Meet Lilian Raji

We recently connected with Lilian Raji and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Lilian, so excited to talk about all sorts of important topics with you today. The first one we want to jump into is about being the only one in the room – for some that’s being the only person of color or the only non-native English speaker or the only non-MBA, etc Can you talk to us about how you have managed to be successful even when you were the only one in the room that looked like you?

As an immigrant woman of color working in the luxury industry with the depth of my experience being in the male, European populated watch industry, I’ve learned to accept how special I am to often be one of one in the room. For this reason, I never allow anyone to make me feel small, particularly because I lack the identity of everyone else around me, and yet, here I am, occupying the same space, breathing the same air, as them.

My intelligence, integrity and commitment to excellence paved my entry into those rooms. Have I worked harder than everyone else there? Absolutely! Would I want it any other way? Absolutely not.

Much of my youth was spent being rejected by groups because I tried to fit in, I tried to suppress myself and who I am. After a while, particularly because I didn’t like the price of entry to “belong,” I realized I was better off by myself, alone, then being in a group of people and feeling lonely because these people didn’t really know me.

As I got older, I came to discover this loyalty to myself, to who I am, began opening doors for me. The more I was authentic to myself, challenging people who were wrong instead of staying quiet, the more I was invited to places I once thought acting like someone I wasn’t would get me into.

I enjoy stretching my brain, expanding my mind and seeking new ways of seeing things. It’s how I discover little details others miss. Yes, this requires me to work harder than everyone else who would rather go along to get along. But I learned early on that going along to get along keeps you at mediocrity. And mediocrity, for me, is a far more painful feeling than not being liked because I refuse to compromise my integrity.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

For the past 20 years, I quietly built my expertise and reputation in the shadows, focusing on learning all I could about being an excellent public relations professional as clients were referred to me to solve problems all of their prior agencies couldn’t. It remains a passion of mine – problem solving, going into a company, speaking with their employees and team and identifying those areas that have limited a company’s growth because they didn’t understand how to translate their DNA into a message their target customers would respond to well.

I am a curious person by nature, and that curiosity always leads me to ask questions others don’t. My process of working with clients, first starting at fully understanding what their business is and is meant to be, helps me then shape their strategy around their core identity while guiding their communications towards those customers who need precisely what the company offers.

On the surface, I say I’m a public relations professional, a communications advisor, helping companies attract their target customers to them using a variety of tactics including publicity, social media, special events, strategic partnerships, etc. Any strategy that gets you, the company, talking to your customer, whether directly through a social media and content strategy or indirectly through interviews with journalists at the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and more, is where my work lies.

But beneath all of this, I’m simply a storyteller. I listen to what clients tell me, I craft their story in the most profound way, then I help them share their stories to the world.

My role as a fractional CMO is relatively new. After spending much of my career in the agency model that did both strategy and execution, I’ve arrived in this place now where managing client teams after creating the strategy, teaching the team how to execute while I project manage, has become a much more fascinating place for me. I see it as that phase where the student becomes the teacher. My ability to effectively lead a team through my counsel has become a meaningful testimony of just how far I’ve come.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

The first I would say is curiosity, always be learning, always ask the tough questions and never ever be afraid of sounding stupid. I find too many people are so concerned about wanting to appear a certain way to people that they miss the opportunity to learn something that could help them go further in life. I’ve been extremely fortunate to be around some impressive minds who make me feel like a complete idiot in comparison. So when I speak to these people, I never hesitate to acknowledge my awe at their brilliance and willing preface my questions with, “may I ask a stupid question?” That immediately helps me safe face if the question was, in fact, stupid but also awakens a natural human condition to want to help others.

Which brings me to the second quality – remaining humble. I recently ended a client relationship because my contact there, who had years of public relations experience but not in the industry that I’d built my career on, wanted to spend more time establishing her authority than actually learning what I could teach her. She wanted me to respect the authority her title at the company granted her, yet all I could see was someone who had no clue what she was doing and was unwilling to allow me to teach her all I’d learned.

I’m self employed for a reason – I had no interest whatsoever in taking her job. And yet, because of her unwillingness to humble herself so she could learn from me, she missed out on receiving my 20+ years of knowledge I am always more than happy to share.

As for the third, I have posted on a wall in my office “whatever I’m afraid of is not happening today, keep going.” And ultimately, I am where I am not because of my intelligence, because there are way smarter people out there working trivial jobs, but simply because I never gave up. I am scared every single day of making a mistake, of things not turning out the way I wanted, any million of things both rational and irrational that when I was younger would paralyze me into inaction. It took years for me to see that as long as I took an action – any action – when I didn’t know what to do, a path would open up to me. Mistakes are a crucial part of your journey. They are how you learn. Take the time to understand the lesson, to understand your misstep, then KEEP GOING.

Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?

Of all the questions I could have answered, I found this one the most intriguing, particularly because it’s not the easiest to answer as all the others were. And with that, I’m sure you know what my ultimate answer is.

Yes, be well rounded – but first solidify your foundations. Your foundations are your strength, and like any weight trainer will tell you, the moment you stop exercising those muscles, the weaker you’ll become. So always continue investing in ways to be better.

Yet never skip an opportunity to learn something new.

At one time, I had over 3,000 books, which drove my brother crazy. He couldn’t understand my idea of “knowledge for knowledge’s sake.” My books expanded every topic you could think of, from books on the Knights Templar, to Machiavelli’s “The Prince” to the Watchmen’s graphic novel. As a result of this unsatiable curiosity, those rooms I spoke of earlier where I’m the only person that looks like me? I can carry on a conversation on just about any topic because I take about 25% of my time exploring topics I’m not familiar with.

Interestingly, though, some of those random topics always somehow find their way back into my strategy planning for a client. For instance, I’ve been a student of astrology for 30+ years. Before I lose anyone who thinks I’m talking about mumbo jumbo horoscopes, no, I’m not. I mean I’m a student of the kind of astrology Nostradamus and the Austrian psychologist Carl Jung practiced.

I’ve successfully used these techniques to understand the psychological blocks often influencing an entrepreneur’s self-sabotage and developed strategies to resolve them so I can be more effective in my work.

For instance, I had a CEO client who bombed every interview I set him up with – Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Vogue Business, New York Times, Reuters. I was burning through my contacts as each journalist told me there was no story for them when I knew there was. And despite my best efforts to media train the CEO so he could tell his company’s story in a way the journalists could use, he kept insisting he couldn’t do it.

But I knew he could – he did it with me! I knew how to work through his block, and knew that given the right encouragement, he would say the most profound, insightful things. Alas, journalists don’t have time to do this encouraging to pull out a story – they expect the CEO is already clear about what they would share.

So using techniques I learned from my astrological studies, I was able to determine the CEO had been made to feel stupid as a child, and as a result, he always stayed quiet and refused to express himself even when he knew the right answer. He confirmed that yes, he had a high school teacher who continuously bullied him, called him stupid, which now led to this adult self-sabotage. He was now in a role where he had to communicate his intelligence, yet that teacher’s taunts still impacted him.

I found an executive coach for him who helped him work through this early trauma, and thereafter, I began seeing articles emerge from the interviews I scheduled for him. All because my exploration into an area not particularly part of what I’ve built my career on nonetheless helped me solve a problem that was interfering with my effectiveness at delivering results.

So yes, always be curious, always be learning new things, but don’t neglect the muscles that do all of the heavy lifting of your career.

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Credit The Lilian Raji Agency for all

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