Kim Tuohy Shares Secrets to Successful ID Freelancing Part I

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SUMMARY

• In this week's eLearning and Instructional Design for Beginners interview series, I have the pleasure of talking with Kim Tuohy, the founder of Belvista Studios, an instructional design and eLearning studio. Belvista Studios helps organizations develop their people to meet their future needs with a human-centered approach. They share their knowledge and expertise on their YouTube channel and Creator Hub to contribute to the growth and development of the industry.
• Kim shares her journey and how Belvista Studios came to be. She emphasizes the importance of exploring your childhood interests and clues to shape your adult life and career. Kim's passion for helping people be better and her love for creativity led her to discover the world of training and instructional design. Through continuous exploration and process of elimination, she found her niche in eLearning and instructional design, aligning her personal values and career aspirations.
• Starting with no academic background in the field, Kim encourages aspiring instructional designers not to let qualifications hold them back. She gained experience through job opportunities and pursued her passion for training and development. Eventually, she discovered the world of eLearning and instructional design, which ignited her entrepreneurial spirit. After working for an eLearning studio, she decided it was time to start her own business, Belvista Studios.
• Kim initially hired her first employee, Hannah, who shared her work ethic and values. Together, they built Belvista Studios and expanded their team over time. They are a team of four, each with different roles and strengths, working collaboratively to provide end-to-end instructional design solutions. From analysis and storyboarding to development and quality assurance, they create tangible solutions for their clients. Additionally, they actively share their knowledge and insights on platforms like YouTube and social media, contributing to the growth and development of the industry.
• The journey of building Belvista Studios wasn't without its challenges. Kim emphasizes the importance of identifying your why and aligning your personal values with your business. Passion and relentless pursuit of your passion lead to a fulfilling lifestyle, even in the face of adversity. Kim believes that everyone should have the opportunity to do what they love and encourages individuals to explore their passions and make them a central part of their lives.
• Belvista Studios has been around for five years and has experienced significant growth and success. Kim highlights the importance of building a team that complements each other's strengths and shares the same values. She believes in investing in team members who can take on tasks that aren't your strengths or that you don't enjoy, freeing you up to focus on what you excel at. Hiring the right people is not an expense but an investment in your business's success.

 
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

TRANSCRIPT

Hello, and welcome to the elearning and instructional design for beginners podcast, where new and aspiring instructional designers start, grow and advance their careers and instructional design, and online learning development. I'm your host, Krystal Harper. I'm a former school teacher who transition to instructional design, all while working full time as a single mom, would you like to become a successful instructional designer without the burden of earning another degree? Well, then let's get started. Hello, and welcome to this week's elearning and instructional design for beginners interview series. And today's interview, I'm talking with Kim Tuohy. Kim runs an instructional design and elearning studio called Belvista studios. They help organizations develop their people to meet their future needs with a human centered approach. They share everything they know to help develop the industry on their YouTube channel and on their Creator hub. We'll talk more about that later. Welcome, Ken, how are you doing today?

Thank you. I'm very flattered to be on your channel. So thank you for having me.

All right, Kim, could you tell us a little bit about the history of Belvista studios and how the company got started,

it gets started, I really think when I was a little girl, because I wanted to have my own business. And I didn't know exactly what I wanted to be. But I know that I wanted to own a business. And I wanted to help people be better humans and I wanted to be creative. And so I kind of pursued something along those lines all through my life until it evolved itself. And why I wanted to like go back there is that I encourage other people that are like looking at this career, looking to change careers, just their own journey in life, that there's clues in your childhood, and to really like explore them and what they mean for you in your adult life. So basically, how I got started was I just experimented with things that I liked and things that I didn't. And I did more of what I liked, and less of what I didn't like. And a lot of it was around helping people be better human beings. That's where training came into it. Because I studied something but not in our field. I have no like academic background in what we do. So don't let that stop you. Even if job applications are saying, You need to have this qualification I've had, I've gotten jobs when it said that as well. Basically, I pursued those things, I got a taste of training just randomly through like a university job. And then I was like, this is really cool. I can be creative, solve problems and help people be better. What is the world of training, maybe that should be my career. So then I went and pursued a career and just looked up training jobs on Google and got one and then got exposed to corporate learning and development. And I was like, this is really cool. Like, I'm my interests and my passion as a human being are aligned to this. And then I was like, I still had that business thing in the back of my mind. And I wanted to pursue that. But at the time, I didn't know what that looked like, I kept going with the job thing, the career thing, more lnd stuff. And then this whole world of elearning opened up. And I was like What's elearning? And then I was like, oh elearning is cool. I want to do more of that. So process of elimination continuously through my journey. I was like, oh elearning is cool. And then through elearning, I learned about instructional design. And then I was like a disengaged employee at this point. And it was time for the entrepreneur to come out. And I was like, I know what my business is going to be in. It's going to be instructional design and elearning because I love it. And the question I asked myself is if I could do anything in the world, and die tomorrow, what would it be? And it had revealed itself as those things because going back to my childhood, it was around creative stuff, helping people be better, and having my own business. So that's why I definitely look at your childhood. That's how it came about. I worked for an elearning studio for almost a year or two. Before I went out on my own, I actually was about to go out on my own as a disengaged employee, because I was that disengaged. And then I fortunately got the opportunity. Someone said, Hey, why don't you come work for us at our elearning studio, and I was like, I don't know anything about coding. I don't really know how to work with clients, maybe I'll work for them and learn and be a better business person because of that. So I did do that as like a little bit of a safety step. In my journey. I learned everything I could about project management and elearning project management for instructional design, working with stakeholders, how to solve problems, I just got better at my craft but also better at the business side. And then one day, I was like it is time it isn't time to have full control of my life. Business has begun and I resigned. And I had nothing to go to. I had no clients. I had nothing on the side. Nothing. I was, yeah, I needed to get out of that place. It wasn't a healthy workplace. That's why I left with nothing to go to I know a lot of people find themselves in a similar position. But I wasn't willing to tolerate that anymore, especially when it was impacting my values. And so yeah, I left with nothing. And then I just told everyone, this is what I'm doing. I now run a business. It's an instructional design, elearning business, these are the kinds of projects we work on. And within a week, someone said, We need help with that. And that's how Belvista studios got started the short story of my life.

I love it. That's so amazing. That's really cool. It sounds really similar to my story as well, I really, kind of Yeah, especially with the drive for running a business and being creative, and you don't know what you want, or how you're going to figure all that out. But and, yes, that's exciting. I feel like real instructional designers are just like so passionate about like, it really is. I don't I love it,

when I fit it. The things and exercise like that passion, because I always think especially if you're like gonna start freelancing or consulting, and even I believe, as an employee, you're still technically like a contractor. Anyway, nothing is more secure, guaranteed the TED Talk by Simon Sinek start with why there was a five minute version. And when I was in that career job, I watched that and I was like, whoa, this why thing sounds interesting. What's my why? And I sat down and figured that out. And that's how my business revealed itself. That's how my personal values revealed itself, they became the company, Elvis, the studio's values as well. And it really made me go, this is the right career move. For me that passion is really important, because I don't feel like I have a job, I have a lifestyle. I think that's a really nice kind of activity for people to do, because I believe you only have one life in this form. So if you really find out what you're passionate about and pursue it, relentless pursuit of your passion, leads to a fulfilling lifestyle. When times are tough, whatever that toughness might be for you. Just a hard day, or like, I don't know, lack of plans or like the relentless pursuit of job interviews and applications. If you're doing it with passion behind you, then it makes it a hell of a lot easier. That's awesome. Earn money for your lifestyle. Yeah,

right. Yeah. But I wish everyone could do what they love. You got to find out for yourself. Okay, so what makes up valve assist studios

are a team of what we like for people who are really one silent, you don't see them as much. But technically three full time staff. None of us have any formal qualifications in our industry, we all wear different hats or have different roles within the team. But we're a studio that does end to end solution. So what's the problem the client is trying to solve, we do the instructional design. So we do the analysis, we do the storyboarding, we come up with the solution. And then we develop it into something tangible that is released out to the world. So within that we have different roles, which are built on our individual strengths and personal interests. And we're very fortunate that they all complement each other really well. So we do, we've got two of us are like instructional designers, facilitate workshops with clients do project management, one of the girls is really strong at animation, she does a lot of the development, we all play a role in the quality assurance sort of side of it. And then a lot of the stuff that you see of us publicly, whether it's on our YouTube channel, or the social media, that's all of us, that's all of us being held accountable, to basically learn ourselves so that we can put it back into the solutions that we create for our clients.

Okay, that's really cool.

So Hannah was, like, we work together in that career job. She was in my team. And I definitely like was like, she's she's got a really good work ethic, and she's a good human being. And over time, I became her supervisor in that job when this is when I started thinking, I'm leaving, I'm starting my own business. And I always had it in my gut, and my mind that she would be my first employee. I didn't know how I didn't know when. But I was like, that is the human being that is coming on this journey with me. So I went and did my thing. And probably about a year later, I was able to offer her five hours of work, which was a big deal for me five hours of work a week. Fortunately, it worked for her, she wanted to go travel overseas, and that would allow her the freedom to leave her job and to do that. So I identified values and a work ethic, which are very important to me as an employer, and as a peer or colleague as well, and someone that I want to have that kind of energy in my life. So that was kind of my like, recruitment criteria. So then, yeah, we started working together within two weeks. She was pretty much full time and we did I think for a bit and she had no, we came from a training and development team so we kind of knew Training and Development. But she had no Instructional Design at the time no elearning. So they were all skills that I developed in her. And then about maybe a year and a half into that journey. We got, we couldn't manage the work ourselves. And we needed some support. And we were desperate for like, extra capacity because it was too much. Hannah had good friends, she was living in London at the time I was in Australia, she was living with some of her best friends there. And her friend was not happy in her job over there. And basically, I was like, Oh, she's not happy, has a good human, Hannah has good friends. Maybe she's a good person that might be aligned to similar workstyle is Hannah, let's give her a go. So I just helped she helped with some of yond animations, knew nothing about our industry knew nothing about the tool. So I really was taking a gamble. But I trusted Hannah a lot. And I respected her. So I gave that opportunity to her friend that like Victoria, that's who it is she committed to Yes, this is the outcome I'm going to achieve, worked it out, learnt the tool herself delivered on time, use her intuition, to problem solve things to present ideas back to make it better. And so they were all just really good qualities, we delivered that work to the client, they were super happy. And I was like, if we ever have more work, I'm going to keep going like that. So she got a couple of little trickles of yarn for a couple of months. And then we just got busy as the business grew, and I offered her full time role, and they've been with us ever since

just being able to build a team like that. How long has build a studio has been around five years? Wow. Yeah. It sounds like you made the right decisions on who you chose to for sure.

Yeah. And I think it's, it's always a hard one, right? Because you kind of like what we think of is like, oh my god, I gotta spend money. And you're like, ooh, like, can I afford another person because and I think to help people decide, it's like, you're not going to pay all of their wages at once. So whatever they are for the year, you don't pay that all that once you pay them maybe every fortnight or every month or every week. So can you afford that little increment, and you only take them on when you can have some level of guarantee. But the other thing is, there was things I hated doing. And they took me so long because I procrastinated to the detriment of I couldn't keep going like that it just wasn't sustainable. So I was like, you can put yourself through all this pain, I hate admin kind of stuff, right? And so I can continue to put myself through all this pain, or I can get someone that is as passionate about that, as I am passionate about other things. So I was really clear on. This is not my strength, and I don't enjoy it. But there's other people out there that do. So who are they? And how can we work together on this journey of an ultimate life together. So that that is really important. I've never looked back. And a lot I like when you listen to podcasts of like people that talk about hiring and firing and all that they always like, just, you should have done it like I should have done it earlier, I should have done it earlier. So don't think about the money. It's actually not an expense, it's an investment. So how do you make that other person that support that virtual assistant, that casual worker, that part time person? How do you make them a value add to your life and investment in your business to free you up to do what you're really good

at? Right? For sure. So what is the mission of Belvista studios.

So there's two parts to our business, our client service where we solve problems from medium to large organizations, where we do end to end instructional design output of elearning. So for that our mission is to inspire learning. That's it's that simple. We have a second part of the business, which is basically came about from some sort of accountability for me to continuously professionally develop, which was to make my first YouTube video and publicly hold myself accountable to the world to keep improving. And that has since grown to us trying to add value to the industry of instructional designers to make better practitioners by sharing everything that we do at Belvista studios working with clients solving problems every single day. We share our resources, we share our templates, we share our challenges, we share the solutions, examples, all of that sort of stuff. That is where kind of we it's the Creator hub, and the creator hub is there to help people develop, grow and be inspired to do what they love, instructional design and e learning and live a fulfilling life.