Customer Centered Leadership with Daniel Hammond

Alan Olsen interviews Daniel Hammond about customer centered leadership for Alan’s American Dreams show.

Transcript:

Alan Olsen

Welcome to American Dreams. My guest today is Dan Hammond. Dan, welcome to today’s show.

 

Daniel Hammond

Alan, thank you so much for having me.

 

Alan Olsen

So Dan, you have an amazing entrepreneurial journey and, and so as we’re, as we’re going through your journey today and your pathway in life, you know what to focus on some of the decisions that you made to bring you up to where you are today. And I understand you lived out of this country for a period of time. But let’s start at college and how you how your journey started from the college days afterwards. So

 

Daniel Hammond

fantastic. So I tried college a couple of times, it didn’t take very well. I definitely entrepreneurial in, I like to learn in the way that I like to learn, I learn faster than a normal curriculum, and I get bored easily. So now I more jumped into just getting into the business world and learning what I could learn. And as soon as I master something, I look for something else to master. So

 

Alan Olsen

that sounds like clearly an entrepreneurial mindset, which is that’s consistent with people that are always out there solving problems. What problems were you drawn to, in finding solutions for?

 

Daniel Hammond

Yeah, so really everything in life? I am, I mean, I am I said, My only fear in the world is running out of problems to solve. So I think I’m thinking I’m pretty safe the way the world’s going these days island. But I really, that I love challenging life. I mean, the worst thing for me is to have, you know, a job that never changes where the no curveballs come. So wherever I am, and, you know, I, I quickly found that I would outgrow roles fast enough. And so then I went into the military, and even in the military, where everybody is, you know, supposed to follow the rules, I would find ways to disrupt that and, and find opportunities, and my leadership started trusting me with, Okay, we have no idea what this is going to take. Let’s just send Daniel and he’ll go figure it out. And so I did a lot of that in the military.

 

Alan Olsen

You know, it’s interesting. You mentioned about in today’s world, and obviously, we’re going through a rapid amount of change. So people who are used to consistent environments are challenged, they’re

stressed, they’re feeling a lot of anxiety. What are some of the things that you are seeing today that are in great need to help people?

 

Daniel Hammond

Yeah, fantastic question. So I think at my core, besides being a problem solver, I just love to be a servant, I like to make things better wherever I go. And leave that I do that a lot by disrupting bad thinking or incomplete thinking. Or, you know, when people are ignoring risks, that they can’t see, I’ve done cyber exercises where I go in and make them feel what it’s like to be ransomware. So that they’re starting to think through the process of do I have everything in place to survive this. For employers, you know, with people quitting so much, you need to have an environment where people feel like, they come to work to bring their best self, which is appreciated, and where they can shine, and help the organization grow to be a more significant force for good in the world. And I think if you don’t have those components, it makes it hard for people to get excited to go to work anymore.

 

Alan Olsen

You know, it’s interesting that what COVID started with this pandemic, and then we came out of COVID. And then some people were thinking now we’ll all go back to what we were doing before. And blazer like no, we’re not we kind of like what we have now. So the whole concept of a business model is, is changed in your in your model. Let’s delve into the type of customer that you deal with what is your ideal customer first of all?

 

Daniel Hammond

Yeah, so I have three businesses that I do so in in, in my cybersecurity space, I really like to have high with whatever I do, it needs to be high impact. And so I love to work with leadership teams and help them Think are they thinking properly about how to defend their company from cyber risk. And so that’s one piece. The second piece is my partner and I wrote a book called customer driven leadership. And they’re we’re looking to transform 1000 organizations with this servant leadership, entrepreneurial problem solving organizational model, it has 27 years of experience behind it, it’s 100x businesses in the past. And so for that we’re really looking for, not the drowning entrepreneur that, you know, you just can’t save without, you know, him taking you down with them. And, and not the, not the people who think they’re the best at what they do. And you can’t teach them anything. But the struggling entrepreneurs, the struggling business owners that have gotten to a point where they’ve plateaued and they’re not seeing the growth they used to see they’re stagnating. That’s a that’s an ideal client for us there. And and the second one is, you know, the people who have mastered what they do, and they’re looking for, how can I build out new capabilities to better serve my clients and customers in new ways. And customer driven leadership really helps them grow to that next evolution, next evolutional step of their organization and how it serves. And then the third thing is I do entrepreneurial consulting, where I go into organizations that are building out new capabilities, and help generate kind of blueprints and roadmaps of how to avoid specific risks and how to find additional opportunity. Sometimes they have a growth plan. And you know, if they just adjust a little way they could double or triple or quadruple during impact.

 

Alan Olsen

So Dan, I want to circle back we get we hit three businesses, business models in one breath. Okay, cybersecurity, cybersecurity, though. You’re going to come to me and you’re going to do a physical love my company to say Are you are you ready for this? You protecting or you’re adequately protected? What’s your process? Is there? Is there a first initial examination or fee or? And then is there a second stage of solutions for implementing what is it? What is that process?

 

Daniel Hammond

Fantastic. So that’s how I started off Island. And really, as I as a joint strategic coach, and started really understanding my unique ability, I’m trying to do less and less of what’s outside my unique ability. So now I prefer to work with a collaborative effort, somebody who provides cybersecurity services, so that when I go in and highlight all of these gaps, there’s somebody who has the solutions that can serve that client. So I think that’s a really that’s been a very good collaborative scheme for me. I don’t want to get into the weeds of what the solutions are, what I want to do is open the thinking in the pathways of, you know, would I pay a ransomware? And that’s one of my favorite questions to ask, would I pay ransomware? And, you know, so many companies will say, No, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t pan, it’s like, you wouldn’t pay $1 To save your company, all its employees, all its jobs, all of the people you serve, you know, so you’ve got to really think and ask yourself hard questions. And then if you would do it, do you even know? How would How would you? You know, do you have a crypto wallet? Because that’s a step would you go through a third party to negotiate the price? Those are the types of questions I like to ask. So that people just don’t go in thinking, Oh, well, now never pay ransom. There’s, you know, 60% of medium and small businesses think that they wouldn’t be hacked, but that 60% are the ones that are hacked and 60% that are hacked, don’t survive.

 

Alan Olsen

So what led What led you into this problem that you then want to step and solve? There’s a lot of people doing this right now. Really hot area, and I’m trying to hone in on your differentiating model of how do you differentiate what you do versus the next guy who owns a cybersecurity company?

 

Daniel Hammond

Yeah, so there are a few good cyber exercise companies out there, but it’s actually fairly niche. There’s, you know, I came from a top 10 Bank, and I did an industry level in front of Secretary or the Secretary of the Treasury, for example. And so, you know, I think my credentials are that where, you know, I’ve never met anybody who has the experience and cyber exercises that I do. And I really start with what Important to the client, you know, really that, you know, what are their dangers, strengths and opportunities and deliver something that they don’t I mean, they don’t know what they need. And so that’s up to me to gauge where their need is, and then help them successfully deliver the most impactful exercise I can to just really help them better understand the threat landscape. And that’s really the sweet spot where I like to live.

 

Alan Olsen

Okay, so it’s more of us working on a strategic plan to get people protected, get companies protected.

 

Daniel Hammond

Yes, see, see the gaps in where they are the last exercise I did, you could see that the company that I was working with, understood a lot of things at a very high level, and then they had areas where they had zero, nothing working at all. So you know, like, so that’s something that they was revealed to them. Right. Policy is important, right? When you so that you have something to fall back on and go, Well, this isn’t the way we do things here. You know, you can’t have a single character password on protecting this system, right?

 

Alan Olsen

Yeah, I think we’re all getting familiar with dual factor authentication. It’s important. Driving is crazy, but it is necessary today. So let’s let’s delve into the servant leader. You know, the person comes to you and

says, Hey, Dan, I need help. What is a servant leader, I hear this phrase coined and some of our past guests have come in as servant leader, CEOs. What led you down this problem solving and, you know, experiential consulting service, so

 

Daniel Hammond

sure. Well, I would say probably, you know, I started my entrepreneurial journey right before COVID. And, you know, when you’re trying to sell a service that not very many people understand, in a pandemic, there’s not a lot of people buying. So one of the things that I did was invest in my own personal growth, I joined the John Maxwell team, became a certified coach, trainer, speaker. And that’s a very servant leadership, focus. And then, really working with my partner, Ted, who’s the co author on customer driven leadership and the inventor of the system, it was really a good system for kind of inverting the hierarchy. So as the leader, you still set the vision for the company, you lay out the values of this is who we are, and this is how we serve. But then you put yourself at the bottom, where everybody is evaluated by the people they serve. And so that as the senior leader, you get evaluated by everyone, and everyone can weigh in and help guide that bigger vision that you have. Each team becomes a little entrepreneurial problem solving, you give them their own little, this is what you can do, this is what you can spend, these are the rules that you have to follow. But within that, you decide how to run your the team, you let you know, like for example, if I’m on a sales team, maybe I’m not the the salesman that goes out there and can capture all the big business. But maybe Daniel solves problems faster than anybody else on the team. So if everybody just channels all their problems to Daniel, he can solve those problems and let the other people do the closing. And then I’d say the biggest thing is incentivizing your teams through a good program. And the thing I like about customer driven leadership is the team is evaluated together. So we share a score. And so it’s not well, if I can steal in a, you know, a client from Alan and land that client first, then I get more money. It’s more how can we work together to bring in the best clients for the company. And so it’s really how can this company, this team on the company serve the next team in the company? It’s all pre negotiated. So there’s no surprises? It’s all hard metrics. It’s not Well, I feel like you’re, you know, a B plus this month. It’s like, did you do it? Or did you not do what we agreed you would, would do and then you get rewarded for that

 

Alan Olsen

is, is rewards measured by money, or by something else?

 

Daniel Hammond

It depends on the organization. If it’s an entrepreneurial organization, I would highly recommend, you know, as your employees helped deliver you bigger financial wins, sharing that back with the employees, it gives them a stake in seeing wanting you to grow even bigger and bigger. But it also works in nonprofits and bureaucratic organizations. It could replace a standard bonus structure, which I think does not function well in many quarters. IT environments also. So there’s other things like in nonprofit, maybe maybe the incentive is more time to volunteer for things you’re passionate about. Maybe it’s face time with leadership, personal development opportunities, etc.

 

Alan Olsen

Okay. Okay. And so then let’s let’s jump into the book that you recently launched out, living your life with purpose focus. What inspired you to, to write your book?

 

Daniel Hammond

Yes. So customer driven leadership is, is really the system. And for me, one of my superpowers is I can break anything. And as I took a look at this program, I saw that for organizations, it helps them self

correct self heal, and self evolve. And so when I saw this program, I told my partner, I said, the world needs this. And so, you know, I have always kind of felt like I’d write a book when I had the right story to tell. And so customer driven leadership was the first opportunity for me to tell a story that I thought was worthy of sharing with the world.

 

Alan Olsen

And how’s the sales going? So far?

 

Daniel Hammond

We’re, we’re doing? Well, I would say, I mean, when it came out, we were I think, number two, number three on Amazon, we have had probably, at least 500 books go out. But it’s certainly something that we want to get into the hands of the right people who, who it resonates with, right, who want to have those highly ethical organizations that are serving in an impactful way of the world that that’s those are the people who we want to magnify. I think if you’re not highly ethical, it sort of implodes on itself. Because, you know, if you don’t carry through with your promises to the system, then the system basically unravels. You know, if you’re, if your employees can’t trust that you’re going to do what you said you did, then, you know, the whole the whole system just kind of falls apart.

 

Alan Olsen

So damn, when you’re looking at your life at the end, looking back. What do you see?

 

Daniel Hammond

Yeah, I, what I love about thinking about the future is, it doesn’t really have an end for me, I, you know, I’m going to serve every day that I have. And I look and seek out every day, new people to serve in new ways to help them. I love empowering people and leaving a legacy of their legacy in the world. And so it’s not so much about me, but I just love to see people achieve new capabilities. And nomina do that. Until the day I’m gone.

 

Alan Olsen

Love it. Well, Dan, I appreciate you being on today’s show. And how’s it person reached out to you if they want more information, want to work with you on servant leadership or get your book?

 

Daniel Hammond

Sure, yeah, definitely connect with me on LinkedIn. Let me know where you saw me so I can share the appreciation there. And also, customer driven leadership.co is a great place to find my book and to also find our company and how we can help you be successful. And that’s really, we’re not going to let you fail as long as you’re willing to go all in.

 

Alan Olsen

All right. Well, thank you, Dan, appreciate you being with us. Thank you so much.

 

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