172 - Unleashing the Power of Empathy: Leadership Journey in Marketing with Lewis' Ellen Faulkner

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started.

Elaine Faulkner, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are the CEO of Lewis Communications, which can be found at lewiscommunications.com, and it's a strategic marketing and creative marketing company based in the South— Nashville, Birmingham, and Mobile, Alabama. Nashville, Tennessee, I should— for those who don't know the South. Welcome to the show.

Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

So you've been with the company for a long time. I think we were just talking, you're coming up on what, 30, 34 years?

34 years next month.

Right. So that is, that's just an interesting story itself because not many people have that kind of Longevity and Company. Tell us a little bit about your backstory.

So I, my degree is in visual communications from Auburn and, uh, graduated, uh, didn't do a lot of, uh, internships or anything while I was in school, so I kind of had a hard time finding a job. So I ended up at a magazine, a regional magazine, as a salesperson and Then was able to be an art director there. And then once I got to be an art director, I realized I like fine arts and not computer arts. I did not like being in front of the computer all the time. So I ended up going back and staying in their sales and marketing department and director of their sales and marketing department. And I actually called Don Lewis. Um, and they decide— the people that own the magazine at that time were about to sell it., and I was a little nervous about whether or not I would have a job after they sold it. So Lewis, they had said, if you're ever looking for a job, please come interview with us. And so I took like a, probably a pay cut in about a third of what I was making to start as an account coordinator at Lewis, um, with no experience in the agency world. And then, um, have, uh, been here, uh, for 30, almost 34 years. I've had both of my children. I was married, divorced, lost my parents, then ended up remarried and have been remarried for over 10 years and love having a company that I'm able to do life with as is and to be supportive throughout quite a few things during that 34 years.

A full life, no doubt.

Yes. Tell us a little bit about the company. So we are a full-service marketing and communications firm, and we really focus on the growth. I would say we focus on our team members' growth, but also our clients' growth. And what we do really good is get in the middle of their business to the point of not just creating the communications and the, the channels, uh, channel, the types of messaging and that type thing. We also have a business intelligence department where we really get in and understand the data, understand the analysis of the customer. So we start all the way from how the client's making money, where we can find that low-hanging fruit, how can we like align everything we do with their return on investment and their actual revenue. And then we turn that into the marketing side of it, right? And create that customer journey all the way through. But where we really thrive is when we have that partnership where we can help them grow when we're really just as much a part of their marketing department as their partner as well. So it's a fun, it's fun business.

And you got, you got, it sounds like you're regional, you're regional in the southern United States. You got 3 offices.

And we do. Our clients are all over the country though. They're not necessarily in our markets. In fact, I feel kind of weird just saying Mobile, Birmingham, and Nashville today because we also have some, a few employees that are 100% remote that live in different areas. We're somewhat hybrid. I think a lot of what we do is all of our disciplines coming together. So it's helpful when we're all in the same room sometimes. But the great thing that COVID gave us was that comfort of not having to do it in the same room. So, but our clients are— we've had— we did the very first HGTV Home Giveaway. We have clients in New York, Texas, Tennessee, Florida, kind of California. We've had them in California too. So all over.

So what is it that you've been doing this for a long time? What is it that these days gets you excited to get up in the morning and charge at it?

I think it's the idea. And when we say growth for our company, it sounds kind of like I'm being silly. It's the idea of what are the new opportunities for growth? Like, if it's me, I grow every single day. I always say I'm— I should be brilliant. I learn so much every day. You know, they say you learn something new, and I wish it worked, that if the more you learned, you should be that smart. But anyway, I love to learn, first of all. So I enjoy that. I wake up in the morning and spend about an hour reading devotionals and inspirational things. So I'm very, very focused on that. But, but when— but then what I try to do is translate that to how I'm working with our team and our clients. And then how does that work with business? Right. So you kind of complement all of that. But the fun part really is I kind of like solving problems. Overall. And when a client has a need, that really gets me excited of, okay, here's how we're going to— let's all get together, how are we going to solve that? And the way our team works is, I like to say that not one person does anything at Lewis. What the output is not by one. So that collective genius, you might call it, is what, um, it's just fun. So I really like getting up and doing it every day.

Obviously, because you've been doing it for a long time. And so as CEO, do you get involved much working with clients?

I do. I, I less of the day-to-day, even though I like, they have to kind of push me back because I love doing it. But, but I end up, I enjoy, you know, we have the smartest people and it's just so fun. I can help influence, I can help ask the questions. I can listen and kind of have perspective of our team plus the clients. But when I see our team in action, it's really fun to sit there and listen to them talk about our client's business, watch them grow. And then when you see the revenue grow and the clients or the retention or whatever the goal is for that client, it's just, it's pretty fun to do. But I, I get to influence more than I get to, uh, be day-to-day.

So So we're all aware that artificial intelligence kind of flashed on the scene a year ago with ChatGPT. How do you see in this very early era of AI, how do you see that affecting your business?

So it is really an interesting, intriguing— our business is changing every day. You can imagine the way you communicate changes every day. The way you absorb information is changing every day because of all the different tools, all the different things that we have. So when it comes to AI, it is another tool. It's kind of the way that we look at it. We still need our brains, right? We still have to be able to influence it. We're really lucky. We're members of this, what's called ICAAN, this Independent International Agency Network. So we have a council that has people from Malta, from the United Kingdom, from France, from all over the world that members of our team are talking to on an every couple of week basis. So we're able to not only learn through things that we might learn through, but across the globe. And in many ways, when it comes to digital marketing and things like that, we've learned some of them are a little step ahead of us. So it's nice to learn from where they are. But AI, um, it influences everything from note-taking, right? Like, literally, you don't even have to do that anymore. It can summarize, it can influence. And so from art from art, you know, originally everybody was thinking AI is kind of an art thing. It can influence media buying, it can influence literally every single aspect of our business. I think the challenge is harnessing that and really utilizing that. The immediate thought, I think, from some of our employees was, um, that kind of scares me, right? Or is that going to take my job?

Or—

it actually won't. It, it, it only helps from even from strategy. You can, you can, you can input, you can tell them anything, right? And give them analysis and they'll tell you what they think back. So it's kind of cool. But there's, I want to say there's probably at least 10 different programs, maybe, maybe it could be double that. Quite honestly, it changes every day that we're utilizing in different disciplines of our business right now. So it's about embracing it, I think. And what it offers changes every day too. So we're learning something new every day, but it's fine.

I'll tell you, that's the truth. It's forcing us all to learn and grow in really remarkable ways. I mean, I remember— I'll really date myself, but I learned how to code back in 1969 when I was a freshman at Dartmouth College, and I learned BASIC, all-purpose symbolic instruction code, BASIC programming, which was developed by John Kemeny, who was the president of the college at that time.

Wow.

I could never imagine coding on a mainframe computer back then, we would be where we are today. It's kind of, I mean, there's, there's more computing power in my Pixel Stacks than existed on the entire planet in 1970.

My dad was a former banker. He was a banker for 49 years and he passed away, I guess about 17 years ago, but in there in the attic, we found a picture of him in a room. Probably the size of my office. I don't know how many square feet, and he's in the middle of it. And it was the first computer at Merchants National Bank in Alabama. It was a room. And now, like you said, we've got this little thing and it has 5 million times more information on it.

Exactly. It is kind of incredible. But when you think back on, on all the years that you've been in the business and, and looking at your growth as a CEO, what is it that you think's unique that you bring to the table today that makes Lewis Communications so successful?

I would probably a little bit of stubbornness.

A little bit.

Yeah, just a little determined. You know, I just, I don't like to take no for an answer. Quite honestly, some of our very best clients and biggest clients tried to say no when we were trying to get their business and we're like, okay, we got to figure this out. We're in this for the long term. It's a long-term partnership. We, we do have project clients, but we really like having that partnership where we learn together and grow together. And so I think just not wanting to say no. And also, I love— I'm very curious, which I always say the great thing about if you, if you work in our industry, you know enough about a ton of different— you've learned enough about a lot of different industries to be dangerous, right? Because you have to know. You have to learn it and we immerse ourselves into that business. And I just love that part of it. Some people don't. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of reading. It takes a lot of learning. But for me, somebody that's curious, it's— it kind of excites me.

So curious and wanting to learn. It sounds a lot like my old business as a trial lawyer, because every time I had a new case come in, I had to learn my client's business because I was a business and commercial lawyer and So we had to understand the business to understand the context of whatever the problem was within the context of the overall business and the, and the environment the business operated. And that's what made it so interesting is that I wasn't doing the same thing every day. It was always a new challenge to learn, learning different business. Sounds, sounds very similar to what you're saying.

It is. It's very similar. And even, even within the same client, you know, we work with a light therapy company. They have multiple products, you know, one may be skincare, one may be for joints and, and things to go, you know, with that. And so even learning the nuances of each, each, each, each product and then within each product who the customer is and then how do you go after that customer and how do they communicate. And so it just keeps going. If you and if you like that and you like changing and learning, which I do, then it's fine. If you don't, you kind of want a box. We don't have a box. A box does not exist in our business.

So, so this show is called Listening with Leaders. As you know, I am a, I'm a lawyer turned peacemaker, and I train people how to listen because it's a skill that can be learned and has to be taught. Tell me about the importance of how your growth as a, as a listener, because I know in our Authority Magazine interview in the early days, you, you probably, you, you kind of admitted, well, I wasn't the best listener in the world. I wasn't as empathetic as I should have been, and maybe I rubbed a few people the wrong way. Tell me about that growth process that you went through as a listener and learning empathy.

I think I have empathy. What I'm not great at sometimes is how I say what's next, and I continue to learn at that because I want to immediately react, right? But I really have learned a lot about that. I did that. They did a 360-degree, uh, like analysis of me where they interview— they interviewed like 15 people in our company when I very first became a CEO. And they did, um, they all talked about what they liked and didn't like and what I needed to improve on. And so then our consultant came back to me to talk to me about what all I needed to do. So, um, as far as listening, I think it, it, to me, it goes right along with learning because If you're listening and you are curious and you want to know why, that has helped me grow. Because one of the things I believe in wholeheartedly is everybody has strengths and weaknesses. I've got plenty of weaknesses and I need people to help complement my weaknesses, right? But also, so does everybody else. And so nobody's perfect. And as we grow our team members,. And people want to get really upset about one. Like, if you have this one whole person and somebody wants to get real upset about this little piece, right? You're like, but you can't focus on that. You've got to focus on all of that. So then that's where the listening comes in to understand how to complement, how to make that person thrive in those areas that they're strong in, and then have everybody else not be frustrated because they're weak. Let's back them up with the other side. And I think that takes a ton. Of listening, um, from my perspective.

I, I talk about listening other people into existence where there, everybody has a great, great need to be heard at a deep emotional level. And that, that need is almost never fulfilled because people are listening for their own agendas. Mm-hmm. I'm listening to get my own needs met. I'm not listening to meet your needs. And I think that when we learn how to listen other people in existence, basically by learning how to listen to their emotions, not their words, that we change the dynamic. And so to your point, listening to somebody to make them feel heard and understood is the key to solving problems because once they feel heard, now they're open to the idea of, okay, so let's work on this issue and figure it out. And really powerful stuff. Tell me about empathy. You, in the beginning, it sounded like You struggle with that a little bit, being able to relate to people and rather than being like that.

Yeah. You know, I think, I think that one of the things I, um, my former husband was an alcoholic and I went through, um, a codependency training when, and that was, gosh, 20 years ago. And it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me because I really learned that I was not in control. And with that comes a lot of empathy, right? You know, where you realize, okay, I am, I'm not in control. And it's the most freeing feeling when you realize there's nothing I can do about that. I can understand where you're coming from. And I think it's one of the hardest things as a manager because you want to fix everything for everybody, right? When somebody's not doing their job, you're like, okay, we can do this. We can do this. And there comes a point that you're like, no, I can't do that for them. They— I can't wish their job to be done. So that empathy, I think, is okay, I'm going to support them, but we've always got to let everybody give the opportunity to do the right thing. And when they don't do the right thing consistently, we have to deal with that, right? And so I think empathy comes with that. But with the codependent training that I did, I did a 12-week long course at night, and then I continued to read codependent books, a lot of motivational, devotional books as well. I have a strong faith, and I think as I just began growing in ways that I just never even knew I could, and I think that's helped me probably more in my business even than my personal life quite honestly, because I have so many relationships on so many levels.

Yeah, I noticed that when, uh, one of the things that we do as human beings when we have a person in front of us presenting a problem— maybe they're emotional, maybe to your point they're not performing as well as they can— we, we are— our instinct is to come in and problem solve and fix. And I— the reason for that, I think, is because when we see somebody in distress, it, it, it evokes anxiety within us. We're anxious about it. And so we want to soothe our anxiety. And the way we do that is just by instinctively going to problem solving. If I can fix your problem and you're no longer upset or screwing up, then I'm less anxious. So I feel better about myself. And yet early problem solving is often the worst thing you can do.

Mm-hmm. I think that I, one thing that I've learned a lot of is when people come to me with a problem, they want me to react, right? They're immediate. And I've learned— I try, I can't say I'm 100%, but I try not to react because there's always multiple sides to a story, right? But they want to tell you their part of the story. And so then that means you're going to react to their part of the story and you're going to validate the way they feel because they're right. But I've learned, I try very, very hard not to. I just listen. Understand and try to make sure I get all of the, all of the different viewpoints before I react. Sometimes I slip. I'm not going to say it, but I know that's not the right thing to do.

Oh, that's good. But I mean, you're self-aware enough to recognize that this is something that you've got to do. And it's interesting that what I just, what I find is that people will come up with problems and they might be emotionally, they could be angry or upset or whatever. The key is to validate their emotions, but don't validate the reason for the emotions. They're having emotions. Yeah, like maybe they're angry, maybe they're upset, frustrated, they don't feel appreciated, disrespected, whatever it might be. If we can validate their emotional experience without validating the reason for that, they calm down and then they're ready to address the underlying problem, whatever that might be. And what people, I think, tend to do is they want validate the problem rather than validate the emotion.

I think that comes when we— a big focus of ours is growth with our team members. And some of those that are hesitant to growing, you have to do exactly what you just said, not just from a listening standpoint. It's like they've got to feel validated because there's a reason in their mind they're adverse to listening to a new way. And they don't even know they're doing it, but it comes out. Yeah. So that's interesting. I love the way you said that because I think that's very true on multiple levels. Helping grow.

That's right. They're foundationally, foundationally, they feel emotionally unsafe. So when you see resistance to new ideas, it's fear-based. They feel at a very deep level, there's a threat that their brain is perceiving as a threat. And our brains can't distinguish between a saber-toothed tiger and a social threat. To the brain, they're both threats, and so we react the same way. Um, and, and so when they see that threat and they're emotionally unsafe, the best thing you can do is create emotional safety. And when you do that, then all of a sudden they don't see the threat, they can relax, and now, okay, let's talk about the problem and how to solve it. And that's— that, I think, is a big secret that a lot of people miss. Powerful. Um, so where do you see yourself going? I mean, you've been at it for a long time. Where do you see— where do you see you going, and where do you see the company going over the next 10 years? You still going to be—

yeah, yes, we're, um, we're literally on a path for exponential growth. That's kind of our goal, is to try to triple our size in the next 10 years. So, um, we are— we just actually had an agency-wide meeting last week where we're talking about where we're going, what kind of change do we have to do as an organization. Our business is changing all the time. And to your point, like trying to make people comfortable with that, we're not trying to create fear, but we do have to acknowledge change, right? And so where, where we're going, how we make money, what we do to make money, all of those things from a profit standpoint. But what makes us great is big things that change our clients' business. There's the short-term and the long-term. So there's this short-term animal we got to make sure we can handle, but then there's that long-term, where do we want to go? Go. And we do that for our clients, but also that's what we were talking about last week for Lewis, right? Because what we're trying to do is make sure that we're on that short-term, long-term path. And it's, it's an, it's a, it's an, it's a fun, it's a little overwhelming sometimes because it is changing. But when you get it right now, we have a huge momentum in our business development, not just department, but across the agency and the team members that are engaged in it. I just left a meeting a few minutes ago where everybody was so excited about that and I just feel like we can't lose if everybody's going in that direction, um, and pumped. You're like, okay, it's gonna all happen. Just cross your fingers.

So you're going to hang around and watch this exponential growth?

Uh, that's my, that's my goal. I think it's gonna be a little bit more than watching though, but I'll—

yeah, I've kind of— you're the conductor directing, making it all happen. Oh, yeah, that's great. Well, one more question, then I'll let you go. What is one thing, Ellen, about yourself that we wouldn't know about unless you revealed it to us?

Okay, so I'm a very early riser. I get up at least by 5 most days, probably 95%. And I was just talking to somebody this morning, and they were like, I wish I was that disciplined. And I said, you know, It's not a matter of discipline for me. It's— I don't want to— I really don't want to miss anything. I like— I love that time. I love my time that I can sit there and do. Now, I will say we live on the water, so that time may be me fishing in my pajamas out on my pier. What do you fish for at dark? Uh, uh, speckled trout off our pier. I do all sorts of fishing, but, but— so that may be— some people don't know, but, um, we catch redfish, speckled trout, um, all sorts of— nobody's a away. Speckled trout.

Speckled trout.

Yes, speckled trout. Yeah, it's like a— I guess not unlike a rainbow trout, but in, in the saltwater. It's on the saltwater. So we're on the Gulf of Mexico, um, and right in a bay right, right outside of that. So, oh yeah, so that's one thing.

I fish for trout and steelhead. Fly— I'm a fly fisherman.

Oh yeah, I've fly fished a little bit. I'm more on a spinning reel, but, um, I love I love to fish and get up early. So either devotionals— yeah, devotionals could go away. Yeah, devotionals could be like, okay, I'm going to be a little late because I share them with some people, a good group of people. So I'm like, I may be a little late this morning because I'm fishing. So it may be an afternoon devotional versus the morning one.

Good for you. I mean, what a cool life— work-life balance. You get to go out and fish in the morning and just kind of chill.

And I'm not unknown to come home from work in my dress and go out on the pier, have a glass of wine and fish too. So just depends on the day.

That sounds terrific. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Ellen. It's been a joy getting to know you and talking with you.

Thank you so much, Doug. I appreciate it.

You're welcome.

Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag Listening with Leaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

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Douglass E. Noll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.