187
- Legal & Professional: $0
- Meals & Entertainment: $184
- Merchant / bank fees: $719
- Amazon fees: $1,145
- PayPal fees: $118
- Office expenses: $170
- Community Refunds: $97
- Promotional: $0
- Travel: $3,590
- Virtual Assistant Fees: $3,875
- Website Fees: $75
Recurring, Subscription-based Expenses: $2,963
- Adobe Creative Cloud: $110
- Accounting: $468
- Boomerang: $90 (team package)
- Business Insider: $13
- Authorize.net: $36
- Google: $60
- Cell Phone: $191
- Internet: $57
- eVoice: $12
- Infusionsoft CRM: $241
- Insurance: $669
- Libsyn: $226
- Linktree: $6
- Skype: $52
- PicMonkey: $8
- Taxes & Licenses: $523
- Patreon: $40
- Shopify: $36
- Zoom: $55
- Xero: $70
Total Expenses in February: $14,596
Payroll to John & Kate: $15,900
In our May 2014 Income Report and our June 2016 Income Report, Josh focuses on how to pay yourself as an entrepreneur. Check them out!
Wondering what we do with all of our net revenue? We share all in our April 2017 Income Report :)
Total Net Profit for February 2023: $131,138
Biggest Lesson Learned
Abundance and the Law of Detachment
I’ve never been big into what most would consider “traditional” meditation: being in a quiet space, seated, no noise or distractions, eyes closed…
But after inviting our good friend and fellow podcaster Katie Krimitsos to join my co-host Nicole and I on our podcast Nicole & Kate Can Relate to talk about meditation and mindfulness, my thoughts on meditation were confirmed: it doesn’t have to look any one way.
That said, I still knew that I wanted to explore meditation outside of “my way”. My way is more fluid – I feel like I’m meditating when I’m running, when I’m washing dishes, and even sometimes when I’m cooking.
I wanted to try the more “traditional” way.
So, naturally, I turned to podcasts!
Katie has an entire network of Meditation for Women podcasts, which you should definitely check out. I’ve loved listening to her Sleep Sounds meditations.
Another podcast that came up during my search is from Deepak Chopra, and what I was attracted to specifically about this podcast is that it’s a 21-Day Meditation Challenge.
Maybe it was a combination of the 21-days feeling very attainable, and the fact that it was a challenge, but regardless of why I was attracted to it, I was excited to have found something I could dive into.
One of the episodes that stood out to me specifically was on the Law of Detachment (day 13 of the podcast if you want to check it out.)
Every one of the 21 episodes was awesome, but for some reason this episode came to me at just the right time, and it reminded me of how important it is to stretch ourselves, do things that make us uncomfortable, and try things – even when we aren’t sure they’re the right thing for us.
I wasn’t into meditation before listening to this podcast, but after tuning in, I’m a huge fan. And I’m especially a fan of great reminders like this, from Day 13 of Deepak’s 21-Day Meditation Challenge:
“As I let go of the need to arrange my life, the universe brings abundant good to me.”
Until next month, keep your FIRE burning!
~ Kate & John
Note: we report our income figures as accurately as possible, but in using reports from a combo of Infusionsoft & Xero to track our product and total income / expenses, they suggest the possibility of a 3 – 5% margin of error.
