Duncan Stevens Turns Bitrise's Revenue Kick-Off Strategy Into a Shared Vision in Portugal

With Duncan Stevens, behavioural psychologist, keynote speaker and best-selling author

"Duncan supported our Revenue Kick-Off meeting in Portugal. I found him easy to deal with as we explored how he could help our kick off event. He worked to align his content with our mission, and to support our goals for the event. The Keynote was inspiring and in alignment with our strategy, while the workshop was engaging and enabled the team to take the strategy and define a vision that they could support in their day-to-day work."

Hope Blaythorne

Head of Revenue Operations at Bitrise

OUTCOME 1

One team, one vision

The revenue team left Portugal with the strategy defined in their own words and a vision they could back.

OUTCOME 2

From plan to purpose

People began to treat the strategy as something they’d helped shape, not a plan handed down from above.

OUTCOME 3

Skills for daily work

A hands-on workshop gave everyone a clear way to turn the strategy into habits for their day-to-day roles.

THE CHALLENGE

Bitrise’s revenue team needed a kick-off that turned a shared strategy into a vision people would own.

Bitrise brought its revenue team together for a Revenue Kick-Off in Portugal. The company had a clear strategy for the year, but a strategy on a slide doesn’t change how people sell, renew or support customers on a busy afternoon.

Hope Blaythorne, Head of Revenue Operations, asked Duncan to help. She wanted content that fitted Bitrise’s mission and goals, and a session that left the team able to define a vision they could support in their day-to-day work.

DUNCAN’S SOLUTION

A kick-off keynote on influence, then a workshop that turned strategy into a vision the team could use.

Duncan began with a call to learn Bitrise’s mission, its goals for the event and where the strategy needed to land. He built his content around those goals instead of dropping in a standard talk.

A 40-minute keynote on influence opened the session, using on-stage behavioural psychology demonstrations to keep the room involved. A 90-minute workshop followed, where small groups took the strategy, worked out what it meant for their roles and shaped a vision they could support.

THE RESULT

A revenue team that left the kick-off with a vision it could own and a partner who’d fitted the brief.

Hope Blaythorne said the workshop enabled the team to take the strategy and define a vision they could support in their day-to-day work. She said Duncan aligned his content with Bitrise’s mission and goals. In the survey, 97% of the team said they’d recommend Duncan.

The audience survey below shows how the session landed with the people in the room.

Planning a revenue kick-off and want your strategy to stick? Check Duncan’s availability or explore his Influence and Persuasion keynote.

THOUGHTS FROM DUNCAN

A strategy only sticks when people get to put it into their own words.

By the time a kick-off starts, the room has usually heard the strategy several times. What changes behaviour is influence: people act on a plan they’ve helped shape far more readily than one they’ve been handed. So I pair a keynote that opens the room up with a workshop that lets the team question the strategy, reword it and own it. The Bitrise team were open, sharp and generous with their ideas in Portugal, and I’d love to work with them again.

HOW BITRISE'S REVENUE TEAM RATED DUNCAN'S INFLUENCE KEYNOTE

97% of Bitrise’s revenue team would recommend Duncan, and 96% are extremely or highly likely to use his takeaways. The words they used most to describe the keynote were actionable, motivating and engaging.

Survey of the Bitrise revenue team, completed straight after the kick-off.