Empowering teams with a fresh perspective.

About Ascend We deliver high-end team building and leadership development

exercises through challenging and fun outdoor adventures

We’re different from other team building companies because we go beyond the usual ‘feel-good’ trust fall or team challenge We push our customers to have meaningful conversations about how

they work together and where they’re headed as a company We also get them way out of their usual environment and into nature,

which is proven to increase memory and creativity while reducing stress

Our customers not only leave feeling closer to each other and re-energized about their work – they also take away actionable insights to improve their business

Our Mission

Connect people with people Why?

Develop strong personal and professional relationships

Great leaders have high emotional intelligence (EQ)

Happiness!

Connect people with nature Why?

Boost memory + creativity Reduce stress Fun!

Our Team

Brooks Barron – CEO• Leadership Coach• Management Consultant• Princeton University (BA)• Stanford GSB (MBA)

Mike McClure – President• Professional Cyclist• Private Equity Investor• University of Colorado (BA)• Stanford GSB (MBA)

Colin Galle – COO• US Navy Officer• NOLS Instructor (Admit)• US Naval Academy (BS)• Stanford GSB (MBA)

Designing Ascend with Behavior Design We modified our business using principles of behavior

design and through several methods developed by BJ Fogg Three key concepts used:

Help people do what they already want to do

B = M A T

BJ Fogg’s Behavior Design Process

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2

3

Help people do what they already want to do Our company goal was to connect people with nature and

people Managers want to connect with their teams Additionally managers want to increase creativity and create new

perspectives; these objectives can be achieved through a change in environment by leaving the office and going into nature

We divided our target customers, business managers, into two segments One segment would need educating on the benefits of both

interpersonal dynamics exercises and the effects of nature The other segment already understood the benefits and

craved these experiences

By focusing on those who already wanted our product we were able to be the most effective with our time, effort and money

1

B = M A T Behavior happens when the combination motivation and ability

are sufficient and a trigger (prompt) is presented Motivation is difficult to manipulate (different for different people,

changes over time and is in competition with other motivators) Ability is more controllable and is determined by time, money, physical

effort, mental effort and matching an existing routine We used these factors to increase our potential client’s ability to

purchase an Ascend Adventure Time – understanding the demands on a manager’s time led us to decrease

our offering from a 2 day trip with overnight to something that fit within one work day

Money – knowing managers’ budgets caused us to experiment with discounts and promotions

Effort – mangers wanted everything about the experience handled for them, so we picked up from the office, took care of all meals and dropped off at the office

Matching with existing routine – during sales calls we asked about their next offsite or group training session so as to sync our product with their routine

2

Increased ability to achieve desired behavior

High Motivation

LowMotivation

Hard to Do Easy to DoAbility

Moti

vati

on

B B

2

No Behavior Yes Behavior

Inc Time$$$Inc EffortUnaligned w/ routine

Dec Time$Dec EffortAligned w/ Routine

Behavior Design Process We used the Fogg Behavior Design Process to help grow our

business. For example, we used the process to help us meet our objective of increasing inbound sales leads

Step 1 – Define abstract behavior Increase inbound sales leads

Step 2 – Magic Wanding Answered “If you could wave a magic wand and get anyone to do

anything that would lead to increased inbound sales, what would you have them do” and generated 20-30 potential target behaviors

Wrote these target behaviors on sticky notes

Step 3 – Crispification Added detail to the target behaviors by defining who, when, where and

how Objective = everyone interprets the target behavior the same way

Step 4 – Focus Mapping Used focus map to determine which target behaviors to pursue based on

combination impact and ease of execution

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Behavior Design Process (cont’d) Outcome

The behavior design process led us to pursue two work streams Get a celebrity to tweet about our business Lift our website in Google’s search ranking from non-existent to top 5

Results Celebrity tweet

Reached 35k followers 31 favorites and 4 retweets

Google search ranking Now #3

3

We led 3 incredible trips, but then our business stalled…

After pushing hard on our business for six months, we learned that the market did not have as strong of demand for our service as we had hoped Many managers and teams expressed strong interest, but very few

purchased

There is a high ability barrier to getting teams to leave the office for a day Time > Money: No matter the price discount, managers still valued their

team spending time in the office above going on an Ascend Adventure

Our service lacked simplicity – it was difficult to describe and measure impact Without giving managers a clear ROI and simple message to use in order

to defend a decision to go on Ascend Adventure we were unable to close sales

Why the stall? Despite our efforts to increase ability we were still not able

to sell Ascend Adventures

Time > Money The time spent commuting to and participating in an Ascend

Adventure proved to be more of their team’s time than managers were willing to spend, regardless of price

Competition among behaviors people already want to do Managers feel they need to accomplish their required work tasks and

when that need conflicts with their want to do an Ascend Adventure, the need prevails

Conclusion: Fail Faster with Behavior Design

Behavior Design helped us make the decision that it was time to pivot away from Ascend Adventures and focus on other endeavors

We are happy to have come to this conclusion quickly, so we can focus our future efforts on more rewarding pursuits (thank you snaptesting!)

We realized that moving on would save us from investing a significant amount of time, stress, and money in something that wasn’t going to fulfill our vision