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

Have you ever looked at a spreadsheet and thought: “Absolutely not today, Satan”? 🙋🏽‍♀️ Same.

But this episode isn’t about Excel formulas — it’s about the business and mindset behind the viral brand Miss Excel, created by Kat Norton.

Kat went from 60-hour workweeks in a job she didn’t love to building a multi-7-figure business teaching Excel on TikTok… all by leading with energy and alignment first.

We chat about:

✨ How energetic work (not just strategy) launched her success

✨ The multiple revenue streams behind her business model

✨ The mindset shift that turned her into a viral CEO

✨ Her new recurring offer: the Excel Panic Button

✨ How she blends spiritual practice with business growth

Kat shares wisdom on manifestation, frequency, and scaling a business from the inside out.

Whether you love systems or avoid spreadsheets at all costs, this episode will inspire you to monetize your magic in a whole new way.

Click play to hear all of this and:

[02:56] How Kat created five different revenue streams from one core skill.

[05:44] The mindset work Kat did for two months before starting Miss Excel — and how it changed everything.

[07:28] Why Kat told her mom she’d be rich and famous before she had a single product.

[08:34] Kat shares the exact spiritual practices that prepped her for massive business growth.

[13:10] Behind the scenes of Kat’s latest offer — and why recurring revenue is her next big focus.

[14:45] How Kat’s business serves corporations, universities, and individual learners — all while staying digital.

[21:58] The difference between copying trends and energetically aligning with your audience.

Listen to Related Episodes:

• How to Double Your Energy and Focus with Tanessa Shears
• Creating the Life You Love with Kathrin Zenkina

Connect With Kat Norton:

Kat Norton is the founder and face behind the viral brand Miss Excel, where she teaches Excel and other tech tools through short-form content, online courses, and corporate training. With over 1 million followers across platforms and a business that’s crossed into multi-seven-figure territory, Kat is redefining what it looks like to make education engaging, fun, and wildly profitable. A huge advocate for mindset work and manifestation, Kat blends energy and strategy to help others step into their most empowered selves.

Website: https://miss-excel.com

Instagram: @miss.excel

TikTok: @miss.excel

📧 Join my Newsletter for a weekly cocktail of insider business strategy, personal reflections, and the journey of being a thought leader: https://jasminestar.com/newsletter 📧

For full show notes, visit jasminestar.com/podcast/episode594

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Transcript

Jasmine Star 00:00:00  Have you ever looked at an Excel spreadsheet and got a nervous twitch in your eye? Worst case, how many of us would actually raise our hands and say, you know what I want right now? I want to watch a video on how to use Excel. If you are like me and you think of equations or cells or even opening a spreadsheet and then you're just like, not today, not it will not come for me today. I'm here to change your mind. But wait, this is not a masterclass in Excel. What we are going to be talking to is the master chef of Excel, the master Queen of Excel, the master blaster from Lancaster. We have nobody else other than Kat Naughton, and we're going to be talking about the business of her business now. Yes, her business has to do a lot with Excel, but what we want to do is help you excel in life, in business, in content and getting attention. Ken orange, welcome to the Jasmine Star show. Thank you.

Jasmine Star 00:00:48  What an.

Kat Norton 00:00:49  Intro. What I say last, I am so.

Jasmine Star 00:00:52  Happy that you are here. Now most people, if they've been watching and listening for a while, they know that I only bring people in that I know personally that I have gone on deep dives with. And so you and I, I met in person a couple months ago, but I've been watching and consuming your content and I'm just a watcher. I like to study people that deeply inspire me by doing things different. So when we met in person, I was like, oh my gosh, it's Cat and I'm geeking out. So talk to me about our first interaction, and we're going to bring the audience right here at the table with us.

Kat Norton 00:01:24  Yeah. Oh my gosh, that was such an exciting day. So we were at the Powerhouse Woman event. Yes. And we were backstage. It was right after I came off. It was when we really actually talked and it was during lunch. And I was like, in my head I was like, I want to be Jasmine.

Kat Norton 00:01:37  I want to be friends with her. And then I walked in and we started talking. And then you were at the snack table. I went, I mean, yes, I mean snack table. Yes. And I was like, that's me. Yeah. You were you were solo at the snack table. And I'm like, I'm gonna go talk to her. And I walked over. You were like, Cat, where are you from? And I was like, oh, like Sedona. And then you were talking about Newport, and I was like, I live in Newport. I'm actually, like, going there soon. And then we realized like it was aligning perfectly. We were filming the show and we were like, this is meant to be.

Jasmine Star 00:02:02  It was meant to be. And I think that is such a good dovetail into talking about alignment.

Kat Norton 00:02:07  Yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:02:07  It was, you know, I'd been following a while and unbeknownst to me, you wanted to meet. So it was like both of us meeting and then us being at the same place at the same time.

Jasmine Star 00:02:14  And I believe.

Kat Norton 00:02:15  Exactly.

Jasmine Star 00:02:16  Exactly the snack table that brought us together, you know. so what I find so fascinating is that you have built a multi seven figure on your way to eight figure business on the back of Excel. Yes. You have been featured in every major news outlet. You've made hundreds of thousands of dollars in a couple days or a day based on these offers. So what I want to do before we get into origin story, it's give us an overview of what your business is, and then we're going to get into how it got there, what you're doing now, how you make content, how you cut through the noise, how you have millions of followers on TikTok, millions of followers on Instagram. And just there's so much to unpack here. What is the business of your business?

Kat Norton 00:02:56  Yeah. So the business is really we make tech skills fun. And overall we do this through selling courses online mainly that I'd say is our like bread and butter through the webinar model. And then we also have a newer product that just launched last week called our Excel Panic button, which is my first recurring revenue service business.

Kat Norton 00:03:15  So that has been a really fun learning experience, getting that off the ground. And yeah, and then we have a whole corporate division, a collegiate division where we sell to companies, we sell to universities, all different courses. And then we also sell live trainings, which started off with just me doing all the live trainings. And then it got to the point where I was like, I can't do all these. So we brought in trainers under me who all go out and do the trainings for us.

Jasmine Star 00:03:38  Okay, so I'm obsessed because what I hear are 4 or 5 arms of the business. So there's 4 or 5 revenue streams that are coming in under the Miss Excel brand. So we have courses launched primarily by way of webinar. Yes. We have talked to you about the panic button because I was just on your site and I noticed it and I was like, ooh, do you say, what does this look like?

Kat Norton 00:03:59  So this is a brand new one that we just launched literally like last week.

Kat Norton 00:04:04  And it's essentially where users, whenever they're in some kind of like spreadsheet emergency, or even if they just want someone to look at their spreadsheets and be like, hey, like, I feel like this could be better, but I don't know what to do. We give them a panic button where they can hit a button, like digitally, and then that puts you on with someone from my team 24 over seven. We have service around the clock for people. We have two different types. We have like a basic plan that's email support only. And then we also have live calls as well.

Jasmine Star 00:04:29  That's incredible. So we have the courses. We have the panic button. You go into corporations, are you licensing your courses or are you actually teaching or are you doing a boat a mix.

Kat Norton 00:04:39  We got both. Yeah. Some companies want courses for their employees and they bulk buy them. We integrate with learning management systems. And then we also have trainers now that go out and everything's virtual. And they do live 60 or 90 minute sessions at companies.

Jasmine Star 00:04:53  And you do also similarly at the collegiate level?

Kat Norton 00:04:55  Yes. Okay. So now we've been partnering not only with like universities on the admin and staff, but we actually just got some deals with students now, which is so exciting because I like love working with students. So we have special packages for students who get access to our courses, because I also have in addition to like the techie skills, I have a soft skills course too. So we integrated that for the collegiate students.

Jasmine Star 00:05:15  And then there is the trainers that physically go out.

Kat Norton 00:05:20  No more digital. Digital. Yep. All digital.

Jasmine Star 00:05:23  Cat. This is incredible. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, she's here to blow your mind. Now that you understand the structure of her business, you might be asking yourself, how did this one woman show turn into beyond that and build such a successful multi seven on your way past eight figure business? Okay, great. Congrats. Let's go back and figure out how did we reverse engineer this type of success.

Kat Norton 00:05:44  Yeah.

Kat Norton 00:05:44  Yeah. So this all started with doing a lot of work on my mindset and myself. So if we reverse back now to like March of 2020. That is where I found myself buried in student debt, 27 years old, living in my childhood bedroom of my parents house, and I was working a consulting job. I was doing like 50, 60 hours a week and was just grinding it out, and I was like, oh, like, I feel like there's something more for me, you know, like I wasn't being creative at work, like I was doing securitization reviews for banks, which is as fun as it sounds. And I was like, all right, there's definitely another level for me, but I feel like I'm the one standing in my own way here. And immediately when I started realizing that, I was like, okay, what tools are there out there that I can use to kind of start chipping away at these limiting beliefs that I'm essentially projecting onto myself. And I just worked on myself for a couple of months, every single day.

Kat Norton 00:06:39  I was like meditating. I was doing inner child work. I was really just doing all different modalities, sinking into a ton of them. And after two months, I ran out of my childhood bedroom And my mom was in there like reading in the living room. It was like 7:00 at night. I'm wearing like, like pajamas from high school. You know, those, like, plaid pajamas, like giving high school. And I come running out and I'm like, mom, I'm going to be rich and famous soon. So I need you to prepare your nervous system for that. And she just, like, laughing. I mean, she's like, Kathleen, go clean your room. Like I had no business at the time. Nothing. But like energetically, I was in a place where I was already living this other reality I like. I look back at that time and myself, I'm like, I was like, straight up delusional. But I was really just like, oh my gosh, something huge is about to happen to me.

Kat Norton 00:07:23  Like, I have to tell my mother, like she's the person who needs to know. And then from there within.

Jasmine Star 00:07:28  Me, pause if I can. So what catches like broke down, quite honestly, is stepping into a reality that didn't exist. Yeah. And so in order for you to step into a reality. So I'm going to mirror back what I heard is you were doing something that didn't let you up, that you were good at, you were living at your parents home, and you said, there's something more for me, but I'm the energetic block.

Kat Norton 00:07:52  Yeah. Yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:07:53  Then you said. Because I've been there so many times where I was like, I even physically tell. Yeah, I am the person who's stopping me. Then what you did was practice a different modality. And so for people who are unfamiliar with modality, it's like meditation is modality. Yeah. Inner work is a modality. Therapy is modality. Yeah. Okay. Ecstasies practice is great. And so you start and I heard that you're a big fan of Doctor Dispenza.

Jasmine Star 00:08:16  Yes. Okay. Same like Doctor.

Kat Norton 00:08:18  Gioia.

Jasmine Star 00:08:18  Doctor Joe and I. Okay. Yeah. So you start doing this work and you start expanding, and you actually don't know what the future's going to hold, but you're just going to say, whatever it is, I'm ready for it. I'm going to step into it when the time comes.

Kat Norton 00:08:29  Yeah. Yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:08:30  And then you.

Kat Norton 00:08:30  Tell your mom. Yeah. And she's like.

Jasmine Star 00:08:32  Go clean your.

Kat Norton 00:08:32  Room. Yeah. Okay.

Jasmine Star 00:08:34  Okay. So I just wanted to just, like, I really want to go back and like to that moment. Because there's people here who feel I am my own worst enemy. Yes. Like, I am the energetic block. And so I've always maintained that every time I need to step into a new version of my business. I need to become a different person. Yes. And so what I hear you say is to do the work. Now, if somebody's sitting here being like, okay, I don't have money for therapy.

Jasmine Star 00:08:57  All of this seems very woo. What were you telling yourself to start doing these practices that somebody can take action today?

Kat Norton 00:09:02  Oh, yeah. So I mean, I think the biggest thing with the practices that you'll find online is like finding one that really works for you, and that is going to make yourself a little bit better every single day. You're not automatically going to resonate with everything out there. But for me, I kind of just turned myself into a human experiment and was like, I'm going to try all these different things and kind of give myself a chance to see, like, do I like journaling? It's the cost of buying a notebook. Do I like doing subconscious reprogramming, which is basically where you close your eyes and you put yourself into like kind of like a sleepy state, and then you start all these childhood memories just start popping up, and you essentially go in there and show your subconscious mind that there could have been another way. So, for example, it's not like rewriting your memories, but it's removing the emotional charge from them.

Kat Norton 00:09:48  Oh, it's so good. Yeah. So, like, for example, I had this vivid memory of me crying in preschool, and I was talking to my mom about it because. Very interesting doing inner child work at home with your parents. And I was like, mom, like, I used to cry every day in preschool. She was like, Kathleen, that was one day. And I was like, whoa! But you only remember the ones with the emotional trigger. And now. So looking back, I was like, okay, if I can go back and just envision myself in preschool happy like I was the other days, it removes the emotional charge from that memory and I stop holding myself back in that way. So I had a lot of separation anxiety from my mom when I was younger, and that kind of was translating now into holding myself back and being nervous to like, do things not just without her, but just on my own in general. It was more of an independence thing, and that really, when I was able to go in and clear that out, a lot started opening up.

Kat Norton 00:10:38  So that's just another example of a modality. There's meditation. We love Doctor Cho. I've done a bunch of his retreats, but I just started off with his book, and his book was really the science that got my Excel nerdy, logical mind on board. Yeah, that, like Law of Attraction is legit. And I was like, whoa. Like, this is how the universe works. It is science. So for me, I've read the first 100 pages of Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. And I was like, whoa! I've been, like, doing the wrong habits for the future I want to have. So really being able to go in there and kind of find these different things, and it can be even as simple as, like sitting down thinking about your goal and then being like, why aren't you doing it? And you're going to get these beliefs that pop up. I don't have time, I don't have money, I don't have this. And then it's like digging into those beliefs just to kind of pull them out of your own blind spot.

Kat Norton 00:11:28  And then it's a little easier to go in and work with them with the different modalities. Okay.

Jasmine Star 00:11:31  This is so good. So somebody right now can get to the point to maybe they can just give themselves like maybe 5 or 10 minutes.

Kat Norton 00:11:38  Yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:11:38  They think back and then they ask themselves, I know that I want to do something. Why am I not doing it? And let's say the thought comes up. I don't have enough time. I don't have enough money. What then? Outside of buying Doctor Joe's book outside and Doctor Joe has free meditations on YouTube. Just saying. People won't always find an excuse, but there's going to be reasons for us to be able to do the work. They come up with those two excuses. I hear this quite often. Then how do they get over that?

Kat Norton 00:12:06  Yeah, so I think they're from that place. It's a layers of digging because your subconscious mind, it's going to like to hide the truth because it likes to keep things the same. It will try to keep you playing small.

Kat Norton 00:12:17  So, you know, I don't have enough time is going to come up and you're going to be like, oh, you're right, I don't have enough time. Silly me, you can't have the dream, right? And then it's like, no, okay, why am I telling myself I don't have enough time? Is time really the issue or.

Jasmine Star 00:12:31  Is.

Kat Norton 00:12:31  The issue that, you know, whenever I go to sit down to do the thing that puts me in the destiny direction, I'm, you know, like, ooh, like I don't look good enough or I don't have the, you know, like there's a lot of times layers. So I would always encourage to like going. Just being like y y y at each of those different layers. And then you kind of get down to the true limiting belief of like why there's something you believe about yourself that is holding you back in place. Yeah. And then from there, it's just a matter of really working through that belief. And sometimes, like I've done it a few different ways, you could do it through meditation, you could do it through like self-hypnosis.

Kat Norton 00:13:05  There's tons of free YouTube videos out there, but something else too is like, I, I call it my nervous system Olympics. I like to push myself a little bit and I'll be like, okay, like for example, let's baby step, right? Like I had a whole thing around being seen, which is hilarious. If you see.

Jasmine Star 00:13:21  Me when you say, I had a thing around me, like, oh, you did not.

Kat Norton 00:13:24  Want to not want to be seen. Yeah. And I think to it even tied into like physical symptoms I was having like I still struggle with acne and I'm 32 years old and it's I think it's like a thing around being seen in like, a mask. And like, the more it's healing, the more I'm coming out into the spotlight. And I'm like, interesting, you know? So it's one of those things where sometimes it'll even tie into other areas of your life. But for me, I had a thing where I'm being seen and I was like, okay, how am I going to get over this? Not by hiding in my room.

Kat Norton 00:13:51  I was like, I gotta get out there. So I started saying yes to things that scared me. And now I think something important is you don't have to go, like, full, like throttle a hundred miles an hour, right? Like I tried that. I tried that. I did that in. I did that in 2022. I believe it was. I got asked to be the keynote at Social Media marketing world. I had never spoken before, and I was just like, yeah, I got to do that. And meanwhile I'm like, cooped up in my house in Sedona. I'm doing everything digitally, like I had not been on a stage ever. And I got asked to do the keynote and I was like, okay, so I practice every single day, you know, for weeks and weeks and weeks. And I was, which I'm glad I did. But then when I got up there, apparently I crushed it. I still have not watched it back to this day, but everyone said I did great and like my body went into autopilot and I like did the thing I had everything memorized.

Kat Norton 00:14:41  You know, not. But I do remember afterwards I definitely had some trauma in my body from it where like, I remember like the lights hitting my eyes and my heart pounding. And it was like the scene out of a spelling bee from a movie. You know, when the lights hit your eyes and I couldn't see and I was like, oh my gosh. And it was interesting because after that experience, I kind of like went into hiding a little bit and I didn't do any more public speaking stuff for another like year or so. And then Lindsay, our mutual friends, saw this in me and was like, hey, like, we're gonna get you back out there. And just being the amazing friend she is, she was like, okay. Like first I was on her podcast in person and started doing more in person and stuff like that.

Jasmine Star 00:15:17  So wait a minute, you went from, I've never spoken on a keynote stage to accepting a commission to speak on a keynote stage.

Kat Norton 00:15:23  Yeah, yeah yeah yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:15:24  And what you hear and what I would trust was that you did very well. Yeah. Except that what your memories and the and the recollections of it was just kept in your body as. I'm just not going to do that right now.

Kat Norton 00:15:34  Oh, it was fear. It was like a lot of fear trapped in my body. Yeah. For sure. And then I started doing a lot of like, body work to actually get it out of my body because I realized, like, I'm a very, like, mental person. Like, I love just mindset stuff. But I realized I wasn't doing much with my physical body to help move the energy, which is a big part of it because emotions can get trapped in the body. And I was not really thinking about that, like growing up with anxiety and then doing things that scare me. Like, I was still like holding so much tension in my shoulders, in my neck and my body. So I started working with someone doing body work and somatic release work and things like that to really start to open up and let my body kind of relax into it, to let some of that energy go.

Kat Norton 00:16:14  That was part of it.

Jasmine Star 00:16:15  So the work that you're doing and I'm taking you on this like wild rabbit hole because we started this like in 2020 and you're in your mom's, you're coming out of the room and all of a sudden, and I'm flashforward years of I'm now as being on a keynote, and we're gonna go back and we're gonna cover a lot here. But you struggled with anxiety.

Kat Norton 00:16:32  Yes.

Jasmine Star 00:16:32  And then getting on a stage had brought about like something that had gone unaddressed. Yeah. And then you say, I'm going to do the work because in order for me to reach the next level of my career and because I know your story, the work that you do, you're expanding the container that is you to hold the next level of success and next level of success. So when somebody hears, oh, Ken Norton right now has an eight figure business, multi eight figure business, moving on to like nine figure business, there's has to be versions of work that you do to expand into that.

Kat Norton 00:17:01  Oh yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:17:01  Okay. So now let's go back. You walk out of your bedroom and you tell your mom, hey, mom, I'm going to be a big deal. So prepare your nervous system. Your mom says, go and clean your room. And you are still a consultant at this time.

Kat Norton 00:17:14  Oh, yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:17:15  Okay, so what happened?

Kat Norton 00:17:16  Yeah. So at that point, like.

Multiple Speakers 00:17:19  I clean my room and I go.

Kat Norton 00:17:22  And I just kept working on myself for another couple of weeks. And then I was on the phone with my friend Anna, and she was like, we were talking about different side hustles that I could do because I was like, all right, I gotta get out of my childhood bedroom. Like I'm just paying the student debt very slowly. Like I'm not going to be able to, like, get out of here. And she was like, well, what if you put Excel on TikTok? And I was like.

Jasmine Star 00:17:45  No, at this point in time, you are doing what with Excel?

Kat Norton 00:17:48  I was teaching it on the side of my day job.

Kat Norton 00:17:50  So, okay, for fun at the same company. So basically I would host like lunch and learns around our different offices and I got like an Amazon. So you're like basically like valedictorian employee.

Jasmine Star 00:18:01  You're saying during our lunch break, I'm going to teach a free class to other employees about Excel. Yeah. Okay. So side note, you're honing a skill.

Kat Norton 00:18:10  Yes.

Jasmine Star 00:18:10  And so you're on like the practice ground honing a skill so that when you have a conversation and you're like, I need a side hustle, your friend holds up a mirror and says, hey, the thing that you're doing for free at work, is there another way for you to do it?

Kat Norton 00:18:23  Exactly, exactly. And it was so funny because I had so much internal resistance to TikTok. I didn't even have the app on my phone at the time. I thought it was like teenagers dancing on the internet. I was like, I don't have time for that. I got a corporate job. I don't read a book. I'm gonna study Doctor Cho, you know, and then.

Kat Norton 00:18:38  But I was like, oh, maybe I should just look. So I opened the app and I searched Excel in the search bar and nothing came up. And I was like, it's like, do people just not, like, Excel on TikTok or like, this? Has no one been crazy enough to try it? I don't know, and then it was crazy when she said it, I saw it, and I saw this vision of me dancing with an Excel screen above my head, doing like that Drake song. Left foot up, right foot slide to the left in the right function in Excel. And I was like, oh, like interesting. And I couldn't shake this image. So like, I kind of like I was like, oh, I don't know about that idea. And then after we hung up, I couldn't stop think about it. And this went on for like two days straight. I like, was a little like manic, almost like my my friend Mike was like, are you okay? I was just like, I don't know if I should make this TikTok.

Kat Norton 00:19:24  I was so shocked about it. And on a Friday afternoon, my schedule just magically clears. The meetings fell off. I'm like, it's a sign. I better try to make a video and I YouTube easiest video editor. And this company called Wii Video came up. I taught myself video editing in about 45 minutes, went in the bathroom, did full glam. My mother was very confused. She's like, this is like like June of the pandemic. She was like, where are you going? I'm like, don't worry about it. Closing the door, getting all done up. And I'm like, in my room moving furniture. And then I started filming and I made ten dancing clips. And then I went on zoom and recorded my Excel screen, my clicks, and then I explored the zoom videos, did a little editing, put it above my head and was like, oh, this is actually pretty cool. And so then I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna call this thing, though.

Kat Norton 00:20:12  And then the next day I wake up and it's like 6 a.m. and I'm waking up mike and I'm like, Mike, Mike! And he's like, wait, what? I'm like, Miss Excel, it's Miss Excel. And I like, look up in the handles. Like not taken. I was like, oh my gosh. Like I'm going to take the handle. And then I was like, all right, this is just gonna be my little, like, secret business. I don't even know if I can have this with my corporate job, and I didn't tell any of my friends.

Jasmine Star 00:20:36  So you're working your corporate job, but it's the pandemic. Yeah. So you're at home? Yeah. And you wake up in the middle of the night until your boyfriend. Or in the morning. Yeah. You tell your boyfriend this is it. You still have your corporate job?

Kat Norton 00:20:48  Yes.

Jasmine Star 00:20:49  You have the name. You have some content. Yeah. Doing full glam with nobody going out anywhere. Yeah, I got you.

Kat Norton 00:20:56  Okay. Yeah. So then at that point, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna take these videos and I'm going to secretly just post one video a day. And so I start posting them. And only people knew it was Mike and my mother. And by the fourth video, it gets 100,000 views and gets pushed to all these coworkers because it must have synced up to my contacts in my phone or something. And I'm getting all these people messaging me like, is this you? And I'm like, I don't know, is it? And I was just like, oh gosh. Like, this is this is crazy. And then I'm like, all right, well, it's getting some traction. I best give the people what they want. I shall continue to make these videos so I keep just making them for free. No link in my bio, no nothing. I'm just making free content every single day for around like 30 ish days. And it was somewhere in that three four week mark where I had a video go viral and hit like 3.7 million views in a few days.

Kat Norton 00:21:48  I looked down at my phone and I had 100,000 followers on TikTok. And if you had seen my personal social media, you'd be like, this girl's not an influencer. Like, I really had no idea what I was doing. I was just like, okay, like, I guess I'll just keep making more. And now at this time, the whole thing about TikTok getting banned was like really real in the news back in 2020. I remember like I had like family members being like, oh, like, good luck with that. Like it's about to get banned. So I was like, well, I should just hedge my risk then and create an Instagram account. So I make an Instagram and then I keep going. Viral on Instagram, viral on TikTok, viral on Instagram. Next thing you know, it's like 4000 500,000 followers.

Jasmine Star 00:22:25  And you don't have a business. You're creating content for the love of Excel and helping people, and.

Kat Norton 00:22:30  I didn't even know that it was a thing. Like, I didn't even think that far through.

Kat Norton 00:22:34  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 slid in my DMs and was just like, hey, like, notice you got huge 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. And then I started getting a mailing list 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 in June 2020.

Jasmine Star 00:23:13  You started.

Kat Norton 00:23:14  Yet.

Jasmine Star 00:23:14  Hundreds of thousands of followers. You start an email newsletter. Yeah, you get a link in bio.

Jasmine Star 00:23:21  You say November, I can even do math that quick. That's like five months later that you're like, I'm gonna do this.

Kat Norton 00:23:27  Yeah. Yeah. It's like a shot of something here. And so I took two weeks off. And at this point, too, I was doing the whole like, digital nomad thing. So I was like renting a house in San Diego at the time. And I was like, okay, like, I'm just gonna 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 I could do everything. So I was like, green screening, cut my background out. I was doing like Wheel of Functions, like Wheel of Fortune, like I was trying to make some 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.

Jasmine Star 00:24:08  You literally created it and sold it. It sold it within weeks.

Kat Norton 00:24:11  Yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:24:11  Within like two and a half weeks.

Kat Norton 00:24:12  Yeah, yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:24:13  And how much was the course?

Kat Norton 00:24:16  So the course was at the time 297 okay. And we were running 50% off at 149. Great. And then I said, how.

Jasmine Star 00:24:24  Did you come up with that price?

Kat Norton 00:24:25  The business coach helped me do that because I was like, why are all the numbers you given 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, it's okay. And so I was like, all right. 297 feels right. And I remember he said to me, two he was because I naturally wanted to undercut my pricing because 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.

Kat Norton 00:24:53  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 price it at that. And I started selling it 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.

Jasmine Star 00:25:25  Okay, I'm gonna pause. We're gonna win. As long as I don't give up.

Kat Norton 00:25:29  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.

Kat Norton 00:25:38  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 stands on the edge of the pool and they're just like, go in. And they like, use those limiting beliefs. They stay in the same place. I was like, if I just jump in the pool and.

Jasmine Star 00:25:54  I stay.

Kat Norton 00:25:54  In the pool and I stay in the pool, we left the pool, something great is going to happen. So I ended up quitting my job. It was very confusing time for the management team in my company. They were like, what company you go to? I'm like, not company, my company.

Jasmine Star 00:26:06  I'm going to miss.

Kat Norton 00:26:07  X out there. Like continue on. I'm like TikTok. I was like, what? And but then within a few months I did my first webinar, which I had watched.

Jasmine Star 00:26:16  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.

Kat Norton 00:26:30  Or is April, I think. Yeah. Okay, okay. In around January or February, I went on Natalie Ellis did a Boss Babe webinar with Webinar Jam, and I watched her and I was like, oh.

Jasmine Star 00:26:39  So you were a watcher of somebody else?

Kat Norton 00:26:42  Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, oh, is this how people sell things? Oh, wow. Okay, this is interesting. Look at that. So I would like watch what. And I'm like. Webinar jam. Got it. And it was so funny. Like I've been on her podcast through what I told her back. That was like, you were the first webinar I went to. And I said, I'm like, all right. Got it.

Kat Norton 00:27:00  Webinar jam. And so I like taught myself webinar jam built all that out. I was still team A1 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. And 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, as soon 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 could never do sales. Like, I don't think like that. Like, I would never, like, push someone to buy something for me.

Kat Norton 00:27:45  And it was so funny, like my perception of sales too, because I don't like, push, like it's so interesting. But he trained me up, like, Mike was like the number one ranked sales rep in North America. He's insane with sales. And so he sat me down. Train me up. I built a webinar with him. We created this like event. And then I got on five and I was so nervous.

Jasmine Star 00:28:06  But hold on, hold on, hold on. So you look at Natalie, Natalie's webinar and you're like, there's this thing called Webinar jam. Yeah, I'm gonna buy webinar jam. Yeah. 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. Like 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.

Jasmine Star 00:28:33  And you're like, let's go. But you had mentioned early on in childhood you struggled with anxiety. Yes. And 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.

Kat Norton 00:28:48  Oh, for sure. For sure. And I mean, the anxiety, even still to this day, 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, so I was I was at a point, though, where I think I was still riding my like, pure delusion train of like, choo choo. I was just like I was on one. Like, I still look back at that time and was like, whoa. Like, I 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.

Kat Norton 00:29:18  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. And I told them, like, hey, like I'm about to hit six figures. So 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 like that was part of what pushed me to do it. I had like some like external pressure being like, okay, this is gonna be the article printed about me. Like I'm so close to like a vanity metric I wanted to hit like, let's, let's make this happen. So I get on the webinar and it went really well, like I because I've taught before. So like the teaching was easy. My pitch went well.

Kat Norton 00:30:00  I made $50,000 in one hour and hung up and was like, that was like half my day job salary. So 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, the next one, I was selling courses that didn't exist yet. So. Oh, which is so good.

Jasmine Star 00:30:24  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 to hype up. You're delusional. Yeah, I'm gonna 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.

Kat Norton 00:30:42  Yeah. 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.

Kat Norton 00:30:50  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 6 or 7 weeks, and I saw no team. So I would day one, design the course, organize it, and 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. Easy, you know, a little, 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 not a professional editor at the time. And then the last day is the day I would like get the web page up and launch and I just rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat.

Kat Norton 00:31:35  Because I had a deadline. I'm a generator in human design, if you cannot tell either. I went into like Energizer bunny mode and I was so lit up and so.

Jasmine Star 00:31:43  Okay, 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. Yeah. You have a webinar and you sell courses that don't exist. Now one of the seven exists. Yes. 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 won't 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.

Kat Norton 00:32:13  Yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:32:14  And everybody was okay with that.

Kat Norton 00:32:15  Oh, yeah. Myth busting.

Jasmine Star 00:32:17  Yeah.

Kat Norton 00:32:18  Yeah yeah, yeah. It's crazy. Yeah, right. Like you just.

Jasmine Star 00:32:20  What did you sell the bundle for?

Kat Norton 00:32:21  So the bundle at the time was 4.99.

Kat Norton 00:32:27  Great. So you were 99.

Jasmine Star 00:32:29  So you more than doubled.

Kat Norton 00:32:30  That was 4.99 on a sale, actually. So it was normally. Yeah, we would sell it at 4.99. Yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:32:36  So then you more than doubled. So immediately the like your LTV, the lifetime value of a customer doubled because of the bundle immediately.

Kat Norton 00:32:43  Yeah. And that helped a lot. Like 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.

Jasmine Star 00:32:57  You mean two weeks.

Kat Norton 00:32:58  On two weeks? So I would promote the event for two weeks and then run one, then turn into two, then turn it to three because we were maxing out webinar jam with like registrants. So 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.

Kat Norton 00:33:15  I started partnering with all the other Excel accounts who didn't. Of course it.

Jasmine Star 00:33:18  Could go back. How did you get that? That agreement with Morning Brew? I mean, that's huge. That is a huge opportunity.

Kat Norton 00:33:24  Manifested it.

Jasmine Star 00:33:25  What do you mean? Okay. Do you want it right now? Okay.

Kat Norton 00:33:29  So my whole business pretty much has been inbound leads. So energetically, I would just align myself to like, hey, I want big opportunities, I want big things. And then they slimmed my messages.

Jasmine Star 00:33:39  Okay, but when you say I aligned myself energetically, there's people who are listening and being like, what does that even mean?

Kat Norton 00:33:44  So big thing, first remove those limiting beliefs that are holding you back from that. You can't have it because that's 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.

Kat Norton 00:34:05  Like, 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.

Jasmine Star 00:34:21  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. Were 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.

Kat Norton 00:34:47  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.

Kat Norton 00:34:52  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 Neil 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 made. Oh, that's good days.

Jasmine Star 00:35:13  Six figure.

Kat Norton 00:35:13  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.

Kat Norton 00:35:35  So like, there's so many Excel creators at this point, there's like 50 of us, okay. And a lot of them don't make money. And it also 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 5050 split. Amazing. And I take care of everything. And 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 pitch that to all of my what would be competitors. And now we all work together. That's and we have a ton of. Yeah. So we have tons of different Excel content creators like all different finance creators.

Jasmine Star 00:36:11  Oh, yeah. So good.

Kat Norton 00:36:13  So that is constantly bringing us, like, leads every month to.

Kat Norton 00:36:16  And then we do a 5050 split of the revenue. So like that's something that's 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 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 and a lot of them have like one course or like, you know, they they just don't want to do webinars. They don't want to be on camera. It's a totally.

Jasmine Star 00:36:39  Different.

Kat Norton 00:36:39  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, 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.

Kat Norton 00:36:57  So we just keep dialing, dialing down.

Jasmine Star 00:36:59  And at this rate, I mean, at this time, are you still keeping that pace two weeks on two weeks.

Kat Norton 00:37:02  I was I 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 7 or 8 in a week every month. And I would rent a house in Scottsdale because I live in Sedona up in the mountains, and the wifi 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. So it was, you know, 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 on my energy. But I kept pushing because I was making so much money.

Kat Norton 00:37:39  I'm like, this is good, but 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. And 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 Capitol Grill and two Excedrin. 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. Like, 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.

Kat Norton 00:38:23  We switched everything over to evergreen, and we started off with just taking previously recorded high performing webinars because we had so many issues from at this point. And with Webinar Jam, there's the sister company, we flipped them to evergreen and we started running that December, January, February. Now it's September and 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 3 or 4, that's right. We started reaching out 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 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 is like the sponsor quote unquote.

Kat Norton 00:39:14  And then, yeah, we're able to track and do the 5050 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.

Jasmine Star 00:39:25  Amazing. Do you run.

Kat Norton 00:39:25  Ads? So we do run ads. The ads have been like maybe like 10% of our business though. Like maybe 1015, like most of it is still just organic and through the affiliates. That's incredible. Yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:39:36  Wow. Okay. So as you're growing this business and when you said it was November of 2023, yes, that's literally three years, almost to the day.

Kat Norton 00:39:45  Of 2024, I did the list. Yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:39:47  It was just.

Kat Norton 00:39:48  Yeah, less than a year ago I saw.

Jasmine Star 00:39:49  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?

Kat Norton 00:40:01  Yeah, yeah.

Kat Norton 00:40:02  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. So you brought Mike.

Jasmine Star 00:40:13  Who was started off as your kind of like sales coach, but he had a different full time sales job. Yes he did. When did you transition him into the business?

Kat Norton 00:40:19  That was in May of 2022. Okay. So or that was or maybe May of 2020. You know 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.

Jasmine Star 00:40:35  So he goes enterprise Jerod Adams.

Kat Norton 00:40:37  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.

Jasmine Star 00:40:48  Oh my gosh. So this is such an asset. Are you kidding.

Kat Norton 00:40:51  Me?

Jasmine Star 00:40:51  Oh my gosh. Mike.

Kat Norton 00:40:52  Yeah. Like, he's so well rounded and he's 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 is the C-suite, which is so fun. And I will say too, like, I got a lot of 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, anything different. And the 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.

Kat Norton 00:41:30  Working with your best friend or boyfriend, like most people would 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 to how can we change this next launch for December because it's our big like holiday one. And we just rolled with it. And then from there we've been just constantly tinkering again, like landing pages show up or, you know, all the things like 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 like, go on. And we still have like the chats and everything going, so it feels like a live experience. We just don't promote it as live because we don't wanna be deceptive about it. But like for most people, they still have that same amazing experience.

Kat Norton 00:42:18  Except I don't have to film it eight times two in the same class. I just do it once.

Jasmine Star 00:42:22  That's incredible. So when you and do you have the title CEO?

Kat Norton 00:42:26  Yes.

Jasmine Star 00:42:26  So you have Mike as your.

Kat Norton 00:42:29  CFO and head of corporate sales.

Jasmine Star 00:42:31  And Chris as CMO. Yes. And when you look at your role as CEO now, when you have systematized and you are tinkering, what are your days look like? What is your week look like?

Kat Norton 00:42:42  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% 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. And 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.

Kat Norton 00:43:07  The business still grew and did sink and which was cool to see, which is amazing.

Jasmine Star 00:43:11  Like I was like, that's kind of huge.

Kat Norton 00:43:12  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, speaking 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. And I'm very intuitive. I run the whole business on my intuition. And so I was like, okay, like, you know, how how can I further like, grow my role, though, because I wasn't really doing much.

Kat Norton 00:43:47  Like, I had this moment. It was a few months ago. It'll be such an evergreen. And I was just addicted to Sudoku puzzles. And I was like, this is a problem. I'm like, 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 gotta launch another company. So then it kind of rolled into, okay, like so many people are reaching out to us with Excel problems in my DMs, I 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.

Jasmine Star 00:44:25  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?

Kat Norton 00:44:38  Yeah, so I don't create content anymore.

Kat Norton 00:44:40  Pretty much. So 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. Oh yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:44:51  Are you hearing I'm looking at my content team. I'll be doing it. Oh, wait. What?

Kat Norton 00:44:57  Yeah, yeah I don't. I've not posted or touched. We post every day on every platform like new content, and our team just finds some 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 the little things on. I have someone in the Philippines doing my reel covers and they post for me. My account's every day.

Jasmine Star 00:45:19  Okay, okay okay okay okay okay okay. Hold on. For people who are not on YouTube, I have like my content creator. Just like you don't like dancing. You don't like dancing.

Jasmine Star 00:45:30  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.

Kat Norton 00:45:43  Exactly. Got it. Exactly. Yeah. It's really just B-roll. And then I for Excel content, we just have people put over my head a lot of times to just plain Excel. Scream 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, right? That I needed to release in order to, like, have pure freedom in my life. I 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.

Jasmine Star 00:46:08  Like my mind is blown right now.

Kat Norton 00:46:10  This is I felt good, it felt good.

Kat Norton 00:46:12  It felt really good.

Jasmine Star 00:46:13  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 even hold 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. Yeah. And I like the story I'm telling myself is like, no, Jasmine, you're the cog in the wheel.

Kat Norton 00:46:35  And I get that so much. I felt the same way. I remember being like, oh, like, I'm always gonna 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 it.

Kat Norton 00:46:52  And 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 maybe like a few times a year, I'll give me fresh B-roll. You 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 source 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.

Jasmine Star 00:47:32  That is incredible. Okay. So then when you're thinking about the structure of this new business, yeah, it's different than course creation and bundling and evergreen in some capacity.

Jasmine Star 00:47:42  So do you. How did you come up with this idea? Like you knew that there was like this demand, but then how did you come up with the structure of the offer?

Kat Norton 00:47:49  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. Like 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.

Kat Norton 00:48:28  And I'm dressed as a chef and I'm in a restaurant and we're looking at the chef item 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 world's 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 going to hang out with me, it's going to be a good time. It's gonna be a great time. I'm like, you are not going to 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 fun, 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 refill my refill, typically for the cool factor, because Microsoft products don't change that much, which is another like plus of this industry.

Kat Norton 00:49:13  It'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 was like lay out like a huge, like 80 grand deal and then just be like, yeah. And I'm like, oh, right. But like, I have to go do ten trainings now. Like it was just like, And so that energy, though, I immediately recognized I was like, that's not good for expansion of the business. So I am bottlenecked. What can I do? And then I remember thinking like, no one could teach like me. Bullshit. People could see it 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.

Jasmine Star 00:50:04  What was the job title that.

Kat Norton 00:50:05  You.

Jasmine Star 00:50:05  Used to interview.

Kat Norton 00:50:05  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 take.

Jasmine Star 00:50:23  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 presenter is probably.

Kat Norton 00:50:30  Oh for sure. Okay. For sure. We had one way video interviews. We as a company called Higher Flicks. 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. Okay. 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.

Kat Norton 00:50:49  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. So 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 in 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, like we do like those rooms, escape rooms, like we have like escape room, Excel spreadsheets where like, you're going through and getting through different layers of the room.

Kat Norton 00:51:34  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. Yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:51:42  Oh 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? Like 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.

Kat Norton 00:52:02  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, oh, make courses.

Kat Norton 00:52:13  And I'm like, how do I slow 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 is like the wild, wild West. Like 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 investing in masterminds. I was in James Whitmore's mastermind for a couple of years.

Jasmine Star 00:52:38  So was I. I didn't know you were in James Mastermind.

Kat Norton 00:52:40  Oh. That's cool. Oh, yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:52:42  Okay. Okay, okay.

Kat Norton 00:52:43  Like last year and the year before. So, like I was kind of just surrounding myself with people and that was something to wear. Like you moved to a mountain town alone across the country. I grew up in New York, and so like I, we had no friends, Mike and I, and we moved to like hiking town, basically.

Kat Norton 00:52:57  And 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'd do something to or like whenever we see people in Sedona who we have, like mutual friends with, we will literally just like, DM them, be like, hey, 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. Yeah. So it's it's been fun.

Jasmine Star 00:53:24  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.

Kat Norton 00:53:36  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 do zoom calls.

Kat Norton 00:53:46  Okay. Yeah. And then we have that one is during US business hours. The email service is 24 over seven.

Jasmine Star 00:53:51  And who's buying this.

Kat Norton 00:53:53  Yeah. Yeah. So who's.

Jasmine Star 00:53:55  Your.

Kat Norton 00:53:55  Customer story on this one too. Like this one did not take off right away. And this was a great learning lesson for me. So this was a couple weeks ago. We like soft launched it right. And we got like four customers. Am I mailing lists 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. 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.

Kat Norton 00:54:28  Just things happen, like 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 web business and this tarantula just like comes up toward my feet and I'm like, okay, one, I'm scared. But two, what spiritual media 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, and then I get on with my team and I'm like, I think we're selling this wrong. Like. And so we were talking and thinking back to like, stuff we learned in James's mastermind, and then we thought about the football phone.

Kat Norton 00:55:16  Do you remember the whole football phone thing?

Jasmine Star 00:55:17  Explain, explain.

Kat Norton 00:55:18  Yeah. So the football phone is basically there was, I guess, Sports Illustrated. Yeah. Okay. You might know more about than I do. Yeah. Like, all I remember is, like, someone was trying to sell a membership and you got a free football. Okay, well, let me go. Let you go.

Jasmine Star 00:55:30  Deep so quick. So Sports Illustrated is a famous sports magazine. Yeah. And 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.

Kat Norton 00:55:54  Yes. Okay, okay. Full story. Yeah. Like I go back and tell that to my team because we just do like a football phone.

Multiple Speakers 00:56:01  Okay okay okay. Yes.

Kat Norton 00:56:02  So literally this was like last week. It was like a Monday. We launched our full list like nothing was really happening. And we were supposed to send another email the next day. It's like Tuesday at like 3:30 p.m. I was like, we need a football phone yet. And so I literally built another product out that day and that was like all different, really good bundles, like protective Power pack bundle. I was like, this thing stacked. And then I loaded in a script into ChatGPT of someone else's football phone I found from a YouTube video, told it the product I want to sell. It pops out a script, got on camera, film the script. Mike wrote the email, put it together. Sales took off. I was like, damn the football phone, get out. It really like I was like, dang, I was selling this wrong. And now we're about to sell it on webinars to 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.

Jasmine Star 00:56:49  so you're saying so the split test would be football phone. Yes. Methodology. And then what are you gonna you're doing webinar. But are you doing webinar with football phone or just webinar and then free trial.

Kat Norton 00:56:59  Webinar selling our normal stuff. And then that is a gift with purchase. So you get a free trial of it only to people who have already spent money with us and bought I got it. Yeah. Yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:57:09  What? Damn. I just feel like I just need, like, a a martini and a cigarette.

Multiple Speakers 00:57:13  I'm like, what? This I hear this has been so good.

Jasmine Star 00:57:17  Now, number one, I don't drink martinis or smoke cigarettes. Okay, fine, fine, fine.

Multiple Speakers 00:57:20  I like it still. Like, I'm just saying, you know.

Jasmine Star 00:57:23  Like my soul. Like my soul is like that of Scott Fitzgerald. You know? I'm out here like, living my.

Multiple Speakers 00:57:28  Best.

Jasmine Star 00:57:28  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.

Jasmine Star 00:57:37  And I started off like right off camera. I said. We want to inspire and show people how to think differently. Yes, check. And then we want them to take an action. Yeah. So based on this conversation, somebody at home, what do you want them to do.

Kat Norton 00:57:49  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. Yeah. 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. So 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. It'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 like go take a look and be like, why am I not doing the thing I want to do? And then either give yourself like a little nudge, like push yourself in the pull, like do something, even if it's not the big thing, like doing like a baby step.

Kat Norton 00:58:31  Like that's something I do with my nervous system Olympics, where essentially, like, I make a list every week of like, 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 rubber band. We stretch that, so then we don't create trauma in the bucket.

Jasmine Star 00:58:45  Like so we're talking about and 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.

Multiple Speakers 00:58:59  It in.

Jasmine Star 00:59:00  Towards getting off the ledge. It's like an exercise that somebody might be able to do to be like, can I test it? What's like a.

Multiple Speakers 00:59:04  Test that they can do?

Kat Norton 00:59:05  Yeah, I mean, it depends what you're working on. So an example for me was like this is interesting.

Kat Norton 00:59:10  More personal side. I had not been driving, I literally didn't have a car. And then I built a business, bought a couple 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 to 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 them in, like, 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, I'm going to drive it here.

Kat Norton 00:59:50  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, like, I'm like, I could like, come on stage and do all this stuff, and I can't drive my car, you know, like it was such a 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? So I was able to recognize that and be like, okay, this is tied to other stuff. Yeah. 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.

Jasmine Star 01:00:28  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.

Kat Norton 01:00:47  In order.

Jasmine Star 01:00:48  For you to expand. And 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, yeah, it is as small as a rubber band. It is as small as a ten minute car ride, as small as, like a ten second tick tock or a reel.

Kat Norton 01:01:02  Yeah, yeah.

Jasmine Star 01:01:03  Ladies and gentlemen, Cat 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.

Jasmine Star 01:01:18  Like you sign up to one of her webinars. See what this queen is doing. You are fascinating and inspiring in all types of new levels of courageous. Thank you.

Kat Norton 01:01:27  I appreciate you so much. This is such.

Jasmine Star 01:01:29  A beautiful oh gosh. Thank you for watching and listening to The Jasmine Star Show.