It’s hard to believe it, but the end of the calendar year is just around the corner. For sales enablement professionals, the end of one year (and the beginning of another) can only mean one thing: sales kickoff planning season is here.
Often, the sales kickoff (SKO) is the one time of year the entire go-to-market team gathers together (either in person or virtually). That makes it the ideal time to celebrate the wins of the past year and strategize how to make the coming year your best one yet.
Sales enablement professionals work tirelessly to make a sales kickoff a smashing success. But it’s not always easy to strike the right balance between celebrations and getting down to business.
Whether your 2025 sales kickoff will be in person, virtual, or a combination of the two, thoughtful and strategic planning is critical to success. The team at Mindtickle is here to help you plan an engaging sales kickoff that will set your sellers up for success in 2025.
In our 2024 SKO-in-a-box, we share a framework for planning a virtual or hybrid sales kickoff. You’ll find plenty of tools and resources to help you plan your best SKO yet, including checklists, event planning tools, pre- and post-work exercise ideas, and plenty of tried-and-true advice from Mindtickle’s sales enablement team.
But first, here are four tips to help get your SKO planning underway today!
Tip 1: Unify SKO activities into one platform
One of the first steps in planning a kick-off event is identifying the right technology to execute your vision. You should use a platform that enables you to unify all activities for the event in one place and make it easy to engage both virtual and in-person attendees.
It’s important to start with a software solution where you can author and host content, build and manage course sessions for live events, keep reps engaged (gamification, competitions, interactive questions, etc.), and enable reps with learning and training sessions during and after the event.
You should leverage the existing sales enablement platform for SKO wherever possible. Sellers already use many different systems daily, so asking them to log into and use another platform can feel cumbersome and jeopardize their engagement before, during, and after the event.
With a comprehensive revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle, you can create, organize, and house all SKO materials and activities in the same system sellers have already engaged in for training and sales content, making the technical overhead for participants easier.
And for sales enablement teams, using your existing platform means that, instead of figuring out how to set up and build everything in a new event point solution, you can focus on designing the content itself, finding the best speakers, and creating the most impactful session content possible. It also means it will be easier for sellers to access content in the future and enables you to better leverage SKO content from year to year.
Tip 2. Define an SKO theme and stick to it
Defining a theme for your SKO helps to refine your messaging, solidify objectives, and, ultimately, make the event memorable. Typically, themes are centered around motivation or growth but are general enough to bring together multiple messages and takeaways through the event’s presentations and activities.
From your session titles to your decor, awards, gifts, and team-building activities, you should tie back to your theme as much as possible. So whether your theme is related to climbing Mount Everest, launching into space, or going for the gold (2022 Winter Olympics theme, anyone?), pick and stick to one consistent theme.
You should meet with your chief revenue officer and other sales leaders to gather ideas, align behind a theme, and discuss how to mobilize and energize the team with the highest-impact sessions.
The following discussion points can help facilitate your conversation with sales leadership to define your theme and develop ideas for accompanying session content:
- What competitive, market, or internal obstacles stand between us and hitting this year’s revenue goal?
- What does our sales team need to do differently or stop doing this year?
- What tools or skills are our sales team lacking?
- What knowledge, skills, and behaviors from our top performers do we want to replicate across the sales team?
Tip 3. Deliver compelling SKO content
All too often, SKO training sessions are dull. When that happens, attendees start to disengage and minds wander. We’ve all been there.
Developing compelling SKO content is important so sellers stay focused and leave with the information and knowledge they need to tackle the year ahead. Work with speakers on their decks to ensure each ties back to the event theme and sales goals.
In addition, vary the format of SKO content to keep attendees engaged. For example, consider incorporating breakout discussions, games, and competitions. You can also leverage conversation snippets from real-world sales calls to bring different presentation concepts to life.
As you solidify your SKO and the accompanying content, be sure to centralize all resources—including agendas, session presentations, event pre-work, breakout session instructions, and more—in one place. That way, attendees can easily access everything they need before, during, and after the event. Consider using Digital Sales Rooms to create a dynamic, seamless experience for your attendees.
Tip 4. Communicate expectations and assign prework
Players don’t arrive at the stadium on game day without having done some individual prep. On day one of SKO, your sellers should be warmed up after doing some prework and know exactly what’s expected of them during the event.
Ensure you send an agenda at least one week before so that sellers know exactly where to be and when. Creating a comprehensive agenda will accomplish two key goals: it’ll align team expectations and also get reps excited for what’s to come.
A pre-event communication to sellers usually includes:
- Agenda and links to the different virtual sessions and resources
- For hybrid events, include all relevant information for in-person meeting rooms, accommodations, travel logistics, meals, and more
- Session materials and a what-to-bring checklist
- A welcome video from leadership to set the context and build morale
- A gamified knowledge challenge for participants
- How-to guides for any tools sellers will need to use during the event
And depending on the SKO’s focus, various pre-work activities can engage sellers before the big day. This ensures sellers are ready to jump in, cuts down on the time the sales enablement team needs to spend setting the context and giving instructions for different sessions, and helps the event move more smoothly overall.
Examples of pre-work activities you can assign each rep include:
- Pre-recorded territory plans: Record a territory review before SKO, enabling productive discussions. Remind sellers that the goal of the activity is not to talk through slides but to think through their priorities strategically and provide the thought processes behind their plans for the quarter. Make sure you have reps complete their videos at least a week before the event so you have time to review them ahead of time.
- Research for group breakout: Complete competitive or market research about a specific area to be used during hands-on group breakout exercises.
- On-demand training video: Watch a pre-recorded training video and be prepared to discuss it during an SKO session.
Sales kickoff checklist
When planning your sales kickoff, you must do certain things before, during, and after the event to ensure success and avoid common missteps.
Let’s take a look at five do’s and five don’ts of a successful SKO.
Do:
- Establish a theme. Ensure your content, talk tracks, and activities tie back to this theme.
- Determine your delivery strategy. For example, will you host on-demand sessions or live-streaming the entire event?
- Assign your attendees any pre-work to be completed before the event.
- Invite your attendees to a Digital Sales Room to access all materials and information, including pre-work.
- Send out a post-event survey to all attendees to get delivery, content, and engagement feedback.
Don’t:
- Forget to have the right technology in place to support your delivery strategy.
- Wait until the last minute to send attendees the SKO agenda and supporting materials.
- Treat the SKO like a dress rehearsal. Instead, coordinate a dry run with presenters to iron out any challenges in advance.
- Stick with long presentations. Instead, incorporate breakout discussions, activities, and quizzes to keep attendees engaged.
- Deliver once-and-done training. Instead, have a plan to reinforce learning and give attendees opportunities to practice their new knowledge and skills.
You can find even more do’s and don’ts in our 2024 SKO-in-a-box.
Get ready for a smooth, successful SKO
The SKO is an opportunity to gather the sales team together to celebrate success and plan for the year ahead. The pressure is on to deliver an engaging and fun SKO that properly prepares teams to crush their goals in the year ahead.
SKO planning can be stressful for sales enablement teams. But by planning (and using the tips we shared in this post), you can pull off an outstanding SKO that energizes your team and prepares them to reach new heights in the coming year.
SKO-in-a-Box
Looking for more tips and resources for planning and executing your best SKO yet? Our SKO-in-a-box is full of tools, resources, and advice for hosting an engaging, impactful sales kick-off for your team.
Get Your KitThis post was originally published in December 2021 and was updated in November 2024.
By Rahul Mathew
