From Anxiety to Abundance: How Miss Excel Built a 7-Figure Empire Teaching Spreadsheets with Kat Norton

22:51You're creating content for the love of Excel and helping people. And OK, I didn't even know that was a thing. Like I didn't even think that far through. I knew I was going to make a course one day. But really, I just had like a ton of followers, no link in my bio, no lead magnets. I was saving like content as stories. I was just a mess out there. And a business coach just looked at my DMs. I'm just like, hey, like notice you're following no link in your bio. What you doing? And I'm like, oh, great question. And so I ended up doing like a session with him. And he was like, hey, like MailChimp, Linktree, do that, you know, like help me set it up.

23:26And then I started getting mailing lists going. And then from there, I was like, wow, I should really just make an Excel course. So I took two weeks off from my day job. This is in like November 2020. I said I was on vacation. So June 2020, you start. Hundreds of thousands of followers. You start an email newsletter. Yeah. You get a link in bio. You say November. I can't even do math that quick. That's like five months later that you're like, I'm going to do this. Yeah, yeah. I was like, I should have something here. And so I took two weeks off. And at this point, too, I was doing the whole like digital nomad thing.

24:00So I was like renting a house in San Diego at the time. And I was like, okay, like I'm just going to order some ring lights off Amazon. And I sent them to the house. And I whipped out in about two weeks the coolest, most fun, engaging Excel course I could possibly think up. I was like, this is like 2020 editing days before AI could do everything. So I was like green screening, cutting my background out. I was doing like wheel of functions, like wheel of fortune. Like I was trying to make stuff fun. And so I created that and then I started selling it Black Friday of 2020. Because I was like, that's what people do.

24:33You literally created and sold it within weeks. Yeah. Within like two and a half weeks. Yeah. Yeah. And how much was the course? So the course was$297. Okay. And we were running 50 % off at$149. Great. And then I started— How did you come up with that price? The business coach helped me do that because I was like, why are all the numbers you're giving me ending in seven? They're like, because if you divide it by two, it's$149,$199. But so I'm like, oh, I see, I see. And so I was like, all right,$297 feels right. And I remember he said to me too, because I naturally wanted to undercut my pricing.

25:07Because in the Excel space, like we are definitely higher priced on the market. And he was like, you are not the Walmart of Excel. Like you are the Louis Vuitton of Excel. And you need to price yourself like it. Like the amount of energy and fun and things. These are things like the world has not seen before. And this, you need to price it correctly. And I was like, okay. and so I priced it at that and I started selling at Black Friday and then by January so like two months later it was bringing more money than my day job each month so at that point I was like well maybe I should quit my job and get like 40 hours back in my week and I was like as long as I just don't give up like I'm gonna win like it's gonna work there's no way it'll fail if I don't give up and if I just make that commitment to myself we're good and so meanwhile okay I'm gonna pause.

25:52We're going to win as long as I don't give up. Yeah. Like if you think about that logically, like as long as you commit to not stopping, you will not fail. Like statistically, you just won't. Like unless I don't even know, but like statistically you're going to win at some point. It just might take a little longer than you think, might be shorter than you think. But if you're one of the people that like, I always say like get in the pool, like everyone's sitting on the edge of the pool and they're just like, I don't want to go in. And they like use those limiting beliefs. They stay in the same place.

26:17I was like, if I just jump in the pool. And I stay in the pool. And I stay in the pool. we left the pool something great's gonna happen so I ended up quitting my job it was a very confusing time for the management team of my company they're like what company are you going to I'm like my company my company I'm going to miss Excel they're like continue what I'm like tic-tac and but then within a few months I did my first webinar which I had so wait so you sold on Black Friday just like on social media to a newsletter list so you didn't have like the traditional nothing okay so yeah so you leave your job in january 2021 and then you have a webinar in february 2021 or it's april i think yeah okay okay in around january february i went on natalie ellis did a boss babe webinar with webinar jam and i watched her and i was like oh so you were a watcher of somebody else yeah yeah and i was like oh is this how people sell things wow okay hey, this is incredible.

27:14Look at that. So I'd like watch and I'm like, webinar jam. Got it. And it was so funny. I like I've been on her podcast too. And I told her back that I was like, you were the first webinar I went to. And I saw like, all right, got it. Webinar jam. And so I like taught myself webinar jam, built all that out. I was still a team of one at this point. Still just making content every day. And I was so nervous to do my first webinar because if you knew me before this, I remember this, the like zoom backwards. Mike, my boyfriend is in sales. He's been in sales since the beginning. And we've been together like eight years now.

27:46And we were like in his childhood bedroom and we're hanging out talking. And he's, I was like, well, if I were to ever sell something, this is when I was at my corporate job. I'm like, they told me they didn't want it. I'd be like, okay, like, like good. And like, he's like, no, that's the invitation. It takes like nine times before someone buys. Like that's, and I remember like being like, whoa, I can never do sales. Like, I don't think like that. I would never push someone to buy something from me. And it was so funny, my perception of sales too, because I don't push. It's so interesting. But he trained me up.

28:17Mike was the number one ranked sales rep in North America. He's insane with sales. And so he sat me down, trained me up. I built a webinar with him. We created this event. And then I got on live. And I was so nervous. Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. So you look at Natalie's webinar. And you're like, there's this thing called the webinar jam. I'm going to buy Webinar Jam. And then you have a conversation with Mike where months before you would be like, I could never sell. And then you decide, hey, Mike, I'm going to sell. And then he becomes basically like your coach. And he's like, you can do this.

28:50Like you're Rocky getting in the ring. Like we're going to do this. We have Webinar Jam. We have Mike. We have a 297 course. And you're like, let's go. But you had mentioned early on in childhood you struggled with anxiety. Yes. Is this something at this point in time you've already addressed? and you're like, I feel good. Or do you have to do the work around anxiety to show up? Because people aren't going to say no. They're going to say no. Oh, for sure. For sure. And I mean, the anxiety even still to this day, it flares up. I'm constantly working on myself. Like, every time I inch to a new level, it'll like be like, ooh, you can't do that, you know?

29:22So I was at a point though, where I think I was still riding my like pure delusion train. Okay. Choo-choo. All right. I was just like, I was on one. Like, I still look back at that time and was like, whoa. Like, I can't even, I would love to sit and talk to myself at that stage and be like, are you good? Are you okay? I was just so sure of this. And I was nervous because it was live. I remember being like, oh gosh, like what if my Excel doesn't work? You know, like all little things like that. But I pushed myself because it was also, oh my gosh, it was also Business Insider reached out. And I was just about to hit six figures.

29:56And I told them like, hey, like I'm about to hit six figures. They're like, well, if you want in print that you have six figures, like you need to go make six figures. And I was like, got it. Done. So I was like, webinar. And so that was part of what pushed me to do it. I had some external pressure being like, okay, this can be the article printed about me. I'm so close to a vanity metric I wanted to hit. Let's make this happen. So I get on the webinar and it went really well. Because I've taught before. So the teaching was easy. My pitch went well. I made$50 ,000 in one hour and hung up and was like, that was like half my day job salary.

30:32So I was just like tripping. I was like, oh my gosh, this is insane. Webinars, webinars, webinars. So then I proceed to double, triple, triple down on webinars. And I built out over like around that time period. Because I believe on that webinar or the next one, I was selling courses that didn't exist yet. So, which is so good. Okay, let's play here. Because I feel like you're just breaking a lot of beliefs right now. Because what we just heard was you saw something, you bought it, you got a hype up, you're delusional, I'm going to try it. And then you're like, because this is working so well, and because I'm getting used to sales, I'm going to sell something that doesn't exist.

31:07Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So at this point, I was like, okay, like if people like Excel, I already obviously know all the other Microsoft Office apps really well. Why don't I just make courses in that and bundle them together? So I made seven other courses that didn't exist yet and bundled it with one that did exist and then put a deadline of when those courses would be done by. and then I whipped out an 100 video course every single week for like six, seven weeks and I still had no team. So I would day one, design the course, organize it, map it out. Day two and three, I would go in and film the course because if it's a 12-hour course, it's two six-hour days.

31:44Easy, you know, a little time in between. I don't script. Everything just flows through. And then the next three days, I would edit, which took the longest time for me because I was like not a professional editor at the time. And then the last day is the day I would like get the webpage up and launch. And I just rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, because I had a deadline. I'm a generator in human design. If you cannot tell either, I went into like Energizer Bunny mode. I was so lit up. And so I'm going to slow this down for one second because people are going to be hearing this. And I just want to make sure that we're really understanding.

32:15You have a webinar and you sell courses that don't exist. Now, one of the exist. So you say, buy this bundle right now. People do. They get access to the Excel one. And then you say, by this date, this one will be ready. By this date, this one will be ready. So people bought in a bundle knowing that they weren't going to get access to certain parts of the bundle for 30, 60 days later. And everybody was okay with that. Myth busted. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. So what did you sell the bundle for? So the bundle at the time was$4.99. Great. So you more than doubled. It was$4.99 on a sale, actually. So it was normally, yeah, we would sell it at$4.99.

33:00Great. So you more than doubled. So immediately, your LTV, the lifetime value of a customer doubled because of the bundle immediately. Yeah. And that helped a lot. That's how we jumped in a year from six figures to seven figures, because it was the bundling and the webinars. And then from there, once the courses were built, I was like, this is great. So I just kept running webinars. Like every, I would do two weeks on, two weeks off. What do you mean two weeks on, two weeks off? So I would promote the event for two weeks and then run one, then turn into two, then turn into three because we were maxing out Webinar Jam with like registrants.

33:31So, and then I started pulling in affiliates and then I'd give them their own private days because we had like huge ones like the Morning Brew, which has like millions on their mailing list. So they'd get their own private days. I started partnering with all the other Excel accounts who didn't have courses. Go back. How did you get that agreement with Morning Brew? I mean, that's huge. That is a huge opportunity. Manifested it. What do you mean? Okay, well, we're unpacking that right now. Okay. So my whole business pretty much has been inbound leads. So energetically, I would just align myself to like, hey, I want big opportunities.

34:00I want big things. And then they slid into my messages. Okay, but when you say I align myself energetically, there's people who are listening and being like, what does that even mean? Yeah. So big thing first, remove those limiting beliefs that are holding you back. Amen. That you can't have it. Because that's block number one. Once that's open, it's like, okay, like getting yourself into a place where you mentally like already have it. And I just always kind of live my life on that next timeline. Like what I was when I was like, you know, in my childhood bedroom, right? Like I'm always kind of a step ahead in how I present myself, how I live.

34:30Like I would wake up every day and be like, what would the version of me who had all these things be doing, you know, and kind of like living from that place. So I think that was a big part of it, but every corporate deal, every, I've never reached out for press, every press outlet, every corporate deal, every partnership, like has all come to me. So you're saying I'm living in an energetic space where these opportunities are already done. Yeah. So it's done and I'm going to get inbound leads. Yeah. And so what preceded Morning Brew reaching out to you? How did, like, where do you, where does it kind of like, I always like think of certain things as sometimes there's an event that's like a domino.

35:05Were you featured on a press outlet that got indiscriminate distribution and all of a sudden it's like it just kind of fulfilled into more yeah i mean in my head i'm like i'm just gonna build a brand people want to talk about and like i like the company started growing it started growing quickly and then like one media outlet picked it up and then i was on the verge's podcast decoder with nilay patel and it was like two days after we had our first six-figure day okay and i told him that and he like blew it up And the next thing you know, like 30 other media outlets picked up this article that I make.

35:36Oh, that's a good hook, though. Six-figure days. Yeah, it just like goes viral across the media. But with the Morning Brew, I think like they'd always kind of been like watching because they do things where they partner with creators a lot. And they kind of bring them in-house. So like originally, it was more of a deal like that. And I was like, I'm not coming in-house, but I would love to work with you. And I was like, what about this? And I pitched them our affiliate program. And then I did the same thing with other Excel creators. So like there's so many Excel creators. At this point, there's like 50 of us.

36:03And a lot of them don't make money. And it also like pisses me off that like they're amazing creators, but a lot of them don't have business backgrounds. And like they're just struggling to make money. And I'm like, we got to figure something out. And so I created this affiliate program with a 50-50 split. Amazing. And I take care of everything. Amazing. So we host the events. We like do all that. Like literally I just hand you a link and you push it as much or as little as you want. And it's your own print money button. And I pitched that to all of my what would be competitors. And now we all work together.

36:29That's amazing. And we have a ton of, yeah. So we have tons of different Excel content creators, like all different like finance creators. Girls, get out. Yeah. So good. So that is constantly bringing us like leads every month too. And then we do a 50-50 split of the revenue. So like that's something that scaled the business quickly. Morning Brew was one of the big ones. And that's always like one of our case studies because we made like a lot of money with them. And then, yeah, the other big Excel creators, there's ones with like 8 million followers. Like I only have 2 million, you know? So I'm like, there's bigger audiences out there.

36:58and a lot of them have like one course or like, you know, they just don't want to do webinars. They don't want to be on camera. It's a totally different skill set. It is. And like a lot of Excel people are like myself, like data nerds, but a lot of them don't like want to be on camera. Yeah. You know, which I get, like I was like that too. So I think it's, you know, one of those things where I was like, okay, how can I scale this in different ways? Once we had the webinar system on lock and like now I've done like over 200 webinars. So we just keep dialing, dialing, dialing. And at this rate, I mean, at this time, are you still keeping that pace two weeks on, two weeks off?

37:27I was. It was not now, but I stopped in November of last year. So November of 2024, I hit a wall. Okay. And I had been doing probably like seven or eight in a week every month. And I would rent a house in Scottsdale because I live in Sedona up in the mountains and the Wi-Fi is not great. And I would never want to like risk, you know, all the traffic they brought in. So I was doing sometimes like two a day. They'd end up being like 90 minutes. And I'm such an empath and like energetically sensitive. Yeah. So it was like 40 ,000 people in like a week that I would be like interacting with. And I was like, this is a lot on my body, a lot of my energy.

38:02But I kept pushing because I was making so much money. I'm like, this is good. We just keep going. And then I remember it was November's webinar. I had like a migraine from like being so like tense in my body. My body was holding all that energy. And I like had like literally for breakfast before the webinar, I had like some leftover steak from Capital Grill and two excederans. And I was like, this is not my highest timeline. I was like, and I turned to Mike and I was like, this is the last time I'm coming to this house. I called up my team. I'm like, this is my last live webinar right now. I was like, I'm done.

38:34Like I got to the point where I was like, I don't care what it does to the business. I will find other ways to make money. I won't give up. It'll be fine. And so what I did was for December, which is one of our biggest months. So it was kind of bold to do this for like one of those months. We switched everything over to Evergreen. And we started off with just taking previously recorded high-performing webinars because we have so many issues from at this point. And with Webinar Jam, there's a sister company, we flipped them to Evergreen. And we started running that December, January, February. Now it's September.

39:08And I've still just stayed Evergreen because financially it makes way more sense because we were able to open up the affiliate side. So instead of me being able to just have like three or four, we started reaching out to all these different newsletters and like actually showing that we do affiliates now. So like before that, it was kind of like more hush-hush, like people would reach out, like we get certain deals. But then now I was like, okay, like we can actually promote this affiliate program because we can bring these people in. I create a custom discount code for them. We have a custom event where it's the same event, but like we switch like the slide back there as like the sponsor, quote unquote.

39:39And then, yeah, we're able to track and do the 50-50 split with that. So then from there, we brought in all these other newsletters, all these other creators, and that's been a way that we've been constantly scaling now. It's amazing. Do you run ads? So we do run ads. The ads have been like maybe like 10 % of our business though, like maybe 10, 15. Like most of it is still just organic and through the affiliates. That's incredible. Yeah. Wow. Okay. So as you're growing this business, and when you said it was November of 2023, that's literally three years almost to the date. Of 2024, I did the lives.

40:12Oh, yeah. It was just before. Yeah. Less than a year ago, I saw. So four years of like this constant ascension and growing. Yeah. And when you say I called the team, what did your team look like then? What does it look like now? And who did you have to become in order to build a team that gets you past eight figures? Yeah, yeah. So we have a team of 15 now. And it was like my core team who I called. So it's like me, Mike, is our CFO. My best friend from college and we worked together for five years as my CFO. So you brought Mike, who started off as your kind of like sales coach, but he had a different full-time sales job.

40:42Yes, he did. When did you transition him into the business? That was in May of 2022. Okay. So, or that was, or maybe May of 2023. No, it was 2022. Yeah. And he did a year with Gerard Adams and was doing sales for him. Oh. After, yeah, he had like came out of working at Enterprise for like many, many years. So he goes, Enterprise, Gerard Adams. Yeah. And doing like high ticket sales for him, which was really cool for him because I feel like it took him out of like car salesman vibes into like emotional intelligence, like working, you know, because it's a very different sale. Oh my God. This is such an asset.

41:15Are you kidding me? He's amazing. Oh my gosh, Mike, let's go. Yeah, he's so well-rounded. And he now runs our corporate sales division. So we have sales reps under him, like doing the corporate side of things too. So yeah, that, yeah, he came on. And then one of my best friends, Carissa, is my CMO. So like, it's the three of us as a C-suite, which is so fun. And I will say too, like, I got a lot of shit from people being like, you can't work with Mike when we first started. And I was like, watch me. Like, you know, like we have such an amazing relationship. I was like, this is like not, you know, know anything different and then same thing with my friend carissa but i will say like all three of us have done a lot of inner work together like on all those different modalities too which is i think how it helps working with your best friend your boyfriend like most people be like you shouldn't do that but like for us it just works so well and then we have an amazing team of 15 so when i called them up i they were like yep let's let's flip it we got it and i was like okay and so we just immediately went into how can we change this next launch for december because it's our big like holiday one.

42:16And we just rolled with it. And then from there, we've been just constantly tinkering again, like landing pages, show up, all the things. So I'm every month going through and I still film new events, except now I just have to film them one time in my house in Sedona. And I'm able to go on and we still have the chats and everything going. So it feels like a live experience. We just don't promote it as live because we don't want to be deceptive about it. But for most people, they still have that same amazing experience, except I don't have to film it eight times doing the same class. I just do it once.

42:47That's incredible. So when you, and do you have the title CEO? Yes. So you have Mike as your CFO and head of corporate sales and Chris as CMO. Yes. And when you look at your role as CEO now, when you have systematized and you are tinkering, what do your days look like? What does your week look like? Yeah, great question. So we basically got the business to a spot where this happened last summer. Last summer, I was like just taking the summer off from webinars. So at that point, like I had outsourced 95 % of my job and 95 % of Mike's job. And we lived in Europe last summer because I was like, we built something for freedom and I don't want to, you know, get sucked in and lose the freedom.

43:26And same thing with him. So we had a sales team under him and we just didn't work all summer. But then I got back and it was interesting. The business still grew and did its thing. And which was cool to see, which is amazing. like yeah it was like that's kind of huge it was cool awesome yeah yeah it was cool and then when I got back I was like dang I miss it though and so when we got back I was like okay like where do I fit in at this point you know because I've been just doing like I do podcasts I do like things I can't outsource like podcasts speak engagements and I'm basically like the sergeant shot caller so if someone like you know comes to me and they're like hey like here's this I use my intuition and I'm like, okay, this is what we do.

44:04And I'm very intuitive. I run the whole business on my intuition. And so I was like, okay, like, you know, how can I further like grow my role though? Because I wasn't really doing much. Like I had this moment. It was a few months ago when we switched to Evergreen and I was just addicted to Sudoku puzzles. And I was like, this is a problem. I'm like, I should really be doing something better with my time. But like, I just love these Sudoku puzzles. And then I was like, all right, we got to launch another company. So then it kind kind of rolled into, okay, like so many people are reaching out to us with Excel problems in my DMs.

44:34I cannot go through and help all these people and look at their spreadsheets. What if we built a company that's a service where they can go in and get help from our team? So like that's something I've been building out since May that finally just launched. And then I've been working on just some other side projects. That's incredible. So you spend most of your week, like prior to a side project, when you were going to launch this, the panic button offer, how much of your time during the week were you spending on that? And then how much of your time are you creating content? Yeah. So I don't create content anymore, pretty much.

45:05So maybe like once a quarter, I'll like do a few things, but we have so many dancing videos of me that my team just puts different Excel tips over my head. And so I don't touch content. Get out. Yeah. Are you hearing? I'm looking at my content team. I've been doing it wrong. Wait, what? Yeah. Yeah. I've not posted or touch company, post every day on every platform, like new content. And our team just finds new Excel tips. I have someone who does my screen recordings. And then I have someone who like picks the video of me dancing. We pop it to an editor. They go clip, clip, put little things on.

45:38I have someone in the Philippines doing my real covers and they post for me, my accounts every day. Okay. You don't have to dance. Okay, okay, okay, okay. For people who are not on YouTube, I have like my content creator. Just literally, you don't like dancing. you don't like dancing okay okay okay okay and how do we contextualize this like you've done a lot of dancing many of us who are watching haven't done that level or haven't done any but like my whole key here is she did something that ended up being b-roll in some capacity exactly got it exactly yeah it's it's really just b-roll and then i for excel content we just have people put over my head a lot of times too just plain excel screen videos go viral and i don't have to touch any of that you know so like just having content that goes without me because that was a big part of my job that I needed to release in order to like have pure freedom in my life.

46:27I was like, okay, I'm spending too much time in it. So yeah, we outsource pretty much all that to our team now. I feel like my mind is blown right now. This is... I felt good. It felt good. It felt really good. Okay. So I always believe, and I've always maintained that I want to get around people who are expanders, people who expand the way that you think. Like there is a commonly held belief and then we don't even know that it's commonly held. We don't even feel it as true. And then all of a sudden I meet somebody who has millions and you continue to go viral and you continue to grow. And you're like, yeah, I stopped doing the content.

46:56And the story I'm telling myself is like, no, Jasmine, you're the cog in the wheel. And I get that so much. I felt the same way. I remember being like, oh, I'm always going to have to do this. And now really the only time I do things is like if I have like a very specific deal with a brand or like something where they actually really need me. Or if I get like, you know, I built a studio in my house to be able to like film in. So we have like a course recording studio and like a TikTok and Reels recording studio, which I made before I stopped kind of making content. But like a few times a year, I'll go in fresh B-roll.

47:26You know, we got all the lighting set up and stuff like that. Or if I want to like film the webinars or make a course, it makes it easier. But yeah, no, I mean, they do an awesome job. They're way better at content than I am. Actually, Carissa has a side business called Vision Boards Charcuterie, and she makes these baller charcuterie board videos. And she was going viral all the time too. So I think like she, I think finding like a person who has like that sauce of like going viral. And she was able to like apply it to our content and kind of organize like, okay, these tips, these things. So, I mean, it applies to charcuterie boards too.

47:56That is incredible. Okay, so then when you're thinking about the structure of this new business, it's different than course creation and bundling and evergreen in some capacity. So do you, how did you come up with this idea? Like you knew that there was like this demand, but then how do you come up with the structure of the offer? Yeah, I mean when it comes to excel There's like a few different ways you can do it But for me I was like I want something pre-recorded I want something evergreen I want something where like this is creating the life I want to live where I don't put myself back on the hamster wheel So it's not like a live group coaching program or something like that I was like I want this to be something that can live on without me So that was the first thing and then I also wanted it to be something that was edited Because a big part of our brand is infusing things with creativity Like if you look at my courses side by side with another Excel course, there is no comparison.

48:45Like it is like I'm in different worlds, especially with AI now. Like our Excel course, like we do like a whole thing on like restaurants and I'm dressed as a chef and I'm in a restaurant and we're looking at the chef data. I'm at the zoo. I'm dressed as a zookeeper. I have so many outfits from Amazon. I like dresses all these different things. Like we have 12 modules and I'm in 12 different worlds. We built the worlds in a spreadsheet. so these like literally there's a zoo built in your spreadsheet that you're like going through and you're working with the animal data like because if you're gonna hang out with me it's gonna be a good time it's gonna be a great time i'm like you are not gonna sit through a boring excel course on my watch so that is where like for me the part that feels really good is like infusing things with creativity making things run like pushing the boundaries like i'm always looking at like the latest stuff with like ai and how we can make things cooler and cooler and cooler and that that'll be like when i refilm i refilm typically for the cool factor because microsoft products don't change that much, which is another like plus of this industry.

49:38It's one of the top performing core subjects. It doesn't change much. Great for Evergreen. But yeah. And then some people though, some companies still wanted customization. And that's where at first Mike was selling me. Mike obviously did an amazing job of selling me, but he would like lay up like a huge like 80 grand deal and then just be like, yeah. And I'm like, oh, right. I'm like, I have to go do 10 trainings now? Like it was just like, uh. And so that energy though, I immediately recognized I was like, that's not good for expansion of the business. So I am bottlenecking. What can I do? And then I remember thinking like, no one can teach like me.

50:14Bullshit. People can teach like me. And so I was like, okay, I'll just train people who are bubbly and nice and kind and have great energy who also are really good at Excel. Like it was, it was kind of like American Idol. I was trying to find a diamond in the rough. Like I remember like interviewing for this and I'm like, because you need like kind of what was the job title that you used to interview for it that was a spreadsheet trainer spreadsheet trainer and we had like hundreds of applicants and i typically we when we open up a job position we get flooded so typically what i do is i keep it open for like a week and then i have a job form doing like a pre-screening and then i have a ton of different people and then what i took as part of this role though did they have to submit something on video because i mean i would assume like very stereotypically that like a yeah a presenter or it's probably...

50:55Oh, for sure. For sure. We had one-way video interviews. We had a company called HireFlix. It's amazing. You could do like you make a little video and then it just goes out to everybody. That's how we hire always because I can't get on one-on-ones with all these people. And I want to catch your vibe. Like there's so much I can get from a job form, you know? And then we had one-way interviews and then I also had them show me their spreadsheets. I was like, show me the spreadsheets you're most proud of and like walk me through them. And that's where I was able to see like their creative abilities and things like that.

51:21So yeah, now we have trainers And then I also have spreadsheet specialists on my team who are better at Excel than I am. Like, I was like, I want someone who I can ask a question to. So I found, like, really amazing, like, full and the best way possible data nerds who are amazing and creative. So they help build out the products for, like, if I'm filming a webinar, I film a fresh class every time. It takes a long time to build out classes with, like, macros, which is, like, automations, where essentially, like, when I finish a lesson, I hit a button and a new one pops up. And it's like, you know, like, we make it, like, theatrical.

51:51Like we do like those escape rooms. Like we have like escape room Excel spreadsheets where like you're going through and getting through different layers of the room. And then we have something at the end. Like I kind of always bring like a storyline, even in my free events. So that way when you get to the course, it's like what you're expecting, like good times. My God. Okay. So then, okay, I want to go in like a thousand different directions, but you know that you want this to be something that runs without you. Yeah. Something that could immediately go to evergreen. And then what makes you think this is the structure of it?

52:20like the we have one tier of email support yeah and we have one tier of you can get on a call like what makes you how do you get here yeah I mean I was really just flying by the seat of my pants like in terms of like how we're gonna like keep this and like build this I mean in the excel world I was like people learn from courses I was like I'll make courses and I'm like how do I sell the courses Natalie had a webinar great idea like I literally had no I mean I have an MBA but like I didn't learn any of this stuff like in business school like it was not like the digital world's like the wild ball west.

52:50Like it's so different. And so I was like, okay, like, you know, I was kind of just watching my friends. Like I'm friends with a lot of people in like the business and coaching space and I invested in masterminds. I was in James Wedmore's mastermind for a couple years. So was I, I didn't know you were in James' mastermind. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Like last year and the year before I still like, I was kind of just surrounding myself with people. And that was something too, where like you moved to a mountain town alone across the country. I And so like I, we had no friends, Mike and I, and we moved to like hiking town basically.

53:21And I was like, where am I going to find cool entrepreneurial friends, you know? And we called them in, like manifested like really cool group of friends. And we do something too, or like whenever we see people in Sedona who we have like mutual friends with, we will literally just like DM them and be like, hey, I want to hang out. And then I like, we take them off-roading and things. So we started just growing like a friend group. And then I host dinner parties at my house and we like just keep introducing people to each other to kind of grow a community there of like cool, like young entrepreneurs.

53:47Yeah. So it's, it's a fun. So you say we have a problem that we are uniquely qualified to solve. Yeah. And the way we're going to solve this problem is one by email, one by picking up a phone. Oh, for the Excel panic button? Yeah. Oh yeah. So for that one, yeah, really the way to solve a problem is either you need to like work with the spreadsheet over email or we do Zoom calls. Okay. Yeah. And then we have that one is during US business hours. The email service is 24-7. And who's buying this? Yeah, yeah. So I have a story on this one too. Like this one did not take off right away. This was a great learning lesson for me.

54:26So this was a couple of weeks ago. We like soft launched it, right? And we got like four customers. My mailing list is like 500 ,000. I was like, something is wrong here. And so at that point, I was like, all right, I guess let's try again. And, you know, like we're doing things. And then we got a few more and a few more. But I'm like, this is not at the scale. We need to scale this. And so I was like, I went to Bell Rock, which is a place in Sedona where a lot of people's like manifestations come through. Like every time I go there, like money falls out of the sky. It's like huge. Just things happen.

54:54Like massive tax money back. Just random things. And so I went there and I'm like standing on Bell Rock and I'm like talking to the universe. I'm like, okay, like what do I do like about this Excel pan button business? and this tarantula just like comes up toward my feet. And I'm like, okay, one, I'm scared. But two, what's spiritual meaning, a tarantula? And a big part of it is patience. And I'm like, okay, next day, I see this like praying mantis, another thing, patience. And I'm like, okay, like there's something I'm missing or there's some like patience thing, like just keep hanging on to this business because I'm losing money every month if I don't get it to break even.

55:29And then I get on with my team and I'm like, I think we're selling this wrong. And so we were talking and thinking back to stuff we learned in James's Mastermind. And then we thought about the football phone. Do you remember the whole football phone thing? Explain, explain. So the football phone is basically there was, I guess... Sports Illustrated. Yeah. Okay. You might know more about it than I do. Okay. Yeah. All I remember is someone was trying to sell a membership and you got a free football phone. Oh, okay. Well, let me go. Yeah, you go deeper. So we're quick. So Sports Illustrated is a famous sports magazine.

55:59And they started noticing that their subscriptions were dropping. so they decided that they had this promotion around this football phone and people were like oh my god how do i buy that phone yeah and it was just like a random prop so then sports illustrated said okay people want the phone but they don't want a subscription so how about if you bought a subscription you got the phone yes okay okay full story yeah i gotta go back and tell that to my team because we just do like you're like football phone yeah so literally this was like last week was like a Monday. We launched our full list. Like nothing was really happening.

56:32And we were supposed to send another email the next day. It's like Tuesday at like 3.30 PM. I was like, we need a football phone. Get out. So I literally built another product out that day. And that was like all different. It was a really good bundle. It was like productivity power pack bundle. I was like, this thing is stacked. And then I loaded in a script into chat GPT of someone else's football phone I found from a YouTube video, told it the product I want to sell, pops out a script, got on camera, filmed the script. Mike wrote the email, put it together. sales took off. I was like, damn, the football phone.

57:02Get out. It really, like, I was like, dang, I was selling this wrong. And now we're about to sell it on webinars too with a free trial for the first week also. So we're going to see if like that helps get more people in the door. So you're saying, so the split test would be football phone methodology and then you're doing webinar, but are you doing webinar with football phone or just webinar and then free trial. Webinar, selling our normal stuff. And then that is a gift with purchase. You get a free trial of it only to people who have already spent money with us and bought. I got it. Yeah. You know what?

57:34Damn. I just feel like I just need like a martini and a cigarette. I'm like, what? This has been so good. Now, number one, I don't drink martinis or smoke cigarettes. Okay, fine, fine, fine. I'm like, but still, like, I'm just saying, you know, like my soul, like my soul is like that of Scott Fitzgerald. You know, I'm out here like living my best life. This was so fascinating. You are fascinating. You are an expander. And I just want to say thank you for speaking your truth, for opening eyes. And I started off like right off camera. I said, we want to inspire and show people how to think differently.

58:07Yes. Check. And then we want them to take an action. Yeah. So based on this conversation, somebody's at home, what do you want them to do? Yeah. I would say biggest thing is taking messy action. And in a way that's like, if you're like, oh, there's something I want, but I don't know if I could get it. Like stage one is like working through those limiting beliefs. Like, I mean, at least that's how I started and how the journey of growing was so much faster because I didn't have like in my way anymore. It's most of the time it's your own that's in your way. So I think a big part of it is like having an honest look at yourself and it takes courage to do that.

58:40It's like a bravery thing because you have your mask on even to yourself. So it's a matter of like, okay, like I actually want to go take a look and be like, why am I not doing the thing I want to do? And then either give yourself a little nudge, push yourself in the pool, do something, even if it's not the big thing, doing a baby step. That's something I do with my nervous system Olympics where essentially I make a list every week of little things I could do to push myself a little bit further, a little bit further, so it doesn't rip my nervous system. I do it more like a rubber band. We stretch that, so then we don't create trauma in the body.

59:10So we're talking about an action item, and then you said take messy action, and then you had said about your Olympics. And then you had said, well, I do something to rubber band stretch it. What is an action that's, I'm not going to jump into the pool, but I'm going to kind of sort of inch towards getting off the ledge. What's like an exercise that somebody might be able to do to be like, can I test it? What's like a test that they can do? I mean, it depends what you're working on. So an example for me was like, this is interesting, more personal side. I had not been driving. I literally didn't have a car.

59:40And then I built the business, bought a couple of cars, but then Mike and I do everything together. So Mike's always driving. He's an insanely good driver. And then I realized like I was nervous about driving. I was like, oh my gosh, like, you know, behind the wheel. It was definitely like an independence thing, linked everything. So I was like, okay, I'm going to get in the car every week and just go somewhere and stretch my nerves. And now I just like hop in the car, don't even think about it. I'm in like a rental car today, not even my car. Like that's something for me personally, I was working through where I was like, okay, like I don't have to like jump in the car and drive to California, but like little thing, I'm like, I'm going to drive it to the coffee shop.

1:00:14I'm going to drive it here. And then all of a sudden, like a few weeks later, I was like, oh, I'm not scared of driving. What? And I can't even like look back at that timeline. Now it sounds so ridiculous to me. But like at the time, I'm like, I could like call on stage and do all this stuff and I can't drive my car. You know, like it was such a like weird thing. So like for me, it was like finding those things in myself because they're tied to other things. It's tied to like a layer of independence. It's tied to like being out on my own. It's tied back to separation anxiety as a kid, you know.

1:00:38So I was able to recognize that and be like, okay, this is tied to other stuff. And then once I cleared that one, I was like, all right, Nervous System Olympics. What's next? What's next? What can I do to scare myself? Not in a super dramatic way like I did with the keynote, but like smaller baby scale. So we started off this conversation understanding like what it takes for you to step into different versions of your business. And when you look back over a container of time, like five years, what you've been able to do and achieve and expand into, what I heard was every version of you demanded time to go back, reflect, and then break limiting beliefs in order for you to expand.

1:01:13And then you're telling us to go and take messy action. And when people hear that, they're like, yes, but what? And you're like, it is as small as a rubber band. It is as small as a 10-minute car ride, as small as like a 10-second TikTok or a reel. Ladies and gentlemen, Kat Norton, the queen that she is, I knew it was going to be a great conversation. And I am just deep gratitude to connect with Kat at miss.excel on Instagram. Let's send people there and check out the panic button, right? Like you sign up to one of her webinars, see what this queen is doing. You are fascinating and inspiring and all types of new levels of courageous.

1:01:51Thank you. I appreciate you so much. This was such a blast. Oh gosh. Thank you for watching and listening to the Jasmine star show.