Interview with Kim Doyal: Behind the Scenes of Women in Business 2.0

Denise Wakeman, The Blog Squad

Interview with
Kim Doyal
Behind the Scenes: The Making of Women in Business 2.0

Interview with Kim Doyal
Producer of Women in Business 2.0 The Movie

[To listen to the audio interview click here.]

Denise Wakeman: Hi. I'm Denise Wakeman. Founder of The Blog Squad. Today I am
very pleased to have the opportunity to speak with a woman who had an idea, a dream,
and executed it in a way that is touching people's lives all over the world. You may have
seen some emails or blog posts in the last few weeks about a new documentary movie
called Women in Business 2.0. That movie was the dream of Kim Doyal also known as
The WordPress Chick.

Kim had a dream to tell the stories of women who have
created successful businesses using the internet. After
many months of dedication and hard work, Kim has
made it a reality. I have been so incredibly impressed
watching this process. I will let Kim give you the back
story.

First, Kim I want to congratulate you publicly, in person
on the recent launch of the movie and also thank you
for including me among the amazing women you
interviewed. I was really quite honored to be in the
company of such terrific people. I probably know half of
them personally. The other half it was wonderful to get
to know as I watched the movie. I've been really
impressed by the fact that you provided a window, a back window, a back view into
why, what and how women are creating the lives that they want on their terms and are
doing it specifically by harnessing the power and the global reach of the Internet. I think
that was a brilliant idea.

Welcome Kim. Thank you for taking the time from your super busy schedule to share
some behind the scenes looks at the making of Women in Business 2.0.

Kim Doyal: Thank you Denise. I'm totally honored to be here. I think I said this before in
the post, I love spending my time with everybody and really enjoyed getting your back
story personally. So thank you very much for having me.

Denise: You're so welcome. I want to make sure that everybody gets to experience you
as well because I had that privilege.

Why don't you set the stage for us, Kim. What was the impetus for creating a movie
about women doing business on the web?

Kim: You know, I actually saw a trailer for another movie. It was similar documentary
style, it was about internet marketing. I watched the trailer and there was not one single
woman in it. The whole precedent for this, it was not anti-man at all and there's some
great people in general doing things. As a female I wanted to hear how other people
had gotten there.
2 © Copyright 2010. Denise Wakeman, The Blog Squad, LLC. All Rights Reserved.


Things have changed so much on the web that things are happening so much faster
there's sort of a preconceived notion that there's these overnight "riches" and all of that.
Some of the women that I've been following, I just really was hungry for knowing a little
bit more about how they got to where they got. At the place where I want to know this,
I'm sure there are tons of other people, other women out there that want to know this as
well. I wanted to highlight women who are doing great things on the web. The guys are
out there full force. Women are too it's just their voices aren't being heard in my opinion.

[Click here to watch the Women in Business movie trailer...]

Denise: Yeah, I think that it is changing a little bit. I think this movie will help accelerate
that change. When I started working on the web in 1995 all the people that I followed
and knew were men pretty much. With the exception of Ali Brown. I've been watching
her since she started too. We started around the same time. I've been following her for
a long time. I know she's featured prominently in the film as well. We'll get to that in a
minute.

Do you have a background in film? How did you know what to do?

Kim: I totally do not. It came about because I had been working with a couple of
filmmakers with their websites. They had contacted me and they had done some films in
the spiritual genre. It's just something that we've been
collaborating for a little bit and as soon as I saw that
trailer it was one of those ideas. I approached them to
see if they would be interested in collaborating on this
and going in to get the film side of this since obviously
I'm not a film maker. They were excited. It's great. What
was very hopeful for me is that I'm just somebody who
works very well with accountability. By working, by
setting this up with them I actually set up a system that
okay yes by this date I'll send out the request letters, I'll
write the letter, do some follow up. That sort of fell into
place. This is sort of a little behind the scenes.

I don't know if I've shared this with you Denise or
anybody else. They bailed on me three days before I
came to Southern California.

Denise: Oh, well I knew that there had been some glitch
but I didn't really realize the magnitude.

Kim: It was 4 or 5 months just in the planning to get
those scheduled and lined up. We've got a fine relationship but it was real personal
reasons on their end. With their film equipment in hand and some training I was kind of
on a mission and knew at that point this had to happen still. It was strange but not to be


esoteric; it was definitely one of those things that surprised me how calm I was when he
came up 3 days before to say, "I can't go with you." I just sort of knew, that's okay. It
needs to keep going. There was a little bit of a different dynamic then I think because it
was all female. The interviewing, everything. Again, not anti-man. It shifted a little bit.
They actually kind of stepped out at the last minute for personal reasons and they were
also supposed to edit the film for me.

Denise: Oh wow.

Kim: So within a short period of time-this is what was so amazing to me, I do believe
that when you've got the right idea and it's the right purpose and integrity behind it,
people showed up left and right. I don't know that I could have asked for had I known
better. I found a female editor who actually had 25+ years in network editing. She
knocked it out of the park. I was thrilled and she got it done. I had no experience, long
story short, in film making. It was something I wanted to hear and see those stories. I
really felt passionate about it. It was one of those it's good that you don't know what you
don't know, right?

Denise: Right. I guess that thinking back, because it's been a few months since we did
the interview together, you were the camera person and the interviewer. I guess I just
thought that was what you had always intended.

Kim: It's funny. I think you were probably a few into it. Having done a few at that point it
gave me a really good grasp because the vision of what the movie was supposed to
look like came to fruition being behind that camera. I really started seeing where I would
want a title or maybe a graphic in the shot and also making sure that the backgrounds
of each interview was a different setting. It came across. Actually, having to do it was a
huge benefit I think.

Denise: And now you're a film maker. Here's a key question. How did you choose the
women featured because of course there are hundreds of women doing business on the
web and there are 13? 16? 13? In this film?

Kim: 15. 15 including me.

Denise: 15. Sorry, I should have gotten that number right. 15 women. How did you
choose? Was there specific criteria that you were basing your choice on?

Kim: The criteria that I used was kind of ambiguous and I do think I got a little more
clarity as I went forward. I started initially with people I had been following and had been
interested in because obviously not everybody said yes. There were-some were just
timing wasn't right. Maybe some I think were concerned with doing something gender
specific. Some had personal things that the timing just didn't work out.

I started with people that I had been following and had subscribed to or knew had been
out there for a while. The beauty of it though is that each person that I connected with-I


had a list of 20 people and I just sent out the emails and started working from there.
When I got to speak with each person some people asked, "Who else can I connect you
with?" It was amazing. I would get literally goose bumps. I would be running down the
hall, "Oh my gosh, this person is connecting me with this person."

My goal with the criteria is that I wanted women who obviously were doing business on
the web. Some people obviously have businesses that are just web based. Other
people have a business that they've taken to the web and are using the internet to drive
their business now. The criteria really was that they were creating a quality of life for
themselves. It wasn't necessarily about a dollar figure that they attained. Some people
want that huge bank account, some people don't. However that looks to each person,
still at the end of the day it's business and we do need to earn an income.

It was just looking for people that were really pursuing things that made them happy via
the web, their business. I know that sounds pretty generic. Not that "go out there and
attack the web and just sell whatever you can get their hands on." It was "where is there
a sustainable business?" Really the foundation and people who are in it for the long
haul.

Denise: Right. The day that it arrived in the mail I watched the whole thing. I was so
excited to see everybody's story. I was, "I want to know the back story of all these
people." You kind of know the front story on some and I'm friends with a few people so I
kind of know their stories but the people I didn't know I wanted to know. The theme that
emerged for me was really about lifestyle too. Nobody really-a couple people mentioned
what their annual earnings are but that seems sort of an afterthought, "Yeah, I've
achieved this so that I can do all these other things." There was so much about service
and giving back and I think that was a really powerful message in the film too.

Kim: Thank you. That was a huge eye opener for me too. But the annual earnings were
sort of the means to the end that they can do those things and pursue-helping other
people was a huge message and kind of who they were. It seemed that as each-for you
guys who have been in business for a long time it was fascinating to see that there was
just such a connection between, "As I earn more money I can do more good. As I earn
more money I can do more good." It seemed to be a very authentic evolution. That just
gave me goose bumps.

Denise: As somebody who was interviewed, I had no idea what anybody else would
say in theirs because of course each interview was discreet. There wasn't a lineup of
people to get in the chair. It's not like we heard what anybody else was going to say yet
there were so many similarities in the stories. It was fascinating.

Kim: That's what I think I mentioned in the end. The fascination of the connection
between a couple things I was like, "Everybody touched on this," and there was a
different angle or perspective but there was such great commonalities between
everybody.



Denise: You've talked about a big challenge that you encountered when your original
film crew had to back out at the very last minute. Were there any other challenges that
you had to overcome or that you didn't expect?

Kim: In the making of the movie?

Denise: Yes.

Kim: Gosh. I should write a book on this. I think-obviously just coming up with this idea
and going for it, it's just that the resources financially, logistically, physically people were
limited. It's literally been myself, an assistant, and an affiliate. They're pulling this all
together. It's tricky when it's one of those things that I know where I'm coming from this.
I know where the integrity and intention is behind it but having never done it, there are
going to be mistakes and concerns.

Little things. Even from whether it's changing the initial logo and graphic to getting some
feedback from some of the women and sitting back, I was able to see that and go,
"You're right." What was nice about it was that I think somewhere along the line I kind of
removed my ego from opinions or references so much and the goal was about making
the best product I could. I think it was just honestly it was man power. Man power and
just again having to come up with the funds to pay a professional editor when that was
supposed to be worked into an agreement. Again, with the intention the money has
showed up. It's worked itself out. Not knowing the things that I had to deal with along the
way. I'd say probably man power was the biggest challenge.

Denise: It's interesting because I hadn't really thought about the financing of it obviously
since I wasn't involved in that end of it. I can imagine it must take a bit of cash to
actually put something like this together. You did it very bootstrap-like as well. You did
have to travel - you were in Southern California for quite a while and for our listeners,
you live in Northern California. Did you have to travel to any other states to get
interviews?

Kim: This is the fun thing. I actually had a couple people travel to me. This-the big
lesson that from the get-go I realized that for this movie you just need to ask which is
not something I think a lot of-I don't want to generalize but women don't want to ask for
help and I just thought why not, right? Initially, I asked Fabienne Fredrickson. I said is
there any way you could get out to California for this interview. Why not? She said yes.
Then she planned a training around it. Kind of two birds with one stone.

Even Wendi Friesen who lives in Colorado where the original editors lived, we were
going to shoot her interview there and as soon as that didn't work out I thought I'm just
going to ask her. She flew into Reno. We met there because Loral Langemeier is up in
Nevada, Lake Tahoe. She flew to me and we got her interview done, both of those. On
their dimes. I simply just asked them if it was possible for them to do it and they said
yes.



Denise: That's fantastic. That's fantastic. You had the opportunity to speak with 14
other women, right? Do you have a favorite moment or a favorite interview that really
stands out for you? I'm not fishing here. :

Kim: The thing is there is something that totally stood out with your interview. It might
sound silly to people but I really, really enjoyed seeing that personal side of you. The
story of you running and you tweeted something, I just thought that was great. You're
just such a professional. I've been reading your stuff for a long time. It was really fun to
see that. As you said in your interview too, you're a private person. I completely respect
that. We got to see a different side. That was really fun. I felt like, "Okay, this is neat."

There was a moment when Fabian brought me to tears. It was when she was speaking
about being able to be an example to her children. I'm all my kids have which is a huge
why. I don't want to sound so self righteous because I'm also doing this for me. I've got
a mission and I've got things I believe in because they'll go off to college some day. She
brought me to tears.

For the most part, I would say every single interview was a pleasant surprise. I think
there is a preconceived notion that when someone achieves a level of success they're
not these everyday people, and they are. Just being silly and laughing with people it
was really neat. The patience that people showed me when I had an audio issue or
lighting or playing with, "let's try this setting." Really, I did. I had a lot of fun getting to
hear the personal sides. Like I said, Fabienne brought me to tears. Lorel Langemeier
has energy that is off the hook. Oh my gosh. "I'll just push the car from Tahoe to the bay
area." You cannot be in her space and not feel that energy. There were some fun
moments like that. They were all really neat.

Denise: Her energy came through the video too. Really powerfully. I thought, "Wow. I
haven't ever done any of her trainings but maybe I need to go be around her."

Kim: She's kind of in her space.

Denise: Exactly. So I know you're in the early stages of launching the film at the time of
this interview. It's been out for about a week or so, right? I think I got my copy about a
week ago.

Kim: Yeah, the physical copies have literally just been mailed out a week ago.

Denise: Did you have a marketing plan in place? Do you have anything special planned
for getting the word out? Are you using social networking and all that stuff?

Kim: We are. This is probably where it's been a little bit of the cart before the horse.
Again, not knowing what you don't know and being limited, we had a very tentative
preorder prelaunch thing. Ali [Brown] let me bring it to Shine and it was pretty fun to sell
it there. It was just on a table but it was neat to get that exposure. We had a little bit of



that initially. It's been really fun because having made some connections there we
decided that-we're doing a big launch on December 1st.

We're doing 12 holiday gifts. People receive a gift every other day up until December
23rd and these are from the women in the film. They're going to be unique downloads or
offers. Not offers per say but downloads or products that are not relative to the movie.
Just extra bonuses that the women in the film are providing.

We do have one kind of fun thing, the movie is all being transcribed. That's going to be
a fun bonus in there. We've started lining up women for Take 2 because we couldn't get
enough women in the first one unless we wanted 20 discs. Some of those women are
supporting this and we're going to be offering some unique bonuses as an
unannounced thing. It's all going to start December 1st. I've gotten some unique
testimonials and we'll share those.

But, definitely social media and on a side note-you know Joan Stewart. We started to
look at implementing some PR. I don't know anything about publicity. I just reached out
and asked. I've got a local publicist who works in Silicon Valley in San Francisco. So
we're meeting - the goal is really not to just do some big internet launch. There's a
message behind this and we're going to drive it just as long as I can. The next film is
coming out next year.

Denise: That was going to be my next question. Are you going to be doing Women in
Business 3.0 but Take 2 sounds better.

Kim: I have to give my mom kudos. She came up with that one. There's a lot of stuff
we're playing with. I got a testimonial from a woman, or an email from a woman in
Germany who asked if it would be translated into German. She said "there aren't
enough women over here, maybe I could be the first." I don't know what it's all going to
look like because I'm still trying to breathe. Definitely, there will be more.

Denise: I think that's fabulous. I can certainly see it subtitled into multiple languages.
Start putting together some joint ventures with people, women in different countries and
make them distributors, etc. Getting into brainstorming now.

Denise: I think that's great. I think it's a great idea to transcribe it because then you've
got another product out of it. What I'm seeing here is not only have you created a film,
which is a product, but you're repurposing that content into multiple different formats
which is a great lesson for anybody who is getting started in business on the web. If
they can follow your model, they don't have to make a movie, but follow your model of
what you're doing, you could start doing some training on how to build a new product
funnel.

Kim: This is where you do a project that's bigger than you could have perceived and it's
like, "I've got to get some clarity in my own mind." It's all coming. It really is. We're going
to be packaging all of that with the audio which needs to probably be a little bit tightened


up too.

Denise: Excellent. Where can people find out more about Women in Business 2.0?

Kim: You can go to www.womeninbusinessthemovie.com. We will have some
announcements next week, with some of the December 1st launch. We'll be sending all
that out. Our affiliates will have all their information as well as social media. We'll have
that all out there.

Denise: Terrific. Is there a Facebook page?

Kim: Yes. It's Women-in-Business-20. Twitter-you can follow us on Twitter it's wib20.

Denise: Perfect. So you're available any which way for people to find out about this
great movie.

Kim: Absolutely. I'm totally open to stories and suggestions as we pursue this because
the goal is that I want to keep bringing in women in different levels and niches and all
that kind of stuff.

Denise: Excellent. So people can contact you through the
www.womeninbusinessthemovie.com?

Kim: Yes, there's a contact page right on there. Or, simply
kim@womeninbusinessthemovie.com.

Denise: Okay. Perfect. Kim, thank you so much for taking time out today to speak with
me and share the back story of Women in Business 2.0. I truly, truly appreciate it. I can't
wait to see how the rest of this unfolds. So, thank you very much.

Kim: Thank you Denise for all your support.

Check out Women in Business 2.0!



Thank you for reading to this interview with Kim Doyal. If you have comments or
questions about the interview please post them online here. You can get more
information about online marketing and boosting your visibility on the web at
http://BizTipsBlog.com and get a free e-course at BoostYourVisibility.com.

For product or service support, please submit a ticket at http://denisehelpdesk.com

Thank you!

Denise Wakeman
Founder, The Blog Squad
Denise Wakeman.com


Interview with Kim Doyal: Behind the Scenes of Women in Business 2.0

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