299 - Balancing Logic and Emotion: The Secret Formula for Luxury Marketing Success with The Lilian Raji Agency's Lilian Raji

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. Lillian Raji, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are the owner of the Lillian Raji, R-A-J-I, Agency in Miami, Florida. And the website is Lilianaragi.com. The thing that is so fascinating to me is that for years you have been working with clients who cater to luxury buyers, and that's just fascinating. Welcome to the show.

Thank you. I'm glad to be here, Doug. Thank you for having me.

So why don't you give us a little bit about of your backstory and then we'll get into more about what you do and what makes you tick.

Ah, my backstory. I fell into luxury. I spent my entire— from age, I don't know, 5 until 19, I thought I was going to be a lawyer. And then that path got changed. I was in my sophomore slash junior— I say that because I graduated college in 3 years— sophomore slash junior year in college studying for my LSATs. And I saw this movie Devil's Advocate with Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves, which is not a movie you want to watch while you're studying for your LSATs. And it completely changed my direction. I don't know if you— have you seen it?

No, I haven't.

All right, spoiler alert to anybody listening, it's been 25 years, so if you haven't seen it by now, sorry about the spoiler alert. Keanu Reeves is this hotshot lawyer, never lost a case, and he got based in Florida. He gets recruited out of a New York firm, and then he's given this major case, and during the course of it, he finds out that his client is absolutely guilty of killing his, his wife, the housekeeper, and the wife's son so that he could sleep with his daughter, his stepdaughter. So Keanu Reeves had to make a decision now. Do I walk away from the case, or do I win and walk away from the case and destroy my record, or go ahead and win? And he chooses obviously to win. And then we find out that Al Pacino was the devil, and he now— he was now part of the devil's army. So yeah, you don't want to watch that while you're studying for your LSAT. That's what took me from law.

So you decide the law maybe isn't the thing for you.

Yeah, no. Well, and you know what it was that did it? I asked myself at that time, if I were ever in this exact situation, what would I do? And at 19, I, I didn't have an answer. And that scared me. That more than anything was what scared me, that how can I not have an answer to whether to do the right thing or the wrong thing? So I thought, maybe let me not go to law. Instead, I went to something that I have now realized is not very far removed from law, except I can sleep at night. I tell people in PR, in law you defend your client in a court of law. In PR, I defend my clients in the court of public opinion. So, and I create stories and I shape, just like you have, you were a trial lawyer. So just like you have a trial, you have a jury that you need to convince of your client's perspective. I also have— I, I have, um, consumers that I need to convince that they should spend $20,000 on something that tells time. So it's the same skill set that would made me a great lawyer that makes me great at what I do, except that I don't have to worry about getting a, a murderer off. So there you go. Not assuming that that's what you did, but just—

I, I was not a criminal lawyer. I was a civil and I, I was a civil commercial trial lawyer. So I, I tried business and commercial and financial cases, usually high dollar, very complex factually. I did that for 22 years, but I left the practice of law in 2000 to become a peacemaker. And that's what I've done ever since. Having a law degree allows you to do many different things and being in a courtroom is one of them and something that I did for many years, but left that 25 years ago. I've helped more people since I've left the practice of law than I did in the first 22 years of law practice.

It's a great foundation. I'm one of the rare people who actually understands legalese. So it's helped me. I was speaking with somebody earlier today. We were talking about the immigration crisis. I am an immigrant to this country, and I was explaining to them how difficult the process of the application is. I filled out the application. I did it all by myself, but I think there's only 1% of the Americans could do what I did. But it's because of that earlier semi-training in law. It's because how my mind works. I could figure it out on my own. But there, there is value to lawyers, even though I think there's more lawyer jokes than there are any other kind of jokes. But But there is value. Once we lawyers realize, or would-be lawyers realize that, all right, we can use this skill in a different way, then we become very great for the world.

Yeah, absolutely. So you've been running your agency for over 20 years, and you're now, you're also pivoting to becoming a CMO, chief marketing officer, or, uh, a fractional CMO for people. Tell me about what you've learned that's causing you to make the shift away from being working in, working in agency to being a fractional CMO?

Honestly, my mom passed away last year and death has a way of making you focus. It makes you question what kind of legacy you want to leave in this world. And around the time my mom passed, that was my last major client was then. And fortunately the timing was right. The contract ended just as we were, I was finding out that my mom was sick, which she'd been hiding it from me. So I shut down my agency 2 years ago to care for my mom, thinking I could beat cancer. I beat a lot of things, but apparently cancer is that one enemy that I'm just not quite equipped for yet. Yeah, my agency model took a lot out of me because I am— I make a lot of guarantees and assurances to my clients when they sign a contract with me. And in order to make sure that I deliver on my promise, I take control over everything. And it's one of the reasons why I tell people my agency has grown over the last 20 years almost exclusively by referrals, 90% by referrals. And it's because you hire Leland to get things done. Now, I also have to add this caveat. You don't hire Leland to care about your feelings because I don't care about your feelings. All right. Because if I have to care about your feelings and I have to limit the kind of work I do for you, because I am a change agent. And I come into your company to change the way you've been doing things, because if you could get to where you were on your own, with the ideas that you're fighting me over, I would not be here. You would not be hiring me. So there's a lot that goes into that. Specifically the last client, there was a lot of, there was a lot of, how do I say this? Resistance. Even though you hired me, even though you hired me because of the work I did for another, a previous company that you want to emulate. But yet I come in with these ideas and there's ongoing on-fightings. That coupled with just working with my— dealing with my mom's— it's like, all right, let me change the structure of my company. I love the aspect of teaching. So the Fractional CMO model really, really spoke to me coming in and teach. The Fractional CMO model spoke to me because it's less emotionally involved as it is when I'm the one running the show. So for me, it's like I'm teaching what to do. I'm working with you because I'm still doing that, working with the emotional aspects of it., but the end result is on you versus before it's, I was going crazy when things didn't go the way I wanted because the, the client sabotaged in some way. Now it's, I'm not the one doing the work. So you're either going to trust me and do what I tell you, but if you don't, I know for myself that I'm not the one that was a cause for that.

Got it.

So that helped me on many levels. I also started volunteering with this organization called the Venture Mentoring Team, which is just an amazing organization of senior level executives. Who all volunteer their time to help startups, entrepreneurs, and small business owners with their company. So with Venture Mentoring Team, we are all signed, signed a document saying that we will not in any way benefit from all the advice, all the support we're giving all these startups, including we cannot be part of their board of directors. We cannot invest in a company. We're just truly there to help them learn what they need to do to get their business to the next level.

And I take it in, in that organization, you're offering your marketing skills.

Yes, which is interesting because I, I'm finding when we do what are called pitch scrubs and the simplest way for me to explain a pitch scrub to you, it's like Shark Tank. So we have these entrepreneurs, they come to, it's like a Zoom setting like this. It's 20 of us on the screen and they're pitching their company to us and all the people on the call, we listen for an hour and a half. We tear apart their, their business, their pitch deck and everything. And then they get off the call. And for the last half hour, it's a 2-hour call, the last half hour, Everybody decides if they want to work with the business or not. So they need a minimum of 2 people to decide that, yes, we want to work with the company. And if so, then we engage them further to do more work. So it's, for me, it's been building on what I started doing with the Fractional CMO and I'm enjoying it. I'm really, especially when I'm helping people really see what it is that they were missing. We have, I have one pitch club that I'm leading with this one woman who The team met with her and we're all like flabbergasted, like, why isn't she— why isn't she getting the business model the way it should be? So then I end up doing a one-on-one with her with my very exhaustive onboarding session, which usually with clients it takes 3 days. And we find— I took her back to the root of why she found the company. And once we went back to that root, we were able to create a differentiating statement because she had a business model that she just didn't know how she was different from others. But then through the process that we did together, we were like, wow, why is this the first time I'm hearing this? This is what makes you different from others. Now you need to build on this aspect of you because that is truly what makes businesses— one of the, one of the many things that makes businesses survive is being able to let people know that yes, you have this competitor, but this is why I'm a better match, a better fit for you.

Market differentiation. I understand that well. So how do you, how do When you're engaged with whether you're doing this volunteer work or you've got clients as a CMO or even in your agency, how do you know that when you're successful?

I think we had the earlier discussion about being a Type A. Yeah. I never know that I'm successful.

Really?

Yes. And what I've had to learn 10 years ago or 12 years now, the Quebec government delegation hired me.. And I put together a week-long series of events by myself, didn't have an assistant or anything. I think I slept 3 hours a day for 6 weeks. And it was again, week-long series of events where they, they were bringing in jewelry designers from Quebec to try and understand the US market. So I had these seminars set up. I had individual consultations with, with consultants. We had the exhibition, we had the reception, we had all this stuff all over the course of 5 days that I pulled together. Single-handedly over 6 weeks' time. And so at the reception, I'm sitting there and here comes the client. And by the way, if you go on my website, I am one of the most beloved people by the Quebec based on this event. If I need a referral, they're always the first people I always send people to. Like, yeah, talk to the Quebecois. They'll tell you. They'll tell you about me. And I'm at this event and here comes— was it Jean-François? It was Jean-Pierre. Jean-Pierre comes to me like, Lillian, this is truly amazing what you've done. And here I am. I could have done this. I could have— here's Lillian. Stop. I didn't see any of that. All right, I didn't see any of that. I only saw what you've done, and what you've done is really good. It's beyond everything that we expected. When you ask me such a question like that, I still have that voice that tells me I could have done more. But when you ask how I know I've been successful, I leave it to my clients to say it, because at the end of the day, what I think I should have done for them and what they feel they receive from working with me is far greater. Their perspective is more important than what I think I could could have done more for them.

Interesting. So what is it that gets you up in the morning and gets you excited to do the work that you do?

I'm a crazy person. I, I, I say that because I have a passion for life that I find a bit rare in some people. I'm currently in the, in planning to move in about 2 months. So right now my desk, my office is now in my living room. If we were in my office, you would see walls from floor to ceiling, two walls covered in books because I'm an eternal student. So every waking up every day is the adventure of what am I going to discover in life today?

Cool, that's great.

The challenges, but there's going to be like, wow, I would love— until my last breath in this world, I'm going to be seeking out more knowledge, more information, more everything because there's so much in the world. So that gets me up. And even with working with a client getting to those aha moments, like the one I just told you with the, with the, the V&T. Mm-hmm. That excites me. Seeing my work mean something is what gets me up.

Wow. And I'm, I'm curious about what it is that's so unique about you that's made you so successful in what you do.

My mother.

Your mother?

My Nigerian mother who instilled so much in me. Let me balance this out. Let me balance it out because I'm only now claiming my mom's influence on me. You're not a man, your wife will— if you have a daughter and you have a wife, she'll probably— she'd understand this a little bit better. I always said I had my father's brain. My father was an electrical engineer. By the time he passed, he was vice chancellor of a university in Nigeria. Anyone who knows my father, anyone who hears my last name is, wow, was Tessie Raji your father? Yes, he was. Oh my God, your father, XYZ. So I always talk about my father's brain and because it's very logical. Very rational, able to really put things together that most people skip. Whereas my mom was a medical social worker, so she comes from the heart. And so I've learned now in her passing that I do have my father's brain, but I have my mother's heart. And my mother's heart is what makes me be able to really understand people. I think we talked earlier about how to calm people down. When it comes down to— ultimately comes down to listening and being selfless and saying, what, whatever this person's going through has absolutely nothing to do with me. So there's no reason for me to get defensive. I don't know what kind of day they've had. I don't know any of this stuff. So let me just let them listen because that's what they need. They need somebody to listen and hear what it is that's go— that's going on in their lives. And once they let it all out, then they'll calm down on their own and then you can actually have a true conversation with them.

That, that, how do you learn that skill?

My mother.

This is something that you learned from her.

Uh, is it, you know what? Honestly? Yeah. Let's get down to brass tacks. Tax.

Brass tacks.

Thank you. Thank you. I butcher phrases all the time. I blame it on being Nigerian, so I might butcher some more. Just a, a heads up.

That's, that's okay.

I had an, I interviewed a woman for my Forbes column yesterday. Uh, not yesterday, two days ago. Bridget Finn. She's a new director of Carpalza Miami. And I asked her this question cause I like to throw out these questions when I, with my articles, what would your 13-year-old think about where you are right now? And she was answering it vaguely. So then I, I said, all right, I'll tell you this. My 13-year-old would be very surprised I became a PR person. And it's because I used to tell people exactly what I thought about them all the time without fail. And what changed me was I read the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Dale Carnegie, right? A classic.

Yes. And there was that one section that says, the more people talk, you, the more you let people talk, the more they like you. And of all the things inside that book, that was the one that stuck out to me the most. And so if I have to— my mother being the, obviously, the original seed of it. But of course, as a woman— and again, your wife would understand this more. She has a daughter. As a woman, we have to reject the idea of becoming our mother, but she would be the original seed. But Dale Carnegie's words never left me. So it's how I learned to start getting along better with people and then getting to a place. And I probably say it's more my meditation techniques too that got me to a place of realizing that people are always projecting their realities on you. So for that reason, never take anything personal. There are times when people are actually giving you constructive criticism, and I, I will look out for that. And that, of course, makes me a crazy obsessive. This adds into my level of crazy because I am saying, this person said this about me, did they have a point? And I'll go through everything I've done over and over again, and sometimes I will find, all right, if I had— this is where they were coming from based on my actions. And I didn't see how my own actions was going to affect them because I'm— sometimes I get tunnel vision. All I care about is the end goal, which is why I said earlier, you don't hire Lillian to care about your feelings. I care about the end goal. I'm focused on the end goal. And because that is a weakness in me, it's a strength, but it's also a weakness when it comes to how my focus on the end goal is ignoring your emotions. So I, I allow that when I do that self-reflection. And other times I realize, you know what, this is a you problem. This had no, this has absolutely nothing to do with me. This was a you problem. And God bless you. I, I, I hope you, I hope you fix that. You find whatever it is, whatever trauma it is I triggered in you that I didn't intentionally mean to trigger in you, but that I'm sorry. I just, that's on you.

So what do you, how do you handle people who don't listen to me? I, I'll, I'll tell you, you strike me as a person who does not suffer fools gladly.

I don't. I really don't. If you don't mind me cursing on your show, I don't care. Yeah, I'm a big— I'm a big fan of fuck your feelings.

Whoa. Okay.

We need— we have a task to accomplish. All right. We'll deal with your emotions later. The last client I had, though, really, and it's the one that made me go into the fractional CMO because I was like, oh my God, how is this happening? Happening because he was too much in his feelings. And because he was too much in his feelings, he was blocking me from being successful for him. So then I had to address his feelings first, but I understood where they were coming from. And then I had to bring in an executive coach to help him work through the blocks that his emotions were, were making him sabotage the work we're doing together. So again, I, I keep mentioning my mom because she was a great and wise and wonderful woman. She used to, she always told me meet people where they are. And now in her afterlife, I finally embraced that. I need to meet people where they are. I can't, you know, my philosophy, if you look at my LinkedIn page and my about section, I say, when you hire me, I have a reputation of being a pit bull. I, you know, I wear it gladly. When you hire me, I'm going to get you to that mountaintop. I promised you I was going to get to you, whether I hold your hand as we walk it together, or I throw you over my shoulder and I carry you up there, but we're going to get there.. And this client taught me that that doesn't really work. And for me, it was difficult because you're hiring me to get you there. Why are you fighting with me on this? But the reality is, again, all of us exist based on our emotions. And if you don't— some— there are some people who exist in logic. I love those people. If you're a logical person, please, I'm the one you want to hire. Those that exist in your— in their emotions, I'm learning to work with you a little bit more because in the great and powerful words of Mary Frances, my mother, I'm learning how to meet people where they are because that's the only way I'm actually going to ever be able to help them.

That's interesting because the, what I teach my graduate students is there's no such thing as rationality. That human beings, our essential nature is to be emotional. Every decision we make is emotional. Every behavior we engage in is emotional. Everything we do is emotional, right down to the synaptic connection in between nerve cells in our brains, neurons. It comes down to the Is this good? Is this gonna make me feel better? Or is this something I need to run away from? Everything, everything is emotional. And I was like you for a long time as a trial lawyer. I was very rational and non-emotional. And then when I became a peacemaker and realized that in conflict everything is emotional, I had to shift. And the shift completely changed my life in really amazing ways.

Can I give you a perspective on that?

Sure.

Um, just because I'm a numbers girl and I love nothing, cuz numbers is cold hard facts. I love it. Um, even with the emotions, there is a formula to those emotions. What I mentioned earlier, sometimes it's a childhood trauma that causes the emotional.

That's correct.

So, so yes, everything is emotional, everything is irrational, but there is a formula. And so as you work with an individual, you figure out, okay, because of A, A plus B, this is C, C being the outcome that I'm currently working with. So what F can I divide into this to get X? There you go.

That's that. When I say that we are emotional beings, I am not saying that critical thinking, logic, reasoning, problem solving processes are not critically important. They are. But underneath, we have to recognize that all decision making is emotional. And we can use critical thinking and logic and reasoning and evalu— evaluative techniques to, to, to determine whether or not our decision-making process is a good one. And we can never really guarantee the outcomes of our decisions, but what we can manipulate is our decision-making process itself. And although it's fundamentally emotional, we can put checks and balances in to make sure that we are evaluating the information we have before we make a decision in, in the most effective way possible. And that's important.

So we began this conversation about luxury. I have a phrase that I will always admit that I didn't come up with it. I stole it from somebody. I don't remember where I stole it from, but if you type it into the internet, my name is tied to it. As the saying goes, history is, history is told by those who have won. I have won ownership of this phrase. Forgive, forgive me wherever I stole it from. And that is the pursuit of luxury is a passionate endeavor. Luxury is extremely emotion-driven.

Totally emotional.

Yes. And what I do is I use that A B C F to get X formula in order to convince you that you really need to pay $20,000 for something that you could have for $10.

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

That you would never— so one thing that people haven't publicly— I don't publicly talk about— a hobbyist astrologer, But some people know that already. I think I mentioned I'm a, a 20-year student of Shinkendo, which is Japanese swordsmanship, and I race cars as a hobby. I've been trained by Lexus, Porsche, and BMW. Wow. Um, I love nothing more than that. Yeah, I really am.

So you're a, a kendo student?

A student? Shinkendo.

Okay.

Shinkendo is different from kendo. Yeah.

Okay. So Japanese sword training, weapons martial arts, and Drive race cars. That's pretty cool.

Yes. And a hobbyist astrologer, so throw that in there.

And a hobby astrologer. So you're— that's pretty amazing. I've really enjoyed our conversation today. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me and my audience.

Thank you, Doug. Thank you for having me.

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 on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. 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. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.