40 Ideas to Make Your Sales Kickoff Meeting a Raging Success
Hosting a sales kickoff meeting (SKO) costs a pretty penny. Sending even one salesperson to a sales kickoff in Chicago ranges from $500 to $2,000 for airfare, meals, hotel accommodations, and ground transportation. That doesn’t even include event production costs (and inflation isn’t doing anyone any favors). Now, think of how many events you have attended that left you bored and zoning out. What a waste, right? That’s not what you want for your 200-500 person sales team. But what if all of your salespeople — the people who propel your company’s growth — learned while having fun? The odds of the salesperson using that content later increase exponentially. Interested? Here’s how to plan a sales kickoff meeting that leaves you reaping the benefits all year.
What is a sales kickoff meeting?
SKOs are internal company meetings that provide the training and motivation needed to kick the year into gear. It’s a new year with new goals to meet and services to sell, but it won’t happen without company buy-in. All your best brains are in one building during a sales kickoff meeting. There’s ample opportunity for sales greatness. SKO agendas often include the following:
- Review of last year
- Plans for the upcoming year
- Discussion of market dynamics
- Overview of competition
- Role-playing sessions to improve selling skills
- Internal business partner networking (including IT, HR, Marketing, and the like)
Estimated Costs for a Sales Kickoff
To help visualize the investment required for these events, consider the following data based on hosting an event in a major hub like Chicago:
| Expense Category | Estimated Cost Per Person |
|---|---|
| Airfare, meals, hotel, and ground transportation | $500 – $2,000 |
| Event production costs | Not included (subject to inflation) |
What causes sales kickoff meetings to fail?
To drive real success, be intentional in your planning and strategy. Along with failing to meet your sales team where they are, this is often where sales kickoff meetings fall short. Here are common pitfalls of SKO planning:
- Poorly planned agendas: These can often leave attendees feeling confused, disengaged, and frustrated.
- Failure to set clear goals: Sharing no goals before the meeting leaves teams struggling to meet expectations after the meeting.
- Misplaced emphasis: Too much emphasis placed on product knowledge and not enough on how to sell the product through customer service and negotiation skills training hinders success rates.
- Lack of follow-up: Not enough post-SKO follow-up results in confusion about the next steps.
- One-way presentations: Speeches from leadership or executives exacerbate a lack of engagement without opportunities for salespeople to interact with the content and each other.
Furthermore, since salespeople are usually on the go, they struggle to focus during long meetings. Combine all those with their addictions to the computers everyone keeps in their pocket, and you may end up with salespeople checking their phones instead of paying attention.
Big Picture Ideas To Improve Your Sales Kickoff Meeting
With goals, objectives, and lack of interaction as the main problems with sales kickoff meetings, let’s start with ideas to improve your SKO. Set Clear Objectives to ensure everyone understands the purpose of the event. To combat drowsiness and increase retention, you can use gamification to turn your SKO into a raging success. Consider incorporating these interactive elements:
- Scavenger Hunt and QR Code Scavenger Hunt
- Digital Trade Show Passport and Exhibitor Booth Passport
- Attendee Participation Game (APG)
- Interactive Trivia Games and Live Trivia Games
- Spin-to-Win Virtual Prize Wheels
- Live Polls, Surveys, and Q&A sessions
- Name Picker & Raffle Wheels
These engaging activities, such as games, breakout groups, or networking opportunities, prevent listless salespeople from being distracted by more entertaining options.
