Each month, industry news media organization XBIZ spotlights the career accomplishments and outstanding contributions of Women in Adult. WIA profiles offer an intimate look at the professional lives of the industry's most influential female executives.
Miranda Doyle began her adult products career in retail for a national chain and in 2006 and later moved into product development at Topco. After several years with the company, she joined another company only to return to Topco, the company announced in late July. Doyle’s position is the newly created brand manager and private label coordinator for Topco, which will blend her skills and extensive knowledge of the adult products industry. In this month’s edition of Women In Adult, Doyle tells XBIZ Premiere about her vast experience in the pleasure products industry, motivation and professional goals.
My professional goals consist of taking the areas I am most uncomfortable with, and mastering them. I constantly strive to be that employee that is well rounded in all areas and most credible in my area of specialty: branding and product development.
XBIZ: How did you get into the industry?
Miranda Doyle: I started in the industry in 2004 in Nashville, Tenn. I started in adult retail when Hustler Hollywood was building a store. I was hired as a sales associate and was promoted every six months until I was relocated to Los Angeles a year later to run their flagship store on Sunset. Topco Sales had the Hustler license and I have always had a passion for branding and product development, so I started working for them in 2007 as a product development assistant and grew through the ranks steadily until I left in 2010. I really owe a lot to Rob Walker. He got me in the door at Hustler and provided a lot of valuable insight for how to be successful in an industry that is truly unlike any other. His knowledge and experience gave me an advantage later in my career.
XBIZ: What are you looking forward to the most about returning to Topco?
Doyle: I am most excited that it’s essentially a new company. There are some familiar faces that are very nice and comforting to see on a daily basis. The brands and products are familiar, but overall Topco Sales has a new strategy. The procedures are streamlined and more efficient. Most importantly to me, product development is structured in a way that is driven by innovation. A lot of companies like to throw that word around — “innovation,” but when you’ve seen how those companies operate, source and release their products I feel very confident in the way that Topco Sales is moving into the future.
XBIZ: What is a typical day like for you?
Doyle: Ha! Typical day. That’s funny. It’s my fourth day back with Topco so my days are spent in a reasonable amount of organized chaos as projects are transitioning to me.
XBIZ: What challenges have you confronted in your career and how have you overcome them?
Doyle: Every company and every product has its own set of challenges. Whenever there is a team environment there will be conflicting priorities — this is met with open, honest and constant communication. Sometimes the challenge stems from that one project that keeps running into issue after issue. These are the projects that seem to never go away. Sometimes the solution is to push forward and get it right; sometimes the solution is to know when to walk away and revisit it later — even if it means pushing it to the next product release. The key seems to know the best solution for each situation.
XBIZ: What is the most rewarding part of your job?
Doyle: Twice a year when products are released that I’ve spent three months, six months or sometimes a year working on — seeing the entire release together, finished. That’s probably the most rewarding part of my job. I should probably have said something about the customers that have supported us over the years and how my job wouldn’t be possible without them — but instead I went with the self-centered “Look at what we did!” response.
XBIZ: What is your personal motto or mantra that you live by?
Doyle: Oh man, this is one of those questions that you think about in your spare time and you always hope someone asks — and now the question has been asked and I have no idea what my brilliant answer is. I guess my motto/mantra are mostly quotes from people who have already experienced great success. I’ll narrow them down to two:
“If you can›t explain it simply, then you simply don›t understand it well enough.” — Albert Einstein
“Be so good they can’t ignore you.”— Steve Martin
XBIZ: What career accomplishment are you most proud of?
Doyle: I’m a chick from a small town in Indiana that’s made a career by being creative with sex toys. I think that alone is worth being proud of. I’m doing what I love and I have dildos and anal plugs covering my desk every day. I couldn’t imagine that a career could be this awesome. Any accomplishments outside of that aren’t my own, I’ve always had a team, and we’ve always made each other’s good ideas great.
XBIZ: What are some of your professional goals for the future?
Doyle: My professional goals consist of taking the areas I am most uncomfortable with, and mastering them. I constantly strive to be that employee that is well rounded in all areas and most credible in my area of specialty: branding and product development.
My other goal is to keep having fun. I’ll change courses if there is ever a day that isn’t fun.
