As leaders check sales kickoffs off their list, it is easy to ignore the elephant that hovers in meeting rooms, across phones and video screens, and in the office in-between: Did your sales kickoff make any difference?
Fellow C-suite members want to know their investment of countless hours and dollars garners a return to the bottom line — and that a sales kickoff (SKO) is a worthy investment for next year. Sales kickoff planning committee members want to see what worked and what did not work for future planning. Sales leaders need to know who on their team are succeeding with the SKO program, who are not and what needs the most reinforcement.
As a sales leader, it is your responsibility to provide the follow-through. At Mereo, we have built a framework for this evaluation and regular monitoring. Keep reading to learn all you need to know to make your own SKO activation plan.
DO NOT TRAIN YOUR SALES FORCE — ACTIVATE THEM
The ideal flow of the SKO program focuses not only on the fundamentals of knowledge-transfer and uplifting competency but also includes an intentional means of putting those fundamentals into practice.
A sales kickoff activation plan gives your leadership team a guidepost for your salespeople’s performance: Did your SKO messages land? Were new skills acquired? Are the new solutions’ value being grasped and conveyed to buyers? This sales leader tool also provides a framework for accountability and reinforcement sessions to your original SKO sales training and education.
KNOWLEDGE-TRANSFER ACTIVATION
Sales kickoffs are a common platform for educating sales teams on go-to-market areas such as:
- Market trends that are causing headwinds or presenting new growth opportunities
- New product / service offering information
- New value messaging
- New / enhanced sales tools
In knowledge-transfer, leaders must educate participants on the arena and also provide them a forum to put the new knowledge into action. This can be done with a hypothetical scenario (e.g. a role-play or simulation) or a real-world case (e.g. accounts or opportunities for which the seller is responsible) through table-top exercises, role-plays and the like.
Ideally, those activities are a pre-cursor for what the seller can do the day they get back to the office — they jumpstart the seller (and surrounding team) to apply the knowledge within the account they serve and the sales opportunities they are pursuing.
COMPETENCY UPLIFTING ACTIVATION
Sales kickoffs are also used to enhance the skills of sales teams in areas where deficiencies are either recognized or suspected. Similar to the Knowledge-Transfer engagement above, there is often an education to exercise to activate flow, where the competency is communicated, then practiced through role-plays / simulations and ultimately reviewed post-meeting in the real-world.
SET YOUR TEAMS UP FOR SALES SUCCESS FROM THE GET-GO
An activation plan can only go so far. Equip your sales kickoff planning committee with the SKO best practices leading B2B organizations follow to continue to elevate your sales kickoff programs. Download this expert resource now.