Accounting Apps Podcast

Time Tracking ⏱️, Inbox Zero, Internal Collaboration Tools | Jared Armstrong

Highlights of my conversation with Jared Armstrong Internal collaboration tools Inbox Zero Providing a product that presents exactly the features, exactly the complexity that is needed for the specific business that is using it Mentions MinuteDock https://minutedock.com/ Xero https://www.xero.com Google Docs https://docs.google.com Gmail https://mail.google.com/ Google Drive https://drive.google.com/ Raygun https://raygun.io/features Letterboxd http://letterboxd.com Timely http://www.GetTimely.com Stripe https://stripe.com/ Braintree https://www.braintreepayments.com Coursera https://www.coursera.org/ Dropbox https://www.DropBox.com MinuteDock is online timesheeting software designed to be super easy and efficient for freelancers and small to medium businesses. We integrate directly with Xero to sync across your customers, and make billing your time a breeze. Tracking time is natural and fast, you can drill down into time spent by staff on clients, projects and tasks with our in-depth reporting, and you can keep track of your budgets and targets with MinuteDock’s ‘Goals’. When you’re ready to bill, send across an invoice to Xero in a matter of seconds. MinuteDock was founded in 2009 when we were sick of copying and pasting our tracked time into our accounting software! We’re a small company based in Wellington, New Zealand. We’ve had steady growth over the last five years, and have thousands of customers in countries all over the world. https://minutedock.com http://cloud-stories.com Connect with Heather Smith http://www.heathersmithsmallbusiness.com  Click here to sign up to my newsletter http://bit.ly/SignUp4Newsletter Listen to my podcast : http://cloud-stories.com/   Read my latest blog post : http://www.heathersmithsmallbusiness.com/blog/ Visit my website : www.heathersmithsmallbusiness.com  Book time with me heathersmithau.gettimely.com/book    Subscribe to XU Magazine : http://www.xumagazine.com/ Subscribe to my YouTube channel : https://www.YouTube.com/ANISEConsulting Follow me on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/HeatherSmithAU Join my FaceBook page : https://www.facebook.com/HeatherSmithAU  Connect with me on LinkedIn : http://www.linkedin.com/in/HeatherSmithAU

Running a Virtual Xero Bookkeeping 📓, Support and Training Business | Gayle Buchanan

  Highlights of my conversation with Gayle Buchanan Running a virtual Xero bookkeeping, support and training business Managing learning new solutions from the Xero eco-system Licensing a bookkeeping business Cloud solutions for Eel fishermen Essential advice for bookkeepers; networking, resources, support and conferences Using referrals and conferences to grow your business Subscribe to Episode 2 of Cloud Stories on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/cloud-stories-heather-smith/id908333807 Transcript Heather:        Hello Gayle. Gayle:             Hello Heather. Heather:        Thank you so much Gayle for being on our show this morning. I’m really looking forward to talking to you about your business and what you generally do within the cloud. From what I understand Gayle, you founded a business called Number Nurses, can you describe what your business does? Gayle:             Sure Heather, pleasure to be here by the way. The business was started very … I didn’t really know what to do so it was kind of neat to go back to what I loved which is numbers, and I’ve always helped my husband in his business. What we do is we actually go and do call outs to people which are virtual so it’s done via Skype and TeamViewer. It’s very similar to a Plunket nurse who turns up at your door when you had a new baby and you don’t know quite what to expect and you just need some help with your Xero setup and any add-ons for Xero. It’s kind of neat, we’re the Number Nurses basically, and the bridge between the business owner and the accountant which a lot of people … the service seems to be … a lot of people want that type of thing. It kind of started as a help and now it’s starting to grow into, hopefully in the next 12 months, be licensing it. Heather:        Excellent, so you’re looking at about 12 months’ time to be licensing that. Will you be licensing Number Nurses in New Zealand or beyond New Zealand? Gayle:             It will be in New Zealand initially. All the great books I’ve read have said, “Hey, make sure you get it done at home first and it works as a model in your own country first before you go overseas.” But there are a few people overseas that want to have a look at the model as well so that’s quite exciting. Heather:        That is very exciting and what I’m seeing with people working in this Xero space is that they seem to expand very quickly, once I think they’ve got all the automation in place, which is something that sort of you’ll be on top of. Gayle:             Yes. You describe yourself as a chief Number Nurse. As a Chief Number Nurse, what does your day involve? Gayle:             I have a virtual assistant which is really great and they help me with the appointments and the training. So, half of the week is spent training which are 45 minute sessions, with a wee break in between, which is kind of neat. Heather:        Within the 45 minutes? Gayle:             Within the 45 minutes … each training is 45 minutes so have a 15 minute break in between each of them just to prep you. So I guess the day kind of starts the day before. That’s all set up a week in advance so I know what I’m doing in advance. It’s really very much training and down time bookkeeping which is my other love because you kind of need to keep that skill up in order to train better. Heather:        Yes, absolutely. I completely agree with that, in that you need to actually be doing it to train it. It always worries me when people train something that they’re actually not doing. As you know I am a writer, when people write about stuff they’re actually not doing, it’s like how can you be writing about it if you don’t do it but anyway. So yes, I think that’s really important and your clients must really benefit from your knowledge there in that you know it and then you’re training on it. Gayle:             I mean constantly the space is changing. Xero and all the add-ons are updating, so you have to keep on top of absolutely everything. But be human about it because we all can’t be 100% perfect and there are areas and markets that will use different parts of Xero. So don’t be afraid to kind of find your niche and do it well in that part of Xero, and knowing the whole lot all of the time, it is a full time job. Heather:        Absolutely. That jumps ahead to another question that I was going to ask you. I’ll jump ahead and ask you while you’ve raised that. It does take a lot of time to learn a new solution, so if someone was coming to Xero and trying to learn that or they were going into the Xero eco system where we’ve now got about currently 300 add-on solutions, trying to pick up and learn one of those solutions. What advice would you have for a business consultant going, “Okay, I want to learn something in the Xero eco system,” where should they start? Gayle:             The quickest way I learned I think was I spent nine months bashing about and trying to grab anybody and everybody in any market before stepping back. So it was sort of like I didn’t get my toes wet I just jumped straight in. After that nine months of just working, it’s a bit of a slog, just stop and take a minute and think, “Which industry or which sector do I love the most?” And go there. I went to the New Zealand Stat’s Department and went through all of the industries that were there, picked out the top five that I liked and then came back and saw what add-ons in Xero were attached to those industries. That knocked another three off, so I actually brought it down to two industries in the end. It did take about six weeks to work out which one that was. Then having had previous experience with my parent’s businesses, I knew what industries not to go into. It was kind of neat. So pick what you love first, then find the add-on, and then go learn that add-on, be a partner with that add-on as you’re learning Xero as well because it is a learning curve and thinking you know everything about it within sort of a couple of weeks, you’re deadly wrong. I speak to a lot of accounting firms they train their staff with and said, “Look, until you’ve got that 20,000 transactions under your belt and you’re feeling really confident about the industry you’re in with Xero, then you can start talking about being an expert and until then just do your time.” Heather:        Absolutely, goodness I can completely agree with that as well. A lot of people seem to call themselves an expert in something and you’re like going, “Really, when did you do that? That was extremely quickly.” That’s kind of like I rarely call myself an expert in something even though I spend 100 hours learning it. I love the fact that you spent six weeks researching that to identifying your niche area and what to actually focus in on. That’s excellent advice for people. You do, there are so many out there. You think this person’s really nice and they keep ringing me up and sending me letters, I should learn that product but standing back and working on what you’re actually going to be the best fit for is going to put you in a better position to give your client’s better advice. Gayle:             That’s half the equation, the other half is applying it, and that’s a whole different story. Heather:        Yeah, absolutely. I’ll jump back so we’ve covered sort of what your business is doing. When did you start your business, Number Nurses? Gayle:             Back in 2011 actually, it was the 4th of July interestingly enough. Heather:        Lovely, 4th of July 2011. So Number Nurses is based in Drury, is that correct? Gayle:             Yup. Heather:        I had a look on the map to find it and that’s New Zealand’s north island just south of Auckland. So what’s the internet connection like for you in Drury? Gayle:             Okay, Drury, the whole area is kind of cool. I’m more at the Bombay end so we are right on the top of a hill, 330 meters above sea level. The internet line, we’re the last house on the line, so for about 45 minutes in each day it just stops because all the school kids get home. That’s cool, it’s fine after that but you can run it off a mobile and I’ve bought some broadband machinery that helps you get … Heather:        Like a booster. Gayle:             Yeah, a little wee booster and you can run off that. But to tell you the truth, the only time I’ve gone down is when the power’s gone down and there’s been a storm, so it’s pretty cool. Heather:        It’s something that when we become more reliant on the cloud we need to be aware of, and understanding that time slot that the kids all come home from school and how it affects you, definitely. I know for me, if we get heavy, heavy, heavy rains, about three days later that’s when my internet goes down. So obviously it soaks through. Gayle:             Yes, the water in the lines. Heather:        Yeah, exactly, and sort of being aware of that. For me, I kind of have alternative arrangements which I can sort out. Gayle:             Actually my family is quite happy when that happens because I actually move. Heather:        Oh, you go and visit them do you? Gayle:             Yes, I have time to go visit people. Heather:        Sensational. Gayle:             Yes. Heather:        And I guess that’s the flexibility of actually working in the cloud. I know that I do a lot of travel and being able to just travel, be somewhere else and actually working in the cloud is sensational. So the fact that your client actually has no idea that you’re not on top of that hill when you’re giving him that training, and they don’t know about that. Gayle:             It’s great. When I’m training I just go right through that and get them all hooked up and then talk about it later. They’re like, “Oh, where are you by the way?” It usually happens when there’s a chicken that walks straight past my dog in the background and they go, “There’s a chicken standing behind you. Where do you live?” It’s kind of cool. I quite like that. Heather:        It is sensational that you can live wherever you want and develop a niche/expertise and then provide that knowledge kind of worldwide. It’s sensational. You do work with a number of solutions in the Xero add-on ecosystem and I see from your profile you are partner with a few of them. What I’d appreciate is if you could share with your listeners what these solutions do. If we can start with WorkflowMax, if that’s okay? If you can let listeners know what that product does. Gayle:             Cool, WorkflowMax in my niche for builders or some creatives is that it does force them to process, and it’s the part I love about it. If you go into a business right now who are working on pen and paper or they’re working on Excel spreadsheets or tiny bits of software, WorkflowMax can pull together the operational part of your business which is really the meat in the middle, and brings all the staff in, all your tasks and chores and all your milestones, and sets it all there really simply for people to track and work through. That particular add-on is great because you can have the job and the tasks listed and it doesn’t matter if anyone’s sick. If your employees are sick or if you’re sick, you can actually hand the job over and everything is there as a checklist. So operationally very, very good and easy, forces you to processes which a lot of businesses I come across don’t do that at all, so it’s great. Heather:        And putting in the automation of the forced process actually, again, allows them to grow their business because they’ve got a basis to grow it from. Gayle:             Absolutely. Yeah, it then becomes a nice wee asset for them too, so that’s great. Heather:        Sensational, that’s very interesting. WorkflowMax, you’re using it for builders and creatives, a lot of accountant’s use it is that correct? Gayle:             Yes, they do. Same thing, it’s fabulous. In New Zealand, it attaches to the tax department which is great. You can do your GST returns through there as well and it automates straight into Xero too which is brilliant and work papers of course which the accountants need. Heather:        Sensational, okay. Thank you very much for that. Another program that you’re a partner with is Job Sheet? Can you share with our listeners what Job Sheet does?  Gayle:             Job Sheet is actually moving into a mobile app which is great. It’s putting a job card for tradies onto a piece of software that they can carry around on their phone or on their iPad which is great. Again, it also helps with process, so if you’ve got a job card that you’d give to an employee or to yourself with addresses, delivery addressers, who you bill to, all the parts; it connects to local suppliers like the likes of electrical suppliers or plumbing suppliers. It can actually do a quote on the run which is excellent for the smaller tradies or going up to about five employees. They can do their invoicing in the driveway as they leave which means they can actually go home and they don’t take their paperwork home which I find a lot of them to keep them balanced is, “Hey, stop in the driveway, finish the job off and then don’t take anything home.” I said, “Your wife will love you for it.” I guess marriage counselling comes a little bit into our software as well which is cool. Heather:        People have told me that after having something installed that they were actually on the verge of divorce and the installation has removed that layer of frustration for them. I completely hear you there as well. That’s an interesting thing. And building that, here it is, quote; don’t leave the property before you leave the property really brings in. You raised a really good point there in terms of when we go into a business and say, “Have a look at these cloud solutions,” in reality most people are bringing their own device to work. Most people have some sort of mobile phone whether it be an iPhone or a Galaxy or something like that. So it’s very easy to overlay and just say, “Here’s a solution, upload it into your phone and use it.” And for the business owner, the infrastructure is not particularly expensive because most of them already have that. Gayle:             Yes, it’s something that doesn’t sort of go far from their pocket which is kind of handy. Heather:        Yeah, absolutely. So another solution that you deal with is Receipt Bank. Can you share with our listeners what Receipt Bank does? Gayle:             Okay, Receipt Bank would be my all-time favourite to date. Every business can use it and I think what happens is … because my husband is real estate agent and then I’ve got my brother is an eel fisherman and neither one of them … I keep my receipts all squashed up. They have the ability, like everyone’s got a phone, is to take a photograph of the receipt and it goes straight to Receipt Bank where I can code it automatically and then it comes straight down into Xero with the receipt attached both up there in the cloud with both of them: one copy’s in Receipt Bank and the other copy comes down into Xero. So you’ve got two places for that which is great back up. Then it’s already processed so I don’t have to punch it, scan the receipt and get their books done for them each month. Every client I come across that has a shoebox, I will get them to buy Receipt Bank and have that as part of their suite of software. It just saves so much time. It’s a no brainer, everyone gets it. It’s like, “Nope, you’re having it.” Heather:        Yeah, absolutely. So in terms of selling it to the client, you just tell them that they’re getting it? I’ve found it difficult to push it to encourage clients to use it. Even though I think it’s a really good solution, I’ve found it really hard to sell it to clients. How do you go through that process of saying you’ve got to use it? Gayle:             Yeah, it comes as … it’s part of the package. The reason being is the first thing everyone sees is oh, I quite like the idea of my receipts coming off the Eftpos machine, they actually fade over time. I say, “Look, as an obligation, this is part of the obligations of being a director of the company in this country is that you must keep these receipts.” I say, “If you can take a flick and get a photo up there and we’ve got two copies in two places,” and unfortunately last year the tax department here agreed to hold documents outside of New Zealand so that was fantastic, that takes away that resistance to come in and have it held in the cloud which is cool. So for them I say, “Look, this is what you’re going to be doing,” and I walk it through them and get them to … I will load it on their phone for them or get someone close to them to do it for them which is normally the case. Then once I’ve done it, I show them the difference and how long it takes, with them on Skype next to me, how long it takes for me to do it for them and how long it would take if they would just take one photo. Then straightaway they look at it from now it’s an hourly rate, not the fact that it’s only $20 a month. Heather:        Absolutely. No, definitely. Gayle:             So I just say for $20 a month you can do this or you can have me for $150, which would you prefer? Heather:        Yeah, absolutely. That’s great. For someone going back and investigating what’s happened into the business, it’s so much easier just to have that receipt attached to the transaction so you can go and refer back to it rather than the time involved in searching through paperwork. Even if they have been properly filed, it is just a no brainer. Gayle:             Yes, it can be a nightmare. Heather:        Absolutely, so we encourage everyone to sign up to a solution like Receipt Bank. You said something that I’ve never heard before. I didn’t know you had such a thing as an eel fisherman. Gayle:             Yes, there is. There are many of them. Heather:        Really? Gayle:             Yeah, they are. They’re doing some investigations at the moment with a lake nearby that’s starting to turn red. It looks like a rusty colour so the eels in there are obviously starving of food. Yeah, and I mean we export, New Zealand exports around the world. Heather:        Eels? Gayle:             Mmm, smoked eels , yum-o. Heather:        So is it a full time job? Gayle:             It is and it has been for him for nearly 40 years now. Heather:        Oh my goodness, well there you go. He’s a legend. An eel fisherman using Xero. Gayle:             An eel fisherman, yes, and Receipt Bank. Heather:        I frequently watch this very late show that appears on TV here in Australia and it’s really late at night. It’s shot in New Zealand and it’s your New Zealand Police Department and the New Zealand police are catching people who are going and getting something out of the water. I think it’s like a shell, a paua shell or something like that. Gayle:             Paua. Heather:        And they’re only allowed so many kilos but then they go in and wrap it around their engines so they can sneak it. Gayle:             I know. Heather:        It’s just like the craziest thing. Gayle:             They’re naughty. They’re just naughty. Heather:        But again, I’ve never eaten one of those either. Gayle:             Well they are lovely, especially if they’re cooked properly. You just need to make sure they get cooked properly. Heather:        Oh, do you? Okay, well, promoting eels and pap … how do we say it? Gayle:             Paua. Heather:        Paua, eels and paua, very good. New Zealand delicacies. Now, on the side as well as running your business, one of the things I first discovered you on is that you actively facilitate a group on LinkedIn and the group’s name is Xero Bookkeepers (International). You actively facilitate the LinkedIn group called Xero Bookkeepers (International), what does this bring to you? How does this fit in with your business? Gayle:             In that first year or two, part of the social media part to grow not only my name and then start growing the company name, is that I have been taught that it’s always grow your name first and then start growing your company. So part of that was LinkedIn is what I consider the professional group for the social media marketing. I went, “Right, I’m going to start this group and what I’m going to do is start helping other bookkeepers that are coming in on board on Xero and let’s start sharing ideas and let’s just start bringing all the bookkeepers together.” Because it can be kind of a lonely place and getting up and going in and networking sometimes we sort of get to put your head down and get immersed inside all the numbers. I thought if we start this group it means that we can collectively get together around the world and I’m sure bookkeeping is the same everywhere. So I started invite … I just invited absolutely everybody that had Xero next to their name in LinkedIn or anyone that I ever met and brought them all together. What it did was it just helped me feel not so alone as I was building my business. I thought hold on a minute, everyone else has got to be feeling the same way I am. I wanted to give as much as I could because it had taken me nine months to just get started. I thought well if I could help people get past that nine months really quickly and help them just get to where they wanted to go, it’s just good karma. I like it. I like to give them … Heather:        Absolutely. I think that’s the place probably I first discovered you, so if you are listening to this podcast and are interested in learning more about the Xero ecosystem and you’re working as a bookkeeper or sort of the numbers assistant in the business, go and have a look on LinkedIn for the Xero Bookkeepers (International) Group. I find it an excellent resource to actually go and ask perhaps an in depth question and get some resources back. I know like … Gayle, you know that I go in there and ask a few questions when … it is isolating. You know how to generally do something but then you find something that you’re pondering over and perhaps to my discredit some of the things I sometimes work on are a few things that are bespoke in that it’s like the first time I’ve come across them. It’s like how do I resolve this? How do I get through this? I work as a freelance so there’s no one in the office to … around the water cooler to discuss that with. You kind of want to be private about it but you still want to have some good resources out there, so I really benefit, I really find working in that group, all going in and discussing in that group beneficial. As you said, I think it’s also really important to really give back to the group and to answer other people’s questions. I never really understand people who don’t go in and say, “I know the answer, call me.” Gayle:             Yes, I know. I’ve gone through it a couple of times and tried to weed out some people that aren’t contributing or sitting there and they come around personally and say, “Please, please can I stay? I just haven’t brought myself to say anything.” What I’ve found and learned about bookkeepers since I’ve been working as one is that they’re very shy. They’re incredibly shy and ... Heather:        Voyeuristic maybe. Gayle:             Amazingly talented woman and then when you give them this platform they just come alive. That’s what I like about that group. Now, there are a heap of Xero staff in there and a lot of accountants. It was all about, “Look guys, we’re the bookkeeping, you’re the accountant, we’re here to bridge the gap and help each other. This isn’t a war. That’s what we’re here for. These are our roles. Some of us cross the line and others don’t but that’s okay. We understand that but come out and just help each other.” We can’t take on … for me it was all about I can’t take on the world and help every business but I can help someone else help 100. Heather:        Absolutely. Gayle:             So there are about 800 of us in there now, so you know I’m hoping that group is helping at least 8,000 businesses grow. That’s kind of neat. Heather:        I always think it’s about helping the small business owner and if you can help the small business owner, that feeds on into their lifestyle, into their children being able to go to ballet class, into the freedom and flexibility to go down to the beach on a Monday when they want to go down rather than have to kind of stick to the 9-5 grind perhaps. That’s what I like to be able to do. So, essentially, if we can do that and give them that freedom through assisting them in that way, we’re sort of moving the whole world forward. Gayle:             Aren’t we, yes. Heather:        Superhero. So what activities do you do Gayle to grow your business? Gayle:             Mine is very much referral based. My growth is ensuring I go to Xerocon each year in Australia and in New Zealand, and then also attend the Accountant’s Republic workshops and there Republic Day which is they mentor accounting firms and ultimately … really accountants are my clients and their clients are who I train and help. Because my niche was to niche down and help accountants because they have got … most of them have got a couple hundred clients each. I did try for nine months to try and talk to those couple hundred clients but I found that they were all in different niches and I couldn’t get them to see the niches I wanted to work with which was very much that creative and the construction site, which include the tradies inside of it. So I found the accountants that had the tradies and went along and helped them. Heather:        Ah okay. So you go through the accountants, do you go and like do training at the accounting firms or do you just … they just facilitate that? Gayle:             It’s all virtual. Heather:        I should know that, sorry. Gayle:             It’s okay. But sometimes, some people want you to hold their hand, so if I’ve got accountants down the South Island and they’ve got … and I train all of the South Island clients obviously. Heather:        Yes. Gayle:             If I can get to them in the North Island when they need a hand hold, I’ll go and do that. That’s okay but they just have to understand that time does get cut down for the services we offer. Sometimes it can work out really well to move some of them forward because … I mean they’ve even got clients who want to bring their accountants to the training. I mean we haven’t heard that before? I mean that’s very cool. Heather:        No, that is very cool. It is an interesting evolution in that there’s a solution out there and we see a lot of business owners pushing to move to Xero. However, their accountant still hasn’t heard about it or they’re actually bringing the accountant along for the ride. So you’re getting this accountant ringing up saying, “What do I do now?” And saying that, rather than worry listeners out there, I have accountants who had never used Xero before and I said, “Look, I will come in and do whatever training you need so you know it.” But they picked it up and they said … picked it up really quickly. “I could see exactly what I was supposed to do and I worked through it that way so that was fine.” They didn’t feel that was        … but then I’ll get other accountants who want to learn more but on a high level they’ve found it very easy to pick up. I guess that’s a good thing to know. Now you mentioned Accountant’s Republic. What’s Accountant’s Republic? Gayle:             Accountant’s Republic is run by and owned by a woman called Viv Brownrigg. She grew her accounting firm up to over a million dollars and a global company called CCH actually bought it for its processes and systems and the library that she’d built. Now she’s a mentor to accounting firms in New Zealand and Australia. Each year there is like a Republic Day and I work closely with them because we both agree that our ultimate is to get bookkeeping out of accounting firms. I’m like going, “I’m here with all the bookkeepers. I’ll take all the bookkeeping.” It’s kind of neat. Sorry, aside thing, just going to a side issue for the moment is that because we’ve now got this national list of bookkeepers in New Zealand through the Bookkeeper’s Association and the group, LinkedIn group, it means that any leads coming in from her accountants through the country that I can’t get to, I can pass on to like a Bookkeepers. So being a part of that group has helped that network and we all share leads as such that we can’t get to. That’s what I promote is if you can’t get to them someone else can so pass it on, and that’s what Viv does. We are out there helping … I’m out there helping those accountants with the bookkeeping side and the Xero side. She’s out there actively promoting the fact that you shouldn’t be doing bookkeeping, you’re an advisor, go off and do that. It’s way too expensive for you to be training people on Xero and Receipt Bank, and any of the add-ons. It’s not your core business. Move us … outsource it and use Number Nurses. So it’s been great. We’ve worked together on that quite solidly for a couple of years now. It’s working really well. Heather:        That’s really interesting. It’s really useful to make those relationships with people that you … sort of those trusted relationships with people and grow and evolve in a sort of a complementary fashion. That sounds really interesting. So does she hold session days in New Zealand or days in New Zealand and Australia? Gayle:             Day in New Zealand and is moving … has a rather large library of workshops now which is great. Heather:        Fantastic. Excellent, I’ll put that in the show notes for listeners, a link to Accountant’s Republic. Thank you for that. Now Xerocon is … just for people who don’t know, Xerocon is the main country’s Xero conference that’s held … I think currently it’s held … there’s one in New Zealand, one in Australia, one in England and one in San Francisco or sorry, I should say America. I’m not sure if they’re held anywhere else but I know our Australian one’s coming up, is it September Gayle? Gayle:             August. Heather:        August, okay sorry. So the Australian one is coming up in August and I think the New Zealand one is in February, is that correct? Gayle:             Yes. Heather:        Okay, so if people are interested, again, I’ll put those in the show notes. Now you say that you grow your business and your customer base from attending Xerocons, so how does that work? Gayle:             Those are the accountants that I’ve met virtually. I’ll meet them, they’ll come up to Xerocon, I’ll actually encourage them to come up because of the atmosphere that the conference provides, you know, you’ve got between 800 and 1,000 people in a room over a couple of days. It’s awesome for them and their staff to come up. As they come up, I’m sort of the link between the bookkeepers there to here and introduce them to those bookkeepers and those accountants. When the accountants can actually see that there’s a bookkeeper actively promoting relationships between the firms nationally, it’s trust, you know, you build your trust there. The referrals will come a lot thicker that way than they will doing it any other way. I mean you’ve got a captive audience within a room and from day one I’ve always sat in the front row because I’m a bit of a geek because I don’t like anyone standing in front of me and blocking my view because I need to see everything. I’m so excited. It’s been great for the last few Xerocons, encouraging all the other bookkeepers to come up and sit at the front. We’re sort of the rowdy guys in the front row which is kind of cool. Heather:        And Xerocon, for people who are considering attending, it’s a huge amount of information but it’s a really positive … it’s just a positive fun atmosphere. It’s kind of like Disneyland for bookkeepers and accountants. It’s just so much fun to go there and meet so many people. So much of what we do is virtual, to actually touch base and actually meet people there and have the opportunity to have some longer in depth conversation with them is sensational. One of the things that really impressed me when I met you Gayle is you had a little nurse’s cap on. Gayle:             Yes, it is a chance to market yourself. Heather:        Branding, sensational branding. Gayle:             There’s a lot of accountants that still turn up in suits so we try to encourage them to bring weird branded t-shirts have some fun while you’re there. Heather:        Yeah, absolutely. Gayle:             You can see who’s been there two or three times. They’re the ones having the most fun I think. Heather:        Yeah, and one thing that really surprised me about Xerocon is whenever you go to conference they typically give you something. So Xerocon on the first day gave us t-shirts. I thought t-shirts, people are going to wear t-shirts so people are going to have to wear t-shirts. I remember getting up the next morning and I thought well it’s a nice t-shirt, what can I wear? So I put the t-shirt on and I’m not the kind of girl who’s actually built for a t-shirt but I put it on and it looked okay, it was actually a really nice quality, nice material t-shirt, and I put it on and I thought oh my, what if I’m the only person wearing a t-shirt. I got down there and everyone had their Xerocon t-shirt on and I was so happy. Yeah, it was very cool. I thought am I going to cope with this, am I going to cope with this? Everyone is going to see me wearing a t-shirt but no it was very exciting. I know that everyone I spoke to who it was their first one, so I’ve been to a few now, was just blown away by how exciting it was. I talk about a conference dance card, in that as well as being casual about attending the conference you really have to be structured and say, “Contact people beforehand. Either encourage them to go or say, “Hi I know you’re going. I really would like to spend some time talking with you. Can we do that?”” I know, for instance, I wanted to spend some time with you Gayle, so we actually walked to the conference … from the hotel room to the conference. Doing those things with people like jumping into a taxi with people, going to the evening events, actually don’t sit there and talk about sport, get out what you need to because this is your opportunity. So really work that conference hard. Gayle:             Yes, I mean it is very open to all of that. I just like the way that it all opens up with Rod Drury standing up in his jeans and his t-shirts and his sneakers, you know? That’s what it’s like and if anyone starts getting too corporate here, you’re fired, you know. It’s just so cool and I love that line. Heather:        Absolutely. What is very exciting, like you brought up Rod Drury who’s the CEO at Xero, is that he and so many other staff are available to talk to you. I know that I’ve been to accounting conferences of other providers in the past and trying to speak to anyone of a senior level, I was banging my head against a wall. As a writer I need to speak to … maybe not everyone needs to speak to people in that level but I need to speak to them to understand timelines, what’s coming out and what direction they’re going into. I’ve just found everyone so available and just sitting there talking to you. I know that, for instance, there was a little coffee area and Rod Drury just like sat in the coffee are and just like, “Come and talk to me if you need to talk to me.” As well as running around and doing everything that he was doing, it was like so accessible which I was really impressed about. Yeah, so that’s another good reason to come to the conference this year. You can actually touch base with so many of the staff members of Xero if you need to. Gayle:             And they’re all very real. Everyone is very real that you meet and it’s lovely. I have not come across anybody that I’ve gone and thought you were absolutely nothing like I thought you would be, you know, so it’s really neat. Heather:        Yes, I just had a funny situation in that I’ve had a virtual relationship with a gentleman I’ve done business with for about a decade. I always kind of had this impression that he was perhaps sort of a geeky, just a spotty, geeky, sitting on his backside doing spotty geeky things. He uploaded a photo of himself and he looks like Ryan Gosling. Gayle:             Oh my gawd. Heather:        I was like, “Oh wow.” Gayle:             Gorgeous. Heather:        Yeah, so it is funny that when you actually do meet someone in real life it’s very exciting. Gayle:             The other thing too is I always say to everyone, “Try and keep your LinkedIn photos as current as possible please.” Heather:        Oh absolutely. Gayle:             “So when we go to Xerocon, at least we can see what you look like.” Heather:        Yeah, absolutely. People come up and they launch into this conversation with you and you’re like, “Who are you? Who are you? Remind me who you are.” Gayle:             You’re smiling trying to look at their nametag. You don’t want to be rude or anything. It’s like “Oh okay, you had black hair in your photo and you’ve got red hair now.” Heather:        Yeah, you’re absolutely right. Update your LinkedIn photo, very important. What advice do you have for our listeners? Gayle:             I’ve got a couple of things here. Heather:        Okay, what would you like to share with our listeners Gayle? Gayle:             Okay the biggest thing I found is just remember it’s okay if people don’t like you. That’s one of the … it does break your heart when you’re with a client and they just don’t like you. Heather:        Yes. Gayle:             So just understand that they won’t and I went to a course, a Skillpath course once and the lady stood up and spoke about project managers. She said, “Just remember us. For every 60% of the people that you are going to meet in your lifetime won’t like you.” So if you work along those odds, it’s great, because you just keep going and saying, “Hello, hello, hello,” and it doesn’t matter. Six out of ten are not going to like you but it’s not because of you. So just remember that. That’s okay. Look for the 40% because they’re the cream that you want anyway. Heather:        And pass them on to someone. Just like if it doesn’t work just say, “Look, this isn’t working. We’re not communicating well for some reason. Would you like me to find someone else to work with you?” Gayle:             Absolutely. Heather:        Or just say, “Look, I think you need to maybe go have a talk with ...” I know that I have a network of people around myself who I will just pass clients on to. It’s simply boundaries, you know, they might not like the way you speak, whatever. So I completely agree with you there. Gayle:             Yeah, just find someone for them. Then always be transparent and honest. It’s easy to repeat the truth. Heather:        Yeah, absolutely. Gayle:             I mean especially in the industry we’re in now. It’s very global. If you drop in … like I’m very active on the Xero blog or in any of the groups and just out there helping as many people as I possibly can. I’m really consistent because I’m just honest and transparent. That is the part that a lot of people are going to gravitate to as well is that 40% that you want, they’re going to come and ask you. It isn’t rocket science but I find a lot of people aren’t kind of doing that. So when you start doing that then all of a sudden things just start happening for you. Heather:        Absolutely. Gayle:             Yeah, and then always make … I’ve always said to myself, “Make sure you make as many mistakes as you possibly can and laugh at yourself like you wouldn’t believe.” Heather:        Yes. Gayle:             Then get a group … what we’ve got is a group of chicks together we call the #smokinghotbookkeepers, and we just have fun. It’s okay that we’ve made a mistake. It’s great because they all come together and they say, “Oh, I’ve only done that four times this year. Oh no, I’ve done that six times this year,” and it’s good because I’ve only just done that once you know. Heather:        Yeah, absolutely. Gayle:             Laugh. It certainly helps you physically as well as mentality. Heather:        Yeah, and get that strong network around you. You did mention one thing there that I’d just like to just explore a little bit. You make yourself transparent, you’re active on social media, you actively facilitate the LinkedIn group. One of the things I’ve found with having a profile as a writer is that sometimes when people see you doing all of this they think that they can then directly come to you and seek free extended consultation with you. Gayle:             Absolutely. Heather:        You hear me? Gayle:             Yes. Heather:        So I probably never have a problem answering someone on social media about a question but when they do come … from my perspective when they do come to you for extended consultation, you’re moving into consultation, you’re moving into an area that I need to be insured for. Sort of you’re moving into an investment that you need to consider. People need to protect themselves from ... I think it’s really good to give out free and transparent advice and comment on LinkedIn areas and on social media but that’s sort of one of the … you have to have some sort of … do you agree that you have to have some sort of boundary there? Gayle:             I do and I learned that the hard way too. That was one of my blood noses. When I couldn’t get my workload out because I was giving away way too much time to other people and helping them, I then came across another add-on from Xero called Timely and it’s fantastic. It’s an appointment add-on which I use now. What I found is I spoke to a couple of friends in Australia and the States that were going through the same kind of thing and I says, “Look, it’s easy enough to say I’m really sorry. If we’re going to get into this, you do understand that I’m going to have to charge for this consultation.” I had a lot of accountants giving me these lines and stuff and they didn’t resonate with me, so I just went, “Hold on a minute.” I got into Timely and it was great because I book all of my training sessions through that. Then I found this wee button and you can put the button on your email address and if anyone emailed you I just email back and said, “Hi, just book me below, click the button.” Heather:        Yes. Gayle:             When they click the button, they’ve got to choose how much time they’re going to have me and how much it’s going to cost them. You know what? No one even came back. I had one person and it worked a treat because I let them down … they knew straight away and that’s the power of software. Love it. Heather:        Yeah, automation software. That’s fantastic. So that’s another Xero add-on called Timely that people can have a look at and that you can actually incorporate into your email. That’s another sensational, fabulous suggestion there from you Gayle. Thank you very much for agreeing to be on the show here with me Gayle. I’ve just got one more question for you before you leave. What advice do you have for you 17 year old self? Gayle:             My 17 year old self. Never be afraid to be you. Heather:        Cool, very good advice there Gayle. Thank you so much for giving up your morning and sharing so many useful tips and hints with everyone. I really appreciate it Gayle. Gayle:             A pleasure Heather, it’s lovely to spend time with you. Heather:        Thank you. Gayle:             You’re welcome. Mentions http://www.numbernurses.com/ https://www.facebook.com/NumberNurses @gayle_buchanan http://nz.linkedin.com/in/gaylebuchanan +gaylebuchanan http://www.numbernurses.com/blog http://www.workflowmax.com/ http://www.jobsheetapp.com/ http://www.Receipt-Bank.com https://www.skillpath.com/ LinkedIn group Xero Bookkeepers (International) Accountants’ Republic http://www.arepublic.co.nz/pages/home_accountants/about Xerocon Australia: https://www.xero.com/au/xerocon/sydney/ New Zealand: https://www.xero.com/au/xerocon/auckland/ USA: https://www.xero.com/au/xerocon/san-francisco/ UK: https://www.xero.com/au/xerocon/london/   ·         Contact Heather Smith ·         http://www.heathersmithsmallbusiness.com/ ·         https://twitter.com/HeatherSmithAU/ ·         https://www.facebook.com/HeatherSmithAU   ·         http://www.linkedin.com/in/heathersmithau

📍 The Impact on a Business Working With an Investor | Colin Hewitt

Highlights of my conversation with Colin Hewitt Founder of Float CashFlow Forecasting Solution ·         Insights into pitching and attracting the right venture capital ·         The impact on the business of working with an investor ·         Experience of being part of the Xero add-on eco-system ·         Forming CodeBase a co-sharing space and the Edinburgh start-up scene   Note: After this interview was recorded Float won Xero Emerging Add-on Partner of the Year 2014 Transcript Heather:        Welcome Colin to Cloud stories. We’re so pleased to have you here. Colin:              Hi Heather, good to be here. Heather:        What’s the weather like in Edinburgh at the moment? Colin:              Well it’s a little bit cloudy at the moment. We had a good stretch probably about a week of good weather. It’s come to an end unfortunately today but we’re hoping that’s it’s just temporary. Heather:        Sensational. So Colin, I’ll start with a really hard question upfront. Who is your favourite superhero and why? Colin:              My favourite superhero? Well, I’m not sure if you have the same superheroes as you do in Australia but I was always like a big Spiderman fan. Heather:        Sensational, that’s Scottish Spiderman version. Colin:              Scottish Spiderman, of course, yeah. I like the way he had a spider sense, you know, how the spider sense was tingling. That’s always a good line and sometimes I think have that as well. Heather:        The spider sense. That’s a good heading for a story about you. Sensational, thank you for that Colin. Can you share with us what your business [Float] does Colin? Colin:              Yeah, so our business Float is a piece of software that we’ve designed to try to help business understand a bit more about their business. Really the main thing that we focus on is how much cash is in the business and what your bank account’s going to be at any point in the future. So we think that’s one of the most interesting or the more interesting parts of the business. You can get lots of insightful management reports but sometimes you just want to know, can I afford to pay for this and will there be enough cash at the end of the month to pay the salaries? That’s what we focus on at Float. Why is it important to have a forecast or a cash management system in place? Colin:              Yeah, I mean the story of where we got Float from is I used to have a web design agency, and we were always asking that question of, you know, is there going to be enough to do X or Y, and having to go back into a spreadsheet was a painful process because it was always out of date and we always felt well, hold on I can answer your question in a couple of hours when I’ve put in all the figures. So yeah, having a forecast is really … is definitely important but certainly it can be a bit of a pain to manage if you don’t have it updating automatically. Heather:        I know that spreadsheet pain. When did you start your business Colin? When did you start this business which is Float. Colin:              So Float … there was kind of an overlap period. We started as a side project while we were running the other business, so I think we started in about 2010. It was me and my co-founder. So he was working on it in his spare time. I had the idea, I had the spreadsheet and I said, “This is what I’m looking for,” and he thought it would take about three months. So four years later, we’re still working on it. It was a sort of gradual start but my co-founder came on board full time I think in around the beginning of 2011. Then I sold the web agency in the beginning of 2012. So we’ve probably had about just over two years being full time on Float. Heather:        Sensational. Did you come from a numbers background? Colin:              Not at all. I actually flunked my Maths A level exam. Heather:        You didn’t need to share that with us but it was interesting you said coming from a web design business into numbers which a … Colin:              No, absolutely. I guess where I came from was I was the one who was having to deal with the numbers. We were using spreadsheets to run our business and I thought our spreadsheet was pretty darn good. I’d worked on it quite hard and it did everything that it needed to do. It just took so long and we actually started using cloud accounting software. We used a package initially called Free Agent which is great for our really small business, also another Edinburgh company, and then we just realised that it was amazing to have a lot of that stuff automated all of a sudden and in the cloud. It took a lot of pressure off me but then it didn’t have the forecasting part that was really important to me, so we still had to use the spreadsheet for that. But yes, I wasn’t a numbers person naturally but I’d kind of come to this out of necessity. Then I found I kind of had a little bit of pleasure just about getting everything to match up to the penny but it probably took me a lot longer than it would for some other people. Yes, numbers weren’t my strong point. I had no background in accounting, and when we spoke to some accountants about forecasting and read about forecasting, it all seemed very complicated. We just thought, “Gosh, it’s got to be simpler than this.” Even some of the language, just clarifying, was a helpful starting point. Yes, so we really approached it from a non-accounting point view and then tried to get back to some of the corporate language from accounting as we’ve gone on. Heather:        That’s an interesting perspective to take it from certainly. I’m a great believer that everyone can get their numbers, so it’s exciting to hear someone coming from a different side but sort of coming to the numbers party. Where did you get the name Float from? Colin:              Good question. So what we really like … for me the concept of cash flow is like a wave, you know. Sometimes you’re up and sometimes you’re down and when we look at our cash flow graph, it is much more like a wave; we’d get high points in the month and then low points. It was always trying to make sure that the low points weren’t too low. So we sort of have this nautical theme, you know, riding the waves of cash flow and making sure you don’t sink and all this kind of thing. We explored a lot of nautical themes, thinking about life boats, binoculars so you’re looking out over the horizon and all that kind of thing. So we really like the nautical concept of now beginning your way through the business. Yeah, we’d also liked concepts that were about flow, so it was flow, flow, flow. Then we sort of thought, “Float, that works, you know.” Then somebody pointed out that there is also a concept of cash float in a business, you know, you’ve got enough cash in a till to get you started at the beginning of the day. So it all came together pretty nicely for us. Heather:        Serendipity. Colin:              Yeah, we’ve played with the few different variants but Float was the one that stuck. Heather:        So what are the waves off coast of Edinburgh? Colin:              Well, unfortunately they’re not great for surfing because it’s sheltered but if you go up to the north of Scotland, I think you’ve got some of the best waves in the world. But yeah, for the Edinburghers’, it’s not a great … you don’t get a lot of great waves unfortunately. Heather:        So you weren’t inspired by looking at your window and seeing the floating boats coming? Colin:              Well, I also grew up with the North Coast of Ireland, so I was quite used to being in the sea. Heather:        Yeah, I think it’s always good to have a name that has that connotation attached to it. Colin:              When we started off the business, we actually had a lot other parts in the graphics. It was a lot more fun and we’ve kind of grown up a bit but we had light houses and sharks and all those kinds of stuff. View the other Float logos here: http://blog.floatapp.com/2013/11/01/7-steps-to-our-new-logo.html Heather:        I went and had a look at those. Colin:              Did you? Yeah. Heather:        So if listeners are listening, go and have a look at floatapp.com blog. I think if you just do a search for logos, there’s a list of all different logos that you’ve got there. So you’re based in Edinburgh, what’s the internet connection like there? Colin:              Yes, it’s great actually. Scotland seems to have … they’ve really invested in that. We’ve just moved into a new building with a lot of other start-ups called CodeBase in Edinburgh. It’s right next to the Edinburgh castle. Heather:        Oh wow. Colin:              We’ve got a fibre line directly into the building and we get about one hundred megabytes up and down which is incredible. It really makes a big difference just having that consistency. Heather:        That’s amazing. That’s really good. So you’ve moved into Codebase, is that an incubator or a sharing spacing? Colin:              Yeah, so it was interesting, I actually spent a bit of time over in Boston and went to see some incubators there, one called Techstars. Came back to Edinburgh and just said, “Look guys, there’s no point all being on our own. If we were in together, there’d be a lot of synergy, a lot more sharing of knowledge.” Just at that time a building came up and about fifteen start-ups all decided to move into it together. We worked on it, we painted it, we stripped out the carpet. It was a really good experience for the local sort of start-up community. Heather:        Sounds like a reality TV show. Colin:              Yeah, it was. It was a really interesting time just sort of getting the work together and the community forming. That was about two years ago. Then from that building, once there was enough start-ups in that building, we realised we could do with more space and we found this other building which is obviously huge. So there was lots of room to expand. There are about 300 people in here now. Heather:        Oh my goodness. Colin:              Yeah, they’re all working on sort of technology start-ups and a lot of shared talks at lunch time. It’s really … if you’ve got a problem with something or other, we can go and ask somebody else who’s an expert from another company. It’s great, we really love being in here. Heather:        Sensational. So if someone is in the start-up innovation space and they’re visiting Edinburgh, should they pop down into Codebase? Colin:              Definitely, yeah. Heather:        Is that a sort of okay. There’s an open invitation, arrive at the door? Colin:              Yeah, come and see us. You can come and work in our office if you need a desk for an afternoon. Yeah, Codebase is great. It’s really helped Edinburgh and sort of set us up as one of the main start-up hubs in Scotland. It makes such a difference to your business having all these around. Heather:        No, it certainly does. I liaise with some of the ones locally to us and the people in there say that it moves them ahead so much faster than if they were at home doing it, which is interesting. It’s the ideas, I guess, and the connections that you’re making and the inspiration that you’re gathering. Sensational. Now, I have to ask, while this interview is taking place, the Glasgow Commonwealth Games are on at the moment, have you travelled across to them? Colin:              You know what, I haven’t. Heather:        You’ve got to go. You’ve got to go. Colin:              I watched the opening ceremony on TV. That was probably the main investment that I’ve given in my time to the Commonwealth Games. Not that I don’t enjoy it but it’s just been such a busy couple of weeks. Yeah, and apparently it’s quite difficult to get tickets. Edinburgh and Glasgow are … Heather:        Just go to the town. Enjoy it. Colin:              Yeah, there’s a bit of a rivalry between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Heather:        I know. Colin:              They’re about 40 minutes away. I think it’s always a sort of thing of which one should really be the capital city of Scotland. Maybe we’ll go over for a day just to soak up the vibe. Heather:        Soak it up. Colin:              Yeah. Heather:        I know that … I went to the Sydney Olympics Games which is slightly different but it was amazing. We just got the crappiest tickets to anything we could and we really, really enjoyed it but I digress. We enjoyed it and it created a lot of memories for us. It didn’t matter what it was, it was such a good vibe, and you can’t work all the time. Colin:              I will take your wisdom and put it in my diary. Heather:        Sensational. So Colin, late last year you received a significant investment of a £110,000 from Rob Dobson, the tech incubator. Now, Rob Dobson for the listeners, I hope I’m saying his name correctly, was the founder of a mobile phone software company. So with this investment; What insights do you have to share with our listeners who may be keen on attracting a significant investment into their business? What insights do you have to share to them about that? Colin:              That was a good time for us but it was also a very hard time because we’d been pitching for a while, probably about a year of trying to raise some funding. The first piece of advice was that we were probably initially pitching to the wrong audience. The investors that we were pitching to weren’t software based, that was not where they made their money. I think it’s difficult to always understand the software business if that’s not your background. So, when we spoke to Rob, it was a completely different kettle of fish. He really understood it, he really got the prospect, and having run a business himself he understood the pain points. So definitely aligning the investor with the story of your own business is really important and will save you a lot of time. The other thing would probably be making sure you tell a good story. Sometimes it’s easy to kind of play … I find you can play yourself down and certainly in the UK, we don’t like to brag. We can kind of say our … you know, “The business is okay and we’re doing all right.” Actually, you need to tell the story in a way that’s going to caught their imagination and make them want to be a part of the story. Yeah, I’m really thinking a lot … we’re actually going into another funding round pretty soon and just thinking about how do we tell the story? It is a great story, you know, it’s something we’ve put our lives into and we’ve got a real passion about. It’s all about telling that story and really painting the picture of the possibilities of the future. We want to grow a great company and think this product can be wide reaching and really make a difference in the lives of business owners. So yeah, it’s all about putting that compelling story together so that investor can get excited about it as well. What tips do you have about sharing your story? Do you work through a process of that? Do you work with someone to help you do that? Does it just come to you while you’re drinking? Colin:              Well, I think if you sit down and really think it through it terms of where did the idea come from, what really gets me excited about this, what’s my dream for this company, and you start really tapping into some of the bigger picture stuff first of all … especially for me, it’s easy to get bogged down in the details, you know, how you’re going to do something. Then that tends to become quite small picture, like we’re going to add this, we’re going to add this feature next month and then we’re going to hire one more member of staff, and then we’re … you’re thinking through a very specific plan whereas the story has to come from a much deeper place of the beginning of where the idea came from to the end of where you can go to. If that’s not an exciting enough story then it brings up a few questions as well. One thing I find helpful is actually asking other people, to say, “How do you perceive the story of Float? What are you seeing?” Then sometimes they’ll say, “Well, I think this is incredible that you guys manage to go for so long without raising any money,” or “I think, you know, what you’ve achieved with a small team is amazing.” Then you sort of think, “Oh yes, that’s a good point, I didn’t realise that.” So having other people feed back to you what they perceive the story will help you understand things that are actually true but you’re missing or you’ve neglected to include. Actually I had a breakfast with Rob yesterday and he was sort of saying, “I was getting prepared for this next funding rounds, here’s some of the ways that I see this, this product is innovative, the space is really hot right now and there’s all this activity happening, there’s more and more people moving into the market.” You know, just hearing him describe it makes you think, “Oh yeah, that’s true.” When you’re in it for four years, you sort of … it becomes you don’t get the same perspective, so having another perspective is really helpful. Heather:        Is Rob Scottish or is he American or is he something else? Colin:              Yes, he’s English. Heather:        Oh he’s English, okay. Colin:              So, unlike many good Englishmen, he’s moved to Edinburgh with his wife. There are so many people that I meet here who I ask them where they come and they say it was because of a woman or a man. So they moved up after he sold his business. You know there are some great schools up in Edinburgh and they have some family up here as well. They looked around and decided Edinburgh was the city. Yeah, it was good for us. Heather:        Sensational. So Rob Dobson has joined your firm as a director. Apart from the money and the investment, how has he impacted … how has he becoming a director impacted Float? Colin:              I’m a big fan of Rob because I think … we spoke to a few other investor and they all have very different agendas. Rob manages to walk the line very well between pushing us and not interfering too much, so it doesn’t ever feel like we’re working for him but he really provides us sort of mentoring and just a constant push, you know, because sometimes it’s easy to kind of not have that when you’re running the business if you don’t have a board set up. So Rob really just pushes us, he was pushing me the other day about how much money we want to raise, how fast we want to grow. It’s easy for me to think that the first step is about survival and the small picture, and he sort of lifts us out of that and says, “No, I think we can do more here. I think there’s more potential.” So Rob really brings a different perspective, especially because he’s been there before. He’s done it, he’s grown a business, he understands the process, and that gives him a lot of credibility in terms of if somebody else was saying that from he hasn’t been here before and done that, you don’t tend to listen to them the same way.  Yeah. Heather:        Absolutely, yes. It’s interesting because the newspaper headline that ‘a small tech has received a large amount of funding’, you sometimes think, “Oh, that’s going to be good,” or “That’s going to be bad.” So it’s always good to get your insights in finding that right person and you obviously have done that and it’s working out really well for your business. When these people do it, the passion, which is their baby, their small business, is taken in another direction and it’s kind of heart breaking. Colin:              I think that we looked at another investor at the same time as Rob and it was much … you can tell that the incentives were much different for the other investor because he was looking for board fees and consultancy fees. He was going to take a very active role. It’s a very different place when they’re seeing it as a monthly income, whereas Rob’s never taken anything from the business. He just really wants to see it succeed. Heather:        That’s sensational. I hope we don’t get an influx of people going and harassing Rob after this. He sounds like the greatest man in the world. Colin:              Yeah, he’s a good investor. I’ve definitely introduced a few people to him. He seems to manage to see everybody. He picks the ones that he likes but we need more people like Rob up here. Hopefully there are a few Edinburgh companies that are going to be having a few big exits soon. We’ve got a great company called SkyScanner here that are doing quite well, and everybody is hoping that they’re going to get their IPO away soon and make few people some money so they can go back and invest it into the start-ups here too. Heather:        Sensational. So your product, Float, integrates with Xero. What has your experience been as being a part of the Xero add on ecosystem? Colin:              Yeah, it’s been amazing really. When we started building Float for Free Agent, we felt Free Agent was the best piece of software out there. We felt that Xero was nice but it was a bit bland. At the time, there were roughly about the same number of users in the UK but what Xero managed to do in terms of growth over the last three or four years has just been incredible, and we realised that at some point we have to get this integration with Xero built. That actually took us about a year to do. So it was really a big investment of our time and resources to rethink how Float was going to work because there’s such a larger … Xero has a lot of larger companies. Free Agent is typically freelance … freelance one or two people businesses, so the volume of transactions is quite small. We moved to Xero. It was the big investment of our time but we really recognised that they were the ones that were leading the way. The degree I think about Xero is the support that they give to us and the encouragement and saying … that feeling of, “We’re going to help promote you. We want this to work, the add-ons Market page, the add-on support team. Yeah, everything has been really good there, and just a willingness to promote the add-on, that was really a step up for us. We probably saw about a ten times increase when we launched for Xero in terms of signups. It was a big step up for us. Heather:        Sensational. Did that affect your infrastructure then? Colin:              Yeah, it did actually because we launched it in September at Xerocon in London … Heather:        Oh, okay. Colin:              Last year and basically we soon realised that a lot of the larger companies weren’t able to … we weren’t able to get all the information displayed in time before the browser timed out, we were trying to load everything in at once. So we had to then take another couple of months to rebuild Float in order to allow for these much more significant companies, some turning over upwards of a million dollars a month. It was a big change for us, so we have to rethink the whole thing. In terms of hosting, we host it on the cloud and it’s really … that wasn’t such a big issue. We can scale that really easily now which is such an advantage for cloud businesses that were … you know, before we might have to have upgraded our servers and changed everything around, and now that’s really not been the problem. It’s more just been about how we build the software and how we handle the page load speeds and all that kind of stuff. So if Xero releases an update, say it releases an update next Sunday, do you have to do something in your backend or is that okay? It’s just goes with the flow? Colin:              Yeah, it’s fine. Nothing that Xero do on the actual Xero app should affect us because they have their API teams separately. It’s really only when they change something in the API that affects us. More often than not, the API is a little bit behind what the main office is doing, so we’ll only get access to certain data, you know, typically a couple of months later. There hasn’t been, touch wood, there hasn’t been problems yet in terms of Xero changing something, that we haven’t come across. Generally it has been changes for good so we get more and more information that we need. Because that’s always been the thing with cash flow forecasting is it requires a vast amount of data to achieve it. That’s always been the thing, trying to get that in the right place. Colin:              Yeah, there are a lot of transactions that we need … we actually forecast right down to the transaction level. So we’re building up a whole report based on your transactions. It’s not a report that we can just pull out of Xero. We have to only start from scratch and build out ourselves, so we put in a lot of information. As I said, that’s a challenge. I know you use Xero in your business; do you use any of the add-ons from the Xero eco space in your business? Colin:              Yeah, I’m a big fan of Receipt Bank. It’s something that … I met the guys a few times up in Edinburgh first actually. Didn’t really feel the need for a time, and I think I was chatting to Michael at Xerocon and just thought, “I’m going to give this a try,” and really haven’t looked back since then just in terms of processing all my expenses. Now, we’ve actually upgraded to the business version and we send our invoices as well. You know, it just saves me so much time. So we’re looking for a system … we’re looking for a complete system basically where we don’t have to have any much touch on the bookkeeping side of things. Receipt Bank is a big part of that and, you know, they’re improving all the time as well. Heather:        Yes, they’re definitely evolving. Was Michael wearing his kilt at Xerocon? Michael:         No, I haven’t seen that. Heather:        Haven’t you? Every time he wears the kilt, he wins a prize. That’s the theory. Colin:              Ah, I’ll have to bring my kilt over then to the Xerocon Australia. Heather:        Yes, you will. Oh my goodness, if you turn on a kilt, you definitely win a prize. Colin:              That’s it. Heather:        That’s the rule. Colin:              That’s the secret, okay. Heather:        Michael’s obviously not sharing that secret. Colin:              No, he hasn’t. Heather:        There are many photos of him in a kilt at Xerocon. Colin:              Okay. Yeah, so the other one we’ve been looking at is a new one that you probably won’t have heard of. It’s more in the UK but it’s called CreDec. What they do is they connect into … they set up a box payment system, so in Xero you can just mark all your bills as paid on a certain date and they’ll actually then set up a box run and it will just go automatically for you when you approve it. That’s quite a nice one to have when you go into your bank account and sort of do all the pay run and pay all the bills. Heather:        So it kind of creates a bank file does it and then extracts the income and pays … extracts the money and then pays it? Colin:              Yeah. Heather:        Okay, and what was the name of that again? Colin:              It’s called CreDec I think. Heather:        Okay, sensational. Colin:              They’re pretty new. They’re also Edinburgh based. I’m not sure if they’re just the UK at the moment but the concept of having that complete system is really great. Heather:        Yes, it is. I don’t recall them being … hearing of them in Australia but I’ll check and I’ll include them in the notes for show listeners. So, in your business, can you share with us any other useful tools you actually use in your business that other listeners may benefit from? Colin:              As a product business, we feel that customer support and feedback are absolutely crucial. So we use a product called Intercom to do that. It’s a relatively new product but it’s absolutely fantastic in terms of it lets us send automatic messages to users, it does all our internal communications with the users, and we can send out newsletters. It makes building newsletters really easy as well and it also uses our support system, so anybody can write to us from within the app and we can assign that to one of our team and everyone can track their responses as well. It’s kind a like Zendesk from that point of view but also MailChimp. Also it’s having the auto messages going on at fixed periods during the trial is a useful part of it as well. This can be in-app notifications that just pop up on the screen or they can be emails. It’s a great way just for us to say, “We pushed a new feature,” or “We’d love to get some feedback on this if you’re interested, get in touch,” that kind of thing. We really try to maintain a close relationship with our user and that’s a tool that I think is fantastic if you’re a product company. You’ve got a web based product. That’s one thing we use. We use Evernote quite a bit just to track all our documents and keep little notes of things rather than trying to have a complex filing system where you have to dig around for a lot of things. Evernote seems to work pretty well. We use an app called Trello to do our product management and bug tracking. Have you heard of that one? Heather:        Yes. Colin:              It’s like a sort of card based thing, you can drive them around. That kind a keeps us organised. Those are kind of the main ones. I’m always looking for new tools to bring us up to the weekly integrating but it can be a bit of overkill as well. Heather:        Yes, there can be and sometimes you have go and test one for a while to see whether it’s actually going to fit in with what you’re doing. You can see how it fits in for other people but the way you’re doing it, you either have to perhaps change your methods or sometimes they just fit right in. I have one last question for you Colin. Colin, what would you say to a 17 year old about to leave school who wants to be the next Colin Hewitt? He wants to found a tech space, he wants to found a tech company, he wants to attract funding, and he wants to live the dream?   Colin:              Wow, there are a couple of things. One is you need to discover what it is your passionate about and don’t try and fit yourself into some mould that isn’t you because that’s just not going to work. I think for me, I find … at 17, I would have said, you know, “Go to university if you can. Go and get some experience,” because I didn’t have a clue at 17 that I wanted to do a tech company. It was actually after university that I worked freelance for a bit and then came up with that concept. “Spend a little bit of time in America,” I think because there’s a really … there’s a real sort of positive can do attitude you can pick up over there which is actually where I get the courage and the idea to start my first company. Heather:        How old where you when you started your own company? Colin:              21, 22, and it was just that can do Californian attitude, people saying, “Yes, go for it, why not.” I kind of came back to went, “Yeah.” That’s the attitude. It’s always about the level of passion and energy that you can muster because there will be hard times and you have to kind of be able to ride those out. The other thing I think is for us ending up with Float was something we found because we worked in a business. I’d say that it’s an evolution. If you do something you love then it’s often within that process you’ll actually find a real problem that needs solving. That was the case for me but I think that often guys at 17, the apps that they come up with, the ideas that I’ve heard are all very much around something like you want to go out with your friends and you don’t know where they are so you want to be able to have an app that finds your friends. That’s just not … the chances of you solving that problem socially on a B-C level, is going to be really difficult. Whereas actually if you go and work in an industry, it’s much easier to solve a problem that there’s a niche of people that have rather than trying to be the next Twitter or Foursquare or something along this lines. So I think at 17, you’re going to perceive a very different view of the world. Building up experience and working with good people and sort of learning what you like and what you don’t like about the way other businesses run is a good principle but also not to get sucked in. One of the things I was tempted to do is just go and get a job straight out of university with a big software company. I kind a resisted that and I’m glad I did because I think you can get sucked in for a quite long period of time when you get comfortable, and then you don’t want to try anything new. So if you’re not feeling it, sometimes holding off and just taking some time is a good option rather than jumping in. Heather:        Excellent. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us here Colin today. We really appreciate it. It was really interesting. Colin:              Yeah, pleasure. Heather:        If people want to get in touch with you, they can go to your website at floatapp.com or they can go and knock on the door of CodeBase. You’ll be there with a cup of tea waiting for them. Colin:              Yeah. Heather:        Thank you so much. Colin:              No worries Heather. Good to chat. Mentions ·         Float website http://floatapp.com ·         Float logos http://blog.floatapp.com/2013/11/01/7-steps-to-our-new-logo.html ·         CodeBase http://www.thisiscodebase.com ·         Sky Scanner http://www.skyscanner.com ·         Receipt Bank http://www.receipt-bank.com ·         CreDec http://www.credec.com ·         Intercom https://www.intercom.io ·         Evernote https://evernote.com ·         Trello https://trello.com Contact Heather Smith http://www.heathersmithsmallbusiness.com/ https://twitter.com/HeatherSmithAU/ https://www.facebook.com/HeatherSmithAU   http://www.linkedin.com/in/heathersmithau

Identifying Your Passion 🔥 and Turning it Into a Business Success | Valerie Khoo

Valerie Khoo Valerie Khoo is National Director of the Australian Writers’ Centre, the country’s 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: Identifying your passion and turning it into a business success The process, development and delivery of online courses on the Open Learning platform Breaking in and setting up the CRM Infusionsoft Online tools Valerie Khoo uses in her business The benefits of learning to write for a business person Transcript Heather:        Hello, today I‘m speaking with Valerie Khoo, the National Director of the Australian Writer’s Centre. Hello Valerie, welcome to our show today. Valerie :         It’s great to be here Heather. Heather:        Thank you so much for sharing your time with us today. Really appreciate it, I’m 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, that’s exactly what we want to hear. So Valerie you run the Australian Writer’s Centre which is something that I’ve sort of been involved in on the side. You’ve currently got campuses in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and online and you’ve 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 Writer’s 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 that’s going really well. And then earlier this year we opened in Perth. We have another one in the wings I’ve just been checking out venues for that but that’s yet to be announced. Heather:        Anywhere close to me? Valerie:          It’s not official yet, I can’t say anything. You’ll 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 they’re 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 they’re all relatively short so that it’s all in manageable bite size chunks. We find that, as with most people these days’ time is a scarce commodity so we want to make sure that it’s something that people can do and commit to. Heather:        That’s interesting; I hadn’t realised they were around as being short courses that you have like this first course, then second course. You’re completely right. People get overwhelmed if it’s too much involved. I know that while they are short courses I’ve done two of them now. They’re packed with lots of insight and information. Valerie:          Yeah that’s one thing I’m really committed to because I’m a course junkie from way back and I’ve done many, many courses. I’m never without doing a course and one of the things I don’t’ like about some courses is when they treat you like a dummy or treat you like an idiot. They think you’re 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, that’s 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 people’s lives. But I also needed to eat and pay the mortgage. I thought to myself well what am I passionate about? And as clichéd 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 doesn’t, I’ve seen you in action so I’m not going to disagree with that because I know that you do that and I know that you’re very good actually pinpointing people. I’m not speaking about myself but I’ve 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 didn’t want to be a life coach really or didn’t 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 can’t cook. I could certainly help them with their writing goals.             That’s where it started. What’s interesting though is even though that’s 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 they’ve always wanted to do. It’s just been the most rewarding experience so that’s 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 I’ve just always felt this way because even my friends will tell you that I’m slightly annoying in that I’m the one when you catch up for drinks, or dinner or whatever I’m the one that says, “Of course you can do it.” Just do this, do this, do this- you know what I mean.             So I’m a little bit of a- they probably think I’m a little bit of a nagger even though I think I’m a cheer squad. So it’s something that I’ve 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:        It’s interesting that isn’t it? When you actually need to do it to monetise it, it’s like what’s my passion? It can take people a second to think about it. Valerie:          Yeah, I didn’t really know. I didn’t 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 that’s 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 that’s 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. I’m fortunate enough to also be one of their advisors because I really believe in their product.             Basically it’s 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 other’s comments, you can dip into different areas. Just like in Facebook you dip into different pages, or groups, or whatever. Yeah it’s 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 doesn’t, 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 we’ve nailed it, and then we know that we can turn this into an online course. And that takes way more time than you think; it’s a lot of work. Heather:        I think it takes a long time in that I’ve tried to develop my own and it’s like, it’s 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 someone’s listening. They could be listening on the bus, or in front of the computer, or doing the laundry or whatever in the car. You’ve got to make sure that the information is conveyed not in a lecture style but almost in a conversational story telling style so that it’s easily absorbed and remembered.             It takes quite a while to change information into something that’s digestible like that because unlike a classroom course you can see people’s 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 it’s not only the creation and the structure, and the design of the course, it’s 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:        It’s interesting to hear you say that because you didn’t have a teacher’s 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 teacher’s 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 what’s 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 what’s 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. They’re 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.             That’s a good one because then people get a taste for what it’s 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:        It’s interesting seeing people because I’m 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 they’re doing. That is interesting. Valerie:          Definitely, it’s inspiring to see. Heather:        It’s very inspiring. The Writer’s Centre has had so much success which has been so impressive for what you’ve 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 I’ll 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 you’re using it, and what it’s 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 I’m 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 wouldn’t 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 wasn’t 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.             It’s worked out well so far, I’m 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 that’s done by Infusionsoft.             In some cases you may fill in some web forms and that’s done by Infusionsoft. The delivery of the courses is not done by Infusionsoft as I mentioned that’s 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 everyone’s reaction to different ways to the way that they react and what they’re 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 haven’t 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 that’s always impressed me about you is I know how thorough you are about researching something. You’re 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 I’m 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 didn’t 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, I’ve meet many Infusionsoft users now and typically what I have found is that a huge number of them like almost all of them who aren’t 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 it’s 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 it’s going to start in January. And our quietest time of year is the period between Christmas and New Year. Heather:        Really that’s surprising. Valerie:          For obvious reasons you know. Everyone’s just on holidays in Christmas and New Year. Heather:        And not being creative. Valerie:          They start on January 1 their New Year’s resolutions but Christmas and New Year they’re 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 didn’t 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:        It’s interesting to hear you like you’re 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 it’s always one of those things I like I always wonder in business, I get very into the detail. I’m like maybe I should be pulling back from the detail. It’s interesting to hear you say that you really got into the detail of it. Valerie:          Probably that’s 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 didn’t 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 didn’t actually go to a course. I went to a conference run by Infusionsoft in Phoenix, Arizona which interestingly wasn’t 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, that’s interesting that they do that. Cool.             Okay I’m sure some of our listeners will find that product interesting if they’re not already using it. Go off and explore that.             In your business you’ve 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 it’s really normal now but I’ve 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.             There’s 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 doesn’t do everything. It doesn’t 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 you’re searching for? Valerie:          You have it locally on your computer that’s 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 it’s also stored locally.             You can just base it in the cloud if you want but I like having my files locally on whatever I’m working on. Heather:        Yeah absolutely. I think it’s also quicker if you do that. Just push it to the cloud but if you’re 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:          That’s 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 that’s 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 it’s so easy to transfer the files, or to look it up from a whole other country. I love that.             The other one it’s 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 I’ve 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 you’ve got all your recording sitting there. Valerie;          I love the Foxtel app. Heather:        Well that’s 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. That’s a great share, I’m 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 Writer’s 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 don’t 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. That’s 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 you’re on the other side of the fence like you’re being interviewed you can also help them with the kind of content that’s going to make the magazine article sound good if you know what I mean. Heather:        Absolutely. That’s actually been an interesting phenomena that I’ve been realising lately in that I did one of those courses and got a lot of blog posts out there and they don’t 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 you’re like well I didn’t have to write the article, I got an article in Sydney Morning Herald and I’m quoted as the expert and it took maybe ten minutes work. Valerie:          That’s 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 don’t get to that point quickly. Valerie:          Yeah exactly right. Heather:        That’s 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, what’s the name of it. You’re doing a writer’s podcast with Alison. Valerie:          Yeah it’s called So You Want to be a Writer and it’s 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 that’s very good. So what suggestions do you have for me since starting up a new podcast. Valerie:          Do something that you’re 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 they’re such a normal part of my life I don’t even think, I’m going to use the cloud you know what I mean. Heather:        I think that’s right. People turn to me and go, well how do you manage to get so much done? It’s like well I just sort of activate this, and I activate that and it’s all done. But yeah it does make life easier, it’s 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 you’ve told us the future for Australian Writer’s Centre, you’re 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 there’s a real need for people to access that information wherever they are. They can’t 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 didn’t have to do it in a whole chunk of time. That’s definitely one of the next things on our agenda. Quite a few people have asked for various courses to be transformed online and we’re definitely looking into that. As I mentioned it’s a very long and involved process. We just need to decide in which order we’re 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 that’s quite a hard one. My 17 year old self, I would say- that’s 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 didn’t know was that sometimes in life things, circumstances, people will disappoint you. Will let you down.             That’s okay. Don’t let it in the way of you or don’t let it get you down even if they let you down. Just accept that that’s part of life. It may not have been personal, or anything like that. It’s just going to happen throughout life. But don’t even sort of try and view it as a letdown just kind of go okay, and move on. Don’t take it to heart.             I don’t 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 I’m asking that question of everyone sort of thinking that he’s going out into the world. It’s 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 you’re 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 didn’t you? Valerie:          Yeah, no I still would have taken the route that I’ve 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 isn’t enough though. You need to work out the steps you need to take to get there. It’s 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.             It’s as simple as that and once you take them if you’re 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 you’ve always been such an inspiration to me and I’ve benefitted so much from the number of courses that I have done through the Australia Writer’s 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:          It’s been my pleasure. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed talking to you Heather. Heather:        Sensational. Mentions ·         Infusionsoft : http://www.infusionsoft.com   @Infusionsoft ·         SugarSync https://www.sugarsync.com  @sugarsync ·         Foxtel TV guide ·         Google Drive https://drive.google.com   ·         Dropbox https://db.tt/PxaW85E  @Dropbox ·         Cubby https://www.cubby.com  @Cubby ·         Cloud File https://shellycloud.com/documentation/cloudfile  @ShellyCloud ·         Open Learning https://www.openlearning.com  @openlrning ·         Facebook https://www.facebook.com  @FaceBook Contact Valerie Khoo Australian Writers’ Centre http://www.writerscentre.com.au https://twitter.com/ValerieKhoo https://twitter.com/WritersCentreAU Contact Heather Smith http://www.heathersmithsmallbusiness.com/ https://twitter.com/HeatherSmithAU/ https://www.facebook.com/HeatherSmithAU http://www.linkedin.com/in/heathersmithau