Testimonials

One of the critical things I learned from Stever [was to]…give myself permission to want it all; to not think in terms of mutual exclusivity. The results have been remarkable. To date, I have built a business which is almost unprecedented in scale among independent entrepreneurs under the age of 40 and I can trace a lot of that right back to Stever.

Stever has helped me to prioritize, manage my department, manage my boss (the CEO) and harness the power of co-workers to help me achieve both individual and departmental goals. And he understands how to help one have a personal life in addition to work; he’s terrific!

I have gained time in my day without noticeable reduction in quality of work or quality of decisions by learning to trust my instincts sooner and make decisions on less information.

I highly recommend Stever Robbins to anyone seeking action-oriented, thoughtful, “out-of-the-box” guidance… He brings a novel approach to everything he does. His ability to push the edge of one’s thinking has made our working relationship among the best I’ve had. He has helped me broaden my own problem-solving skills and given me new insights into my own effectiveness.

After working with Stever around job interviewing, I sailed through a big interview. I was confident, and my performance was my best ever.

Stever’s decision-making exercise served as an invaluable template in moving this process forward, so now I feel I don’t have to “sell” specific ideas in a meeting…now I just facilitate using the process and the great ideas are just “discovered” naturally. Great for internal buy-in and adoption.

He helped make major decisions about strategic direction. After working with him, we had a new business plan, revitalized energy, and a laser-like focus on success… You walk away with the practical stuff, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg: you also walk away with a vision of where to best focus your time, a strong sense of how to really make your idea work, and a clearer understanding of what lies ahead.

Stever led a coaching seminar with my Leadership Team. We had other coaching events before, but none had the impact, the ability to generate new insights, and — ultimately– the actionability of Stever’s seminar. He has tremendous experience and is able to tailor it to the specific needs, heis not a “one-size-fits-all” guy. My leadership team and I came [away] highly energized!

Stever is able to step back and provide perspectives I can’t see on my own. Stever is helping me transition to a Senior Vice President who is helping build, shape and guide the company… My goal is a dream job: less hours, less stress, more fun and a more creativity. Stever is helping me do that!

Stever really helped me to establish my market identity and business model. I achieved a major breakthrough in positioning my business working with him – Stever’s really gone the extra mile for me.

Stever helped me apply empirical thinking to my business plan in ways that I think can often escape the creative entrepreneur. I know that I’ve saved myself a great deal of expense and headache in the future by having him help me now!

Stever’s showed an impressive grasp of the complexities of our particular situation, give specific suggestions and positive criticism. Our final business plan was significantly better as a result of Stever’s/VentureCoach’s contribution.

Stever’s history with start-ups, the Harvard Business School’s “Leadership and Learning” curriculum overhaul and his educational background leave him uniquely qualified to speak to a broad and diverse group of business audiences. Combine his experience base with an ability to touch all of us with an engaging and thought provoking style and you have the makings of a great session/workshop. If we all followed Stever’s advice the business world would be in much better shape!?

Stever isn’t just a presenter; he’s an experience!

Stever is a great presenter. He presents with energy, enthusiasm and displays a mastery of the material that makes it fun and accessible to the whole audience.

You hit a home run for our audience. People learned a great deal and left understanding how their business works, what drives profitability, and what options they have for creating long-term business value.

Stever’s presentation at TiECon’04 was one of the best attended sessions of the entire conference. He has a remarkable ability to engage and inspire the audience with his delivery and content, and the audience left with a strong understanding of how to be active leaders both in their workplaces and communities.

We invited Stever Robbins in to speak to our business customers about growing their companies and he was great. His insights were right on, and a number of our customers commented that they walked away with an action list of useful suggestions.

For several years, I have had the great pleasure of engaging Stever Robbins at MIT in various programs that he has either facilitated, led, or emceed. In all situations, ranging from groups in classrooms to an auditorium with 1,400 participants, Stever has demonstrated his unique gifts to be deeply informative, incredibly well organized, entertaining, and inspiring. A few weeks ago, he brilliantly emceed one of MIT’s major events, the annual Tech Day program, to a packed auditorium and a worldwide web audience. Stever has an uncanny ability to understand his audience, the ideas they need to understand, and how to communicate them. Plus, he has the gift to be able to meld himself into whatever role it takes to get these jobs done.?

Stever brings a special energy to his training by creatively engaging participants on any subject he takes on. He shares refreshing insights while delivering substantive material about a wide away of topics. He provides a novel approach to presentation skills, simulations and other types of training enabling the participant to learn a new portfolio of techniques that enhance their effectiveness as managers.

Stever performed a presentation for us entitled “Lessons from Nine Startups.” His insight into the factors that contributed to the ventures’ success or failure was precise, lucid, and appropriately tailored for our audience. He articulated his very original analysis in an interactive and engaging way (not to mention humorous). Our students mobbed him afterwards with further questions. Stever will certainly be invited back!

In Germany we call Stever Robbins “the brain. The complexity in which he presents his material is unbelievable to the professional with linguistic and psychological background. His vast knowledge is embedded into stories of greatest amusement and fun. This way, his very intense teachings become very entertaining on stage indeed. We found Stever Robbins teachings so valuable, that we have included his digital recording of a workshop in our “Master Package for Trainers and Communicators”. Thank you very much Stever.

Stever Robbins is an extremely dynamic speaker. He doesn’t just talk about the “standard” topics, but strives to give a perceptive and entertaining insight into how things really work. His presentation at Wharton covered a wealth of topics, which kept the audience engaged and wanting more. If you need a speaker on business, technology, or entrepreneurship topics, Stever’s your man.

… [Stever is] eye opening … you become cognizant of the effort and energy that you spend on day-to-day tasks, what is important and what’s not important. I think you need a guy like him around to help you develop the habits. He¹s a great guy.

I was impressed with your topic, delivery, thoughtfulness and the insights you shared.

Stever’s presentation, “Taming the Wild Client,” engaged our audience in a lively discussion of concrete steps we can take to deal with difficult clients and client relationships. As our members’ success depends on the depth and breadth of their client rosters, the information was both timely and well targeted. We look forward to having Stever address our group again!

I learned more about the strategies and philosophies of effectively taming my wild clients in one hour from Stever then I did in Client Relationship classes that lasted days!

Stever’s address in LEADING: LEAdership Development INitiative for Graduate students at MIT was well-received by the participants and they were infused with energy by his talk. He set the mood for our two-day workshop and was responsible in part for its success.

Stever is the best speaker on business issues that I’ve ever heard. He is energetic and captivating, quick-witted and knowledgeable, and his insights are extremely valuable. After hearing him speak, my colleagues and I talked for many hours about him and his presentation…I imagine he would have kept his audience enthralled for another hour or longer.

Stever has a rare gift – a truly original mind. I guarantee you’ll come away with at least one truly new, incisive to the bone, quite clever and compelling way of thinking about whatever that speaking topic was.

Stever doesn’t sugarcoat what he says. He tells it like it is and offers entrepreneurs practical, candid advice instead of lofty platitudes. During one panel discussion at an HBS conference, a student asked the panel how to value the stock option component of his job offer from a small startup. The other panelists offered generalities about assessing the quality of the company’s management team and looking at valuations of comparable companies. Stever, on the other hand, dove into the mechanics of startup valuation, stock option agreements, and vesting. He also offered three personal experiences regarding pitfalls he’d encountered at different startups that he’d been involved with. The student couldn’t take notes fast enough while Stever was speaking.”

Stever’s depth of knowledge on all things entrepreneurial is extraordinary, and his ability to listen and shape a discussion to the needs of an audience unparalleled. I recommend him to anyone seeking an engaging, intellectually rigorous and highly worthwhile learning experience.

I found Stever’s talk at the HBS Cyberposium full of insights specific to early stage companies. Also, I found his talk lively and entertaining quite a departure from other speakers who talk on similar subjects.

Stever has truly impressed me! He can engage the public with his enthusiastic energy, wit, and valuable content. He provides a different perspective on entrepreneurship—by framing his coaching and research results into key messages that are refreshing and concise, and immediately applicable to people’s work and life.

Stever was a hit! ?…clearly the best panel of the day?…the most useful advice of the entire conference?…refreshing, honest, frank commentary on management team dynamics ?…illuminating reasons why people join start-ups?.

Stever motivated the audience and kept them engaged.  Leadership is ?so overdone, but Stever reminded us that leadership is individual and no ?matter what kind of formulas, algorithms, recipes, or reagents are ?applied, it will not fit every situation or mold to every dilemma.

Stever gave a fantastic workshop on career transition to an audience of MIT alumni. His unique experience as a programmer, trainer, startup founder and executive coach gave him such a broad perspective that he was able to respond to each question with deep insight derived from firsthand experience. The attendees were so engaged and got so much value out of it that many stayed to talk to Stever afterwards. Some stayed for two more hours and didn’t leave until 11pm!

Stever worked on a committee with me to develop and produce one of MIT’s signature annual programs, Tech Day 2010. In addition to chairing the committee that year, he was the emcee for the program which was entitled Against the Grain: The power of thinking differently. Stever did a brilliant job as emcee. The auditorium was sold out at around 1200 people, and there was a virtual audience of MIT alumni worldwide tuning in. Throughout the three hours of program, he kept all the speakers flowing on time, plus he was a lively and entertaining emcee who did much to keep the audience engaged. Clearly, Stever was one of the best hosts we have ever had for this program.

I worked with Stever on his “Living an Extraordinary Life” presentation, part of Harvard Business School’s Career Management Webinar Series. Stever shared the story of his exploration of how life could change if we committed to living only a life that we defined as extraordinary. He was authentic and humorous in his approach offering practical strategies to embark on a new life journey. This popular webinar was followed up with attendees being able to participant in a lively half-hour-long twitter discussion. Stever brought great value and insight to the Career Management Webinar Series. I look forward to partnering with him again.

If you’re serious about becoming successful, you not only need clarity around your long-term purpose, vision, and goals, but you need to organize your time, space, and attention to make success possible. This book will show you how to make sure all your efforts count, so every moment you choose to work brings you closer to your dreams. Stever’s unique style makes this book not only highly practical, but a fun, engaging read.

Whether you’re a C-suite executive or just starting your career, you need to be able to produce results fast. Stever gives simple, practical advice for eliminating distractions, honing in on what’s most important, and reaching your goals faster and with more fun. Put his advice into action and increase your impact!

Building your MOJO in work and life means doing what makes you happy and gives you meaning. This book’s nuts-and-bolts advice will help you concentrate your efforts on what matters most to you, and find ways to achieve it simply and quickly.

Stever Robbins has taken a practical, useful topic—how to get more done—and applied it to getting more done at work, and more done in building a meaningful life. The book is packed with tips you can use immediately, and its humor, style, and irreverence makes it an easy, fun read.

For years, Stever Robbins has been giving me advice. His podcast and now his book are an important source of advice for me. What are you waiting for? You have to pick this up.

Wisdom plus tools to make you a heck of a lot more productive! A big payoff for a small book!

Some paths to a better life involve 12 steps. Robbins saves you three. His nine steps help me and I know will help you to live better and get more done by working more efficiently and effectively. Even if you love your work, his advice helps!

The Get-it-Done Guy provides a wealth of smart, useful ways to save time, shared with a delightful sense of humor and fun. This book isn’t just about doing things better and faster; it’s about how to build an aligned life and career, focused on your highest goals and values.

Stever Robbins has written the handiest of guides – 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More. It’s chock full of tips that will make you say, ‘Now, why didn’t I think of that?’ Read this fun and friendly little book and simplify your work and life.