Sue Khoo is well-known across central Arkansas for her local businesses and the commercials that advertise those businesses. Many can recite lines from her long-running commercial for Unique Furniture in Jacksonville, but those same people may not know that Khoo used to be a nurse, opened stores originally as a way to help her family and now uses her business persona to educate children and adults about embracing different cultures and caring for the environment.
“Community is important,” she said. “I like to tell children that it’s not only about the money. You have to be learning and helping each other and the environment. We all need to be doing just a little bit extra for the kids. That is our future.”
Khoo grew up in Taiwan, where she became a licensed midwife and registered nurse in 1971. She moved to the United States in 1973 to continue her medical education, and like many immigrants, Khoo had to overcome language and cultural barriers while continuing her studies.
“I came here to study health sciences in New York,” she said. “I got here Nov. 3, 1973. I found a job in a factory because I did not speak good English. School didn’t start until a few months later, so I started at the factory. They paid me $2.25 an hour, and I didn’t do anything but cut thread. After a few days, I decided I didn’t really want that job, but it’s hard to find a job if you don’t speak English.”
Eventually, she found a job selling jewelry. She worked a lot with Chinese customers, but there were also times when she had to decipher some of the words her English-speaking customers would say. For instance, once she thought a customer was asking for pink earrings, but she was really asking for penguin earrings.
Khoo said she learned a lot about sales, customer service and marketing while in that job, and she still maintained her studies.
“I went to school and had to learn the health answers, which were very difficult for me,” she said. “I spent 16 hours a day for studies. … That’s what happened to a lot of us who immigrated. We had to work harder just to get used to our environment in the United States.”
In 1976, Khoo moved to Galveston, Texas, where she worked as a registered nurse in labor and delivery at John Sealy Hospital, which is part of the University of Texas Medical Branch complex. Her family also immigrated to the United States, and Khoo thought it would be wise to open a store so they could have jobs while they transitioned into their new life. She opened several stores in Houston, and eventually, she felt the draw to leave nursing and work in the family businesses full time.
“When I first got pregnant, I quit,” she said of her nursing job. “I started working in the business, and I decided I really loved the business. I loved the people. The business is more relaxed. In labor and delivery, it’s very intensive. You have to make sure the baby is OK.”
In the mid-1990s, Khoo decided to move to Arkansas and opened Unique Furniture in June 1996.
Khoo has been in the retail business since 1979, and she said she has enjoyed meeting new people and making new friends along the way. Sometimes, that means pulling in her nursing expertise.
“Even now, a customer will come in when they’re pregnant, and I take the time to tell them how to care for themselves, how to breastfeed and show them how to do exercises,” she said.
Unique Furniture is not Khoo’s only business venture in the Little Rock area. In 2007 she opened Unique Connection Center, a banquet hall in Jacksonville, and two years later, she opened the supermarket Asian Mart in Little Rock.
There are a few things Khoo takes very seriously when it comes to running her businesses, including offering well-made products — most of which are made in the United States — and pricing them so there is no need to negotiate. She said she does not run her store on commission, and she does not negotiate on prices so that all customers have a pleasant experience. Khoo learned from an early age that she did not like the concept of negotiation, and she wants all of her prices to be fair.
“When I was in Taiwan, we had to have the uniform-type shoes for school,” she said. “I bought it for 320 yuan, which is about $11. My sister went, and after an hour [of negotiating], she bought them for 200 yuan. It’s 120 yuan cheaper. … It’s not fair. I want to be fair with all of my customers.”
Khoo said she got a lot of her business philosophies from the late Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Deming is known for his impact on Japanese industry after World War II and his influence on the American automobile industry in the late 1980s.
“He would say that a business does not run by luck; you have to know the theory,” Khoo said. “One of his theories is everybody needs to work together; everyone needs to be in cooperation. You have to have a system, and you have to do it right the first time.”
Deming had a lot of theories, Khoo said, and she applies them to many aspects of her life. She utilized some of her theories to raise her three children, and she shares those principles with people in the community.
“I believe that if the system runs right, they can run themselves,” she said. “He helped me with my family. He helped me with my business.”
Like Deming, Khoo works to share her knowledge with those around her. She is regularly invited to speak to groups around town because of her business success, and she said she talks about a lot more than dollars and cents.
“All of my speeches are not business,” she said. “I believe that I can share my system with them and then share about education and then ask them to save the Earth. I also talk about culture of the traditional Chinese.”
When she is talking to students, Khoo said, she likes to focus on saving the environment, respecting parents and doing housework. Her strategy
with teens is to encourage them to be the kinds of people who would make a good spouse. If a person does not respect others and does not do housework now, why would they change when they get married? She tells them that is why it is important to cultivate those positive habits early on so that they can be attractive to others.
“It’s so funny,” she said. “After a few days, [the parents] ask me, ‘Sue, what did you do to my kid? They come home and wash dishes. They help me. What did you do?’”
Khoo is known in the community for a lot more than just being a solid businesswoman and a good speaker. She has been supportive of both the Esther D. Nixon Library in Jacksonville and the Little Rock State Capitol Library, and she sponsors the Asian Festival every year in an effort to educate the public about her heritage.
She is currently working on plans to open a school to help students who are struggling in their studies or who want to learn other skills, such as music and martial arts. Plans are in the works, and Khoo hopes to open the facility sometime next year.
“People are busy, and some parents don’t have the ability to help their children with homework, and tutoring can be expensive,” she said. “I am going to use my own money to open the school. The people who need help with homework — as well as people interested in music and martial arts — can come in, and we can help them. If we have a good foundation with the kids, we have a good community. They grow up a better person.”
Staff writer Angela Spencer can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or aspencer@arkansasonline.com.