Valerie Khoo
Valerie Khoo is National Director of the Australian Writersâ Centre, the countryâs leading centre for writing courses. With campuses in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Online, the centre has helped more than 17,000 students to get published, change careers, or write with confidence. Valerie is also an adviser and investor in start-ups. Her blog has consistently been named as one of the Top 20 Business Blogs in Australia.
Highlights of our conversation:
Transcript
Heather: Hello, today Iâm speaking with Valerie Khoo, the National Director of the Australian Writerâs Centre. Hello Valerie, welcome to our show today.
Valerie : Itâs great to be here Heather.
Heather: Thank you so much for sharing your time with us today. Really appreciate it, Iâm really excited about talking with you today and I know from listening to you speak in so many other capacities that our listeners will really appreciate what you have to share with them today.
Valerie: Well I hope I can share a few insights that people can learn from.
Heather: Sensational, thatâs exactly what we want to hear. So Valerie you run the Australian Writerâs Centre which is something that Iâve sort of been involved in on the side. Youâve currently got campuses in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and online and youâve helped more than 17,000 students which is amazing.
Can you give us an outline how your business operates and sort of what sort of courses it offers?
Valerie: Sure. As you mentioned we are the Australian Writerâs Centre. We actually just started off in Sydney but then we grew over time. Our first foray into another state was the centre in Melbourne thatâs going really well. And then earlier this year we opened in Perth. We have another one in the wings Iâve just been checking out venues for that but thatâs yet to be announced.
Heather: Anywhere close to me?
Valerie: Itâs not official yet, I canât say anything. Youâll have to stay tuned.
Heather: I hope it is.
Valerie: But we also have a very, very active and large online campus so to speak. About 40-45% of our students study online from all over Australia and the world. What we do is we offer writing courses and they are designed to help people; adults improve their writing, or get published, or change careers or write with just more confidence.
So they are in all different genres of writing and the beauty about our course is theyâre pretty short. So you can just do a tester, you can do five weeks, or you can do a weekend course that sort of thing. The good thing is if you decide that you like it you can build on it. You can do the next course, and you can do the next course and theyâre all relatively short so that itâs all in manageable bite size chunks.
We find that, as with most people these daysâ time is a scarce commodity so we want to make sure that itâs something that people can do and commit to.
Heather: Thatâs interesting; I hadnât realised they were around as being short courses that you have like this first course, then second course. Youâre completely right. People get overwhelmed if itâs too much involved. I know that while they are short courses Iâve done two of them now. Theyâre packed with lots of insight and information.
Valerie: Yeah thatâs one thing Iâm really committed to because Iâm a course junkie from way back and Iâve done many, many courses. Iâm never without doing a course and one of the things I donâtâ like about some courses is when they treat you like a dummy or treat you like an idiot. They think youâre not capable of learning more and I do believe people are capable of learning more. I do believe that people want to learn more and have a thirst of that knowledge.
So I make sure that we do have a lot of information and really interesting things in our courses.
Heather: Absolutely, thatâs sensational. I completely agree with that. People are really into content specific courses these days and it probably leads to a whole other conversation of whether people need to go out and do further education. Whether they should just tailor their life around content specific short courses like the ones you offer.
Why did you actually start your business?
Valerie: Well I started it because I was at a period in my life when I was thinking to myself I really want to do something different and I really want to make a difference in peopleâs lives. But I also needed to eat and pay the mortgage. I thought to myself well what am I passionate about? And as clichĂ©d as this may sound it is the honest to God truth, what I love doing, what gets me excited is when I help people realise their potential. Or help people realize the steps that they can take to get what they really want in life or achieve what they really want as a goal. So I know that sounds little bit ra-ra.
Heather: No it doesnât, Iâve seen you in action so Iâm not going to disagree with that because I know that you do that and I know that youâre very good actually pinpointing people. Iâm not speaking about myself but Iâve seen you in action pinpointing people and just extracting what bringing the cream to the top and saying go for it.
Valerie: I just love doing it and I love to see them go on that journey and nothing makes me happier. I thought well okay could I do? I didnât want to be a life coach really or didnât want to be a business coach. But I did have the technical skill; I was very experienced with writing, success as a writer. I thought well while I may not be able to help somebody climb Mount Everest because I would have no idea or win at Master Chef because you know I canât cook. I could certainly help them with their writing goals.
Thatâs where it started. Whatâs interesting though is even though thatâs where it started and I thought okay I can help people achieve their writing dreams because I can teach them that technical skill and I can provide courses that can equip them with the right skills, it actually spilled over a lot. Because even though it starts off as writing, some people discover writing and it actually changes their life because they can suddenly have a lifestyle that they wanted, or they can actually can earn more money than they thought than they would as a stay at home mom perhaps.
They get more confidence in doing something that theyâve always wanted to do. Itâs just been the most rewarding experience so thatâs where it started, me kind of trying to marry my passion with the technical skill if you know what I mean.
Heather: How long did it take you to formulate your passion?
Valerie: I think my passion has been with me for a long time. I kind of even remember I think Iâve just always felt this way because even my friends will tell you that Iâm slightly annoying in that Iâm the one when you catch up for drinks, or dinner or whatever Iâm the one that says, âOf course you can do it.â Just do this, do this, do this- you know what I mean.
So Iâm a little bit of a- they probably think Iâm a little bit of a nagger even though I think Iâm a cheer squad. So itâs something that Iâve always done for as long as I can remember. But it took me just a little while to articulate it and figure it out when I was thinking what I wanted to do for my business or my career.
Heather: Itâs interesting that isnât it? When you actually need to do it to monetise it, itâs like whatâs my passion? It can take people a second to think about it.
Valerie: Yeah, I didnât really know. I didnât sort of identify it until I thought well what really fuels me and I sat down and made myself think about that and I realized thatâs what I do to all my friends is what I love because I care about them and I want to see them succeed. It expanded from there.
Heather: Excellent. So can I ask you, what platform are the business online courses built on?
Valerie: Lots of different parts.
Heather: I grammatically phrased that really badly.
Valerie: We understood you so thatâs okay. Lots of different ones but the main one that the online course specifically is built on is an application called Open Learning which is a fantastic company in Sydney. Iâm fortunate enough to also be one of their advisors because I really believe in their product.
Basically itâs an online learning platform so like a learning management system which is designed to obviously deliver online courses but design for the students to have a great user experience that is similar to sort of Facebook. In the sense because so many people are used to that these days so then you can reply to each other, you can like each otherâs comments, you can dip into different areas. Just like in Facebook you dip into different pages, or groups, or whatever. Yeah itâs called Open Learning.
Heather: Okay, thank you for sharing that with us. How long does it take you to go through the development of a course? Sort of what process do you go through?
Valerie: You mean from scratch?
Heather: I guess so, from the formulation or conception of a course.
Valerie: Forever.
Heather: Forever, okay.
Valerie: It takes a really long time to be honest. Because typically we start our courses in a classroom setting, in real life, in most cases. Because that is where you figure out what works and what doesnât, you know what I mean. You get immediate reactions to certain things and you can see all the pennies drop, or you can see blank faces.
Typically we start off in a classroom experience and once we know that weâve nailed it, and then we know that we can turn this into an online course. And that takes way more time than you think; itâs a lot of work.
Heather: I think it takes a long time in that Iâve tried to develop my own and itâs like, itâs life sapping. Wow.
Valerie: It takes a really long time because you need to make sure that every I is dotted and every T is crossed because you just never know when someoneâs listening. They could be listening on the bus, or in front of the computer, or doing the laundry or whatever in the car. Youâve got to make sure that the information is conveyed not in a lecture style but almost in a conversational story telling style so that itâs easily absorbed and remembered.
It takes quite a while to change information into something thatâs digestible like that because unlike a classroom course you can see peopleâs reactions on their faces. They can ask you a question immediately and you can fill in that particular gap. You have to think of every gap at first before you do an online course so that all those gaps are already filled and that any possible question is answered.
Of course people may still have their own other questions and certainly in our course they have the opportunity to ask them but in the first instance you need to make sure that as much as possible is covered. And so itâs not only the creation and the structure, and the design of the course, itâs then also the creation of the actual course materials. The MP3s, the handouts, the online delivery all that kind of stuff. So yeah a long time.
Heather: Itâs interesting to hear you say that because you didnât have a teacherâs background did you?
Valerie: But I lectured at Sydney University at both within the faculty of Economics but also I did for years I was a teacher at the Centre for Continuing Education at Sydney University.
Heather: That gives you an understanding of the course development from a teacherâs perspective. Because I always kind of wondered whether you had teachers in there just guiding on that structure of things rather than coming along as the expert and applying it.
Valerie: I had that background for oh gosh, I was lecture at Sydney Uni more than 20 years ago.
Heather: So whatâs the most popular course that you offer these days?
Valerie: I would say that creative writing is currently very popular. They all go in peaks and troughs of course depending on whatâs fashionable at the time. Creative writing is very popular and is a perennially popular one because it is a great first step for people who think they might be interested in writing. Theyâre not sure but they love reading or they kind of, in the back of their mind think that they love to write a novel one day. They just love telling stories.
Thatâs a good one because then people get a taste for what itâs like in a slightly more structured environment so then they kind of see yeah that structure actually helps my writing. And I might be taking the next step.
Heather: Itâs interesting seeing people because Iâm in one of your community groups and seeing people, how they kind of need to be prodded along by people. My goal posts and settings, and people are encouraged and motivated by other people pushing them along or other people doing what theyâre doing. That is interesting.
Valerie: Definitely, itâs inspiring to see.
Heather: Itâs very inspiring. The Writerâs Centre has had so much success which has been so impressive for what youâve done. I understand you use a product called Infusionsoft, do you still use that product?
Valerie: I do.
Heather: Okay, so Infusionsoft for those who are listening is a sales and marketing automation software for small business that combines CRM, email marketing and ecommerce. That was a pre-prepared question because I thought Iâll go on the website and make sure I get everything that it does.
Can you give listeners a bit of an insight about this Infusionsoft product and how youâre using it, and what itâs done for your business?
Valerie: So basically as you mentioned Infusionsoft is a cloud based application that uses a combination of a CRM but also has an email marketing function. It has kind of like ten bazillion features of which Iâm using maybe five, not quite.
We are using quite a few of the features but there are many more that suit different types of industries and businesses which just wouldnât be relevant for my particular business. So we have only been using that since around January 2014. I had actually explored it a few years ago and when I was exploring similar applications to decide which one to use and I decided against it at the time.
I wasnât impressed with it at the time to be honest. But over the last sort of year or prior to moving to it, quite a few people who I respect said that they had started using it and that they were finding it good. I thought it was time to give it a second look and so I did a lot of research again and decided to give it a second look. And I ended up deciding to give it a second go.
Itâs worked out well so far, Iâm glad we made the decision to move to it. We were on a different application before that and so what it does is that it powers back end if you know what I mean. That means the back end when you book into a course, or so in terms of communication to students and perspective students thatâs done by Infusionsoft.
In some cases you may fill in some web forms and thatâs done by Infusionsoft. The delivery of the courses is not done by Infusionsoft as I mentioned thatâs done through Open Learning. But essentially it powers our back end. The booking system, and the communication system, and the database system.
Heather: No, it sounds very impressive. It seems to sound like you have to set up a huge number of email templates. People have told me about it sort of responsive to everyoneâs reaction to different ways to the way that they react and what theyâre interested in.
Valerie: You can make it really complex where you have a bazillion email templates because you may have really complex sort of decision trees. If someone clicks on this then they get this email, if they do not click on this than they get this email. If they do not click on this after five days then they get an email.
But we havenât actually gone to that level of complexity. As is its simpler than that. At this stage, however there is potential for you to create really complex journeys if you want to.
Heather: Yeah absolutely. One of the things thatâs always impressed me about you is I know how thorough you are about researching something. Youâre actually using something I know a huge amount of researchers got into that product.
Valerie: Yes.
Heather: And it does seem to be that more businesses in Australia are exploring that product and seeing good results. As with anything it needs to be properly implemented so Iâm sure that took you a bit of time and there are a few experts out there who do the implementation. Because you did a course didnât you or something like that, or training sessions with them.
Valerie: I think I was really lucky in the sense that typically what I found, Iâve meet many Infusionsoft users now and typically what I have found is that a huge number of them like almost all of them who arenât Infusionsoft consultants. Almost all of the non-consultants, just like normal businesses say yeah I had it for six months or a year and I only did one campaign. Then I finally decided to get into it and oh my God it blew my mind and I realized I could have been saving so much time over the last year.
So people seem to get it because they realize itâs a good idea but they seem to step very slowly into it because it can seem kind of overwhelming and daunting. However we were in this unique situation where we decided itâs going to start in January. And our quietest time of year is the period between Christmas and New Year.
Heather: Really thatâs surprising.
Valerie: For obvious reasons you know. Everyoneâs just on holidays in Christmas and New Year.
Heather: And not being creative.
Valerie: They start on January 1 their New Yearâs resolutions but Christmas and New Year theyâre busy eating, drinking. We had no choice but to create the entire business of Infusionsoft between Christmas and New Year.
Heather: Of course no choice whatsoever, yes.
Valerie: I had no Christmas break. Every working hour I was creating Infusionsoft campaigns. I was kind of lucky in the sense that I went bang straight into it, very in depth and therefore got to learn it very quickly. I didnât do that stepped approach so I got to understand what its capabilities in a very short concentrated space of time.
Yeah it was an interesting period.
Heather: Itâs interesting to hear you like youâre a national director of a big organisation with numerous employees and you actually say I went in, I got into the detail, I know how to do it. So itâs always one of those things I like I always wonder in business, I get very into the detail. Iâm like maybe I should be pulling back from the detail. Itâs interesting to hear you say that you really got into the detail of it.
Valerie: Probably thatâs because I have a curiosity.
Heather: Yeah.
Valerie: Probably because I just am a little bit geeky and I kind of want to know stuff. Once I know a certain level and once I know I have the staff member who knows way more than me about this, I step back and I let it go.
But you know it was new to every staff member at that time so we were all starting at ground zero. We all had to learn it.
Heather: They all like spending their Christmas with you, hulking down on working with Infusionsoft.
Valerie: Not quite. We didnât to make the Christmas and New Year but as soon as one or I think two January we were straight into it. But you were referring to a course I didnât actually go to a course. I went to a conference run by Infusionsoft in Phoenix, Arizona which interestingly wasnât all about the platform itself.
Only about 30% of the sessions were platform specific, the rest was about marketing and growing a business.
Heather: Interesting, thatâs interesting that they do that. Cool.
Okay Iâm sure some of our listeners will find that product interesting if theyâre not already using it. Go off and explore that.
In your business youâve mentioned that you have a tendency to be a bit geeky and curious. What other online tools do you use in your business that you think your listeners might benefit from?
Valerie: Cloud File storage changed my life. So itâs really normal now but Iâve been using it for years and years. The fact that I can be on any device in any city, well any of my devices. Because I spend a lot of time in between Sydney and Melbourne and here I have an office in Sydney but I have a home in Sydney. And then I have an office in Melbourne and a home in Melbourne.
Thereâs already four places that I got devices that I spend time to work. I needed from years ago I wanted something to liberate me from the desk, from the single computer and so the first thing I discovered which I still love is SugarSync which is cloud file syncing application.
Of course similar things can be done with Google Drive, and Dropbox, and Cubby and I use all of them actually for different reasons. For me I love SugarSync the best. But because they all have slightly different limitations and parameters, Sugar Sync it doesnât do everything. It doesnât work with a server whereas Cubby works with a server and Google Drive works with server.
Dropbox is a little bit annoying because you have to put everything in the Dropbox. So yeah. I think that cloud file sharing services just liberates you so that you can actually work from anywhere with internet.
Heather: Absolutely, they are amazing. Amazing tools.
When you have SugarSync can you just go and like search and it will just pull up the document youâre searching for?
Valerie: You have it locally on your computer thatâs the bit that I love as well. Even if you do it and you change it locally on your Macbook, on your laptop it will sync to the cloud and this cloud will then sync to every other device where itâs also stored locally.
You can just base it in the cloud if you want but I like having my files locally on whatever Iâm working on.
Heather: Yeah absolutely. I think itâs also quicker if you do that. Just push it to the cloud but if youâre using it, if you can pull it back down and work on it, and then push it back up into the cloud.
Valerie: Definitely.
Heather: I think it all comes down to sometimes the speed of the internet connection. I know sometimes we see you frustrated by your internet connection in certain areas of Australia.
Valerie: Yes.
Heather: So having that versatility is beneficial. Do you use cloud accounting?
Valerie: Thatâs definitely been a game changer to have cloud accounting. I remember the days when I just had to go to this particular computer in the office. I could only use that computer because thatâs where the accounting license was on. Therefore I had to drive in at specific times to do it whereas with cloud accounting you can do it anywhere, from wherever you want and itâs so easy to transfer the files, or to look it up from a whole other country. I love that.
The other one itâs not about business but I love it to pieces which is sort of cloud based is two things the Foxtel TV guide, I love it to pieces because I can be in Las Vegas and go oh my god I got to tape The Good Wife or whatever. I can be in my hotel room in Las Vegas because Iâve got two Foxtel boxes. I can choose which room even to tape it.
Heather: Really. So you set it up and you can set it up to record and you come home and youâve got all your recording sitting there.
Valerie; I love the Foxtel app.
Heather: Well thatâs cool and is it like on your iPhone?
Valerie: Your iPhone or your iPad. You can be having a conversation with somebody. Oh have you seen that documentary about whatever and you can search for it on the Foxtel app. And when you find it you can just tape it and choose to tape it in my bedroom, or in lounge room.
Heather: Excellent. Thatâs a great share, Iâm sure people can record some business shows on their using that as well.
Many of our listeners probably come from a business background so what course does the Australian Writerâs Centre offer that you recommend to a business person interested in writing?
Valerie: it depends on what they want to write. But typically most business owners I find are keen to do a couple of things. Potentially write a blog in order to build their profile but also to write for the industry publications, or even consumer publications to build their profile.
One course that I think is useful is the course Magazine and Newspaper writing because even if you donât necessarily want to write for a newspaper, what it teaches you is a great structure for any article that can translate to a blog post but is ideal for writing articles for magazines. Thatâs a great way to build your profile when you have a column or a regular article placement in your industry magazine.
One of the things it also teaches you is when you understand how journalists want to write the magazine article and if youâre on the other side of the fence like youâre being interviewed you can also help them with the kind of content thatâs going to make the magazine article sound good if you know what I mean.
Heather: Absolutely. Thatâs actually been an interesting phenomena that Iâve been realising lately in that I did one of those courses and got a lot of blog posts out there and they donât take a long time to write it but then you see a journalist looking for a source to talk about X, Y, Zed and you know what the key things are to tell them, to entice them to use you. And then youâre like well I didnât have to write the article, I got an article in Sydney Morning Herald and Iâm quoted as the expert and it took maybe ten minutes work.
Valerie: Thatâs right.
Heather: You do learn that structure from these are the key thing that I should be highlighting and this is a way to phrase a sentence, etcetera. Whereas sometimes you speak to people and they donât get to that point quickly.
Valerie: Yeah exactly right.
Heather: Thatâs really good. Now one of the questions I wanted to ask of you was, you had been involved with a lot of podcasts and I know you currently, whatâs the name of it. Youâre doing a writerâs podcast with Alison.
Valerie: Yeah itâs called So You Want to be a Writer and itâs with Alison Tate.
Heather: Yes, and it was recently featured on the best new podcasts or new featured podcasts on iTunes is that correct.
Valerie: Yeah new and noteworthy.
Heather: New and noteworthy podcast thatâs very good. So what suggestions do you have for me since starting up a new podcast.
Valerie: Do something that youâre passionate about. Clearly your passion is about various concepts to do with cloud, and productivity that can be enhanced as a result of cloud which I think is a wonderful niche. I think cloud is a game changer. People often think cloud and they just think cloud accounting but there are so many applications that are really useful in the cloud.
I probably use even another 20 but theyâre such a normal part of my life I donât even think, Iâm going to use the cloud you know what I mean.
Heather: I think thatâs right. People turn to me and go, well how do you manage to get so much done? Itâs like well I just sort of activate this, and I activate that and itâs all done. But yeah it does make life easier, itâs quite funny. I did a productivity session in a meeting business group the other day and the outcome of the productivity session was sharing calendars with your children to get them to do the work as well.
But yeah it was kind of interesting how you do adopt a lot of them without even thinking about it.
Valerie: Yeah absolutely.
Heather: So youâve told us the future for Australian Writerâs Centre, youâre perhaps looking at having another location here in Australia. IS there anything else in the future for the Australian Writers Centre?
Valerie: Well we definitely will be transforming more of our business writing courses online. Because we find that thereâs a real need for people to access that information wherever they are. They canât necessarily take a day off work to come to a cause, a business writing course, because these are typically one day courses during the day in a week. And also if we can transform them into online courses which are modularised, people can do two hours each and they might be able to do two hours on Wednesday, or two hours on Friday.
They didnât have to do it in a whole chunk of time. Thatâs definitely one of the next things on our agenda. Quite a few people have asked for various courses to be transformed online and weâre definitely looking into that. As I mentioned itâs a very long and involved process. We just need to decide in which order weâre going to deliver them.
Heather: Yeah absolutely. So Valerie one last question for you. What advice would you have for your 17 year old self?
Valerie: Oh my goodness what a good question. Okay thatâs quite a hard one. My 17 year old self, I would say- thatâs a really tough one.
I would say that if it was specifically to me I would say that, see I was very lucky in that even at 17 I truly believed that anything was possible. But what I didnât know was that sometimes in life things, circumstances, people will disappoint you. Will let you down.
Thatâs okay. Donât let it in the way of you or donât let it get you down even if they let you down. Just accept that thatâs part of life. It may not have been personal, or anything like that. Itâs just going to happen throughout life. But donât even sort of try and view it as a letdown just kind of go okay, and move on. Donât take it to heart.
I donât want to end on a negative thing though.
Heather: Because I asked that question because I have a 17 year old child myself and so Iâm asking that question of everyone sort of thinking that heâs going out into the world. Itâs kind of what does he need to know or how is he going to quickly get to where he needs to get to. I know youâre a CPA, would you have still gone down that route?
Valerie: What do you mean would I have still gone down-
Heather: Because you went and did accounting initially didnât you?
Valerie: Yeah, no I still would have taken the route that Iâve taken now. Because I always fundamentally believed in doing what you love. I just happen to love writing more. I would have definitely gone down this path anyway because it was just what was going to be nagging at me. Like I would have always felt that thing inside me, that itch that I had to scratch and I knew I had to go down this path in a sense.
But if I had to I would just have sort of changed it around a bit. If I had to give advice to your 17 year old son as opposed to my 17 year old self I would probably say A, anything truly is possible if you put your mind to it. B, just wanting it isnât enough though. You need to work out the steps you need to take to get there. Itâs not going to be handed to you on a platter but it is in your reach and once you work out the steps you need to take to get there, you just need to take them.
Itâs as simple as that and once you take them if youâre serious about it, you will get whatever it is that you want in life.
Heather: Absolutely. On that very positive note thank you so much Valerie for sharing your time with listeners today. I know that youâve always been such an inspiration to me and Iâve benefitted so much from the number of courses that I have done through the Australia Writerâs Centre.
I look forward to more success from you and with the Australian Writers Centre growing and taking over the world, improving English one course at a time. Thank you very much.
Valerie: Itâs been my pleasure. Iâve thoroughly enjoyed talking to you Heather.
Heather: Sensational.
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