0 (2s):
Boom, shake the room, Fire Nation, JLD here

1 (7s):
With the entrepreneurs on fire March, 2021 Income Reports in this month was a doozy Fire Nation. Our gross income from March was $313,386. Our income, our expenses, sorry, we're actually kind of up there this month, $120,539. And our total net profit for the month of March was $192,847, which was almost a $50,000 increase between February and March. Our net profit overall gross revenue was down to 62%. There's a reason why it was that low.

1 (48s):
We're usually in the high seventies to eighties, but there's a reason for that, which we're going to get to, of course, as always, we have Josh and David on the mic. Josh is going to be talking about what the tax benefits are of living in Puerto Rico. So if you want Mr. CPA on fire himself, to tell you a little bit about the tax benefits of living in Puerto Rico, stick around David Lizerbram going to talk about NFTs. That's non fungible tokens and copyright law. And if you haven't heard of NFTs yet, they are literally on fire right now. And then Kane are going to dive all into our launch month, which was the month of March and so much more.

1 (1m 29s):
When we get back from thanking our sponsors, looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs, just like you to increase our profitability by an average of 104% per year, all for less money than it would cost to hire a full-time minimum wage employee. Schedule your free consultation today with clay Clark, a former small business administration entrepreneur of the year at ThrivetimeShow.com/fire ThriveTimeShow.com/fire hiring can feel like trying to find a needle in a haystack, but when you post a job on ZipRecruiter, their matching technology finds these qualified candidates for you and invites them to apply. So while other companies give you too many options, ZipRecruiter finds you the needle in the haystack.

1 (2m 11s):
And right now you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com/fire. All right, Fire Nation, we are ready to ignite on this income report. We're going to start with Mr. Josh bauerly. He's going to talk about the tax benefits of living in Puerto Rico. He's also going to be talking about, should your business be structured as an LLC or an S-corp? So Fire Nation stick around and Josh take it away. So John,

2 (2m 40s):
As we near the end of another tax season, which is just incredible to believe, and as around the beginning of what looks like some possible major tax reform coming through in the U S we're going to take the next few income reports, and we're going to answer questions directly from Fire Nation. So Fire Nation, if you're listening, get those questions over to us. We'd be happy to feature your question. If you come up with a good one first up, we have a familiar question from Mario, and that question is, should your business be structured as an LLC or as an S-corp? And this is a topic we've hit on several times on these income reports, but choice of entity is absolutely crucial to your business.

2 (3m 22s):
So it was always a good one to look at again. And the first thing I'll note here is that an LLC is strictly for potential legal liability protection, and it has absolutely no impact on taxes. So don't form an LLC thinking you're going to save on taxes. The only thing it does is potentially protect you legally, the question then becomes, should you have your LLC taxes and S Corp because the S Corp is where the potential tax savings are. And as with most tax questions, unfortunately, that comes with a lot of it depends. So I can't really give you a concrete answer here, but the tax savings in an S Corp com by reducing the amount of your profit that's subject to self-employment tax self-employment tax is just a Medicare and social security tax, roughly 15.3% tax on all the profits of your business.

2 (4m 8s):
If you're an LLC, if you're a sole proprietor, a partnership, every one, every bit of your profit is subject to that additional 15.3% tax, right? The escort helps eliminate a portion of that, right? So it only makes sense to go this route. If you have a significant amount of those self-employment taxes that you need to reduce, and whether you would want to do that, or not depends on several factors. But the two biggest factors I look at to start with is, do you have a day job that you're earning a W2 win? And if so, how much and how high are your profits in the business? And the reason the W2 question comes up is because the major part of those self-employment taxes is a social security tax. And there's a max on that.

2 (4m 48s):
I think it's right around $130,000 per year right now. So if you're coming close to maxing that out in your day job, you have much less incentive to save that in your business. They're not going to go over that even with your business profits. All right? But if you have, if you don't have a day job, or if you, if you have a small amount of wages, the next thing you're going to look at is the profits from your business. And as a very general rule, if you have a business that has at least $50,000 in profit, right? Meaning after all expenses that the $50,000 is what shows is your taxable profit. If you're at 50,000 or more, you definitely want to start looking at an S corporation, right? Again, this is very specific to your unique situation.

2 (5m 29s):
So you definitely wanna talk to somebody, but that's when I would start looking at it, is that $50,000. That's when some serious tax savings can come next up. We have Mariana who wants to know about the tax benefits of living in Puerto Rico. All right. So I'm sure John and cater excited about this one. And this is a big topic, right? This is a tough one to tackle this here in a quick question and answer session. So maybe we can have an entire income report dedicated to that topic at some point, but just to touch on some basics here, Puerto Rico has one huge tax advantage, and that's what the IRS allows them to implement their own taxes and does not require the residents there to pay us taxes, right? So it was a quick highlight. The US generally taxes, your worldwide income, right?

2 (6m 12s):
So if you go and say, move to Australia, the US says, that's great. You live in Australia, you still owe us taxes on all of your income because you're a us citizen. Okay? But for whatever reason, with Puerto Rico, that's a US territory. They still say, all right, that's fine. Puerto Rico can implement their own taxes. We won't touch it. So that allowed Puerto Rico to come out with some enticements, to get businesses, to move to Puerto Rico, right? And for businesses who qualify and who move their operations permanently to Puerto Rico, they can get their income down to anywhere between zero and 4%, depending on how you structure things. So, I mean, if you do some quick math there, if you're making significant money in your business, that's a ton of tax savings, millions of dollars for some people, right?

2 (6m 57s):
But I'm going to warn you. There is a lot of research and a lot of expenses that go into setting this up, right? John and Kate can tell you this firsthand, we had to jump through a lot of hoops to get this set up and get it done. Right. Right. But for those of you who are making, I see a lot of people say the cutoff about a half, a million dollars or more in profits. Th the, the tax savings are gonna be hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe even millions of dollars. So whatever hoops you have to jump through, whatever, whatever expenses have to be paid is probably going to be well worth it. If you fall into that category. But the key is as John and Kate will tell you, you have to make Puerto Rico, your actual home and your actual business. There's no, Oh, I'll live in California, but I'll just have an apartment in Puerto Rico. It's got to be legit.

2 (7m 37s):
You've gotta live there. Puerto Rico has got to be your home, right? So if you fall into that category is definitely worth looking into, finally, we have Mark, who wants to know how the impending tax changes will hurt us. All right. So first there is no tax policy changes that have actually passed. All we have is a proposal from the current president, right? And president Biden's current proposal would increase taxes on individuals making over $400,000 per year and on C corporations. Right? And the vast majority of businesses are not C corporations are pass through entities. So for most Americans, they're not going to fall into either of these two categories. And they would not see their taxes race under this proposal.

2 (8m 18s):
Right. But until a new plan is passed and put in place, I can't really give you any other specifics. One thing I will say is that I've noticed among successful business owners that we work with, they aren't overly concerned with taxes. I mean, don't get me wrong. They want a low room. They pay us good money to get them as low as they possibly can. But once they find out what to do, and there's no getting around it, they just pay it. Right. They don't spend their time worrying about tax policy and tax changes. And they don't like paying taxes, but they know that's a part of the game and they get them as low as they can. And then they pay them. Right. I can tell you, this has certainly been true of John. Who's always encouraged me to find every legal way to lower as tax as we possibly can.

2 (8m 59s):
But then once we have them as low as we can, he doesn't worry about it. He pays what's due and he never mentions it again. Right. So the last thing I'd leave you with there is I don't really think anyone has anything to truly worry about here. They're not going to substantially raise taxes. Most people won't see any type of tax increase. A lot of people will actually see a tax decrease under this current proposal. And again, we just, we don't know what that current proposal ends up even being all right. So as always, these are very general answers to these questions. You should always always talk with your own tax professional about your specific situation before you implement anything we've talked about here, or any other tax advice you read or hear your unique situation will determine what's right for you. So always run that by them.

2 (9m 40s):
If you have any other questions and you want to be featured on a future income report, we'd be happy to answer them. Reach out to us. You can always reach out to me individually. Josh has CPMfire.com. We have plenty of free resources on our website, CPAFire.com. We'll talk to you next.

1 (9m 53s):
All right, Josh, as always, thank you so much for that incredible value. I mean, I think we just convinced some Fire Nation listeners to move to Puerto Rico with all those value bonds, you just dropped about the tax savings, et cetera, et cetera. But now we're going to move on to another topic with, of course, Mr. David, Lizerbram himself. When we talking about NFTs, that's non fungible tokens and copyrights law. And if you've been ignoring the news, then you may not have heard of this. But if you have been following the news at all, you know, that's one JPEG file sold for $69 million from a certain Mr.

1 (10m 40s):
Biebel, which I'm going to now just pass over to David and David, what the heck are NFTs and what the heck is copyright law? What are we talking about today?

3 (10m 48s):
I'm about to clear it all up. Yeah. This has really been like kind of the hot topic lately, but it's kind of one of these things that's been percolating for a long time. So it's sort of maybe took 10 years to be an overnight success. That kind of thing. And many entrepreneur entrepreneurs will know that story. And I just keep getting a lot of questions and people kind of maybe misunderstanding things about NFTs and intellectual property law. So, you know, it just hasn't really been covered quite as much as the, you know, cool news about big sales and things. So I just want to kind of go over the details here. So let's just kind of start here NFT and copyright law. The term NFT stands for non fungible token. That's already likes P some people start like saying what, but it's really easy to understand.

3 (11m 29s):
So a Bitcoin is a fungible token, just like dollars are fungible. It's not like a fun word to say fundable. It has fun in it. Right? Okay. So fungible just means you could try. It's like every dollar, if I have a dollar, I give you a dollar to the same, right? Fungible. That's just what that word means. One Bitcoin's the same as another, but unlike Bitcoins or dollars or euros, yen, whatever each NFT is unique. So an NFT is a digital certificate of ownership. It's simply a way of stating and verifying who is the owner of a digital asset, such as a piece of art. A lot of times when people are talking about NFTs, they're talking about a piece of art, like visual art. That's not the only thing that can be in NFT, but you know, it's a common example.

3 (12m 12s):
The reason anybody cares about NFTs is because they make it easy for someone to verify ownership. And therefore they make it easy to buy and sell things like digital art. You can't buy something. If the seller can't prove that she owns it, or if you can't prove that you own it when you want to sell it. I mean, if you know, John, you try to sell me a car and I go, okay, let me see the, you know, registration showing you own it. You're like, well, I don't know. I don't have it. Well, I'm not going to buy it from you. Same thing with a piece of digital art, for example, an NFT is like that registration. It proves who owns that unique piece. The market's exploding. You know, it's been all over the media, you know, it's not just kind of random internet people.

3 (12m 55s):
I mean, the NBA National Basketball Association is also using yeah. NFTs. They're creating officially licensed digital collectibles. And you know, so this is just outside the bar, the realm of digital artworks. It's not just for art collectors and artists. Really, this can apply to almost anybody who's creating content or who wants to buy and sell and invest in this marketplace. All right. That's what NFTs are. Let's get into the copyright stuff. So what does copyright have to do with NFTs? So first I got to just go over a couple of basic principles of copyright law and how they should apply to NFTs. Always can get into more detail about this, but let's just get into it under us law. As soon as a work of art in any medium is created, the creator owned the copyright in that work.

3 (13m 38s):
So as soon as you create it, boom, you own the copyright. You take a picture with your phone, boom, you own the copyright. As soon as you click that button, you know, there's a few exceptions, but we're sticking to the basics here. And also I mentioned us law at the same principles apply in most other countries. So, you know, this doesn't really matter what the medium is. It doesn't matter if it's an oil painting or a sound recording or a piece of digital visual art. So when we talk about the concept of quote-unquote copyright, we're talking about multiple rights lawyers, sometimes call called a basket of rights. So what does that mean? That it means that that includes the right to control. Who makes copies of the original work, who can sell license or otherwise transfer the copyright and who can make derivative works from the original.

3 (14m 21s):
Now derivative works is one of those other legal terms. You'll hear. It just means a new work based on a preexisting work. So a cul a remix, a, you know, reversion, new version of something. Those are all derivative works of the original. So typically when you buy a piece of physical artwork, you are only purchasing the physical object. So if you go to a gallery and you buy a painting, you are buying that physical object that you can, you know, holding your hand, so to speak. You're not an under most circumstances purchasing the copyright in the work. So the rights I described above remain with the artists, the right to make copies, to make derivative works, the license itself, et cetera. So let's say you own an original oil painting.

3 (15m 3s):
You can hang it in your house or in your office wherever you want. You can also sell it. You can lend it to someone. You can, you know, get a loan against it, but you can't make copies of it, sell prints or make new works based on the original, unless you own the copyright and copyright under us, law can only be transferred based upon a written agreement. So if the artist agrees to sell you the copyright in the oil painting, then you do have those rights, but you don't just get it just because you bought the physical thing. So this means that copyrights separate from the actual work. Okay. So we understand a little bit about what copyright is and we understand that that's different from owning the actual thing. Right? Okay. But now you're saying, wait, wasn't this supposed to be about NFTs?

3 (15m 44s):
Alright, well, I'm gonna get back to that. The same rules that apply to physical works of art also apply to digital works of art or other digital content. The fact that the work has an ownership certificate in the form of an NFT really doesn't change the legal analysis. So in most cases, if you buy a digital art NFT, for example, you will do so through a marketplace, the marketplace has served the same function as art galleries or an auction house, or E-bay the same way they do for works of physical art. They connect buyers and sellers, and they also create the terms of sale. And if it's a first time sale, those terms are, you know, usually created in conjunction or created by with the approval of the original artist.

3 (16m 26s):
So if you buy an NFT, kind of the legal presumption, if that's, you're only buying ownership in the NFT itself, you're not buying the copyright in the underlying original work, unless there's a contract such as language in the marketplace is terms of sale stating that the seller is assigning or selling. Now, if you're an artist or a content creator and you're creating, or as they say, quote, unquote, minting and NFT, or you're just buying or investing, you gotta read the terms of sale or the marketplace that you're using. You want to make sure, you know what you're actually buying because otherwise, you know, what are you even doing with this money? If you're not clear about the terms, and if there's a significant financial investment or upside involved with the transaction, of course you should consider engaging an intellectual property attorney.

3 (17m 14s):
And again, just look at those terms and make sure they're clear to you. So you really have to understand, and it should be pretty clear. Am I just buying this NFT? Or I'm not also getting copyright, which means I have the right to do all kinds of other things with this work. It's really important because otherwise you could be breaking the law or you could just not be owning and being able to sell what you thought you had in the first place. So what rights do NFT owners actually have? Well, they have the right to own sell land or otherwise transfer the NFT itself, just like with a physical work of art or other, you know, physical item you can own, they don't have the right again to make or sell copies to transfer the copyright or to create derivative works unless they own the copyright.

3 (17m 55s):
Now, you know, this can all be a little complicated. I'm kind of going over the basics here. You know, the right to make copies can be messy in the digital world, et cetera. But really the bottom line is if you're an artist, if you're a content creator, or if you're an NFT collector or investor, you're just interested in this space, make sure that, you know, and understand your rights before you kind of get involved and get too deep into it. And of course, if you have questions about, you know, legal issues around NFTs, crypto, intellectual property, any of those kinds of things, you can contact me. As I always say, if you Google David lizard Bram, you don't have to spell my name perfectly. There's only one of me you'll find me and I'd be happy to talk to any members.

1 (18m 31s):
Wow. I mean, Fire Nation, there's a lot of crazy things going on in this world. I mean, going back to that $69 million sale of the NFT, where it was essentially like, I think it was like 5,000 little mini artists renditions from this guy, people all kind of compressed into one giant piece of artwork. And what this guy kind of actually became famous for doing was doing were called every days, which are every day, he would just create one piece of art. And he did, he's done that for 5,000 days in a row now. And it kinda reminded me of, Hey, I was like, entrepreneurs on fire has been creating a daily podcast for quite a few thousand days in a row now. So who knows maybe a little audio and Ft will be coming my way or your way Fire Nation.

1 (19m 19s):
Let me know if that's sounds interesting. What do you think David has his audio NFTs possible look

3 (19m 24s):
And settled for 69 million being your lawyer? I would say, you know, we'll start there and we'll negotiate up, but you know, Hey,

1 (19m 31s):
All right, by an issue here from David Lizerbram, first, the audio NFT of Entrepreneurs On Fire, maybe coming your way, maybe coming to a, a art gallery near you. So David, thank you so much, brother. So appreciating you dropping these value bombs on NFTs on the copyright side of things, all this stuff, Fire Nation, make sure you reach out with any additional questions you may have. And when we get back from thanking our sponsors, we're gonna be talking about the common path to uncommon success. Our launch, the inside, scoop the numbers, all that jazz. So stick around, we will be right back. Recent data shows that of all female owned businesses. It is estimated that one in three is owned by a mom ever wonder how these amazing moms and dads find time to hire for their business while juggling their families.

1 (20m 18s):
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1 (20m 60s):
This special offer is available right now at ZipRecruiter.com/fire ZipRecruiter. The smartest way to hire looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs, just like you to increase their profitability by an average of 104% per year, all for less money than would cost to hire a full-time at minimum wage employee, I, our nation meets Clay Clark. Clay has been coaching businesses just like yours since 2006. Yup. Even through the great recession. And he does it for less money than would cost to hire a full-time minimum wage employee at a time when Inc magazine reports that by default 96% of businesses will fail. Within 10 years. Clay's helping businesses like yours to grow on average by 104% annually. How's this even possible clay only takes on 160 clients.

1 (21m 41s):
So he personally designs your business plan. Plus Clay's team helps you execute that plan with access to graphic designers, Google certified search engine, optimizers, web developers, online ad managers, videographers workflow, mappers and accounting coaches visit ThriveTimeShow.com/fire to see thousands of video testimonials from real people, just like you, who clay has helped over the years. That's right. Do your research and view thousands, not hundreds of proven documented in archives, video testimonials from real people, just like you at ThriveTimeShow.com/fire, ThrivetimeShow.com/fire. Then schedule your free consultation with clay himself to see how he and his team can help you thrive. All right, Fire Nation, we are back and we did edits the common path to uncommon success officially launched on March 23rd.

1 (22m 33s):
And man, the month of March was so intense. It was so focused on this launch. That man, it's just hard to believe that it's over because it was such a long and intense mother. Wouldn't tell you all the details right now, but without any further ado, let me introduce Kate Lynn Erickson to the mic. Kate, take it away.

4 (22m 53s):
What's up Fire Nation. I okay. So I had to laugh when David was wrapping up his part and he's like, I know that this has just been a basic overview. And I was like, really? Cause I felt like that was a pretty intense, deep dive, but very cool stuff. I feel like we've covered so much awesomeness and this income report already. And right now I know John, both myself, me and you, both, both of us. I know that both of us are very excited to be celebrating the launch of your bug. Congratulations you, it feels great. Oh my goodness. I can't even imagine how awesome you feel. I mean, I feel amazing, but the amount of energy, effort, love and everything else that you put into this launch is just really, really next level.

4 (23m 43s):
Yes. That's, that's one way to describe it. There are many other ways to describe it, but before we dive into all the details about what went into the launch leading up to March 23rd in the month of March. So what's kind of cool is we're going to be breaking down the three weeks leading up to launch in March. I know that both of us want to take a minute to give a huge shout out to you, Fire Nation for your support, for being on this journey with us, for sharing the common path, to uncommon success with your friends, with your followers, for allowing us to pop into your inbox and your social media feeds all the updates, the milestones we shared.

4 (24m 23s):
I know that it was a lot and we are so incredibly grateful to be on this journey with you and to have your support. So Fire Nation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So our final three week push. So we've talked about this in the last few income reports, because this has literally been the main focus in our business for since December now. And we've been doing prelaunch content marketing, overall awareness for the common path town, common success for all of that time. And there is a ton to report when it comes to everything that went into this launch, it was very different from any other launches that we've ever done. Because as you all know, we went the traditional publishing route this time, which we have not done before.

4 (25m 8s):
And we are currently working on a full recap. Post is going to go into all the details. I'm talking like the minutia of all the things, but that takes a lot of time to put together. So I'm still working on that very feverish early. And we'll be super excited to share that with you. My best guess is that I'm going to be ready to come out with that early may. So definitely keep your eyes open for that. Today. We are going to focus on our final three week push. So John, I'm going to go ahead and break down these weeks, jump in at any point. Okay, cool. So week one and in March, so starting March 1st, John completed 48 interviews in just this one week, John, I don't know how you do this.

4 (25m 56s):
I really don't like sometimes I would look at your schedule and I like, I have to look away. It almost like I just don't know. I can't even put myself in that Headspace.

1 (26m 7s):
Yeah. And honestly, it's not something I could have done in, you know, for all time. I mean, this was a sprint and it was a long sprint as you'll hear those interviews, stay it up pretty high number at the following weeks. But it was just something that I was really excited to sprint across the finish line doing. So. Yeah, I did.

4 (26m 27s):
And sprint, you did most definitely. So those 48 interviews that John did the week of March 1st that included, I mean, you were on new station interviews, you did magazine interviews. So magazine features interviews on podcasts, I would say is probably the majority of what you did is interviews on other podcasts. There were some clubhouse chats scattered in here and there some Instagram lives and Facebook lives, but for the most part, I mean, well actually, yes, for all of those, those 48 interviews where you being invited onto somebody else's platform to of course share value and you know, talk about the common path to uncommon success and we'll be getting into, and just a second, how our relationships and our ability to have people say yes to this 48 times in one week was such a huge part of our marketing and launch strategy.

4 (27m 24s):
So that was the week of March 1st, the week of March 8th, John, you completed 34 more interviews in that one week. Oh my goodness. Why, why

5 (27m 36s):
Weren't you doing more

4 (27m 38s):
Slacker? Your, your calendar was insane. This is also the week that we dove into creating the companion course that comes with the book. So for anyone who hasn't invested in the common path to uncommon success, what are you waiting for? But if you don't have the book in your hands or you haven't listened to it, or you haven't done the ebook Kindle version, then you probably don't know about the companion course. John, I feel like we just went so far above and beyond and creating all the resources that come with this book. And you know, this makes me think of Russell Brunson's dot com secrets.

4 (28m 17s):
Actually, I was just so blown away by all the resources and additional materials that came just for getting the book. And I feel like we've really accomplished that with a common path to uncommon successes while you created an entire companion course. So there are video tutorials that go along with each chapter in the book, and then I'm going to get into the other resource that we have in the next week, the week of March 15th. So the week of March 8th, you did 34 more interviews. And I did all the keynote slides in and kind of an outline for that companion course. You re you started recording all of those then into the week of March 15th, John completed 41 more interviews.

5 (28m 59s):
You,

4 (28m 60s):
You are, this is, this is not a typo. You are not miss hearing the words that I am saying. So week of March 15th, 41 more interviews, that's when you complete a recording the companion course. And then that is the week that I dove in and completed the companion workbook. So that is also another resource that comes along with the book. These are all free resources that come with your investment in the common path to uncommon success. So that companion workbook has exercises that go along with every single one of the chapters. It's a downloadable PDF workbooks. So you can either choose to print it out if you'd like, or you can just fill it in online.

4 (29m 42s):
And that gives you specific exercises to do, to accomplish each step on the common path to uncommon success. So Holy cow, as you can tell, the first three weeks of March, we're very busy and action packed. And John, you had just so many, not only all of these interviews that you were actively conducting, but the number of interviews that went alive over those three weeks that you had conducted previous all came together combined to this incredible kind of like last week leading up to launch, which was from March 16th to March 23rd. I went ahead and detailed out our actual book sales for each one of those days.

4 (30m 24s):
And it's pretty cool to look at the numbers because you can see we had some huge spikes on specific days, and I won't get into too much detail in the recording here. But if you head over to EOFire.com/income91, you can see the individual breakdown for number of books sold March 16th through the 23rd. This is just on a retail platform. So like Amazon books, a million Barnes and noble, this does not include our bulk buy sales, which were sewing. I mean, gosh, talk about bulk, buy that, see, this is why we need to create this entire recap post because there are so many different pieces of this launch of our marketing strategy of the different things that went into it.

4 (31m 8s):
Our bulk buys the retail platforms, working with Harper, working with Amber and the NGNG team so much to cover. So for some details on those individual sales and the specific things that we could attribute to those sales, like, for example, let's see, on March 16th, we sold 133 books, which was almost double what we sold the day before. So we can directly attribute that to an email that we sent out to Fire Nation. And I have some other details like that in the post. So definitely head over EOFire.com/income91 for those details, and many, many more.

1 (31m 48s):
Wow. I mean, just looking at those book sales as we finished that last week just makes me realize that we finished strong. I mean, there was a ton of interviews are going live during that week. We were pushing on all of our channels, email, social media, other channels as well. I mean, this is definitely a post-Fire Nation. You're going to want to come and check out for details about man, how you're going to launch your book. How are you going to launch your really anything? Because this is the best strategies that produced the best ROI for us are all here in this post. And you know, some of the things that were so huge were obviously podcasts interviews where the clubhouse chats that I did, where the different bulk buy purchases, that's I convince other people to make live social media, pushes other influencers, just sharing the book on their platforms.

1 (32m 39s):
And it really goes back to the relationships, the relationships that I've built over the past decade, interviewing the world's most successful entrepreneurs, and then going to them and saying, Hey, I would love to turn the tables now. And I would love to be on your platform. And I was very specific and very direct on what that would look like. And I really asked for three things, I said, number one, would you right now go into Amazon and buy a hardcover copy? Like that would be a big help right now. Number two, would you look at our bulk packages that we have here? That would be huge if any made sense for your audience, for your team. And then number three, will you allow me to come on your platform to talk about this book to your audience?

1 (33m 21s):
So I was very specific with three asks in every single email that I sent out. And I think we talked about this in the last income reports. I did 300 videos where I was talking about exactly what I wanted, personalizing them to the individual and sent them out. And then I created a one boiler plate video that got sent out to another 2,700 people. And that is why I was able to have 345 total interviews since January 5th, 345 interviews on other people's platforms in those two and a half months.

1 (34m 1s):
That is a lot of reach. So, Kate, before we wrap up this section and talk about the launch day live stream, what are you gonna say?

4 (34m 10s):
Yeah. I mean, again, we include so much more detail in this post, but when you're talking about those 300 videos that you did and sent out to individuals, plus those 2,700 other emails though, we're not talking, like we pulled up a list and infusion soft and like click the send button once that is 3000 individual emails that were sent from John's personal Gmail account to an individual, with their name, with a video, for them, with a link to their interview on entrepreneurs, on fire. Like this goes to the core of when we talk about doing things that don't scale, that was a very not scalable activity, but it resulted in such a high response rate in such a high, you know, people's willingness to really jump on and support this launch.

4 (35m 8s):
Like sometimes you can't, you have to think about what you're asking of people and then think like how, like what would be the best way for you to actually get them to say yes to that. And John you've been giving, giving, giving for so many years, like you said, have had every single one of these people onto your platform to speak to Fire Nation and to provide value and the way that you went about asking for their support in return. I just think, man, I mean, when, when I look back at everything that you've done for this launch that we've collectively done as a team for this launch, I mean, our virtual team was such a huge, huge part of this jam to put just every single one of them played such a huge role in making everything that we put together, run smoothly and work.

4 (35m 57s):
And I just, I honestly can't think of anything that we could or should have done that we didn't do. I just, I, I really think we went all out and I feel so

1 (36m 7s):
Heard about that. We sprinted across the finish line, we finished, you know, all out at a hundred percent and then the launch day came and we had a little live stream party. So why don't you talk a little bit about that launch day live stream?

4 (36m 21s):
Yeah, that was so much fun. I mean, we did this back when we launched the freedom journal and you and I were actually reminiscing about that the launch day part or, well, we had a virtual, we had a virtual live stream launch party, and then we actually did an end person launch party for the freedom journal as well, which was so much fun out of co-working space in San Diego. And this time we did a two hour virtual live stream. Super fun to just invite everyone to have a little bit of fun. I mean, there is, again, as you been listening so much that went into this, leading up to it and to be able to jump on, just have some fun invite people on with us. We had some great, like super rock stars show up to join us on the live stream.

4 (37m 6s):
Pat Flynn jumped in Selena Soo, Stu McLaren, Jeff Walker. We had some from Fire Nation jump on live with us during the live stream. It was really cool to not only chat about kind of how everyone experienced this launch. I mean, a couple of people who jumped on, they had already received their copy of the book. They had already had, you know, a couple of sneak peeks at it. So they kind of got to add their experience. Many who jumped on had, had you on their podcast or on their platform. So you guys got to kind of jam about that, how their audience received it. And my favorite part of the live stream launch party was asking people what their version of uncommon success is.

4 (37m 49s):
That was really cool to hear different people's perspective. And for those in Fire Nation that jumped on as well to be able to share that live was super, super cool. So that was a really fun launch party, fun to celebrate, just kick back, have some fun and yeah, celebrate you and all the amazing hard work that you've done and this incredible, incredible book and resource.

1 (38m 11s):
Well, it was a lot of work Fire Nation, 480 hours. It took me to write this book over the course of eight months, writing two hours every single day to have now in my hands, the 71,000 words, the 273 pages that make up The Common Path to Uncommon Success. And you know, it just, is that feeling that it feels great when you just know that you went all in, you did everything that you could do. And that's really how I feel. So The Common Path to Uncommon Success, your 17 step roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment. We're keeping the page up that has a, the first chapter for free as well as endorsements from Gary Vaynerchuk, Seth Godin and Eric Mandy, Dorie Clark, Neil Patel also has some great video of me there talking more details about the book and other great stuff, UncommonSuccessBook.com.

1 (39m 7s):
If you want to go learn more, go check it out. You can learn everything you need to know about why this book needs to be in your arsenal. And for those people who have started reading and you're loving it, which I'm getting a ton of great feedback. So thank you for that. I would love if you took a second, pause this recording right now and just go to Amazon and leave a kind review. I know you think you're going to do it later, but you're not going to do it later if you don't do it right now. So for those people that really want to do something very kind of special for myself and Kate, press pause, go leave re kind review on Amazon in this moment in time and we will be eternally grateful.

1 (39m 48s):
So Kate, let's talk about the March, 2021 income breakdown, unless there's anything you want to wrap up the launch party about. Now let's dive in wow, Fire Nation $289,000 in product and service income. For the month of March,

6 (40m 8s):
We did a total of 373 journals sold, which brought in $11,700. The freedom journal did 149. The mastery journal had a little bit of a low month at 57 and then the podcast journal won the month with 167 podcast journal sold podcast is paradise brought in just under $20,000. Our podcast sponsorship and special projects brought in $178,000. The common path uncommon success. Our bulk buy packages brought in just under $79,000. Our affiliate income was $24,000. We did 22,000 with ClickFunnels, and we did 397 with Libsyn podcasting press set us $105.

1 (40m 59s):
Fizzle sent us $116 actually just interviewed core bet bar, which is really cool. So got to have him back on the show, which was a lot of fun. So our total gross income was $313,386. First, how we've seen it over 300 and a little bit. So that was good to see. Our expenses were incredibly high for a reasons of fulfillment and shipping. And a lot of things that we add expense wise that we don't typically have, that was a cost cost of goods sold. We have in the, in the line item as our bulk by fulfillments was $94,000 alone.

1 (41m 39s):
And so that gave us a total net profits of $192,847 for the month of March, keeping our streak of a hundred thousand dollars in net profits for 91 months in a row alive in Kate's. Why don't you take us home with the biggest lesson learned

4 (41m 59s):
Will do. And just for anyone, who's kind of trying to run the numbers there on that bulk buy fulfillment are bulk buy packages. I will say we really came through with the insane value on those reward packages. So a huge part of the costs involved in those boat buy packages is literally us turning around and purchasing those books from Harper Collins to send out to people who did those boat buy. So, thanks again, for those of you who did a bulk buy package. We are very excited for those reward experiences and for those books to get into the hands of your students and colleagues and followers.

4 (42m 42s):
So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Biggest lesson learned. So I was thinking about this just this past week, and I thought, wow, this really kind of ties into so much of what I feel has gone into our launch of the common path to uncommon success. And it's all about whether success is the cause of hard work that you put in. Is it because of luck or is it because of both? And this came up because one of my favorite podcasts besides entrepreneurs on fire is how I built that. And if you have not listened to how I built this guy, Ross is the host really great podcast. We actually had guy on this podcast not too long ago, which was an excellent conversation.

4 (43m 26s):
So if you haven't checked that out, go ahead and search your entrepreneurs on fire feed for guy Roz. And it guys interviews on how I built this. He talks to founders of huge corporations and businesses who have started basically from nothing and found massive success. And one of the final questions guy always asks his guest is something to the effect of like, he always changes it up just a little bit, but the core of it is how much of your success do you think was luck and how much was due to hard work. And I think this is such an awesome question. I'm always so curious to hear how his interviewees answer this question, because it's one that I've thought about a lot again, when it comes to our business as a whole, but especially during our launch of the common path to uncommon success, because man, we really worked our booties off, but I also know that there's so much luck involved in just looking back at the trajectory and the entire history of our business.

4 (44m 26s):
And when you start to compound all of those like little moments and of the sprints of hard work that you do, like what is that? I guess, percentage of how much of it is hard work and how much of it is luck and without fail, I cannot think of an episode, John, maybe you can, but I can't think of an episode that I've listened to where the answer isn't like always w 50 50. I mean, EV yeah, I can't, can you, John, I know you listened to how I built this as well now, Ken. Yeah. I mean so many. So from some of the recent episodes I've listened to is Sierra Nevada brewing companies, Ken Grossman, Birchboxes Katia Buecamp I'm.

4 (45m 12s):
I might be mispronouncing that, sorry about that. Brooklyn, ENS, Vicky and rich Fulop. They've all had similar answers that they feel like it's just about 50 50, of course, creating and building a business is hard work. No, one's going to argue with that, but it's not just hard work. There are certainly moments when you're connected with someone, when you have a conversation with a complete stranger that could change the entire trajectory of your business, or you stumble across an idea out of thin air. Like I always think of Adam Braun and pencils of promise and his story about how he came up with that idea. But arguably, and, and I feel like I would answer this quite similarly, is that all of those moments of like luck or chance, they also require a work.

4 (46m 1s):
You have to put yourself in the types of situations for those types of connections in those moments, and those conversations even happen in the first place to sum it all up. I feel like Seneca is quote is a very good kind of bow on top luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. So today Fire Nation, I asked you, what are you doing to prepare yourself for the opportunity or opportunities that could be what changes your trajectory

1 (46m 36s):
Boom, Fire Nation, hope you enjoyed this episode, the work that Kate put in the work that I put in, and of course, Josh in David's contribution as well until next month, keep your fire burning. Looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs, just like you to increase our profitability by an average of 104% per year, all for less money than would cost to hire a full-time minimum wage employee. Schedule your free consultation today with Clay Clark, a former small business administration entrepreneur of the year at ThrivetimeShow.com/fire ThriveTimeShow.com/fire hiring can feel like trying to find a needle in a haystack, but when you post a job on ZipRecruiter, their matching technology finds these qualified candidates for you and invite them to apply.

1 (47m 26s):
So while other companies give you too many options, ZipRecruiter finds you the needle in the haystack. And right now you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com/fire.