Successful Sales Kickoff: Tips for In-person, Hybrid, and Virtual SKOs

What’s the best way to get your teams aligned with your company’s goals? An exciting sales kickoff event (SKO)! Whether in-person, virtual, or hybrid, SKOs help unify your sales teams, drive motivation, and set the stage for success in the year ahead. With dispersed teams, a virtual or hybrid SKO offers a cost-effective solution that boosts engagement, enhances networking, and strengthens relationships between team members, regardless of location.

Planning a successful SKO can be both exhilarating and challenging. Whether you're deciding between formats or refreshing an existing agenda, you’re in the right place. Let’s explore what makes a sales kickoff successful, from its purpose to practical steps in orchestrating an unforgettable event.

Sales Kickoff 101: What is it?

A Sales Kickoff (SKO) is more than an annual meeting. It’s a strategic event designed to align the entire sales team with company goals, strategies, and new offerings. This dynamic gathering brings together leadership, managers, sales reps, and cross-functional teams like marketing and product development, fostering a shared vision for the coming year.

Key Ingredients of a Successful Sales Kickoff

• Celebrating Wins: Reflect on and recognize the victories from the previous year, fostering a positive and appreciative atmosphere.
• Harvesting Learnings: Extract valuable lessons from past experiences, ensuring they sculpt and enhance the strategies for the current year.
• Igniting Motivation: Fuel the team’s drive with enticing incentives and inspiring success stories that pave the way for an energized and focused year ahead.
• Strategizing for Success: Clearly outline and communicate the strategies and systems that will navigate the sales journey throughout the year.
• Unveiling Innovations: Introduce new products and services, ensuring the team is well-versed and excited about the offerings they will be championing.
• Technology Onboarding: Introduce any new tools or platforms the team will be using to streamline operations and improve sales efficiency.

Benefits of a Virtual Sales Kickoff (SKO) 

Virtual SKOs offer several distinct advantages, particularly for geographically dispersed teams:

• Boost Productivity: With an efficient virtual SKO platform, sales teams remain in their prime operational zones, ensuring they're always within reach of prospects and clients, maximizing their impact on the business.
• Foster Greater Connections: A virtual SKO allows for broader participation, paving the way for enhanced team interactions. The virtual setup can even incentivize cross-team collaborations, especially with cutting-edge features like AI Matchmaking for tailored networking experiences.
• Direct Access to Leadership: Virtual sales kickoffs democratize access to the executive team and sales leaders, offering every salesperson a unique opportunity to connect and communicate directly with top-tier management.
• Inclusive Participation: Eliminating travel costs means a wider range of employees involved in the sales process can participate. This ensures uniform knowledge dissemination across teams and consistent communication with potential clients and existing customers.
• Cost Efficiency: While it might seem evident, the savings from avoiding travel-related expenses can be significant. By opting for a virtual or hybrid SKO, organizations can allocate funds towards enriching content rather than accommodation.
• Diverse Learning Avenues: 6Connex's virtual platforms offer a plethora of training opportunities, from virtual exhibit halls for product insights to dedicated mentoring spaces for employee growth. With features like AI Matchmaking and AI Content Hub, attendees can enjoy a personalized content and networking experience, expanding their horizons of learning.
• Streamlined Onboarding: The content generated during virtual or hybrid events on 6Connex can be archived, creating a rich resource library. This becomes invaluable for onboarding new team members, allowing them to quickly assimilate by accessing recorded sessions and training materials.
• Measurable Outcomes: One of the standout advantages of a virtual SKO with 6Connex is the ability to track every interaction. The platform provides in-depth, real-time metrics, enabling organizations to gauge employee engagement, evaluate learning outcomes, and refine future initiatives.
• Promote Sustainability: Opting for a virtual SKO with 6Connex not only offers operational advantages but also significantly reduces the carbon footprint associated with travel and physical event logistics. By choosing a virtual platform, organizations demonstrate a commitment to environmental responsibility, reducing emissions from transportation and minimizing waste from event materials. This sustainable approach not only benefits the planet but also resonates with eco-conscious clients and employees, enhancing the brand's reputation.

Crafting an Effective Sales Kickoff: A Step-by-Step Approach

Understanding the ‘why’ is crucial, but the ‘how’ is where the magic happens. Let’s go through the steps of crafting sales kickoff meetings that resonate:

1. Prioritize Critical Topics: Focus on key objectives, from strategic initiatives to product knowledge and skill development.
2. Create a Balanced Agenda: Weave an agenda that harmoniously blends informational sessions, collaborative workshops, entertainment, and recognition events.
3. Involve your Team in the Planning: Engage your team in the planning process, and be sure their insights and perspectives are woven into the sales kickoff.
4. Leverage Technology: Utilize technology like 6Connex to create a seamless virtual sales kickoff, ensuring global participation without the logistical hassles.
5. Sustain Sales Kickoff Momentum: Schedule consistent follow-up meetings to keep the team in sync and informed year-round. Enhance this approach by leveraging your virtual event platform, making the SKO content available on-demand, and granting your team the flexibility to revisit it anytime they wish.

Sales Kickoffs: Crafting an Effective Agenda

Constructing a potent sales kickoff agenda is akin to laying down a sturdy foundation for a sales kickoff meeting where each component, or objective, must echo, inspire, and synchronize with your team. It's about forging a framework where education, encouragement, product demonstrations, and networking seamlessly intertwine, ensuring every participant is not merely an observer but an active contributor to the event.

A sales kickoff agenda should be meticulously designed to:

• Highlight Objectives: Clearly outline the primary goals and objectives of the sales kickoff event, ensuring every session and activity aligns with these aims.
• Showcase Products/Services: Dedicate segments for the introduction and deep dive into new products or services, ensuring the sales team is well-versed with the offerings.
• Share Sales Strategies: Include sessions that detail the sales strategies and targets for the upcoming period, providing clear directives to the team.
• Enhance Skill Development: Incorporate workshops or sessions aimed at enhancing the team's sales skills and product knowledge.
• Incorporate Customer Insights: Provide a segment where customer feedback and insights are shared, offering the sales team a clear picture of customer expectations and experiences.

Your sales kickoff agenda should be a celebration that aligns sales teams to organization goals and promotes collaboration and camaraderie. Make the most of it by leveraging state-of-the-art features in an all-in-one virtual event platform. 

Sales Kickoff Tips for Hosting a Vibrant Event

Navigating through ensuring your sales kickoff event not only addresses the essentials but also generates a momentum that perpetually motivates your team throughout the year involves:

• Create a Theme: A theme serves as a unifying thread that binds your sales kickoff, offering a creative and cohesive rhythm that amplifies engagement and content value.
• Incorporate Breaks: Ensure your sales kickoff meeting agenda allows for pauses, permitting information to be assimilated without inundating the audience, and sustaining a rhythm that keeps them engaged.
• Build an Interactive Environment: Engage your audience with interactive elements, ensuring the SKO is not merely heard but experienced by all.
• Make the Keynote Inspirational: A dynamic keynote speaker can set a vibrant tone, ensuring the SKO commences on a high note.
• Highlight Top Customers: Integrating customer voices adds authenticity and depth to your sales kickoff, providing real-world insights and affirmations.
• Showcase Top Performers: Recognizing top performers introduces appreciation and motivation, enhancing the team’s morale and drive.
• Make Networking a Priority: Ensure your SKO provides spaces for casual and meaningful interactions, allowing the team to connect and collaborate beyond formal sessions.

Going Hybrid? Tips for a Successful Hybrid Sales Kickoff

Sales kickoffs don’t have to be entirely virtual. Hybrid events can be just as successful, if not more! Since they help cater to individual participants’ needs, event tech integrations will play a significant role in the success of a hybrid event. 

When considering a hybrid sales kickoff, here are a few things to consider:

• Set a Realistic Budget: Set an appropriate budget to ensure you can cover everything. For example, if you have to ship swag to remote participants, ensure you’ve accounted for the shipping costs in your budget. You’ll also need to consider whether there are any additional costs associated with your virtual event platform to integrate virtual and remote experiences.
• Choose the Right Platform: The virtual sales kickoff platform you choose is crucial. Make sure the tools used to stimulate engagement online can also be rolled out to in-person audiences. For example, presenters can encourage physical and digital audience interactivity by using QR codes that drive to polls and surveys throughout a presentation. Or promote the use of apps that work on both desktop and mobile to facilitate content engagement and encourage participants to network. Many SKO organizers also gamify the experience for virtual and in-person attendees, offering prizes or other rewards for engagement.
• Enhance the Experience with Technology: The best practice is to map the attendee and in-person SKO experiences and then identify ways for technology to connect - and augment - the two. Consider what platform features you need to pull off a hybrid experience. For example, should your virtual attendees have customized avatars? Do you want live polling or chat capabilities for in-person and remote audiences? Do you need virtual breakout rooms that are accessible for in-person attendees as well? Does the platform have gamification for both in-person and remote participants? You should also be able to customize your virtual platform to match your company branding.
• Gamify the Event: Have fun! If you decide to go hybrid for your next SKO, consider all the options for implementing gamification to increase your engagement. Some examples of engagement opportunities are trivia questions, scavenger hunts, contests, and more! Reap all the benefits of including a well-implemented gamification strategy to engage your employees, encourage team-building, and increase overall productivity.

In-person Sales Kickoffs: Planning for Success

If you’re choosing to host your SKO in person this year, remember that planning in advance is key. If you’re inviting speakers, customers, and industry thought leaders to present in person, you want to give everyone as much lead time as possible to align calendars and arrange travel. Here are some tips to make end-to-end planning easy:

• “Chunk” your agenda: From pricing… to product demos… to sales enablement tools… to marketing messaging, there’s a lot to cover in an SKO, and it can be challenging to sit at attention and stay “on” in a multi-day, in-person business meeting. Therefore, consider breaking your agenda into digestible chunks. For example, perhaps you spend the morning on industry trends and product positioning and the afternoon on Salesforce updates and training. Be sure to also pepper frequent breaks into the agenda, so attendees have time to respond to emails, return phone calls, stretch their legs, and “turn off” for a few minutes. 
• Keep It Real: Your sales team has one goal: to sell your products and/or services. They must believe in what they’re selling, so invite a customer (or many) to your sales kickoff to present their use cases, participate in a Q&A, share an overview of their roles and responsibilities, and/or discuss their industries’ challenges and trends. Be sure to include cross-functional teams such as your executive, support, and/or account management teams as you plan. You want to ensure you give your customers every reason to join your SKO. These internal stakeholders can schedule additional meetings specific to the customers’ accounts, further building the case for travel and participation.
• Make It Interactive: Try to avoid speaking to your attendees for extended periods. Instead, invite them to participate by role-playing or scheduling small break-out sessions to complete collaborative tasks.
• Play Games: Sales are competitive by nature, so go ahead and introduce some competition into your SKO. Think of creative activities that encourage your attendees to engage with the content you’re presenting in a way that feels like a game. For example, you could host a daily quiz and create an SKO leaderboard. Whoever has the highest score could win some swag. Or you could host a “Jeopardy” style game that encourages your reps to recall new product features or value propositions.
• Don’t Forget The Technology: Just because your SKO takes place in person doesn’t mean technology can’t play a role. For example, before your event, you can send digital surveys to identify attendees’ knowledge gaps and tailor your content accordingly. During your sessions, you can ask your attendees to participate in live polls using their smartphones. An event app makes it much easier for the attendees to actively participate in your SKO.
  

3 Ingredients to Crafting a Stellar SKO

A meticulously executed sales kickoff meeting is not merely a traditional meeting; it's a catalyst that aligns priorities, invigorates your sales team, generates buzz around offerings, and applauds past triumphs and wins. The essence lies in strategic planning. 

At 6Connex, we've been the backstage crew for countless sales kickoff events across diverse scales and sectors, and we comprehend that an SKO transcends a typical sales meeting. It's about captivating your sales reps with insightful content, inspiring speakers, and unveiling tools that enhance their efficacy, all of which demand a well-thought-out plan. Whether your sales kickoff unfolds virtually or in person, the 3 ingredients for success remain consistent and crucial.

1. Content: The Pillar of Engaging Narratives

Curate sessions that are not just informative but also riveting, offering insights that elevate your reps' performance. Dive into market trends, spotlight company milestones, and showcase customer testimonials. Perhaps, invite a customer to narrate their use-case journey during your event. Enabling your sales reps to share triumphant strategies and experiences, and organizing panel discussions with your sales leaders can foster a rich, interactive environment.

In a virtual setting, disseminating this content becomes seamless and efficient. 6Connex provides webcasting tools that empower your speakers to captivate audiences, showcase content and videos, and engage through live Q&As. Introduce live polls during presentations, enabling your event planners and content presenters to adapt to real-time responses.

Moreover, it’s pivotal – and straightforward – to alternate between presentation formats during a virtual event to sustain engagement. Ensure a blend of individual presentations, panel discussions, Q&A sessions, and dynamic videos, such as new product unveilings and live solution demonstrations.

2. Engage and Network: Fostering Connections Across Hierarchies

Sales teams often relish the chance to interact with peers in open forums, inquire, share thoughts on business processes, and exchange field experiences. Facilitating both formal and informal engagement is a crucial element of the sales kickoff experience, ensuring your teams can seamlessly interact.

On a virtual event platform like 6Connex, we advocate for the creation of leadership lounges, where sales reps and enablement teams can directly pose questions to company leadership in an engaging and meaningful manner. We also recommend establishing a sales team lounge, where moderated chats about session presentations or pertinent topics can unfold, fostering new viewpoints and idea generation that can be harnessed organization-wide.

Remember to encourage colleagues to acquaint themselves with each other. Consider crafting a “meet the team” space, where team members can share videos or images, enhancing interpersonal connections.

3. Celebrate The Wins: Spotlighting Your Sales Team's Achievements

A virtual sales kickoff brings numerous benefits, including recognizing growth within your team; and acknowledging individual and collective successes is paramount. Highlight achievements and illuminate this year’s “wins.” Ensure recognition extends not only to those who have met or surpassed quotas but also to those who have innovatively navigated challenges, especially in a landscape that has likely presented numerous hurdles!

Within the 6Connex virtual environment, you can tailor sessions to specifically acknowledge sales team members or even construct an awards room, where you can exhibit team members’ photos and summaries of their achievements. Incorporating a brief acceptance video from each award recipient always adds a personal and engaging touch.

Exciting Virtual Sales Kickoff Ideas

Following are some creative and engaging virtual sales kickoff ideas to revitalize your agenda.

Virtual Icebreakers

Virtual icebreakers are fun activities that can help you get the ball rolling and generate excitement about the event. Virtual icebreakers help employees feel more at ease in a potentially unfamiliar environment, engage with peers early, and pave the way for better networking and communication during the event. 

Some fun icebreakers include speed pitches, tricky questions, brainstorming sales objections, and the well-known ‘sell me this pen’ exercise.

Recruit a Celebrity Speaker or Influencer

Virtual sales kickoff events are the perfect opportunity to invite a celebrity guest speaker, such as a highly respected professional in your industry, a motivational speaker, or a highly regarded spokesperson representing your company, to present to your team. With virtual event technology, connecting with keynote speakers from anywhere worldwide is easier than ever. 

Host a Virtual Happy Hour

Break the ice with a virtual happy hour. Yes, a virtual event looks different from when a group enjoys cocktails and mocktails together in person, but you can make it just as effective with some attention to detail. Pro tip: hire a comedian, magician, or a band to entertain the group.

Role-Play

Role-playing real-life sales scenarios can help your team prepare for customer interactions and enhance communication strategies. During your virtual sales kickoff, you can gain new insights into how different employees approach a sales scenario and guide them toward improvement. Enrich the activity by bringing in sales experts to share their experiences, tips, and tricks for successful selling.

Combat Meeting Fatigue with Creative Breakout Sessions 

Zoom fatigue and webcam exhaustion are some of the most significant challenges of virtual meetings. To overcome these challenges and keep your team engaged, schedule breakout sessions to help employees step back from the event’s agenda. Some breakout session ideas include lightning talks, improv-led sessions, team trivia, photo booths, virtual ‘ask me anything,’ book club discussions, virtual coffee, etc.

Speed networking is one of the best team breakout activities. It can be an excellent opportunity for employees to learn about each other and interact. Employees can quickly introduce themselves to as many of their peers as possible and form connections with their colleagues.

Organize Fun Teamwork Activities

Incorporating strategic games and activities that require collaboration can improve team building and employee communication skills, making your virtual sales kickoffs more effective and memorable.

Team Work Activity Examples:

• You can host a virtual yoga class to help the team relax and boost their well-being. You can also try remote tai-chi as a light and effective alternative. 

• Hosting a standup comedy challenge can be an excellent way for your team to have fun and bond with colleagues through laughter and light-hearted banter. Consider setting a theme for the jokes, such as competitors, coworker habits, sales, food, etc.

• Have team members share a photograph unrelated to work and explain why they chose it. This will allow the sales team to learn more about each other and connect personally.

• Use 6Connex’s gamification features and run polls, Q&A sessions, leaderboards, trivia, etc. Leverage video conferencing to host other exciting games and activities, such as:

• Virtual escape rooms

• Virtual bingo

• Murder mystery

• Virtual “Jeopardy”

• Coworker “Feud”

• “Name that Tune”

You can also add a touch of healthy competition to these games and offer prizes to employees based on their performances. Such engaging activities allow employees to enjoy shared experiences they can bond over afterward. They can also help build strong relationships, reward ingenuity, foster inspiration and motivation, and extend the life of your sales kickoffs. 

Hold An “Ask Me Anything” Panel

Your sales team is your “boots on the ground,” dealing with customers daily. They have a wealth of information to share with less experienced colleagues in your organization. Organize an “Ask Me Anything” panel with your top sales representatives. Their role is to answer questions from the audience and provide helpful insight into their success. 

Pre-Record Video in Advance

Storytelling through video is an effective way to inspire and educate in a virtual environment. Incorporate pre-recorded videos into your kickoff. Include customer testimonials, product launch information, sales incentives, and other entertaining content. 

Host Awards Ceremonies to Celebrate High Performers

Hosting an awards ceremony is a great way to publicly acknowledge the team’s contributions, celebrate their successes, and boost their morale. However, replicating the experience of an in-person awards ceremony requires adequate planning. 

Start the ceremony with a captivating opening act, such as a virtual music concert, dance performance, or motivational speech. With a grand opening act, you can grab your sales teams’ undivided attention and dive into the awards recognition.

Team Storytelling

Asking team members to create an imaginary magazine cover story is an effective way to foster a culture of recognition. Ask them to write about their challenges and how they overcame them, strengthening themselves or their team. You can send the necessary stationery and magazine templates to inspire creativity. By socializing such stories, you can encourage the broader team to visualize outcomes, set ambitious goals, and overcome challenges. 

Test your Team’s Improvisation Skills with a Virtual “Shark Tank”

What better way to test your sales teams’ improvisation skills and help them hone their talk tracks than with a mock “Shark Tank?” 

Divide the team into groups and ask them to develop an imaginary product using photos or objects and create a crisp sales presentation. The pitch must contain the brand name, tagline, marketing and business plans, sales strategy, reasons to invest, and other such sections.

Using 6Connex’s virtual event solutions, you can enrich the event by inviting sales influencers and coaches worldwide as guests or judges. A creative exercise like this encourages out-of-the-box thinking and might inspire fresh ideas for future marketing and sales campaigns.

Goal-Setting Workshops

Consider hosting goal-setting seminars during your virtual sales kickoffs. It will help you learn about the aspirations of your team members and uncover ways you can assist them in reaching their full potential. Ask employees to jot down their personal and professional goals and their definition of success.

You can help them achieve these resolutions by guiding them in the right direction and providing valuable resources, training materials, and growth opportunities. By tracking their progress in real time and giving guidance, you can make your employees feel valued and boost their morale and professional performance.

Virtual Sales Kickoff Themes

Everyone loves sales kickoff themes. They help break the ice, create a memorable environment, and set expectations. 

Chances are that your sales reps won’t be inspired by a generic ‘teamwork’ or ‘excellence’ theme. You need a fresh and exciting theme that energizes the reps for their work ahead. 

Select a theme relevant to your business goals that will resonate with the team. It must be a catchy, concise, simple, and optimistic slogan that your sales team can identify with. It will set the scene for an engaging, meaningful, and memorable event. 

Some sales kickoff theme ideas that can ignite a call to action and leave a lasting impression on your sales reps include:

• Connect

• Explore

• Culture of Excellence

• All In!

• Above And Beyond

• Fired Up!

• Level Up!

• Believe

• Raising the Bar

• No Limits

• All Systems Go!

• Ain’t No Stopping Us Now

• All in this Together

• Break New Ground

• Elevate

• Empower

• Touch Down

• In It to Win It

• Ignite and Win

• Journey to the Top

• Full Speed Ahead

• Portraits of Success

• Raising the Bar

• Reignite and Re-Imagine

• Shoot for the Stars

• Resilience in Action

• Building Bridges

• Diversity Drives Success

• Data-Driven Decisions

• Sustainability and Sales

• Together towards Tomorrow

• Virtually Unstoppable

Elevating Your Virtual Sales Kickoff Meeting with AI Innovations

In the expansive realm of sales, a sales kickoff transcends being just an event; it emerges as a pivotal milestone, inaugurating the sales journey and ensuring every sales team member is harmoniously aligned, fervently motivated, and fully armored to tackle the forthcoming challenges. With a myriad of virtual event solutions and products at your disposal, crafting a sales kickoff that is not only enlightening but also engaging and inspiring is now more attainable than ever.

Integrating AI Matchmaking

Have a large, global sales team? Incorporate the power of AI matchmaking, enabling your attendees to connect with the most relevant peers, prospects, or content, thereby enhancing networking opportunities and fostering meaningful connections. This intelligent feature ensures that participants are not merely attendees but active contributors and beneficiaries of the event, by aligning their interests and objectives with corresponding individuals or sessions.

Leveraging an AI Content Hub

Utilize an AI-driven Content Hub to dynamically curate and present content that is most pertinent and appealing to each attendee. The AI evaluates user behavior, preferences, and interactions, ensuring that the content they encounter is not only relevant but also enhances their knowledge and engagement. This personalized approach ensures that every participant extracts maximum value and insight from the sales kickoff, propelling their motivation and alignment with the company’s objectives.

In this technologically advanced era, integrating AI into your virtual sales kickoffs not only elevates the experience but also ensures that it is personalized, impactful, and resonates with every single participant, paving the way for a successful and invigorating sales journey ahead.

Case Study: Glassdoor’s Annual Sales Kick-Off 

The Challenge

Glassdoor, a platform offering insights into companies via reviews and salary data, hosts an annual two-day Sales Kick-Off (SKO) to align and motivate their sales team, celebrate achievements, and introduce strategies and products. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic posed a significant challenge to their physical event, which was expected to host over 800 global employees and feature networking sessions and keynotes.

The Solution

Faced with the challenge, the Glassdoor team, spearheaded by Brittany Manopello, Director of Sales Enablement, sought alternatives. A recommendation led them to 6Connex, a virtual event platform. Despite initial hesitations due to unfamiliarity with virtual events, Glassdoor identified key priorities for the SKO, including custom branding, immersive user experiences, and peer interactions. 

6Connex quickly provided a virtual environment mock-up, aiding the team and speakers in visualizing and understanding their roles in the event, ensuring its success amidst the pandemic's disruptions.

The Results

The virtual SKO, hosted on the 6Connex platform, surpassed expectations, impressing both attendees and the management team with its professional aesthetic, branding, and immersive environment. Notable features included a Senior Leaders Networking Lounge for interactive Q&A sessions with management, an Expo Lounge showcasing cross-functional department initiatives, and engaging games with valuable prizes. 

The event metrics were compelling:

• 833 event registrations
• 88%+ attendance for all mainstage content
• Keynote webinar views: 82%+
• More than one booth engagement in the Expo Lounge: 51%
• At least one visit to the Senior Leaders Networking Lounge: 33%+

Moreover, the event scorecard reflected a successful sales kickoff meeting, with 97%+ of attendees intending to apply learned tactics on the job and 63% finding the event inspiring. The Glassdoor Sales Enablement team acknowledged the virtual sales kickoff as a crucial component for a successful sales enablement event, demonstrating the potent capabilities of 6Connex in delivering a comprehensive, immersive, and engaging virtual event experience.

Read the full case study here.

Your Next Chapter in Stellar Sales Kickoff Awaits with 6Connex

With insights and strategies in your arsenal, the next chapter of your sales kickoff journey awaits to be written. At 6Connex, we’re here to assist you in reimagining your SKO, transforming it into a virtual experience that not only connects but also empowers your global workforce. Ready to explore the possibilities for your next SKO? Let’s embark on this journey together. Schedule a demo today.