Income Report for March 2023: Japan, Reflecting, and more!

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here. And welcome to the March 2023. Income at a glance. We had a heck of a month. We've got a great tax tip coming your way from Ron of CPA on fire. We've got a great legal tip coming your way. We're going to be talking about our trip to Japan. Kate and my first time ever in that amazing country. And wow, do we have fun. And a lot of other cool things. As soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors, Outbound Squad, hosted by Jason Bay, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Tune in for convos with leading sales experts and top performing reps to help you land more meetings with your ideal clients.

0:45One of my faves, the monthly app with Jason and Ethan where they share hacks, tips, and tricks. Listen to Outbound Squad wherever you get your podcasts. Is this your year? Visit thrivetimeshow.com to see testimonials of how Clay Clark's business coaching has helped over 2 ,000 entrepreneurs to dramatically increase profitability. It's month to month and less money than an average minimum wage employee. schedule your free consultation today at thrivetimeshow.com. All right, Fire Nation, we're going to kick into this like we always do. Our gross income for March was$157 ,349. $18 ,000 was our expenses for$139 ,000 profits, an increase of$8 ,000 over the previous month with a net profit to overall gross revenue percentage of 89%.

1:35So close to that magical 90 % number. And we have, as I mentioned in the intro, a lot of fun things to talk about, but we're going to start off with Ron, Mr. CPA on fire himself, his monthly tax tip, your calendar of tax planning. Take it away. Hello, John, and hello, Fire Nation. This is Ron Parisi with CPA on fire for your March 2023 tax and accounting tip. Hey, John, hey, Fire Nation, Always a pleasure to be with you. Here we are. It's late April 2023. I thought we'd explore kind of our annual tax planning calendar. By this time, hopefully everybody has had a chance to file their taxes or at least file extensions.

2:20And I thought it would be a good time to kind of regroup, look at our tax planning and strategy for 2023 and kind of plan a calendar or maybe a playbook for the rest of the year. Always be mindful, Fire Nation. Over time, your taxes are going to be your largest expense. So it's wise to put them as a priority as you're doing your business planning and you're going about the year. So let's just talk about sort of different points from here to the end of the year on how to sort of plan for your right tax saving strategy. So the first thing I believe is you should meet with your tax professional May-June timeframe.

3:08You should review your past tax returns, both business and personal. You should evaluate your effective rate and your marginal rate. Basically, your effective is how much taxes as a percentage you paid. And then your marginal rate is the next dollar you earn, what your tax rate would have been. And during this meeting, you evaluate, you look for areas of improvement, and also you kind of look forward. You look at where your business is going, what you think you guys are going to be doing budget-wise, forecasting what the business environment looks like for the rest of the year. And I think it's good to kind of explore all those areas and then allow your tax professional to sort of regroup, do their research, and you have a second meeting.

3:59And that's really where you set your 2023 and beyond tax strategy. I would like to see a written plan, something that's ready to be executed, and you kind of dive deep with your tax preparer or tax professional, looking for both what I term like easy, maybe some deductions that we missed or some opportunities we missed and sort of those deeper opportunities, right? Those are where you actually have to change your behavior. You have to change your cash spend, you know, something along the lines of like retirement entity changes. You know, we covered on these calls, R &D credits or Augusta rule, right?

4:50So you kind of look at both the easy stuff and then the deeper stuff. And then two, I always believe in your strategy. We're all entrepreneurs. We're all looking to grow. So it should go beyond one year. At CPA on Fire, we like five years. We always do kind of a five-year tax plan because our clients are growing, right? With growth, There's more opportunity to do more planning. Obviously, as you make more money, rates potentially could go up. So it's always good to look at your strategy, just not every year, but have a plan over three, five years. So then once your plan is set, it's ready to be executed, I suggest you do quarterly meetings with your tax professional.

5:34You sort of review your plan, making sure it's being executed. it. And then also, you know, look for changes, both changes in your environment, in the business environment, in the business itself. And then obviously look for any tax changes. I think the SECURE Act of 2022 has some pretty significant changes, particularly in the retirement area, that gets short shrift, you know, among tax professionals and just in, I guess, the entrepreneurial community. But again, as these tax changes come about, it's going to change your strategy. It's going to open up opportunities. So it's always good every quarter to sort of look at your plan, making sure it's executed, looking at any changes in our business environments, and continue to do that every quarter.

6:25But lastly, most importantly, is you should always have a call or a meeting with your tax professional in December. It really is almost the last chance to do anything from a tax planning perspective, right? Whether we're paying bonuses, whether we're buying assets, things like that. But it's very important that you should at least have a conversation in December, kind of have some numbers, your financials, maybe through November 30th, where you guys think you're going to end up. And this allows your tax professional to really kind of bake sure you guys are taking advantage of every opportunity and then to execute by that 12-31, December 31st deadline.

7:10So there you have it, Fire Nation. Just wanted to kind of give you an annual tax planning playbook for the rest of 2023. I'm Ron Parisi with CPA on Fire. Always a pleasure being with you. And until next time, we'll talk to you soon. Thank you. Ron, thank you as always. And Fire Nation, CPAonfire.com. Ron at CPAonfire.com. They will serve you well. Now it's on to David Lizabram's monthly legal tip, what to consider when you're selling a business. David, take it away. What's up, Fire Nation? David Lizabram here, and I'm excited to be back with another legal tip for you. I've been practicing law for 21 years, and I have loads of free content over at LizardBramLaw.com, my website.

7:59This month's legal tip is all about selling a business. In the past, I've talked about what to consider when you're buying a business, but of course there's two sides to every transaction. Let's take a look at the process of selling a business. Now, this conversation won't cover the financial or tax aspects of selling a business. There are a lot of good resources out there to assist with those issues. My number one piece of advice here is to hire a good CPA. You might hear one on this very podcast. Instead, we're going to look at some of the legal points on the checklist. So as with buying a business, the first question to ask is whether you're selling the assets and potentially the liabilities of the business, or instead if you're selling the business entity itself.

8:42Your business may have physical assets, so that could be everything from vehicles and equipment to paperclips, as well as intangible assets, such as accounts receivable, brand names, trademarks, patents, leases, computer programs, customer lists, contracts, domain names, phone numbers, trade secrets, all these things may be assets of your business. There's also liabilities to consider, such as accounts payable, warranty obligations, employment liabilities, potential lawsuits, that kind of thing. And your business also probably exists as some sort of entity, like an LLC or a corporation, maybe a partnership, which holds both the assets and the liabilities.

9:21So getting to the question, are you selling the LLC or corporation with all the assets and liabilities included? Or are you selling some or all of the assets and liabilities themselves, and the buyer will have their own LLC or corporation or partnership or whatever is going to hold it? Or there could be some kind of blend of those. All these things need to be figured out. Now, very often I find that in the case of a business purchase, the seller and the buyer are not immediately or up front on the same page about exactly what's being bought and sold. So it's advisable to be very clear at the outset about this point.

9:55What is for sale? What are you actually selling? What do you want to transfer and what do you want to keep for yourself? So when selling a business, some other important factors to consider are, let's see, market value. You've got to determine the fair market value of the business, taking into account factors like revenue, expenses, assets, liabilities, industry trends. All these things go into the value. Legal and financial due diligence. You should conduct a thorough review of your business's legal and financial records to ensure that everything's in order and to identify any potential liabilities that you may need to disclose.

10:28Your attorney, of course, can help with the legal side. Tax implications. You've got to consider the tax implications of selling the business, including capital gains tax, income tax, other relevant taxes. This should be discussed in detail with your CPA. The transfer of ownership, how that's going to take place. You need a plan for the transfer of ownership, including the transfer of assets and liabilities. If you have employees, how they're going to be transferred to this new owner of the new business. There needs to be a plan worked out ahead of time so everything goes smoothly. And finally, business brokers and escrow agents.

11:00A business broker and or an escrow agent can be valuable assets in the process of selling your company. However, in most cases, neither of those parties is strictly speaking on your side. They're there to make sure the deal gets done without looking out for your specific interests. So it's always important to make sure you have your own legal representation whenever you're selling a business, large, small, anywhere in between. That's always very important. Now, of course, these are just a few of the points to consider when you're selling a business. If you have legal questions about the process of selling your company, whether you're just considering it or you're actually in the process, feel free to be in touch with me.

11:36I'm david at lizerbramlaw.com. If you just Google David Lizzerbram, even get close to spelling my name right, you're going to find me. Always happy to talk with members of Fire Nation. Thanks a lot, and I'll talk to you next time. David, as always, thank you for that value bomb worth of content. And Fire Nation, as always, reach out to David for all of your entrepreneurial and business legal needs. And we have a lot of cool things to talk about. Our interview of the month, our trip to Japan, a detailed breakdown of our revenue when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Tech is great. It can help us grow and scale our businesses in so many ways, but it can also be clunky, time-consuming to manage, and expensive.

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12:53Get started for free at HubSpot.com. That's HubSpot.com. Are you ready to grow your business now? What if you could learn the proven systems and processes that have been used to grow thousands of multi-million dollar success stories at Thrivetimeshow.com. See testimonials of how Clay Clark's proven business coaching has helped over 2 ,000 clients to increase profitability dramatically. Clay's proven business coaching program is month-to-month and less money than hiring a minimum wage employee. Sound too good to be true? Go to thrivetimeshow.com to see over 2 ,000 documented success stories. Because Clay only takes on 160 clients, he personally designs your business plan for you.

13:32Then Clay's team of talented designers, videographers, web developers, workflow mappers, and accounting coaches will help you implement that proven plan. See over 2 ,000 verified success stories and schedule your free one-on-one 13-point assessment with Mr. Clay Clark himself today at thrivetimeshow.com. Knowledge will not attract money unless it is organized and directed through practical plans of action. Become the next success story. Schedule your free 13-point assessment today at Thrivetimeshow.com. All right, Fire Nation, we are back and we're going to start with our interview of the month.

14:06Seven-figure sales from simple YouTube videos with none other than Owen Video. How's that for branding? And Fire Nation, this is one thing, by the way, that I have really been focusing on. I see the power of YouTube. I've seen it for a while, and we are definitely making moves to make a bigger splash and impact on this platform, and I hope you are too. The three value bombs from this episode was all about having a vision for the future and being willing to refine it consistently to get where you want to go. This is essential, Fire Nation. Also, a revenue strategy is a pathway to six figures on YouTube within your first year, and he talks about that revenue strategy.

14:46And then number three, focus on your goal. Help your viewers experience transformation and your best content will appear every time you press record. Focus on that transformation. And Owen has the Video Marketing School where you can get the exact system for producing YouTube content to scale brand visibility, authority, and revenue. Check that out at our show notes page. And now we're going to bring Caitlin Erickson on the mic because we're going to talk about our trip to Japan. What's up, Fire Nation? Excited to dive into our trip to Japan and share with you this incredible adventure that honestly, like not that long ago, I never imagined would happen because Japan has never been on my radar.

15:34I've always been so blown away and so impressed by Europe. And John, we've gone to Europe, I don't know, at least a handful of times now, if not more, and spend significant time there. And what I love about going to Europe is you're there and you can easily hop around to so many places that are so close. And Japan just feels so far out there. And it is so far out there. But you might be wondering how on earth we ended up in Japan, since I'm going on and on about how Japan has never been on my radar. Was it ever on yours, John? I knew I always wanted to get to Japan, just didn't really have a plan to do it.

16:12Yeah. So funny how the world works. So this trip actually came about because of a mastermind that I'm a part of with two other entrepreneurial women, Nicole Baldinu from the$100 MBA podcast and webinar Ninja software and Cassandra Sethi. She's the founder of Next Level Wardrobe. And the three of us have been in a mastermind together for three years now. We meet online every month for an hour and a half. We chat business. We support one another. Sometimes it's catching up and laughing. Sometimes it's having really hard conversations about hiring and firing people. And sometimes we're celebrating our wins together.

16:47We kind of mix it up. It's a really fun mastermind. So we've grown such a special relationship over those three years. And we've been trying to plan a girl's trip since 2020. So the fact that we actually made this trip happen, and in Japan, no less, was so exciting for all of us. When we finally found the date range that would work, it just so happened that Nicole and her partner Omar were going to be in Japan already. So I chatted with John, Cass was all in, and so we decided to make it happen. So after 29 hours of travel, total travel time, that includes layovers and everything, we made it to our first stop where myself and John met up with Omar and Nicole for five days together in Osaka.

17:33and we landed in Osaka super late. Nicole and Omar were so sweet to stay up and wait for us and gosh it's been at least five years since we've seen Omar and Nicole. They came down to Puerto Rico and visited us after we moved here but that's the last time we saw them and so it was really cool to meet up with them to see them in person even though we chat online a lot and exploring Osaka was really cool. What made this trip extra special as well is that Nicole used to live in Japan. So she kind of had like that insider, like these are the places to go. It almost like gives you a little bit of a head start when you're traveling with someone who either knows the place really well or has lived there before.

18:16So man, I break down in such great detail every single thing that we did in Osaka day by day. We had a packed schedule. We really got to do and see a lot of stuff. John, maybe you could share like one or two of your favorite spots in Osaka. I really love that main strip. I think it's like Donatar Bay or something along those lines. And it's just so much action. So many things were happening during it, or I should say on that street and just mostly during the nighttime. I mean, we'd go, we'd walk and there's just a lot of activity, you know, a lot of, a lot of motion, just a lot of people. And, you know, I don't always love being in crowded areas.

18:58I don't dislike it per se, but I don't like seek it out. But, you know, when in Japan, I wanted to experience that. And that street really gave us, I think, a great opportunity for that. And honestly, just besides that, like I just really enjoyed kind of walking the different streets and alleyways, going to some really cool areas and experiencing the subway, which was incredibly impressive in Osaka. I mean, Osaka is the second biggest city in all of Japan. So Tokyo subway, everybody loves, rightfully so. But Osaka is just as impressive in a lot of ways for what it does too. So we were able to get around so seamlessly and with ease and efficiently.

19:38And everything was just super clean and super fun. So a couple of things that I loved. Yeah, I really enjoyed that Dotonbori street as well. We had a really cool dinner there. Our first full day and night in Osaka. remember when we went up to kind of like that second story and then they like grilled those things on the thing like right at our table I don't I don't remember why they called those but they were really yummy I also really loved Nara Park we took the train out to Nara one day and we got to explore this beautiful park area they had bowing deers that you could feed crackers and they would bow to you.

20:20I know that that's like the most touristy thing ever, but I thought it was so cool. I really enjoyed that. And that's the same day that we saw the Todaiji Temple. We're probably butchering all of these names, but John, you'll remember that's where that huge bronze Buddha statue was. Oh yeah, that was special. And we're doing our best with the names. That's all we can Yeah, we have so many what I mean, maybe I'm biased, but we have some really amazing pictures over on the post that accompanies this episode. We also included a couple of videos like I have a video of John and the bowing deer at Nara Park.

20:58We've got pictures of, you know, you can see how massive this bronze Buddha was John standing in front of it and it's just like towering behind him. Um, also another amazing experience we had in Osaka is when we went to Hattori, uh, Rai, Raiokuchi Park, that was where all the old Japanese farmhouses were. And we just so happened to like walk up on this actual tea ceremony opportunity where we got to go into this cottage. Um, I mean, it was a farmhouse, right? but it was a little tea room. And these delightful women helped us make our own matcha tea from scratch. It was a really cool experience and something that we did not expect.

21:51So that really stands out to me about Osaka as well. Great memories. All right. So we spent the time in Osaka when Nicole and Omar had a grand time. And then on day six, we end up splitting. So John and Omar went to hit the slopes up north. So they spent three days in Niseko, three days in Ferano. And while they were doing that, Nicole and I made our way to Tokyo via the Shinkansen, the bullet train, to meet up with Cass. And myself, Nicole, and Cass spent the next six days just exploring Tokyo. We went to a couple of shrines, visited so many parks. We had this really amazing art exhibit experience at this place called Team Lab in Tokyo.

22:38If you ever visit Tokyo, I so highly recommend going to Team Lab. It was an interactive art exhibit where they had different rooms set up and every room that you went into, you were interacting with art in a different way through different senses, whether it be like touch or smell or sight. You were walking through water for parts of it, like really, really impressive and cool experience. And again, I have some great pictures of all of this over on the post that accompanies this episode. Because Cass is a personal stylist, we also set up an Airbnb experience with a personal stylist from Tokyo.

23:19And he took us around to a lot of different shops. And that was a really cool experience. and John why don't you share about your time up north skiing. Hokkaido is an island north of the main island of Japan and it's a different world. It is a different world. It is very not populous. It's very rural and myself and Omar he is a border. I'm a skier. We spent seven or eight days just traipsing around all of Hokkaido. We went to three different resorts. We drove hundreds of miles, a lot of times through blizzard snow conditions to get to these resorts and just had fantastic experiences at each resort, getting really cool accommodation experiences, mountain experiences.

24:08The snow was fantastic. It snowed a lot. So the food was great. Hokkaido is actually the birthplace of ramen. So we had a lot of ramen. The resorts were very cool. Like I mentioned, the snow was incredible. The skiing was a lot of fun. We got to meet up with a couple of cool friends who were more or less locals because they had been on these mountains quite a bit. So they were able to show us some really cool runs. And overall, we just had a blast the entire time. It was very different from the main islands. It was kind of like a Siberia-esque wilderness of just snow and skiing. But a lot of fun.

24:44We had nothing but good times. I did a lot of onsens, which is the Japanese version of like a spa where there's cold plunges, obviously hot plunges and hot tubs. And when I say tub, I mean an actual tub and a lot of great things that go along with that. So we enjoyed all of Hokkaido, had a great time before we met the ladies back in Tokyo. And you guys visited like this Stonehenge of Japan. Is that technically what it was called? Or what was that place that you guys saw? It was a version of the Stonehenge up in Hokkaido. It looked very similar and had a lot of similar meaning to it as well. And it was definitely a cool experience.

25:26It would have been a lot more enjoyable how we've been able to get to it and access it, which can happen when the snow is melted. But unfortunately, with the snow where it was, we had to just admire it from afar. It looked really, really cool from the pictures. So as you mentioned, then we all met up in Tokyo again and we had this fantastic night out. Cass's husband, Ramit, came in and we met up with two different Andes. Both Andes are currently living in Japan and have for several years now. So they are kind of like our quote unquote local guides. Neither of them are from Japan, but they have a wealth of knowledge about great restaurants and places to see and things to do.

26:09So it was really cool to meet up with them. We did a prefix dinner that was absolutely fantastic. I believe it was a Mediterranean restaurant, but they kind of had a full array. What was it like a seven or eight course dinner, John? Yeah, it was pretty intense. Oh, it was so yummy. And it was just really cool to bring all of us back together after you and I had spent that time with Nicole and Omar, and then you and Omar spent time together. Me, Nicole, and Cass spent time together. And then we got to bring Ramit and the Andes into the fold. And we just had such a blast at that dinner. And then we had a cool walk around town the next day together, a brunch.

26:48And then there were two. John, you and I spent our last few days in Tokyo together. And we hit a ton of awesome parks. we did a really cool walking tour that you found for Nihonbashi, which I really enjoyed walking around that area. I thought that was a really fun walking tour that you found. What website was that from? GPS My City. Oh yeah, GPS My City. We got to do the Shinjuku Gardens, which were amazing. and by that time I was so maxed out on going out to eat and like I'd had so much sushi and ramen at that point that I think both of us were so excited to Uber Eats Indian food. Had some of the best Indian food.

27:41It was so, so yummy. And then that was it. All in all, our time in Japan was so incredible. It's a place that has never been on my radar again, but now I think it is a definite must visit. I just really enjoyed the culture. The people were incredible, the cleanliness, the subway, the shops, the presentation of everything, the food. I mean, I really did not have not one negative experience in Japan the entire time. Everything was just such a joy and really fun to experience. And Fire Nation, you're doing yourselves a grave injustice if you don't head over to eofire.com slash income 115 because the photos that Kate has posted on this post are absolutely incredible.