This course focuses on the common growth challenges faced by existing private businesses when they attempt to grow substantially.
Defender Direct Interview with Dave Lindsey
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From the course by University of Virginia
Grow to Greatness: Smart Growth for Private Businesses, Part I
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From the lesson
The 4 P's
This module presents the four P's of growing a business: planning,
prioritization, pace and processes. The four ways to grow your business are improvements, innovations, scaling, and strategic acquisitions. The required reading is Edward D. Hess, "Defender Direct, Inc.: A Business of Growing Leaders," Case Study.
Meet the Instructors
Edward D. HessProfessor of Business Administration
Darden School of Business
Speaker: Now we're going to move to an interview, a short interview with Dave
Lindsey, the founder and the person you've read about, that great story in
Defend or Direct. First of all Dave, thank you for being
with us. Great to see you again.
Speaker: My pleasure, great to see you Ed.
Speaker: Alright, first question. We got over 40,000 students out there.
Students, entrepreneurs, that have basically studied defender direct.
We've had a great conversation. Now, sitting back from where you are.
Having built it and everything. If you had to basically give somebody
advice that's fixing to get ready to grow a business.
Not start one grow a business. What would be the key 2 or 3 things you'd
say? Well the first 1 would be what I probably say every board I sit on, every
meeting I go into, whether it's the defender or anywhere.
Is I'm always reminding it seems that, focus equals growth.
That's become a mantra around our business.
You walk around, you'll see it on signs and underneath that it's an old Chinese
proverb that says, if you chase 2 rabbits both will escape.
[LAUGH] And we are very cognizant of that at the vendor and that was the key to our
growth. It's all about prioritization.
not only, you know, we always want to do A,B,and C priorities.
What ends up happening? We got a bunch of A's.
Right? And, we know with everything becomes an A.
And we always, we also have another saying around here.
If everything's important, than nothing's important.
So the real goal is to take the A priorities And stratify those, what are
the A 1, 2, and 3's, and just focusing on that.
and I remind entrepreneurs all the time that our stop doing list from Jim Collins
is where I first read about it. But our stop doing list is just as if not
more important than our to do list. [UNKNOWN] And I truly believe that you
know, growth is more about saying no that saying yes.
We've focused on a very limited number of hard numbers in our security business.
Customers. And it's always Getting more specific and
going deeper than it is going wide. And sometimes when we first get success
we think it's an opportunity to go wide. So focus equals growth would be my first
point. The second one, we get into strategy with
businesses. We always talk about know thyself.
A lot of times we get into these strategic planning meetings we get a
little bit of success we have a couple good ideas.
Speaker: And instead of talking about what we could do, what we should do, what
we want to do, we need to talk about what are we good at already.
Speaker: Mm-hm. Speaker: And know ourselves.
What do I do well? And just do more of that.
Speaker: Right. Speaker: Instead of taking our success
and leveraging it to do other things that we could, should or might want to do.
Speaker: Mm-hm. Speaker: And So and, and, it, and, and so
often we come into these and we want to have a time in our strategy to dream and
think about what we could be, what we would be but really I find that much more
successful meetings are who are we today? What are we really good at and how do we
just do a lot more of that and bless more people? my third one which is my favorite
then its on every business card we have here defender, businesses don't grow
people do and I remind every entrepreneur in the end its going to be about you
people growing your people its more important than strategy we do forecast we
write strategies, It seems like, as quick as we walk out the room, they quickly
become extinct. They're, you know? We get punched in the
face, and we got to react. And, you know? Collins tells us it's
first 2, then what? I think it's not on-. The who that we want to choose in our
fast growing businesses, are people that want to grow.
If you don't want to grow. Why would you work at a company that
wants to grow? there's actually a barter that we've made with our employees over
the years. You want to grow, I want to grow.
You want to become more marketable, I want to create your skills.
I have nothing but your best interest in mind than to grow you.
And, I'm going to create that kind of an environment.
I know when I do that, you will grow my business.
And we have countless stories in Defender.
Personal growth, that when someone grows their job becomes easier, they become
better able to lead others and So that, that's it.
And that leads to promoting from within, building a cul, culture shell/g, this
idea of always remember, the business isn't what grows.
Speaker: The people grow business don't grow people do.
Those would probably be my top 3. Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're good, they're good. Everybody should remember those.
Speaker: Yeah, you know, yeah you know one thing I might if you don't mind I add
I just looked at a note I had here. When you get into this idea you, we want
to promote from within. Another snippet I love to share with
entrepreneurs is never pay anybody more than $100,000 a year without a personal
referral. We don't spend a lot of time on Monster
or whatever the current search engines are to hire people.
For our big time jobs, those come to us through personal referrals.
This is kind of finding those right people when we have to go out the
business. We want to promote from within, when we
need to go outside. I found that high performance people of
big salaries , they don't have to look for jobs.
the ones that are looking for job continue looking for jobs and we want to
find those people that their neighbours know them and they are sharing their
name. Speaker: so I just, I, that was a tip
that I, I wrote. I got to a point where I had hired enough
$100,000 a year folks. And that was just kind of a big number
when you're starting up, you know? And I churned through so many that the only
ones that ever stuck were from personal referrals.
Speaker: That's a good point. That, that, that's a very good point.
How many employees do you have today at Defender? Speaker: We have about 2,300.
Speaker: Gotcha, gotcha. Speaker; 2,300.
Speaker: Alright, sittin' back, sittin' back, and I know this might sound like a
weird question. But sitting back, knowing what you know
now, Speaker: huh. Speaker: It's what I call the Mulligan do
over question. Speaker: huh.
Speaker: As you were building the business, based on what you know now
Speaker: What would you do differently or what would you change based on what
you've learned over the years? If anything.
There may not be anything. Speaker: Well you know, the, the first
it's interesting you say that because I always struggle with these questions.
and I think, I don't know if it's just me, or if we've been so darn good.
I know it hasn't been that we've been so darned good.
We've been very blessed though. I do think in part of being an
entrepreneur is you never see many mistakes.
Because you just look at them as gosh I learned so much.
From that, that I'm so glad we did that, and you almost had that kind of attitude
that, man if I hadn't stubbed my toe, I would've never moved the dresser.
And you get that mentality that it's hard to see these, but I did ask my wife for a
few and she helped me a little bit. [LAUGH] Speaker: but you know one, and I
learned this after awhile was to really look at bringing on people as an
investment instead of an expense. Speaker: Mm.
Mm-hm. Speaker: And when you really do the math,
we start talking about these $100,000 a year people or, or
You know it's not a $100,000 investment to hire that kind of person.
It's really a $30,000 investment right? Because in 90 days, if it doesn't work
out we're going to part ways. So it's a good, you know we get ourselves
wrapped up, oh my gosh I don't have $100,000 but no, maybe I have 30, maybe I
have 30 over the next 90 days, it starts to make these, when you start to see and
I was taught this by a. Speaker; A, a, a smart friend that, if
you really have good ideas, you almost can't invest in good people fast enough.
Speaker: Right. Speaker: And when you change your
mentality, and it becomes an investment game, that's where you really grow.
And you start to see that as your job. So that, that would be one [INAUDIBLE].
This investment in leaders is an investment.
Speaker: Right. Speaker: Instead of that expense.
Speaker: Right. Speaker: you know this is a good one.
Is I, I would of got a board of directors or a board.
Excuse me, a start of, with a board of advisers.
Speaker: Right. Speaker: Sooner.
Speaker: Mm-hm. Speaker: you know one thing I am glad I
did, is I did things like tech or these network groups.
Speaker: Right. Speaker: There's a great one CEO project
that was, gave me great round tables and I always learned a lot from, from sharing
and the round table experience. But it's little different having your own
board and there were some things about my board that I never expected when I put it
together, it always seemed like a be a bunch of work for me and I never wanted
to do it because I'd call all the shots anyway and I'd rather just have casual
conversations but I came to realize that I was capping the business.
And the executive growth with my own abilities and why not have 8 great minds
or, you know, 4 other great minds? It doesn't have to be a big board, 3 or 4
other great minds in addition to my own thinking about these subjects
We always are wanting to grow, I'm talking down and growing up our teams but
we've got to be growing up and that, that released a creative energy and it
actually got my juices flowing. The other thing I created that I never
expected was it created a new role. Speaker: For me, you know to be a
chairman of the board caused my personal growth and then to not only have a board
but have an excellent board. Speaker: Yup.
Speaker: And then the, our board started out as advisers and it was, you know I
always tell people if you have to just get some of your real good friends, you
know your board. And as you grow up you'll mature.
You don't want too friendly of a board. But better to have a friendly board than
no board because it at least gets your mind going.
And it created a spot for me. I had never thought I could be a
chairman, had never even thought about being a chairman, or my company needed a
chairman until I was the chairman. And over time it just created more and
more outlets for me to be a better steward of our business.
and then with that board is to push that board like I said.
We, I had to remind our board and remind myself is.
If businesses don't grown people do. That isn't just for the rank and file.
That's for us as a board. So, then our board set off on a journey
on how do we improve And it was just a whole new outlet, that I, I, I,
I looked as a, as a, a barrier instead of a opportunity for to long.
Oustanding, very good, very good points for people to think about.
We have a few minutes left and I want to focus now on how Dave is continuing to
grow and your new role in the company and maybe I'll ask the question this way OK.
Dave continues and defender continues, but you're viewing the business a little
differently. Speaker: Where's Dave's journey taking
you now? Give us a little nut shell in a couple of minutes.
Speaker: Yes. Well, thank you.
Thanks for the opportunity. as we grew we found that our business
needed a bigger profit, a, a bigger motive than just the profit motive.
And that'd probably be another thing I would share.
Just a nugget is. Especially young people, but all people.
We want more motives than just profit so we ended up getting of course involved
with the community and then we started doing even international missions,
building homes for the poor down with a group called Homes of Hope in Mexico.
And that was part of defenders story that originally our senior management team
went down with our families to build homes, and we started having our
employees go down and we, we, found this missional, capacity to our company.
And I feel I'm continuing on that part of our company, and, today I've started a
company called, sea wham. CWAM.
That stands for Companies With A Mission. And we're really just, out helping
businesses, find that mission or calling. introducing business owners to missions.
Taking, business leaders. We'll take almost 100 business leaders
and their families on mission trips this year.
to have a missional experience and think about how they might want to introduce
that back to their company, to their employees.
it can be on both the local business or an international basis but through a
number of circumstances I have been given the title CMO.
Around here, which is not Chief Marketing Officers, I guess we have twi CMO's,
cause I'm a Chief Mission Officer. And I am just getting great joy out of
continuing that, that missional calling of our business, and to put a CEO in
place. Speaker: Marcia who I've worked with 12
years and is just, the business continues to grow and able to focus on this
specific piece. But I don't feel like I've left the
business and totally jumped over into the mission world.
I'm trying to bridge that gap and having a lot of fun doing it.
Speaker: That is outstanding and I tell you it is a great story.
Speaker: I, I ask the students and people watching this, look it up on the
internet. Speaker: Yes, I'll give you the, I'll,
I'll give you the website. Sorry to interrupt.
Speaker: Go ahead. Speaker: Companieswithamission.com or
just simply c w a m, cwam.com. Speaker: Outstanding.
Dave, thank you for your time. Great seeing you.
Till next time. Keep on going my friend.
Speaker: Thank you and God bless you. Speaker; Thank you.
Speaker: Bye bye.
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