196 - Empathy, Communication, and Listening: The Key to Business Success with Crown Laboratories' Jeff Bedard

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.

Jeff Bedard, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are the founder, CEO, and president of Crown Laboratories, which can be found at crownlaboratories.com, pharmaceuticals specializing in skin care products. And we'll talk about that in a minute, but welcome to the show.

I'm happy to be here. Very honored.

So you've been with Crown Laboratories for 24 years. Tell us a little bit about your backstory.

You know, there's, there's a lot of backstories of every entrepreneur's life. And you know, we all can write books and we can all, you know, show the scars. I'm not going to take my shirt off today to, to show those to you, but just trust me, they're there.

Yeah.

You know, founded the company in 1998 in, in San Diego, California, and started on a kitchen table and in a house there. And, and, you know, I'd have to, to, and I should start, you know, way back when, but I, I got into dermatology and skincare in 1984 right outta college and thought I'd stay there a couple years and then had the ability to really learn from an entrepreneurial family, the, the Stiefel family, and, and spent close to 9 years there in the industry, and then left there and went to a, a startup skincare company that was highly successful. We built it out in, in 3 years and ended up selling it to a major company, Allergan, in 1995. And what I learned through those 2 kind of stops along the way was entrepreneurs are, are the ones that eventually either go broke or make a lot of money. And the 2 people that I worked with, to date, had made a lot of money. I made one additional stop with an entrepreneur, spent some time with Howard Murad in Los Angeles and, and Murad Skincare, spent a couple years there and kind of had the trifecta of, of different entrepreneurs and different ways to think about the business. And in 1998 said, I'm done making money for other folks. So I'm gonna go either go broke or make a lot of money for myself. And, and that started the journey. But the reality is my entrepreneurial path started when I was 5 years old. And I, I tell a story that I think your listeners would enjoy to hear. When I was 5 years old, I grew up in a small community in, in Iowa, Waterloo, Iowa. And I had very entrepreneurial family, not highly educated. My, one of my grandparents made it all the way to 3rd grade, but he was an entrepreneur at the heart. My other grandfather was a butcher, but he had side jobs of selling soaps and going door to door to sell this and that and the other thing. And, and I really learned my lesson. So when I was 5 years old, I really wanted a red wagon. And, you know, in today's world, a grandparent would jump over each other to buy their grandson a red wagon. But my grandfather, who I gave a lot of credit to, who was the 3rd grade graduate, said, I'll cut you a deal. I'll forward you, I'll front you the red wagon, but you're going to earn it. And we had a small family farm that we grew sweet corn on. And so we would go out there every summer and, and even when I was 4 years old, I'd be out there picking the sweet corn, et cetera. So my job was to go out there this summer, pick the sweet corn, and then turn around and sell it. And that's how I was going to pay for the red wagon. And so my grandfather also liked to drink a little bit, and he was a butcher as well. So one day we had loaded up the truck and I had my little red wagon in the back, and he said, Jeff, I'm going to stop at this bar. And this was like 10 in the morning because the butchers on the third shift would get off and all stop in there. And they were his buddies. So he went in there and it felt like he left me for most of the day in the back of that pickup truck. But it was probably 2 or 3 hours. Well, by the time, uh, he came out, I had paid 3 times over for that red wagon because as the people would come out, I'd sell them, hey, do you know my grandfather? How about buying a dozen ears of sweet corn? So that was my entrepreneurial journey at 5, and I don't think I've ever stopped since.

Uh, I'm interested in learning a little bit about the company, Crown Laboratories, but also you started the company in 1998 in San Diego. About 6 hours south from where I live. But now you're in Johnson City, Tennessee. There's gotta be a story there too.

There, there really is. You know, look, I, I started it with an idea and at that time I had arranged for an opportunity to sell a sunscreen, Blue Lizard Australian sunscreen. And how I met the, the, the party that had those assets was I was at a, a World Congress of Dermatology meeting in Sydney, Australia. And the family business and, and most importantly, the son was kind of handed this Sunscreen to Go market within Australia, but then he had the idea he wanted to get into the US and he was looking for a distributor. I was in a position to become that distributor in 1998 and, and I did that. But being a control freak that I am, I wanted to also have the opportunity to shorten that supply chain. And in 2000, it came to reality because we were distributing the product. We were growing immensely. And he would make the product in Sydney, Australia, put it on a boat and, and ship it over to Long Beach. And they'd unload it there and we'd go into warehouse and we distribute it. Unfortunately, in 2000, the Long Beach Longshoremen decided to take the summer off and go on strike. And my product sat on a boat. And I had to airship it all over, which I lost a lot of money that year. And as an entrepreneur, you're barely scraping by. So I said, no more. And I started looking for a manufacturing facility that I could acquire. And I got on a plane and flew to Johnson City, Tennessee. I don't think I'd ever been to Tennessee at that point. Got off a plane in November. As you know, most of us Californians don't wear socks and we like to wear khakis and a golf shirt. We, we happened to be landing when it was snowing that day and I was in my, my loafers with no socks, but I was taken to a, through the local economic development, I was taken to a, a site that was first started by Baxter Pharmaceuticals. It was a beautiful 200,000 square foot facility and on 19 acres of land, Doug, and they were willing to sell it to me for $1.4 million. Now, You exactly. Your, your face is what I am. So let's just put it this way. I flew back, loaded up the family and moved to Tennessee. So just opposite of the Beverly Hillbillies.

There you go.

You can't escape Beverly Hills, but I was so fast to go back, but we started in Tennessee in, in November or December of 2000. And made our first product. The first product actually rolled off the line on September 11th, 2001, which was a day that none of us will ever forget. And, and that's a whole story too. But that's how we ended up in, in Tennessee, was that manufacturing opportunity.

What a hell of a deal.

Uh, yeah.

So what do you— what does the company do today in terms of, uh, products or portfolio or When I looked at the website, it looked to me like you both have your own product lines.

Yes.

But you also provide consulting and manufacturing and distribution services for other pharmaceutical companies in the skincare dermatological space. That's what it looked like. Is that— is— did I read that correctly?

You did. If, if, if I, I would view it this way, we're a fully vertically integrated pharma company and, uh, focused on skincare and skin science. So we have a full wing of R&D people, a great staff that do a lot of in-house innovation. We have a, a huge pipeline of new product development. We don't necessarily discover molecules, but we discover technologies. We build that out. That flips to our manufacturing arm, which we bought the 200,000 square feet. We've just added roughly 100,000. So now we're at 300,000 square feet. That turns into our manufacturing piece. And then the products that we develop kind of go in 3 ways. You're right. There's a CDMO piece where we may make that product for another company and they go out and market it. And then we have our skincare portfolio on things like OTC products, cosmetic products, premium skincare products. And then we have our medical aesthetic group as well. So we cover basically anywhere that somebody wants to buy skincare. We have products that, that go into that market. And we're also in 62 other countries outside the US. So we're global in nature and, and we continue to grow there as well.

Wow. So you've been doing this for 24 years. I mean, this particular business, what is it that gets you up in the morning after 24 years and gets you excited to go to work?

Well, look, I, you know, at, at the age of 63, this is kind of all I've known. I, I, I got in the business when I was 23 and I'm 63 and, and you've gotta, I think that's a testament to really loving what you, what you do. And it starts with the people. I've made really great friends, not only in medical practices, but in, you know, the retail chains. And certainly I have the deepest respect for our employee base and the people that I've, I've been able to work alongside for the last 24 years. But there's always that kind of innovation piece where you feel like you can make somebody's life better. If you think about skin. 70% of our body. Everybody has it. No chance, no chance not to.

Right.

And we all care about it. Right. And, and so if you can do something for somebody's self-esteem, if you can allow a child who has tremendous photosensitivity to go play outside, if you can solve somebody's psoriatic condition, seb derm, like I can go acne, go on and on, and their appearance get better as well. That to me is exciting and it's very, very rewarding.

Hmm. So you've been, you've been doing this for a long time. As you look back on it now, what do you think is unique about you that's allowed you to be so successful?

Well, I, I think it comes probably from the heritage of my family of don't give up. Right. So all of us kind of grew up my grandparents in the Depression era. My parents were young parents. My mom was 17, my dad was 19 when they had me. My dad worked third shift at the meatpacking plant while he went through college and then took off and went to physical therapy school and got his degree there. When it became legal for physical therapists to have their own practices, he was the first in the state of Iowa to go out and get his own practice and establish that. And it was a lot of ups and downs and, and including the history of, of Crown. So I talked a little bit about the 9/11 experience and as a young entrepreneur who had just started a company to kind of have the world turn upside down when your first products are rolling off the manufacturing line, that's pretty eye-opening, right?

Yeah. It can be a little scary.

It was very scary. And then, you know, we built the business from there, but then lo and behold, 2007 came creeping up on us and the banks all went bankrupt, right? It's— and so we had a $30 million credit facility that just disappeared overnight.

And there goes your cash flow management.

That was— goes the cash flow. And I was getting ready to ship big orders into Walgreens and CVS with our sunscreen that just disappeared because I didn't have the cash flow to make the product. And so from 2008 to 2011, it was pretty tired., you know, tight times as, as most people were in that business.

I remember.

It's tough.

It was tough.

And so I can tell you a story and, and, and, you know, I, I share it with, with our team because it talks about tenacity and, and not giving up. So in 2011, the company was near bankruptcy. We were, we were near broke. We had no bank yet. As you remember, it took probably 2012, '13 before the banks really opened up to businesses. And I had an asset in the drug space that somebody wanted to market and could do so very successfully. And they are continuing to do that. But I'm going to tell you the story. I flew up to New Jersey to close a deal, and what I needed to do to make payroll and get everything purchased was come back with a million-dollar front-load check, right? So they were going to do that. And I went to the Marriott Courtyard in Montvale, New Jersey, where their business office was with the sole purpose of getting that million-dollar check. And this is in 2011, so not too long ago. And I went to check in and all my credit cards failed. And they said, okay, what's your option to check into the hotel? Because I had to get ready for this business meeting. We were going to have dinner that night. And I said, well, I'll be back. I went outside and I panhandled. Or the amount of the room that night, $200. And there were business people coming in and I was, you know, dressed appropriately. I didn't look like a bum. And I just said, hey, look, my credit cards aren't working. Can you front me $200? Get me to check in here. Give me your card. I'll send you a check. And so that happened. We sit down, we have the steakhouse dinner, and the bill comes. And I was praying that they would reach across the table, you know, the alligator arms. You're not going to grab for that bill. And it seemed like hours. That, that it took for them to grab the bill and pay it. Long story short, the next day I pick up the million-dollar check. I fly back. And from that day, we went from where we're at today to— and we had about 20 employees at that time. We had, had, had to downsize quite a bit. To today, we're a $400+ million company with 700 employees and 62 different countries. So I would say the thing that sets me apart. Is I don't know how to quit, nor will I ever.

That's a crazy story.

You know, every entrepreneur has one of those, I believe. At least I tell myself that because I don't want to feel like the outlier.

No, you know, I've interviewed almost around 200 people on this show, all many entrepreneurs, and I hear the same thing. All I— the themes that I keep hearing is, oh, the most important thing you do as a CEO is hire the right people and let them do their jobs. And the second most important thing is don't give up. Yeah, those are the two. Those seem to be the two cardinal rules of success in business.

Yeah, I, I often say to my team that if I'm the smartest person in the room at any meeting, we're in trouble.

Here you go. Well, this show is called Listening with Leaders., you know, by way of background, I'm a, I'm professionally, I'm a lawyer, but I don't practice law anymore. I, I, I'm a mediator and an arbitrator and I do that kind of work, but I also teach people how to listen each other into existence. So I'm always curious about the role of listening in your career. And I know that in our Authority Magazine interview, you were talking about the importance of empathy and communication. So I'd like you to elaborate on that a little bit.

Well, you know, listening is, is, the most human thing you can do, right? Because everybody wants to tell their story. Everybody wants to be heard, right? And if you're not a good listener, listener, you're never going to build those bridges and connections with people. I often tell people on our team, listen to understand, don't listen to respond.

There you go.

And, and the reality is, if you are listening and in your mind preparing for your rebuttal or response, you really will never understand where that emotional connection is coming from, from the person talking to you. And you'll have this predetermined concept of how you want to answer it, and you're not really going to take in the information, digest it, and then thoughtfully respond to it. So, you know, that's the way that I approach things. I'm typically at any board meeting or any meeting the last to speak, and I speak the fewest words. Hopefully they're impactful words, but I've listened to everybody's inputs and I've listened to understand and then try to respond to that. And I think everybody should do that.

Where did you pick up that skill? Because that's what it is. It's a skill set.

Yeah. You know, I, I, I think by always, and once again, I'll go back to my family. It, it was great for me to, as a, as a young kid, just sit around our kitchen table and listen to my dad and grandparents talk about their war stories and, and the ups and downs of their life. And, and I'd sit there quietly like a mouse in the corner and take it all in and, and learn so much. So I, I kind of carried that through my life and, and look, once again, it's, it's true that there are far smarter people in the world. And if you sit back and, and learn from them and take a little nugget away, you're always going to be better off. And, and so I think that's just kind of in my nature.

Have you, is this part of the culture of, of Crown Laboratories that where listening becomes an important part of how people are expected to interact with each other?

You know, we, we really try to drive that home. I'm not saying we're perfect, right? People have outbursts at times. People interrupt at times. You know, interruption is, is the biggest thing. Like, you know, you can see people kind of move up on their chair and they're, they're take a big, big breath and they just are waiting for you to just take a, a pause so they can jump right in. And we try to discourage that, right? Let people finish, let them have their say, don't talk over the top of each other. Not always perfect, but we try to, to instill that in our culture.

Yeah, when people are— when people are interrupting, I mean, they— this urge to be heard becomes so strong they almost can't control it.

Yes.

Yeah, just this emotional response they're having to whatever is going on in the moment, and it takes a lot of discipline and emotional intelligence to be able to sit back and relax and just let everything unwind. I know I had a big problem with that many decades ago. Well, when I was aware.

Yeah. Well, I, look, as an attorney, you're, you, you sit back and, and want to interrupt somebody before they, they say something stupid, right?

So, you know, especially with your clients. Yeah. But, but I also, as a young lawyer, I got I was so competitive, I'd get aggravated listening to the, to, to my adversary. And I was not a very good listener. It took me, it took me leaving the practice of law and becoming a peacemaker to really start studying listening and really understand it.

Well, you, you would've never been successful in mediation if you weren't a good listener.

Well, that's true. And today what I find is that I teach this process called Listening Others Into Existence. And I find today that whether I'm in a mediated dispute or a litigated dispute or non litigated dispute, like a family business conflict or something like that. If I can get people to listen to each other, I mean, really truly listen to each other, 95% of the time they can solve their own problems. They don't need me. I don't have to do anything. Conflict, human conflict arises because people simply are not able to listen to each other and understand what's coming out of that person. I mean, look at, look at, look at what's going on politically in our country right now. Imagine what it would be like if regardless of your political position or beliefs, that you could listen to people who had differing beliefs to you and, and listen to them and value, value their difference and still disagree with them, but listen to them. It'd be a completely different place.

A decade ago, I think that still existed. Today, you, you jump to cancel somebody or disregard them or, or however you wanna look at 'em and, and say their, their value is zero because they don't have the same belief set.

That's right.

That's sad.

That's right. Yeah. And unfortunately, I don't think we've had particularly good leadership anywhere on this. And so people model themselves after the leaders. And if the leaders aren't demonstrating good listening skills, then the people aren't gonna demonstrate good listening skills either.

No, they're not. And, and look, the, the media does not help that either. They, they, they're pretty polarizing in, in many, many ways.

Yeah. So what do you see? Where do you see— you're 63 years old. You're 10 years younger than I am. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

I don't see myself sitting in this chair talking to you necessarily, unless we're a tag team. Maybe we can do our own podcast together at that time.

There you go.

That might be fun. Look, I have a lot of, you know, energy in the tank and certainly, you know, once again, I see a lot of people in their 70s and 80s that have a lot left to give back. Hopefully Crown is 3 times as successful and they perhaps have a new leader that's gonna take 'em to the next level. I don't know. Or I'll still be, you know, excited to get up every day. Philanthropic efforts are really important to me, giving back to not only the community, but trying to, you know, leave the world in a, in a better place than, than when I started, you know, 40 years ago as it is today. So that's gonna be an important part of my life. And, and I've got 2 grandsons under the age of 3 right now. And who knows, I've got 2 kids that don't have kids. Kids yet, so maybe I'll, I'll be spending a lot of grandpa time, but I, I still have a lot of, of work I want to do and a lot of things I want to accomplish at Crown.

Good for you. I mean, you, you touched on something that I think I found really important in my life, and that is service to others. Whether you're doing philanthropic work or my legacy project is Prison of Peace, where, where we've gone into maximum security prisons training life and long-term inmates. How to become peacemakers to stop prison violence. And we started in 2010 in the largest, most violent women's prison in the world. And today we're international. And it's the kind of stuff like that that, you know, it just makes your life mean everything. When I think of the tens of thousands of people whose lives we've touched by teaching them skills on how to resolve conflict and prevent conflict. And that's what makes it all worthwhile. It's not about the money.

You're exactly right. You're exactly right. And there are so many really good people that just need an opportunity, whether it's somebody to listen to them, whether it's a hand up, whether it's some mentoring. There's so much that people can do to touch somebody else's life. And it doesn't always start with a check. And a checkbook, right? Like, being present, um, can really change people's lives as well.

It's huge. It's huge. One of the things I've learned is, is how to create emotional safety for people. And it's amazing to me how many people have never experienced emotional safety. They think they have, but they really haven't. And, and that's what you're talking about, this having this gravitas to create a presence where people can be themselves. And that, that in itself is a huge gift to be able to give. And I'm sensing that you have that. You probably don't know, but it seems, it seems to me that you do have that gift. I can pick it up from you. I mean, I think that people in your presence feel very comfortable, uh, and that's why you're such a great leader. You're the leader that everybody wants to follow.

Well, I appreciate that. I hope that's true. But, you know, once again, I think it takes Somebody that, that is humble and willing to say when they're wrong, willing to stand up for what they believe in and willing to be inclusive. Right. Well, you talked about the political environment. If we're not an inclusive nation, I can guarantee you 20 years from now, it's going to be a very different look when we look outside our windows.

That's right. And in learning learning how to understand and accept differences is sort of this key to everything, rather than moving into different tribes based on nonsensical differentiation. You're right. And I think it— all of us who are maybe a little bit more mature and have seen a lot, a little more than a lot of younger people, maybe that, maybe that's our job, is to send that message out, teaching people how to listen and value each other. Rather than push each other around because they seem different on the outside.

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

One more question and I'll let you go. What, what's one thing about yourself that we would never know about unless you revealed it to us?

Wow. That's, that's a great question and, and, and a great one to end with. You know, that I would say the, the one thing that, that most people don't know is, is I'm really an introvert.

I am not surprised.

I, I really value my alone time and, and ability to, you know, just be calm and, and peaceful and quiet. The, the world I live in is pretty tumultuous at times and, and I really crave that kind of, uh, loneliness. I'm never lonely in my own presence.

Well, you're not alone cuz I'm exactly the same way. You know, we, we introverts, we draw our energy from inside. And when we're in a room or with crowds of other people, it's draining to be that, to be out there. Extroverts, it's the other way around. They pull their energy from crowds and don't like being alone. But us introverts, even though we are obviously able to speak and be with other people, we really value that solitude. So yeah, tell me again. Good for you. Good for you. Well, Jeff, this has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for your time.

Oh, I enjoyed it, Doug, and, and thanks for having me today.

Absolutely.

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.

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