October 2023 Income Report: Podcasters’ Paradise turns 10, and more!

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurers on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot. podcast network, the ideal destination for business professionals with great shows like Business Made Simple. And today, Fire Nation is the income report for October of 2023. We have a lot of great things to talk about. We're going to be talking about rear view accounting versus forward facing financial insights, critical Fire Nation. We'll also be talking about our interview of the month, the secret to landing TEDx in the biggest stages on earth. We'll talk about podcasters paradise turning 10 and how to stay focused in 2024 and so much more.

0:44And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to our sponsors. Business Made Simple hosted by Donald Miller is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Business Made Simple takes the mystery out of growing your business. Join my friend, Donald Miller, each week as he shares value bombs on topics like the secret to making better marketing decisions. Listen to Business Made Simple wherever you get your podcasts. Belay has spent over a decade helping thousands of leaders increase efficiency and productivity by leveraging flexible staffing solutions.

1:19Download Belay's delegation guide and learn six specific things that busy leaders must start delegating today. Text FIRE, that's F-I-R-E to 55123 to download the guide and get started. All right, Fire Nation, let's get rocking. Our gross income for October was$156 ,869. Our expenses were$15 ,362 for a net profit of$141 ,507. $7 ,000 less than last month, but our percent of net profit overall gross revenue was amazing this month. As always, we're very proud of that. Now let's get into Mr. Ron Parisi, Mr. CPA on Fire, his monthly tax tip, rearview accounting versus forward-facing financial insights.

2:08Ron, take it away. Hey, John, and hello, Fire Nation. This is Ron Parisi with CPA on Fire for your October 2023 tax and accounting tip. Hey, Fire Nation. It is cold here in Ohio. I'm fired up. We're coming down to the end of the year for 2023, what I think was a very, very quick year. So basically what we do every month, right? We talk about tax and accounting tips for you, the entrepreneur. And I thought I would bring up a topic regarding financial reporting. It's called rear view financial reporting versus forward facing, forward looking. And it's something we've been working with a new client and how it's really been able to transform their operations and sort of their mindset.

3:05So let me define rear view accounting, right? So I really do think the accounting industry in general does a disservice to entrepreneurs. Most entrepreneurs, I'm sure, Fire Nation, we always want to do better with our businesses. We want to improve operations. We want to grow, become more profitable, build our wealth. And I think the accounting industry does a disservice with this rearview accounting. It's definitely compliance-based, but usually, you know, you have your operations, you have a bookkeeper, and they're giving you, you know, you close the month, you're getting that month's financials, you know, 15, 20 days later, if you're lucky, and you're trying to sit there and figure out, okay, what was working last month, wasn't working this, you know, what worked, what didn't work last month, and you're already three quarters or a full month later, and maybe there's a whole host of different problems and different issues to solve or things that are going well.

4:11And I just want to kind of introduce to you kind of forward-facing financials, and that's what I think is creating forecasts, creating budgets for your business in the future, obviously. And what you do is as the month rolls on, you're constantly looking at those targets built inside those forecasts and budgets comparatively to actual. It's called budget to actual. And you're constantly measuring, you know, where you want to be. You know, those forecasts and budgets kind of marry your goals. Where you want to be, you know, a year from today. Where you want to be three months from today. Or where do you want to be three years from today.

4:53and you're constantly looking at how the business is performing to where you want it to perform. And every month we do what's called the budget to actual analysis and we see, okay, where are the profit drivers? How are these certain key performance indicators working? And we're always sort of course correcting every month, but we're doing it forward facing, right? We're not living in the past. We're looking into the future and, again, seeing, okay, where are my goals and how do I need to get there and how am I measuring my performance to meet those goals? For this new client of CPA on Fire, this is transformational.

5:37Just never knew how to manage their ad spend, when they could bring on certain team members. They wanted to bring on certain key leadership inside the organization. Was sort of blind to when can I bring this person on at what revenue size? How are these people going to affect my margins? So we really built a pretty nice, you know, three-year forecast on the revenue and then a rolling 12-month budget from an expense side. And we sort of like I always talk of snapshots, right, like pictures and time. So we kind of looked at, all right, today, we looked at a month, we looked at three months, we looked at a year from today, and what that org chart would look like, what that ad spend or sort of that ad strategy, marketing strategy would look like.

6:26And it really transformed this individual, this entrepreneur's thinking. And they went from just always looking and being very analytical about past performance to, holy moly, this is what I'm striving for. How am I going to get there? And really got into a good cadence with looking at that budget to actual, changing things very quickly that needed to be changed. and I think in general gave this individual a huge amount of confidence to make those decisions and their performance has been outstanding. So I just thought we take this month tax and accounting tip to look at sort of the rearview accounting, sort of the compliance-based accounting versus forward-looking accounting and using certain tools to really, you know, marry together your long-term goals with your financial reporting, your financial operations.

7:29As always, Ron Parisi with CPA on Fire. Always a pleasure being with you, Fire Nation. Until next month, go out there and crush it. We'll see you soon. Ron, thank you as always for rocking the mic, brother. And Fire Nation, make sure you visit cpaonfire.com for all your tax and accounting needs, or just email Ron, ron at cpaonfire.com. He will take care of you. Now we're going to talk about the interview of the month, which was the secret to landing TEDx and the biggest stages on earth, even if you are just starting out. Fire Nation, Taylor Conroy, join me on the mic, and this guy can rock it.

8:05And I say that with confidence. And the three value bombs are one mistake that aspiring speakers make is they get so honed in, so focused, so crazy, so maniacal that they lose sight of what is actually important in a talk and that is experience. If you've gone through a whole bunch of stuff in your life, Fire Nation, you went through it for a reason. You went through it so that you can help other people go through it faster to live more comfortably, happier, and euphoric lives. And number three, know exactly what you stand for as a speaker and the experience that you want the audience to have.

8:35And Fire Nation, you definitely want to check out Taylor's free training to learn how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions in as little as 30 days, even if you've never spoken on a stage in your life. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire and you will get access to a killer webinar that we did. So much free and valuable information that you will be able to take the next step, Fire Nation. And I can't wait to hear your success story. And Fire Nation, we're going to move right along to Podcasters Paradise turning 10 years old. That is literally a decade because we launched October 31st, 2013.

9:21Man, feels like yesterday. And this is just about that time to bring Kate Erickson Dumas on the mic. Kate, how you doing? Let's hear it. I'm doing all right. I also had a hard time just wrapping my mind around the fact that we've been doing Podcasters Paradise for 10 years. It really like made me think back to the beginning. I so clearly remember you and I sitting in, it was at your desk, which at the time was in our living room in the apartment that we were living in, in San Diego on Riviera drive. And we were brainstorming names, uh, that we were going to call this community and membership. And I don't remember the ins and outs of how we came up with podcaster's paradise, but that moment definitely stands out to me.

10:10It was crazy. And I remember going for a run, coming back and saying like, yeah, okay, I'm in, let's do this. Let's go all out. And man, it was a nervous pushing that publish button to see if anybody was going to react. But over the course of the weekend, we did have, I believe it was 35 people sign up and that gave us enough confidence to say, okay, there's enough interest in this. Let's go. Let's build this. And man, it's been quite the story. So take us through it. Yeah, that's right. We did do a proof of concept webinar. So before we built anything, we just came up with this idea for this premium membership community where we would have video tutorials, we would have a Facebook group.

10:52And we said, okay, we know better than to build something and then think that people will come. So let's not build anything. Let's do a proof of concept webinar. And during the webinar, we're going to talk about podcasting and what it's done for us, what we believe it can do for other people, why podcasting is so hot. And keep in mind, yes, we were saying podcasting was hot in 2013. And people jumped on board. We said at the end, if you would like to be a founding member of this community, help us actually create this, be a part of building what we're creating here. You'll get a lifetime membership.

11:29You'll be a founding member. And John, I think that we sold our founding membership lifetime for$297. Does that sound right? That sounds right. I was actually going to say$250, but it was either that or$297 was one of the two. And it was definitely in that range. Yeah. And actually within the past couple of weeks, we've had a couple of our lifetime members pop in the group and talk about how their journey has been going and what they've been up to and their podcasting success, which is so exciting. I mean, obviously we love hearing from all of our members about their podcasting success, but it is really cool to see that 10 years on, we still have founding members who are active in the group, who are still podcasting, who are still loving it.

12:13Um, but man, when I was thinking about our 10 year anniversary, it also made me think about what preceded podcasters paradise. And that was a service that you created called pod platform. And the whole idea behind pod platform was that people would be able to record their podcast episode and then they would send you the mp3 and you would do everything else you would tag it you would upload it you'd schedule it you'd all of these things right which back then was so forward thinking like nobody was offering anything like that of course fast forward to today and there are probably thousands of companies that are offering these services now but at the time nobody wanted it like you heard did you ever have anyone take you up on that service?

12:59Yeah, I had two people take me up on it. One person asked for a refund within 24 hours and the other person was thankfully such a nightmare client that I just refunded their money and said, I'm shutting this down. I'm sorry. Here's your money back. This no longer exists. Yeah. I mean, I think it was pretty evident from the start. I mean, not only from the nightmare client plus the client who came on board and then refunded within 24 hours. The issue was that people didn't know how to podcast. There was no people for that service because people were wondering, okay, but I don't even know how to record my episode.

13:38So I can't sign up for a service where I send you my episode because I don't know what equipment to buy. I don't know how to get guests on my show. And so that's kind of what helped us find this path to creating Podcasters Paradise. Oh, okay. Now we get it. Now that we've had these conversations, now that we took action, we put something out there. Now that we've, you know, quote unquote failed at this pod platform thing. Now we understand what it is that people actually want and need. They need to learn how to create a podcast. So we came up with the idea to create the membership course where we would teach people how to create, grow and monetize their podcasts.

14:17And coming up on 10 years was super special. I mean, Podcasters Paradise has always been like in my heart and on my mind. I love being in the community every single day in the private Facebook group. We actually have one of our monthly live Q and A's coming up right after we record this income report, which I also love because we get to hop on, check out what people are up to answer questions, kind of like a little mini mastermind every month, which is super fun. And we are always doing cool updates, adding templates and document samples, creating updated video tutorials, creating additional video tutorials based on new things that are coming up in the podcasting space.

14:56Like we're adding content now to the membership site about leveraging AI for your podcasts and how that might look for you. So I don't know. I just am loving this journey that we're on and so grateful that we've been 10 years on. I mean, I don't think there's a lot of people out there in the online course space that can say they've been successfully running an online course for 10 years. So I'm very proud of that. Rightfully so. And I'm actually really proud of Pod Platform, to be honest, you know, because you just got to take action in life, Fire Nation. You've got to take that first step forward.

15:29I was just kind of like wandering around in the dark without a flashlight, like just trying to find something that might work. And it's a great story because, you know, for the first 2000 episodes of Entrepreneurs on Fire, I asked the question of my guests, what's your biggest failure? And so, of course, when I'm interviewing other shows, people love flipping that around to me. And I get to tell the pod platform story because it was a big failure. But of course, it led to a great success. And man, for like five or six years, we were doing a live webinar every single week for Podcasters Paradise.

16:01It was clockwork. And then we started to kind of space it out once every two weeks, once a month. And then we kind of just stepped back and did a little evergreen segment of it where people could just watch it whenever they wanted to on a recorded fashion. And we just did our first live Podcasters Paradise webinar last week. It was a lot of fun. It was really cool to see us kind of back in action of going live and answering questions and interacting with the community. So if you're out there, Podcasters Paradise, it's still thriving. It's still kicking. We're still keeping it amazing and updated.

16:33And it's still the number one podcasting course and community in the world, bar none. and you can learn more at podcastersparadise.com. Anything else, Kate, before we move on? That live webinar was actually super fun. Like you said, it was kind of, you know, we're back in the saddle. You did not skip a beat. You did that presentation. Like, I think you could probably do it in your sleep. What do you think? I think I've done it in my sleep. But it was, like you said, such a fun time to hop on and chat with people and get to see what everyone was up to. We had a lot of people who have been on our previous webinars years and years ago come join us.

17:12And of course, brand new people who have just found out about free podcast course, the podcast masterclass. And so it was a great time to interact and engage with the community. And we were able to welcome six new members into the community that day, which was awesome. Always love bringing new people into Podcasters Paradise and showing them everything that we have to offer to support them on their podcasting journey. So if you missed the live webinar, we do still have the evergreen up. You can find that at the podcastmasterclass.com. And as John said, you can learn more about Podcasters Paradise at podcastersparadise.com.

17:48Awesome, Fire Nation. We will catch you when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Are you ready to close 2023 out strong by surpassing your revenue targets? Q4 is the time to make it happen. But in order to do that, you need the right tools to help you fill your pipeline, nurture prospects, and close deals. Lucky for you, there's the new HubSpot Sales Hub. With HubSpot's Sales Hub, you're able to supercharge your sales process so you can find, track, and close deals all in one powerful, easy-to-use platform. Imagine having your data, tools, and team all in one place. Picture being able to prospect smarter with the new prospecting workspace, which makes connecting with customers easier than ever, looking to create more content to fuel your sales process.

18:29HubSpot's AI assistant can help. As you can tell, Sales Hub is great alone, but it's even better when united by HubSpot's smart CRM. Leads don't slip through the cracks. Data is connected across marketing, sales, and operations, and teams can better measure their impact on the bottom line. Stop sticking to the same old strategies and start closing more deals with HubSpot Sales Hub. Make the switch to HubSpot Sales Hub at hubspot.com slash sales. Are you still in the idea stage of starting your business? Maybe you're still feeling things out and you're not sure what step to take next. The beauty of the world that we live in today, you don't have to spend years and go into debt to find your path to success.

19:09Instead, start listening to the Millionaire University podcast. The Millionaire University podcast will teach you how to run a successful business and graduate rich, not broke. The Millionaire University is hosted by Justin and Tara Williams and they started their business from square one. Fun fact, Justin was one of the founding members and the very first mastermind I launched for EO Fire. We've known each other since 2013. Justin and Tara have hit lows and dug themselves out of debt and they've reached incredible levels of success all while raising a family. And now they want to share the lessons they've learned with aspiring entrepreneurs like you.

19:42So don't wait. It's time to turn your business idea into a reality by listening to the Millionaire University podcast. Find the Millionaire University on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. two things I'm always looking to improve efficiency and productivity luckily there are many ways you can improve these things maybe you've automated with AI or hacked your morning routine to get more done in a day while productivity tips and tricks can help the best way to increase efficiency and productivity is to work on what you're best at and delegate the rest not sure how? Belay can help after over a decade spent helping thousands of leaders increase efficiency and productivity by leveraging flexible staffing solutions Belay is an expert in all things delegation.

20:26Belay's exceptional virtual assistants, accounting professionals, and social media managers can take care of the details so you can focus on the most productive ways to use your time. To see where you could benefit from delegating, Belay is offering a free download of their delegation guide. They outline six specific things that busy leaders must start delegating to take their leadership and results to the next level. Text FIRE, that's F-I-R-E-2-5-5-1-2-3 to download the guide and get started. Delegate to Belay so you can focus on what matters most. All right, we are back and let's talk about October 2023's income breakdown.

21:00Product service was$152 ,078. We did over$2 ,000 in journal sales. We did 48 total. We did 23 freedom journals plus two digital packs, 14 mastery journals in a digital pack. And then we did eight digital packs for the podcast journal. And Podcasters Paradise. We had a pretty big month because of our six new members. We did over$17 ,000, just under actually$18 ,000 in total revenue. Our sponsorships for the podcast was$132 ,000. And our affiliate income was just under 5K. Our business expenses for the entire month were$15 ,362. And it was overall another great month. and one thing that, again, I think is a little overlooked that I want to encourage you to do, visit eofire.com slash income122 because we list out all of our expenses.

22:00So we're probably using some tools that you should be using. And if we're not using it, maybe you don't need to be using it either. So you can kind of look at what we have. And if we're not using it, you can maybe say, okay, that could probably be cut out. So, you know, give it a perusal, check it out. You never know. So I want to now pass it over to Kate to bring us home. The biggest lesson learned is how to stay focused in 2024. So this is not the first time that I've talked about this lesson, and it's all about choosing a word of the year. And I always love doing this as we approach the new year.

22:34Of course, it's a good time to kind of start looking ahead. And maybe you're also asking yourself a lot of questions about how you can make 2024 a great year for you and your business. I know I am. and a lot of those questions are typically around staying focused being productive practicing discipline because there are opportunities there are shiny objects there are distractions everywhere and the short answer to how you can do all of this is you know it's not easy if it was easy everyone would be able to do it and we know that that's not the case but we do have a great tool for you. John created the mastery journal to help with these three things, how to stay focused, productive, and disciplined.

23:19And this is a great gift to get yourself for the new year or maybe you have a family or friend member who would benefit from the mastery journal. So you can check that out on Amazon. It's a great gift. But in addition to having this journal for your daily productivity, discipline, and focus. There's an exercise that I feel is so powerful when it comes to staying focused for 2024, which we're talking about specifically, but you do this any year that you're listening to this. And again, that is choosing a word for the year. Now, you might be wondering how choosing a single word can help you stay focused throughout an entire year.

23:58This is a great thought. But choosing a word for the year and consistently reminding yourself of what that word is and why it matters to you, this is how you can stay focused for the entire next year. Because when you get distracted because there's a lot happening or you see a hot new thing and you want to try it, but you know that you should not try it, or you feel like this is the opportunity for you, it's the best opportunity and you have to take it, you'll have your word to remind you of what you should really be focused on. I want to give you a quick example just to put this into context.

24:34Back in 2019, my word of the year was confidence. When I was thinking about what I wanted to focus on in 2019, it included things like speaking on stage more, growing my podcast audience for Kate's Take, and making big decisions with more ease. I knew that all of these things would require that I step into a new level of myself, and specifically, I knew that I needed more confidence to be able to accomplish these things. Confidence would let me know that I belonged on stages and that I shouldn't be afraid to ask to be there. It would allow me to share my podcast with the world without second guessing whether or not it was good enough.

25:11It would help me make big decisions without the overwhelming stress of whether I was making the right decision or not. So it just so happens in 2019 that TikTok reached its first billion downloads. Do you think that I jumped on the bandwagon and downloaded TikTok, I did not do that. And I still have not to this day because I knew that TikTok was not what was going to help me become confident in order to land more stages, to grow my podcast, and to make big decisions with ease. By focusing on confidence in 2019, by having that word be my word of the year and something that I could go back to time and time again, I was able to speak on five stages that year.

25:52I hit nearly 100 ,000 downloads for my podcast that year, and I made multiple big decisions in the business with more ease. So having that word to help me focus, to help bring me back to what was most important to me was so incredibly helpful. So this is why we encourage you to choose a word of the year for 2024. And you can do it by thinking about some of the big goals that you have for next year. What do you want to focus on in 2024? What do you want to give your time and your energy to in 2024? And what word can help you stay focused and remind you of what's most important when you have those moments of distraction or of overwhelm or of not feeling like you're on the right track?

26:38Once you have chosen that word, write it down, look at it daily, share it with your friends, email us and tell us what it is. We're so excited for you to jump in on this exercise. Fire Nation, I just want to echo what Kate is sharing. If you do end up choosing that word, share it with us, tag it, post it on social media, tag us, let us know. We want to know what your word is. We want to know what your focus is for 2024. And until then, keep the fire burning. Business Made Simple, hosted by Donald Miller, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

27:16Business Made Simple takes the mystery out of growing your business. Join my friend, Donna Miller, each week as he shares value bombs on topics like the secret to making better marketing decisions. Listen to Business Made Simple wherever you get your podcasts. Belay has spent over a decade helping thousands of leaders increase efficiency and productivity by leveraging flexible staffing solutions. Download Belay's delegation guide and learn six specific things that busy leaders must start delegating today. Text FIRE, that's F-I-R-E, to 55123 to download the guide and get started.