Posts Tagged ‘david stein’ Blog Index

Author Pic

Corporate Culture and the Small Ask

David Stein ~ March 11th, 2010

Everyone at your organization who interacts with customers or potential customers is responsible for creating a customer first corporate culture. It’s not just the responsibility of your customer service people.

Many sales people believe the key to success is to be very aggressive – to push hard, and have a big “ask”, before they have established a trusted relationship with their potential client.

The principle of the “Small Ask” works in reverse:

  1. Care about the problem your prospective client is trying to solve.
  2. Think about an approach that is in the best interest of the client. One that mitigates risk, and builds confidence in the shortest period of time.
  3. Start with a smaller deal that gives you the opportunity to build a relationship, and see the potential your solution can deliver.

This approach is not commonplace. Many buyers will be shocked by your less aggressive approach and actually embrace it. Many sales managers may also be surprised, and ask, why aren’t you going for the jumbo, enterprise deal?

Our response:
By going against the grain in the short term, you will have to opportunity to quickly build a relationship, establish value, and grow the deal size significantly over time. In today’s challenging and cynical market, an approach and a corporate culture that really puts customers first can be a powerful source of competitive advantage.

The secret of man’s success resides in his insight into the moods of people, and his tact in dealing with them.- J.G. Holland

Tags: , , , ,

David Stein is a co-CEO of Rypple. David was one of the founders and the Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer of Workbrain. He is a recognized HCM strategist and has helped some of the biggest companies in the world to get the most out of their people.

0 comments

Author Pic

Going Global

Nathaniel Rottenberg ~ March 4th, 2010

Should you internationalize your business and acquire foreign customers? That can be a tough question. Rypple co-CEOs, Daniel Debow and David Stein, share their experience in the The Mark News article, The Trick to Going Global

While some industries are better suited to foreign expansion than others, successful internationalization ultimately comes down to managerial will and skill.

Check out why Daniel and David believe international markets are a key component to the success of Rypple.

Tags: , , , ,

Community Marketing

0 comments

Author Pic

What all great leaders know

David Stein ~ February 5th, 2010

I often read books, articles, and posts from companies that I admire; companies like Apple, Google, BMW, IDEO. My goal is understand what makes them succeed, so I can apply some of these strategies at our company, Rypple. Some of the reasons for their success are more obvious: a great product line, great marketing, great people. The question is, “why do these companies have great people, products, and marketing, leading to outstanding results?” The answer, the root of their success, may shock you: Their employee’s find meaning in their work.

The leaders of these companies make this happen through three key actions:

Clarity of vision and purpose:
Every employee in the company understands the mission and vision of the business, and how their weekly activities will impact company goals. The DNA of the company then guides day to day activities.

Ongoing coaching:
The leaders (managers) of these companies provide continuous coaching and mentoring to their teams. As opposed to providing their teams with guidance only once or twice a year through a formalized process, they meet regularly. These quick conversations ensure their teams are focused on the right actions, get feedback they can put into action immediately, and are learning all the time. This constant communication fosters a collaborative and inspiring environment.

Recognition for achievement:
Leaders of great organizations understand that their people aren’t solely motivated by money, but instead, derive a lot of meaning from recognition. Whether publicly or privately, being recognized for a job well done makes us all feel validated, appreciated, and more engaged in our work. We all like to receive Kudos, and great companies ensure that accomplishments are recognized. We believe that meaning leads to engagement, and engagement leads to amazing results!

With these answers in hand, I’m working hard to ensure that our team finds meaning in the work they do everyday.

What are you doing at your organization to find meaning and achieve extraordinary results?

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

David Stein is a co-CEO of Rypple. David was one of the founders and the Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer of Workbrain. He is a recognized HCM strategist and has helped some of the biggest companies in the world to get the most out of their people.

0 comments

Author Pic

Turn the Future Into the Past

David Stein ~ July 14th, 2009

At Rypple, we focus the design of our service around a central notion that Roger Martin shared with us, “turning the future into the past.”

This idea is central to our thinking because it allows our users to quickly overcome any questions/objections about the Rypple service.

When most people look at an innovative new approach to solving a problem (in our case, continuous feedback to improve execution & learning), they usually come up with an immediate set of questions:

  • Will this service work?
  • Will our people use it?
  • Will it generate meaningful results?
  • Will it be quick and easy to deploy and use?
  • How will it impact business performance?

Instead of bombarding prospective users with jargon-based marketing material to co-opt the user into seeing the merits of your service, we advocate a different approach.

“Turn the future into the past”. With no risk and for no cost, allow the user to try the core elements of the service right away, and validate the benefits for yourself.

In order to take this approach, you will need to design all the elements of your service around speed to deployment: removing all barriers for a prospect to become a user and get value fast.

The entire value chain should be quick and seamless:  From signing up, learning how the service works, using it, enabling others to use it, and seeing results.

At this point, a more meaningful dialog can occur between service provider and user, based on a shared experience of use.

Which means, when you build something easy that adds value right away, users are more than happy to talk to you about how you can improve your service, and charge even more!

Then your prospective user won’t be guessing or hypothesizing about what might happen, but will actually know what has happened, and can make an informed decision about the merits of signing up for the service.

This approach has allowed us to find the right customers who believe in our vision and our solution and have yielded tangible benefits from the service before signing up for the Enterprise Solution. They have a good sense of what the service will provide to their entire organization before they begin the roll-out, since they have “turned the future into the past.”

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

David Stein is a co-CEO of Rypple. David was one of the founders and the Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer of Workbrain. He is a recognized HCM strategist and has helped some of the biggest companies in the world to get the most out of their people.

0 comments