Bill John Odyssey Teams Inc. learn@odysseyteams.com 1-800-342-1650 San Mateo, California—February 10, 2016. WePay has recently enlarged its sales and marketing department. This online payment provider placed some extremely high growth goals in front of its sales team. So, in order to get everyone working in the same direction, Kurt Bilafer, Head of Sales and Marketing, turned to Odyssey Teams and their Life Cycles Live program. Oyssey Teams facilitates team building events that uses philinthropic activities, like assembling a bike and then donating it, to get teams communicating, collaborating, and working fluidly. Bilafer knows it’s good to give back, but he admits, “selfishly I wanted the team to be under pressure. Then to get the satisfaction of what it really means to win and the special feeling.” Nicholas Nguyen, a sales development representative, said of the event. “I really enjoyed the program because it got us thinking about how we interact with each other.” WePay sees themselves as a customer intimate company. The values and philosophies of the Life Cycles live program works in tandem with this line of thinking. This give back activity gets its participants thinking customer centricity. It reinforces the notion of deliberate action to achieve an outcome that will be beneficial to all involved. That is exactly where WePay wants their sales team to be thinking. Baifler went on to say, “We had some very specific guidelines and deliverables and it really mimics customer requirements and deadlines. So, people were executing to achieve those goals.” The Life Cycles live program is designed with specific goals to encourage communication and collaboration when it comes to accomplishing the team’s goal. Time limits are in place and sudden obstacles can be implemented. “In sales there is no stronger way to build a relationship than to create an emotional connection,” says Bilafer, “So, in every interaction you have with your prospect or customer you want to build on that emotion.” Odyssey Teams also knows that the best results come with emotional connections. That’s why their Life Cycles live program is unlike any other give back activity. As a surprise reveal, the participants are introduced to their “customers”. Children from the local Boys and Girls Club filed in after the bikes were assembled. They were all told that it was a special field trip. Imagine their surprise when they were told that they would be leaving with the bicycles. This made the team building event very real for the participants. Many went back to the bicycles to tighten nuts and bolts because now they had met the person who would be using the bike. “I was expecting a lot of the team to get emotional,” says Bilafer. “But to see a lot of the team even those I didn’t expect get really emotional. It means that it had the desired impact. Which is we didn’t just build bikes. We built bonds amongst the team.” Odyssey Teams also offers several do-it-yourself options of philinthropic team building activities. At Give Back Activities you can order just the Life Cycles kit, or their Build-A-Hand kit, and then you empower your team with the team building event. Odyssesy Teams will help with the donation process when you are done with your give back activity.