The One Plan Every Creator Needs Before January Hits

Speaker A00:00:00

Stop for a second and hear me. You're posting, you're editing, you're repurposing, you're trying to keep up with every trend, every platform, and every algorithmic shift.And somehow, even when you're doing everything right, the results still feel random. Meanwhile, you look at other creators that are blowing up, not because they're more talented, but because their business actually works.And you're thinking to yourself, what am I missing? What am I doing wrong? Let me give you three quick wins that will give you more clarity than most creators walk into in the entire new year.Here's quick win number one. You gotta follow the money. Look at your income from the past 30 days. Then circle one platform or product that you made your most money with.That's gotta be your focus for January. Here's quick win number two. Pick your weekly format. So many content creators picked so many different formats.I want you to just choose one content format that you can commit to every week. That could be long form, short form, podcast, live streaming. Because consistency beats complexity every single time. Here's quick win number three.I want you to create your do not do list. Yeah, you heard me right. Not a to do list. Your do not do list. I want you to write down three things that you're done doing in 2026.Maybe for you it's that late night editing. Tired of doing that? Or posting on seven different platforms. Or saying yes to those low praying brand deals. Creating without a plan.Here's what I've learned. Creators grow faster by subtracting, not adding. And if you do just these three things, hear me on this. You're already ahead of 90% of creators.All right, well, let's build the plan that carries you all the way through 2026. I want to give you to be able to stop the chaos, stop the guessing, and just get to some clarity. That's what I'll talk about on today's show.If you haven't met me yet, I. I'm Ralph Estep Jr. I'm an accountant now. I'm not one of those boring bean counters.And I've spent over 30 years helping creators, helping entrepreneurs, and helping small business owners just like you turn overwhelm into direction and good intentions into real results. And guess what? I'm a creator myself, just like you. So I live in this world. I know the pressure. I know the constant chase.I know what it feels like to be one algorithm update away from pure panic. And this episode today, it's not about theory. This is the framework used by Real creators who hit 70% of their goals by mid year.Here's what you're going to get today. Here's what we're going to cover. By the end of this session, you're going to have a clear financial snapshot.Two North Star goals for 2026, a 90 day quarterly roadmap, a weekly money routine, a system on it, a CEO creator operating system, and a strategic plan you use every year moving forward. Hey, we got a lot of stuff to cover, don't we? Let's get into it. Let's answer this question. Why you're overwhelmed and why it's not your fault.Let's start with something that no one teaches creators. Here's a fact. You're overwhelmed because you're operating without a business model. You're frustrated because you're trying to grow without direction.And you're burnout because you've been told to post more instead of plan smarter. Just put more content out there. Right? That's what all those gurus and coaches keep telling us. And trust me, I've tried it. Guess what? It doesn't work.Let's talk about the real Creator cycle. I bet all of you know this all too well. This is the cycle that most creators repeat. January. Hey, it's a new year. It's a new me. I'm unstoppable.Let me get to February. Look at me. I'm posting like a responsible adult. We roll into March and we're thinking, why is the algorithm acting like it doesn't know me anymore?By the time we get to April, exhaustion enters the chat. Hey. Then May, we're in the outpost tomorrow. Guess what, Spoiler, you're not going to do it.You get to June and Guild arrives with a clipboard and a disappointed look we get in July. You're posting completely at random at this point, like a squirrel with wifi.You get into August and you think I'm burnout or dehydrated or maybe both. By September you're saying, okay, God, I promise I'll start fresh on Monday. And October rolls in sudden panic. The year is almost over.Which leads us to November. You're frantically creating like you're cramming for finals. And then we get to December. Well, that didn't go as planned, did it? And then guess what?We're right back at January. It strolls in like so. Ready to try this again? You don't have to keep riding this emotional roller coaster. You really don't.Let me tell you about the creator who said the quiet part out loud, a crater came to me and said, ralph, I'm growing, but somehow I'm not building anything. And I laughed. I wasn't laughing at her, but because she had just spoken the unofficial national anthem of craters everywhere.Because here's the truth. Views don't pay taxes, followers don't pay your bills. And going viral. Well, guess what? That's just digital fireworks.Yep, they're pretty, they're loud. Listen, they're gone in 12 seconds. Those things aren't a business. They're marketing her business.Yeah, it was like watching someone wax a car that didn't have an engine. It looked great. It was nice and shiny and beautiful. Guess what wasn't going anywhere. Kind of like putting lipstick on a pig. Guess what?It's still a pig. So what do we do? We built the plan, we installed the structure, we added systems. And she said that.She said, ralph, I feel like I finally put the engine back in my car. And that's exactly what we're going to do today. No more polishing, no more guessing, no more putting lipstick on a pig.We're going to install the engine. Okay, but before we get started designing the big 2026 plan, we need to do something extremely important.This is something 99% of creators treat like eating vegetables. Reflection. And don't worry, it's not going to hurt.Well, it's not going to hurt much, but it's going to save you from repeating last year's mistakes with even more enthusiasm. But let's get into it. This is what I call the creator reflection framework.Just four simple parts, zero judgment, a little laughter, and a lot of truth. Part one. You've got to look at your audience patterns.This is where reality taps you on the shoulder and whispers, hey, maybe check what actually worked. Before you build the next 12 months, ask yourself what truly resonated, not what I hope would resonate.Look at your most watched videos, look at your most saved post, your most commented contact. The stories that really got real replies. And those shorts are real. Where the algorithm finally said, fine, I'm going to help you.See, creators swear they know what's working until the numbers tell them otherwise. Here's a real example. A podcaster told me, my interviews are the backbone of my show, Ralph.But when we looked at the data, the data said, actually, we like you to stop sharing a microphone. Seven of her top 10 episodes were solo shows. She just had to look at the data. She doubled her solo episodes, and guess what?Her downloads doubled, too. Those patterns are brutally honest, and they're brutally helpful. Let's move on to part two. What are your revenue realities?All right, listen, you got to take a deep breath now. This is the moment where we open up your income. And for many of us, it's like checking your bank account right after Christmas.And you hope for the best, but you better be prepared for some emotional damage.This is the time to label each stream, label those platform payouts, those sponsorships, the affiliate commissions, the digital products, the memberships, that consulting and client work. Just label all those things. And then ask yourself this question. Where did my actual money come from?Because so many times traders think they know, but then reality says, I brought receipts, dude. Here's a great example. A big TikTok creator assumed TikTok was his cash machine. Guess what? Nope. 70% of his income came from YouTube long form.He was watering the wrong plant. And guess what? If you water the wrong plants, your income is never going to grow. So what do we do? We pivoted.We started actually focusing on what was generating real income. And when we did this, guess what? His income doubled. Those numbers don't lie, but they do smirk at you when you finally look at them.Here's part three. Then you've got to look at your energy inventory. Your energy is not just your vibes. Your energy is your business fuel. It's your gas tank.And some of you are run your creator business on fumes, caffeine, and a prayer. Right now, that's a sure way to get to burnout quickly. You've got to ask yourself this. What energized me? What drained me? What stressed me?What actually brought me joy? Because here's the truth. You can build a business you love, or you can build a business that you resent.And if you resent it, you're going to avoid it. Like laundry that's been sitting clean for three days. That's a flashback to my bachelor days. Not even sure why I even had a closet at that point.I just lived out of that basket. But your energy is a metric. You've got to treat it like one. And here's part four. Look at your ROI snapshot.Yes, I promised on the show I wouldn't use big words, but ROI just means return on investment. This is where honesty meets comedy. You got to write down these things. What are your top three high ROI activities?And at the same time, your bottom three. You might be asking yourself, why am I still doing this activities? And then I want you to circle one thing you refuse to drag into 2026.You're not taking it there. It might be a platform that you secretly hate. I just hate this platform. Why do I even do it? It could be a content format that drains your energy.Maybe for you, it's a series that no one watches except for your mom. Now, mom does normally love our stuff, doesn't she? If your mom doesn't love it, man, we probably talk about another show there.But whatever it is, bless it and release it. One good no can save your entire year. But once you've cleaned up that junk drawer, you got to look at the real numbers.You got to take an honest energy inventory, and you identify what absolutely needs to grow. We can finally be ready for the part creators think they're good at, and that's setting goals that actually matter.Not 10 goals not be more consistent. I don't know how many 10 creators have heard that. Well, Ralph, I'm going to be more consistent in the new year. It doesn't work.Not a vision board with no execution plan. They look nice, but they don't do anything. I want you to pick two, just two, what I call your North Star goals.These are the goals that will run your entire year and keep you out of the chaos cycle. Let's build them together. Here's your first North Star goal. I want you to focus on your financial goal, because that's the engine.Your financial goal isn't about greed. It's about clarity. It gives your business direction so you stop doing random things that lead to random income. Think of it like this.Think of it like telling your business, hey, could you please act like an adult this year? Examples might be, I want to earn $50,000 from your creator business. Or I want to hit consistent $4,000 a month income streams.Or maybe you want to save $10,000 for taxes. Hey, your future self will hug you for that one. Or maybe you want to pay off $7,500 in debt that you've incurred in this.Maybe for you, you want to reach $100,000 in annual revenue, but you got to make it measurable, you got to make it specific, and you got to make it real. If the goal is fuzzy, guess what? Your business is going to be fuzzy as well. And fuzzy businesses are never going to pay your mortgage.Here's your second North Star goal, the creative goal. So we got the financial goal. Now we got to get to a creative goal. Because if the financial goal is your engine, this one is the soul of it.This is the goal that excites you. It's the goal that pulls you forward. And it keeps you from resenting your own business. Example is this might be your weekly long form YouTube videos.These are the things you'd love to do. Maybe you like to launch a course you've been dreaming about, this course you want to do, and I'm ready to do it.Maybe for you, you love that daily short form. Or maybe you want to start a podcast or grow Instagram to 10,000 followers, or maybe even build a 12 episode series.Now, I want you to just pick one, not three. A lot of us hear that. Listen like, oh, Ralph, I'm do all those things. And this isn't a time to say, well, I'll do all of these eventually.I want you to just pick one. You might be saying, ralph, why one? Because creativity thrives with focus and dies in clutter. See, the magic is in the alignment.Your creative goal should feed your financial goal. Otherwise you're building a beautiful boat, actually doesn't float. Nobody wants to be on a boat that doesn't float.Ends up at the bottom of the ocean. Here's a great example. Let's say your creative goal is you want a weekly long form videos.And your financial goal is, I want to make $50,000 this year. Those weekly videos now become a funnel. They become a sales engine. They become a brand deal magnet, a list building tool and an authority builder.Not just content for content sake. I hear so many knuckleheaded coaches and gurus that say, well, just put it out there. Put some content out there for content's sake. That doesn't work.You gotta have content with purpose. Because we're talking about strategy.Not guessing, not spinning your wheels, not praying for the algorithm to wake up one day and decide to finally love you. That stuff never works. All right, well, now you've got your two Northstar goals. One pays the bills, one feed your show. Hey, that's beautiful.But goals without execution are just really expensive wishes. So now we're going to move into the part where your year actually starts working for you instead of happening to you. Welcome to my 90 day sprint.This is where your dreams put on work boots. You ready to put on some work boots? I'm ready to go. Why 90 days? Here's the deal. A year is too big, but a month is too small.A year says this, I've got plenty of time. Like I said earlier, suddenly it hits October and you're googling. How do I achieve 12 months of results in six weeks?Now a month says, let's do everything. And by day nine, you're eating snacks and questioning your entire career. 90 days. 90 days is about perfect.It's long enough to make some real progress, but it's short enough to stay focused. It's short enough that your brain doesn't decide to go mutiny on you. And it's long enough that you can't procrastinate until the last week.It's what I call the sweet spot. So start by building your quarterly roadmap. This is where your year stops being chaos and starts being a game of chess.For each quarter, answer three questions. Here's the questions. Are you ready? Question number one, what is the one priority? Just one. Not seven. Not my top five.Because if everything is a priority, guess what? Nothing's a priority. Question number two, what project supports that priority? This is your big rock. The project that actually moves the needle.Question number three is, what metric proves progress? If you can't measure it, your brain will happily pretend it worked hard while you're actually not doing anything.Clear metrics equal real accountability. What gets measured gets done. Like my friend and fellow hall of fame podcaster Dave Jackson always says, how are you going to measure success?I love it when he says this. This is a hall of fame guy, a guy I've come to know. Great. He's got a show called the School of Podcasting.I highly recommend it, but he says this all the time. How are you going to measure success? This is the question you've got to answer yourself. Here's an example. Annual roadmap. And this is how winners win.Let's say this isn't your quarter one is you're going to build your content library. Your project is, I'm going to film 20 long form videos. Metric. Guess what? I've gotten 20 completed videos.And yes, filmed is not the same as thinking about filming. I hear content creators. I'm thinking about doing this and I'm thinking about doing that. When they get to October.They've been doing a lot of thinking, but nothing gotten done. We think about doing a lot of things, don't we? So that's the first quarter.Second quarter, you're going to launch your product, you're going to create your mini course. Maybe you've got 20 pre orders. I love pre orders because pre orders mean validation.Validation means, oh, I got some confidence somebody's actually going to listen to this or watch this. Quarter three is your time to grow your audience. Maybe here you do daily shorts for 90 days. Your metric is, I want to grow 500 new email subscribers.See, you can measure that. You can See? Is it working? Because here's a little story a lot of people don't tell you. Your email list, hey, that's your retirement plan.Treat it kindly. Because once you build that, you can resell to those people. And maybe for quarter four, your goal is to monetize big.Maybe this is the time when you do that sponsorship outreach. And your metric is, I want to build $15,000 in booked contracts. See, this is where that consistent long form pays the rent. That's how creators win.Not by doing everything. Not by hustling blindly, not by panicking in quarter four and suddenly believing you can outwork the calendar. You're never going to do that.Creators win by doing the right things at the right time in the right order. That's why this 90 day sprint gives you. All right. Now you've got some clarity, you've got some goals. You've got that 90 day plan.It actually makes sense. Now let's talk about the thing that will quietly determine whether your entire year succeeds or. Or collapses like a bad folding chair.Those are not fun. You ever been in one of those folding chairs? And that you get it feeling that rickety, all of a sudden, boom, you're on the ground.Let's talk about your routine. And before you panic. No, I'm not talking about asking you to color code your calendar or meditate on a mountain at sunrise.I'm not into the meditation stuff. This is the routine. It's just five minutes once a week. That's all. Just five minutes. Can you find five minutes? I think you can do it.It's what I call the five minute CEO routine. Because guess what? You are the CEO of your creator business. And CEOs check their numbers. You could do anything for five minutes, right?I think I can find five minutes. And I can. I can sustain it. If you don't, your future self will absolutely delete your number. First thing in your five minute routine.Pick your money day. Choose one moment each week where you'll actually act like an adult in the room. Just one moment. Being an adult, I think you can handle that.Maybe it's Monday. I want to start strong. Or maybe for you, it's Friday. Let's see what happened. Or maybe Sunday night, like Lord, prepare my spreadsheet. Doesn't matter.Pick the one that works for you, the one that you're going to do. The key is this same day, same time every week. Because your business needs a rhythm, not drama, not surprises. It needs a rhythm.Now let's talk about what you actually do. In these five minutes, it's great to carve out the five minutes. Like, Ralph, I found the five minutes. But, dude, what do I do?Here's your entire routine. And yes, it's really this simple. Number one thing, categorize the week's expenses. Stop pretending like you're going to do this later. Later is a myth.You're not going to do it. So categorize the week's expenses. Second thing, track your income by platform.Look at the platform payouts, the course sales, the affiliate commissions, all of it. But track it. Third thing, move 30% of your money to tax savings. This prevents what I call the annual April heart attack.You don't want that April heart attack. I tell so many tax clients, guess what you owe? And they're like, dude, how's that possible? Prevent the April heart attack.And number four, review your progress on your financial goal. Remember, we set that goal earlier. Ask yourself, did I move forward, or did I just post a lot of content? That's the whole routine. Just five minutes.No drama, no spreadsheets crying for help. And here's the one liner that sells the entire habit. Say this out loud to yourself if you need a reminder.Five minutes a week prevents 50 hours of panic in April. Creators who do this routine feel calm. They feel clear. And guess what? They feel confident.Creators who don't feel like they're being chased by a spreadsheet with a baseball bat. It's not fun. And this tiny rhythm protects your peace, and it matures your business. You want a mature business? This is how you do it.All right, well, we've done the reflection. We've defined the goals. We've built a sprint. We've locked in your CEO rhythm.Now we need to look at something every creator avoids, like that laundry on the guest bed. And that's your systems. Because here's the truth. Your systems are either going to simplify your life, or they're going to secretly sabotage you.There is no neutral, and most creators bust. Our hearts are sabotaging themselves with a tool stack that looks like a garage sale of random subscriptions.So today, I want to help you clear that up. Welcome to my quarterly system audit. It's not scary. It's actually satisfying.It's the digital version of finally organizing that drawer where pens and batteries and scissors go to die. Yeah, that dreaded junk drawer. This is what I call the quarterly systems review.Each quarter, you're going to go look at the backbone of your creator business and ask one bold, liberating question. Does this simplify My life. If the answer is anything other than a full bodied. Yes, it does, Ralph, it goes. Let's check the essentials.Your bank structure, is it working for you or do you need to tweak it? Your bookkeeping system, if you have one. If you don't have one, this is probably a good time to do one. Look at your tools. Look at your subscriptions.Look at your editing workflow. Look at your file organization. Take a look at your content calendar, your email automation. Look at those AI tools. How many of those do you have?Apps you forget you're paying for. And anything, I mean anything that frustrates you weekly, it's got to go. That's what you've got to do.You got to figure out what is simplifying your life and what it's not. This is where the chaos hides. This is where overwhelm breeds. And this is where burnout quietly charges rent. It's a real creator example.I work with a creator who had. Are you ready for this? You're never going to believe this. 14 different tools and platforms all doing the exact same job. 14.It was like they were collecting software the way people collect Funko Pops. We cut it down to five. Just five. Guess what? She saved $2,000 a year. She regained hours every week that she didn't even realize she was wasting.And she said something brilliant. I finally feel like my business is working for me instead of against me. See, that's what a system audit does.It gives you your time back, it gives you your sanity back, and it gives you your business actual structure instead of chaos with a canva theme. You might be asking Ralph, why does this matter? A creator business is never going to collapse because of a lack of passion. We all have that passion.I can sense it. You can feel my passion. If you're a content creator, guess what?I know you've got the passion, but it collapses when files live everywhere, there's no organization, when subscriptions multiply mysteriously, when you can't remember where your content ideas went, when your workflows require a PhD to understand, where your tools don't talk to each other. And one day you wake up overwhelmed by a business you accidentally built. That quarterly system auto prevents all of that.It keeps you light, it keeps you fast, and it keeps you sane. Well, let me say this, at least close to sane. I don't think any of us are truly sane. This is your new operating system.The plan we built today is repeatable. It's proven, it's measurable, it's flexible, it's scalable. It's sustainable. This isn't just a January height plan. This is your creator CEO plan.This is your clarity. This is your direction. This is your foundation. And here's the best part.I put all this together for you in what I call the 2026 Creator Business Game plan. Everything we've covered today is Inside the free 2026 creator business game plan. You want that plan? I've got it for you right now.Just go to contentcreatorsaccountant.comguide. that's content creatorsaccountant.comguide. don't worry, it'll be in the show notes as well.I want you to download it, I want you to print it out, and I don't want you to fill it out. You're not doing this alone anymore. Not anymore. You're doing it with me.Before the year flips, give yourself one quiet hour to reflect, to dream, to plan and commit. Your best year doesn't start in January. It starts the moment you chose it. And today. You chose clarity. You chose direction. You chose leadership.2026 will not reward the busiest creator. It's going to reward the most intentional creator. And right now, you just became that creator. I'm so proud of you again. I'm Ralph Eastep Jr.I am the content creators accountant and I'll see you all in the next episode. God bless you. Take care.