This week we're headed back to the weird and wonderful world of TikTok. And if you've been paying attention to the world of TikTok and the popular creators on it, chances are you've heard of today's guest: Miss Excel aka Kat Norton.

From just seeing Kat dance on TikTok while talking about Microsoft Excel, I knew she was high energy. But I totally underestimated just how high energy.

Not only is she a high-energy person, but she thinks a LOT about what it means to infuse your content with energy...and she does it in a really compelling way.

Kat went from thinking about building a side project in March 2020 to having a million-dollar business less than two years later.

That is an insane pace from ideation to not only execution, but HUGE success.

A big part of Kat's success is virality...her videos get shared and seen a LOT on both Instagram and TikTok. And for Kat, virality isn't luck – it's something she fully believes she can influence.

We talk about that in this episode and more. Including how she developed nine technical Excel courses in less than a year.

Now, as sensational as all of those statistics are, there is ONE important detail Kat mentions in the introduction of this episode that you need to know...

Kat was teaching Excel (for fun) to other employees of her employer for more than four years. That's a lot of earned insight that was developed and honed before she turned it into social media content and public-facing courses.

So don't beat yourself up if you aren't on this pace. Few of us are. Odds are, you're generating the insight now that will serve you tomorrow.

I hope you enjoy the full episode! Send me a note or comment on YouTube to let me know what you think.

Presented by ConvertKit Looking for a new email marketing platform? You know that I love ConvertKit. It's one of the best tools for professional creators to earn a living online. Let me tell you about Dylan Redekop – writer of one of my favorite newsletters, Growth Currency, and member of The Lab! While he initially used Substack to easily get his thoughts into newsletter form, Dylan quickly realized it wasn’t enough to build a sustainable business while earning sponsorships and affiliate commissions. Six months into his newsletter, he made the switch to ConvertKit and saw a 58% open rate, up from his average of 42% on Substack. “If you have anything at all you want to share with the world, get a ConvertKit account and start sharing.” See how Dylan’s switch to ConvertKit grew his newsletter to +1000 subscribers. Read the case study

​

THIS WEEK ON THE PODCAST 114 Kat Norton aka Miss Excel [Messy Action] Engineering virality & earning more than $100,000 in a single day Kat Norton energetically teaches Microsoft Excel to individuals, businesses, and educational institutions. Since launching Miss Excel in June 2020, she has grown a community of over 1,000,000 people on TikTok & Instagram (@miss.excel) through viral Excel trick videos infused with creativity, music, and dance. Kat was recently awarded the Microsoft MVP Award and has been featured in Business Insider, CNBC, and Entrepreneur Magazine as a pioneer in the "Excel Influencer" space. Kat was also named one of the Top Influencers of 2021 by Forbes. In this episode, we talk about how Kat overcome her fear and began posting on TikTok, how she thinks about energy management, how she earned $100,000 in a single day, and why all of her progress can be attributed to taking what she calls “Messy Action.” New to the show? Start with a curated playlist.

My most popular episode of Creative Elements in terms of listener retention was my first Listener Mailbag episode. Look at this insane retention graph:

So, it's definitely time to do another Mailbag (Q&A) episode.

You can submit written questions or even RECORD an audio question to be included in an upcoming episode. Nothing is off limits – I'm an open book!

Cheers,
Jay