In this episode of the One Small Change podcast, host Yvonne McCoy welcomes instructional design expert Andrew Chesnutt, who unpacks the pivotal moments that shaped his entrepreneurial journey and commitment to effective communication. Together, they explore the profound impact of translating complex ideas into accessible, engaging formats—whether in corporate training, keynote speaking, or podcasts. Andrew shares real-world stories spotlighting how clarity and authority are essential for genuine connection and business growth. The conversation is rich with actionable advice about identifying client needs, structuring compelling presentations, leveraging podcasts for relationship-building, and harnessing the power of clear messaging. Listeners will be inspired to rethink how they communicate, make small but transformative tweaks to their strategies.

Guest Bio:

Andrew Chesnutt is an accomplished learning industry veteran and entrepreneurial strategist, dedicated to transforming complex ideas into engaging, actionable strategies that drive business growth. With over 20 years of experience spanning pharmaceutical devices, real estate, and financial education, Andrew specializes in building authority through clear communication—whether on stage as a keynote speaker or behind the mic on podcasts. Renowned for his ability to break down intricate concepts and create lasting impact, Andrew empowers professionals and entrepreneurs to find clarity, unlock their unique value, and foster meaningful connections that fuel personal and professional transformation.

Chapters:

00:00 Cumbersome Compliance Document Task

03:47 "Engaging Over Punishment in Presentations"

08:51 Assumptions in Communication Contexts

11:54 Improving Communication Through Understanding

14:59 "Cut Through the Noise"

18:24 Podcasting's Conversational Power & Impact

23:13 "Streamlining Thought Structure for Entrepreneurs"

26:03 "Podcast Engagement and Growth Appeal"

27:41 "Clarity Over Data Overload"

Quote from the Guest:

"A confused buyer won't buy."

Links:

Interested in working with Andrew?

Check out The Authority Forge: http://Theauthorityforge.com

Email Andrew directly: andrew@theauthorityforge.com

Follow Andrew on LinkedIn: / andrewchesnutt

Follow Andrew on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrewchesn…

Welcome to the One Small Change. I am so thrilled that you took

time out of your busy schedule to join me on this journey of

exploration and transformation. I'm your coach and

host, Yvonne McCoy, and I bring almost 30 years of entrepreneurial

experience and the passion for discovering growth through the power

of seemingly small change. They're not small when they

happen, but hey. So I'm

glad that you're going to join me on this journey. And this week, we're going

to be talking with my new friend, and he,

Andrew Chestnut, is going to share how a small, unexpected,

or insignificant decision sparked a remarkable

transformation and growth in his personal and

professional business. Andrew, thank you so much for

joining me today. It is my honor. Yvonne, thank you so much for having me

on the show. I appreciate it. Well, Andrew and I have been talking

already today, so I hope we left a little steam, you know,

for this podcast, because we have. The few times we've talked together,

we have laughed like hyenas, and I think

that makes it a good day. So, Andrew, tell us what you do and what

got you there. So I want to start with a story. So you said that

one thing changes everything, and I absolutely think that is true. And this

is. I'm going to tell you my one change moment that absolutely just

transformed my life. So I was. I've been in the learning industry

for 20 years at this point, and one of the industries I

worked in was pharmaceutical manufacturing pharmaceutical devices. I was part of

a team that supported these devices. So you call in, we help you out.

And it's part of the training that we have to do. The FDA requires us

to do specific things. If somebody makes mistakes, they have to be put through remedial

training. There's, you know, a variety of stuff that we have to do. And so

it was in one of these remedial trainings I was tasked with to write it

because I was the most senior trainer and I was the person who just happened

to be stuck with this thing. I get this, and you'll see why

in a moment. I was very specifically worded.

So I get the specification document, and that's basically says,

here's what we need to do. Here's the learning objectives, here's what has to happen.

And I think it was my boss, my boss's boss, her boss, and like, three

compliance lawyers wrote this thing. The doc itself was like

40 pages. And so I go through it,

and I'm looking at this thing just going, no, no, no,

no, don't want to do this. But it's my job And I have

to, because it had every single thing that had gone

wrong for the past six months and, and bunch of CYA planning

inside of it. So I get this thing designed. Now, I was really good at

telling, taking complex concepts and breaking

them down so people could understand it. But even with every ounce of my skill,

it turned into 164 applied PowerPoint.

Took almost, almost two hours to deploy. So almost two hours

to give this thing. And it was the

worst case of academic assault I had ever had in my life. It's really the

only. It's not just check a box training. This was straight assault, right?

As soon as I get this thing done, I present it to my boss. And

wouldn't you know it, we're in the middle of an FDA audit and the

auditor's on site and he wants to see this thing.

After a few choice words, I go in and I show it

to him. And so I want you to imagine this for a second. I walk

into a conference room. He's at one end. Both sides of this

conference room table are filled with people who are basically just initials as

their titles and me at the other. And so I hand this

thing over to him, and it lands on the table with a thud. This was

well before we did anything digitally. It was usually printed at this point.

And he flips through it for an agonizing four or five minutes.

When he's finished, he looks up, takes off his glasses, looks me dead in the

eye, and goes, is this meant to help them or is this

punishment? After a very brief

cardiac event and some really just

phenomenal verbal footwork on my, on my, my part trying

to see, and my boss stepping in too,

I realized I never ever wanted to create something like this.

I never wanted to create a presentation so bad. Somebody, an FDA auditor

who have no discernible senses of humor, especially in the middle of an

audit, would say, is this meant to punish

people? I didn't want to be in that situation again. I really didn't.

And so I made it my mission to be able to communicate in a way

that isn't academic assault, that isn't check a box training

to try to come up with a way to do this that is engaging. Fast

forward a few years. My mom publishes a book, and her book

is On Syndrome Y. You could still get it on Amazon by Dr. Karen

Chestnut. And at that

point, I had just been starting my entrepreneurial, my entrepreneurial

journey. And so I started

off with helping her to be able to take that information and boil it down

so people could Understand it. So we started off with a talk that she did

and I loved doing it. I realized I found my calling. I was really good

at taking this. This, you know, because she was a neuropsychologist with 30

years clinical practice, she had a lot of high level knowledge in what she was

doing. I was able to show it visually. I was able to take all of

that, mix it around with some stories and move on. And she's a very experienced

speaker. But when you do it for yourself, sometimes it's difficult.

So then that led into a TED talk that we got her into

and then onto my entrepreneurial. My entrepreneurship journey started when I met a man

named Chris. And I was at a real estate association meeting

that he was putting on and it was probably the fourth or fifth that I

had been around and it was the only one that I didn't feel like I

was just being sold something. I heard the term pitch slap and I just.

I get it. You know, a lot of times we're just pitch slapped at stuff

and it's just a sales call. This was the one that wasn't.

So now Chris was starting a. He had a TV show on HGTV at the

time called Risky Builders. They were just getting it going.

Actually right after I started with him, I ended. They were. They piloted the show.

So. And he was starting a. He was

starting a education end of things as well. So he

wanted to do that. It was on flipping. So yeah, we do our thing. Kind

of went around and I told him I am an instructional designer because that was

the term that they used for what I did at the time. He heard

structural designer had two flips with bad foundations and

needed an engineer. That got me breakfast the next

morning where we cleared everything up and I told

him what I actually did and it was a need that he had.

So began working with him. Ended up

just actually recently stepping down from all of my positions with. With his companies. We

built two seven figure companies in that I was part of the team that helped

do that. Awesome experience. Just it showed me the innards of,

of entrepreneurship from somebody who had been founding companies for

decades before. Before I did.

So fast forward a little bit further. The show doesn't get picked up.

HGTV is sold to Discovery. Script sold it to Discovery. Discovery said

no new shows and we were greenlit and ready to go.

So we have to pivot. And I remember this day. He showed up in my.

My office. I had an office at the. At his facility. Showed up in the

office and I have never seen somebody Just kicked in the gut that badly.

Four years all self funded,

gone. One decision. And we,

so we had to pivot. We had to do our, we had to do something

different. And at this point, he had been working with specially designed and engineered life

insurance policies as a banking system. He had been doing it

himself for years. He had a good friend of his who already and a mentor

of his who was already in business with this. And

it was a light bulb moment at one point where we said, that's

the next move. That company was founded called Money

School, still around to this day. But we had to

explain this to somebody. Like life insurance. What do you think of when you talk

about life insurance? You think about death benefit. Okay.

Most people do. But for 200 years, life insurance has had specific

types of life insurance have had a cash value to them. Use that death

benefit. Now I found out my father, my grandfather all use

this system. We just don't talk about

it. But there is another component to that. But try to get somebody to understand

that I could take a loan, but they, but I'm still earning interest on

everything. So we had to explain it. I created one

presentation that started that company and I, and then that

took me many years later, almost over eight at this point.

I, I, I have to. You've hit on two points. Yes.

That I want to clarify. Sure. One is,

has to do with communication. Yeah. Do you know it's

really important not to assume

that who you're talking to has the same

context that you do. I had the

same situation. I told you. I had gone into workforce training

and I was doing a class with, at a hospital

with maintenance people and people, you know, that did the rooms and stuff like

that. And I was sitting there and they kept saying, we need to be

prepared to make a presentation. We need to be

prepared to make a presentation. And of course, in my brain

that meant standing like at a podium and talking and

whatever. And at some point it became very obvious that

we were doing this. Yeah. And I'm like, okay,

tell me what a presentation is for you. Right. And

they're like, that's where you go in, you clean the room, you sanitize it,

you make up. And it

was like, okay, you know. And then I started putting in my

workshops at the beginning. All right. It is my

job to make sure that you get the information. It is

also your job to tell me if I'm not clear. Because

if I said stuffing what comes to mind.

You know, some people have cornbread stuffing, some people have, you know,

stuff is not Enough. So that's the one thing you have to

really, you know, be able to

understand that you may not be clear. I mean that. You

know, I think. I think the best question you could say to somebody is, tell

me more. Yeah, yeah, try to teach somebody how to tie their shoes.

Anyone with kids has gone through this. This. Where they had to teach them. And

you're an expert at this. You know exactly what you're doing. You've done it a

million times, liter, literally, multiple times a day. But you're. You're the expert.

I had to tell Chris this once. He was frustrated because he's like, why are

people getting this? It's so easy. And I have to tell him, because you've been

a financial advisor for 15 years. You know what you're doing. You can go

from A to F in a single jump. People need B, C, D, and E.

And they need to be clear about that nomenclature and what you're saying,

part of your gift. I mean, I had a chemistry teacher in, you know, the

freshman chemistry who had his senior

paper confiscated by the government during the war.

And he. And he had to come up with a new one, like, overnight.

Whoops. He was teaching basic

chemistry, and none of us got it. I mean, he just was,

you know, and the story I tell was, one day we were in the bank,

and there were two professors that one goes, morning,

and the other goes, morning. And that was it.

One of my favorite jokes. And I could say this. I have a degree in

engineering, and I've got engineering. You know, my father and grandfather were engineers. So I

say this with a hell of a lot of love, but there's this joke where

it's like, you know, if there are two people are standing and talking to each

other, and one says, have you ever met anyone who was truly

brilliant and you knew that they knew what they were talking about, but they couldn't

explain themselves to save their lives? And the other guy goes, have you met an

engineer? My dad's favorite

thing was, let's start at the beginning. It's like, no, I've already spent two

hours on this problem. I just want to know, can I do this

the first thing? Because I want to make sure people are taking away some actionable

things. So the first thing is, you know, if you're not getting

traction, you know, think about how

you're talking and what it is they're hearing. It may not be the same

thing. And that's so important to have, you know, I think in

Venn diagrams. But the more you have A

relationship, the more the overlap about what you understand is

better, the better the communication is. Yes. And a confused

buyer won't buy. That's a huge thing. Is so that confusion can

really significantly impact your world. And so clarity is a

huge issue. Anyway, I have done it. I mean, I'm not going to judge anyone

for I've been explained stuff going this makes sense. And had to have people

step in and say, no, actually, you're missing a couple parts. Or

like you said, we're talking about this. Everyone does

it because we're experts, because our brains are wired to jump from A to

F. Having somebody to come in and say, well, not really. Let, let,

let's. That's as clear as mud. Let's go this way. Yeah. Okay.

The other thing that you said, I think is so important,

and it's kind of where I work, and I'm assuming that's where you work as

well, is the thing

the service or the product that you have available

is not typically what they're looking for initially.

Yeah. It's something else that needs to

grab them to think about it. And so your situation

that you talked about, life insurance. I mean, I have a client that sells life

insurance, so I, you know, I can really talk about this,

but, you know, part of it is nobody wants to hear about when

they die. Yeah. I mean, that's not what it

is. I mean, I remember one year, one year I decided to buy.

You know, my parents were up in age. I decided to buy them a package

to get a will done. Yeah. And it was the same

year my mother decided to buy my father a cemetery plot.

My dad said to me, I don't want this. You guys are trying to kill

me. Right. And I said to

him, dad, I'm just, you know, you're not going to live forever. I want this

to be easy on the family. Yeah. And he

said, what do I care? I won't be here.

I love it.

And even when we did get a will done, a decade later, it. The

whole thing was still a mess, which my kids remind me of

all the time anyway. But the point of it is

being an expert at what you do is a given. Yes.

It is not the thing that's going to make people

seek you out. Yeah. That's the

solution. You have to get them to identify with what the problem

is. Yeah. And that's where authority comes in,

where these two things happen. And I do it through keynotes and podcasts. And I'll

show you why I do it that way, because I think they're really two good

modalities. But you're right, there's a lot of experts out there.

But if you can't explain yourself, if you can't get out

there, if you can't hit all of those pain points, it doesn't

matter. It absolutely doesn't matter. You're going to be part

of the noise that everyone hears. Because we're so inundated by noise at

this point that unless you say, unless it's.

That's the person I need to go to for this. That's the person I need

to, you know, Yvonne's the person I need to go to if I need to

get my business in order. You know, instead of saying I need a business

specialist, it's like, no, you need Yvonne.

Thank you. I agree. You're welcome. You're welcome. Yeah. So authority comes

in those two things out because

it's so easy to gloss over and they're so fundamental.

I mean, you're not, you're going to be building your, your business on sand.

Yeah. Communicate. And if you can't establish, you know, the pain

points and, and believe me, when people said this to me in marketing,

it's like, what are they? You know,

so, so, but it is important and, and I have to tell you,

maybe I shouldn't tell you, but probably. What, what? One of the prompts

that I use in chat GPT is

what, what group of 5 people need this

product but don't know they need it yet. Yeah.

Yep. And then I say, why?

Yeah, right, absolutely. And, and I already told

you that, you know, the, the thing that I, the, the thing that I had

to overcome was people don't think they have a unique power. And I finally changed

the title of my workshop to, you know, attracting your right client,

unlocking the unique power you already have. So it's, I'm

not selling you a magic pill to get a unique power, I'm just telling you

how to use it. Yeah, exactly. All right.

I didn't mean to cut you off, but I wanted, I think that that's really

important and

I wanted to make sure that people

heard that. Yeah. Because I think that's something we. Authority

is a, is brand new buzzword right now. I think it's been around a bit,

but it's a newer buzzword but people don't really understand what it is. And you

know, creating my marketing, it took me a bit to get used to. Okay, how

I know this is needed. I have built two companies with this, this techniques.

They work really well. How do I get to the point where I,

to others. So we all go through it. It's, it's something that, you know, I

like to say. I'm not just the, I'm not just, you know, the authority guy.

I'm also a client. I use what I, I use what I preach.

I use what I preach. Yeah. But I want to go into kind of. Because

podcasts are the other huge thing right now too. And I want to go into

how the, the keynotes and podcasts can be used and I want to explain the

difference. So when you're at like a keynote. When I say keynote, I mean keynote

like motivational or keynote, like I say sales presentation because mine are more

story based. They're, they're

annoying. High hype. Go to the back of the room and sign up right now.

Go do this. You need to get this or else blank is going to happen.

No, no, I don't do that. I do much, you know, I do more of

the. We were talking about relationship building. I'd rather have people build a relationship.

I'd rather build a relationship with and build a tribe around my company.

So the keynotes are one way to do that. That's basically, let me tell you

this information in a way that you can digest in 30 minutes is

they might be longer, but 30 minutes, podcasts are more

conversational, where I can get to know that person on a different level

just by this conversation. The way that I speak is on stage is

slightly different than the way that I'm speaking in a podcast because here

we're having a conversation. You get to fly on a wall to listen to somebody.

And there's also authority by proximity. Bringing people onto the

podcast automatically gives you authority because now you're talking to people

that are smarter and you're doing it as an equal. And if you structure these

podcasts correctly, it makes it, it's a very powerful force.

So use both in combination. Now, the keynote helps people understand

what you do. The podcast helps them get to know you. People buy from

people they know, like, and trust, right? Yeah. And so that's why I

decided on these two modalities. And I love doing them. I mean, they're fun. I'll

be, I'll talk all day. I come from a line of speakers. I come from

a line of preachers. It's even better.

I think the other thing is if you, if you take this back to kind

of, you know, how do you learn? Right. All right. So if you go

back, it used to do something like seven touches, then it was 12 touches. Now

it's like 40 touches or something on four different platforms. I mean,

this whole convoluted thing. The bottom line is people need to see you.

And if you're on a podcast that, you know, got the video that you're putting

on YouTube or you're speaking, people get to

see you. They get to hear you, they get to experience you, which I know

is not one of the three learning modes, but. But there's a

difference between telling a story in print, you know, with

a joke or something. Yeah. Seeing me laugh at my own

jokes like a hyena. Right. I mean, you know, you

go, like, you probably go, if she could build a business,

I build a business.

But. But there's a difference. I mean, that's why when, you know, when I

do my Sunday scoop, where I list all these things that are coming up, if

I've got room, I will put your podcast episode in

there so people can get to know you more before, like, they

might be. I'm kind of interested. I don't know who this person is.

You know, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I think, you know,

a podcast is a way to, you know, we were talking about

dating before. Jump it in the sack. A podcast is a

way to do that. You know, you have a connection call. You know, you maybe

do a podcast. You decide if you want to do something else.

I decided that I'm going to do some mini summits three times a year and

only invite people who are on my podcast to speak at my summit

as a way to grow that connection. Right.

It is. You know, it's people you want to have affiliate and promote you with.

And I absolutely agree with you about proximity. I just

did a post on that, I think, about two weeks ago that, you know,

it's. It's so funny because I was in the room, you know, you

asked me how I got into coaching. I was in the room with somebody that

I went to see, like, at the Coaching Federation, who was well known, who had

been on Oprah and stuff. And I was on a call with

her the other day.

Yep. And it was like, I said to her,

you know, I was embarrassingly

excited. You know, I believe the term you're looking for is fangirl.

I didn't say that. But true. I've done

it, too. She did an exercise in that

meeting. Y' all basically flunked. Right. And

said, I need to give a different talk than I was supposed to give and

pivot it right on the spot to the needs of the room. And I have

used that exercise with my clients for decades now.

And so when I met her, I said I wanted to let you know I

stole your stuff, you know, and she was like, good, I'm glad you

could use it, you know. All right. So much for me. All

right, before we run out of. So before we

run out of time, two things sure. Is, is there anything

else that we definitely should know, but we definitely need to know about the. The

freebie. Yep. So I want to give away an authority guide. So

what I actually want to do. So, Yvonne, I just changed my mind last night

because that's how I ro. I. I have a course that will actually walk you

through how to build that authority Building keynote and

podcast. It gives you the structure behind it and how to do it. You can

DIY it to. To for yourself. I'm going to give that to your listeners.

It's normally 50 bucks to do it. I'll give it to you guys. So I'll

make sure you get. You get a special link that they can get access to

it right away. All right. And then, yep, hearing this,

because speaking is the most powerful way it's.

You can get a keynote or get on a podcast is

the best thing you can do for yourself. Yeah. And one of the hardest things

about entrepreneurs, we were talking about this earlier, is structuring our

thoughts. That's. That's why, like, I have a done for you service, because

the people that come to me, some of them are very experienced speakers. I had

one client, he's like, I'm going to be on stage with Grant Cardone at 10x

in two weeks. I need a hand. He just needed somebody to help with the

structure and to fill in the blanks. And so this technique works, whether you're brand

new or an experienced speaker, it can help you to get that. That structure.

Structure. So I'd like to give that away to you guys, and it'll show you

how to get a po. How to not just start a podcast, but

to do it strategically. And so it's based on, you know, how

I've done really well and how I've screwed it up, too. It's both directions.

I've learned a lot from podcasts and how they work. So I'm going to give

that one to you guys. So that'll be the free giveaway. So much. That

is, you know, that is so generous of you. I really appreciate that. And I

know that my audience can use this. So

we're going to communicate, we're going to do something else and

we're going to do a podcast for a keynote speech. There you go. So you

get to a keynote. So you have a structure for a keynote, and then you'll

have a podcast. Actionable items on how to build a podcast.

So that way you can at least see. Here's what I need to do. Yes.

Yes, Jess. All right, so here we go.

The last time you did something new for the first time. Well, this

weekend. So messaging is. We've

talked a lot about messaging and making sure that people understand what you're talking about.

And I'm always tweaking, kind of. I do social media once a week. I do

one day go through, map everything out, and then I give it off to my

social media guy and he does his special magic with it. But what I do

is I want to see how. What messaging is. And so I came across this.

This Facebook ad the other day. There was somebody that was doing something very

similar to me. And So I use ChatGPT. I used

their deep research, gave it this relatively big prompt going.

I want you to do a SWOT analysis for me. I want you to see

kind of what this person's doing, what the offer is. Go out, see other people

that are doing it. First time I'd use chat GBT like this on a. On

a big level. It came back with, like eight pages of really awesome data

and was able to kind of tweak my. My messaging for this

week. So first time, I'd actually done a massive deep dive and had it do

a SWOT analysis for me. Well, I'll tell you, the thing

that I did wasn't. It wasn't the first time,

but kind of like yours was. Somebody just introduced me to the

strength finders from Gallup. Okay. Yeah.

I've taken a lot of assessments, so I'm sure somebody else told me about it.

And I just blew it off. And then I took my top

five strengths, put it in the chat GPT with my marketing stuff,

and said, does my marketing stuff reflect my strengths?

And it came back with such great feedback.

Yeah. Anyway, all right,

I don't want to end this, so

the first thing is I gotta do the ad.

So first step, I want you to subscribe, I want you to share. I want

you to engage with the podcast on social media, because the reason

I do this is this is my way of giving back to the community.

I want you to be exposed to as many people as you possibly can

and supercharge your business through connection. And I hope

that you will take advantage of all the free gifts that people have gotten

given and the time that they put in to help you with this.

So I hope that you'll join me on the one small change again and let's

continue this journey of small shifts that can, you

know, yield monumental transformation. And if you haven't listened to the

first episode or you haven't listened to. I'm starting to do quotes

quarterly rants because I get tired of not being able to

talk.

There's a new one that'll be coming out at the end of the. The second

quarter, but the first, the first quarter one is there, so you should check on

that. Andrew, I can't say it enough

how much I have enjoyed talking to you, how much fun I have had

in the short amount of time that I've known you. It has been

massive. So do you have any last words of wisdom

that people can take away with them? Yes. So I would say the.

The last bit is when you're giving a sales presentation, this

is a personal mission of mine. Don't over.

Don't flood people. I call it visual junk food. Bullet points are

not good. I know you're trying to give value. Don't put a bunch of data

on it. When you're, when you're giving a sales presentation, make

or whatever presentation it happens to be, make sure that you are clear,

crystal clear on what you're trying to. To give to people. But you're also

make it so that you don't. My grandfather had a saying, I just asked for

a glass of water. You don't have to turn the hose on me. Less is

better on them. So please, visual junk food, don't do it. It feels

good. It'll make us feel full, but there's no nutritional value to it. What I

will do is I did this with a client recently. They had a ton of

bullet points. I put it down to two bullet points, highlighted some

keywords, and it said exactly the same thing, less is more.

And focus on what you're saying, both in your podcast and your keynote

structure is key. Focus on what you're saying. Focus on. Is it

translating to your audience? What is your purpose behind it? What

is your end goal? And go from there. So your end goal is not to

be fixed, but to be found. There you go. I love it. I love it.

All right, guys, we have had a great time, but

change is simple, but it's not always easy. And it takes courage,

resilience, and a willingness to step out of your comfort, comfort zone. So sometimes

you're going to get embarrassed, but it is so worth it. We'll continue

to join me on the one small change so we can see what kind of

bold vision and innovative possibilities are out there.

And until the next time.

Awesome. Stay curious.