FYB COI 16 | Hyper Local Podcasting

 

Standing out from a flock of podcasters is not so complex especially when goals are clear. Audrey Bell-Kearney, the Founder and CEO of ABK Media Group, talks about her unique hyperlocal podcast called Good Morning Gwinnett. Audrey talks about how she evolved from hosting radio shows to podcasting and walks us through how hyperlocal podcasting works and what makes it one of a kind. Inviting guests is one of the foundations of podcasting. Audrey discusses how she encourages guests to come to the show as well as how she drives her audience to listen to her. In today’s show, learn more from her techniques on how to continuously engage guests and viewers to join you.

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Hyper Local Podcasting – Good Morning Gwinnett with Audrey Bell-Kearney

I’ve got a new podcaster featured. It’s a little bit different. Audrey Bell–Kearney is the Founder and CEO of ABK Media Group, which is a media marketing and consulting firm that curates and produces digital content for clients. It helps them get exposure for their business. She is the host of the Good Morning Gwinnett Podcast. She’s going to talk about doing a hyperlocal podcast, which is a totally new topic. I can’t wait to talk to her about that. She’s also the Founder of HerTube TV, which is an empowerment video and television network about women and what women care about. She’s going to be at the She Podcasts event, which is how we got connected. She’s the CEO of Baki TV Network, which is a new empowerment TV network aimed at empowering black people. 

Audrey is also the publisher of Peach State Woman Magazine, which Peach State, if you don’t know, we’re talking about Georgia. She’s right in the Atlanta area where the She Podcasts event is going to take place. Audrey is the author of What’s Your Big Idea: The Ultimate Guide For New Entrepreneurs, I Want To Write A Book Now What?: A To Z Of Self-Publishing and Can They See You Now?: Easy Video Marketing Even When You Hate Being On Camera. It is why I started a podcast, so we’re going to have to talk about that. All can be found on Amazon in print and Kindle versions. Her new book, Pod Chicks: Women Who Have Launched A Podcast and How You Can Too, will be released sooner. You’ll have to let us know so we can feature it. 

You are a single mom who wanted to create a nice life for her daughter who was eight years old at the time. You had an idea for plus–size fashion dolls. You’re a product entrepreneur too, which is cool. We have that in common. You and your daughter became partners in Big Beautiful Dolls in 1999. You invented the first plus–size fashion dolls. You went on to start your own newspaper titled Women in Business Today. The paper profiled women who are already in business. Audrey later became a consultant with Rutgers and Kean University Small Business Development Center in New Jersey and sat on the board for Rutgers University. You have done so much. It is amazing. What made you decide to start a podcast amid all that? What year did you start? 

I got to start in this industry as I was working at a newspaper. I got a job at the newspaper when I launched the doll company. I went to make some copies of an article that had been written about me in a magazine. When I went into the coffee shop, the guy was launching a newspaper. When he was talking about launching, I said to him, “Is anybody going to be writing on entrepreneurship?“ He said, “No.” I said, “Can I?“ He says, “Sure.” I became a columnist for that newspaper, which was called Local Talk. I became a columnist writing about entrepreneurship. I had a friend who came in and said, “How do I launch a newspaper?” Because I was there writing the article, I got to see the ins and outs of how to start a newspaper. I told my friend how to launch a newspaper. He launched his own newspaper called Essex Times. A couple of years, I was like, “I could start my own newspaper.” I started Women in Business Today. 

What happened was there was a gentleman who picked up the newspaper one day. He was a radio show host. He asked me to be a guest on his radio show. It was a 7:30 Saturday morning show. I said, “Sure.” I was his guest on an episode. People loved the episode so much, they asked me to come back again. I went back again. He asked me to co–host the show with him and that’s how I got into radio. I co-hosted that show for a year with him. I interviewed Mark Victor Hansen three times on the show. For those of you who don’t know who he is, he is the co–author of the Chicken Soup for The Soul series. I love radio and that’s how I got into radio. 

You’re fast–forwarding from radio into podcasting. When did you start in radio? 

I started in radio in 2003. 

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When podcasting came up, what year did you decide it was going to be podcasting for you? 

In 2009, so I was doing it for a minute. 

You’re a lot longer than most. What made you switch from that radio model to the podcast model? 

I moved out of Jersey and now I’m living in Georgia. That was when I was in Jersey. I was on two stations in Jersey. I was on 1070 AM and I was on 93.3 FM. There were two stations and two different shows that I hosted myself. When I left Jersey, I needed to do something different. When I moved to Georgia, I was like, “I don’t know what I’m going to do.“ I watched the TV network, which is crazy. A couple of years later I was like, “I can do podcasts.” I went through an accelerator here in Georgia called Launchpad. Launchpad was the women who were trying to grow their business to $1 million. I went through the accelerator and I loved it. I decided there’s a lot of powerful women in this network. I’m going to start a new podcast. The first podcast I started in Georgia was called Talk Business with Audrey. 

I started that podcast. I did about fifteen episodes on that network, but I wanted to do some different. I like the radio. I was like, “I want to play music.” Nobody in the podcasting industry was playing music on your podcast. I was like, “I can’t launch the podcast and play music because nobody is playing music.‘” I stopped doing that podcast because I wasn’t feeling it like that. I said, “Let me focus on the TV network.” I was focused on that. I wanted to podcast because I like to talk. I don’t know about you, but I found that most podcasts they like to talk. 

This was a perfect platform. Fast forward to 2018 which is when I launched Good Morning Gwinnett. I had been living in Georgia now for a few years. I have you been working for a few years that I’ve been here. I didn’t know anybody because I was head down in the business. I was working in the business so much and didn’t know anybody in my county. I live in a beautiful county, Gwinnett. I said, “I’m going to do something where I can give back to the community,” because I could spotlight entrepreneurs. I could still play my music on my show and have a regular radio show based around the county that I live in. Good Morning Gwinnett is the county that I live in. That’s when I launched Good Morning Gwinnett, which is December 2018. I’m up to 144 episodes now. 

I want to touch on this because most people don’t deal with music on the show because of royalty rights and other things like that. How have you managed to make that work for you? 

I have a membership with a company called Epidemic Sound. I pay a $15 a month subscription fee. I get to use all of the songs in my show. I know a lot of people don’t because of that. Because that company has the right to use that, and I’m assuming that they paid the artists a portion of the proceeds from that, but I pay a $15 fee monthly. I’m able to use it. They have a catalog of 3,000 songs in that catalog. 

You’ve adopted what radio stations do because you had that insight into how they work. That’s a lot. A lot of radio stations and a lot of small businesses who play music in their stores, they do the same thing. They subscribe to one of these catalog networks to be able to utilize their music libraries. You had some more insights than most podcasters who are afraid to touch it and prayed they’ll get their shows adept. You’ve been podcasting on and off for a while. What are some of the interesting things that happened to you? Some of the cool things that have raised your level of authority in your industry or your community. 

If you are working in your business and always grinding, that means you don't have a whole lot of time for anything else. Click To Tweet

In any business, they tell you to niche down and I didn’t even realize I was niching down. I realized I didn’t want to have a regular podcast. I want to get to know my community. That was the other thing. I wanted my community to know me because it’s such a great place to live. I was like, “This is a great opportunity. Since I have decided to go hyper-local, it has opened up a lot of doors. Even with She Podcasts, it is being able to talk about this on a platform like She Podcasts. That’s a huge platform. I did Pod On, which is another huge platform. I’m speaking on a cruise on September the 13th through the 16th talking about this same thing. It’s opened up a lot of speaking opportunities for me. I’m up for an award from the Chamber because of it. I’ve been invited to come to places. I’m invited to go to a black-tie political event because I’m the media. We are in media as podcasters. It’s opened up a lot of doors.  

I did a live broadcast from an expo that I got paid for. A lot of podcasts struggle how to monetize their show. To be honest, that was one of my issues when I first started. When I first started 2009, podcasting was nothing like it is now. It’s different. Nobody was making money. We were talking for fun. Fast forward to the day people making millions and millions of dollars. When someone said, “Let me pay you to come broadcast live. I’m like, “Absolutely.” Learning how to monetize that whole thing and loving the whole industry right now where we’re going. A lot has changed since I started. When I started it was blog talk radio and people called. They talk to me from around the world. That was great but there was no clear picture of how to monetize that nowadays. There are many different ways. I have a t–shirt line on the website. I had my books on the website that I’ve written. I have advertising. A lot has changed since I first started. 

Did you have some big funny mistakes like things that went wrong when you were launching your show, some errors? Tell us some of the stories of what happened to you. 

Tracy, I still have errors to this day. My show is live. I do a live Monday through Wednesday, 9:00 AM. On Thursday at 11:00 AM live because I don’t like to edit. I like to have music like I do the horoscopes on there. I do use it. I talk about what’s going on in government and business and all that stuff. What happened was one time I was sitting here and I’m podcasting. I have a Yeti mic. I love my Yeti mic. My husband bought it for a Christmas gift. I hit the mute button by mistake. When I went back and listened to the episode, all I could hear was the music playing. I was like, “Why can’t you hear me? You can see I had been talking for about 35, 40 minutes, but you couldn’t hear me. The mute button had been pushed.“ 

I cannot repeat myself twice. I will never do it the same way twice. 

No, you cannot. I interviewed someone. She was a politician. For some reason, the show has drawn a lot of politicians to the platform. I interviewed this politician. It was a great interview. It was so cool because she was a Republican. She was African–American. I said to her, “I’m going to be honest with you. I only know three African-American Republicans and you’re one of them.” She started laughing, but it was such a great interview because what we’ve found out in talking to each other that we have a lot more in common than we think. 

That was an hour–and–twenty-minute interview. All I got was the music. It was on location. I had my portable studio set up and everything. Everything looked great. I thought everything was working great and the cord was not plugged all way into the transmitter. I didn’t know it. I was so upset for about four hours. My daughter was like, “You beat yourself up. Can’t you do it over?“ I was like, “Yeah, but it’s not going to be the same because it was authentic. We had never met each other before.” I never do an interview that long, but it was such a good interview. It was flowing and we kept going. By the time, I finished, it was an hour and twenty minutes and I had nothing but music. 

FYB COI 16 | Hyper Local Podcasting

Hyper Local Podcasting: Nobody in the podcasting industry is playing music.

 

That’s an important lesson. In case something happens, I always take my phone recorder and turn my phone recorder on because even if the audio is terrible there, which I know it will be, I at least can transcribe it and maybe write an article or do something. At least something good comes out of it. Whenever I’m in person with someone, which doesn’t often happen because I don’t do a lot of live interviews, I turn the recording on my phone on which people think is odd. I was like, “I’ve had it happen to me before.“ I know exactly where the sound wasn’t good. We were being recorded. We did a live podcast from the stage at South by Southwest. They had a professional studio in there. It was all sponsored by TuneIn. 

TuneIn had their own audio engineer in there. He had the microphones. He had the whole mixing board and everything. They were going to give us the audio file. That was a part of it. We would repurpose that as the podcast. It was live on TuneIn that day, but it would be on our podcast the next week. The audio was horrible. Luckily, I brought my own guy with me to do a video of us. He was so smart that he put a Zoom device on the table and captured our sound. It was so much better than the audio captured by the engineer. I learned early on to have backups everywhere because I’m terrible at remembering things and remembering to turn it on. I know what you mean. These things happen to everybody. It doesn’t matter how seasoned you are, you get excited at the moment and it happens again. What advice do you have for someone who wants to start a podcast? 

Be true to yourself. That’s the advice I’ve been giving because I struggled with that for a few months when I thought about doing a show that had music, horoscopes and all this craziness in it. I went to Podfest. I was going to launch. I was like, “I’m going to launch it anyway. I don’t care how people receive it. It’s near and dear to my heart. It’s how I want to do it.“ I still have some reservations because you got these podcasts and gurus out there. You go out and you put out a podcast that they think is not up to par so you can get beat up pretty badly. I was like “The podcast police is going to get me. They’re going to beat me up because I had music. I’m not editing. I’m not doing any of the things that they do.“ I had launched a podcast in December, but I still had some reservations. I went to Podfest and I sat in one of the workshops. I forgot who it was, but they were like, “It’s your podcast, be true to who you are.” 

I was like, “It’s right.” From that day forward, that was my motto to anybody. I met some amazing women. That’s how I got to do the Pod Chicks book because I met women who were doing podcasting on about anything you would think of like Emily. She’s going to be a speaker too at She Podcasts. I met her, we sat down and we had lunch. Her podcast was all about things that had been invented. Why was it invented, the straw or a table or a light? I’m like, “That is great.” She’s one of the people in the book. I would say be true to who you are. Whatever you want your podcast to be is yours and feel good about that. People are like, “You do four shows a week?” “Absolutely.” I get everyone excited to do my show every morning. I got to tell you, when I sit back after I finish, it feels like I came down off this great high. It’s like, “That was great.” 

It makes you feel like you’re in your element and that is high in and of itself. Let’s go on to share some lessons. This is my five things. What are the best ways to book great guests? 

I like to book my guests based on books that I’ve read by them or something that they’re doing great in the community. I love talking to entrepreneurs. I would tell people that you want to meet, people that you’re passionate about in the industry, that’s how I go about booking my guests. 

You’re true to you there. What are some of the best ways to increase listeners? 

The ones that are working for me now is my mobile app. My show is so local, so my thing is to get out there and meet my community. It’s almost like I’m running a campaign like a politician. I took a note out of their book, “Go out there and meet the community and tell them to download your app.” That has been wonderful. 

How about producing in a professional way? You’re not doing a lot of editing and other things, but how do you make sure that everything’s professional sounding as it can be? 

I use a Yeti mic. I love my mic. I use Spreaker Studio, which is amazing. My room is soundproof. There’s not a lot of background noise. I podcast early in the morning. There’s not a lot of lawnmowers going because I’m in Georgia so there’s a lot of grass down here. The lawn people could come out early, but it’s not a lot of lawn mowing going around. I try to make sure that my surroundings are quiet. I don’t have any distractions. I have a note at my door and the door is closed, it says, “On air,” which means don’t knock on the door. I made sure that my surroundings are quiet and I have a good microphone. I love my Yeti. 

We have a lot of mixed results with the Yeti. The Yeti can be bad unless you have a great environment, which you do. Your sound is fantastic. That is a big difference between a lot of people. If you don’t have a great environment, the Yeti picks up so much sound around your room that it can hurt you. That’s where we find some people have fantastic results from it and others are like, “You got to get a cheaper mic honestly so that it picks up less sound.” Good for you. Getting the sound to be good in the beginning, that’s half the battle right there. 

Someone is telling me about the Yeti, this particular one, it has to be a few years the same mic. I went to B&H in New York and it’s like, “Go to B&H. You can get the Yeti out of there.” 

I know B&H because I used to live out there. I know what you’re talking about. 

If you ever go to B&H, if you’re like us and we’re gadget chicks, don’t go to B&H. 

FYB COI 16 | Hyper Local Podcasting

Hyper Local Podcasting: Always have a backup recording device in cases of bad audio or other technical problems.

 

It’ll cost you too much. What are the best ways to encourage engagement? 

 

I can tell you what I’ve been doing and I love this. I love Headliner. Have you heard of Headliner? It’s an app that you can take your episodes. If you don’t have a video or that capability, if you go to Headliner.app, it’ll let you take your episode. You type in your podcast in the search engines. They’ll pull up your podcast and you pick the episode that you want so you can either cut it down to a small segment or you can let it do the whole thing. At the end of my show, I do what’s called an Inspiration of the Day. I’ve been taking that last five minutes of my show and putting it in Headliner, turn into a video and post it on my social media. People who don’t want to listen to the entire show, they can get my daily inspiration. 

That’s a great way to get engagement. You were talking about some ways to monetize it. What do you want for your particular niche and business? What has been the best way for you? 

It’s advertising so far. I have banner ads running on the front of my website and little carousel runner on flash show. That has been great. I can tell you the most lucrative thing I’ve done so far has been on location. I’m looking to do more of that. I got postcards done to say, “I’ll come in and broadcast live this particular event. Let me see that.“ There is a need for people to do who have events going on. They’re maybe a car dealership, you can go on broadcast live. They have a budget for it. The person that I did this event for, she’s a therapist, but she had an expo. What she wanted to do was she wanted me to interview all of the vendors. She was having some trouble with marketing the event. She was a guest on the show. That’s how I got the gig.  

We talked about the event. I said to her, “How do you market the show?” She says, “I’m having a rough time marketing the show.” I said, “Maybe if you told them they were going to be on the Good Morning Gwinnett show, you could sell more vendor tables.” When you get a sponsor, you’re leading the game because the fiscal year for them is pretty much over. I said, “You could probably get more vendors if you said to them, ‘You’re going to get interviewed on the Good Morning Gwinnett show.’” She said, “I will pay for that.” I said, “Absolutely.” I sent her a PayPal link and she paid. I showed up at her event. I interviewed some of her vendors. What I found interesting was that there were a lot of vendors there who were scared to talk to me. I found that interesting. 

We used to do it early on when we first started our first podcast. We had the same thing. We were given a booth by an organizer at the event. I was asked to speak there as well. They automatically gave us a booth as well as a speaker and said, “Would you guys do a live podcast from there?” We said, “We don’t air live, but we’ll record them while we’re there. We’ll do a series for you afterward. That way it’ll help promote the next event.“ He said, “That was great.” That’s what we did. We would have to drag some people out of their booth to come and interview with us. They were afraid to do it. The podcasting was still new back then too. 

It’s not that known then. I’m thinking, “Do you realize that this is free publicity?” I remember interviewing Mark Victor Hansen three times. He lived in LA. He lived in California at the time. I was doing the show at 7:30 AM. It was a live show because it was a regular radio. I asked him on the third time, I said, “Why did you do my little show in New Jersey?” Because it’s 4:30 AM his time. He said you never give up a PR opportunity ever because you never know. I have lived by that thing. Mark Victor Hansen said, “Never get a PR opportunity ever.” I’ve lived by that. My show was small. It was New Jersey and the five boroughs of New York. It wasn’t a major show, but he did it three times. 

I only got through half of the list for the She Podcasts event. I have to admit, you’re lucky your name was at the top. I got through half the list and sent out messages to them and said, “I’ll send out the other half if my calendar doesn’t fill up.” You were one of the first to book a spot. I was shocked at how few of those women booked a spot with me. This is free publicity. There’s a magazine which you don’t normally get print. You don’t normally get something on the other side. It’s digital print, but still print. That had an added benefit to it. It’s not just a podcast. It’s also something more. I was shocked that most people didn’t take advantage of it. I do find it a little bit higher rate with women than men, unfortunately, which is a shame. You should take every opportunity to talk about what you do, who you are and share that with any community you can. Let’s talk a little bit about this hyperlocal thing because that is truly different about what you do. How is that more successful for you? What is working about that hyperlocal? What is the key to that? 

For me, it’s about me being true to what I want to do. It’s also given me authority in my community. I’ve been doing things for the government. I’ve interviewed everybody in government here, which is great because they want to talk about what they’re doing, the great job that they’re doing in government. I’ve interviewed so many politicians. It’s so crazy because of election season is coming up. I was at a networking event. I got approached by three politicians, “I want to be on the show.” I tell my listeners, “I know this is not a show about politicians.“ That’s who keeps showing up. I want to talk to entrepreneurs as well but being hyperlocal gives you the opportunity to be an authority in your community. It also gives you the opportunity to be an influencer in your community. 

That authority and influence, that’s what I talk about all the time. What my talk will be about is increasing authority plus influence and what that looks like. You’re doing both and you can use that for such good. 

At the top of the show, I normally give a shout out to a nonprofit that’s doing some great things in our community because they do great work. A lot of times they don’t get the recognition or they don‘t get the exposure they need. I understand all these things. I shouted out all of the nonprofits in Gwinnett County. I’m going to have to move beyond Gwinnett because I’ve met them all. They do such great work and they have such great causes. It‘s a great opportunity to shine a spotlight on some of that. It’s also to make people who may not even be aware that they exist, they are out there and that they offer such great services. 

I want to touch on what you’re saying about entrepreneurship because way back when I had my first business in 1998, I didn’t consider myself an entrepreneur even though I was. I didn’t consider myself that. I thought of myself as a small business owner. That happens a lot in the local areas. You’ve always seen yourself as an entrepreneur from the time you started a doll business with your daughter, which I totally love the idea of that. What is different about small business owners and entrepreneurship mindset? What do you see the difference being? 

When I think of being an entrepreneur, I’m always grinding. As an entrepreneur, you‘re always on the grind. That could be good and bad because you are working in your business and always grinding. That means you don’t have a whole lot of time for anything else. I’ve been down that road before. This is my personal opinion. I don’t see myself a small business because I don’t have a major team. If you look at the standards by which a small business is judged, you’re making up $5 million or something. You got like a team up to 50 people. That’s considered a small business by the SBA, SBDC standards. I don’t feel like I’m there yet. I feel like I’m an entrepreneur and I’m still grinding. Here’s the thing, I love the grind. That’s it. I love it. 

FYB COI 16 | Hyper Local Podcasting

Hyper Local Podcasting: Having a quiet surrounding and a good microphone are essentials for podcasting.

 

You were in the product business, and the product business is a grind. It’s hard and it doesn’t matter how big you get. I know that because for many years I’ve designed and developed products that are sold at the mass market and online. I know exactly where you’re coming from. This is a hard road and hard business. How did you make it work? 

It was funny because I was working at a pharmaceutical company. I had this idea for this doll. The idea came to me probably because I hated the job. That’s probably what the real problem was. I had this idea for this doll. I had no idea what I was doing. I had never invented anything in my life. I had written a book by that time, but that was pretty much it. I started to talk to one of my friends and said, “I got an idea for this fat doll.” She said, “I want to be the president.“ I did not know that she was a doll collector at the time. She had purchased a doll for $250. I almost jumped out of my skin. I will say, “People pay $200 for a doll?” She said, “Yeah.“ She had a whole collection of them. I was like, “We’re going to be rich.“ That was my first, “We‘re going to be rich.“ I had no idea what I was getting into, none at all. We spent a year on Wall Street trying to get money for a doll company, get endorsed, slammed in our face and people telling us that’s never going to happen.  

You’re never going to bring it to market. It was constant. She’s from New York, but she was living in New Jersey. I said to her, “There should be no fat people in New York because you walk everywhere.” In Jersey, you drive everywhere. In New York, everybody is hot in the train station. We did that for a year. It was a great experience. We ran that company for a few years, manufacturing our product in Hong Kong. After we got the specs done and got our molds done and all that stuff, it was a great experience. It was hard though. I’m not going to lie. I went back to my manufacturer who has been my manufacturer since 1999 and I said, “There is a movie coming out about Madam CJ Walker that LeBron James is producing. I need to get that doll. I need to get my books.“ My doll comes in white, black and Latina. I said, “I need my black doll turned into Madam CJ Walker.” I ordered some samples. The doll was beautiful, but here’s the problem. The prices are ridiculous because of the tariff wars. I’m stuck. 

They are absolutely ridiculous. We deal with this all the time. It’s difficult. If you’re shipping directly to consumers, there are some other ways around that by shipping through Canada frankly. It’s unfortunate, but there are ways around it. You have to be shipping directly to consumers. You can’t be shipping to warehouses and other things. There are resources for that. If anyone’s reading in that, that’s been their issue. You can run Kickstarters and programs like that through these types of venues. The thing is that it’s making it much more difficult to do business now. Will it ease up? Will it change? Yes, it will. Now it’s a difficult position to be in because price points are sensitive in retail. You’ve been talking about doing some of the live podcasts in the live events. Where do you air those? Are you airing them over your Facebook page? How are you doing that? Is it straight through your app only? 

 

My app directly from my website. Here’s the thing for me, it’s always driving traffic back to my website. It’s like listening to the show live, go to GoodMorningGwinnett.com. That’s to get my numbers up on my website. When I look at my stats, it’s working. I do a live broadcast directly from my website and through the app.  

 

I highly recommend the website because that’s where we see the most value long-term for everyone. Most people have a hard time getting people to download their apps, but you with the local that makes sense. It gives people a compelling reason to want to download the app. They’re going to get a grouping of things that they wouldn’t get otherwise. I love the idea. The app works so well for you. I’m assuming they could find you on social media somewhere. How do we find you? 

It’s on the Good Morning Gwinnett everywhere. Twitter only gives you so much space. On Twitter, it’s @GMGwinnett. On Instagram and Facebook, it’s @GoodMorningGwinnett. 

Do you have a big guest get that you’d like to have that you haven’t been able to yet? 

It’s a politician. I got a couple of them in politics. I want to interview Elizabeth Warren. I want to interview Kamala Harris. I would like to interview Oprah. 

It’s every interviewer’s dream to interview the ultimate interviewer. 

Do you know who else I like a lot? She hasn’t been out for a while. I would like to know where she’s been. It’s Rachael Ray. Did you ever hear of Rachael Ray’s story? Her story is wonderful. 

My daughter used to say that I looked like Rachael Ray when I cooked. That’s a good thing. 

She’s pretty. I love her. I haven’t her seen in a while. I would love to talk to her and ask her, “What’s going on? Why haven’t I seen you in a while?” Two other people that I totally admire is Cathy Hughes, who is the founder of Radio One and Sheila Crump Johnson, who is the founder of BET. They’re all my media faves. Those are the people. If I could go back in time, Madam CJ Walker. 

FYB COI 16 | Hyper Local Podcasting

Hyper Local Podcasting: Going hyperlocal gives you the opportunity to be an authority and influence in your community.

 

Unfortunately, they got to be alive. I love what you’re doing. You’re going to be speaking at the She Podcasts events so am I. I’m looking forward to seeing you in person there. What do you hope to get out of the event for yourself and for your growth? 

More exposure for the show. Also, to meet other women again. I had so much fun at Podfest. I felt like I was with my people. I was like, “I’m with my people to be around more women.” There was a lot of guys at Podfest, but I got to meet some amazing women. To me the fact that it’s going to be in my own backyard, that’s a great thing as well. To shine more spotlight on this industry because here there are some podcasters. I don’t think they understand the power of podcasting. Collaborations, I want to probably do part two of the book Pod Chicks. I’m sure I’ll meet a lot more politics in this event. It’s more awareness about what we’re doing and more connections. 

I look forward to supporting you while we’re there and I agree with you. Getting to meet some amazing women, you don’t get as much of an opportunity to do that. I got an opportunity to give a speech in New York to 200 women in the investment and finance community. I have never given a speech to that many women at once. Usually, it’s mostly male audiences where I give speeches. It was such a treat, but it was also so intimidating. I was like, “This is harder than I thought it was going to be.“ I’m a little nervous and I’m never nervous on stage. That was unusual. I look forward to that opportunity as well. 

This is Audrey Bell-Kearney. She has Good Morning Gwinnett, which is an amazing podcast that’s hyperlocal. The one thing that we’re trying to do here on Feed Your Brand Center of Influence is expose you to amazing podcasters who are doing such unusual things so that you can get some ideas about how you might want to start your show, how you might want to cut, become an authority, whether it’s in your community like Audrey or it’s out in the world somewhere, worldwide, podcasting, whatever you choose. We’ll be back next time with a new episode and a new interview.

 

Important Links:

About Audrey Bell-Kearney

FYB COI 16 | Hyper Local PodcastingAudrey Bell-Kearney is the founder and CEO of ABK Media Group which is a media, marketing, and consulting firm that curates and produces digital content for clients and help them get exposure for their business, product or service. Audrey is also the founder of HerTube.TV which is an empowerment video and television network about women and what women care about. Audrey is also the CEO of Baki TV Network which is a new empowerment TV Network aimed at empowering Black people. Audrey is also the publisher of Peach State Woman Magazine. Audrey is the author of What’s Your Big Idea? The Ultimate Guide For New Entrepreneurs and I Want To Write A Book Now What? AtoZ Of Self-Publishing and Can They See You Now? Easy Video Marketing Even When You Hate Being On Camera which can be found on Amazon.com in both print & Kindle versions. Her new book PodChix: Women Who Have Launched A Podcast & How You Can Too will be released this Summer.

Audrey is passionate about entrepreneurship. Audrey started her first real business in 1999. She realized that she was a single mom who wanted to create a nice life for her daughter who was 8 years old at the time. So, she had this idea for a plus size fashion doll which was more realistic than the Barbie Doll. She told a friend about the idea and the friend thought it was a great idea. The two became partners and Big Beautiful Dolls, LLC was born June 1999. They invented the first plus-size fashion dolls. Audrey went on to start her own newspaper titled Women In Business Today. The paper profiled women who were already in business. Audrey later became a consultant with the Rutgers & Kean University Small Business Development Center in New Jersey. She also sat on the advisory board for the Rutgers University Small Business Development Center.

The paper opened many doors for Audrey. She was asked to be interviewed on a local radio station. The host liked her so much that he brought her on full time with her own show which had the same title as her newspaper, Women In Business Today. Audrey did the show for one year on WSOU 89.5 FM until her husbands’ job transferred him to North Carolina. While in North Carolina, Audrey decided that she would start her own TV show. So, she walked into a local TV station in Rocky Mount, NC and pitched the show idea to the station manager and the Women In Business Today TV show was born.

From 2010 to 2013 Audrey was the host of The Ask Audrey Show on Harvest Radio WKMB 1070 AM. Audrey is currently the host of Good Morning Gwinnett and Talk Business With Audrey which can be heard on ITunes & other podcast platforms. You can also listen to Good Morning Gwinnett on your Amazon Fire TV by going to the Amazon store and searching for Good Morning Gwinnett and adding the channel to your device.

In 2008 Audrey produced a short documentary film about her journey as an entrepreneur titled RISE: An Entrepreneurs Journey To The Top. Audrey launched HerTube.TV in 2013 which distributes content via the set-top-box Roku, Amazon Fire TV, smart TVs and Kindle Fire.

Audrey has been interviewed on national television talk shows and written up in national publications including Insight on Fox 5 TV in Dallas, Money Matters Talk Show, The John Walsh Show, The Network Journal, Today’s Black Woman, The Motherhood, Global Black Women and more.

Listen to Good Morning Gwinnett by going to www.GoodMorningGwinnett.com and watch Audrey talk show Talk Business With Audrey online at www.TalkBusinessWithAudrey.com on the HerTube Prime in the Amazon App Store. To reach Audrey contact her Audrey@ABKMediaGroup.com or by calling 678-809-0344. You can also visit her website www.ABKMediaMediaGroup.com. For more information about Baki TV Network go to www.BakiTVNetwork.com.

 

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