Welcome to Working with Languages. My name is Sonia Kampshoff. I’m your host and a multilingual digital marketing consultant. Today’s conversation with Dominique van Werkhoven takes us across Europe from the UK. To Austria in the Netherlands. In her usual calm way, Dominic tells us a story, one guided by values and human connection.
I also love her proactive approach that led her to finding opportunities in life and work. If you’re curious about language learning, entrepreneurship, and the future of copywriting. You will love this conversation.
Sonia Kampshoff: Today’s episode is very interesting. My guest is Dominique van Werkhoven. I’ll probably let her pronounce it again in a better way, but I like to think of her as Dominique ‘The Werks’, and we’ll go into that later on. She’s a copywriter originally from the UK. I think she lived in Austria as well at some point and is now in The Netherlands.
So welcome Dominique.
Dominique van Werkhoven: Hey Sonia. Thank you for having me. This is fun.
Sonia Kampshoff: So first of all, I like to start with a fun question. What is the favourite word in a language that you speak? Yeah, so I had a lot of, I was thinking about this, like, which am I gonna choose? So I speak Dutch, French, English, and I’m learning, uh, or learn a bit of German.
So it was like, oh, which one do you choose? But I think. Today I’m going with ‘nagenieten’ in Dutch, and that’s the kind of this idea of like enjoying something after it’s happened. So you have like the moment you go for on holiday or you have a party with friends or something, uh, and then the next day somebody can ask you maybe like, how are you doing?
Like, yeah, I’m fine. So I’m still enjoying the, the after, the after enjoyment of the thing that happened the day before. And I think that for me is one of my. Yeah. Favourite words is that you can talk about the feeling you have of enjoyment after the thing has happened. Um, so yeah, nothing needs to
Sonia Kampshoff: I’ve never heard of any expression of that, so that’s very nice, you know, the continuous enjoyment even after something happened. Very positive. I like that.
Sonia Kampshoff: Tell us more about yourself. Where you come from, uh, where you learn the languages that you speak.
Dominique van Werkhoven: So, yeah, as you perfectly said at the beginning, my name is Dominique van Werkhoven. I am a Londoner and born and raised in London to parents who are actually from the Caribbean and South America.
So there’s already like a kind of a cultural mix growing up. I really enjoyed languages at school, so I learned French at school and I went on a French exchange when I was, I think 14. And then I managed to convince my teachers to let me go again when I was 17, I think. So it wasn’t normal. You normally went only when you were 14, but I managed to convince them to let me go again.
I had been touched my French pen pal at the time, and so I was like, can I just go visit her? And that’s, you know, it’s good for my language practice. And then at university I studied law with French law, so that meant doing a year in Paris. And again, I was like, this is just, I love the learning a language whilst being in the country.
So learning every day French aren’t not only what you learn in a textbook. So being able to use it to order my croissant, and do my shopping, I thought, yeah, this is really fun. And so I actually went back to France again after I had studied a year of French law. I then moved back for two years where I worked with a nonprofit organization with young people and I was like, oh, I just love this language. It’s learning.
So after I finished living in France my plan was to go to Brazil. I was like, Hey, let’s do another language. I love Portuguese. Brazilian Portuguese. It sounds really nice. And I know that I learn really well if I’m in the country, if I’m immersed in the language.
So my plan is to move to Brazil. But whilst I was preparing doing kind of like the lessons in the UK I met my husband and he’s Dutch, so instead of Brazil it became The Netherlands. And that’s where I learned Dutch. And then we as a family decided we wanted kind of a bit of a change, new adventure and to experience life outside of both of our passport countries.
So that’s when we moved to Austria with our, we had two kids at the time. We now have three. And yeah, so we moved to Austria and of course then we started to learn Austrian German, and I’m saying Austrian German because I, our experience whilst we’re living there taught us that it’s not completely the same as the German that they speak in Germany.
Kind of like the UK English versus American English, though there’s lots of similarities, but there are some things that are very different. And so that’s where we picked up, or I started learning Austrian German. And now we’re back in The Netherlands, so I’m not using that so much but I’m still doing my learning via Duolingo.
But it keeps it, it keeps it going and I’m learning new stuff. So yeah, that’s kind of how I got into languages, I think very much through living in the places that I’ve been and wanting, I think, always wanting to communicate with people. So I thought, well, the easiest way to communicate with people who are in that space is by learning the language.
So let’s, let’s try and do it as quickly as possible.
Sonia Kampshoff: I guess so your husband is Dutch, so did he speak German before moving to Austria or did he have to learn as well?
Dominique van Werkhoven: Yeah, so he had it at school, but I think the language that what you learn at school doesn’t always carry over into real life. And it was also, I think it had been at least 20 years since he had had those German classes.
So he didn’t really speak any German. And there’s not, so, I mean, there again, there are similarities, so the grammar is quite similar. So that’s really helpful, especially from a reading if you’re going to read it. And it’s helpful to pick it up. I think you can pick it up quicker if you already speak Dutch.
But then that’s, that can also be tricky because you can think, oh, it’s gonna be easy for you, but it’s still a different language. There’s still lots of different, different, totally different vocabulary, for example. So it’s not as, it’s not as if you can just speak Dutch and everybody will understand you, or you know, if everyone speaks German and you’ve picked everything up quickly, there’s definitely some learning that needs to happen.
Sonia Kampshoff: So do you find, I’m going a bit on a side note here, so when you were living in Austria and both of you, you both don’t have German or Austrian German as a native language, do you find that you were then making friends more with locals or with other foreigners? And did locals try to reply to you in English or did they make the effort of letting you speak German and learn German?
Dominique van Werkhoven: I think because our main social base were ended up being parents from the kindergarten where our children went. And we were quite intentional that we chose German speaking kindergartens. So there was also an English teacher, so that was. Were like helpful for us just because our kids also came with no German.
But we also knew we wanted them to be immersed in the culture. And so the most of the friends that we met, or people that we met were parents, and they were, I think mostly also Austrian citizens. And so that was a really good way of getting in. ’cause we, it meant we could hear it, but people also like, Hey, you’ve just moved here.
We’ll make the effort to speak English with you, where we can, you know, where you can and answer your questions. So that was really helpful. But then when it came to institutions…. So like, I remember I got, I was pregnant whilst we lived there. And so I had to call the health insurance company to explain like, I’m pregnant now, how does it work?
What do I need to do? And on the phone she was like, um, excuse me, we speak this year in Austria now, and you speak German. I was like, yeah, I, I know I’ve been here a few months. I can speak some, I just don’t have enough to explain to you my whole situation. And she was like, that might be so, but this is Austria.
We speak German. So I was like, okay. We’re gonna do this. So I had like my, you know, like Google, I had DeepL open on my phone and I was trying to pronounce it. And then at the end of the call she said in perfect English, I wish you all the best with your pregnancy. I was like, you could have, but in some ways I was like, actually, you know what, I did it, it made me, it made me do it.
And so we got a whole mix of people who were like, Hey. We’ll make the effort to speak English with you or we’ll slow down our speech so that to make it easier for you to follow or we’ll have lots of patience whilst you yeah. Whilst you kind of put your sentence together.
And I think you, you get a definitely a mix of, mix of reactions of what people’s expectations are. That of you as a non-native speaker and how quickly you should pick up the language or not? Yeah, I think it’s actually really good because if you’re planning to stay for a longer period in a country, then you know, it kind of helps you.
It’s difficult at the beginning, but it forces you and it helps you to learn the language better. So that’s actually quite good. I hear very often that English speakers, you know, mostly when they go on ho. People just reply in English and they, they don’t have a chance to learn as much the local languages.
Sonia Kampshoff: Yeah, absolutely.
Dominique van Werkhoven: And I think our neighbour who lived opposite us she didn’t speak really very much English at all. I think she could understand it, but not speak it. And a couple of times we’re like, well, you know, in this social distancing time, like you’re allowed to, you know, meet with one other person.
So it was like, it makes sense to meet with the person living opposite you. And so she would come over, we’d have cake and coffee and like I look back now at the beginning, I think, how did we do it? Because both our communication languages was so limited. I was like, actually over time, look, we’re, we know we’re speaking more.
She’s given me, if I listen to her sentences, I’m picking up ways of expressing stuff or I’m finding out the words for things. Her patience with me is giving me the confidence to, to keep practicing and I make mistakes. And and we actually had built relationship that way. So I think you’re right.
Like there is a sense of if you need to speak it. You are gonna it up. A lot quicker than when you don’t. And at the same time, I really appreciated, especially in that first, that first six months was like, okay, who, you know, who can we speak to? Where can we find common connections where there’s a bit of space to.
Express stuff in a language that feels comfortable for me, especially when it comes to sensitive things. So like going to the doctors for example, you’re like, oh, this is actually nice that I can talk about my health, um, in a language that is familiar and feels safe to me whilst also knowing you’re gonna grow and you’re, you, you want to make the effort to Yeah, to learn the local language, I think.
Sonia Kampshoff: Yeah. And how was then your experience in The Netherlands with learning and perfecting the language?
Dominique van Werkhoven: So that was funny. I had to ask people to speak Dutch with me.
Sonia Kampshoff: Oh wow.
Dominique van Werkhoven: So it was really interesting. I think in the Netherlands there’s a sense of, you know, there’s this idea that everybody speaks English, they’re really confident English speakers.
And so you know, you’re not gonna have a problem speaking English here. And I think to a extent that is true because people often, especially at the beginning when I would first start trying to speak Dutch, they would hear that I was a non-native speaker and they would. Almost immediately switch into English.
I think partly to show, Hey, I can, I’m already speaking a language, don’t worry. And also partly to say like, you know, it’s, it’s a tough language to learn, or it might feel like a tough language to learn. I can, I’ll meet you halfway. Like I’ll meet you, speak to you in, in your language. But I was like, I want to learn.
Like I’m there’s a big chance that I’m here for a very, very long time. So please please speak to me in Dutch. Have patience with me and I had to like really be intentional and say. Thank you. But I’m learning, I’m actually learning Dutch and it will really help me if you would speak back to me in Dutch.
Sonia Kampshoff: moving on to the work that you do, you’re a copywriter and content creator. I know that you work with your husband. Can you tell us more about it?
Dominique van Werkhoven: Yeah, so our company, which is called The Werks, which is a play on our surname, was actually born in Austria. So he was working as a web developer and one of his clients said to him, do you happen to know somebody who is a copywriter?
Because I’ve got blog posts that I want to put on my website. I’ve got content that I want to post on social media on LinkedIn in particular, and the writing of it, it’s just costing me so much time and so much effort that I would love to outsource it to somebody. And he was like, well, actually, I do happen to know somebody who is a copywriter and she’s coming out of maternity leave.
I can link you. And so he linked me with his client and I started writing for them. They said, oh man, it’s so helpful to have my web developer and my copywriter in the same team. So I speak to you about a blog and I know that it’s gonna get uploaded. I don’t have to worry about it anymore, it’s covered.
Or I have an idea for email marketing. And I know that the copy is covered for the email. And I also know that the tech setup is also covered. Same with landing page. And so she just was like, this is ideal. I’ve got kind of like my little marketing department in my pocket. We said, oh, actually maybe more people could make use of this would benefit from having the copywriter and the web developer in one team.
And in a few other cases, my husband found that the part that would take them the longest that they didn’t expect was actually writing the website copy. Because you don’t want to have your homepage, which is super long. You can have loads of texts, but it’s not necessarily gonna work on your homepage.
Or they haven’t thought about the structure. So like what pages are leading to what pages, what sections do I need to have? And without the content, it’s kind of hard to build the website in the way that it needs to to be done. And so he was like, oh, that would also be really helpful if I had a copywriter who was either writing the copy for the clients or guiding them in what they should think about for their website.
What pages should they have, what structures should they follow. And so that’s kind of that’s how,
The Werks was born out of this. Kind of desire to help people build their websites, write their copy, or have their copy written in a way that was actually helpful for them, and also helpful as for the web developer.
And then because of our, we have like a strong, nonprofit background where we’ve worked with young people who sometimes were overlooked or kind of discounted. Discounted because of their surname or their cultural background or anything like that. And the work we did as a nonprofit was all about having those young people be seen and be heard, be valued, and that we kind of brought into how we do the work.
So we want to work with small businesses, solopreneurs who want to grow. And who want to be seen, who wants to be heard, you want to be valued. And we’re like, okay, well here’s our skills as a copywriter, as a web developer, we wanna use those skills, that knowledge that we have to help you achieve the goal of being seen, heard, and valued.
It’s really great to be able to combine the work that we do with the values that we have.
Sonia Kampshoff: How do you work with languages then? I’m guessing you write mostly or only in English, but you also studied in French for example. I’m guessing your French is pretty good. Do you work in any other languages or does your husband work in other languages?
Dominique van Werkhoven: So our primary languages for working are actually Dutch and English. So I will write also Dutch for Dutch websites and English for either people who are from the UK or who have English as their first language.
But often we work with those who are also immigrants or immigrant business owners, for example. So they will use English as their main language of communication. And then my husband works a lot with Dutch, our Dutch clients as they’re kind of on their websites, that kind of stuff.
We’ve also had an inquiry for somebody who wants a French and English website. And we’re like, yeah, that’s also totally it’s totally doable. Because they are a French and English, not a couple. There are two of them, but no, not a couple. But they want to have a partnership where they serve French speakers and English speakers in France.
And so they’re like, where can we where can you go that you can have both your English and French together? And the, the plus point is that they don’t have to also get a translator involved because those are the two languages that we can cover. So that’s great.
Sonia Kampshoff: Do you have an industry that you work mostly? You said small businesses and solopreneurs, but do you work specifically in one niche or are you just spreading wider?
Dominique van Werkhoven: Yeah, I mean, we are quite wide in that sense, although I think when you look at the clients that we have. Until now there was definitely a trend. So we, it’s those who are in the social impact space, those who are in a kind of faith-based space and yeah, I think they have some kind of international aspect to their work and it’s mostly service-based people.
Up until now, although we have one product based, but the majority are service based. We have quite a few coaches who are, that we end up working with. And then, and it’s interesting because we didn’t set out to work with coaches specifically, but I think because lots of coaches work with people who want to be seen and heard and valued, they work with people who are working on their confidence, on their business presence.
And so there’s a kind of a natural overlap. But I would say more generally it’s yeah, impact. People who are looking at social impact or have some international aspect to their, to their work tend to be those who fit into our still defined or to be defined niche, I guess.
Sonia Kampshoff: So it sounds like all of your career progression was very organic. You just happened to be in the right place at the right time, but you seem to be, it seems to be going well and you seem to be very happy with it. Do you have sort of an ideal client or have you had a project that you particularly enjoy doing? What’s the kind of work that really excites you?
Dominique van Werkhoven: Ooh, this is a very good question. So one of our clients that we built website for was a social impact business. It’s a catering business and they work with underserved young people. So they employ them in the business and they help basically helping them to build up their work experience and that kind of thing.
’cause they have their work experience. They can then apply for jobs in the future. There’s this, like often you have this cycle of I’m applying for a job, but they want me to have experience. Where do I get experience? And so to kind of interrupt that cycle, this is what they do. When we first got into conversation with them, we had so many ideas of how they could grow, what things we could do with the website, but you know, where they get funding.
But also where they could expand, how could they reach more corporate clients? Because that’s what they came to us with. The challenge of we need to reach more corporate clients, but how do we do that when, you know, our website doesn’t look like it’s the kind of we, the kind of people that work with corporates.
So being involved in that transformation. It wasn’t just building the website, but it was also helping them to achieve their goals, to transform. It was working on the strategy. Yeah, it was working on the strategy and not just the output at the end. And I think when we can be involved at that level, that really excites us.
I think when we’ve had clients to say, I just want a simple website, like just something simple. Our first question is about what’s, what’s the purpose? What do you want the website to do? And then like, then we can talk. ’cause if, even if it’s a simple one page website, that website should do something. ’cause if it’s not doing something, what, what are you, what are you paying for?
What is the space? What are you taking up space for? And so when we, I think ideal situation is when we can be involved and partner with people in the strategy, in the vision, and then seeing how we can make the website and their copy. How do we make it serve the bigger, the bigger vision, the bigger picture.
I find it very interesting also when you, when you get on board with a client and you help them really transform the business, you know, they have the vision and you collaborate with them to make their vision a reality. And in your case, it’s a website, the end product.
Sonia Kampshoff: It’s I can see how that is very interesting. Yeah. At least that’s one of our kind of core values is this collaboration. So not us just taking an order, but also not us saying, okay, this is what you have to do, end of discussion, but a real partnership and for however long we’re working together that we are a part of the team.
And yeah, part of the, uh, the vision. And I think anything in the mental health, social impact, young people social justice, I’m like, okay. Then I’m like, then I know that we are getting extra, extra excited and wanting to see those spaces grow because I think there’s a, there’s this sense that if you’re working in social justice, social impact, nonprofit space that you are allowed to grow and you, you know, you can’t.
Make use of all the tools that are available. So even things like SEO, they’re like, oh, but that’s not really for us as a nonprofit. I’m like, it’s like, it’s about marketing, it’s about people finding what you have to offer.
It’s about gaining more people to join the course, and SEO can help with all of that. And too often I think it’s like, well, that’s for the, for the business side. And we are like, well, no, like, use those tools to grow. Your impact, whether as a small business solopreneur or as a nonprofit or as a social business wanting to make money to invest into good things.
Sonia Kampshoff: I find it very interesting when you have this whole educational element really that you bring to the client as well. Educating them, the website is there, but if no one finds it and gets on there, it doesn’t bring you much. But you know, you help them understand, you educate them and understand them and understanding how they can bring people to the website and
So then they can offer more of what, whatever they’re offering. That’s great.
Dominique van Werkhoven: Yeah, that’s exactly it. Yeah.
Sonia Kampshoff: I have another question which I wanted to ask, and that’s more about technology and AI. How do you use it and how do you see it come into your business and into the work that you do?
Dominique van Werkhoven: So I think it’s interesting as a copywriter, there is a lot of angst around ai. So AI’s given me taking copywriting jobs and nobody needs copywriters anymore. And even seeing sometimes some clients that I’ve spoken to or prospective clients, they’re like almost ashamed to say, you know what? I’ve been using, I’ve been using ChatGPT, I’ve been using Claude to help me and.
There’s a part of me, which is like, of course as a copywriter, I want to work with people to produce a copy. But I also know that sometimes it’s really inaccessible to some people to work with a copywriter. And so I think encouraging people that if you are gonna use AI, if you’re gonna use ChatGPT or anything else to write, go through it afterwards, tweak it.
Like use it to give you a basic structure, but then make sure that you are in there like your personality. Your voice is in there. So what I’ve also seen is a shift in terms of maybe people not coming to me to do the copywriting for them, but to kind of be a guide with them on, okay, if I’m gonna, how can I, what kind of things I need to think about to write my copy.
So again, that maybe that strategy part. And that kind of, yeah. Can you partner with me almost coach and support me to get to my copy. So that’s an easier way to work with a copywriter with when you don’t have the budget to hire a copywriter. But you still get the benefit of the expertise. And I think personally we, we, I use it more as a kind of a quick research.
I think I use it the same way as I use Google. So I go there, so I may be like, Hey, give me five ideas for topic A. And out of the five, maybe one of them will be like, oh yeah, that’s cool. Like I will take that and then I will end up adapting it anyway. So by the time the end product comes out, it doesn’t look like what GPT gave me.
It kind of gave me that little launch pad when I could have spent a long time and reading a thousand different sources. Whereas this kind of gave me the initial spark that allowed me to then fan it into a flame. And I think sometimes that’s the part that’s missing. Like people get the spark and that’s, that’s it.
It could be a flame, but you need to fan it like. To breathe on it. It’s like, give it the oxygen. It needs to get big, and that can only come from you. I think a lot of people use AI at the moment. I use it more as idea generation and as a support, a starting point.
Or when you hit a stumbling block, you use it to help you get moving again. I think it’s a great way to use it more like. Of what you’re already doing and helping you, you know, do the basics, but then the thinking and the strategy still is in your hands. And I think, I mean, I, ’cause as being copywriter, I’ll often talk, maybe, uh, hear more about chat, GPT or other writing assistant tools, but there’s also a lot of people are like using it to organize their day.
You know, like, Hey, I’ve got these things to do today. Can you give me a structure on how I can organize my day? And that’s a really helpful use of ai. So I think we talk about AI quite as a bliss blanket thing, or we think about it only as writing our content on social media.
But actually there’s. A lot of smart ways to use it to enhance what you are already doing. And like you said, to support you, not to replace you.
Sonia Kampshoff: This was a wonderful conversation. Is there anything I think a missed out? Anything that you would like to add?
Dominique van Werkhoven: Um, yeah, I think maybe the one thing, and I link to our, what we’re talking about now with AI and there’s lots of talk like AI is also gonna reduce people going to websites.
I think for anyone who is coming up into the world of SEO and copywriting, that actually the same principles remain be helpful. What are people looking for? How can you help them? Um, how can you structure your structure, any content that you are producing in a way that’s means that people can read it easily, that they can find what they’re looking for.
They can build trust. I think whether, however people get the information, like if they are coming onto your website and they are finding you, whether that’s through your name or because somebody sent them a link to something that you’ve written, you want them to be able to. Understand, to stay on your website, um, to get to know you, what you offer, um, and to make the clicks when there actually are on your website.
And those are all SEO principles and they’re not gonna change just because AI search exists. And so, I would, I know it was kind of part encouragement to anyone coming up into that. Or building a career in an SEO or in copywriting or strategy is to remember that it’s not, again the people searching are still humans.
So what do humans need? And I think having that in your, in your mind when approaching your content, your website, SEO strategy, it spoke well. How, what are we gonna do to serve the humans that are coming on to our website that we want to work with?
Sonia Kampshoff: Absolutely. That’s a great reminder. People, people go to Google or any other search engine. I have a question, and the important thing is that you provide useful and real answer to what the question is. And maybe they don’t click on your result on the Google search page, the AI search.
But maybe they don’t, they don’t click on it, but maybe they do and then they come to the website and actually find the answer to what they’re looking for and they find something else, which is what you are, uh, yeah. Promoting and what you’re offering, uh, beta service or product. Yeah.
Sonia Kampshoff: That’s a very good reminder. Where can people find you?
Dominique van Werkhoven: Um, so yeah, I am on LinkedIn and. We are also, we have our own page, it’s called, We Are The Werks, and it’s with a W-E-R-K-S. And of course our website, thewerks.nl.
Sonia Kampshoff: Perfect. I’ll put all the links in the show notes as usual, so you don’t have to guess any writing about that.
Well, thank you so much for your time, Dominique. It’s, it was wonderful talking to you.
Dominique van Werkhoven: No, thank you Sonia, for having me. This is a really fun, yeah, fun to discuss it in the context of languages and, and work. So yeah. Thank you.
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