Todd Davis
The ultimate example of "putting your money where your mouth is"

Bob Serling: This is 15-Minute Innovation, and today I'm talking with Todd Davis, CEO of LifeLock. LifeLock is the leader in the field of protecting individuals and companies from identity theft, and as you'll see, Todd's story is both brilliant and inspiring. So welcome, Todd.

Todd Davis: Thank you very much for having me, Bob.

Bob: It's my pleasure. Let's get right to the first question, which is, "What is the biggest business-building idea that you're known for?"

Todd: Well, it's clearly LifeLock and the concept of actually preventing identity theft before it happens, and the way that we have communicated that. I actually go out and put my money where my mouth is, Bob, by giving out my social security number to prove that you can make that information useless to those criminals and they can't do any damage to you.

Let's just get that out of the way right now. My social security number, Bob, is 457-55-5462, and that is my real social security number.

Bob: Absolutely, and that's what I meant when I mentioned in the introduction that it's so brilliant what you've done, because when people go to the LifeLock website, which is lifelock.com, the first thing you see is Todd's picture and his social security number broadcast across the website. Now, that's just an absolutely brilliant strategy. And obviously you've got the product to back that up.

Todd: That's right. Not only do we back that up with me going out there and presenting that, we also back it up with a million-dollar guarantee to every one of our clients that says that if anything happens for any reason while you're our client and you become a victim, we're going to go fix the problem for you and cover all losses, all expenses, up to a million dollars.

Bob: Without going into anything that's proprietary, can you give me a little more information about how LifeLock provides that type of protection?

Todd: Yeah, glad to. In fact, what we do is go out and use the existing laws that are out there today that allow consumers to protect themselves. There's something called the Fact Act, which allows all consumers who are concerned that they may be a victim of identity theft to place a fraud alert with the major credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

The problem is these credit bureaus, they don't want you to place a fraud alert. Remember, they make billions of dollars a year selling personal data, so they're not in the business of protecting or preventing the use of data, and they make these fraud alerts expire every 90 days.

So as a consumer, if you want to set them yourself — I want everyone to understand you can set them yourself — you have to go back in and be diligent because every 90 days you have to renew them.

We automated that process, so we've put this front line of defense in place with fraud alerts, with removing you from pre-approved credit offers, with scrubbing you from the Direct Marketing Association. We've put in a front line of defense, so now any time anyone's trying to open a new line of credit or change an existing mailing address, an existing credit limit, get a cell phone, you actually have to get a phone call first, to your cell phone, typically, where they're going to get verbal authorization that it's you.

So when I give you my social security number, when you see it on the web, the worst that happens to me, Bob, is that my cell phone rings a couple of extra times and it's Sears or Target or a cell phone provider, saying, "Todd, are you signed up for a new account?" And I just say no, I'm not, or I don't even have to answer my phone, and it stops that transaction dead in its tracks.

Bob: Wow, that's fantastic. So back to the marketing strategy of putting your social security number out there for everyone to see — how did you come up with that idea in the first place?

Todd: Well, it's a great story. I was about to be interviewed by CNBC for a national interview, and they wanted to talk about our million-dollar guarantee. And I'm so passionate about what we do that I'm thinking to myself at the time, "How do I get people to really hear what I'm saying?"

I don't want to sound like the other guys who say they're identity theft prevention but actually only kick in after you've been a victim, or only send you notifications after there's been a change. How do I make people realize that we truly are that different in the marketplace?

And it dawned on me as I sat in the chair about three minutes before I was to go on the air that I know how I'll do it. I'll use myself. I believe in what we're doing. I'll put it out there for everyone to see.

Now, the reality is on the very first time we tried it, when they were asking me about the guarantee, they said, "Todd, how can you be so confident with this million-dollar guarantee?"

Well, I offered to give my social security number there, and they stopped me. They wouldn't let me do it on the air because they were concerned about liability.

Bob: Right.

Todd: Since then, we have the reputation, so we've been able to go do that on the national level, but we got such a great response that we've incorporated that into all aspects of our marketing now.

Bob: Interesting! Now, I also understand that some of your competitors in the identity-theft industry, the CEO's of those companies have been asked to give out their social security numbers and they've actually refused to.

Todd: That's exactly right, so I think that really helped differentiate us because it demonstrates that these guys know, "Hey, we're only in the reaction business. We're not in prevention." And so if they put their number out, they're going to have a mess to clean up at some point in time, and we're not, so it clearly has removed us from the clutter. There's clarity to our message now because of that.

Bob: There certainly is. So when you need to come up with a big idea for a marketing campaign or to solve a business problem or achieve another important goal in the business, how do you go about doing that?

Todd: Well, I've surrounded myself with people who are much smarter than I am, are talented, without big egos but certainly are self confident, and I get my team together and we go for stretch goals.

So my role, when it comes to needing to find that big idea, set that goal or objective, or to solve that problem, is to bring together these people — this group of trusted advisors who are so smart — and for us to have this safe, secure environment, where anyone can challenge anything, where we can really put up the best practices and people understand that there's no threat to their job security by challenging anybody, including me, in the organization. And it's allowed us to, obviously, produce dramatic results and be the fastest-growing company in the industry, by being able to use that as our mechanism.

Bob: That's great. So essentially you use a team approach, but now the idea to splatter your social security number across the website and give it out in this interview kind of came to you in a flash of brilliance. Did you have time, then, to check that with your brain trust, or did you just act on impulse with that?

Todd: It's a great story. I mentioned to you it was about three minutes before going on the air. I literally told my person that was with me — my team member — "Come in here and bring me my cell phone." I called my co-founder and Chief Operating Officer. I had my head of communications there and I said, "Okay, guys, what's the worst that happens if I give out my social security number? Am I out of compliance?"

And so literally I got the brain trust in two minutes to do a data dump. They said, "We're not concerned about what it does. You can't challenge anyone to go do something with your social security number or you could be soliciting a felony, but you can go put it out there with the confidence of knowing the system works and we can handle anything that derives from it."

So I did get their input in a very short period of time, but, yeah, I still leveraged the team when I had to make that decision.

Bob: Great — and do you have another example of how you work with your team? Is there something else you could point to in addition to the social security number idea that you've used this process for?

Todd: I'll give you a couple of different examples.

One of the ways that we've done it is to go out and say, "How do we market and get this message out with clarity and with credibility, so people understand who this new company LifeLock is?" And so we came together as a group and said, "Let's go out and test, in a pretty aggressive way, national media, without doing necessarily a branding campaign, which a lot of companies would look to do and have to raise a lot of money."

We actually went out and, using this direct-response program, have now aligned ourselves with the biggest names in radio, etc., so the Rush Limbaughs, the Dr. Lauras, the Paul Harveys are actually doing our endorsements for us, so there was no competition.

That seemed like a big risk at the time, but we knew we had the metrics. We knew we had the service that was different. We knew we had the clarity of message.

And so as a group, we were willing to go out and make some extremely risky moves as an early-stage company, but in turn, it has produced the fact that we are the fastest-growing company in the industry.

Number two is we also saw an enterprise problem, where we hear about data breaches occurring on almost a weekly basis. We read about T. J. Maxx or other companies who have compromised data of their consumers. And so you'll be hearing about a national rollout of a new data breach response program that LifeLock will be offering to enterprises to protect their employees and consumers.

It will be just like our consumer product — the first of its kind in the industry with the most aggressive support terms and guarantees that have ever been offered in the industry.

Bob: That's exciting! And that was a concept that, again, was developed with that team brainstorming process that you mentioned?

Todd: That's exactly right. So we took the input from both the technology, the industry, the sales, the marketing, the call center support about how we would support such a role. Everyone contributed, which made it the most unique product and something we know we can deliver with the same confidence we do our consumer products.

Bob: You know, that's a critical point. I'm really glad you brought that up. In my company, where we offer innovation services and product development services, when I work with a client's team, I always do the same thing you just mentioned. It's really important that you brought in not just your top management, not just your sales and marketing people, but your people from the call center, and technology, and the other front-line people.

Great ideas and great input come from so many different segments of the business, and it's really commendable that you recognize that and you use that in your team approach.

Todd: Yeah, in fact a great example is the fact that every Monday, we have a meeting for the entire organization — the entire staff — where what we're asking for is what is really happening? We want people to stretch. We want people to tell us what they're experiencing on those front lines with, again, no threat of repercussions. No concern that there's politics or there's other influences.

In fact, I challenge my people around me — I don't want "yes men". I want people who are creating the right environment that truly allows change and creative ideas, and for us to stay cutting edge, it has to be one where we're all after a common goal, but we're able to challenge and act like a family and there's no threat of repercussions to that. In fact, they're rewarded for it.

Bob: That's a great approach, and I'm sure it will carry the company forward for many, many years to come. And for anyone reading this interview, I really encourage you to take that lesson to heart and build it into your own organization.

Well, Todd, we're just about to the end of our time, and it's really been an illuminating 15 minutes with you. Can you tell people how to find out more about LifeLock?

Todd: Absolutely. We welcome any of your questions, comments, thoughts. You can feel free to give us a call at 877-543-3562, which spells out 877-LifeLock, or you can go to our website, which is, of course, www.lifelock.com.

Bob: That's great. Having had my wife be a recent victim of identity theft, we're definitely going to be enrolling. In fact, I think she's doing the enrollment today.

Todd, I appreciate your time. It was great, and thank you very much!

Todd: Bob, thanks so much.