Valerie Khoo is an author, speaker and multi-passionate entrepreneur with several growing businesses under her belt. She is a prolific content creator who has steadily built her public profile over a period of years by personally engaging with her online community, not to mention adding value in the form of words (blog posts), audio (podcasting) and video.

I regard Valerie as one of the best content marketers in Australia. Not only that, she also leverages social media brilliantly for her business – the Australian Writers’ Centre – as well as for her personal brand.

Getting the balance right between business brand and personal brand is difficult; indeed, it’s an issue many professionals entrepreneurs face and grapple with. Another issue professionals face when it comes to ‘putting themselves out there’ on social media is managing one’s professional versus private self on social media.

Cas McCullough is a content marketing strategist, and author of Your Brilliant Un-Career: Women, Entrepreneurship, and Making the Leap. Cas specialises in helping purpose-driven women business owners and entrepreneurs out of the marketing maze, so they can focus on building meaningful and profitable connections using brilliant content, social media and permission-based marketing strategies. Her consultancy (formerly Content Marketing Cardiology) was listed as a top 100 business in the Anthill Cool Company Awards in 2014 and Cas is a sought-after guest blogger having contributed for Social Media Examiner, Content Marketing Institute, Bluewire News and Startup Smart. Cas is the host of the Your Brilliant Un-Career and Brilliant Content Ideas podcast shows.

In this episode we talk about:

* What does Un-career mean?

* Career in terms of getting a certain path in your life and then moving up a ladder

* A different big path adventure

* Doing something and making change in the world

* Supporting and empowering women

* All about Women Entrepreneur

* What needs to be changed by women in terms of entrepreneurship?

* Women’s Social economic status

* The Brilliant Un-career which aims to help women learning the fast way rather than learning the slow hard way and make terrible mistakes

* The Brilliant Content Marketing consultancy

* Why podcasting is hot all of a sudden?

* Caroline’s anxiety talking to people before and how podcasting help her to get through it?

* The uncomfortable feeling of silence

* The different styles of podcasting

* What is advance content?

* What can she say about successful podcasters?

* The importance of having something new and fresh podcast

* The three mistakes women make in business

* The importance of content strategy

* Understanding who you really want to work, serve and reach out to and connect with

* A map to social media channel that’s really focus on meeting people

* How to measure the ROI?

* The connections that we make by just doing a podcast is one of the measurable ROI

* What to expect on Brilliant Un- career?

* Personal things that women struggling with and make significant changes

How often should I podcast?

“Every week or at least within two weeks of each episode”

What are the first mistakes that podcasters often make?

“I think monetization is always the big issue and I think there are many different ways to achieve that. I promote my own stuff in my podcast so I haven’t attempted to get advertisers at all. That may change in the future I don’t know but, I don’t want to rely on the advertising model because I don’t think it works that way anymore. I don’t know sponsorship does work. If you got a niche that’s very specific, I think sponsorships can work very very well. It was interesting to me that of the people that hadn’t start a podcasts that I spoke to how many of them sit there “we’re going to start a podcast about entrepreneurship.“ And if that’s you, I would really encourage you not to. And there’s a reason why. The reason is that, it is over saturated already in my opinion and like my podcast has been I think recently successful but I really have a different take on it and because it linked to my book. That also made a difference. But the engagement is good and I’ve got great feed backs so I know that I’m on the right track.”

“So it’s really depends on your goals too and I think the thing about entrepreneurship thing is everybody in the dog is interviewing the entrepreneurs these days. So what could you do is a bit different. That’s the question I have and that’s what I encourage to think about.

Cas McCullough is a content marketing strategist, and author of Your Brilliant Un-Career: Women, Entrepreneurship, and Making the Leap. Cas specialises in helping purpose-driven women business owners and entrepreneurs out of the marketing maze, so they can focus on building meaningful and profitable connections using brilliant content, social media and permission-based marketing strategies. Her consultancy (formerly Content Marketing Cardiology) was listed as a top 100 business in the Anthill Cool Company Awards in 2014 and Cas is a sought-after guest blogger having contributed for Social Media Examiner, Content Marketing Institute, Bluewire News and Startup Smart. Cas is the host of the Your Brilliant Un-Career and Brilliant Content Ideas podcast shows.

In this episode we talk about:

What does Un-career mean? Career in terms of getting a certain path in your life and then moving up a ladder A different big path adventure Doing something and making change in the world Supporting and empowering women All about Women Entrepreneur What needs to be changed by women in terms of entrepreneurship? Women’s Social economic status The Brilliant Un-career which aims to help women learning the fast way rather than learning the slow hard way and make terrible mistakes The Brilliant Content Marketing consultancy

Rey Brown recalls working at Circuit City in 2003 when he was transferred to the mobile phone department. It was around the time the first BlackBerry® phone hit the market. Little did he know then that he would eventually be devoting a good amount of his time discussing mobile technology via podcasting, a term virtually unheard of a decade or so ago but widely popular today.

Brown spent time working for wireless carriers and device manufacturers over the years, including helping Verizon Solutions Specialists learn about Motorola Droid phones. Based on his interactions with customers, which he enjoyed, he quickly realized he wanted to help others better understand how mobile technology could improve their lives in ways they may not realize.

Brown decided he wanted to help people get more out of their devices. Brown’s mother was the director of several daycare centers, and he started teaching weekend classes when the kids weren’t there. He also discovered podcasting, realizing the potential it had for reaching others.

In this episode we talk about:

* Rey Brown’s experienced working in the mobile industry for years long

* His different podcasting journey

* What does podcasting brought to him since he started it?

* The exposure brought to Rey Brown through podcasting

* How podcasting help his business?

* The great benefits of podcasting

* Getting clients out of Podcasting

* Podcasting prepares us for new doors

* It’s for the individual to determine getting in and starting a podcast

* Defining success in our own terms

* Making money out of podcasting

* Podcasting as a marketing and media tool

* Starting a podcast when launching a coaching class

* The reason why Rey started smartphone made easy

* Helping people to use technology better in their lives

* What are the business goals for smartphone made easy?

* The advantages of podcasting

* Since 2004, why podcasting becomes really hot right now?

* Keeping an eye on a goal to have a better and easy podcasting journey

* Common mistake people making on a regular basis

* The importance of being a great conversationalist and listener

* The Darn Technology

What would’ve made it easier/What would you have changed?

“Awesome question. I would probably say doing a better job of having a well define goal and mind and having better expectations. So there’s a saying there’s no wind in comparison because someone out there will always have err then you someone will be bigger, faster, smarter, better so when you can prepare yourself with others and you can win their battle. So my podcasting journey with many others would have been easier if we would have keep our eye on our goal and not look at what others around us were doing and ended getting frustrated and were not getting the same result.”

“I would say doing research on their guest. Once you know that you have a guest, you can go to if this, then that, set up a trigger or a recipe, you can put in let say their twitter handle or their Facebook link or set up Google spreadsheet and let’s say that you book down a week in advance set up this trigger so that every time they tweet, it goes over to that spreadsheet, that way when you go toward to interview them, if you do interview prep hour before, you can go to that spreadsheet and then you can look at everything that they’ve been talking about and you know exactly what they care about, you know what’s on their mind, what they did yesterday and you can bring all these up during the interview to build report to them and get them to relax and get them to really be comfortable.

When someone is considering a podcast as a medium,

Rey Brown recalls working at Circuit City in 2003 when he was transferred to the mobile phone department. It was around the time the first BlackBerry® phone hit the market. Little did he know then that he would eventually be devoting a good amount of his time discussing mobile technology via podcasting, a term virtually unheard of a decade or so ago but widely popular today.

Brown spent time working for wireless carriers and device manufacturers over the years, including helping Verizon Solutions Specialists learn about Motorola Droid phones. Based on his interactions with customers, which he enjoyed, he quickly realized he wanted to help others better understand how mobile technology could improve their lives in ways they may not realize.

Brown decided he wanted to help people get more out of their devices. Brown’s mother was the director of several daycare centers, and he started teaching weekend classes when the kids weren’t there. He also discovered podcasting, realizing the potential it had for reaching others.

Trevor Young have worked in public relations and communications for over 20 years. Joining the industry after five years as a journalist in country Victoria, he proceeded to work with some of Australia’s biggest consulting firms including Professional Public Relations (PPR), The Rowland Company and Porter Novelli.

In 1998 he co-founded Spark Communications Group with Richard Chapman, a former colleague from Porter Novelli. With its focus on strategic marketing and communications, Spark quickly developed a reputation as a creative PR hot-shop working for major brands such as Cadbury Schweppes, Ford, Foster’s, Coles, NAB, FlyBuys, ANZ Bank and the Australian Made Campaign. Within a couple of years Spark had launched a brand experience marketing company called Ignition Marketing as well as established an office in Sydney. At its peak,  Spark employed some 25 people full-time and up to 50 casual staff in Ignition’s ‘Street Team’ promotional division. Spark was acquired by Australia’s biggest media buying firm, Mitchell & Partners, in 2006.

In 2009, Trevor co-founded a boutique communications advisory firm called parkyoung in partnership with former senior corporate affairs executive, David Park. Eighteen months later parkyoung merged with the Melbourne office of Edelman, the world’s largest independent public relations firm.

Now he is a:

* KEYNOTE SPEAKER:  a passionate and experienced professional speaker available for keynote presentations to large audiences or facilitation of workshops and training sessions across the areas of social media, content marketing and personal branding.

* CONSULTANT & ADVISER: offers project-based consulting services to forward-thinking companies and organisations large, medium and small; as a rule these organisations tend to be progressive in their thinking (and actions) and are excited to be involved in social media and and the online content creation process.

* PERSONAL MENTOR FOR INDIVIDUALS:  Mentors (on a selective basis) creative entrepreneurs, authors, business leaders and professionals to develop their platform and build their personal brand.

* WRITER:  Writes a blog called PR Warrior plus contributes regularly to Smart Company,  the MYOB Pulse blog and Firebrand Talent’s Ideas Ignition blog. He is also the author of the book ‘microDOMINATION: How to leverage social media and content marketing to build a mini-business empire around your personal brand’, published by John Wiley & Sons.

In this episode we talk about:

* How does he manage and find time to do podcasting?

* Trevor Young’s consulting, mentoring and speaking business as a whole

Trevor Young have worked in public relations and communications for over 20 years. Joining the industry after five years as a journalist in country Victoria, he proceeded to work with some of Australia’s biggest consulting firms including Professional Public Relations (PPR), The Rowland Company and Porter Novelli.

In 1998 he co-founded Spark Communications Group with Richard Chapman, a former colleague from Porter Novelli. With its focus on strategic marketing and communications, Spark quickly developed a reputation as a creative PR hot-shop working for major brands such as Cadbury Schweppes, Ford, Foster’s, Coles, NAB, FlyBuys, ANZ Bank and the Australian Made Campaign. Within a couple of years Spark had launched a brand experience marketing company called Ignition Marketing as well as established an office in Sydney. At its peak, Spark employed some 25 people full-time and up to 50 casual staff in Ignition’s ‘Street Team’ promotional division. Spark was acquired by Australia’s biggest media buying firm, Mitchell & Partners, in 2006.

In 2009, Trevor co-founded a boutique communications advisory firm called parkyoung in partnership with former senior corporate affairs executive, David Park. Eighteen months later parkyoung merged with the Melbourne office of Edelman, the world’s largest independent public relations firm.

Now he is a:

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: a passionate and experienced professional speaker available for keynote presentations to large audiences or facilitation of workshops and training sessions across the areas of social media, content marketing and personal branding. CONSULTANT & ADVISER: offers project-based consulting services to forward-thinking companies and organisations large, medium and small; as a rule these organisations tend to be progressive in their thinking (and actions) and are excited to be involved in social media and and the online content creation process. PERSONAL MENTOR FOR INDIVIDUALS: Mentors (on a selective basis) creative entrepreneurs, authors, business leaders and professionals to develop their platform and build their personal brand. WRITER: Writes a blog called PR Warrior plus contributes regularly to Smart Company, the MYOB Pulse blog and Firebrand Talent’s Ideas Ignition blog. He is also the author of the book ‘microDOMINATION: How to leverage social media and content marketing to build a mini-business empire around your personal brand’, published by John Wiley & Sons.

Robert Gerrish has done a lot for the entrepreneurs of Australia. Soon after Saatchi & Saatchi bought his independent marketing agency in 1989, Robert ran off to do his own thing. Focusing primarily on youth brands, Robert made a couple of sideline forays into the world of art and music before moving from London to Sydney. He finally succumbed to soloism with the launch of Flying Solo, Australia’s solo and micro business community.

Since 2005 he has co-authored the business bestseller, Flying Solo: How to go it alone in business, he has written pieces for a variety of media and has been a business commentator on ABC 4 Corners, A Current Affair, Sky Business, Fairfax, CBS, 2UE and ABC Radio. He is the host of the Flying Solo Podcast & Small Business lifestyle Podcast.

In this episode we talk about:

* Robert Gerrish love of speaking and talking to people which led him to create Flying solo and recently his podcasting journey

* His podcast journey which is doing extremely well

* What was like doing a podcast?

* Learning something new every day with podcasting

* The importance of learning and practicing

* Consider being really observant to build a viable and sustainable business and to avoid missing things

* Be better, do better, work harder and be more professional and bring it on to be a better podcaster or entrepreneur

* What was like Robert Gerrish podcasting journey in the last year?

* His silly early experienced starting a podcast

* His learning experienced on what skills to improve

* Creating a really nice and friendly atmosphere

* The tricky thing of podcasting of two people haven’t met

* How to make the guests be comfortable and get the best interview?

* The different things that we have to deal with in terms of podcasting

* Roberts marketing agency and marketing experienced and his biggest learning

* Giving away contents and sharing eBooks and webinars and all these things which are all very useful tools

* The importance of understanding and spending time with marketing

* Be 100 percent open and moving

* The good thing about open communication

* Paying attention to the things we need to do and something’s we need to change

What would’ve made it easier/What would you have changed?

“One of them is definitely is on that thing of really thinking more about preparing more for each guests I guess. For the early podcasting I did, I just would likely sort of busked. They kind of appear on the cool and I would ready and off we go and then I get to the end. Any of those I don’t know. So I’ve realized that it’s important to put in preparation and for me anyway, more than I think. Now, the people are need at least a month of preparation. All the people is the most proficient of talking. You know I know Andre Griffiths I could ring him up two minutes after we finish and Andrew put down that cheese sandwich and just record a podcast and he would be ready to go. You know he would just be ready to go. He’s that kind of guy and some people like that. That’s the kind of the really easy way to podcasting. Just to find people like Andrew. “

“The problem with that is you’ll find that those people are often popping up in a loss of places. So, if you want to have a podcast that has kind of original guests and that’s would I like to try though, then that means I just going to research a bit more. So that thing,

Robert Gerrish has done a lot for the entrepreneurs of Australia. Soon after Saatchi & Saatchi bought his independent marketing agency in 1989, Robert ran off to do his own thing. Focusing primarily on youth brands, Robert made a couple of sideline forays into the world of art and music before moving from London to Sydney. He finally succumbed to soloism with the launch of Flying Solo, Australia’s solo and micro business community.

Since 2005 he has co-authored the business bestseller, Flying Solo: How to go it alone in business, he has written pieces for a variety of media and has been a business commentator on ABC 4 Corners, A Current Affair, Sky Business, Fairfax, CBS, 2UE and ABC Radio. He is the host of the Flying Solo Podcast & Small Business lifestyle Podcast.

Scott Webber is a Podcaster and Podcast Evangelist from the Greater Vancouver area. He is the creator of one of the top ranked podcast in iTunes – “Not Bad For Dad Podcast”, with listeners in over 85 countries and monthly downloads in the tens of thousands. “Not Bad For Dad” is a resource created to help Dads adopt skills, develop tools and acquire the knowledge to build a solid and successful life. Dads are encouraged to free up time so they can really connect or reconnect with the most important people in their lives – their kids!

In this episode we talk about:

* Scott’s podcasting journey and how it becomes a big part of his life

* How podcasting become an inspiration for fathers to connect with their kids better through his brand “Not Bad for Dad?”

* Scott’s Music career

* What did Scott Achieve so far as a result of creating a podcast?

* How podcasting helped him to reach out and be friends to people in the community

* The huge advantage of podcasting

* How podcasting help his business?

* How to tell your story out of your brand through the help of Podcasting

* Podcasting as a great way to educate and give some cool tips and advice out of your brand

* Podcasting is not all about money it’s how creative you become

* The Podcast Vancouver journey started

* How can someone get involved with Podcast Vancouver?

* The purpose and benefits of podcasting for local markets

* Scott’s target and focus on finding a focus local audience to grow

* What’s his difference to other Dad show podcast?

* Being rewarded from the feedbacks he got from the other podcasters

* Scott’s new season about Life lessons

* What’s the reason why podcasting is hot right now?

* The disadvantages of creating a podcast

* The importance of giving good contents and value to listeners

* Being yourself and be Authentic when doing a podcast

* The important thing to create a successful podcast

What would’ve made it easier/What would you have changed?

“Knowing what I know now, you need to be consistently getting help. Do not try to do everything yourself. Getting a VA, they’re not that expensive and they can take a lot of the things that you don’t like to do off your plate. Having systems in place to be organised, because otherwise it’s a huge chore and you are going to ask yourself is it worth it?

I joined a mastermind and I got in to the community and I learned from people that were doing really really well. So, I did a lot right but a few things I did wrong.”

“You need to speak the podcast language, you need to get in and you need to learn the basics so you know when you are getting help. When you’re going to a VA, you need to speak the language and you need to be able to create the systems for these VA’S to help you and to streamline things and to make it seamless so you can just get and create great content. Be consistent and stay on a schedule.”

How complicated is it to do a podcast?

“There are disadvantages if you are not technical and you don’t like the behind the scenes stuff, like the editing. My biggest issue is shownotes. I would say the disadvantages are minimal compared to upside.”

“Well, they have to look at themselves. People, if they are going to invest in you. If someone is going to invest an hour of their time to listen you, you better give them great content. The listener doesn’t owe you anything. They really don’t in most cases care a lot about you.”

“You really have to listen to your audience. You have to engage with your audience. It goes back to how many, they say “I’ve heard you talk a bit about how many times a week should you produce a show.