Instructional designers can help your business move the needle when it comes to education and training. But don’t take our word for it — you should hear it from Tory Hord of Tory Hord Consulting! In today’s marketing tip, how many different ways can you use that great content piece on your website? It’s a lot, as it turns out.
Transcript:
Welcome to the Small Business Miracles podcast.
I’m Jeff Randolph. This small business podcast
is brought to you by EAG Advertising and Marketing.
We’re going to talk about marketing. We’re also
here to celebrate entrepreneurs. We have marketing
news and advice that business owners can use
to keep moving forward. If you notice a difference
in sound for this episode, it’s blizzard time
in Kansas City. Actual blizzard. Snow and wind.
And so we are recording out of our normal office
today. So if there’s a little difference in sound,
that’s why. Today, very excited to talk to Tori
Hoard of Tory Hord Consulting. But first, another
small business marketing tip to talk about. For
today’s marketing tip, it’s a reminder to leverage
the content on your website. From the work smarter,
not harder category, if you have some content
that’s important to your target audience and
you have that live on your website, turn that
content into even more pieces of content and
put it in even more places. You can take a blog
article that you have and turn the information
inside of it into a social media graphic. There
may be pull quotes of important takeaways
that you can use within that article as social
media graphics. Or a much larger infographic
style with lots of design and lots of data points.
Or a video where you’re explaining the content
of the article in the video. Or, I don’t know,
an audio clip since we’re talking about this
on a podcast. Or pull headlines out to make banner
display ads and link that to your article and
run that as an ad. Have you used that content
in an email to your prospect list? The list goes
on and on and on. Work smarter, not harder, and
leverage that content. That’s today’s marketing
tip.
All right, we are here in the featured section
of our show, and I am joined by Tory Hord with
Tory Hord Consulting. Tori, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Jeff. I appreciate you having me on
today. We’re very happy. And I should start by
saying congratulations because you are a small
business superstar this year, and that is not
a small thing. Congratulations on that. Thank
you. Yeah, it’s my second year in a row, which
is very cool. And doing it in a row may be the
best way to do it. So good job. Well done. Tell
us about the business for the people who haven’t
yet had the opportunity to figure it out. Tell
us about the business. What does Torrey Hoard
Consulting do? Yeah. So we… do e -learning
development and presentation design for a wide
range of companies. I’ve always been an instructional
designer in corporate learning and development.
And so Tory Hord Consulting was just created
out of a passion for creating learning experiences
that actually work. There’s a lot of times in
businesses where learning just becomes checking
the box or a chore when people just don’t want
to get through it. And so we are kind of changing
that up and making it something that’s… actually
meaningful to businesses. Meaningful is important.
I feel like we may learn better if it’s meaningful
to us in some way or if it’s engaging. Yeah,
definitely. Give us a sense of the kind of companies
that you work with. Is it literally anyone on
the planet? companies over a certain size? How
do you define who your companies are that you
work with? Yeah. For me, you can find other instructional
designers or e -learning developers who are niche
in a specific industry. But for me, I have found
that my skill is just in instructional design
in general and figuring out complex topics and
putting them into more digestible formats. And
so I work with all different types of companies.
I’ve worked with Fortune companies. I’ve
worked with startups. a lot of franchises and
things like that. So I’m kind of any anywhere
in between on types of companies. Gotcha. And
if if I can define like, you know, who are you
most successful with? Is there a is there a particular
kind of program? Because instructional design
can cover a whole lot. Like that’s a that’s a
range from onboarding to I need to teach you
a specific skill to a here’s training that we
all need. Who who does how does that work? Yeah,
sure. So I typically focus on the e -learning
development part of it. So I work a lot with
the talent development teams or learning and
development teams within different companies
who’ve already identified potentially that they
have a gap between performance and business needs.
And so that’s typically where I kind of is my
entry point within a company. But I’ve also realized
that when… businesses connect with me, they
are already looking for training because they
have a value that learning and development is
really important to them and their culture. And
so that’s kind of really important. I don’t really
think I said that in the best way, but recognizing
that training isn’t just about information delivery.
It’s more about driving performance, engagement,
and business results. That if you are trying
to just get somebody to check a box because,
yeah, they mandate that everybody goes through
this. You know, that’s that’s easy to check a
box on and you just sit somebody down in front
of a TV or screen and say, you know, hey, watch
this. And when you’re done, sign this piece of
paper. But if what you’re really trying to go
for is we have improved your performance on X,
that’s where you really want to spend time. Yeah,
absolutely. Well, hey, I helped to find that
then. I’m very excited about that. You go to
conferences all over the place. I think in the
previous year, you were at what, five, six, seven,
something like that, number of different? At
least five, between five and seven probably.
And you’re also speaking at them. So you’re somebody.
AI and training, there’s starting to be that
convergence in the training space now. And I’ve
heard that it’s revolutionizing it, but I don’t
really, can you tell us more? How is AI impacting
the training space? Yeah. So at all of those
conferences, AI is always the top hot topic of
the conference. But I would say AI is a really
valuable tool. But just like any tool, it depends
on how you use it. So there’s a lot of really
cool examples like chatbots that give specific
information when people are looking for questions.
There’s adaptive learning. The problem that I
see is a lot of ethics, making sure that it’s
aligned with what people are actually looking
for and what they need, rather than just putting
them in a box and saying, oh, they need this
because they’ve chosen these certain things,
right? So just making sure that you’re using
it in a way that is going to be impactful for
the learners and making sure that it’s genuinely
going to be a good learning outcome. And one
thing that I’ve talked to with a lot of my clients
is that it’s so easy to get distracted with the
newest AI trend. tool. But does the question
that I like to ask them is, does it improve the
desired outcome? Because sometimes we don’t have
to use AI to answer that question. And sometimes
we do. So it just depends on if we can answer
that question effectively. Yeah. So, so does
it work? Is it actually going to improve it or
is this technology for technology’s sake? Right.
Yeah. That’s never a good, I like that. And,
and any, any predictions on like. In the marketing
field, we have AI that has been built into most
of the tools that we use for years and years
now. If that’s, you know, suggesting bits of
copy to put in the ad. The chatbot kind of thing,
make that a little more concrete. Like, when
is it a good use of AI? What is a helpful, you
know, that does impact outcomes? Yeah, so when
you have specific questions that people are always
looking for, to answer. Kind of like when you
see a chatbot on a website and you want to ask
something specific about what they do or how
can they get a certain piece of information,
you can kind of embed those types of things within
your Slack or your Teams and have it in the place
of like workflow learning almost where you’re
kind of already in your platforms that you’re
already using. And now you have this AI chatbot
who can answer a question on something that you’re
curious about or that you need help with while
you’re also doing your other tasks. Interesting.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense. That makes
sense to me. Tell me, if I take a step back and
we just look at your business for a second, what’s
next? Where do you go from here? How will you
grow? Where will you go? More clients? More bigger
clients? What’s happening? Yeah, definitely.
So definitely more clients or more strategic
clients. I think I don’t exactly want to work
with everybody because I think that having the
best fit is really important to me and my values
as a consultant. And so finding the right clients
who are looking for that innovative learning
and development. side with creativity is really
important to me. The creative part, the part
that you’re seeing and experiencing as an end
user. Nice. Well, that’s exciting. Good background
and basic understanding of who you are and what
you do. But the only way we really know is if
we get you into the lightning round and we ask
more questions. That’s what we’ll do. You have
no way to know what I’m going to ask in the lightning
round. So I’m going to start by saying that you
are in your second winter in Kansas City. And
you’re getting used to it now. We just had another…
Actual blizzard today where temperatures are,
it is snowing at hurricane wind speed. Spectacular.
How wonderful is that? Sticking on an educational
theme, how do you grade Kansas City winters?
You know, last year wasn’t that bad. And coming
from Texas, I was like, this is great. I can
handle this, you know, as opposed to the hot
summers, scorchingly hot almost. So I would probably
grade it. Six. Six out of ten. Like a six out
of ten. Is that our scale? I have to know the
scale. That’s important. Six out of ten for this
winter. I can see that. Room for improvement.
Yeah. Sure. We can definitely improve from here.
Next question. What part of the business do you
wish you knew more about? Because oftentimes
we’re, you know, as entrepreneurs, we get in
because we love this part of the thing. But what
we don’t realize is, oh, that comes with hiring
or employees or accounting. accounting or marketing
or whatever. Is there a part of the business
you wish you knew more about? Yeah, I’ve learned
to kind of start delegating things that I don’t
necessarily know much about and I don’t want
to learn any more about. Also, yes, to know that
about yourself. It’s been hard because I’ve tried
to learn everything, you know, and then not necessarily
succeed at everything. So I think that’s something
that I would want to learn more about would definitely
be social media. Oh, interesting. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. What’s the secrets behind social media?
I can tell you, but I mean, it gets into a very
long marketing conversation, who your audience
is, where they’re at, and how they want to take
in all that information. No, that is a good thing
to want to know about, especially as much as
we are on social media these days. Well, you
have a podcast that you just started, and you
told a story on that episode. What have you learned
from doing a podcast? I have started it as like
a mini podcast or just solo episodes. And so
I’ve learned just the technology side of it and
also being very strict with like what I want
to portray in those episodes. And so that’s been
really enlightening for me, just being able to
set a goal of what I want somebody to get out
of an episode because my goal is really to educate
and inspire instructional designers and entrepreneurs
who are in the similar space because as instructional
designers. There’s a lot of us who… people
just don’t know what we do. So just being able
to inspire that conversation about different
topics. Yeah. I’ve, I listened to several episodes
because they’re also, you did five minute bite
size, like you’re not investing a ton of time
in picking up all of this wisdom. I approve.
I’m not capable of doing anything that short
myself. I approve. It’s those are, that’s really
good. I’ve enjoyed it. So go ahead and give a
shout out to the podcast. How do they find the
podcast? Yeah. So wherever you listen, it’s called
the Underground Instructional Designer Podcast.
Yeah. And underground. Tell just a bit about
the underground part of that. A brief. Yeah.
So this is my basement. I’m underground, literally.
And so that was partially where the name came
from. But also I love like alternative rock.
And so it has like kind of more of a rock theme
with it. Good times, good times. All right, just
a quick shout out. So we’ll keep moving on. Last
question, I’ll end it on this one. What is the
best business advice that you’ve received? The
best business advice, I keep it on the sticky
note actually right in front of me. Nice. And
it says, I must think beyond my expertise. Because
I think there’s something that you’re always
comfortable with. And in business or even just
in entrepreneurship, going out on your own, you’re
always putting yourself in a zone of uncomfortable
and having to take a risk or do something different
that’s not the way you’ve always operated. And
so just trying to think out of that zone of expertise
is really important for me. Oh, outstanding answer.
If we do a soundbite, it’s got to be that. There’s
no other way around it. I’ll take you out of
the lightning round. You’ve survived the lightning
round and have done quite well as a result. Oh,
good. Well done. Well done. Let’s see. Let me
have you tell everybody where they can find you
if they want to work with you, if they need to
know more information. Where do they go? Yeah,
sure. So my website is… ToryHordLearning .com.
And it’s getting a revamp in the next month.
So it might look a little bit different the next
time you get into there. But also LinkedIn is
where I hang out. If you want to connect, message
me. I am easily findable on LinkedIn. Easily
findable. ToryHord, Tory Hord Consulting, ToryHordLearning
.com. Thanks for being on the show, Tori. Yeah,
thank you. I appreciate it. And that is our show.
Thank you again to Tory Hord for being with
us. And thank you for listening to the Small
Business Miracles podcast. Remember to subscribe,
leave us a five -star rating and review. Drop
us a line on the website at eagadv .com if you
have any thoughts. Until then, we’ll be out here
helping entrepreneurs with another small business
miracle.