October 2020 Income At-A-Glance
Gross Income for October: $139,557
Total Expenses for October: $28,487
Total Net Profit for October: $111,070
Difference b/t Oct & Sept: -$107,596
% of net profit to overall gross revenue: 80%
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.
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.
Josh Bauerle’s Monthly Tax Tip
What’s up Fire Nation, my name is Josh Bauerle. I’m a CPA and the Founder of CPA On Fire, where we specialize in working with entrepreneurs to minimize their tax liability while keeping them in line with the ever-changing tax laws.
I’ve 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!
Josh’s October Tax Tip: What to look for when hiring a tax and accounting professional
As we near year end (in the year that just won’t end!), I know many of you will start looking at your taxes and accounting. And one thing many people start to look into this time of year is how exactly they will handle their taxes and accounting.
There are several ways you could go with it.
- You could do the work yourself.
- You could hire some cheap and seasonal for year end tax prep.
- Or you could bring on a true tax and accounting professional to make sure you are tracking your numbers properly and minimizing your taxes – all while staying in line with the IRS.
For individuals with just a very basic tax return I see no problem handling your own taxes. There’s plenty of free software that will get the job done easily.
But for business owners, I highly recommend going with one of the latter two options. And for a successful business owner, one who needs to truly understand their numbers and have a comprehensive tax strategy in place, hiring a professional for help throughout the year.
When you are ready to hire a professional, the next logical question is how do you choose?
Great question!
What to look for in your next tax and accounting professional:
Professional Designations
It’s possible to do both tax and accounting work without a single designation. And I know plenty of people who do so and do it very well!
The problem is it’s much more difficult for you to know what their qualifications are.
So I recommend choosing a professional with either a CPA or an EA (enrolled agent, an IRS tax designation).
This way you know the person has passed some education and competency barriers to do their job, they are performing significant continuing education, and you can likely find out if any complaints have been made against them.
The designations won’t guarantee they are good, but it definitely helps.
Experience Level
You should be looking at both how many years the person has been in the tax and accounting business, and also their experience in your specific industry.
There are a lot of similarities in the tax world between various business industries, but there are many things unique to your business. You want a tax and accounting professional who knows the ins and outs of your industry and has significant experience working in it.
Proactive vs Reactive
This is the difference between a seasonal tax shop and a true professional working with you year round.
You want someone on your team who is working with you throughout the year to make sure you have accurate, useful numbers and are planning for taxes accordingly. Once tax season arrives, there’s very little strategy you can employ to minimize your tax bill.
Relationship
Finally, you should enjoy working with your accountant. I love working with our clients and being a part of their team as they grow their business. If you don’t like the person, find a new professional!
If you are looking for a new accountant, take your time and find the right person to meet your needs. This is a very important decision. A good accountant can be one of the key members of your team.
Interview lots of people, ask lots of questions, and choose wisely!
As always, please feel free to contact me if you’d like to discuss what would be best for YOUR business. I LOVE chatting with Fire Nation!
What Went Down In October
Closing Out Our Cali Trip
Heading into October we were getting ready to close out our time in Cali, but not without making stops in Joshua Tree National Park and Palm Desert!
Our weekend in Joshua Tree was perfect. We were out in the desert hiking, camping, and star gazing for 3 nights straight. No Internet, no cell phone service.
Sometimes it feels pretty great to get “off the grid”.
One of the highlights of the trip: the Eagle Cliff Mine hike!
This was not an easy hike. It’s off trail and there are no official signs or guideposts to help you along the way. The navigation skill level was marked “very high” in our Joshua Tree book, but we set off confident we’d be able to find it.
Our first go at it was unsuccessful. Unfortunately the guide we were following wasn’t super specific, and we ended up taking a wrong turn pretty early on.
But we were determined, so the next day we went back again – this time with a different trail guide – and success! We found both the mine and an old house next to it!
Joshua Tree success!
John hopped on a plane from Palm Springs back to Puerto Rico, while I stayed in San Diego for another week before wrapping up the trip in Palm Desert with my mom and sister.
Getting to see family and spend so much quality time with them was such a treat.
Settling Back Into PR
Now that we’re back in PR after two trips – one to Maine and one to Cali – we’re ready to hunker down until the holidays.
While we were away we had two massive projects happening here at the house:
- An indoor mural being painted by Gustavo Adolfo
- Outdoor landscaping
Neither project was completely finished by the time we got back, which was great: we were able to personally see them through to the end!
Here are a couple of before and after shots of the work in our front yard…
And here’s an early picture of Gus starting on the indoor mural… and a shot of the finished masterpiece!
With all these incredible projects going on, it has both of us motivated to finish 2020 strong with a couple of projects of our own.
My next big project will be updates to our Podcasters’ Paradise membership site, which includes scanning existing content for updates, plus doing surveys in our community to find out what new content and resources we should create.
My goal is to have this project wrapped up by the New Year.
Meanwhile John has been working hard behind the mic to batch interviews for the rest of the year, plus work continues on finalizing his upcoming book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success.
Podcast Movement Virtual
In October we attended Podcast Movement Virtual and hosted a 3-hr podcast workshop called Idea to Launch and Beyond.
We’ve been attending Podcast Movement since its very first year, so it was kind of sad to not be attending in person this year. We absolutely love getting together with our podcasting friends in person and hosting our annual Podcasters’ Paradise meet up!
But we made the most of it and had such a blast during our workshop!
We knew 3 hours was going to be a long time to keep peoples’ attention – especially online – and so we set up our agenda to guarantee things wouldn’t go stale:
- Intro
- Session I: The Idea
- Session II: The How
- Hot Seats + Q&A
- Session III: The Launch
- Session IV: The Beyond
- Hot Seats + Q&A
The hot seats were a huge hit, and it was so fun bringing people onto Zoom with us throughout the workshop. Learning from others and being able to get realtime feedback from the other attendees was super valuable!
Doing Things That Don’t Scale
But even before the event kicked off, we were hard at work to make sure people knew about the workshop…
The event used Swapcard as its platform, and it provided a great opportunity to connect with attendees and speakers beforehand. I created a message for my VA, Jess, to send out to everyone on the event app. Once that initial message was sent (and jess sent this to several hundred people), I took over and engaged with every single individual who responded.
It took a lot of time, but we were able to build a lot of really great connections and also invite people to our workshop well in advance through these messages.
The result: Over 250 signups for our workshop, plus several great calls with people about sponsorships and partnerships following the conference.
It was a great reminder of how powerful doing things that don’t scale can be.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
October 2020 Income Breakdown*
Product/Service Income: $124,304
TOTAL Journal sales: 388 Journals for a total of $10,560
The Freedom Journal: Accomplish your #1 goal in 100 days!
- Total: $4,917 (185 Freedom Journals sold)
The Mastery Journal: Master Productivity, Discipline and Focus in 100 days!
- Total: $2,861 (112 Mastery Journals sold)
The Podcast Journal: Idea to Launch in 50 Days!
- Total: $2,782 (92 Podcast Journals sold)
**Tune in to our income report this month to hear how we increased our Journal sales on Amazon! Hint: TurnKeyProductManagement.com/fire**
Podcasters’ Paradise: The #1 Podcasting community in the world!
- Recurring: $15,042 (150 recurring)
- New members: $1,261 (13 new members)
- Total: $16,303
Real Revenue: Turn your BIG IDEA into Real Revenue
- Total: $300
Podcast Sponsorships: $97,040
Podcast Launch: Audiobook: $76 | eBook: $25
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: $15,253
*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: $10,012
- Audible: $0
- Click Funnels: $9,286
- Coaching referrals: $469 (email me for an introduction to a mentor for overall online business or a Podcast focused mentor!)
- ConvertKit: $60
- Fizzle: $197
- Virtual Staff Finder: $0
Courses for Entrepreneurs: $3,462
- Knowledge Broker Blueprint by Tony Robbins: $537
- Create Awesome Online Courses by DSG: $0
- Digital Course Academy by Amy Porterfield: $1,345
- Crush it w/ Challenges by Pedro Adao: $1,580
Resources for Podcasters: $784
- Pat Flynn’s Fusebox Podcast Player: $0
- Podcasting Press: $127
- Designrr: $0
- Splasheo: $123
- Tim Paige’s Make My Intro: $0
- Interview Valet: $150
- Libsyn: $281 (Use promo code FIRE for the rest of this month & next free!)
- UDemy Podcasting Course: $89
- RepurposeHouse: $14
Other Resources: $995
- Amazon Associates: $121
- Other: $874
Total Gross Income in October: $139,557
Business Expenses: $26,463
- Advertising: $0
- Affiliate Commissions (Paradise): $1,618
- Accounting: $961
- Cost of goods sold: $1,704
- Consulting: $273
- Fulfillment: $0
- Design & Branding: $0
- Dues & Subscriptions: $67
- Education: $20
- Legal & Professional: $0
- Meals & Entertainment: $900
- Merchant / bank fees: $3,927
- Amazon fees: $4,159
- PayPal fees: $159
- Office expenses: $6,628
- Community Refunds: $1,236
- Promotional: $0
- Travel: $385
- Virtual Assistant Fees: $4,410
- Website Fees: $16
Recurring, Subscription-based Expenses: $2,024
- Adobe Creative Cloud: $100
- Boomerang: $50 (team package)
- Authorize.net: $70
- Bonjoro: $45
- Cell Phone: $50
- Google Suite: $43
- Focus At Will: $45 (annual subscription)
- Internet: $234
- eVoice: $10
- Infusionsoft CRM: $241
- Insurance: $89
- Libsyn: $170
- Linktree: $6
- TaxJar: $19
- Taxes & Licenses: $523
- Vimeo: $199 (annual subscription)
- WP Bakery: $45 (1-time)
- Zoom: $55
- Xero: $30
Total Expenses in October: $28,487
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 October 2020: $111,070
Biggest Lesson Learned
Do Things That Don’t Scale
I know we talk a ton about systems and processes and automation and tools… but there will always be a time when the BEST thing to do is something that DOESN’T scale.
True story:
Podcast Movement Virtual went down in October, and in the 2 weeks leading up to the event – and throughout it – I invested time in connecting with HUNDREDS of attendees and speakers via the platform they’re using to host the event, Swapcard.
Here’s how:
I created a message that introduced myself, welcomed the attendees and speakers to the event, and I shared details for the workshop we hosted in hopes that we’d get more people to sign up for it. (I promoted the heck out of our workshop b/c I KNEW it would be close to – if not THE BEST – content of the entire event for new podcasters!)
I created a quick video tutorial to show one of our VA’s, Jess, how to go into the platform and send this message to every single individual who is signed up on the event’s virtual platform.
Now that part was VERY scalable, right? It took me about 5 minutes to delegate that, and Jess did the rest.
What doesn’t scale: once Jess sent out that initial message, I went in daily and responded to HUNDREDS of replies. Every. Single. One.
It took me HOURS to reply to all the messages I got back (which was awesome to see people so engaged!)
And guess what?
Those connections have been INCREDIBLE.
Beyond the amazing doors it has opened, which I’ll share with you in just a second, it connected me with every single individual who would be attending our workshop PRIOR to them attending. And that creates a connection, it creates trust, and it creates excitement.
Our workshop was 10x better because of this.
People joined feeling like they already know us in a sense. That is so powerful!
And as for the other stuff, which is honestly cherries on top…
Here’s what me investing this time has resulted in thus far:
- Connection with someone at Wondery – we have a call set up to discuss potential synergies
- Multiple companies expressing interest in sponsoring EOFire (have moved all of these convos over to email and have set up calls with 2 companies. One of these companies has already signed a 10 episode sponsorship run.)
- Two connections with producers at ABC Australia (moved convos over to email)
- A potential partnership with Heil (call set up to discuss further)
- A connection with someone at Adobe, who we’re now in talks with re: potential synergies with Audition, the software we use for recording and editing.
There is so much power in doing things that don’t scale. And your ability to do things that don’t scale relies on you setting up the right systems and processes so that you have the time to do them. You’ve got this!
Alright Fire Nation, that’s a wrap!
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.
