0 (2s):
What's shaking fire nation. JLD here with the entrepreneurs on fire. October, 2020 Income Report. The gross income for October was a, a a $139,557. Our total expenses were 28,487 for a net profit of one, 111,070. The difference between October to September was a, a a $107,000 less. A big part of that was because I didn't get to that Harper Collins at advanced this month, again, that I got to the prior month and everything else is looking good because our net profit overall gross revenue percentage, 80%, what is it?

0 (43s):
80% of the higher. I'm happy in Today for our nation. And we talked about closing out our California trip Podcast movements and a couple other quick things, but first we're going to thank our sponsors. If your feeling like you have no idea where to start with your online course journey, then Thinkific a five day course. Challenge is for you. You walk away with a complete blueprint for your online course that you'll be ready to put it into action. Sign up for this free challenge today at thinkific.com/fire that's T H I N K I F I C.com/fire. All right, fire nation.

0 (1m 23s):
I'm going to kick off with the Income Report with Josh, mr. CPA, on Fire himself, the tax tip that he's bringing for us, which is what to look for when hiring a tax and accounting professional, Josh, take it away.

1 (1m 37s):
So as we get towards the end of the year in this 2020 year, that just feels like it won't ever end. I know that many, a fire nation is going to start looking at their taxes and accounting. And one thing, many people started to look at it during this time of year is how are they going to actually handle their taxes and accounting? And this is especially true. If, if people are just started a business, they've never used it as a tax accountant or a CPA or anything like that, or even people who have been doing this for years, maybe their starting to reevaluate and say, is this the right person for me? And there's several ways you can go with this, right? You could, you can do the work yourself. You could hire some cheap seasonal help. For for a year-end tax prep, like a place. You could just go into Walmart and they have the booth set up and they'll do their T your taxes for ya.

1 (2m 20s):
Or you can bring in a true tax and accounting professional to make sure you are truly tracking your numbers properly and minimizing your taxes while staying in line with the IRS. And I'm going to give some tips on, on, on these options here, but just as a general run-down, if you're an individual, which is a very basic tax return, you haven't started a business yet. I see no problem with handling your own taxes, right? The IRS has literally free websites on their website that you can go to and file your taxes for free. If all you have is a W2 may be a mortgage. It's a very little things like that. That really is not an issue with doing that yourself. If you're business owner, I recommend going with one of the latter, two options, meaning having a professional, do it for you.

1 (3m 4s):
And if you're a successful business owner, you have a lot of stuff going on with it. I think you need to hire a professional that you're going to work with throughout the year. This is going to have those numbers in good shape and is going to come up with a comprehensive tax strategy that you can put in place, right? Because if you just go with a seasonal tax, hope, some of those guys are great. I'm not knocking them. They know how to do taxes, but all's going to do is be backwards looking and say, okay, you made this much, this was so much you owe taxes. If you had a successful business taxes, they're going to be one of your largest expenses. So you're going to want to have an actual professional. That's working with you throughout the year to make sure that you're minimizing those taxes. And you can only get that by hiring an actual professional. All right. So the logical question then becomes, if you're ready to hire this professional, how do you choose?

1 (3m 46s):
Right? There's a million different things. You can look at it. There's different designations. There's people that have no designations. What should you be looking at? The first thing you should look at is that professional designation, right? It's possible to do both tax and accounting work without any designation whatsoever. This isn't like an attorney where you have to be a licensed attorney to practice the law. Someone can go in and literally hang their shingle, set up, shop and start filing taxes with no experience, no designation. And I do know that plenty of people who do this and they'd do it very well. All right. So I'm not saying that it's not possible to find a good tax professional that doesn't have a designation. The problem is, is going to be difficult for you to measure their qualifications. So unless you can get some really good referrals to let you know that this person is good, is harder to know.

1 (4m 28s):
Whereas if you're looking at someone like a CPA or an EA, which is an enrolled agent and an IRS tax as a nation, you know that they've met some minimum standards to get those designations, meaning they've, they've passed some education that they need to have. They've had experience that they need to have to get those designations, you know, that they're using Doing continuing education. So they're continuing to learn about the tax laws as they go. All right. So I do recommend it unless you have some really, really good referrals. If someone that doesn't have these designations look to someone with the designation that proves you they've, they've cleared those minimum barriers to have the education and the experience necessary to do it. Plus some of those, like a CPA, if someone files complaints on a CPA that's public knowledge and you can access. All right.

1 (5m 9s):
So that's, and that's another benefit of it. The second thing I would look at is experience level. You should be looking at both how many years a person has been in the tax and accounting Business and also they share their experience in your specific industry. Right? Because look at it right out of college, I, I had an accounting degree, which sounds great. But if I would've tried to file someone's taxes out of had no clue what I was doing and why you want someone that has those years under an experienced tax professional, who's prepared for a lot of tax returns before they prepare yours. If they're going to be your tax professional. Right? So look at their years in the business, but also look at their experience within your specific industry, because there are a lot of similarities in the tax and accounting world between various businesses, but there's some things that are very, very unique to your business, right?

1 (5m 52s):
So I would personally look at someone who has plenty of years in the industry itself, but also specifically your industry so that they know a specific strategies and tactics that can help your business. Number three, I would look at proactive versus reactive, right? This is a difference between one of these seasonal tax shops and a true professional, like I was talking about before you want someone who going to work with you year round. So that is looking ahead and saying, Hey, it looks like you're going to owe $20,000 in taxes this year. Why don't we look at doing this? Whereas someone was reactive. You're gonna go to there, to there shop in March. So they're going to say, alright, you have $20,000. Alright, you want someone who is looking ahead, not just backwards and in the accounting history, there's a lot of looking backwards.

1 (6m 32s):
Try to find a professional is going to look forward. And finally, the last thing I would look at is I would look at the relationship. You want someone that you enjoy working with and look at a CPAs and tax professionals were not known for being the most. Mr. And mrs. Personality, all right, we get to a, kind of a bad rap for, for not having much of a personality. You know, they don't have to be the most outgoing person in the world. You don't have to go and have a drink with them and they become your best friend, but you should like working with them, especially if it's going be someone that you work with throughout the year, they shouldn't make you feel a dumb for asking questions. They shouldn't make you feel like you're a hassle for asking questions, find someone who is willing to answer your questions, who you enjoy working with, and that you want to spend years together and put is a true member of your team that can help you build your business.

1 (7m 20s):
All right. So if you're looking for an accountant, my advice, I take your time, find the right person that meets your needs. Meet with several different people. If you have to, this is a very important decision. A good accountant can, one can be one of the key members of your business, right? So interview, lots of people ask lots of questions and choose wisely. And as always, if anyone has any questions that they are looking for that tax professional, and haven't found one, you can reach out to us directly josh@cpaonfire.com, plenty of free resources on our website cpaonfire.com and just reach out. Let's talk about it,

0 (7m 51s):
Josh, my man, thank you as always appreciate it, brother and fire nation. It is time to bring on the one. That's the only at Caitlin Erickson. And we are going to talk about closing out our California trip. Kate, take it away.

2 (8m 7s):
What's up fire nation, excited to be having on the MC to chat about October or Holy cow. John like Christmas trees, holidays.

0 (8m 17s):
So we did just buy a Christmas tree at home Depot.

2 (8m 20s):
I was really nervous that they were going to run out. So it was like, I guess we better buy it now.

0 (8m 24s):
So then you bought a bunch of lights and your hanging up lights and your painting, your office, like your getting really decorating. So I know

2 (8m 30s):
I'm doing all the things. My next move is like my actual set-up because I've now moved my desk. Like for time off, this is just kind of like, it's kind of a weird, like, shape, don't you think? So

0 (8m 44s):
We think for an office kind of for a bedroom, it definitely would work, but yeah, I can see what you struggle.

2 (8m 50s):
I mean, I guess it's just like, I want to take advantage of the windows and look out the windows, but then where have to have my desk. But anyways,

0 (8m 57s):
We follow Kate on Instagram. If you want to see these debacles in her painting and all of this stuff and Kate L Erickson,

2 (9m 5s):
We did just post a picture of the new paint. I love it. All right. So what went down in October? Well, we closed out our Cali trip, but you guys remember from September that we spent a good chunk of the month in San Diego visiting our old stomping grounds right on the Bay there in Pacific beach. And wow, that was amazing. And we closed it out in October with some time in Joshua tree, national park, we did some camping. And then I also will John you had a back home about a week before me. I hung out in Cali for an additional week so that I can do a little pump when my mom and my sister, which was awesome, but wow, Joshua tree, national park, anyone tuning in who has not been there, who loves the desert, who loves nature, who loves camping, Holy cow, it's a beautiful place.

2 (9m 57s):
We actually have a few pictures of our trip and some of the hiking that we did over on the Income Report so definitely make sure to head over and check that out. Yoda fire.com forward slash Income eight, six. And another thing that I really loved about Joshua tree is it, we were just completely off the grid. There was no internet, no cell phones, no computers, man. We did some Epic stargazing and it was just really great to hang out and spend so much quality time together with a great group of people. Amazing hikes. John what was your highlight from Joshua tree?

0 (10m 36s):
Definitely That and believable Trek. We took to find the Eagle mind, which I'm surprised you didn't have a picture there. And I guess you're gonna have to pull it up now. So Fire fire nation and there will be a picture of Eagle mind at eofire.com/income eight, six, and a real quick backstories. Like this is like an old abandoned mine. That's like, not on any map. Like you really have to go to like these underground websites to find like where it is. And there is still pretty vague about it as well. So we really had to use all of our Pathfinder, the skills to get there. And it took us a couple of times, like two different days to actually go there and, or actually try to find that in that we were a successful the second time, which was a blast.

0 (11m 18s):
And I'd say the other thing that I thought was really cool about our trip was I finally learned what Joshua tree means or why it was named at his, when the Mormons were coming across the land. And they saw these Joshua trees and it looks like there's two or more. Arm's like up supplicating two, the heavens. And so they called and Joshua tree, like after Joshuah, for some reason, it, it was just really interesting to see these, these trees and kind of put yourself back in the mind to these Mormons who were coming across this land hundreds and hundreds of years ago, having no idea what was over the horizon. So I kind of put myself in that situation in a few times mentally, it was super cool. And Kate said that the light pollution, it's almost a zero at Joshua tree. So the stargazing was spectacular shooting stars.

0 (12m 0s):
You name it. We've had a great crew, awesome food every night and you earned it because we went on a bunch of hikes. So overall it was just an Epic trip in that Joshua tree was a, a, a 10 out of 10

2 (12m 14s):
Back to the path to finding skill so that I actually am disappointed in myself for not including something about that, a whole debacle, because we set out that first day, we were like, all right, we are going to go find the us. And in retrospect, of course it took us actually finding it to be able to look back and say this, but essentially, like if you were to look on a map and you were looking like at an aerial view and you saw the path that we took the first day where we just like completely we're nowhere near it. Even though we were continuing to try and convince ourselves that like, no, like this must be it. We were literally following a guide that, because this was off trail, there's not a trail for it.

2 (12m 58s):
So we're following this guide. That's like at the bolder take a right. And we were like, there's the folders everywhere? Like, what is this person talking about? So it would actually be pretty interesting if we can map ourselves the first day and the second day, because after about taking, I don't know, a a hundred steps in the right direction. Then we went right the first day and left the second day. It was pretty cool. And we're just like, it was actually a very fulfilling and a cool moment to actually find it that second day. So I will absolutely go and add pictures, fire nation, definitely check it out.

0 (13m 38s):
We move on to a settling back into PR. I mean, after our two trips, we did one to Maine and then one to Cali. We did have a two week in the middle. We're actually just me back in PR for those two weeks in the middle there. Or will you, will you back to Kate? I forget.

2 (13m 52s):
We don't even have to remember that I was here.

0 (13m 56s):
This is all blends into one. I don't know it was, I alone was, I was, I mean, I should just know by what was I eating real food or was I just eating broccoli? I should, I should remember just by that. So,

2 (14m 9s):
So where are you there?

0 (14m 14s):
There was a guy was here during those two weeks in between me and in Puerto Rico. And then we went in between me and I should say in Cali in Puerto Rico. And then we went up to Cali for that month, which was at Epic. And then I actually came back early and Casey, I got a couple of weeks. They hang out with her sister and mother and do some cool things there. And then when we settled back and so we have done some pretty cool things here, actually, we came back to an amazing mural painted in our house and Kate, I can't believe that isn't here in the Income Report either. I mean, you really, really letting down fire nation on keeping them up with our life here. So this mural, which I won't even go into detail on, I wanted you to go into detail on a mural because I just want you to come fire nation, look at this picture, but it's, it's 22 feet high by like 20 feet wide.

0 (15m 4s):
It's unbelievable. It's next level. You have to see it to believe it's. And it took a, a, an amazing artist Gustavo 29 days to create this masterpiece. And by the way, if you want to see his work, it's spectacular. Follow him on Instagram at Gus artist. So G U S artists, Gus artists, he would love, love your follow and love what you think of his work. You can see our project there as well. It's spectacular. And then we have also done some amazing landscaping to our property, which Kate again, has neglected to show here, which is an absolute debacle.

0 (15m 45s):
So, you know, we settle it back into PR, had a lot of cool things going on 100% redo on the landscaping, this amazing 20 by like maybe more like 20 by 15, I'm a size 20 feet by 15 foot mural. And we settled back into PR and Kate. Anything you wanna wrap up about that before you move on to the Podcast movement? Virtual?

2 (16m 7s):
No, just that, I mean, I feel like both of us are feeling pretty great being back in just a way. We don't have any travel plans until the holidays. And so it feels pretty nice to just kind of, you know, close out the you're a strong, we've got a couple of big projects we're working on right now that I know both of us are very determined and motivated to finish before the year is out. So yeah, it feels great to be home. And I will, I will be excited to add the mural piece at the landscaping to this report.

0 (16m 42s):
I hope and fire nation, before we talk about Podcast and movement virtual, we're going to take a quick second to thank our sponsors. According to a recent Forbes article, working from home to transform in the job market and create global competition for every role. This means that if you're an employer you're competing with even more employers to find the best candidates for your job. So how do you get your company in jobs to stand out, start with ZipRecruiter by trying it for free at ziprecruiter.com/fire. When you post a job on ZipRecruiter, you can tag it with labels like actively hiring or remote in order to help you attract the right talent. Next ZipRecruiter is a powerful technology, identifies people with the skills and experience that match your job. If you're really interested in a candidate and when to snag them before they're contacted by other company's, you can even invite them to apply for your job.

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0 (18m 8s):
Plus, our students are always raving about how easy it is to follow the flow of the contents, thanks to Thinkific theme and templates. So if you're ready to create an online course to help you reach a wider audience, build revenue and make a bigger impact than Thinkific is the perfect partner to have by your side to prove it Thinkific has an exclusive offer for you fire nation, their five day course Challenge here's what one of their recent students had to say about it. This Challenge helped me gain the confidence and clarity I needed as well as our perspective require to compile my specialized knowledge and to marketable content that others will be willing to pay for sign up for this free challenge today at thinkific.com/fire that's T H I N K I F I C.com/fire.

0 (18m 51s):
All right. K we're back to take it away on a podcast movement. Virtue was,

2 (18m 56s):
Yeah. So this year at Podcast movement Well I mean, virtual, we were not in person, which was a huge bummer, but I know that all of us have probably experienced it at some point this year, we were meant to be somewhere in person and we ended up having to move it online, then kudos and props to the guys over at Podcast movement, the entire team behind it. I really feel like the virtual event went off really great. You know, it's just such an amazing opportunity to get together with people on the podcasting space. It's what I've always loved about Podcast movement. It's like they truly do have a community of incredible podcasters who are so much fun to be around.

2 (19m 37s):
I love chatting with them, hearing their ideas. I'm hearing people's updates about their podcast and what they've been up to a new strategies that they're using. And we got all of that and more from this virtual event. But my favorite part about it honestly, was the fact that we got to Host a three hour Podcast workshop, which we called it from idea to launch and beyond, and I've felt like it went off so well. We had such a great turnout. Ah, we did hot seats. We did, we broke it into four different sessions. It being three hours. Like that is a challenge, especially when you're virtual to keep people engaged and interested.

2 (20m 21s):
So we kind of sprinkled those hot seats throughout the Q and a throughout. And I feel like that was pretty positive in terms of like overall, in terms of people hanging around and being engaged, what do you think John

0 (20m 36s):
Do you get out of the credit for that? I mean, you absolutely crushed it. You said it all up. You did all of the work, all of the legwork. I just showed up and just yell in my mouth every now and then to keep that process moving for. I thought you've put together a great three hour session. You know, we went through the idea that how we do some hot seats and Q and a, we talked about the launch and then we went beyond the launch and then close it. I was strong with the hot seats and the Q and a, and the Huskies were definitely that huge hat and people loved it. We had a blast doing it. I do love putting people in the hot seats because, you know, I just don't like to take it easy on people because they don't think that helps. And I'm not just going to be here to be your cheerleader. I'm here to move your business and life forward.

0 (21m 17s):
Period. End of story. So why don't you take this part home? I talking about doing things that don't scale Kate.

2 (21m 24s):
Yeah. Well, you definitely did bring the heat in the hot seat. So that is like, if I organize everything and make sure is going to run smoothly, you really package it up with a big fat bow with some really great hotseats that yeah. Doing things that don't scale. So even before the event kicked off, this was a, a huge lesson for me because as we start to move more things, online events, specifically summits workshops, we have to start finding different ways to still leverage and get the best parts out of the events. And for me, that is connecting with people and building relationships.

2 (22m 6s):
That's what I love about going to in-person events and for something like Podcast movement. I mean, that's a pretty big for our business because that's where we get to connect with our Podcaster's paradise community. So where we get to, you know, hang out with a lot of people from fire nation. So not being able to do that in person, we had to get creative. And we did that by doing things that don't scale. So even before the event kicked off their, the platform that Podcast movement virtual was using for the event, it's called swap card. And this was really my first like big experience with swap card. I think I have attended other events that have leveraged this platform, but I'm going to go into this in detail.

2 (22m 49s):
And my biggest lesson learned. So I won't spend too much time on it, but because I put in the time and the effort to connect with people on swap card before the event even started, we had huge payoff by way of the number of people who attended our workshop and some really powerful partnerships that we've created since then on chats that you and I have both had John either in email or via a phone,

0 (23m 17s):
Let me get specific for a second. I mean, we just locked down a $15,000 deal with somebody who is a conversation you started I'm on that. I also have a 30 minute conversation with the top guy over a Wondery. So, I mean, that's just two quick examples of, you know, big, big payoffs from the leg work you put in.

2 (23m 37s):
Yeah, absolutely. And again, all of the aisle go into a few more examples of some of the connections that we were able to make simply from just showing up, but we'll do that in the biggest lesson learned. So be sure to stick around for that.

0 (23m 50s):
So I'm going to talk about the Income of breakdown for October our product and service income was $124,000. We did just over $10,000 in journal sales. That's about 388 and not actually about that is 388 journal sales. We did a, a 185, a freedom journal sales, a 112 mass journal sales in 90 to a Podcast journals. We had $15,000 for our recurring revenue, and we actually did a total of 16,303 for paradise for that month. Podcast sponsorships crushed it again at $97,000.

0 (24m 30s):
So that was another good month for that. Our affiliate Income broaden $15,000. Total our big players. We've got to have a big pay off from Amy Porterfield for 1300, crushed it with challenges for 1500, we did over $9,200 with click funnels. And a lot of other things that you can check out on our Income Report, our expenses were $26,000. You can go down that line item and, you know, one that jumps out to me, Amazon man, Amazon's tough, $4,159 in Amazon fees. That's just how it rolls. And that was our total Expenses in October for $28,000 for our net profit of $111,000, making this on 86th month in a row, At over a hundred thousand dollars of net profit.

0 (25m 18s):
So awesome work again, team Kate biggest lessons learned.

2 (25m 24s):
Yup. So I'll bring it back to doing things that don't scale and fire nation. You know, that we've talked a ton about systems and processes and automation and tools and how critical all of these things are to growing your business. But there will always be at a time when the best strategy that you can use. The best thing that you can do is something that does not scale. So I'm going to bring it back to this story about Podcast movement virtual. How do you guys know that we did that? You heard the whole bit about our workshop and everything. And so in the two weeks leading up to the event, and then all throughout the event, I invest the time and connecting with hundreds of attendees and speakers.

2 (26m 7s):
Now, this was actually quite easy because of the platform that they were using. All you have to do was creating an account and it immediately connects you to every single other person and speaker who is attending the event and who has also signed up on the platform com to find out a lot of people did that. So here's what I did. I created a message that introduced myself that welcomed the attendees and speakers for the event John and I have been attending Podcast boom it since its inception. So that was kind of like a fun fact that, that I put in there, like, Hey, we've attended this conference every single year. Since the very start.

2 (26m 48s):
I also shared details for the workshop that we were hosting because I wanted people to know about it. I mean, I think however many different tracks and options people had for what they were attending at was a whole lentil. So I definitely wanted to make sure to one, to introduce myself too, welcome people and share a fun fact. And that was about as an attending every single year and then three that we were going to be hosting a workshop and that we really hope that they would come join us. I talked to them a little bit about the workshop. So once I had crafted this message, I created a quick video tutorial to show Jess, just my VA session, an integral part of so many things that I do here at Entrepreneurs on Fire as the jam and to that's our virtual team, Jess jam, and to poo shout out guide.

2 (27m 38s):
And I just showed us how to go in to the platform and send this message. Two, every single individual who was signed up on the platform again, swap card made it really, really easy to do this. I'm all you have to do was click into a person's profile and send them a message. So I showed us how to do that. And you might be thinking right now, like, okay, wait a second. Because that sounds like a very systematized and scalable and all those things, which you are absolutely correct in assuming that and thinking that because it was very scalable, I literally wrote a message one time, it took me maybe five minutes to create this video tutorial and send it over to Jess.

2 (28m 18s):
And she literally did all of that for me. However, the most important part of this entire thing and what does not scale it is once just sent out that initial initial message. Everyone. I went into the platform every single day and I checked for replies and I responded to hundreds of messages, no joke, hundreds, hundreds, hundreds. If it had a message count, I would actually be really curious how many messages I did back and forth with different people, but I literally spent it. And sometimes some days it took me an hour to get through them all, but I went through every single one and it was so great because it was engaging.

2 (29m 4s):
It got me to like an open the door to get to know people. And the connections have been incredible. As you mentioned earlier, beyond the amazing doors it is opened and the relationships that we have started building as a result of it. And all of the people who kind of got to know about our workshop and then ended up attending it. It just like creates a connection and trust and excitement and all of that. And our workshop. I mean, this was amazing opportunity for us to provide super straight value, but also to talk about for your podcast Course and podcasters paradise, and Entrepreneurs on Fire. So that's the whole point is, is that what I did with not scalable at all the result, the ROI of that was very, very high.

2 (29m 56s):
So as John mentioned, we had a call with someone over at Wondery, which is awesome. We have multiple companies expressed interest in sponsoring Entrepreneurs on fire. And I actually want to say that two of those conversations have already resulted in the Sign deals for sponsorships. We made some connections with producers over at ABC Australia. We chatted with someone from Heil, which is the MC and equipment company that we recommend a lot. We connected with someone over at Adobe, which scored us six months free on the Adobe platform, as it did everyone who attended the event. And I was kind of paying attention to those notifications.

2 (30m 36s):
So that's a total score. It, we pay $50 a month each for your Adobe creative cloud. So a hundred dollars a month, times six, that it looked like me literally messaging somebody back and forth a few times and creating an awesome relationship. So they put $600. So moral of the story, again, there is so much power in doing things that don't scale. I am the biggest fan of automation and systems and all of that, but there is absolutely a time and a place where your ability to do things that don't scale can payback. So big

0 (31m 13s):
Fire nation mic drop by Kate Lynn Erickson. Hope you enjoyed today's episode. Check us out at John Lee Dumas at Kate L Erickson on Instagram for just some of the stuff that we're talking about, like landscaping off of shots, lifestyle stuff. We love sharing our lives with you. And we will catch you on the flip side. If you're feeling like you have no idea where to start with your online course journey, then Thinkific a five day course Challenge is for you. You walk away with a complete blueprint for your online course that you'll be ready to put into action. Sign up for this free challenge today at thinkific.com/fire that's T H I N K I F I C.com/fire.