These Things Should Be Keeping You Up at Night

These things should be keeping you up at night. I'm Ralph Estep Jr. I'm a licensed accountant with 30 years of experience working with creators all over the world.I'm known as the Content creators accountant. And in this video, today, you're going to learn three things that should be quietly bothering you right now.Because if they're not bothering you, you're probably missing something. Let's get right to it. Here's thing One, you don't actually know your real numbers. This is the problem. Creators every day confuse things.We confuse revenue with profit, we confuse our cash balance with safety, and a lot of times we confuse our activity with stability. Let me ask you this. If I asked you this question right now. Do you know your true monthly profit? I'm not talking about what came in the door.I'm not talking about what hit Stripe or what cleared PayPal. I'm talking about your real monthly profit after those expenses, after you set aside for taxes, and after you've paid yourself.Because here's the issue. Most creators spend based on account balance. You look at your bank account and you say, wow, I've got money. I must be doing well.The problem with that approach, and trust me, I've seen it a hundred times already, that creates emotional spending cycles. Because here's the first takeaway for today. If you don't know your real numbers, every single decision feels risky. It just does.If you don't know your real numbers, if you can't tell me right now what your real profit was last month, you're not ready to make decisions. Let me tell you about this creator I worked with. Not too long ago, this trader was making almost $15,000 a month.But when he came to me, he said, ralph, I feel broke. And at first I thought, wait a minute, you're making $15,000 a month? How in the world can you feel broke?But when we got into it, we understood why he had no tax segregation. Fancy way of saying he wasn't putting anything aside for taxes. He had this huge exposure just waiting for him on April 15 that he had no idea about.Like many of you, he had no profit awareness. Sure, he knew what was coming in the door. He was very eager to tell me, ralph, I'm bringing in $15,000 a month.I said, that's great, but how much of that are you actually keeping? And when I looked at his real records, man, it was a mess. Spending from personal accounts and personal credit cards, just a big old mess.So why was he feeling broke? Because he didn't have any visibility. Let me tell you about another creator I work with. Creator was having a great month.I'm talking about they were really building momentum. But then panic hit because guess what, it's quarterly taxes. We talked about that a little bit on the show a couple weeks ago.But I sat down with him and I showed him how, how big. Bringing some visibility to this could change everything. So now you might be saying, ralph, okay, but why should this be keeping me up at night?Because so many of you right now are making decisions with blinders on. You're in the fog. You have no clarity whatsoever. And when you don't have any clarity, guess what?You can't scale because you can't scale what you can't see. And the stress isn't about income. You can have a great amount of income. You could be setting a world on fire with revenue.The stress is about uncertainty. Well, let's talk about how to solve that right now. This show is all about giving you solutions from the beginning.Number one thing, and you probably think, ralph, if you see this one more time, I'm going to snap. The first step is separate your accounts. You've got to bring clarity to what is business and what is personal. That is a no brainer here.Number one thing, if you're not doing that right now, pause this right now and go do that and then come back and listen later because that's how important it is. Second thing you've got to do is you've got to immediately classify your income streams. We talked about that on the show a couple weeks ago as well.You've got to have an income map. You, you've got to understand where all of your income is coming from. So you know how to classify that.Because that all builds the next thing we need to mention and that you got to have a profit awareness habit. You noticed I used the word profit there. It's an important word to use. I didn't say a revenue awareness habit. I said a profit awareness habit.It's great that you've got money coming in the door, but I've worked with creators who had millions of dollars coming in the door and guess what? Their profit was zero. And that's impactful.The other thing you've got to do right now is you've got to embrace the thing we talked about before, the whole idea of that tax vault. Because what you don't want to have is no clarity coming into April 15th. I deal with that all the time. In fact, right now it's tax season for me.I'M working with people every day who have no concept of, of what I'm getting ready to tell them when I do their tax return. So build in that tax evolve and build in that weekly clarity rhythm. We've talked about that on the show as well.What is your real numbers look like this week? You've got to carve out that time, put it on your calendar and really make it one of those non negotiable things.Because here's the problem with most creators. They'll sit down with me, maybe they'll do a free discovery call and I'll talk a little bit later how you can do that.But most creators try to fix this with spreadsheets. Spreadsheets aren't the answer. The real issue is your structure. So that's thing number one. Let's move on to thing number two.You're quietly creating exposure. Another big word, right? Exposure. What is Ralph talking about now? And this isn't fear based, it's documentation based.I want to step on some toes, right? Sloppiness creates scrutiny. And now you're thinking sloppiness. Wait a second, Ralph. I'm really good with my content creation.I post on all the platforms. Yeah, but here's the problem.If I look at the money side of things, is it clear, is it documented or are we back in that same place of having mixed accounts? See, I started in the number one thing talking about why mixed accounts are a problem. Well, let's lean into that a little bit more.Now the reason they're a problem is, guess what, Tax time's coming. And if you don't have your things separated, you're going to be doing a major rebuild at tax time.That is a not a fun place to be because you're going to be like a lot of people that I work with. You're going to go back maybe a day or before, a day or week before you meet with me or meet with your tax person.And you're going to try to go figure out, okay, what do I do now? I have this 1099k fancy term for what the platform sends you when you earn money.And you're going to try to figure out, okay, they say I made $100,000 last year, but man, I sure don't have that in my bank account anymore. So you're going to try to rebuild your records. The problem is it might be March or April the following year.And you're going to wonder, what did I spend in February of last year? Or what was that that I spent in June of last year. So you're going to try to cut corners. You're going to round deductions. I. I see this all the time.Content creator will come to me and say, ralph, I want you to do my tax return. I'm like, fantastic. I love doing tax returns. I do them all in all 50 states. And I'll say to them, okay, let's look at your income and expenses.And I kind of get this, like, side eye for a minute. I'm like, okay, well, Ralph, I got these documents that show how much came in the door. I'm like, well, that's a good starting point.Let's start there. But how about your expenses? Well, you know, Ralph, I really didn't keep track of the debt closely.You know, I've got this credit card, I got this bank account. And then what inevitably happens is they start rounding off deductions. Sounds like this, Ralph.My telephone bill last year, it runs about $100 a month. So let's just put $1,200. Oh, and my Canva subscription, well, that's $65 a month. So let's just put that.But the problem is, number one, that's not going to stand up. If the IRS audits you, they want real numbers. Here's a little pro tip.If you're putting rounded numbers on your tax return, you're going to get in trouble. It's a big red flag, but it leads to inconsistent categorization. You don't have any idea of what you're actually spending money on.Again, you have no clarity. You're not reconciling weekly. So guess what happens. You may be being charged for things that you're not using.You're paying for things you're not using. And here's the bigger problem. Use a funny term here. The IRS doesn't audit vibes.You know, I find in the content creative realm, we love vibes, how we're feeling. You know what the IRS audits? Documentation.You're not going to sit in front of an auditor and say, well, I feel like I spent so much last year on something, they're going to laugh you out of the room. Here's the problem that I've seen so many times. Creators track everything in April.This is where they build those fancy spreadsheets, the CSV downloads. They grab it from the bank, they grab it from the platforms, and then they try to manually reconstruct their lives. What a mess.Maybe you're in that season right now, but the problem is your numbers don't tie at that point. And then you're doing a tax return that doesn't make any sense. And then once you file that tax return, you're probably doing it on your own.Maybe you're using one of the online things like TurboTax or something like that. You push submit on the return and you just hope, I hope this isn't an issue. And then you live in stress for months. And here's the hard part of this.As a content creator, there are some real big exposure areas that honestly don't exist for a lot of other business people. One of the big ones, I mention this all the time. You've got multiple income streams that don't tie to the 1099k that they gave you.And you're thinking, wait a second, Ralph, if they've given me a number that says, this is how much I made, why doesn't that work? Here's why it doesn't work. What they put on there is the gross amount that you earned. They don't take out their fees.So the IRS gets this notice saying, oh, Jack had $200,000 from PayPal, but that's not what Jack actually got in his account. We got to understand that if we're not tying those things together, you're going to be paying more tax.You're going to be losing thousands of dollars. A lot of times it happens with affiliate income.You forgot about that affiliate deal you have with Amazon or with one of these other accounts that you work with, and then you don't report it. And then the IRS gets a notice from the affiliate and you say, oops, forgot about that one. How many times if your books are mixed with your personal.You got personal expenses blended right into your tax return. A huge red flag for auditors. And then you've got these high deductions without a documentation trail. I've mentioned this on the show before.You've got to have a receipt and you got to have the why you got. Listen, as content creators, a lot of us are really good storytellers. We got to apply that to our finances as well.So here's why this should be keeping you up at night. I'm not saying you're doing anything illegal. Honestly, I'm not saying you're doing anything intentionally, but intentional doesn't matter.That inconsistency in keeping track of your stuff creates friction. And that friction, it costs you time, it costs you money. And when you lose time, it kills your focus.You're so focused in the month of March and April of. Of reconstructing your records that your content creation goes out the window. So how do you fix that? Number one thing again?Reconcile your stuff weekly. When you do it weekly, it's not some mammoth project.You've got what came in the door, what went out the door, and what do you got planned on the horizon? Clean up that income, track that income right away. Don't leave it on the platforms.Pull it into your business account, and then consistently categorize everything. And then at the end of the month, have that monthly close mindset. I'll encourage you to go listen to our last episode.We talk about that monthly close and how very important that is. Because if you want to be seen as a professional, and that's what I know, you want to be seen as a professional.Professional money leaves a trail, but amateur money just leaves guesses. It's time to stop guessing. Well, let's move on to the third thing that should be keeping you up at night. It's your business depends too much on you.And now you're probably thinking, wait a minute, Ralph, but the business is me. Yes, it is. But that's the burnout point for so many content creators.And listen, I'm talking to you right now because you probably feel this at times. Your revenue is tied to constant output. You gotta constantly be on every platform.You're posting to your podcast, you're posting to YouTube, you're posting to Reels and TikTok and all those other platforms. Because you realize something from the beginning. If you're not putting stuff out there, you're not getting paid.And if you stop posting, what happens? You don't make any money. If you take 30 days off like some people take, even a vacation, you're not making any money. What breaks do you have?And the problem with that is, ask yourself these questions. Do you have reserves? Have you set aside money for the future? I'm going to be honest with you.There are a ton of content creators who are making great money right now, but they're not saving anything for retirement. Have you built recurring revenue? Are there streams of income that come in when you're not creating? How about distribution planning?Are you putting money aside for retirement? Are you putting money aside for those inevitable gear purchases? And have you automated a structure that runs when you're not there?Hey, listen, best thing I can tell you, the successful content creators make money while they're sleeping, and they make money while they're on vacation, and they make money when everybody else is just watching what they're doing. But they're not actively needing to do that. I'll give you a great example. I had a content creator, I probably worked with him about a year ago.And he took, he took, I can't remember how much, it was two or three weeks off. And his revenue dropped by, listen to this. His revenue dropped by 40%. Which, okay, if he had built that into the model. Okay, you can do that.Hey, listen, we all deserve to take breaks from time to time, but here's the problem with this particular content creator. He didn't have any buffer, he didn't have any savings. He had no automatic infrastructure of putting aside money.And when he got to week three, panic set in. And it's not that he had done anything wrong. Listen, we all need downtime.As content creators, we lose our clarity if we don't give ourselves some self care. But this particular person had no infrastructure. And that's why this is so fragile, because success without structure feels fragile.And that's really what we're talking about today. All of these things can be summed up in fragility. What you're building is fragile. And here's why. This should keep you up at night.And I don't mean to say this to scare you, but I was just dealing with a situation the other day. I saw one of the big content creators out there lost their monetization on YouTube.They lost $50,000 a month because YouTube decided that they didn't want them to make money on their platform anymore. That's devastating. Because the truth is all of us are one algorithm shift away from stress. Because unfortunately we don't own the platforms.And there's a lot we can talk about. And I'll mention that in some shows coming up. We're going to talk about how to put things in your world, on your platforms, on your websites.But let's just take a different approach. You could be one slow month away from complete panic. Because maybe you've got a team that you're paying. And guess what?If the month's slow, they still got to get paid. Or maybe you're one emergency away from complete instability. Now those things should scare you. Those are the things that should keep you up at night.So how do you fix them? It's all about building reserves. You got to set aside money for the future. You, you've got to set aside those buffers.You got to plan your distributions. You got to understand that this may not last forever. You've still got to be putting away money for retirement.That's one of the big things I see with content creators, when you work a typical 9 to 5 salary job, you get a bucket of benefits. One of those benefits a lot of times is a 401k plan or some kind of retirement plan.If you're a content creator and this is your full time gig, you gotta start thinking about that. But let's make it more immediate. Sometimes your revenue's not smooth. We talked about the roller coaster of revenue.Well, if you've got revenue, situations like that, you've got to build into your structure some revenue smoothing techniques. Hard for me to say, but it's the truth. You gotta build that in. And it's all about your system.It's all about when money comes in, how do I put that money into different buckets? And you've got to have an intentional recurring strategy with this. Because here's the truth.If your income requires constant adrenaline, if it's always got to be you, full throttle. I picture I used to love, I used to have a boat and I love being out on my boat. And I would get this boat, it was a pontoon boat.And when I bought the pontoon boat, it came with a real small motor. But I like speed. So I put this huge engine on the back of this pontoon boat and when I push that gas forward, the adrenaline would pump.But the problem with that is there's no stability in that. So if you're always pushing that throttle, if you're always living on adrenaline, you're not going to have stability in your business.And that's what we are. We're business people and we're content creators. But let's talk about why this feels so overwhelming. See, these three problems overlap for all of us.Just think about this for a second. If you're not doing your banking correctly, that affects your taxes because you don't know what to expect at tax time.When your taxes are not done correctly, that affects your profit. Because you're thinking, oh, I've got all this money coming in the door. But you haven't set aside for taxes, you haven't planned for the future.And if you think you've got profit, that affects your spending because you're like, hey, there's money in the bank. Let's have a great time and spend, let's go buy some gear, let's hire some staff.And then you get stress because your spending doesn't match the reality on the ground. And this isn't some single fix. I wish I could say to you, do 1, 2 and 3 and you'd be all set. No it's an integration.What I have found, and this is why I jumped into this space after doing accounting and tax and consulting work for 30 years. Most creators don't need information. They got plenty of information out there.You can go look on all the platforms, you can read ChatGPT and Gemini, you can go to Google and TikTok and watch all kinds of videos. You don't need more information, you need alignment. And you need somebody to like me to work with because I'm not just this tax preparer.I don't come up in January and fade away in April. And I don't just do bookkeeping. A lot of people say, well, accountants, they're great bean counters. I've heard that since I was a young boy.What I really am is I'm a systems architect. I show you how to build a system that will make your life easier. I help you build structures, I help you make better decisions.I what I call a decision clarity partner, because that's what you really need.And being a content creator, I understand the industry, I'm a content creator specific strategists because I understand those payouts, I understand those uneven months. Man, I talked about a roller coaster. I've been on that roller coaster.I understand the digital income and like I said, I work in all 50 states and having done this for 30 years, I've seen just about everything. There's not many things that I've seen that are new to me.And in the end, I don't just file tax returns, I build calm and see if you want calm, if you want calm and stability, you want to break that fragility in your life.If all of this felt familiar to you, if you're making money but you still feel a little unstable, if you're tired of guessing along the way, I want to invite you to book a call with me.Just go to content creators accountant.com helpme I'll put that in the show notes, but I'm gonna give it to you again because I really want you to reach out to me. Content creatorsaccountant.com helpme and this is why I love to do this. This is one on one.I'll look at what you're doing now, I'll look at the structure, we'll talk about what's missing, and then we'll decide together if working together actually makes sense. It's not about pressure. I'm not gonna try to sell you anything, just wanna meet you.I wanna understand what you're doing and really help you clarify the mission that you're on. Because the truth is, the things we talked about today, these things should be keeping you up at night. If they're not, you got a problem.And I'm not saying to go live in fear. You have an awareness issue. Because awareness leads to structure. And if you've got a strong structure, it leads to peace again. I'm Ralph Estep Jr.I am the content creators accountant, and I'll see you again soon.Creator on fire Burning up the sky Turning every Knowing the reasons why I got a vision and a voice they can't ignore Every beat I drop just opens the door.