If you’ve landed here, you are likely thinking about a Sales Kickoff Meeting. Whether you’re considering launching your first SKO or if you’ve been hosting your sales team for years and are looking for a fresh perspective, this guide will help elevate your meeting.
This resource acts as a step-by-step roadmap to creating the perfect sales kickoff and can be used a blueprint that provides structure and fresh perspective to those that may be overwhelmed by the mountain of tasks that go into meeting planning.
You may not need a hotel ballroom set up with classroom style seating, or a 40 ft stage with rear-screen projection quite yet. However, if you have more than 25 sales reps, keep reading. For those who manage a small team, your first reaction will likely be one of hesitation. Your team may be in the same office, working together day after day. They may be so busy prospecting and selling that taking the time away feels unproductive.
Regardless of the size of your sales team, nothing could be more important than intentionally coming together at the start of each year to strategize, plan, review, renew, and reenergize your sales engine.
The message you are sending your sales team when you make the important decision to bring them all together for a sales kickoff meeting is: YOU ARE IMPORTANT. We care about your needs, and we are committed to your success. This is the very first point we make, because culture is arguably the most important, but by far not the only good reason.
First things first, you must define your SKO goals & link them to the goals of your greater organization. This can be as easy as asking yourself a very simple question:
What do you need your sales team to do differently or better after the SKO? Is it qualifying? Discovery? Closing? Forecasting?
Launch new products?
Add new customers?
Expand sales in existing accounts?
Implement a discovery process that shortens the sales cycle 20%? Increase close ratios by 15%?
Improve forecasting by 30%?
The next step is identifying the behaviors that need to be reinforced in order to obtain your goals for the year. Keep these goals and behaviors in mind throughout the planning process and when determining content.
Author and sales trainer Rick Page said it best in his #1 selling book “Hope is not a Strategy” (a great read if your strategizing a complex sale).
Your sales strategy should serve as a tactical blueprint for how you increase sales, revenue and profits, as well as a guide for helping your reps understand who your ideal customers are and how they can best sell to them. Your strategy should include clear differentiators, measurable goals and forecasted results.
The SKO is your best opportunity to set the course for the year by aligning your sales team with a common purpose, which includes an understanding of your strategy and a clear set of expectations, Research shows that sales strategy clarity accounts for 31% of the difference between higher and lower performing sales teams in terms of revenue, profitability, customer retention and employee engagement.
To ensure strategic clarity, buy-in and involvement, nothing beats a well-designed sales incentive program with a predictable and targeted communication strategy.
There is often confusion around sales strategy and sales process. While strategy is the who, what and why, sales process is the when and how you manage your sales cycle from beginning to end. Following a tried and true sales process sets your reps up for success by ensuring higher quota attainment and helps management more accurately manage the pipeline.
The most successful sales processes are:
Talk of a “meeting theme” will have anyone who has attended an SKO envisioning a race car or a mountain climber. Themes are not an overdone gimmick. There’s a reason cars and mountains come to mind. It’s because themes work! They are mental hooks that tie together the theme, strategy, and actionable goals. What we are looking for here is professional and cohesive look and feel, that not only sets the tone and brings focus to your event, but according to psychologists, actually helps with the retention of information.
Have a little fun with it. A theme can help you incorporate humor, video clips, skits, jokes, etc. into your content. Don’t underestimate the value of adding a little levity into heavy topics or long sessions. Designed strategically, your theme can become your team mantra for the year, reinforcing your SKO message each and every month.
Once you have clarified goals and strategy, it’s time to get to work on the agenda. Use your desired behaviors as a compass (gut-check) for all content that is incorporated into your sessions. If the content doesn’t tie back, cut it from the agenda and replace it with something that does. The most common mistake we see at
Sales Kick Off events is presenting content that does not align with the organizational goals and support the sales strategy. Remember, the main goal is to provide information & education that enables reps to execute the plan.
An SKO does take a good deal of time and attention to design and execute. Many sales organizations postpone preparation and end up with a 2 to 3 day focus on product training. While features and benefits are exciting and arguably relevant, the goal here is to offer tactical content that helps reps position products and features.
Don’t waste time on activities that will not change behavior.
What does tactical content look like? Focus on skills like creating a compelling vision, articulating the value proposition, and creating urgency.
To maximize the effectiveness of your time together, and to create an environment where your sales pros are excited and prepared when they arrive onsite, think about content you can send for review prior to kick off.
Anything reps can read on their own will save time onsite and allow you to focus on your key content.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, your goals should drive the decision of who is delivering your content (of course, your budget will play a role in the decision as well). Companies like Brightspot can help you engage the perfect speakers and presenters (training and keynote) to drive home your message.
Consider these Five Elements when thinking about presenters:
For an SKO (but please, ONLY for an SKO), internal speakers can be selectively utilized. Key leaders in your own organization may be the best people to share company information or messages of a sensitive nature (sometimes radical candor is just the thing needed at an SKO to set the tone for the future). However, proceed with caution! We’ve seen more than a couple of sales leader panels turn into flops, and the funny guy from Marketing is never the amazing Emcee you think he will be.
That being said, you can engage:
Your initial SKO decisions will include where and when you will bring your team together. Here are the top 10 things to keep in mind when considering your destination and venue:
Attention spans are short, and meetings can run longer than sometimes necessary. In our experience, 2 days seems to be the right amount of time to keep people engaged and have them out of the field. Some organizations can keep it to 1 full day and others will need a 3rd day. This will depend on the number of speakers you have, the amount of training you incorporate, etc.
Bottom Line: Cover critical content and leave room for networking. Face-to-face time with colleagues and executives usually ranks at the top of most SKO post-meeting surveys.
Sales is tough. One of the most important aspects of a sales meeting is the care and feeding of the team’s mental health & wellness. This rejuvenation doesn’t necessarily come from a rah-rah let’s go get em’ speech. Rather, sometimes it’s the reassurance of knowing that they are not alone in their struggles and a certain amount of commiseration among colleagues is healthy. Encourage healthy discussions and sharing to drive this point home.
Sales is all about competition and bringing a bit of that healthy competition is the key to not only get your team excited, but to keep them engaged and entertained throughout the entire event.
It’s very tempting to jam-pack your SKO with sessions and speakers, but equally important is creating some intentional space for mixing and mingling. These are salespeople, it’s in their DNA. This is especially important for larger, spread-out teams that don’t get the opportunity to bond and learn from each other on a regular basis.
Collaboration is the key to coming up with creative solutions, so leave room for those unplanned encounters to occur. And remember, networking can be harder for some. Consider ways of facilitating these experiences that make it easy and add value.
You’re putting in a lot of time, effort, and resources to create an inspiring event. A post-event survey is a must to gauge the overall ROO (return on objective), provide data about everything from the speakers to the foods and location, and give you action items for your next SKO.
Timing: Ideally, your survey should be ready to send out before our meeting begins. The fresher the memory, the more enthusiastic the feedback will be. Include the link in a “thank you for attending” email the day the meeting concludes, or add the link to the home screen of your app
Include open-ended questions: Opinions tell a better story than numbers. Ask questions that start with how/what/why and invite your reps to explain their thoughts rather than tick a box or answer yes/no.
No one wants negative comments regarding an event they poured their heart and soul into planning. But know that 10 out of 10 times, when you ask opinions, you will get a few you won’t like. Don’t get defeated; remember that ALL feedback is valuable, and utilize the comments you can adapt to and grow for next year!
Unfortunately, research suggests that a large portion of the information attendees take in during a meeting will be quickly forgotten if not reinforced.
Like your expertise in your industry, an SKO pro spends their days completely immersed in every aspect of the corporate event planning industry. They know the model inside and out and are well-versed in handling every need. Their mission is simple: make your job easier and to make you look great.
End-to-End Event Management of hotels, transportation, events, activities, participant support, and communications by CMPs (Certified Meeting Professionals) who do this all year long; they are faster, save you money, and reduce risks.
Websites & Communications to motivate participants to achieve more by creatively communicating with print, web, email, and apps and automating the winner’s registration.
Budget Management to make every penny count and keep your accounting department happy with full financial reconciliations.
A sales kickoff is a unique event that requires every tool in the meeting planner’s kit. It’s more than reserving a block of hotel rooms and meeting space. Experienced planners have seen great kickoffs — and not-so-great kickoffs. They’ve seen similar projects in similar industries for similar situations. “Best practice” is an overused phrase today, but corporate event planners truly offer best practice expertise.
Chances are you need fresh ideas, and as industry thought leaders, we are actively involved in meeting planner organizations, research groups, and trade shows to stay abreast of the latest research, trends, and new ideas to make your sales kickoff the best it can be! Drop us a line if you’re in need of fresh ideas – they’re always free!
