As we stand at the precipice of a new year, the annual ritual of meetings, webinars, and discussions begin, all aimed at defining the new goals and objectives for your sales organization. In this sea of virtual options for initiating sales conversations, planning a kickoff event remains a powerful way to bring your entire sales team together on the same page. After all, nothing can quite replicate the energy and synergy of a face-to-face meeting.
This article delves into the crucial role of sales kickoffs and provides actionable steps to plan a memorable and impactful event for your team.
What are Sales Kickoffs?
A sales kickoff is an annual event designed to:
- Align sales strategies across departments
- Motivate and energize your sales team around products, offers, and goals
- Celebrate past year’s achievements
- Set the stage for success in the year ahead
The meeting happens typically at the start of the year and it offers an important opportunity to get teams on the same page and make them ready to achieve success in the year ahead.
While bringing sales teams together in one place demands a huge investment for many companies, given the fact that most companies are operating remotely after the pandemic, these companies believe that there is no better way to inspire and motivate a sales force than bringing them together personally.
‘A study conducted by UCLA found that up to 93% of communication effectiveness is determined by nonverbal cues. Another study indicated that the impact of a performance was determined 7% by the words used, 38% by voice quality, and 55% by the nonverbal communication.”
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Benefits of Planning a Sales Kickoff
- A sales kickoff can re-shift the focus of your sales teams towards the larger goals of the organization.
- As the different sales departments will come together for the meeting, everyone will get an opportunity to connect. Human beings crave emotional attachments and emotions are contagious. You never know which emotion triggers your salespeople to achieve more for themselves and the organization.
- During the meeting, salespersons come in personal contact with each other. Every salesperson carries a different vibe and when shared with others, it can inspire and motivate others as well.
- Salespeople share their knowledge and they end up sharing their experiences, such meetings provide a great opportunity for beginners as well as experienced salespeople to learn something new.
Here’s How You Can Pull Off a Successful Sales Kickoff
1. Define a Theme for the Sales Meeting
You would wonder why there is a need to define a theme for the sales meeting. We will tell you why. Defining a theme for a sales kickoff will help you achieve the following:
- A theme will make your content engaging and memorable.
- It will add a dash of entertainment to the meeting.
- Defining a theme for the meeting will keep you on track.
A set theme for the sale kickoff will let you add jokes, skits, slideshows, mini contests, and more to the meeting. Choose an overarching theme for the meeting to make it successful. However, you shouldn’t choose a random theme. Your sales force is on high or low morale. Identify their status and decide a theme accordingly.
2. Always Carry a Balanced Agenda
Salespeople attend meetings because they want to know how their peers are doing. Everyone in the sales team is trying to achieve the targets but not everyone brings the same amount of value to the table. Share success stories of other sales team members can inspire the others present in the meeting. Keeping this thought in mind, you should plan your meeting agenda.
Divide the meeting time strategically for sharing stories, tactical sales training sessions by successful sales persons, networking, and other fun activities. A well-thought-out and balanced meeting agenda is all you need.
3. Pull off Training, Team-building, and Presentations
You have decided on the theme for the sales kickoff, the agenda is ready, invitations are given, and now it is time to integrate every aspect to make it a huge success. Once the sales training sessions are over, you should unveil the fun part. Allow your salespeople to interact with each other, and plan team-building activities that not only help them enjoy but also establish contacts with other sales people.
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Wrapping Up
Your sales kickoff meeting is indeed a perfect way to gather your sales teams, re-demonstrate your strategy, and inspire them all to work towards the common goals of your organization. Building in-person camaraderie is essential to keep your team members glued to each other.
Take advantage of such sales kickoff meetings. Whether you host it virtually or in person, a well-thought-out meeting will definitely bring you good results.
