How to always be growing your audience

Kathi: As promised, I am here today with Cat Griffin. Cat's a dynamic and multi-passionate entrepreneur who embraces collaboration, infuses fun into her business, and loves to try out new things. Cat's business journey began really accidentally when she grew an Instagram account to 100,000 followers on a bet with her husband. This was the start of her entrepreneurial journey, the destination of which she is still working on. She currently teaches social media and sales strategy, and she's known for organizing large-scale collaborative events. I have been on the end of her collaboration events, and let me tell you, they are well organized. They are so good, and I just love working with Cat. So I'm so excited to introduce you to her. Let's get going. Here I am with my girlfriend Cat Griffin, and we're going to talk about her entrepreneurial journey. And it's so exciting because this girl takes numbers and moves some things. So welcome, Cat. I'm so glad you're here.

Cat: I'm so excited to be here. Thank you.

Kathi: So you have a great backstory. Tell the people a little bit about how you got to where you are right now. How did you start your business?

Cat: It's completely random, and it is definitely a journey. My business started in a swimming pool in Thailand after quite a few cocktails. Yeah, I told you it's random. I was with my husband, and we'd been island hopping in Thailand. Had a brilliant day. Loved it. But it was the height of travel influencers, or maybe not the height. I think it's probably worse now, actually. But there were travel influencers everywhere, and not even influencers, just people wanting to be. So every time I wanted to stop and look at something, there were people posing in front of it. And it just got really, really annoying. Full kudos to them for doing it. But at the time I was on holiday. I just wanted to enjoy it and see things. And so I got back to the hotel and I was like, I'm going to become a travel influencer. My husband nearly choked and drowned and all those things. He was like, what are you on about? I'm going to be a travel influencer. He was like, yeah, sure you are. So for context, I didn't have an Instagram account at this time. I'd never even looked at Instagram. Didn't really get what Instagram was. And I was like, no, I'm going to get 5,000. I don't know why 5,000 either, but 5,000 seemed like a magic number. I'm going to get 5,000 followers. My husband was like, yeah, you're not. So we made a bet. I think the bet was to get another dog. I'm not sure. He denies it. I don't fully remember. I never claimed on the bet anyway. But within a few months I got to 5,000 followers, and then within two years I got to 100,000 followers.

Cat: Now, for anyone listening, I want to come with a huge disclaimer. This was a travel account. It was a huge amount of work. It's not realistic. I'm not saying this is what you're going to go and do with your account. There's a huge context to those numbers. I always want to put context to numbers, because people hear numbers and go, oh no, why am I not there? So there's a lot of context behind that. But yes, I got to the 100,000 followers. Then I kind of got bored of that account. But in the process of doing that, I'd learned so much about, first of all, Instagram, then other social media, and then there's content, there's sales, there's all kinds of strategy that goes along with it. So I learned a huge amount in those two years, not just making pictures and putting them on Instagram. And as you know, my day job is I'm a teacher. I've been teaching for 20 years. So I was like, well, I can make a course teaching other people how to do this. So I did that, and it just expanded and expanded.

Cat: And then one thing that I'm really known for now is organizing things like bundles and summits, and that was a similar sort of thing. I had my courses and things, and this was back in 2020, the year we don't mention, and I started to see people share these bundles. So I was like, these look great, but nobody asked me to be part of one. So I emailed a couple of people going, hey, can I join your event? And they went, yes. I was like, great, fantastic. But there are other people like me out there that want to be part of events, and nobody's asking them. So I was like, I'm going to make events and ask them. So that's where we're at now. But I do say my journey is by no means finished. Part of me is terrified of what's next and where it's going to take me next. But it's lots of fun on the way.

Kathi: Well, I absolutely love that you didn't have an Instagram account and you were just like, I want to try this. And that's how I know you, through your giveaways and your bundles, and your promotions are just fantastic. And I love the fact that you learn as you go and you're on the fly. And as a disclaimer, folks, for you listening, she grew, but this was back in the time when travel influencers were just kicking off. So you were at the head of the pack of all that.

Cat: Yeah, absolutely. I do want to fully say that's not something that, even knowing what I know now, I would have tried then. That was my life for way too long. It's not realistic. It's not something that you're going to go and do, for 99.9% of people. And today, some people do still do it, but they either have a huge team or they get very lucky. We give so much context.

Kathi: Yeah, it's so much work. So what advice, I mean, you're so successful at what you do, and you're so organized with your bundles and your promotions. What advice would you give a new person who was starting out, who really wanted to launch their business? They know what they want to do. They're on track with what they want to do. What advice would you give them to help them launch and get out there?

Cat: Honestly, just do it and just start, which I know sounds so simplistic. I talk about this a lot, but when you try and think of everything in advance and plan it all out and make it all perfect, A, you just keep holding yourself back, but B, you don't know what you don't know at that stage. But once you just start, you start to realize, first of all, what you already do know and what you already can do. And then the little things are like little light bulbs as you go through, and you learn things and you figure things out. But you're never going to be able to do that all in advance. So literally just start. Just do it. See what happens. Be prepared that it's not necessarily going to work out perfectly the first time, but that means that the next time is going to be so much better. And see everything as a learning. Enjoy the process.

Once you just start, you start to realize what you already do know and what you already can do.

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Cat: And sorry, this is an extra thing as well, but try and have friends. This is the biggest thing I learned, and another reason why I'm so glad I started with collaborations. Especially if you're an online business owner, it can be really, really lonely and isolating. And what you see is just the highlight reel of people's lives through what they share on social media. So you don't really get what the reality is, and you find yourself comparing yourself to all these amazing things that people are doing, and a lot of that is not real or is very edited. But by building up friends and networks, it helps. There's a girl I've never actually met in real life, but for a year we pretty much WhatsApped each other daily: oh my gosh, I don't know how to do this, or why did this go wrong? And it was real and it was genuine, and we both knew that someone else was in exactly the same position, and that it is normal.

Kathi: I think that's really sage advice. Being online is a lonely time. I found that as I go more online, as opposed to in person. And I agree. You're mimicking what I tell my clients all the time: just start. You're not going to know everything that's going to come at you, and you're not going to know the solutions that you come up with unless you're actually faced with the dilemma. And then you're like, oh, okay, I'll go that way. So I agree. When I put out my first book, my mantra was perfection is overrated and simply not worth it, because there is no such thing as perfection anyhow. I wanted every single thing to be perfect in the book. It took me three and a half years, which was just silly. I should have popped it out.

Cat: Yeah, exactly. I think the first time you actually do get something finished, you realize, oh, this could have been out, like you say, two years ago. This could have already helped so many people and been on sale. I think that's part of the additional learning curve as well.

Kathi: Yeah. And you don't know what you're going to get up against. You have no idea what you're going to need to overcome or what's going to be easy until you actually just do it. So what's one lesson that your business has taught you over the years?

Cat: Honestly, things will go wrong and mistakes will happen, but own them. If you mess up on something, or something doesn't go quite right, and you try and cover it up, it's very obvious to people. And most people respond really well when you own it. It's like you said earlier about me being organized. I'm really not an organized person. I do mess up a lot. Oh, I do. I do. But I've never once had a person come back at me angry when I've emailed them and said, oh, I'm sorry, I sent you the wrong link, or that was the wrong information. I'm always willing to make it right however I can, but I fully own it. Quite often I have other people lie to me about things, and I'm like, look, I know you made a mistake. I don't care that you made a mistake. Just give me the right information I need, and then everything's fine. I think we keep coming back to this as well, about being human. Things aren't going to be perfect, and it is so much more of a real connection when people are genuine and honest with you. I forgot what my first point was now, but you are going to mess up. Always learn from it.

It is so much more of a real connection when people are genuine and honest with you.

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Kathi: I think our spidey sense goes off when people are covering up stuff anyhow. And I've learned that lesson as well as a professional organizer. I'm supposed to be perfect, but there's no perfect. I screw up all the time. In fact, anybody in business probably screws up all the time. You just figure out how to shift and tack into a different direction.

Cat: And I think as well, like you said there, there is no perfect, but one person's perfect is not somebody else's perfect. That's when we come into comparing ourselves with people, and that's when we're never going to feel perfect, because we're not the other person. We're not doing things how they do. But that's completely fine. That's your way. That's what you do. It's not like there's a rubric that you've got to check to see what is the perfect thing. It's doing things that work for you, for your business, for your clients, and that's what's perfect.

Kathi: Yes. And I agree, social media paints that perfect picture, and it's just glossed over with the highlights. Rarely do you see the lowlights. So yeah, I'm with you on that. So what's the most memorable part of your career that's happened to date? You've been doing this for a little while.

Cat: Yeah. I was thinking about this, because there have been some twists and turns. There's not one specific memorable thing, but it probably would be the first time I organized a huge bundle. I'd done a couple which had about 20 participants, and then I had one with 250 participants. I think it was probably about my third or fourth event, so I'd not quite got all my systems in place. The systems I had worked fine for 20 people, but suddenly there were 250 people, and my VA quit. She got a great job opportunity, so great on her, but it was the worst timing. So I had to train a new VA while trying to figure it out myself, and it was an absolute nightmare for a month. And then when the event went live, it was one of those where everything that could go wrong would go wrong. The email provider I was using just stopped working. Pages, oh, that was it, my domain got flagged as being hacked. It was just an absolute nightmare. And because I live in South Korea, most of the world is waking up when I'm going to bed. So I'd literally go to bed every night, look at my phone, and there'd be another issue, and I'd be up all night again trying to fix things.

Cat: But then I was like, I got through this. I learned so much. Not the systems that I used then, but the systems I realized I needed during that whole process, and what makes everything so much simpler now. My next bundle, I think we're going to have 140 participants in it, and it hasn't been completely easy or anything, but it's really not been stressful at all, because I know how to move people to different areas and what to check. So that was literally an absolute nightmare of a time, but it's really shaped how everything's been since then.

Kathi: Well, yeah, your VA quitting probably pushed you right into the fire and helped you learn what you would never have learned just having someone else do it. So it's like, okay, now I've got to man up and girl up and figure this stuff out. So now you know the behind the scenes and how to handle things. I think with every time that I lose a VA or I lose something, it's like, oh, I'm going to gain something from this. At the bare minimum, you're going to gain more knowledge.

Cat: Oh, yeah. Everything.

Kathi: So for those of you listening, you might not know what a bundle is. So why don't you explain, Cat. What is a bundle?

Cat: Thank you for calling me out on that, because that's something that we really need to remember. Okay. So a bundle is essentially a group of people who come together, and everybody contributes a resource or a paid product. It depends on the kind of bundle. The ones I run are always ones where everyone's contributing something that they would usually sell, because that adds value to the event. Everybody shares the event to their audience. Their audience can choose to sign up to the event, and when they sign up, they get a list of all the products inside, and they can go and pick and choose which of those products they want to individually sign up for.

Cat: So as a contributor, the way this looks is you contribute something of value to the event, and you share it to your audience, which is actually a good thing, because you are giving value to your audience as well. You're not just promoting something that's not yours. And one thing I always tell people is make sure that what you're contributing is attractive to your audience as well, and have tripwire offers on there, because you will convert with tripwires. Tripwires, if you don't know, are when you sign up for something and then you've got 15 minutes to sign up for something at a discounted rate. Those will convert higher with your existing audience, because they're a warm audience. So don't forget the value you're giving to your own audience by participating.

Cat: But what you're really going to benefit from is that you are hopefully going to get lots and lots of people joining your email list as a result. To be clear, though, you're not getting everyone who signs up for the event. You're just getting the people who signed up for your product in the event. So these are people who've shown that they're interested in what you offer and what you do, so most of them should be targeted leads. So that's the simple version of how it works. It's usually between seven and 10 days that people can promote the event, and maybe a further two weeks after that when people still have time to go through and claim your products. So it's about a three to four week overall time frame that an event goes on.

These are people who've shown that they're interested in what you offer and what you do, so most of them should be targeted leads.

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Kathi: That's a great explanation. And a tripwire is really just an upsell too, so that's a good thing. I'm sure that you listening out there have maybe been into a bundle where it's all these free gifts and you can choose one, or you can get them all for free, or you can upgrade for $47 and get the VIP things. I know you've done it, but if you haven't done it, make sure to do that. And then if you have an offer, I highly recommend that you check out Cat's bundles and her giveaways, because they're very good. I get a lot of benefit from being involved. That's why I wanted to have you on the show, because you know what you're doing and what you're doing works. So that's important. But check it out. Make sure to try to go into a giveaway or a bundle or something like that. So when you get through with a launch, how do you celebrate? Do you go out and get another puppy?

Cat: No, I just put a new event out to start signing up for, because I like to torture myself, apparently. No more puppies. Absolutely no more puppies. I can't afford any more puppies. They're too expensive. Honestly, during an event there is a huge buzz that I feel. Pre-COVID, I used to organize a lot of in-person charity events, and I had missed that buzz of organizing things. So I do quite often come out of an event and go, right, okay, what's next? I need to get some more scheduled, some more on the calendar. And I get them out there, and a couple of days later I'm like, what were you thinking, Cat? Here we go again.

Kathi: That's why I love that in your bio you said you're not quite sure where your business is taking you yet. And that's a good thing. I love that myself, because I love change and I love the unexpected, and I love to see that there could be something new and better on the horizon that I haven't even thought of yet.

Cat: Exactly. I can't wait to see what comes next.

Kathi: So I'm sure that people are saying, okay, how did you end up in Korea? How did that happen?

Cat: Kind of on a whim. I was traveling in South America at the time, decided I wasn't ready to go home, and so I applied for a job to come to Korea for a year. That was about 20 years ago. I forgot to leave. So yeah, I'm still here. People always ask me, what's Korea like compared to home? I don't know. It's just my life now. This is home now. I'm married here. Weirdly, my husband is from about an hour away from me in England, but we met in Korea. So my life is here. This is where I live now. But it was literally again a whim decision. Didn't want to go home, got on the internet, applied for a job, woke up in the morning to job interviews, and I've been here nearly 20 years.

Kathi: Unbelievable. So from England to South America to Korea.

Cat: That's right.

Kathi: What a journey. I love that. And it's so interesting that you and your husband lived an hour apart, and then he was actually in Korea when you met him.

Cat: That's right. We only met each other's families a couple of days before we got married, because all our life together has been here.

Kathi: That is meant to be. Girl, how long have you been married?

Cat: Fourteen years. Yeah, I know that without thinking. I promise.

Kathi: It's meant to be. Obviously the stars aligned, and there you are in a whole different country as kindred spirits. That's pretty cool.

Cat: Something like that.

Kathi: I like it. So if you could turn back time and give your 18-year-old self some advice, what would you tell her, Cat?

Cat: Looking back, I would tell her she will learn to be brave, because 18-year-old me wasn't brave. 18-year-old me had dreams and things she wanted to do. I really wanted to travel. I went to university, but there was so much more I could have got out of university if I'd been braver. I would have traveled sooner if I'd been braver. But I became brave. So my advice would be: you will become brave. Embrace being brave.

Kathi: And obviously you did, because you've traveled so extensively. You've traveled all over the place. And you have to settle down when you go to college anyhow and not travel a little bit.

Cat: Yeah.

Kathi: So good thing you didn't have wanderlust then. You might never have finished school.

Cat: There is that. That's what my parents always say: we're glad you got wanderlust after you got your degree.

Kathi: Good job, Cat. Okay, so what's your favorite organizing hack? What keeps you focused and linear? Do you have any organizing tactics or hacks or programs that work well for you?

Cat: I'm the worst person to ask this question to. I am a Post-it note person. I have Post-it notes everywhere. I use Google Sheets for all of my bundle organizing. I know Airtable would probably be better, but I just don't want to learn a new system. I know what works for me. So I just keep things as simple as I can. With my VA, I use ClickUp, but I use it very minimally. Honestly, most of our communication is on Facebook Messenger, because that works and it suits us. I'm not very formal about things, and she's comfortable with that sort of arrangement that we've got. So I think it's just finding a way of organizing that works for you. I've tried all my life to use online diaries and organizing systems, and they just don't work with my brain, or I just don't do them. I think that's the problem. I just never get round to inputting and checking things. So for me, it's just find what works for you, even if it's simple. If it works, it works.

Kathi: Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly, and I love Google Sheets. I teach a Google master class, and Google Sheets and Google Tasks might be something that you could replace your Post-it notes with. I like them because I can put my URL links in there for things that I need. So it's not just a note. It's like, oh, here, I can click there and get to where I was trying to get.

Cat: I'm going to say I'm going to look at it, but I probably won't.

Kathi: Well, you can just stick a Post-it note wherever you want.

Cat: I also joke that the wind helps me organize. When I open the window, half the Post-it notes vanish, and then I don't need to do them.

Kathi: Right. Exactly. Or the dog took it. Okay, so I know that you have bundles, you have giveaways, and I know you probably have something that we can give to the audience here that's listening. So let's talk about that. What would you like to offer the listeners?

Cat: Okay. Yeah, I've got one called Be a Rockstar Collaborator. It's all about participating in different collaboration events, and this covers bundles, summits, and getting on podcasts, because that's a form of collaboration. Like we're chatting now. We've had email conversations before, but it's so much different when you connect with somebody and you're speaking with them. It does cover what they are and how to join them, but it also covers how to make the most of the event, because I think a lot of people get focused on audience growth from events, which is brilliant. It's a huge part of an event. But it's the connections that you make with other people, or the potential for connections, that often get forgotten about. So that's covered in there as well.

Cat: That's something I really want to stress if you are thinking about being in a collaboration: don't just focus on numbers, because the numbers will hopefully be great. Hopefully you'll be adding 100-ish, 200-ish people to your audience, maybe more depending on the event. But it's the connection opportunities. It's building relationships. It's the long-term snowball of getting extra visibility for yourself out there that you'll see the impact of maybe six months or 12 months later.

Don't just focus on numbers. It's the connection opportunities. It's building relationships.

Kathi: And as a teacher, you really do make it succinct. I love taking your classes, because they're very easy to understand and easy to implement. And I highly recommend you guys, even if you have done collaboration events, just download it, because you're going to learn things that you didn't know. I've been in business 20 years, and you teach me something every time I open up one of your classes. It's like, ah, hadn't thought about that one. I think you're a wealth of resources, and you just reminded me that I really should collaborate with the other collaborators more than I do now. There's no reason why we can't collaborate further for more events. So see, you just taught me and reminded me what I need to be doing.

Cat: Well, the way I talk about this and frame this is, we all get the cold DMs. But if we're reaching out to somebody that we're in a collaboration with, we already have a relationship. It's not a cold DM. It's not a cold reach out. It's, hey, we're both in this event together. I see you're sharing X, Y, Z. I love it. It would be great for my audience, or I'd like to learn more, or maybe we can work together. You've already got a very natural connection with the person. It's genuine: I've got your product from this event, or I've seen it. So it's much more genuine and natural than reaching out to somebody that you have no relationship with already. So yes, go talk to them. There are some lovely people as well in my events.

Kathi: Yes, there are. Absolutely. I think you draw heart-spirited people, people who are givers, to your events, and that's what makes them a success, because they're always very successful, the ones that I've attended. For the past year I've been following Cat's events, so I'm excited that I have you on the podcast. It's good to see your face, because we've been chitchatting over the airwaves but not face to face. To me that's very important. Okay, so is there anything that we should have talked about that we didn't discuss? Anything on your mind that you want to teach or tell or just chat about?

Cat: Oh, good one. I probably would have said what I just said there, about thinking of collaborations as being more than just the event. What shall I say? I'm just going to end it with: be you, and don't forget to be you. I'm not knocking AI or anything when I say this, but more and more, it's your personality. Even if you're using AI or whatever you're doing, make sure you are still you, because that's what's going to set you apart. That's what makes my events different to somebody else's events. Not necessarily that my events are any different or any better than somebody else's, but the people that keep coming back to my events like the way that I do things, like my processes. So be you. Don't try and be what somebody else is telling you to be, because it won't work in the long run.

Even if you're using AI or whatever you're doing, make sure you are still you, because that's what's going to set you apart.

Kathi: That's great advice. Absolutely. Be who you be.

Cat: Exactly.

Kathi: Don't let AI take over your persona. That'd be a bad idea.

Cat: For sure.

Kathi: Well, thank you, Cat. I'm so pleased that we got to meet in person, or I guess this is as personal as we get these days, especially since you're in Korea. But I'm so glad that we got to meet face to face, and I appreciate you. And for everyone who's listening, make sure that you check out Cat, do a collaboration, and download that guide so you know what you're doing if you've never done a collaboration. And even if you have, you're going to learn, as I said earlier. It's been a real pleasure, and I appreciate your time, because I know, what time is it there now for you?

Cat: It's just gone 9:30 a.m., so it's not too bad today.

Kathi: That's not bad. It's 4:30 my time.

Cat: There we go. That worked out quite well.

Kathi: We're doing well.

Cat: And it's been so much fun. Great to connect.

Kathi: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Cat. I really appreciate you. And until next week, you guys, tune back in. We'll have another guest who will teach you things, and we'll talk to you all soon.

Cat: Thank you.