156: Listen, Focus, Balance, Pivot: Get It All Done and Pursue Your Entrepreneurial Dreams with Audrey Bell-Kearney

Robert Plank: Audrey Bell-Kearney is the founder and CEO of HerTube Media Network, which is a media marketing production distribution and consulting firm that curates and produces digital content for clients and helps them get exposure for their business. Now, Audrey sounds like a pretty amazing woman. She created a plus-sized fashion doll. She has a weekly radio show. She has a documentary. She has all kind of cool stuff. How are things today Audrey?

Audrey Bell-Kearney: Hey, everything is wonderful today. It's a beautiful day down here in Georgia. How about with yourself?

Robert Plank: Super beautiful in California. About to take a walk a little bit later, but in the meantime, just enjoying the entrepreneurial journey and all that good stuff.

As we get rocking and rolling here, what would you say makes you stand out from the crowd? What makes Audrey Bell-Kearney special?

Audrey Bell-Kearney: I think, for me, it's my ability to be a good listener to people and help them clarify what they're doing, help them clarify the journey that they're on because I find that- and I didn't know I was a good listener until I actually went to a job interview one time, at Comcast as a matter of fact, and the interview person asked me, "What do you think your greatest skill is?" And I said, "Listening," and she said "You are the only person that answered that question correctly." She said, "It's rare that I find somebody who say, 'listening.'" I would say that listening and helping people pretty much clarify what they want to do with themselves, with their business, with their lives, and things like that.

Robert Plank: Would you say that this whole thing about being a good listener, is this just something that comes naturally to you or do you see other people kind of messing up? Is it just a matter of just slowing down, being 100% present? What's the trick to being a good listener?

Audrey Bell-Kearney: I think being 100% present and really being concerned about what someone is saying to you, because a lot of times people are talking and you're not listening. For me, if someone comes to me with a problem, I'm present. I'm there. When I'm there, I get to be able to find out exactly what it is they're going through.

My mind is so weird because it starts planning out, while they're talking to me, it starts planning out the solution right away. I didn't really recognize this until people started saying to me, "Oh my God! You're so good at this. You're so good at this." It was just something that came natural for me. It's kind of like I'm a listener, and then I play it out. I can figure it out in a picture in my head, like this is what you should be doing.

I remember there was a gentleman who told me I was a clairaudient and I never knew what that meant. He said, "Clairaudients are people that listen. They learn by listening. They learn by hearing what people are saying." He said to me, "They're really to the point. They really don't like to beat around the bush. Get right to the point."

It was so funny because I said, "Oh my God. That must be what the problem is with my daughter and my husband because they like to tell a story, and they want to tell you a long story. For me, I'm like, "Okay, what's the point? Let's get to the point."

I think it's something that I was pretty much born with, didn't recognize it for a long time, but people kept telling me, "You're so good at that."

Robert Plank: I mean, if you're good at it, just go ahead and play to your strength. I appreciate that and I think that the average person probably doesn't pay that much attention. I think about in a lot of the conversations that I have, a lot of people either tell me just what they think I want to hear, or it turns out they only listened to the very last sentence I said, or they kind of tuned in the first few seconds and then they kind of tuned out. I like how you explained that, that kind of like, as they're talking, you're just kind of taking it in and you're already formulating a solution for them, as opposed to just kind of going through the motions there.

It's cool that- I see this all the time. Let me know if you experience this or not, but whenever I have someone who's outside of my business looking in, or I look at someone else's business as an outsider, they're are all kinds of things that are right in front of their face that they're completely missing. Do you see these kinds of things happening?

Audrey Bell-Kearney: All the time. All the time. I talk to women all the time. We do mastermind groups, and a lot of times you can't see what's right in front of you. Even myself, even me, I have to go to my coach, and walk through things, and talk with people, and I do my mastermind. A lot of times it's right in front of your face and they can't see it. Then, once they talk it out to somebody, then they can see it. It's declared for them. With me, I find that when they start talking, it's automatic with me. I have to turn it off sometime because I get so excited about what I hear and what I'm seeing, I just want to jump in and start blurting it out. Yeah, that's pretty common with a lot of people, even with myself.

Robert Plank: Okay, so you're a good listener. What has that listening got you? What have you done recently that kind of has you excited?

Audrey Bell-Kearney: What has me really excited these days, and it's pretty easy to get me excited because I get a lot of ideas. I'm working on a new series called Campus Crimes. It's so funny because we did our casting last week for the show. We cast about, I want to say, 22 people for the series. It's an Internet TV web series. I think just meeting new talent and young people who want to get their names out there. They want to be actors and actresses.

My daughter is a actor as well. My daughter had said to me that Friday morning, she said, "You want to know what really pissed me off?" I said, "What?" She says, "When I go on a audition, and I come home, and you guys say, "How did it go?" She said, "I don't know how it went. Every time you say that it just drives me crazy." So I said, "Okay."

The next day, I was casting. There was a gentleman who came. He said, "You know, I really want to do this. This is all I want to do." He said, "My wife has really been supportive. She's holding everything down for me." He said, "I'm out of work right now, but I really want to focus on my career." He said, "When I go home, she always say to me, 'Hey babe, how did it go?'"

It was so funny because my daughter conversation the day before gave me the opportunity to say to him, "You know what? When you go home and you see your wife, you tell her it went well and you got a part in it," because he say, "I get parts but I'm a extra. I never get a speaking part." I said, "You tell her you got a speaking part."

That makes me excited. It makes me excited that I could help people bring their dreams to life and be in this creative space right now, in this whole video space right now. That's got me excited. It keeps me up at night.

Robert Plank: Nice. It sounds like you're helping other people out or giving them a better experience when they go home with the little things, right? You picked up that, when other people go in for auditions and they don't know how it went, at least now you're saying, "Okay, right off the bat, I'm telling you if you're getting it."

Audrey Bell-Kearney: I only said it to him, because he said what my daughter had said to me, "I go home and she says to me, 'How did it go?'" Nobody else said that. I told no one else that day that they got the part except for him, because I just felt like, "Okay, here's a guy who really wants to do what he loves." You know when you want to do something that you love, you pretty much make huge sacrifices. I could tell he was making sacrifices. I could tell he was passionate about having this whole actor career. I wanted to make his day, so I said to him, "When you go home, you tell your wife not only did you get the part, but you got a speaking part," and he was like, "Oh my God! Thank you so much!"

By the time he got outside, I got a message on my phone. He had found me on Facebook and he put up a video thanking God. Just be patient. Just believe in yourself. I was like, "Wow! That's pretty cool."

Robert Plank: That's awesome. This Campus Crimes Internet TV web series, what is that? Why did you make it?

Audrey Bell-Kearney: I've been a business owner now for 20 years, 18 years full-time working from home. When I invented the dolls, I call that my real business. I invented the dolls in 1999, so the dolls are turning 18 years old next year. I was sitting here and I said, "Man, I really need to create something for HerTube," which is my TV network, HerTube TV, "I really need to create something that's going to stand out."

I'm sitting in my office and I'm looking at my doll. I haven't gotten her manufactured, probably in about 7 or 8 years, but I said, "You know what? I'm going to get a limited edition manufactured. She's got on the outfit that my daughter wore to the prom. My daughter wore the exact same kind of dress to the prom. I loved the dress so much I had it made for the doll. I sent the samples to Hong Kong and I said, "You know what? We might be able to do a story around her." Her name is Dasia. "Maybe I need to do a story around Dasia," and the more I thought about it, the more it kept coming to me.

Maybe she's in college now. Let's make her want to be a FBI. I came up with this whole story of mine about these 3 friends who meet in college. Dasia's from the inner city. I grew up in Newark. I was born in Georgia, but I grew up in Newark, New Jersey, which is pretty tough. You've got to be pretty tough to live in Newark, New Jersey.

I kind of thought about my life: pretty smart girl, book smart, street smart, can hold her own. I said, "You know what? I'm going to make Dasia like that," but because there's so much crime in inner cities, I wanted her to be studying to be a FBI. I created the story around her and she wants to be an FBI. She meet up with 2 friends. I'm here in Georgia now. One of her friends is Macie and she is a beautiful white girl who lives in Savannah. She was raised on a farm. All she cares about is keeping the Earth and the planet safe and clean. Then there's Terri who is raised in Los Angeles. Her family is rich. She's a black girl. She wants to find money. She loves fashion and she wants to be a fashion model.

They meet up on campus and because Dasia is training to be a FBI, the police and the campus police are always coming to her when something's missing, for her to help crack it. She may be hacking a computer. She may be tracking somebody down, you know, just solving cases. That's pretty much the gist of how I came about with the story line.

Robert Plank: Cool, so am I understanding you right in that, so you have an Internet TV station, and you have this show called Campus Crimes. Is it live action? Is it that these plots, and these stories are being acted out, but then there's also the doll version of Dasia. Is that right?

Audrey Bell-Kearney: Dasia is actually a doll. The show is actually a real version of Dasia. Dasia is a limited edition that I'm putting out because she's turning 18. In the doll world, there are a lot of people who knew Dasia when we had her out there actively selling her and promoting her. She hasn't been out now for some years. Because she's turning 18, we're doing a limited edition line. I decided to spin it and turning her into a real person, so we cast real people to play the role of Dasia and her friends.

Robert Plank: That's pretty cool. What's the deal with these dolls anyway? I know that we mentioned it a little bit as we were ramping up. I didn't realize that some of these different things connected.

Eighteen years ago, the thing that started all of this off, what was the idea here? I guess these are plus-sized dolls and you have the African American one and the white one. I mean, how did all this doll stuff start?

Audrey Bell-Kearney: I was working at Verizon in 1999 and hated every second of it. Verizon had- I didn't like it. It was a customer service position, but I was also trying to figure out my next move. I said, "You know, I want to do a business. I want to do something." I had just retained a representative for Primerica Financial Services. I was in the back of the room recruiting my friend to Primerica. I said to her, "You know, I was at work and I had this idea for this doll," and she said, "Yeah? What kind of doll?" I said, "Like a fat fashion doll. You ever seen one?" And she said, "No, I never saw a fat fashion doll," she said, "but I collect dolls." She said, "You've got to stop by my house and look at my collection." I said, "Okay."

The weekend, I went to her house and when I got to her house, she had just got this really beautiful doll by Mattel. She paid $250 for the doll. I'm looking at the doll. I said, "People pay this kind of money for a doll?" She's like, "Yeah, it's a collectible doll," so we took that and we started running. She said, "Listen, I want to know, can I be the vice president?" I was like, "Sure," so we founded a company called Big Beautiful Dolls and we just hit the ground running.

For 6 months, we looked in every corner of the world trying to find a doll manufacturer, and we came across the one guy down in Maryland who had his own doll company. I reached out to him. We drove to Maryland because at that time, I was still living in New Jersey. We drove to Maryland and we spent 8 hours in his warehouse. He told us everything we needed to do to launch this company, including giving us the name of a sculptor. He said he could manufacture the doll. He said, "I can manufacture it for you," he said, "but it's going to be really expensive to get the molds." He said, "You've got to think about that," He said, "but the first thing you've got to do, you have to actually get your doll sculpted."

I came home and I looked online. I pulled up some plus-sized women. I sent a picture of myself because I'm a plus-sized woman as well. I sent that to the doll sculptor. You know, what was kind of funny about that whole situation, she lived in Kincheloe, Michigan and she said to me, she says, "Well, I thanked Percy for sending you to me," she say, "and it's a good time for you, but it's a bad time for me." I sat there like, "Okay." I didn't understand what she meant and I said, "Why do you say that?" She said, "Well, I can't charge you what I'd normally charge you because I'm going through an estate settlement right now."

She said, "My son just learned how to fly a plane and he was graduating. His father came to visit us, and he took his father up in the plane to show him that he could fly, and the wind blew the plane into a tree and they both passed away." I was like, "Oh my God!" That was such a sad story. I was like, "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that." She said, "Me too," she said, "so right now, this is going to give me some kind of break from thinking about that whole thing and I just can't charge you what I would normally charge," which was great for us, but it was sad for her.

That's pretty much how the dolls got started, so for 5 years, I ran that company, running up and down the east coast doing doll shows, talking to people, getting written up in magazines, doing press and all that kind of stuff.

Robert Plank: Awesome, and there's a lot of interesting things in there. I mean, one thing that I liked about that whole story there is that, first of all, you had your friend, the one that jumped on being the vice president, who is just as excited about it as you are. I think that what was also cool was that instead of just looking at this as some kind of dream, you broke it down, or you at least did the research and figured out what were the smaller steps that you had to do. Right? You had to figure out what the doll would look like, have it go to the designer, have it go to the manufacturer.

What I also like is that that manufacturer was very helpful, right? A lot of people just want to say, "Just give me money," or, "give me this lump sum and I'll figure it out," but he was very helpful, it sounds like, in educating you and getting you kind of brought up to speed to the point where when it came time to buy from him, then you were a more educated buyer, right? That way, you could come- like, he told you all the stuff you had to figure out and then what you would have to come back to him with. That way, it just seems like an easier transaction, and more of a long-term thing, where it seems like everyone involved, number 1, was super excited to get it done, and then number 2, was very clear about what the prerequisites were in order to move to that next step in the process.

Audrey Bell-Kearney: That is absolutely the truth. His name is Percy Sutton. His company is called Integrity Toys. He was so instrumental in helping us get this off the ground, and not a lot of people are like that. There's so many coaches out there. There's so many mentors and all these different people. It's very rare to find somebody who will take the time to sit with you for 8 hours. We sat for 8 hours, all we had was water, because we were like the student in the classroom and we wanted to get it done.

He sat there with us and he told us. We met his team. He walked us through the process, so for him to sit there and do that, I will forever be grateful because of him I would not have gotten the doll done as quick as I got it done because it took us 6 months to go from an idea out of my head to actual physical product in December. The doll was actually sent to us, the prototypes were sent to us in December. Him being that person to help us get to that level, that was something. That was priceless for me.

Robert Plank: Awesome! When you look back and you look at the creation of the dolls, your Internet TV station, and your web series, and things like that, and you look at what you've done right, what do you think it is that you've done right that a lot of people aren't doing out there?

Audrey Bell-Kearney: Being focused. I've got to tell you, Robert. That is the one thing that I will tell anybody. I had a coach, probably back in 2006, and he said to me, he said, "Audrey, you need to just pick one focus," and I was like, "I'm a wonder woman. I can do it all. I can do all the things. I can do 10 things." He kept telling me, "You need to pick one thing because that's why you're not hitting the level of success that you want to hit, because you're all over the place." He said, "Your site is beautiful." I had just paid $1,500 for a new site. He said, "The site is beautiful," he said, "but nobody knows what you do." I kept saying to myself, "but it's right there!" It was clear to me, so I didn't listen.

What I would say is, listen to the people that know more than you. Be focused. Pick something and be focused. Now, I'm not saying that you can't expand your brand later, but right now, pick one thing. That's the one thing that was pretty tough for me about being an entrepreneur because I have so many great ideas most of the time. Sometimes, somebody have to smack me side my head and say, "Hey, listen, focus."

When I realized that that was a big key for me. When I started HerTube, I said, "Okay, what's my focus going to be?" What I did was, even though I have several different subsidies to the company, I have people in place to handle those subsidies. I handle the basic overall operations of the company, the marketing, and the expansion of the company. I have a person that handles the production, and I have a person that handles the content curation and stuff. Even though I have all these ideas, and each one of those can be separate businesses by themselves. I would say focus is the main thing for anybody.

Robert Plank: I like that. I think that's a really powerful message for a lot of people listening, especially because I think about the times that I told myself that I could have the split focus, or that I could have the multi-tasking, and when I think back on it, I realize that, okay, let's say if I had to switch careers between three different businesses. In your head, you think, "Okay, I'll just put in 33%, 33%, and 33%," but as far as the having to switch gears and remember stuff and all that, at least for me, it was more like 10%, 10%, 10%, or maybe even 5% in each of those things.

I think that is so huge. Once people get past that initial crunch time, for example, you mentioned that there was that 6 month period when you were probably not sleeping a lot, or doing all the stuff to get that idea to the prototype phase, or to get it finished. There's, for sure, the crunch time period when you're figuring things out, but then after that time, when you're looking more long-term, then it becomes time to kind of take yourself out of the business. It sounds like you've kind of had that similar path, where you say, "All right, well, there was that period of time when I was super overworked, but then in the long-term, I need to have the focus to not be burned out, and then I'll go and look and see who can fill what gaps for me.

Audrey Bell-Kearney: You know, it took some learning because with the doll company, I didn't know that. That was my first real business. My partner and I, we were running. We were grinding it out. Then she moved to Texas because her husband works for Fox Television, so they moved to Texas. I was in New Jersey by myself and at the time, my boyfriend who is now my husband for the last 13 years, he became my partner sort of. We just did the highway thing, up and down the highway. I had to find some balance because I was really burning out.

I remember my daughter was about 9 or 10 years old at the time and her teacher sent me a notice home and said, "Hey listen, you need to come in so we can talk." I go into the school and I said, "Yes?" She said, "You know, your daughter grades are slipping." I'm like, "Why?" She said, "You work all the time," and I was like, "Oh my God!" Which I was. I was working and I was doing a business. I had to find some balance.

What I did was, when she was home I gave her all of my attention. She went to bed about 8:00 at night, so when she would go to bed, I would start all over again and I would work to probably like 2:00 in the morning. At 3:00 in the morning, because I quit my job at Verizon, my husband and I would go and sling papers. We had a paper route at 3:00 in the morning. We would sling papers until about 5:00 in the morning, come back home. I'll lay back down for about a hour and get my daughter up around 7:00 for school. She would go to school and I would start my day all over again.

You can get burned out but when you're focused and you're passionate about what you do, you don't feel like you're getting burned out until it hits you. Then all of a sudden, you're like, "Bam! I'm tired. I'm drained. There's nothing else I can do." I learned over the years that I have to take time for myself when I get like that because, I don't know if I'm a type A, but I know that when I'm into something, I'm into it. I've learned that when my mind says, "Okay, you're just looking at the screen. You're not really seeing anything," it's time to take a break.

Robert Plank: Yeah, and I think we've all been there. Does this same thing happen to you, where like, I'll be in that exact mindset you just described, where nothing's working. I'm super, just like, staring at the computer screen, can't really make any progress. I take a break. I do something unrelated, away from the computer. I come back and in 5 minutes, I've figured it out. Do you have the same kind of experience?

Audrey Bell-Kearney: I do, but mine is a little bit longer. It might take me a couple of hours and it only happens to me late in the evening. I'm a morning person so I'm at my best in the morning. If I'm working on something, I want to get it done, so I work all way through to the evening, and then I kind of lose it. I start to drain down, but if I step away for about 2 hours, normally that's like 10:00 at night, I want to go back and start working. It's like, "Oh man! Now, I've got it. Now I can go back," but I won't go back. I say, "You know what? I'm going to go to bed now and start again fresh in the morning."

Normally, it happens to me at night time, like around 7:00, when I guess most people should be shutting down, I'm tired. I'll take a break for a couple of hours and then I'm fresh again. I don't start again because I know if I start again, I'll be working until the morning, which is really going to mess up my day for the next day.

Robert Plank: Nice, but it sounds like that's a good problem to have, right? You think about the typical employee and they're dreading to go to work, and they take their time to get into the office. If you're holding yourself back from using the computer until 12 hours later, that sounds like a pretty good place to be. Right?

Audrey Bell-Kearney: Oh, absolutely. I could tell you, when I used to work at one company, I would go into work, Robert, and straight break out in hives. I remember, I went in one day and I broke out in hives. They thought I had eaten something and I was having an allergic reaction, but it was just I hated being there. I was out of work for 3 days, sitting home all day with Calamine lotion all over me because I just broke out in hives. I just hated to be there.

Robert Plank: Oh man, so now, you figured out a better path for yourself. I mean, I really like everything that you explained. Today, it's even easier for people to do that kind of thing with Alibaba Manufacturers and Amazon FBA, and with Youtube and Vimeo, and all this kind of stuff. Am I right about this? All the things that you've done as far as making the plus-sized dolls, making your TV show, and all that stuff, you had to go through it the hard way, right? It's a lot easier these days, isn't it?

Audrey Bell-Kearney: When I tell you it is so- and I'm so excited because I think it is so funny you say that part. When we started in 1999, I had to build my own website with FrontPage from Microsoft. That's just to give you a idea of where we were. FrontPage was a website building software from Microsoft. Because we didn't have any money, I had to learn how to build my site. I learned how to build a site using Microsoft.

I was just sitting here thinking there's probably a couple days where I was like, "Man, when we launched those dolls, there was no social media." I'm really excited. The doll is going to be a limited edition of 3,700. We're doing a pre-sell of the doll. There was no social media. It was me going to doll shows up and down the highway. Now, fast forward to today. I can't wait to see how this is going to play out on social media and all across the web, because there was no social media. I don't even think Youtube had came out yet. I know Youtube wasn't out in face, but none of those guys were out. By the time they came out, we had pretty much halted production. I think that was right around 2005. I think Youtube and all those guys were just coming out.

I was saying to my husband, I said, "Man, I want to see how this is going to work out with pre-selling the dolls using social media when there was no social media when I started." Now, with this whole Internet TV thing, man, I'm loving every second of it. I'm on Roku. I just got a partnership with Amazon for their video program. We're going to be on Apple, so it's a great place to be. Technology is really opening up doors for a lot of new entrepreneurs and making things a lot better. It's a lot easier. It's still a lot of work, but you just have a lot more resources at your fingertips these days.

Robert Plank: Nice. It sounds like no one's going to push the button for you. You still have to take those steps, but you can get a lot wider reach instantly from your house, as opposed to getting in the car and having to drive around.

Audrey Bell-Kearney: Absolutely. That's the thing. You still have to push the button, Robert. You still have to take yourself seriously. I still talk to a lot of women who want to start a business. Even my husband, my husband makes this really good chopped barbecue. He says to me he wants to do it as a business, and he knows that if he tells me that, he has to do the necessary steps. I say to him all the time, "I can't run the barbecue business so you're going to have to do the necessary steps." He doesn't want to do that part. You still have to push the button on your dream if you want it to be a business, if you want it to come true.

Robert Plank: Nice. If you think about it, if it was that easy, if all you had to do was just think it and it would happen, then it would be super crowded. It's almost like, the fact that you have to pursue that dream, take all those steps, and manage all that, it kind of weeds out a lot of the weak people who otherwise would have been your competitors.

Audrey Bell-Kearney: Absolutely, because it's a lot of work. Once you say, "Yeah, I'm going to do this," you have to keep going. I've been doing HerTube for 3 years now. October will be 3 years and people are still amazed. My first year, I had to figure out exactly what it was. The second year, I had to tell people what it was because they still didn't understand it. Now, the third year, I know what it is, a lot of people know what it is, but now it's just about making great content. With that type of focus and that type of clarity, you can move forward along with the work.

Robert Plank: There's the work, or the grinding stage, and then the period of looking back and reflecting and figuring out, "Well, how do I get this out here more?" Or "How do I explain this better?" All that kind of look back at all the random stuff you did and kind of connect the dots.

Audrey Bell-Kearney: Absolutely. I was in an investment meeting last year with some investors. I worked on an accelerated program called Launchpad 2X, and they put me in front of some investors and I thought, "They're going to get it because I'm going to tell them, 'Listen, just think about a hybrid. It's a hybrid between Netflix and Youtube,'" and they didn't get it. I'm like, "Really?"

It took me a year just to kind of crack down on, "What are you?" I just started to say, "I'm an Internet TV Network Woman, so think of me as an NBC on the Internet for women." Then people got it. "Oh, okay. Okay, good." It took a year for me, because I'm thinking in my head, "It sounds pretty simple. Don't you get it?" They didn't get it, so you have to really get your message down pat for people to understand it. People started to get it, like, "Oh, that's really cool." Then I started getting, "Man, that's really cool. Wow! How did you come up with that idea?" I tell the story about how I came up with that idea, but yeah that's really important for anybody who has a business. Your message has to be clear so people can understand you.

Robert Plank: It makes a lot of sense, and it might take a few years or a few iterations to get that down pat. Could you tell us about all these different things, about HerTube, Campus Crimes, Big Beautiful Dolls, and all this kind of stuff, especially HerTube TV in particular? This is a network for women on the Internet. What kind of things do you air on this?

Audrey Bell-Kearney: What we did was, when I first had the idea for the company, I was at a film festival. I had just moved to Georgia and I was at a film festival. I had written some books so I knew about self-publishing and how to distribute this stuff online. At that time, I had already produced a documentary that sells on Amazon right now along with one of my books.

I was at this film festival and I was sitting in the front. They were doing a workshop on distribution. The people that were presenting the workshop, they were telling the filmmakers, "Yeah, we can get you distribution, but you probably won't see any kind of royalties for 15 years." I'm thinking, "15 years?"

Robert Plank: Oh, no, no.

Audrey Bell-Kearney: That was crazy!

Robert Plank: I might be dead by then, right? In 15 years, you never know.

Audrey Bell-Kearney: Exactly! I was like, "Are they serious?" I thought they were joking at first, but they were serious. They were saying, "We've got to put a lot of money in packaging," and all this stuff. I'm thinking, "I know how to distribute stuff on Amazon, CreateSpace, FastPencil, Lulu, and all these different places. It can't be that much different for a film." I sat there and I thought about it.

On my way home, I said, "Okay, how can I help these filmmakers do this better? How can I show them that, man, you're really getting robbed?" HerTube was the idea that came to me. What was interesting about HerTube, because I am a woman in business, it started out as a way for me to help filmmakers get their stuff out there. Probably the next year, I became a panelist at a film festival here in Gwinett County. I became this panelist, then talking with people about distribution. They loved it, but what hit me was, "This could be a great platform for women who are in business also," I said, "because it's like a marketing tool."

I started to lean that way, you know, leaving the filmmakers and kind of going to the women in business because I was a woman in business and I was always looking for a way to market my business. Well, the women in business said to me, "Yeah, we don't want to be making that many videos. We don't want to be in front of the camera." I was like, "Huh? Really?" I kind of had to pivot. I said, "Okay, now, who am I talking to?"

I went back to talking to filmmakers. Filmmakers are a little funny too, Robert, because everybody wants a Oscar. Everybody wants to be in the movie theaters. Everybody wants to be all over the world instantly, but not this way because they didn't understand the platform. I started getting really stressed out, saying, "Okay, this is stressing me out."

On our Roku channel, we have 500 videos produced by 19 women, so we said, "Okay, now we have this working for us on Roku." There's not a lot of income coming in there because the ad-serving company that we have, they just don't pay a lot of money. I had to think, "Okay, how am I going to make this where it's going to make some money, you know, bring in revenue for the company?" That's when we launched our online platform called HerTube.TV.

We launched that and I said, "Okay, we need to have our own content as well as content produced by other people." That's how Campus Crimes came about. We had a whole list of shows. Campus Crimes was the one, after I thought about how to incorporate the doll, that's when I took it back to my team and said, "Listen, this is what I want to do."

What's funny is, when you make up your mind about doing stuff, everything and everybody kind of falls into place. When I made up my mind that I was going to do Campus Crimes, a friend moved from Jersey. He was a cinematographer. He was like, "Listen, I'm going to work for you to get it done." I said, "Wow! That's so cool." Everything has kind of fallen in place. I think I have a great cast of people. I sat there last Saturday and I talked to those people and I think this is a really, really great cast. That's pretty much how HerTube, Campus Crimes, and all the dolls tie together.

Robert Plank: I'm looking at HerTube.TV right now. There's a couple of videos of just homemade stuff, but as far as the actual shows, there's Yoga shows, learning, shopping, and stuff like that. Even just seeing the still thumbnail screenshot, this is some professionally lit and shot stuff. Isn't it?

Audrey Bell-Kearney: Oh yeah. A lot of the stuff is very professional because we have some of the real filmmakers. Some are filmmakers. I have some people who would want to do stuff at home. I have some people that started working with me and decided they wanted to be coaches. I had one young lady, she did a lot of cooking things on there. She was doing a lot of cooking videos at home, real nice stuff, and she realized, "I'm really good at being a coach," because people started calling her because she was talking about how to eat healthy.

Some stuff is homemade, some stuff is very professional, and some stuff is kind of like the lady I just talked about, that producer right there, the one you see now. She does a lot of training stuff. She's in a whole other country. What's cool about her is she said, "Hey, listen, can I partner with you? Can I distribute my content on your network?" I said, "Absolutely."

We come up with these great plans to partner with people and bring that content to life and help distribute. I'm almost like a marketer for other people at the same time. That's why the whole description was I'm a marketer, distributor, curator, producer, and all that kind of stuff, because that's what we do.

Robert Plank: Awesome! It's not just you. You're helping everyone else out. HerTube, is that at HerTube.TV? Is that the best place for people to go?

Audrey Bell-Kearney: Yes, if you want to check out HerTube, just go to www.HerTube.TV. If you want to check out Dasia, you can go to DasiaDoll.com. She's there for pre-order right now. I only have 3,700 of her coming in. I'm believing I'm going to sell-out those pretty quick because I haven't even mentioned it to the doll world yet. There are a lot of people out there who followed her when she first came out. This is the first time I'm making it public, Robert. I haven't made it really public to anybody, so the first time, on your show that's public.

What happens is, when you go to see Dasia, when she comes back. You can pre-order her now, when you come back, she's going to come to me and I'm going to sign her and I'm going to have the 3 main cast members sign her, and send it off to the people who order it. Check her out. She's going to be 18 and the dress that she wore, if you go to DasiaDoll.com, my daughter is standing right next to her in that same dress. My daughter's a lot smaller now. She grew up. She's a beautiful young woman. She lost a lot of weight. She's acting and all that stuff, but that's the dress she wore to the prom.

Robert Plank: Nice. This is amazing that this has been around for as long as it has been, and even some people who were little girls when the first one came out, are now full grown and might have, even, kids of their own to get it. That's pretty awesome.

Audrey Bell-Kearney: Yeah, my daughter was 9 when I started. She's 25 now.

Robert Plank: Oh man. Time flies.

Audrey Bell-Kearney: It does.

Robert Plank: Time flies so fast that you never know if your plane might get blown into a tree, or things might not work out in one way or another. Time is short and we have to kind of step it up and be entrepreneurs, do what needs to be done, do it quickly, and do it so that we can get that knocked out and move to the next thing.

Two websites there: DasiaDoll.com and HerTube.TV. Thanks for being on the show, Audrey, and telling us not only about your cool story, but giving us lots of little nuggets and all kinds of business advice. I really appreciated having you on today.

Audrey Bell-Kearney: Thank you so much for having me. It was really a pleasure. It's always nice to be on the other side of the microphone and the TV camera.

Robert Plank: Yeah. It kind of makes the scenery different, right? Breaks up the day, makes it so you're not just doing the same old thing every day, right?

Audrey Bell-Kearney: Yes it does. Yes it does.