Financial Tracking and Tax Strategies for Content Creators with Ralph Estep Jr.

Many podcasters and content creators wait until tax season to look at the numbers, only to realize they’ve missed vital deductions or have no idea where their income is actually going. This financial fog leads to poor business decisions and unnecessary stress. In this episode of Podcasting Unlocked, Alesia Galati sits down with Ralph Estep Jr., the "Content Creator’s Accountant," to discuss how to build a sustainable accounting system for your brand. We dive into the best software for tracking business expenses, the reality of transitioning to a daily podcast, and why your financial health is just as important as your download numbers. This week, episode 265 of Podcasting Unlocked is about financial tracking and tax strategies for content creators! 

Ralph Estep Jr. is a Public Accountant with over 30 years of experience helping entrepreneurs build profitable businesses. As host of The Content Creator's Accountant, he teaches content creators how to handle taxes, manage irregular income, and structure their businesses properly so they can keep more of what they earn and scale with confidence.

In this episode of Podcasting Unlocked, Ralph Estep Jr. is sharing the importance of setting up a financial system as early as you can and actionable steps you can take right now to manage your money responsibility as a podcaster or content creator.

Ralph and I also chat about the following: 

• Implement a Real-Time Tracking System: Learn why starting your financial tracking today, using professional software rather than simple spreadsheets, is the only way to make informed business decisions throughout the year.
• The Daily vs. Weekly Cadence Debate: Discover how to evaluate if a higher frequency is right for your audience and your business goals, and the batch recording strategies needed to survive it.
• Identify Leaky Buckets in Your Budget: We discuss the common places where podcasters lose money, from unused software subscriptions to failing to plan for tax season.
• Transitioning from Hobbyist to Business Entity: Understand the importance of separating your personal and professional finances to protect your assets and simplify your growth as a content creator.

Your podcast's impact is limited if your finances are in disarray. This week, take 15 minutes to audit your last month of business expenses and identify one subscription you no longer need.

Be sure to tune in to all the episodes to receive tons of practical tips on turning your podcast listeners into leads and to hear even more about the points outlined above. 

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag me! And don’t forget to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!

Learn more about Podcasting Unlocked at https://galatimedia.com/podcasting-unlocked/ 

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Transcript

Alesia Galati: 0:00

As content creators and podcasters, there is no better time to get our finances in order than yesterday. But in lieu of that, today, we have Ralph E step Jr to talk all about how to track our finances, the places where we're probably losing money, where to get started, some software to use, and so much more. But beyond that, we're talking about his daily podcast, his weekly show, as well as his podcasting journey. There is so much gold in this episode, whether you need help with your accounting as a podcaster and content creator, or if you are someone who is considering changing the cadence of your episode, and you're not really sure what to do with those decisions, please join me in welcoming Ralph to the podcast. Welcome to podcasting, unlocked the show for purpose driven podcasters. I'm Alesia Galati, founder of Galati media, and I'm here to share actionable strategies to help you amplify your message and grow your audience. Hello, Ralph. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast so we can talk all about our money and what we're doing with it, or maybe not doing with it, on our podcasts and for our businesses. So if you could start by telling everyone who you are, what you do, and a bit about your podcasts, absolutely.

Ralph Estep Jr: 1:21

My name is Ralph eastup. I've been doing accounting since I was eight years old. So I grew up in the accounting arena. My dad is an accountant, so kind of grew up around this. I started podcasting myself back in 2017 my initial show was called Ask Ralph because I had this great idea that everybody wanted to ask me questions. I've been an accountant for 30 years, and there's pretty much nothing I haven't seen yet. So I started originally as ask Ralph, and I did that for a couple years, and it sort of did that pod fade thing. I just got tired of doing it. And then back in 2023 I re released it in earnest. Started it as a daily podcast. I've since rebranded it. It's now my daily show is called financially confident Christian my target audience are people who are struggling with their finances, who also have a belief in Christian faith, and I just present them with a quick 10 minute episode every day of here's something you can work on. Here's some scripture to support you. And I really think I look at it like giving them a hug and just give them a little tidbit. I also have three other shows. My other three shows, I have a weekly sermon show called Truth unveil with Ralph. And what I do there is I talk about cultural things that are going on around us, like social media, the feeling of anxiousness and anxiety and isolation, and I look at biblical truth related to that. That's a weekly show. I also have a weekly show called Grit and growth business that's for small business people. I've kind of wrapped that up at the end of December, and that's sort of a little bit on the back burner right now, but my main show is called the content creators accountant. And what I'm doing there is I'm taking 30 years of my experience in the trenches, and I'm working with content creators to show them there is a better way to handle their money so that it's not so volatile, it's not so fragile, and I'm showing them how to build systems to keep more of what they're working so hard to earn. So that's the long answer to my podcast journey.

Alesia Galati: 3:15

Oh, I love that. So I'm curious. I also started podcasting around 2017 I started guesting in 2016 and then 1718, was when I launched my first show. What do you think has changed in the podcasting industry from then? And of course, your show was different than your shows now, so there's some nuance there. But in the industry, what do you think has changed, maybe some benefits, or some some things that are not so great.

Ralph Estep Jr: 3:41

Well, honestly, mine started because I was on the am radio here, locally Clear Channel, and I heart media. I guess it was at the time said to me, Hey, you know we could sell you some Saturday morning am station work. And they said, here's one of the things you can do, is you can create a podcast out of it. So Alesia, picture this here. I am an accountant with zero like online training. As far as being creative, went out and bought the cheapest headset I could find to plug into my laptop. I sounded like an air traffic controller back then, you know, because I was trying to pull the Paul Harvey, or whatever you want to call it. It was a disastrous a train wreck. So the coolest thing, and now I actually have a team of 12 people that work for me. Now I have audio that's great. I have a studio. I use tools like descript, I use Ecamm. So I think the big change for me is just the ability and the the usability of a lot more tools, and the ability to find people to work with me honestly. And it's been a journey for me. Like, I go back and listen to my early stuff, and I'm like, I don't know who was listening to that. I feel terrible for them. I keep it in the catalog because I I just went over 1000 episodes in my daily show, and it's kind of cool to be there. But, you know, I think the other thing has changed for me is I'm really heavy into YouTube. My Truth unveiled with the Ralph channel just hit 260,000 subscribers. My content creators, accountant, will hit 100,000 probably in the next day or two. So I'm really leaning strong into YouTube, because I really think there's a big discoverability area there, especially for the people that I'm looking to talk to now, on the content creators front,

Alesia Galati: 5:10

yeah, that definitely makes sense. And I agree, the tools, right, the things we used back then, I can think even like the little lapel mic that I was using for my first podcast, or, like, the little $30 microphone that had little Stan, he had to, like, really finagle with it, to just make sure everything cords that we were all set up the right way that you needed them to. So, yeah, I love the tools that we have now. It's definitely made it a lot easier to get our content out there. And we're definitely seeing that shift towards video. Apple podcast just announced that they're going to start doing video which is definitely going to be interesting to see how that goes over the next few months. But I know which

Ralph Estep Jr: 5:49

is really kind of interesting, though, because Apple video podcasts when they first started, yeah, so it's it's really going to be interesting the way they're doing about it. One of the people I listen to is James cridlin from pod news, and he get a great expose on it today, actually, that went out. And the cool thing is, they're going to use something called HLS technology, which is packets of information. But just think about Alesia, how much that's changed from the mp three file and all that up to I remember when I was first doing my editing, I was using GarageBand because it was free on my Mac, and I would spend hours trying to pull these little files in here and cut now I go in the descript. It's like we're adding a Word document, right? It's beautiful. So much easier. It really is like even an accountant can do it. So easy an accountant can do it.

Unknown: 6:34

I think accountants can do a lot of things personally.

Ralph Estep Jr: 6:37

Don't, don't let the cat out of the bagel. Now,

Alesia Galati: 6:40

okay, so thinking about from an accountant perspective, what are some things that we're maybe not considering when it comes to our money? Let's start with where we're leaving money on the table, because that's that's a priority for a lot of folks.

Ralph Estep Jr: 6:54

Now, if you're speaking directly about content creators, I think the biggest thing is they don't have a system before they start their show. I was on a show last week, and they asked me, When should content creators have an accounting system? I said, the day before they hit record, because you got to build it that. Now, if your goal is for it to be a hobby, that's fine, but even as a hobby, you want to keep track of your income and expenses, because you may get a 1099, because maybe you've got a little affiliate income, or you set up a Patreon, or you've got buy me a coffee, or something like that. And that's where I think a lot of people get themselves in trouble. Alesia is they don't create the system from the front end. And if you don't have the system from the front end, then you've got people like, right now I do a lot of tax work. Right now, people are coming in to get their taxes done, and they're trying to remember what happened last March and what happened last January. And that's the thing. When I talk to content creators, I'm like, have a weekly rhythm. Here's what I'm going to check every week. I'm going to look at what came in the door, I'm going to look at what went out the door and what I need to set aside for tomorrow, because that's another thing I see. A lot of content creators aren't planning for tomorrow, right? And listen, as a content creator, you know, as I do, our incomes like a roller coaster. Some months it's up, some months it's down. You got income coming from 15 different directions. It's like you got a dozen part time jobs. And if you're not on top of that, that's where I see people really struggling. Alesia is they're trying to figure out what happened and see, here's the thing, if you live in darkness, if you live in that fog, that not being able to see, you can't make good financial decisions, and so you've got to start off with, I need to have a system. The biggest thing I see most content creators failing in is not keeping business and personal separate. That is a big one. Like the IRS uses a term called commingling. And basically everything is in one old, big thing of spaghetti. And you get to the end is like, what is what? That's the biggest challenge I see people really struggling with.

Alesia Galati: 8:45

So is it worth, like, if you're thinking, I want to be a content creator, is it worth getting the LLC and then creating the business, you know, bank account, or is it just enough to say, Hey, I'm going to have this separate maybe it's my paypal or whatever, and then that is one spot that all the money goes to. Is that enough or well?

Ralph Estep Jr: 9:04

And the thing is, as an accountant, I live in that world because we set up LLCs. We set up S corporations for people. And I'm going to tell you, as in most things podcasting, it depends, okay, it depends on what's going on, but generally, I definitely believe in setting up an entity. Now, a lot of people just rush out and say, Well, I'm going to set up an LLC, but an LLC is not a tax strategy. There are things that you need to do with an LLC. And the problem is, there's a lot of knuckleheads out there online promoting these things on Tik Tok and hey, I'll set up your LLC for $99 doesn't do much for you. So you really need to meet with somebody like me, a professional, and understand what's going on. But Alesia, yeah, I think at a very minimum, set up a separate account. It doesn't necessarily have to be a business account. If you've got two credit cards, pick one that's a business credit card and just live in that world, make sure all your income is going there, all the expenses are going there, because then you'll really see the numbers. But honestly. If you're in this as a business, I truly believe you've got to talk with somebody and create an entity, whether that be an LLC, an S corp. There's a bunch of different options out there, but the sooner you do that, I think the better. Because, honestly, as soon as you start putting stuff out there to make money, guess what? You're in business. If you're in business, what you don't know can hurt you.

Alesia Galati: 10:21

Yeah, and I don't know that at least a lot of the content creators, I know they don't necessarily get into it as, like, I'm gonna make money from being a podcaster or a content creator. Like, I think about my one friend who started creating content around Disney, and it was literally just, how can I get some maybe discounts on some swag. How can I, you know, maybe talk about how much I love going to Disney now that I'm an adult, and how it's healing this inner child in me sharing some of my outfits, right? And so it's like her way of like, I'm just expressing myself. But oh my goodness, wait a minute, I just recommended this skirt. A bunch of people bought it, and I just got $4,000 from it. Whoa, right? And so, like, I guess my question is, at what point do you maybe it's a financial number? Do you need to say, pause? I need to start really thinking about this as a business rather than as a hobby.

Ralph Estep Jr: 11:17

I think you start that before you even get started. Okay? Because even if it's a hobby, see, the IRS will allow you to write off a lot of expenses against hobby income. So even if you're just going to do it as a hobby, and listen, I respect people to do as a hobby, that's fantastic, but I would still create some sort of structure, some sort of system at the front end, because there's no magic number of well, once I make $4,000 or once I make $10,000 The problem is, that's a slippery slope. And then you say, Well, you know, next month, yeah, I don't know. We'll see what happens next month, and then we'll see what happens next month. And a year goes by, and then all of a sudden you get a 10, 99k form in the mail from stripe or from PayPal, and they say, hey, guess what? Alesia, we paid you$25,000 last year, they sent that to the IRS. And now you're like, Oh, what do I do now? And you haven't been keeping track of your expenses, you haven't been segregating things. You don't have any receipts for anything. And then you come and sit down with somebody like me, and I say, Guess what? You owe$8,000 in tax because you have no write offs. So Alesia, I know it's not it's a difficult thing to say, but I think you start off with the end in mind. And regardless of whether this is going to be be a big money maker or not, you have to have a system for

Alesia Galati: 12:29

it right now, I'm also curious because, like, my hobby podcast, which I don't do for like, business stuff, is all about books, right? And I'm curious, just because thinking about the people that I know in the bookish space who are bookish content creators, we're getting sent free stuff constantly, right? Is it at the free stuff, or is it at the paid stuff? Right? Like, what kinds of things should you be keeping track of?

Ralph Estep Jr: 12:57

So the bottom line is, the IRS would say, if you got an economic benefit. That's income to you. If someone sends you free stuff, technically, that's income to you. So yeah. I mean, unless you want to end up like Al Capone going to jail for tax evasion, that's the stuff. You got to be aware of it. And yeah, and listen, the IRS has made some some people obvious targets of that. You can look in the press and you've seen some high end people who have been drug into tax court because of what they did. I don't think they had any intention of being dishonest or or breaking the law. They just were unaware of what they have done. And that's the thing that, that's what I'm talking about, Alesia, is when you don't know that's what gets you in trouble, and that's the reason, when I launched this new show. I didn't say well, podcasters, accountant. I said content creators, accountant, because we got photographers, we've got authors. I've written three books myself. All of those people were all creating content. And at some point, maybe you won't make a million dollars doing it, but you may, you know, come across one of these payment platforms that they're going to start sending you tax documents, and you got to know what to do with those.

Alesia Galati: 14:02

Yeah, that's so important. What are some, maybe, tools that we can use for keeping track of this stuff? I'm sure your notes app is probably not the best place to keep track of this.

Ralph Estep Jr: 14:16

So you can go all over the place. Number one thing use, whatever you're actually going to use. Don't go buy software. Don't set up a subscription for something you'd love to use, or I should use. My accountant said I should do this if you're not going to use it. Don't waste money on you. Don't know how many clients I put into QuickBooks Online, which I love, and I recommend, who never open the file. So use QuickBooks Online is great. Wave is great. At a bare minimum, you want a simple accounting system. If you've got a phone, you've got a camera in your phone, set up a separate account, and every time you spend money for the business, take a picture of the receipt, put that into a folder by month, and then by the end of the year, you've got a pretty decent system. I think there's some great tools out there. Will do better than that. I like QuickBooks Online. I like these other software because you can do what's called a bank feed, where you actually connect your bank and credit card accounts to them, and it feeds the transactions right in, and then it's all there. You just have to categorize it. So I but again, it comes down to, what are you going to use the idea of? Well, I'm just going to throw receipts in a bag, and at the end of the year, I'll figure it out. I don't think is a good plan, but, but again, but you don't have to go crazy with it's not rocket science. At a bare minimum, once a week, what came in, what went out, what does this look like? How do I categorize these things? And that'll keep you out

Alesia Galati: 15:34

of trouble. Now, I'm curious on the podcast side, when you're coming up with content for your podcasts and thinking about the more seasonal content, right? So tax season, for example, do you find that you tend to create content that is more evergreen or is more hey, we're coming up towards this. You need to make sure that you're getting these things in order. So I'm probably

Ralph Estep Jr: 16:45

going to shock you with this, Alesia, and say that taxes happen all year long. Okay, because it's not just the filing of the taxes. Honestly, I don't know that there's a lot of value in tax filing, of course, that keeps you out of trouble, that keeps you in compliance, but tax planning is really the answer, and that happens all year long. So I think all of that content is very evergreen. So to be honest with you, most of what I do is evergreen. With that said, Though I'm very intentional, I have a content calendar planned out. You don't want to hear this 12 months in advance, to be blunt, because I'm just intentional about what I do. Yeah, and I, you know, having done this for 30 years, I kind of anticipate what's going to be coming up at different seasons. For example, I know right now, and we're in getting ready and get into March. It's February. March. This is tax time for people. So I'm putting out more content that is tax related. I know in the middle of the summer, that's the time when you make a tax estimate. So I'm probably going to lean into some tax areas there. Same thing at the end of the year, some tax planning strategies. All year long, we also have to be building systems. Here's one of the big problems I don't see a lot of content creators focusing in on, is retirement planning. You know, especially if you've left your main job and you you've embraced this as a full time job, all of a sudden, you don't have an employer. The employer is you, and you don't have a 401, K plan, you don't have an IRA plan. That's the kind of thing I help content creators with as well. Because you you know, before, before long, five years go by. 10 years go by. You've put nothing away for retirement. So I think those things are really evergreen. My Daily Show, which is more of a question and answer, I get a question from people every day. That stuff changes with, you know, depend upon what people are talking about. We talk about relationships and how it's hard to be on the same page financially. Those things are really evergreen, I would say. But we definitely focus on, like I did a whole series in November last year on how to not go broke at Christmas. Because, I mean, the truth, like, right? I mean, everybody feels that struggle. I think there's times when it's back to school. Spending starts in the end of July going into August. I know my kids are 24 and 28 so we're not having that back to school, but that's a real struggle for people. And the same thing with content creators, you know, building those systems is something that is really evergreen and and the thing is, it's so easy to get started January 1. Everybody says, Well, it's the beginning of the year, I've got that new year's resolution. I'm going to do it right this year. I'm going to put out content every week. I'm going to keep track of my accounting records. So right now, I'm doing a lot of content of, hey, I know you made this commitment to yourself. Are you doing right? Because you got to do it, because it's so easy to just let that stuff slide. Because, listen, here's the biggest thing, if you're so focused on that stuff, it takes away from your creativity. And you're stressed all the time. You can't sleep. You're worried about are you going to get that knock at the door from the IRS? Are you going to get that dreaded notice that says you've been selected for audit? It takes away from your creative juices, so that's one of the other benefits to really focusing in on a system to keep yourself aligned, because that's one of the biggest burnout points. It's the stress of where's the money going to come from next month? How do we handle this roller coaster of income? How do I manage the fees that are coming out of PayPal and Stripe? And I thought I made two grand, Ralph, but they only put 1750 in my account. Well, because you didn't earn two grand, you're in 1750 Right?

Alesia Galati: 20:07

Exactly? Yeah, there's so much to it that I don't think people really consider and you're right. You can get trapped right, or even with the new year's resolution, you have this idea, this grandiose ideas, of the things that you're going to change, or the things that you're going to do differently. So I really like that idea of, like, once a week, setting up, aside time, planning ahead, just like you would for your content. If you're someone who does that, planning ahead now for a Daily Show. I'm also curious, because I do believe that there's no one right way to podcast. You get to decide what format, what cadence, what length works for you, what is the. Kind of setup of that you mentioned you're answering questions, but do you have like, hey, it's going to be 10 minutes or less. I'm going to batch record 10 at a time. How does that process look like for you?

Ralph Estep Jr: 20:56

Yeah, so that's been evolutionary too, okay? Because when I first started, I was going to do seven days a week, and I said I'm going to do seven days a week for three years, because all the gurus, like Dave Jackson's a good friend of mine with the School of podcasting, they all say three years is where you do it. So I said that commitment November 2023 I am going to do three years of this, but it's been a struggle. And there have been times when I would talk for an hour, and trying to figure that out on a daily basis is a struggle. So I've hired a couple coaches, and we really narrowed into like that 10 to 15 minute daily episode. I feel like that's because you're asking a lot of your audience to listen to you every day first of all. And I'm not Joe Rogan. I'm not talking for three hours. If he can get an audience to do that, fantastic. That's not what I'm looking for. That's not what my audience looking for. And it's overwhelming for people. My daily show is all about one little financial tidbit. Make me feel better about myself, Ralph, give me some hope, and let's move on to the next thing. But it's been a change, like I've gone through an hour long. I went try to half an hour long. Right now I'm pretty much settled on that 10 to 15 minute number, and I really think that's a good place to be. I start off with a hook of, here's what we're going to talk about. Here's what you can expect to get from this. Here's our listener question today. Here's the solution to that. We pray at the end, and then we say, here, I'm going to charge you with you can do this now, go do it. And that's real, and it makes me feel good. I mean, at the end of the day. Now, the other thing I was recording every day, and I guess about six months ago, I switched to a batch recording. So what I do is I have a team, and on Mondays, I record all of my weekly show or all the daily shows. So I do seven, back to back to back to back, which has been really helpful, because for two reasons. Number one, I'm a full time accountant, so my schedule is full to begin with, but it gets me in a mindset, and it's interesting. When we first start out in the morning. I'm kind of, you know, just getting back into the groove by the seventh episode, man, I am nailing right? And it works for me because I'm also on a daily show called podcasting morning chat. I'm one of the CO hosts on that that's a live show every day at 7am so that kind of gets me started. Then eight o'clock rolls around. I got a VA that joins me in the I use a teleprompter. She comes into me from zoom, because what I found is I wasn't effective talking to a blank screen, right? So I actually hired somebody that just like you and I are looking at each other right now, Alesia, and that's been a huge change for me, because now I feel like I'm actually talking to one person. So that's how I do it. In my weekly show, I record that once a week. I try to also build a couple week buffer in like right now my daily show, I think we're about three weeks ahead. That's another thing a lot of content creators don't think about. You want to take a vacation, you get sick. Well, if you're not creating content, you're not getting paid, so you've got to build into that some some leeway for yourself, some margin we talked about in accounting. Build some margin into your budget. Well, content creators need to do the same thing, and that's what I've really done. The other thing I did was I used to do it all myself. I would record the episode, I would write the episode, I would edit the episode. And I said, You know what, I just can't do that with four shows. It's an impossibility. So I hired a team to do that, and that has been huge for me. They do all the editing. They push it all out on social media. They put it in we're on Captivate as an example. They put it on rumble, they put it on YouTube. And that has been huge for me, because I realize you can either pay with your money or you can pay with your time. Yeah, and there's only so much time left in today, so, and that's another thing I think content creators struggle with. Spend some money, hire a coach, have someone show you. There are easier ways to do stuff. I'm not talking about on the creative side, but there are systems that work better. Talk to an accountant, talk to a lawyer, talk to those people surround yourself, what I call the dream team of professionals. It's going to help you, because I didn't do that at first, I'm fortunate. I understand the business world, but I had no idea about the creative side. I just recently, about three or four months ago, hired a speaking coach. That's been amazing. I had no idea that I was over talking the microphone. She goes, Ralph, you're screaming at me. And I was like, You're right. I thought I was Jim Cramer for a while. She's like, just calm down. And you know what, Alesia, it helped me so much. Yeah, because then I was like, I'm just having a conversation with Alesia, and I get a lot of feedback, and it's been great, but, but again, it's been an evolutionary thing for me. And there's no right or wrong answer, you nailed it. There is no right or wrong answer. What works for you, but don't get burned out and doing it because that you're not helping anybody, if you just burn yourself out so you get the rhythm that works for you on The Daily Show we talk about. You know, should I do weekly? Should I do bi weekly? It's up to you. I like daily because I liked what I do. I've got a cool studio here in my office, so I like what I do. I enjoy it, but I can see where people get burned out doing that. But be paying attention, because every single piece of content you put out, when I'm going to hit you with a zinger here, okay, a lot of people don't think about this. Every single piece of content needs to be remarkable. It just does. It needs to be remarkable. So if you can put out remarkable content once a week, do once a week. If you can put out remarkable content every two weeks, do every two weeks. If you can put out remarkable content once a month to once a month. I don't know that there's a secret method to this. Now, when you get into advertising and you're paying per click, which I'm not a big fan of, racing to the bottom, which I and that's what I think it is, if you're going to sell something, sell your own stuff. But if you're doing that, you may have pressure on you to really be putting out like a churn and stuff. But the problem is, I see that now people are putting out junk just because they got to go talk, nobody's listening to that.

Alesia Galati: 26:27

Yeah, I think that's so important, and that's something that like so for our clients that we're editing their podcasts and doing all their stuff. I just just having a chat with one of my team members. We were talking to a college in Iowa about podcasting, and one of the questions was, like, how long does it take to edit it, or, like, what are you putting into it to, like, take things out? And my team member was, like, sometimes your grandma's story's gotta go sometimes the grandma's story does not need to be in there, and it's not adding value to the listener. And you really have to think about that when you're editing the content, or when you're creating the content. So you don't have an editor yet, or you haven't gotten to that point like you really have to understand, hey, how much is going to be value for my listener, and how can I get to that quickly and efficiently so that they can get on with the rest of their day and want to come back for more. So I agree. I think that every piece of content does have to be remarkable, and it's okay to take some time and be have a slower cadence, right? Whatever your capacity allows, and I think that's so important. So if there's one thing that you want people to take away from this conversation on the accounting side, what is it? What is one thing that they can get started with this week?

Ralph Estep Jr: 27:42

Separate your stuff is the number one thing that causes problems for content creators. Separate your stuff. I feel like I'm on a soapbox, but it's true, because every content creator I've worked with, it is a spaghetti salad of mess. And the problem is, when you're in that, you don't know what's working, you don't know if you're making money, you don't know if you're losing me. I had a content creator say, Ralph, I had the best month ever. I made$10,000 last month, and he figured I was going to be impressed. I said, that's great. How much did you keep? And he said, What do you mean? What did I keep? I said, How much did you keep? The revenue doesn't impress me, right? What you keep impresses me. And until you separate things, you start measuring things and categorizing things, and have what I call an income roadmap. You don't know what you're really doing, and that's tough love. I don't mean that to be negative or or feel bad about anything. You got to understand your why. Going into content creation the biggest struggle. I think you didn't ask me this question, but I answered anyway the most time people struggle because they don't have a clearly defined why. Why are you doing what you're doing? Because if you don't know why you're doing it, stop, go back, figure out why you're doing because once you figure out why you're doing it, then you figure out, how do I measure that success? And it might not be money. For you, my daily show is not about money. It's a mission field. For me, it's a way to give back, because God has richly blessed me. That's what I want to do. But I knew that at the front end, my Why was this my new show, content creators, accountant, the why on that one is I want to find clients. I want to help content creators. It's a completely different thing, and the way I measure that is different. But I had to know that at the front end, it's not just because I wanted to go online and pontificate about stuff that I was interested in, that's fine if that's what your why is live it, but how you going to measure if you're successful? Because you will burn out if you can't see success, you don't want you don't know what success looks like. But the big takeaway, keep stuff separate.

Alesia Galati: 29:39

Yeah, that is so important, like doubling down on that, focusing on what success looks like to you, because the arbitrary numbers, the downloads or the social media followers, that doesn't always equal dollars, right? And so if dollars is your priority or your goal or your focus, then how are you actually achieving that? So I think that that's such an important thing to take,

Ralph Estep Jr: 30:05

yeah, because downloads doesn't pay your bills, followers doesn't pay your bills, likes does not pay your bills, revenue, minus expenses that pays your

Alesia Galati: 30:15

bills. Yes, so important. And

Ralph Estep Jr: 30:18

truth is, you could, you could have a show that has 100 daily downloads, and you could be making money doing it. It all comes down to, what is it you're trying to accomplish? Who is your audience and what are they looking for, and are you giving them value? Are you giving them value every single time? Yeah.

Alesia Galati: 30:35

So good. Thank you so much, Ralph. This has been so good. If people are like and I kind of need to have a session with Ralph, because I need to get my things together. Other, or I need to do my taxes, or plan ahead for tax season. If you're listening to this at a later date, then where can people find you? Get to know you, connect with you, all that stuff.

Ralph Estep Jr: 30:55

Very cool. So Alesia, I offer everybody a free 15 minute discovery call. You can go to content creators, accountant.com/help, me. I'm gonna give it to you one more time. That's content creators, accountant.com/help, me just go in there. Schedule A 15 minute call. We'll talk about what's going on. I'm not going to try to sell you anything. I really want to understand what you're doing. We'll see if it's a good fit, and then we'll plan from there. I can definitely help you. It's not my first rodeo. I've been through this before, and I meet with people in all 50 states. I've got clients all over the world, so reach out to me. I'd love to talk to you again. That's content creators, accountant.com/help, me.

Alesia Galati: 31:34

Awesome. And we'll definitely have links for that in the show notes and the YouTube description for anyone doing other things while they're listening to us. Ralph, thank you so much. I appreciate you, and this has been so good.

Ralph Estep Jr: 31:46

Thank you, Alesia. I appreciate your time as well, and I wish blessings on all of your listeners. You.