Six-Figure Launch Strategy + 0 to 15 MILLION Podcast Downloads

Sisters,

Curious about how to have a six-figure launch? How about growing your podcast by MILLIONS?

In this interview with the incredible Cathy Heller from Don’t Keep Your Day Job podcast, we learn exactly that. And so so so much more.

Cathy shares her inspiring story along with invaluable tactical training for us on course and program launch strategy. She goes deep on podcast audience growth and how to scale a podcast, fast.

She gives so many secrets that you can apply immediately.

You’re gonna love this interview!

I pray this blesses you!

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:

Stefanie Gass (00:00):
Welcome to maybe one of my favorite interviews of all time with none other than the superstar, Cathy Heller herself who hosts the podcast, Don’t Keep Your Day Job. Ladies, Cathy’s show has 15 million podcast downloads — brain explosion.

Stefanie Gass (00:18):
That is why I was so excited when her producer reached out for us to do a podcast walk together because I thought, Oh my gosh, if I can pick Cathy’s brain on how she grew this brand in like three to four years, how she exploded her podcast, how she got 15 million podcast downloads and really dig into who this woman is behind the numbers.

Stefanie Gass (00:45):
I knew it was a huge resounding yes, so grateful, grateful, so grateful that I got to have this collaboration with Cathy. Y’all like, Cathy’s show is awesome. She has these featured conversations with creative entrepreneurs like the actress Jenna Fischer, we all know Barbara Corcoran and more.

Stefanie Gass (01:05):
I mean, she’s truly, truly someone that we can all strive to look up to. And she’s also a phenomenal coach and she’s sparking a movement for every soul to really add their gift to the world, which you guys know I am so, so passionate about. So you’re going to love this interview. I hope you learn so much.

Stefanie Gass (04:12):
So I’m sitting here with Cathy Heller and you guys heard about her on the interview and hello, who doesn’t know who Cathy Heller is. We all love her podcast. I’m so excited, Cathy, that you’re here with us in these crazy times. Welcome.

Cathy Heller (05:09):
It is a really a crazy time, it’s true, but I have to say it feels like such a gift to hang out with you. You are such a bright star in this darkness right now. I just love that my life, my work leads me to people like you who are putting out a lantern for other people in the deepest way and how fun that we can like maybe do some of that together right now.

Stefanie Gass (05:35):
I know, I feel the same about you, I’m so grateful for this conversation. So start with, I want to know Cathy, who was Cathy like, five years ago? What were you doing that led you into podcasting and into this huge brand that you have now?

Cathy Heller (05:52):
It’s such a great question because when you say that I’m like, yeah, five years ago, I didn’t have a podcast. I didn’t listen to podcasts. I didn’t do any of the things that I do now. None of them, except for being a mom, I was still doing that.

Stefanie Gass (06:06):
Right.

Cathy Heller (06:06):
Yeah, I was a songwriter actually. That’s the world I come from. I was writing songs for shows like Switched at Birth and One Tree Hill and Coca Cola commercials and American Girl movies. Isn’t that amazing? It was fun. Yeah. I got into that because before that I had a record deal and I got dropped from the label and then had a bunch of day jobs.

Cathy Heller (06:30):
Then I was like, I don’t really want a day job. I want to do something creative and I found my way into licensing music. So what happened is I did that for a decade. I wrote music for TV and film, and I liked it and I became a mom and I had one kid and then the second kid, and then we bought like our cute little Spanish house in LA.

Cathy Heller (06:48):
And I was writing music and making a few hundred thousand dollars a year writing music. It was like, that was such a nice life. And then, God sort of brings you new opportunities and if your eyes are open, sometimes you say yes, and you find more purpose in where you’re led that you never intended, right? He wants to find you.

Cathy Heller (07:08):
So there was a lot of knocking on the door. Hey, Cath, I’m a songwriter. I’ve never made any money with my music. I wonder if you could show me how to do that. And in the beginning, I would say, Oh, sure. Why don’t you come over? Like, bring me a Starbucks and for the cost of a coffee, I’ll just sit with you. So I was doing that a lot at my dining room table and it was fun.

Cathy Heller (07:27):
Then my husband was like, you know, you have two kids. You don’t have a nanny. You’re writing music. You’re going to the studio. And I don’t know how often you should be giving all of that time away because it’s coming at a cost for us. I was like, all right.

Cathy Heller (07:41):
And then one day I said, Oh, I’ll put everyone together. I’ll have all those songwriters come over on a Sunday afternoon for a couple hours from like three to five. And they came over and they loved it and they said, can we do this again? And I was like, all right.

Cathy Heller (07:52):
I didn’t know what I was doing at all. I was just sharing what I knew. There are times where you do something and you don’t realize that it’s such a thing but other people are like, what you take for granted that you do, I would never think to do that.

Cathy Heller (08:05):
And one of the big things for me, Stefanie, was that I had sort of realized that business was not a hobby and the difference was people needing things. A hobby is like, I like it. Great. You don’t have to care. But a business is all about the empathy for the person you’re serving because you’re asking them to pay you, which means you need to know what they want.

Cathy Heller (08:26):
So I thought to myself, wow, that is interesting, how so many artists, they don’t think about what other people want. And if we were to actually care, we stand out because instead of just saying, well, here’s what I’m making, buy it, buy it. It’s like, well, what do you want? And that really is the heart of any business. So what’s the pain point, what problem to solve.

Cathy Heller (08:46):
And I realized that what actually helped me in my songwriting was relevant to anybody’s endeavor. I was asking people at CBS and Fox and Paramount, what story are you telling? Oh, Cath, actually, we’re writing a movie about sisters and we need a song about that. Or we need a song about coming home.

Cathy Heller (09:01):
I’m like, Oh, cool. I can do that. And then you get to use your talent to actually do something that someone needs. And now you get to have fun, be yourself, but also make something that somebody wants. So that was a big breakthrough, and I had a lot to teach people.

Cathy Heller (09:13):
I realized that I had a lot to teach people around asking that question and then specifically for music, what were the things that they wanted? Were there any themes? Were there any things consistent about it? It wound up being something that all these songwriters just kept telling me that they were so happy I was doing.

Cathy Heller (09:29):
Then one songwriter called me and she was a friend of somebody who I was teaching. She said, I don’t live near you and I can’t come to your house on a Sunday. Can you teach this online?

Cathy Heller (09:36):
And I’m like, no, I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what a funnel is. Though I know what a webinar is. I was completely removed from that entire universe. I didn’t have a single email list or an Instagram. It wasn’t my world. I didn’t even know it existed.

Cathy Heller (09:49):
It’s like finding out that there’s Eskimos and you go, Oh, what’s that? You’ve only seen sunshine. Like you don’t know. So I decided to ask the question, how could I begin to even understand that? And I put up a class online. I was pregnant with my third at the time.

Cathy Heller (10:06):
This is four years ago, because my daughter is three and a half. I thought, Well, I’m going to have the baby in September so I’ll try to get this done before. And I did it really scrappy, really messy, no slide shows, no understanding of funnels. Just very raw, straight to camera kind of thing.

Cathy Heller (10:21):
My very first launch that summer was $147,000. I started helping more people that I never could have helped in my living room. And then my second launch, which was once the baby was born, a few months after she was born, I did my second launch. I made $440 grand.

Cathy Heller (10:39):
I started to get the people from the first class saying, I’m already now getting music placed. One guy got a song in a Starbucks ad. Then I started to create a better and better program.

Cathy Heller (10:50):
We started doing million dollar launches a couple of times a year. Now I was making a couple of million plus still writing, plus getting more opportunities, plus passing some of those opportunities over to my songwriters who were in my programs. So I was actually able to help them get some work. The testimonials did the work, they sold it for me.

Cathy Heller (11:10):
One of the girls in my songwriting class said, Cathy Heller, this is not about song writing. This is about how to build a business. This is about people. You’re teaching us how to cold email and write personalized, sweet emails, and how to ask the customer what they need. You’re showing us how to show up and get resilient and work on our craft without getting in our own way. You should start a podcast.

Cathy Heller (11:32):
I thought, What the heck? I already have three kids. My youngest was tiny. I was like, I already have three kids and so much on my plate. I may as well do it now. There’s never going to be a good time. I did, and we are now three years into the podcast and my daughter’s three and a half and we are hitting 15 million podcasdownloads.

Cathy Heller (11:52):
I got a book deal and I’ve gotten to meet people like you, Howard Schultz, who created Starbucks, and Barbara Corcoran, and Brian Grazer who made all those movies like Splash and A Beautiful Mind. And I’ve gotten to meet people like Mandy Moore and Bobby Brown and Jenna Fischer from The Office. The show has really crossed a lot of different industries.

Cathy Heller (12:13):
But the thing that is the same is that everyone who’s been on the show began an endeavor without knowing the how. It was a passion project. It was the kind of thing they really wanted to figure out how to give to the world. And then they did.

Cathy Heller (12:27):
Now I teach classes to people and help them figure out how to build their business, and I’m obsessed with it.

Stefanie Gass (12:36):
I mean, dude, do you ever look and go, Whoa, how am I sitting here? Like, do you feel like it’s surreal that you’re even sitting in this position right now?

Cathy Heller (12:47):
A hundred percent.

Stefanie Gass (12:47):
Like 15 million downloads. Cathy, can you even wrap your mind around that?

Cathy Heller (12:52):
No, I cannot. I don’t even get it. Even if it was a hundred thousand, it’s like, I don’t get it. Look at how many subscribers we have consistently and how many human beings. And sometimes we go out and somebody says, Are you Cathy Heller? I know you’re on the show. Let’s take a picture.

Cathy Heller (13:06):
And I’m like, that’s so cool, you know, that I’m just sitting here like you, in my pajamas, talking to a microphone, but it’s completely changed our lives. You know, we’ve been able to do stuff. My husband and I, he was able to quit his job completely. We were able to send my kids to these really progressive, creative, wonderful, mindful schools, where they’re doing meditation and weaving and looming.

Cathy Heller (13:34):
I mean, how fun to have that ability and buy a beautiful home and take the kinds of vacations that as a kid were totally out of reach for me and my husband. We both came from very humble means so it is surreal, but I believe so much that God does not make extras. And He loves us so much more than we love ourselves. I think He is asking us all the time, when we say to ourselves, Who am I to do this?

Stefanie Gass (14:02):
Yeah.

Cathy Heller (14:03):
I think His question is, who are you not to do it? I’m so sorry. If you have that gift, I didn’t create that in you to keep it to yourself. You are morally obligated. I need you, or you wouldn’t be here. Let’s go. So it’s like, while it’s surreal on one level, I’m like, we’re all a masterpiece. We are a piece of the Master.

Cathy Heller (14:25):
And for me to have thought that I would do anything less than epic is to look at His face and say, You don’t know what you’re doing. That is a lie. That is a joke. And we forget that this is what’s really going on in the world because we can’t see it with our eyes except we can feel it.

Cathy Heller (14:43):
You can’t see gravity, but boy, is it real. There’s nothing more real than that. There’s nothing more real than the synchronicity that occurs when step into the flow of your purpose. It’s like walking into the sea and it splits. You do your work, and He will meet you there.

Cathy Heller (15:00):
I literally spend all of my time doing those things and finding it true in my own life. Then interviewing people every week who were telling me that they had the courage to not know and to try and to go in search of how to serve and they were met with incredible opportunities. Because we don’t have to be perfect, we just have to be available.

Stefanie Gass (15:24):
I know I feel the exact same way. I’m always saying to my community, I’m like, just take the steps and God will lay the path. There’s infinite…

Cathy Heller (15:33):
Hundred percent.

Stefanie Gass (15:34):
Infinite blessings waiting for you. The clients have already been chosen, they’re right there. You know, it’s like, it’s all there. You just have to walk so…

Cathy Heller (15:43):
Courage.

Stefanie Gass (15:44):
I love it. I heard you talk about your launches and I want to give the girls some tacticals.

Cathy Heller (15:49):
I’m obsessed with launching

Stefanie Gass (15:51):
The girls that listen to this show. So, my community has podcasts and they’re launching podcasts left and right. I would love to hear, what are two tips, Cathy, that you think are most critical in launching something, whether that be launching a podcast or launching an online course? What would you say is the biggest thing? Is it having the funnel? Is it the organic hype? People call me the organic hype queen so I’m all about that.

Cathy Heller (16:20):
I love those two words put together.

Cathy Heller (16:23):
My thing would be intimacy, okay? Sales, it’s not closing a sale, it’s opening a relationship, right? It’s an intimacy. It’s an intimacy thing. So we live in a time where there is such an empathy deficit.

Cathy Heller (16:36):
So what we need to be doing, the only thing we need to be doing, in my opinion, it’s not about the fancy funnel. It’s not about the best slides. It’s not about the perfect amount of information. People have a lot of information that they have access to. They don’t need it to do list. They need a to done list.

Cathy Heller (17:00):
They don’t need more things that are like, Look at me. They need like, come with me. So what I like, I’m a real big fan of five-day challenges. I like the implementation factor that occurs over a five-day period, rather than a webinar which is like, let me give you a big firehose of something.

Cathy Heller (17:28):
Doesn’t give me much room to see you. It doesn’t give me much room to engage. And in one shot, I’ve got to do my best to convince you that I know something versus come spend five days with me.

Cathy Heller (17:43):
Let me give you some baby bits of homework. Allow me to really see you and engage with you every day of that challenge. Let me show up consistently at the same time live and interact with you.

Cathy Heller (17:58):
Let me give you a piece of homework, leave it up for 24 hours. Then when I come back on the next live, I respond to it. Do a little giveaway for people who did it, give people some accountability. And then at the end, what happens is we know from physics that an object in motion stays in motion.

Cathy Heller (18:14):
So when I’ve brought people through starting to take action, when I brought people to a point where they feel seen and we’ve created a relationship, at the end, when I bring them into this invitation of, Would you like to come with me for a longer experience?, there’s so much more that’s already been created. I.

Cathy Heller (18:40):
They’ve gotten a hundred percent free experience of what it’s like to have me show up consistently for them. They can start to see what happens to them when they’re given accountability. They’ve started asking some questions that would lead them to the program being the answer to whatever the homework is that I’m giving them. And they start to really feel seen, right?

Cathy Heller (19:06):
So I’m a really big fan of dialing in a five-day challenge. And I teach that to people because I think if we, if we can do something like that, it’s so powerful and everybody’s capable of it because it just, it requires empathy and presence.

Cathy Heller (19:24):
You don’t need slides. You don’t need to be the master of the whatever. People really, more than anything, want to feel seen. And I would say people should be getting on that as quickly as possible.

Stefanie Gass (19:36):
So what would you say, Cathy, to the person that doesn’t have an audience to fill a five-day challenge with? Because for me, I could be like, Oh yeah, I’ll pop on the show. I’ll talk about the five-day challenge. I’ll fill that thing like crazy, and it wouldn’t be an issue if you already have a following or community.

Stefanie Gass (19:53):
But what about the women that are like, I’m starting from scratch or I just have a few people. How do you fill it? Do you have to spend money on ads to fill a five-day challenge?

Cathy Heller (20:02):
What’s really cool is that you don’t. I want to back up from it and say, I was able, my very first launch ever, I made $147,000. That came from wanting to do some kind of event which, at the time, I didn’t know five-day challenges from anything so I created a webinar. The webinar was just me going live to camera. It didn’t have any slides. And 1,040 people showed up out of nowhere.

Cathy Heller (20:31):
Now, how does that happen? When you back up and reverse engineer, if I want to put on the calendar that I’m gonna do a five-day challenge or a webinar, whatever the thing is, I’m going to back up and say, Between now and that day that’s on the calendar, I need to connect with people who don’t know me and make some deposits into them so that it leads up to this next event, right? The bigger event, the deeper work, the more value.

Cathy Heller (21:00):
With human beings, we have to make deposits. How would you think that you could go to the bank and withdraw from an account that’s empty, right? It doesn’t work. So psychologically, they know from research that for every seven deposits with a person, that’s when you can make a withdrawal.

Cathy Heller (21:18):
So would you ever walk over to the neighbor who just moved in and say, Hi Fred, I live next door. Would you take me to the airport?

Stefanie Gass (21:24):
Right.

Cathy Heller (21:24):
You’d be a psychopath. But maybe, if over the course of a few months, you made seven deposits: Hi, how are you? Here is the pie. Welcome. Then the next day you’re like, Oh, we’re having a barbecue with all the people on the block and I wanted to invite you.

Cathy Heller (21:40):
Over time, naturally, organically, if it came to like, I need help with something Fred and I know you’re going to be here. We’re going on vacation. Would you mind bringing in the garbage can? It feels very appropriate to ask because there’s been a deposit. So it’s in a context.

Cathy Heller (21:57):
So sales is all intimacy. It’s all empathy. When I first did my very first challenge, my very first one, my very first webinar, it’s all what I’m saying now. If I put it on the calendar, I would back up and say, What am I going to do between now and then to make those deposits that they would be willing to take their time and come to the next level of engagement, which is this webinar or the challenge.

Cathy Heller (22:18):
So first things first is, I’m going to start putting out in the world who I am and what I do, right? Marketing is communication. It’s clearly communicating this is who I am and this is what I do. So we’re going to start with that on your Instagram.

Cathy Heller (22:35):
We’re going to start with that with a few humans like I did in my living room with those songwriters. Every day, you give yourself a measurable goal. I’m going to DM three people, three, and see if they would like to get a little value around this thing that I do, whatever this thing is, if I’m doing mindfulness teaching or cooking classes or telling people how to make sourdough bread or how to organize closets.

Cathy Heller (22:56):
Who might I already know, that’s three people who might want to organize a closet? They can take me on Zoom into their closet. We can do a little bit of that session.

Cathy Heller (23:06):
You start with three people. I’ll tell you why. On average, every person has 350 Facebook followers. These are average numbers. Most people have more. You guys listening are like, not me, I have eleven hundred. Of course you do. Word of mouth is the way business grows.

Cathy Heller (23:23):
Let me give you an example. It doesn’t matter how much money a studio spends to advertise a movie. As soon as you hear from three friends that it’s bad, you’re not going,

Stefanie Gass (23:34):
Oh gosh, that’s so true.

Cathy Heller (23:36):
So true. So it’s word of mouth. There is nothing that can overcome word of mouth, especially today when you can Yelp review, you can post something on Facebook about it, but the opposite is also true. So if you don’t want to spend the money on Facebook ads and you really want to create an actual audience, not followers but customers, you want the warm people anyway, right?

Cathy Heller (24:02):
So to do a challenge where you’re thinking, Okay, if I’m going to do that in six weeks, that’s my goal. I would like to get a warm group in there of like, 79 people. All right. So I’m going to start with three people. See if I can serve. Meanwhile, every day, I’m DM’g those on my Instagram feed. I’m sharing value. I’m being really clear about what it is I love, what it is that excites me, what it is I can help with, some tips, giving away, giving it away.

Cathy Heller (24:29):
I’m also going to put in my Instagram bio a link to a freebie, like a download, which is another deposit, right? I’m trying to get to those deposits. Check them off before the withdrawal, before the ask, before the invitation.

Cathy Heller (24:40):
I might then share that with the few people every day on Instagram and my DMs and say, If this is helpful to you, it would mean so much to me if you shared it. I will actually send you a Starbucks gift card if you shared it, because it would really mean so much to me, but only if you think it’s helpful.

Cathy Heller (24:56):
Every time you do an Instagram post, don’t just post something. Ask a question, a really easy question to answer like, Hey guys, right now I’m talking about sales or parenting, whatever your thing is. Type this emoji if you agree with this. Make it fun, make it easy, get the engagement.

Cathy Heller (25:16):
And then, here’s the deal. Respond to their comments and ask another question. I totally agree. My morning was also like that. Say more about that. Just say, Say more about that or DM me. Then every day, measurable goal, drop a few other people a voice note, I saw your comment. It meant the world to me.

Cathy Heller (25:40):
Five a day. What I’m saying to you, Stefanie, is that there are small, measurable, doable things we can do every day. And then there’s the next call to action. It would mean a lot to me, if you enjoyed that, would you share that?

Cathy Heller (25:56):
Now you start letting everybody know I’m doing this challenge. I’m doing this challenge. And for the next several weeks, you’re letting everybody know it’s coming. It’s coming, it’s coming. You’re leading up to that. You’ll get people in there. And then you show up for those people and you rock their world.

Cathy Heller (26:12):
Now, even if you get 11 people to wind up buying this thing, you invest in their results and you show up and you say, This is going to be the best thing. I’m going to care so much. I’m going to engage so much asking them, What do you need? What more, what? Hotter, colder, up, down. Where do you want your back scratched? Like, you know, you ask. Get their feedback. Then the next time you do it, it sells itself.

Stefanie Gass (26:37):
I hope you guys are taking notes. Cathy, one of the biggest things you said that hit me was your compound depositing. So you hear the comment, you see the comment, and here we are. We reply with an emoji, thanks. That’s not depositing. So Cathy said, You message the people commenting with a voice DM. Voice DM is life!

Stefanie Gass (27:03):
Now you’re compound growth depositing, right? I am obsessed with that. And I also love the idea of, I think that we get so focused on these huge things. We think that to make a big launch successful, it’s about having hundreds of people in the five-day challenge.

Stefanie Gass (27:22):
But what you’re saying is, it’s about having a quality relationship with people that trust you. Even if it’s a handful of people, our conversion is going to be through the roof because they already love us. We’ve deposited. And I think that’s the mindset change that people need to have. Serve the few extremely well and stop trying to sprinkle to the thousands.

Cathy Heller (27:45):
It doesn’t work.

Stefanie Gass (27:46):
Yeah. So thank you. I think that advice was amazing.

Cathy Heller (27:50):
I’m so glad that you feel that way. I love giving that advice because it makes so much sense to me and I’ve learned it just through the doing of it, right? And what you just said, I want to take out a highlighter and circle because so many people. If I ask them, Would you rather have 400,000 followers on Instagram or 40,000? They’re all going to say 400,000.

Cathy Heller (28:09):
That means they don’t really get business because it’s about the depth of the engagement and the quality of the relationship. It’s not about how wide. There’s a difference between customers and followers. There’s a difference between people going, That’s cool, and people really feeling served on a deep level.

Cathy Heller (28:27):
So if you look at my Instagram,you’ll see, Oh, she has about 40,000 followers. But look at the feed, right? 2300 likes, 265 comments. That’s what you want. You don’t want to go look at other, go do yourself a little favor, go look at people with big accounts and look at the engagement.

Cathy Heller (28:47):
Because if the engagement isn’t there, it’s not helping your business. It’s actually hurting your business because it’s diluting the people who are in your algorithm. Then the people who really need to see what you’re doing won’t see it anyway. And the quality of the intimacy is very shallow, right? You just don’t have that much depth inside of all those conversations, and that’s going to hurt your business.

Cathy Heller (29:11):
I want people to hear me when I say, I started the music program before it was called Six Figure Songwriting, I still do it. I have a team now that helps me run that while I do all the other things. That program was started before my podcast, before my email list, before anything.

Cathy Heller (29:24):
What I want people to hear is $1 million launches before there were millions of downloads, because if you’re selling a program that’s $1997 or $2997, and you’re going deep, we’re talking about in the entire universe of 7 billion plus people, you needing 200 people, 300 people, and that’s a million dollar launch.

Cathy Heller (29:57):
Most people listening would be pretty happy with 150 grand, which means I need like 50 people.

Stefanie Gass (30:04):
Right.

Cathy Heller (30:06):
And if you ask yourself, Can I find 50 people who would be excited about me going deep and really helping them not learn, but implement? We also have to understand when we’re selling stuff, sales is service and what people want is that implementation, not the information, the implementation.

Cathy Heller (30:28):
So I would say lean into the offer being around the high touch aspects, the implementation aspects. And I have a lot of fun ways that I do that in my program because the information won’t get themthe result. You can tell them exactly what to do.

Cathy Heller (30:44):
Think of how many people have Rachel Ray’s cookbooks and they can’t make the souffle. But if she walked into the kitchen, they would make it because she would go, no, no, no. Take out the bowl. Now mix it, mix it again. Okay. Do you see that? You see that fluffiness, that’s what you want. Now put that in. Now they’re cooked in, right?

Cathy Heller (31:04):
So we need to really get that aspect and I think that that’s what people are looking to hear. Please, don’t sell me another piece of information that’s going to sit on my desktop. Please help me to move into this and to get it completed and to have its transformation.

Cathy Heller (31:23):
I think especially now, in this moment, what you’re teaching and what I’m teaching, it is so crucial. Like everyone’s going to need to pivot and to really get the intimacy factor so they can stand apart from the noise. And I think right now these specific kinds of tools that we teach of utilizing the online space, when would it have been a better time to master this?

Stefanie Gass (31:48):
I’m with you. I love it. And I love that concept of go deep, don’t go wide. Implementation over how to. I love all of that.

Stefanie Gass (31:56):
Can we talk about your podcast now, Cathy? Because I teach podcasting, it’s my number one. I have a course on it. It’s my number one thing that I do aside from the clarity coaching.

Stefanie Gass (32:08):
I asked the girls what they wanted to ask you. So I have some questions from my community and I think that these will be fun for you. So you started your show three years ago, three or four years ago.

Cathy Heller (32:20):
Three years. January, 2017. Yeah.

Stefanie Gass (32:25):
And you have 15,000 downloads, right?

Cathy Heller (32:29):
Million.

Stefanie Gass (32:29):
Sorry, million with an M. That’s what I meant. And then was there a point, Cathy, where it was (slow) and then it exploded? Or were you seeing compound growth from the beginning? Was there a moment that it crossed this line?

Cathy Heller (32:49):
It was a little bit of both. I’ll tell you what, it was we just started with a wing and a prayer. You know what I mean? Like, just begin. It was like, sitting in my closet, recording in my old house. I didn’t know who the heck would listen. I didn’t have a list to send it to, you know, it was just doing my thing.

Cathy Heller (33:06):
And so it was what I said before really is a big piece. It’s the word of mouth. When I talked to people about podcasting and I also have had a course, and some of my program is also around podcasting because I think it’s such an incredible lead generator, I tell people that podcasting is 20% the show and 80% everything around the show.

Cathy Heller (33:27):
And I think for me, I always had this understanding that it would be person to person to person. And so I thought right away, How can I involve the listener so that they will talk about it, so that they will feel seen by it? One thing I would encourage people to do is bring your listeners into the show because right away I was like, we need them in the show. They need to feel like it’s their show.

Cathy Heller (33:50):
So I’m like, send me your letters. Have you ever left your job? Have you ever started a side hustle? What’s been your creative pursuit? I started reading the letters. I started asking people to join a private free Facebook group. Share what you’re working on, share your work, not sell your work but share with us. Take a picture of your hand lettering, take a picture of the soap that you made. Talk about your struggles.

Cathy Heller (34:11):
People started to love that, and then I would share about it and then they would be like, Oh my God, this podcast is my life. It’s helping me so much. I told my friend. So that was great and that was slow and steady compound growth until Apple featured us.

Cathy Heller (34:19):
And when I say featured, sometimes they do like a new and noteworthy which is a really lovely feature. But sometimes you get the really big feature, which is on the very top of the iTunes podcasting page. They’ll put like seven shows on this carousel that go around and around, and they featured us. We were up there, and they keep it up there for a week.

Cathy Heller (34:19):
Now, 75% of all podcast listeners come through Apple and take their suggestions really seriously. That is an interesting thing because I connected with Apple at Podcast Movement. I met the folks at Apple in the lobby and I wasn’t sure I was going to go to Podcast Movement. I wasn’t sure I had anything to offer or whatever.

Cathy Heller (35:16):
It’s interesting how you take those steps and then you think it’s like a fluke. Right place, right time. But it also is interesting how, when you’re sitting next to someone in the lobby who’s wearing a tee shirt, who looks like they could be anyone and you lean in and ask them, What’s going on? Are you liking the conference? Where are you from?

Cathy Heller (35:35):
And you’re talking about Illinois and the fact that your husband’s from Illinois, and he loves the Cubs, and your favorite pizza place, and do you know Kaufman’s Bagels? Oh, my husband started that. That’s his family. Not him personally, but that’s his family’s bagel place. And you start to have a conversation with a really lovely guy in a tee shirt and jeans who’s from Illinois and you care, and you ask them what they’re getting out of it.

Cathy Heller (35:57):
And you’re very positive and you’re very much a listener. Then it turns out they run the podcasting department at Apple and you realize it pays to be very nice to people. Then you ask for nothing. You literally ask for nothing and you have no agenda.

Cathy Heller (36:19):
You say nothing about what they can do for you, because you’re so clear that that would be so inappropriate. So you don’t, and then you move on with your life, and then you think to yourself, Huh? That was really nice for me. I wonder if like, you know, anything come to that.

Cathy Heller (36:43):
And then, you know, you notice that your show, you see someone listening to your show and like talking about your show and your DMs and you go, Oh, wait, that person has a regular profile, but I know that guy. That’s that guy.

Cathy Heller (36:59):
And then he says, I really liked it. I checked it out and I loved this and this, and you go, Thank you so much. Then you ask questions. What are you guys needing right now? What does Apple want to share?

Cathy Heller (37:12):
You realize they want to share that people can make things on their own. Everything that Apple stands for is creativity and DIY, make your own songs, make your own podcasts. You go, Oh my God, this is good. Then you lean in further, right? And you think, how can I be a better podcaster? How can I make better content? What content might they need?

Cathy Heller (37:37):
And you keep going along and boom, you get featured. Now I’ll tell you what, there’ve been a lot of podcasts that get that feature and they don’t sustain their shows. That is a huge, it’s a big opportunity but not everybody is able to sustain it because they can feature you but then the show has to provide. It has to deliver.

Cathy Heller (38:00):
I’m not going to name names because it wouldn’t be kind. But I know a couple people who were actually famous celebrity type people whose shows were featured the same week as my show. And then I found out they didn’t have a show anymore because I didn’t have enough listeners.

Cathy Heller (38:13):
So I would say that was a big moment, but I think we rode it into the sunset. It’s just been amazing. What wound up happening was they became fans of the show and we’ve been featured many times now. I think six times we’ve had that main page feature and we chosen, you know, as like the most inspiring show by them two years in a row.

Cathy Heller (38:39):
It’s been pretty amazing. We seem to find that every January, they do a big splash on how our show gives people really a good new year’s sort of thing to shoot for. So that makes me really happy that we’re providing something that they think is valuable and in between, we’re seeing the growth, the compounding growth. So I think all of that has helped.

Stefanie Gass (39:05):
Yeah. Wow. That’s a crazy story. I love it. And I feel like those moments are so divine intervention at its finest, but…

Cathy Heller (39:13):
A hundred thousand percent.

Stefanie Gass (39:15):
It’s what we do with it though because you could have easily been like, Oh, you’re from Apple. Oh, well, by the way, and hit him up. But I love the concept of, again, it’s just service and having this real true heart of relationship building and going deep and look what it did for you. It’s beautiful.

Cathy Heller (39:36):
And the truth is that was my entire music world. You know, when I was first getting songs on TV shows, I would like send cupcakes to NBC and be like, thank you for supporting indie artists because I just found such and such song.

Cathy Heller (39:47):
Because you guys, it’s not about how many Facebook followers these artists have or how many Spotify plays. You showcase music just because it’s really good, and people were touched by that. And then they would write me back like ABG — always be generous today. Are there any people you could give something to with no agenda?

Cathy Heller (40:05):
And that’s really what we were just talking about in terms of building the business. Make the deposits, give it away, give it away, give it away now. Give it away and show up. You will never have to worry about your business. You will never have to worry about your success. You’ll also feel good because the opposite of depression is purpose. That’s what we all want anyway so you you’re in control of that.

Stefanie Gass (40:31):
Yeah. That’s amazing. So then my last question on your podcast, Cathy, is how did you start getting these amazing guests on your show? Because I know sometimes for my students, they have a lot of fear around asking up, they think, Oh, that person’s too fancy for me.

Cathy Heller (40:49):
Yeah.

Stefanie Gass (40:50):
I’m afraid. Do you have any strategies for them on how do they make that more authentic? How do they decide when they have the caliber to go after maybe a certain level of guest that would add value?

Cathy Heller (41:02):
Well, two things I want to say. One thing is our most downloaded shows do not correlate with how fancy the person is. Our most downloaded shows are solo episodes when I was like, no household name. Most people still if you round it up to the nearest millions, most people have no clue who I am. So I’m not a household name at all. So that’s number one.

Cathy Heller (41:24):
Number two, the second most downloaded episodes are people who aren’t famous, but the title of the show hits the solar plexus of what people are struggling with. So we have a show about imposter syndrome. We have a show with Sarah Knight, who’s an author and we titled it How to live life on your terms. People I think really want to do that. So they clicked on that one and they liked it.

Cathy Heller (41:45):
The third most popular episodes are episodes where I’m actually giving people like tactics and things to do. And the fourth most downloaded episodes have to do with how famous the person is. So please hear that.

Cathy Heller (41:56):
When you’re reaching out to people, it’s about massive action. You got to take a lot of action and let’s say, for every 20 emails you send, one person will say yes, but that is a lot. Because if you sent 20 emails three times a week, you’re going to get three yeses. That’s great. So I would say in those emails, I wouldn’t talk about myself. I wouldn’t send four paragraphs that lists every accomplishment I’ve had since second grade. I would be a human.

Cathy Heller (42:26):
I would write a letter like I would to a friend. I would be very casual and very sweet and very personable. And I would say, I’m a mom. When I’m not podcasting, I’m listening to the Frozen 2 soundtrack and I love your work. I’d love to have a chat about what you’re up to.

Cathy Heller (42:42):
I know you’re super busy, no rush on reply. If you happen to respond, I will literally dance in my kitchen and probably freak out. But really, please, don’t worry about it. I know how crazy life is right now and all of that. I just want you to know, you’ve always been a role model to me.

Cathy Heller (42:59):
Then I would ask one specific question. This will only take 10 seconds. If you had to answer something super fun and super easy to answer. What was the quote that stayed with you most in your life? Which book has had the biggest impact? Something that people like responding to and something that is easy to answer.

Cathy Heller (43:16):
You will get responses and then you can go back and be like, Oh my God, I also love spicy tuna or, Oh my God, I love that quote too. Or yeah, that is my favorite movie. Remember this part? Now you’re in a relationship.

Cathy Heller (43:28):
The goal in sending any email is not to actually get the thing completed with an agenda. It’s really just to get that volleyball coming back and forth because then, you’re in a relationship. When people have relationships, whatever supposed to happen organically does.

Cathy Heller (43:44):
So your goal is not, I gotta get one email across to a person I’ve never talked to and literally get the thing I want from them. No, I’m just hoping to connect with them. I’m hoping to do something that breaks up all the same business type noise that they get all day long in their inbox and they go, this was refreshing.

Cathy Heller (44:01):
Boom, there’s a reply. Now we have a back and forth. Now from that, there’s something that’s starting to come together. I believe that at that point you will start to see that you’re going to get some yeses. So that’s what I did.

Stefanie Gass (44:18):
That is priceless advice. I love all. Thank you, Cathy. I know the girls are gonna just be like, Oh my gosh, this is all so good. Yay. Well obviously, tell us about your podcast and your website and where can people find out more about Ms. Cathy Heller and go check you out.

Cathy Heller (44:36):
You’re so good at what you do. You’re adorable. My podcast is called Don’t Keep Your Day Job. I wrote a book it’s also called Don’t Keep Your Day Job. I think now more than ever, people are going to be asking themselves that question.

Cathy Heller (44:48):
They might not be able to go back to their day job, which is very hard and this is a very painful time. We need to learn some mindfulness to be compassionate to ourselves and have some tools to be with this tremendous anxiety that we’re all feeling. And while that’s true, most things are not one dimensional.

Cathy Heller (45:06):
There’s a huge opportunity to say, What maybe is really essential for me? What maybe is in alignment with my gifts? What maybe am I going to start? A podcast? A course? A membership thing online for people to knit together?

Cathy Heller (45:19):
There’s so many opportunities here. God doesn’t play dice with us so there must be something beautiful that we just can’t see that, like a parent, He knows is better.

Cathy Heller (45:28):
So I would say you can find the podcast where you listen to podcasts. You can find me on Instagram at Cathy dot Heller. Cathy’s with a C, and I’m always around. I keep trying to come up with whatever free content and stuff I can give so it’s there for you if you need it.

Stefanie Gass (45:43):
Thank you. This has been such a beautiful conversation, Cathy. I’m so appreciative of you and your time.

Cathy Heller (45:48):
Same to you.

Stefanie Gass (45:50):
So grateful for you. Thank you so much.

Cathy Heller (45:53):
Oh, it’s so my pleasure. Thank you for having me.