David Nance is the CEO and President of SABRE, a world-class personal safety company specializing in providing top-quality pepper spray products to law enforcement organizations and civilians around the world. Since becoming the CEO in 1997, David has developed multiple safety programs such as the Law Enforcement Training Department, the Civilian Safety Awareness Program, and the College Safety Program to help citizens and officials better understand personal safety and the operation of SABRE’s products.

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[01:00] What is SABRE?
[12:12] Empowering employees to live the core values of SABRE
[24:08] The cost benefits of having a great culture

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1: From Core Values to Valued Culture, here is your host, Will Scott, interviewing another CEO about leading culture in their company.

Will Scott: Welcome, listeners, to another Culture Czars interview, where we talk to CEOs that care about corporate culture. We call this series, From Core Values to Valued Culture. And David Nance is CEO and Czar of Culture at SABRE.

Will Scott: Hi, David.

David Nance: Will, how are you doing, sir?

Will Scott: And David, we have worked together quite a bit, so we'll get into that. But before anything else, tell our listeners about SABRE.

David Nance: Sure. SABRE is a second-generation family business, the global leader in manufacturing of personal safety products, pepper sprays being number one. We manufacture that in our factory in St. Louis, Missouri.

David Nance: We're the number one brand used by both police and consumers on a global basis. From the NYPD to LA County Sheriffs, domestically, to Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Irish National Police, Israel, all the way to New Zealand, up to Hong Kong. Those agencies are using the SABRE brand, so we're quite proud of that.

David Nance: We're proud of the fact that we actually are a US manufacturer, and consumers like the fact that we’re trusted by professionals, so they know that it works and it gets the job done in their time of need. And we also expanded to other products, like personal alarms and DIY, do-it-yourself home security. And bear sprays for outdoorsmen, so they can stay safe in the outdoors and not hurt Mother Nature at the same time, ideally to escape an attack and if in case they actually startle a bear as well. So that’s another really cool product that we offer, and we offer accessories as well. Stay safe while in bear country.

David Nance: It's all about keeping individuals and public safety officers safe, and then educating them on ways and tactics to do such. We're all about promoting personal safety, and then we do a lot with charities as well. We'll partner with RAINN, which is the Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network, National Breast Cancer Foundation, and we're quite passionate about that.

David Nance: It's really about providing best-in-class products, educating people how to use them, and then giving back at the same time.

Will Scott: Very good. And for those people that are watching this videocast, you can see that I am proudly wearing my SABRE hat.

David Nance: Good man.

Will Scott: And David, in your intro there, you already mentioned two things. You're proud of an American-made product. Proud of your leading market share, and you also mentioned being passionate about providing safety and protecting. And that's so cool, because I know your first core value actually is called proud and passionate, so we'll come onto that.

David Nance: As we get into talking about culture, what do you think of, when we talk about culture? Corporate culture?

Will Scott: I think it's the overall behaviors and attitude of your staff. It's kinda the way you show up every day, and you go about making decisions of your organization, the overall mood of your employees, and it's how you basically make decisions. It's a focus for the company as well, too.

Will Scott: We believe in having engaged employees, who are passionate about our business, who want to show up and help other people. We encourage that behavior, and we also not only encourage it, but we also compensate people for it. We incentivize that type of behavior.

Will Scott: But I think when you get a team, where everyone is aligned and they're passionate about what they're doing, your likelihood of success is so much more encouraged by that. We're big believers that culture is certainly majorly important.

David Nance: That's cool. Of course, one of the things we talked about at Culture Czars is you need to bring your core values alive. One way you do that is by using them in your everyday language, and you just did it again, there. You mentioned another one of your core values, or at least part of it, which is engaged, as in prepared and engaged, I know.

Will Scott: Listen, when we started working together over a year ago now, you had some forethoughts about your core values. But then, we extended that process, didn't we? We surveyed your employees. We did some interviews. We kind of brainstormed it a little bit to sort of wordsmith and perfect it. But how was that process for you?

David Nance: It's been very helpful. If you go back to the beginning, prior to working with you, I think we had a lot of people just showing up, going through the motions, but not really thinking about the big picture and what they were doing, and not as engaged in what they were doing or excited perhaps as much as we would like for them to have been. And so, that's why we reached out to you. We could learn more about the success that you've had with the organizations you’ve worked with and what you've done for your own organizations, and it seemed like something we really needed to improve upon.

David Nance: Being a global leading manufacturer, being a company that saves lives, we get emails all the time from people that were in dangerous scenarios, or learn something from one our safety classes, and that is a life-impacting situation.

David Nance: It's not only the physical stress and injuries that we prevent, but it's also the psychological and emotional, so we wanted our people to realize how significant it is, what they're actually doing. That's why we started working with you. And then, prior to that, we had come up with some core values, but they perhaps weren't defining our organization as clearly as we would have liked. We dug down deeper into that. We interviewed a bunch of our employees. We found out really what caused us to tick, and more people to tick. We clarified those.

David Nance: We came up with the four that most embodied who we are, and who we want to be, and the direction we're heading and everybody is on board with that. We're rewarding people for that now. We're acknowledging it, and it's gone a long way to have our organization be heading in the direction that we want to be heading in. It's definitely made a big difference.

Will Scott: Okay. That's cool. I remember a couple of the key things that we discerned during that process, one was as you say, perhaps some of the employees, maybe at least on the manufacturing floor weren't as engaged as you would have liked.

David Nance: That's right.

Will Scott: There's this sort of idea that they were really just counting the number of aerosol cans that they were shipping without really realizing the benefit that they were doing. We came up with a vision and stuff that helped, that we've now perpetuated throughout the company that helps people understand it's not just aerosol cans. They're actually saving lives, and that came into the core values too, under your core value of going the extra mile was we save lives.

David Nance: Yeah.

Will Scott: I think that really just helped to have a more engaged workforce.

David Nance: Yeah, and it's so important, Will, I think manufacturing is such a fascinating phenomenon when you think about all the steps involved. And it only takes one of those steps to go awry, to mess up everything else involved in that whole process from the marketing, the product development, to the sales. But you know, you go back to the actual production of that product, once all that's done and taken care of, and you're getting the customer excited about it. You have to inspect the canisters as they come into the factory. Make sure there's no holes or anything wrong with them, so all the proponents have to be inspected.

David Nance: Then, we mix our formulation. We use natural pepper, so we actually test that to ensure the consistency in every can, so that's super important is in that time I need the pepper spray, it has to burn. It has to stop the person.

David Nance: Then, you have to mix the right formula. You have to fill the formulation. You have to ensure the cans aren't leaking. They're packaged then properly with the right warnings and everything else. All those steps have to be done properly. And if one person is having a bad day and not paying attention, it can disrupt the entire process, and that could jeopardize somebody's safety.

David Nance: We wanted people to realize everything that goes on in this facility is super important. To be a young girl in a very dangerous situation and what you're doing over this eight-hour shift could lead to her fate. People realize that, and we're quite proud of the fact that we have 40,000 law enforcement officers in the City of New York carrying our product on their hip. And it's one of the number one ways for college students to protect themselves in such dangerous situations that they live in today with sexual assault and violent crimes that occur on college campuses. Those are just two of many examples of people that we service with our products.

David Nance: We wanted our people to really be engaged with that, and I think the core values help that significantly.

Will Scott: Yeah. To your point there about the end-users of your products, we realize that these are not just ordinary people that are using these things. They're often heroes, and we decided we're actually going to call these guys heroes. Because one of the things, again, that you encourage with culture is the stories. What are the stories that define the culture? We've found that it's not just people in your organization, but your end-users are, of course, a part of the culture, and you're not just leading a company there at SABRE. You're actually leading a culture. The heroes are like Maria, for example, who stopped a carjacking in a parking lot in Walmart, using one of your pepper sprays.

David Nance: Yeah, a kidnapping.

Will Scott: A kidnapping.

David Nance: Kidnap carjacking, yeah.

Will Scott: That's a great story. And so now, Maria, she is a part of our lore, and she is on the walls on your posters there, depicting your core values as somebody who prevented a kidnapping.

David Nance: Yeah. We make our core values apply to both our team, both in Chicago, and in St. Louis, the manufacturing facility and the sales marketing facility in Chicago. And then, to our customers as well, too. We want them to embody those things, and we celebrate the fact that they are.

David Nance: It's people protecting themselves. It's protecting their family members, or protecting society and we think all those things should be celebrated.

Will Scott: One of the behaviors that we came up with under one of your core values was we're fired up, and it's great when you can find some words that actually has some extra meaning. And we're fired up, of course, talks about if you're got a prison officer that's stopping a riot and he's firing one of your pepper sprays, or there's a guy in a forest in Canada, protecting his friend, which is another one of your heroes, Fred. Protected one of his friends being attacked by a bear. Okay, so he's firing off your product.

Will Scott: But also, as an organization, you're fired up, aren't you? I mean, your energy is coming through in this interview. You're fired up to protect people, and to grow the company, and to get things done.

David Nance: 100%. It's super exciting for us, when we learn about people, where we're changing. We're making a difference like that. We're saving lives. We're preventing long-term stress, injuries, and those things that come with a potential attack, or even a threat thereof. So we're definitely passionate about that, we want to keep people safe, and we're excited to be doing so. 100%.

Will Scott: Yeah. And David, what are you doing to sort of keep the core values award there? One of the stories we discerned was how the company was founded, and tell us how that ended up being a monthly award, and what you do there?

David Nance: My father, when he was 27 years old, decided that the opportunity that existed in the safety industry, and was quite intrigued by that. He had a background in the military, so he already had somewhat of a safety and security background. That led him to all the money that he had at 27, which was $228, and making an investment into distributing CS tear gas, which is what the product was in 1975, when he made that investment.

David Nance: We just had our 43rd year anniversary, a couple weeks ago, in fact. We're quite proud of the fact that based off of a $228 investment, of courage, and faith, and hard work, we've grown to become the global leader, 43 years later, operating in close to 50 countries globally. That excites us, so we want to remind people where we came from, and what hard work can do.

David Nance: When people are embodying our core values, they’re actually nominated by each department. We have, I think, basically eight departments that participate in this, monthly. They get to nominate one person in their department, who embodied the core values the most that month, and they list the specific reason why. Why they feel that individual went above and beyond, or was empowered, or engaged, or passionate. Those are the core values that represent SABRE, and they win that award. They win the $228 award, which is a $250 gift certificate that they get to spend

David Nance: It's not a major thing, but it's a thing that we do for eight departments, every month, and everyone likes recognition. We want to encourage that by recognizing people that do that. They become leaders and others want to follow and do the same, and it goes back to our roots of who we are. I think it reminds everybody where we came from, and what hard work we do. It's been very successful.

Will Scott: That's really cool. It goes back to the founding story, $228, and I think you give out $250 gift cards, don't you? Which is the closest denomination you can get.

David Nance: That's correct.

Will Scott: Which is across every department in the company, every month.

David Nance: Correct.

Will Scott: And you have a nomination scheme, so that really helps keep the core values alive, and keeps how people keep using the words. And really, what I call catching other team members committing a core value, so that they then catch them. They nominate them, and they have a chance to win a significant monthly award.

David Nance: It helps keep it more alive. And we also, we have posters of these core values in every department as well. People see them. A lot of people have taken the cards. We've made small cards of that, put them in their cubicles. Put them in their office to serve as a reminder, and it's exciting to me that we don't have to remind people to actually nominate others. They're excited to it, and recognizing the success of other people in your department, I think is a pretty cool thing, and it's definitely going to make a positive impact in your department.

Will Scott: Yeah. I've seen you give these out. You get the whole company together on the manufacturing floor there in St. Louis. You get on a box, or a step, or something, and you basically give people kind of an update for the month, don't you? And then, you go into the awards.

David Nance: Yes. We have about 100 workers in St. Louis, and to receive that recognition in front of 99 others is a pretty cool thing. Absolutely.

David Nance: But even so, in our smaller office setting in Chicago, where we have just a dozen people. Still, being that person amongst your other 10 or 11 colleagues, being recognized is also a cool thing, even in that smaller office type environment. People like recognition, especially when they've worked hard for it. They deserve to receive it, and I think it just causes a very positive culture and experience for everybody else in their department.

David Nance: The nice thing is I don't see envy. I see people recognizing success that someone has brought to the job and I think it elevates everyone else's game, and they think, you know? I want to work a little bit harder for that next month. That's pretty cool.

Will Scott: That's really cool. And of course, while you're there, you take the opportunity also to kind of update them on news-of-the-month, so you're able to kind of make something of that event.

David Nance: Yeah, absolutely. There's company announcements. In Chicago, once a week, we sit down with Sales and Marketing, and we talk about our accomplishments, but specifically when we give out those awards, it's always good.

David Nance: There was a girl just recently that was in a very dangerous situation that used our product to escape. In one setting, she had to use it twice to get out of that situation in a parking lot. When we have those stories, we certainly want to share them with the team to remind them.

David Nance: It goes back to an article I read one time that one of the busiest airports in the country is LaGuardia. And one of the toughest jobs in the world is an air traffic controller, and they make those people walk through the terminal to get to the air traffic control terminal, every day. And the reason why they do that is so they can see the faces of the people that they're protecting. And really, that resonated to me, when I read that article, years ago. And I thought to myself, I want to remind my people, my staff of what we're actually doing, or the real-world stories about these cans that they're making, thousands a day, on how they're out there actually helping people.

David Nance: When you do that, there is a sense of camaraderie. There is a sense of like this makes a difference and, it causes people to get super excited. Super excited about what they're doing, and that's who we've become, and people are really passionate about what we're doing, and that's part of our core values.

Will Scott: That's cool. And I know when you give out those, you don't just say, "So-and-so won this core value award," you're careful to repeat the story about exactly how the person was demonstrating that core value, and that just helps you reaffirm the behaviors in the business.

David Nance: Yeah. You've got to tell the why. The why is so important with why we're in this business, why this person was successful. It's super important. That story is what they're being rewarded for, and what other people need to hear.

Will Scott: Yeah. You mentioned Chicago and St. Louis, are there any other observations there about two different locations? It's one set of core values, and one culture, but they're a little different, right?

David Nance: Yeah. You're talking about manufacturing, which is a tough job. They grind it out, and do that important work for us, and we couldn't exist without them. And then, at the opposite end of that, 300 miles north, you've got people fighting for market share, trying to get more product out there. Trying to educate as many people as we possibly can with our products, and how to have a safety plan, and how our products can help you protect yourself at a distance, and how you can keep your house safe, and how you can keep your college student going out to school safe when they're away, and all the marketing.

David Nance: But at the end of the day, we're aligned in our goal, and that is to produce the safest possible products we can, to educate the masses on how we can help them. And then, we give back to charity. It's all about helping people, that’s what we do with our organization, and we're all aligned, doing that. And when the company is aligned with the manufacturing, product development, marketing, sales, you're going to achieve success. When everybody is aligned, going after the same goals, using the same core values, your likelihood of success is substantially greater than if you didn't have core values, or if everybody wasn't onboard with the mission. I think that's it. Even though we are 300 miles apart, even though we are doing very different tasks, it's we understand what it is we're trying to accomplish, and why we're working so hard to achieve it.

Will Scott: Yeah. So, David, where does managing or leading culture rank for you? You've got to worry about sales, and profit, and cash flows, marketing, people management. Where does managing culture rank in that?

David Nance: My business is second generation. I run the company with siblings. I have an older brother, who is a part of production. He runs the factory. I have a sister, who's a sales manager. A sister, who's in charge of finance. The four of us run the business. And as we grow, we're still a small company, but we do have 120 employees, roughly. We've grown substantially over the last few years.

David Nance: We realize we can't do it ourselves anymore. We have to have people that we can trust and rely upon that are engaged and passionate about our business, and who are properly trained and have the right attitude, feel respected, feel enrolled in the business and encouraged to do well. That's super important. And if you have a bad culture, again, as you grow and scale as a company, it's going to make it harder and harder because more of that falls on you, and you need to have people that want to be a part of the business that are enrolled with what you're doing, and like working. Like working for you, and like the products and things that you're doing. And I think core values are a big part of that, I really do. I think we do a lot of cool things, and I think our core values remind people of that.

Will Scott: Thanks for that. And now, you've mentioned your siblings. I know you went back and started working in the company first for your father. And one by one, you brought your three siblings in. And really, the four of you, I think have 10X'd that company, since you started working together.

David Nance: That's right.

Will Scott: What about working family? There's a different dynamic there, isn't there?

David Nance: Yeah. You know, being in the entrepreneur organization and YPO, there are lots of challenges with family businesses, no doubt about it. Communication being probably one of the biggest, right? I think communication is so important in a family business, but I think we were very fortunate. I'm in a family business, where all four siblings are enrolled in the business. There isn't someone that's showing up, that's just collecting a paycheck, that doesn't want to work, that doesn't really care. Everybody, all three of my siblings, we really like what we're doing. We're passionate about growing this business. We're passionate about our products. We're proud of what our father started.

David Nance: My dad started it, but my mother was involved since day two probably, since it took her about 24 hours to get on board. She is still with us today, working away. They led by example. Very hard workers. Worked seven days a week, years until we came on board, and they stayed with us and worked when we were starting out as well. And again, my mom is still with the business.

David Nance: I think the fact that we all work hard and communicate, and respect one another. And when we have our disagreements, we sort it out, and we realize that's a temporary thing and we're going to get back in and fight, and grow this business more.

David Nance: I think that when you have people that know their roles and are on board, and engaged, it makes it that much easier, but communication is key, and respect for one another is key.

Will Scott: Yeah. I'd love to talk to Megan too, actually, for this series, and put her in the podcast. I know she has said things like it just helped her and how she felt about the business, and how she felt about working with siblings, when once we made the core values a part of things too.

David Nance: Yeah. I think that direction has really helped her. She's definitely grown a lot over the last few years, and her role is as we grow has become more challenging, but she's embraced it and done a fantastic job.

Will Scott: David, one of the things that I like to say too is with culture, it's one of the lowest investments you can make in terms of capital, right?

David Nance: Sure.

Will Scott: It doesn't cost you a lot of money to do it. It just takes some time and energy, but it doesn't cost a lot of money. It can have pretty huge benefits in terms of if you look at revenue or profits. It's not always easy to measure, but it's overall a pretty good return on investment.

Will Scott: Are you able to credit the fact that you're being deliberate about managing culture with actually helping your top line and your bottom line? Can you link those two?

David Nance: Yeah. I've read various things with regards to employees leaving, like what it costs of their salaries to the time involved to go out and find new people to replace them. Let's face it. Right now, the economy is doing extremely well. Employment's at an all-time low, so it's hard to get good people. So when you have good people, you want to keep them. You want to keep them engaged, and enrolled, and happy, and proud of what they're doing, and culture is all about that. Culture is the best way to do that.

David Nance: You can also take somebody that maybe isn't right there, where they need to be, but they have the desire to become that person, that good leader, or manager in your position. And I think the right culture, again, and working with that individual, takes that person to that role, and they're ever grateful to have had you count on them, and to have them have that sort of success.

David Nance: But at the end of the day, the answer to your question is top line, bottom line. We've noticed it. We've noticed it with employee attendance. We've noticed it with employee productivity, overall attitude.

David Nance: When you have a happy staff that believes in what you're doing, it makes a very significant impact on your business. We're looking to make things easier, and I think a good culture does that.

Will Scott: Yeah. And one thing, we had a launch, didn't we? Over 12 months ago now, last summer for when you refreshed your culture.

David Nance: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Will Scott: Since then, we've gone back in and checked in with people, and there is this ... So a lot of culture, of course, is about a feeling. What does it feel like to work somewhere? And your employees, I know just say it just feels better, it feels different. We like the people we're working with more. And part of that was really, frankly, it was exiting some people that weren't a great fit and were dragging down the cultural feeling, and hiring people that did fit. And now, it's just made a big difference, the way people feel about working there.

David Nance: Yeah, absolutely. The people that are there now are people that want to be there. There were some people we had to let go. Some people made their own decision that maybe they didn't want to be a part of this specific culture. But for the most part, I think the biggest thing is that in our hiring process, if we have a few people that are down to the final decision and we're having a hard time deciding between one or the other, who best resembles our culture? Who's going to be the best culture fit? And that's the one that we end up going with, and I think that pays significant dividends. They fit in. They like the people that they're working with, and they're more likely to produce for the organization.

David Nance: I think managing the business, manage your people with those core values, hiring, those core values make sure a big-big difference. It's really helped us over the last, I guess, 15 months now.

Will Scott: That's awesome, David. I appreciate that.

Will Scott: Well, look. We're coming towards the end. I really appreciate you going through the questions, and going through this process with me. Any final thoughts or advice around culture for our listeners?

David Nance: I think it's a good idea to listen to your people, listen to your managers as you do this, and really take the time to identify who you are now. Is it who you want to be? Is it where you want to go? So, you can make the right decision on the core values.

David Nance: We jumped into it early. We did it on our own, and it didn't quite define us the way we wanted to be defined. We went back in, started working with you, clarified exactly where we were and where we wanted to go, and chose the right core values. And so, now that we've got those, we know they're right, and we're sticking to them. It's the theme of our company, and now that we've got that right, it's made a significant difference.

David Nance: I think getting that right is key. Getting those core values, whether it's five, four, three, or whatever is right for your organization, making them sure they're embodying where you want to go is crucial.

Will Scott: Yeah. Thanks for that. And I'll just offer that if anybody wants to learn more about the process that we went through, they can get more information at my website, CultureCzars.com.

Will Scott: We actually lay out there, for free, a lot of the information that they would like to use to kind of follow what you did.

Will Scott: But look, David, thanks so much. Congratulations on having the great culture, and also congratulations on the success of SABRE.

David Nance: Yeah.

Will Scott: For all the personal safety products. I know that you're having another great growth year, and so congrats and long may it continue because what you're doing, it's a great, great mission, and you're right to be proud and passionate of what you do.

David Nance: Yeah. One of our new slogan is be your own hero. Be your own hero. Protect yourself, protect your loved ones. Check us out at sabrered.com, if you want to protect yourself with the best pepper spray on the planet. We'd like you to do that.

Will Scott: Okay, and we'll finish on that. Be your own hero. That is sabrered.com.

David Nance: There you go.

Will Scott: Well, thanks a lot, David, and I'll be seeing you soon.

David Nance: Thanks, Will. Appreciate it.

Will Scott: Bye.

David Nance: Bye.

Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Be sure to click subscribe. Check us out on the web at CultureCzars.com, and we'll see you, next time.