We recently connected with Audrey Bell-Kearney and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Audrey, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with important influences in our lives. Is there a historical figure you look up to?

There is a wall in my office with pictures of 10 women who I draw my inspiration from daily. One of those is a picture of Madam CJ Walker. Madam Walker was the first female self made millionaire in America.

When I first learned about Madam CJ Walker I was just in awe of her story. She had a dream and she turned that dream into an empire and a legacy. What’s so important about her journey was that she did it in a time when African Americans were still fighting for their rights in America. Despite the circumstances that surrounded her, she still pushed her dream forward. Some of the lessons and values that I’ve learned from her are as follows:
1. Believe in your dream no matter what
2. Never Quit
3. Always be ready to pivot
4. Family and relationships are important, so don’t forget that
5. Be willing to fight for what you believe in.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

I started out as an entrepreneur in 1995. I became an Avon agent and did pretty well, because I worked in an insurance company on a floor that had 300 client service reps, so it was easy for me to sell Avon. All I had to do was leave an Avon book on my desk and it got passed around the office and the orders poured in. That lasted for two years, but then the company moved about an hour and a half away from where I lived and just like that my Avon business was gone. I later started a company called Changing Directions. This company was meant to focus on helping high school seniors make the leap into the college life the right way. When I went to college no one gave me any advice, so I just went to college and had a ball. I racked up thousands of dollars in student loans and credit card debt. I had no clue about anything when I went to college. I was really smart, but that didn’t help, because I was clueless about my path, so I ended up getting kicked out of college, for not going to class. So I didn’t want students to go down the same path that I did, so I thought Changing Directions would be a great business to start. That business was short lived, because I didn’t know how to market the business. That business ended in 1998. That same year I co-authored my first book with two friends titled The Cookbook To Romance and the three of us became the Romance Enhancers. I learned all about self-publishing and I just knew that this was it. We did our first run of books and sold completely out, but when we went back to our printer for more he was gone and so was our book. The other thing that happened was that the business partnership started to break down, so again another business gone. Then in 1999 God gave me this idea to create a plus-size fashion doll. I shared the idea with my friend and she asked if she could be the vice president and I said yeah and Big Beautiful Dolls Inc. was born. We hit the ground running looking for money to bring the dolls to life and looking for someone to make the dolls. We found both. A few family and friends gave us our startup money and we found a manufacturer by going to Toy Fair which is the largest toy industry event in the United States. We found a sculpture who sculpted the dolls for us in clay, then in wax. We took the wax and sent it to our manufacturer in China. The manufacturer created molds to make the dolls and sent us back samples in vinyl. We had someone draw us some dresses and create face makeup and we also sent that to the manufacturer.

The manufacturer sent us back our samples which included Dasia (the Black doll) Dena (the Hispanic doll) & Dawn (the White doll). This was so exciting. We wanted to get our dolls back in time for Christmas. We got invited to be on a TV show in Dallas on Fox TV called Insights. Luckily I knew how to design websites, because I was able to create the website in time for the show to air. We figured that the publicity would help us make the sales so that we could get the money to produce the products and that’s exactly what happened. We got a lot of orders as a result of being on the show, but not enough to get the dolls manufactured and shipped back to the U.S., so we ended up refunding the money back to the buyers until we had enough to get the dolls done. We made a couple of changes the dolls outfits, by then we had raised enough money from family and friends, so we ordered 850 dolls with the money that our family and friends had given us.

I ran that company for 5 years with my friend and my husband. In 2005 we dissolved the company and in 2006 I became a consultant for Rutgers Small Business Development Center. After my contract ended with Rutgers I went on to become a small business coach starting my own agency called Ms. Boss Network. For the next 6 years I ran that business and then in 2013 my husband’s job did a massive layoff and he was one of the people who got laid off. We decided to move to Georgia from New Jersey. I was born in Georgia and always wanted to move back, and now was my opportunity and I wasn’t going to let it slip through my hands.

We moved to Georgia in 2013. When I got here I didn’t know anyone and didn’t know what I wanted to do with myself. I saw this young lady in shopping plaza who had a really nice hair cut and I really needed someone to do my hair. I asked her who did her hair and from that conversations we became friends. She invited me to come out to the Black Film Festival. This was my first major event in Georgia. When I attended the event there were film distributors there who was giving a talk about how to get your film into distribution. I remember sitting on the front row and them saying that they could help filmmakers get distribution, but that the filmmakers would see a royalty for like 15 years and I was like what?

See in 2008 I hired a young filmmaker to follow me around as I told my story of becoming an entrepreneur. The title of my documentary was called Rise: An Entrepreneurs Journey To The Top. This by far was not a great piece of work, but it was selling on Amazon and I was making money off of it every year. Not a lot of money, but some money. It was selling for $27, so not getting any royalties for 15 years was crazy to me.

On my way home from that event God gave me this idea to launch a film network for Blacks in film. Then that changed to a TV network for women which I called HerTube TV Network. That was 2013. I had no idea how to do that either, but I put my nose to the ground and figured it out. HerTube is syndicated on Amazon Fire TV & Roku. On Roku we have over 100K subscribers. I personally loved the TV space, but I wasn’t making any money. I kept the channels going, but I wanted to do something else that mattered. I thought about going into politics, but after several meetings I quickly realized that I wasn’t cut out for that. Then in 2015 I started a podcast called Talk Business With Audrey. I had been podcasting before with my friend, but again, there was no money to be made. I thought this time would be different, but I was still very early and not a lot of ways to make money podcasting. So I kept consulting, creating websites and doing whatever I could to make money. Then in 2018 I decided to give podcasting a try once more, but this time I wanted my show to be similar to radio with music and horoscopes as well as news. December 13, 2018 I launched Good Morning Gwinnett. Gwinnett county is where I live and I wanted to be an asset to my community, so I thought this would be a great way for me to do that and I was right. I do a live broadcast 4 days a week. I’ve had all of my local government officials on my show and also local business owners. The show has put me in rooms that I don’t think I would necessarily have been invited. It has also kept me out of rooms, because some people look at me as the media, so they don’t want to talk in front of me. Nevertheless, I truly enjoy hosting Good Morning Gwinnett. These days I do a lot of speaking and training on podcasting. I have regular coaching clients that I help start and grow their businesses. Good Morning Gwinnett is no longer just a podcast it’s a full multimedia outlet.

Now that I have the GMG system running pretty smoothly, I’m on to my next venture into ecommerce.

What’s Your New Venture & Why Start Something New at 55 Years Old?

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I knew that I wanted to be known for something, so I made sure that everywhere I went I was talking about podcasting. I talked about podcasting so much that I almost got tired of hearing myself talk about it. I’m always on the cutting edge of podcasting from a podcasters perspective. I think I was one of a very short list of podcasters who had an Amazon Alexa Skill for their podcast. Because I knew how to create Skills, I pitched myself to speak at the second largest Podcast conference in the U.S. I had a topic that no one was talking about, being accepted as speaker I know that my profile would be in all of the marketing material for the conference. I also knew that this opportunity would help me build credibility as someone who knew her stuff in the podcasting space.

During Covid everything was virtual, so it was easy to network and introduce myself. This gave me more visibility and I landed a few customers too.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

In January of this year I launched my first NFT. Again I had no idea what I was doing, but I figured it out and did it anyway. That was a learning experience for me. I learned a lot and will definitely be launching a new one January 2023. My take on NFTs is that it’s still early for mass adoption because most people still don’t know what they are and what they are used for. Heck I’m still trying to figure out what really makes them so special. My dolls were collectibles and still are, but they are a physical product that you hold in your hands. I know if I don’t quite get it, I’m pretty sure that most people don’t either. The difference between me and most people is that I’m going to stay in the game and keep learning about them and launching them. I believe eventually NFTs will have mass adoption, and when it does I will be at the front of the line as an NFT producer.

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• Website: www.NoiseMedia.us
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Image Credits
Audrey Bell-Kearney