The Psychology of Selling A Conversation With Cat Howell

Welcome to the Marketing Growth Podcast. I’m your host, Shane Barker. Today I have with me Cat Howell, who is the founder and CEO of Eight Loop Social, an Auckland-based marketing agency. She also runs Facebook Ad Hacks, a group targeting Facebook ad buyers around the world. In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about entrepreneurship, sales, and persuasion. Before we begin talking, I wanted to mention that if you’re struggling to get online visibility or sales, you can reach out to me and my team. I can help you with PR, SEO, CRO, social media marketing, and more. We’ve got a lot to offer. Please check out our services at shanebarker.com.

Did you actually grow up in New Zealand?

He imported you. Was that Willie Lee, or was that kind of like your—

Oh, okay, that’s good to know. And what was he doing? Why did you guys move out? Was there a business or something?

I know I’m not—probably, I know I made it seem like I was part of that group or something. You’re like, no, but I’ll tell you right now, in California it’s like, this morning, when I went on my walk, it was 46 (F) degrees, which is cold for California, and I put flip-flops on. People thought I should have been on medication. That’s probably your jam over there. Yeah, okay, I’m gonna have to go to New Zealand. I think you guys are number nine at this point. You’re number two, actually, if I win the lottery—I literally just become a Kiwi, that’s my plan. Yeah, yeah. Number one, like, why would I not? Right? I’ll just come out there, bring you money—like unmarked bills or something in a briefcase—and be like, “Look what I have for Cat. You win again, or we win again.”

Really. So you’ve been able to—cocaine has been fine, but you got caught with the fruit fly. Is that what you’re saying? I mean, I’m just—don’t tell me, because it’s not like this is being recorded and the whole world’s gonna hear, so there’s certain things you were able to get through, and certain things where you got busted. So that’s cool. It was gonna be my next question: “What can I sneak into the country?” So…

Yeah, my brother—and this is a true story—actually got busted bringing a mango into the US, and it was kind of accidental. I’m not kidding; he’s on some sort of list, not the do-not-fly list, but they do give him a little extra, like I don’t know if he gets the glove test. I don’t know if he’s graduated, but they definitely give him the “Oh, Mango boy.” Like, “Hey, sir, let’s go ahead and do a strip-down over here; we’re gonna play ‘Where’s the mango?’” And once again, I don’t know if he travels because he likes that game or what, but yeah, he’s definitely on some type of list.

Actually, this is all joking aside, but I ended up on some kind of list too. In India, I didn’t get a crazy test or a private dance or anything, but every country I’ve been to, I’ve been like, “I didn’t bring a mango in. Maybe it’s because my brother brought one.” Or I don’t know—I don’t know how I get flagged. I don’t think I look like…

The mango smuggling family.

Maybe, yeah. I mean, we’ve all smuggled a few mangoes in private places, in the airports. That’s what we do sometimes, because you can buy it for your family. But interesting. Okay, yeah, I don’t know if that’s good about fruit flies. I’ll add that to my list of things not to bring when I come visit you—obviously, with the cash.

It’s the beard—we’re like, it’s either cane or mangoes, because that’s their big thing. I’m not really sure if he’s got an ounce of cocaine or if he’s been eating mangoes in private areas. Once again, we all have our vices, I guess. So you grew up in Canada, and then obviously your family’s from Canada. How big of a family in Canada?

Gotcha. So not that big of a family.

Where’s your sister live?

Oh, I was just in Vancouver. They had—what was the name of the conference? Anyways, it was out there about three weeks ago. I went out, had some fun with… oh, Uber Flips. That’s what it was—those guys over at Uber. Yeah, it was kind of right there, and it was awesome. The conference was right across the street from my hotel, and the food around there was phenomenal. So yeah, I’m a big fan, for sure. You said Vancouver, yeah—Vancouver, not Toronto. No, not Toronto. I’ve only been to Vancouver once.

Yeah, no, it definitely does. I’m in Sacramento, which is kind of the hub of where I live—San Francisco’s an hour and a half away, and the beach is an hour and a half away. It’s still California prices, but not like San Francisco, where you have 1000 square feet for $5,000 a month. So it’s still economical. In fact, long story short, I flip properties here as well, because everyone on the outskirts has money, and they come to Sacramento and buy something that feels like a mansion compared to their city place.

So, other than the fact that your ex-husband kidnapped you and brought you to New Zealand, any other fun facts? Anything else about growing up or your upbringing that nobody would know?

You’re like, “I used to be a stripper, but other than that, I’m just kind of a regular girl. I’m boring.” You know, I don’t think that’s really what we think here. I don’t think we’re interviewing you today because you’ve got nothing to say—I think it’s maybe the opposite. So you stripped, and we don’t have to go into all the details or the rights and laws, but you obviously had to be 18 in Canada, snuck in with a little fake ID and said, “Listen, nobody’s gonna stop me if I want to dance. If the cat wants to dance, the cat gets to dance,” right?

Let me ask you—Is Cat your real name, or was that your stage name? I want to be sure it’s your real name, now that we’ve jumped on those details.

Man, I could have guessed Jazz. Interesting. Okay, these are all fun facts. Everyone has different stories. Some people on a podcast are really conservative—like, “This one time, I stole a banana from my neighbor’s yard,” and that’s huge for them. Meanwhile, you’re like, “Oh my God, it’s crazy,” but in your case, you’re just like, “Well, for a little bit, I did my thing, not a big deal.”

So obviously, you’re new to New Zealand. Did you go to college in Canada as well?

I see. In New Zealand. So when did you two move to New Zealand? Pretty much in your college days?

There we go. I like that. He just rescued you. I like that. We’re like—kind of like Batman.

Yeah, I’m just—hello—making sense. This is all coming together nicely. I was wondering how this was going to pan out, but it is. So then you actually graduated from… where? New Zealand? Which college?

Ain’t that crazy? I’m not going to go into too much detail—and not that I was a tripper by any means; they probably wouldn’t let me—but I’ve seen certain things from people I know who have a background in sales, or they’ve done work that involves understanding human psychology. Whether you’re knocking on doors, selling something, or whatever it is, there’s a mindset behind getting people to say yes. It’s fascinating because you really can’t teach that in a straightforward way.

I use Mormons as an example sometimes. The religion of being Mormon has you go on a two-year mission, which is basically selling a religion. You knock on doors, people are like, “Screw you,” and you say, “Cool, thanks, God bless you,” and then move to the next door. How many nos can you take? But those guys and girls often become great salespeople afterward because they’ve done the hardest thing in the world—trying to sell a religion to people who probably don’t want it. If you can sell that, you can sell anything. You come out of that, and someone can tell you no a thousand times—you’re just looking for one yes. It’s kind of the same vibe with alarm companies here in the U.S., or a few other examples. I have friends of friends who are great at door-to-door sales because of that background—they’re used to it, you know, “selling religion.”

$2,010—that’s a huge variance. Do you think it was the power of the motorboat? Maybe sometimes you weren’t into it—like, it’s a Tuesday—and other times, maybe it’s a Saturday and the motorboat was over the top? Or are we not really sure about the motorboats?

Because people feel the vibe, right? If you’re into it and having fun, then people are like, okay, let’s do it.

That makes total sense. I like the motorboat thing too, because it kind of brings us back to where we need to be in regards to things that we’ve done in our past.

Why would you not have a course on motorboating? I mean, I feel like there’s a niche there. I feel like some people are like, “I just use one lip, but I’m not really sure how to do both lips.” And it’s like, “Here, take the course.” We could totally—it’s not a big deal. You can go take it, then you can go make more money down the road, which is not a bad thing.

That’s all that positioning, for sure. So there’s a great segue. Tell us a little bit about Eight Loop Social. How did you start that? And what was your—since it’s interesting, you already have an interesting story with your background—how did you jump into that? In regards to the agency side of things, give us a little background.

So is it true that you let your ex-husband keep that driver—those plates on his car—because it was a bomb company, and you kind of feel like the relationship with South, so you’re like, “Why don’t you go ahead and take the license plate, the company that also bombed, and drive that around, so you can be a loser in the vehicle, in the company, and then I’ll just take all the knowledge that I didn’t start another company.” Is that kind of a goal, or did that just naturally happen?

You hold on to that thing. That thing is gonna be like a fine wine. Just let it mature, my friend. So I’m probably gonna get threatened. If your husband listens to this, he’s gonna be like, “Oh, you think you’re funny, red beard, don’t you? I’m a loser because I’m in Cat’s old vehicle. Yeah, exactly. But it’s that you have some mangoes in your bag. Next time you come to New Zealand, get busted…”

Yeah, I definitely will. I’ll put the fruit flies somewhere. The goal of your agency is to work with other agencies, right? Isn’t that—she goes, “Tell us a brand. It’s with Facebook.” Obviously, Facebook ads are kind of the premise of that on how to drive revenue?

Yeah, I don’t know what porn is. I’m gonna look that up when we’re done with this podcast. It sounds familiar, but I’m like, “I don’t know why that sounds so familiar. It’s so weird.” I’ll do a little research. But just for the podcast—yeah, that’s interesting. They say it’s like… actually, I’m in courses, and it’s so funny. So I am working on a course—a whole other conversation—that will probably go live in another month on howtobeaninfluencer.com. That’s the course I love, and the premise is, I taught at UCLA but I got it like five years ago. I bought all kinds of influencer domains because I was jumping into the space, and I thought, “Oh, this is going to be interesting in the future,” since I teach a class at UCLA—a personal branding, happy, and influencer course. So that’s kind of where this came about.

But the reason I was telling you about that is, the course thing blew me away too, because my brother worked at Creative Live in San Francisco, and he was like, “God, the coursing is blowing up. There are all these people doing these courses, and people are buying them.” I was the same way: “What? Why would you pay 100 bucks for a course? I just…I can’t see people doing it.” And then I’m like, “All you need is 5,000 people buying a $100 course.” It’s insane. The numbers are just absolutely silly. And you don’t have to have a niche the whole world needs to know about—sometimes it’s better to have something really specific, like how to find trolls in New Zealand, and then a course on how to find them. You can collect them, and as long as there are enough trolls for everybody… I’m assuming you don’t want to take all the trolls—or both the trolls—which is a whole other thing. That’s probably course two and three. I can definitely see this being built up in front of us.

It’s been an absolutely fun conversation. Let’s wrap up this segment. In the next episode, I’m going to talk with Cat about online courses. Stay tuned to Shane Barker’s Marketing Growth Podcast.