“My profession is marketing. My purpose is encouraging,” says Ellen Miller, president and founder of Insider Marketing here in Lake Highlands.
Miller is CEO of the marketing firm, but she calls herself “Chief Inspiration Officer” of another venture that helps women in their common struggle to find balance.
“I’m not giving advice. I’m just telling them things that worked for me, things that work for everyone,” she says.
Miller hosts her own Web site, ellenmiller.com, where she shares bits of wisdom and other resources for women, encouraging them to think strategically about their lives.
“When you’re not, you’re missing the most important things in your day, whether that’s a giggle with a sister or your husband’s big win at the office,” she says.
Miller realized her own need for balance when she was missing out on the things that were really important to her.
“I was raising teenagers and caring for aging parents and being an executive. That is a difficult life stage,” she says.
At the time, Miller was an executive at CompUSA through its IPO. She left the company two years later to found her own marketing firm. Her professional clients include leading companies like Samsung, Verizon and Hewlett-Packard. Her other clients, whom she calls girlfriends, are women right here in Dallas, but are also from as far away as New York and Hong Kong.
As a successful executive and entrepreneur, Miller still makes time to live the balanced life.
“Ellen is the perfect person to inspire people. There are people who talk and there are people who do, and Ellen is a doer,” says Lake Highlands resident Karen James, one of Miller’s closest friends. “When my husband died, and I was getting ready to come home to the empty house with the kids – that was going to be very difficult. Ellen had taken the initiative to get into my house, and she and her daughter had fixed all the comfort food you could want and had turned on the lights and we were able to come home to a home, not an empty house.
“She lives that out not just with her family and her girlfriends, but with people on a daily basis.”
Miller has been told several times that she has inspired couples and families to communicate better. She’s even had women write to tell her they are changing careers because of her advice.
“That scares me!” she laughs.
Miller strives to live out her purpose within her profession, as well.
“The most rewarding thing for me as a professional is to share my experience with other marketing execs and to help them in their business, but in terms of my passion, the big payoff for me is when I hear men and women write back and say, ‘You have no idea how bad I needed to hear that.’ Just being a little cup of water to somebody is great!”
