A Sales Kickoff (SKO) is a great opportunity to align and inspire an organization to crush their goals. Karen Harrison, who led several SKO activities and workshops at Titus, outlines the steps to take to ensure a collaborative and successful SKO.
Beforehand:
- Align with each function on message and outcomes – each presentation and activity should align to corporate goals
- No death by Powerpoint! Try to make the work as collaborative and social as possible – especially when flying people in
- Put your foundational learning in pre-work, and use the time together to practice, communicate and collaborate
Pre-work (FOUNDATIONAL KNOWLEDGE):
- Executive Video – CEO setting the tone and expectations
- “Empowerment” video for theme – pitches – REPURPOSE CONTENT
- New corporate messaging framework
- Competitive intelligence documents
- Discussion Huddle for attendees to ask questions
SKO Agenda
- Setup:
- Mix the tables up so that folks are with other employees they aren’t normally with. Provides great perspective.
- Idea/discussion walls where attendees can write their thoughts, challenges and desires on the upcoming year and what they feel they need to achieve their goals throughout the day
- Introduction:
- Set the tone and value of the event
- Workshops and activities weaving in the corporate messaging framework:
- Customer Storytelling (tailored stories with buying personas)
- Team works on assigned persona and business case to tailor corporate pitch that would resonate with client, tying in a customer story
- Competitive Messaging Challenges
- Whiteboard Challenge: CMO had a competition and we voted at each table, finished with a whiteboard-off with top performers
- Best boot camp pitch – and the non-salespeople were engaged and kicked butt!
- Competitive Intelligence
- Role-play central! I dressed up as Laverne, a lover of our competitors, and attendees would watch a role-play interaction with a rep and the audience would provide objections
- Ran a mock Jeopardy episode
- Top sales leaders fireside chat – best practice sharing
- Customer Storytelling (tailored stories with buying personas)
Post/Recap
- Assigned Corporate pitch certification to all customer-facing staff (with winner at SKO boot camp as the golden example)
- SKO surveys on content, delivery and competency
In Summary:
- Align functions so that the event flows well into a cohesive story
- Use foundational learning as pre-work to maximize collaboration and practice
- Feedback – content, delivery and competency
