Categories: Sales Kickoff
SKO season is quickly approaching. If your company is making strategic shifts that you need to align your sales organization behind, the time to start defining your execution plan is now.
There are good SKOs, great SKOs and ones that unfortunately fall flat. Help your enablement team avoid common mistakes that will negatively impact seller engagement and outcomes. Here are our top resources that sales leaders like yourself have found the most value in:
1. Four SKO Mistakes to Avoid
Your SKO should be viewed as a strategic event that launches the sales team on the plan for success for the next year. While your enablement team can handle the day-to-day of SKO planning, they need your input on the overall strategy and design to make your event impactful. Now is the time to get busy — waiting limits your options. As a sales leader, not getting involved in the SKO strategy soon enough is just one of the critical (and costly) mistakes we cover in our upcoming webinar Your SKO: Four Mistakes You Can't Afford to Make.
We'll sit down with Force Management Senior Partner and veteran sales leader Tim Caito to discuss how to define the path for sales success, so you won’t be forced to compromise on SKO efforts. He will cover each of the four most important elements of a successful sales kickoff that are too critical for sales leaders to neglect.
2. Get Beyond the Event of the SKO
Whether you need to ramp your sales teams up on new product roll outs or are hoping to use next year’s SKO to improve your ability to predict the business — consider what’s achievable in a SKO-type forum. Visualize what success looks like and the outcomes you need to achieve. Think about what needs to happen beyond the “event” itself.
When you take the time to think beyond the event you won’t be forced to compromise on what you launch. Remember, you can only achieve your desired outcomes if what you roll out is significant enough to equip sales to move the needle. Before the event planning begins, consider, how are you going to use your SKO to align your sales organization around the critical outcomes you need to achieve next year?
3. How to Identify a High-Impact Priority for Your Sales Kickoff
As a leader, it's critical that you own the task of setting priorities for your sales kickoff event. These priorities will be top-of-mind for everyone involved in your event and set the tone for the coming year. The past year may have presented new challenges for your sales team, whether due to external market factors or internal changes as your organization scales to pursue greater revenue. Those challenges can be opportunities for your team to learn and strengthen your approach in the coming year.
Leverage the challenges and obstacles you faced this year when setting priorities for your SKO. We’ve identified five common challenges among sales teams we’ve worked with this year: building and converting pipeline, low deal margins, never-ending sales cycles, difficulty expanding renewals, and operating at scale. Then we laid out specific focus areas and action items for your SKO to address these challenges with your teams. Dig in and set your team on a path for improvement next year.
4. SKO Discussion: The Good, The Bad & The Game Changers
What separates the best SKOs from the rest? In this Q&A discussion, hear valuable tips and steps you can take now to execute a sales kickoff that gets your entire team aligned, equipped and motivated to execute. What makes some SKOs beneficial for salespeople? What are the steps leaders can take to equip managers to make an impact at the SKO and after? How do leaders successfully minimize skepticism from salespeople to improve engagement and participation? Facilitators Brian Walsh and Antonella O'Day share what they've seen work best and key challenges to avoid.
5. Set an Effective Adoption Plan Around Your Sales Kickoff
The actual SKO event, whether virtual or in-person, will likely only last for a couple of days at most. Which is why we often say that what happens after the SKO event or training is almost more important than what happens in the actual SKO. What is your plan to ensure salespeople continually focus on consistent adoption and execution? How will you support your managers in celebrating success, reinforcing critical concepts and course correcting front-line challenges?
Ensure you’ve got a ready-to-launch plan that you, your sales managers and your reps are working towards. Here are a couple of best practices we encourage our clients to put forth.
Ultimate Sales Kickoff Resource Guide
Whatever you train your sales team on to help them achieve critical sales objectives next year, commit to making it happen. Understand the steps you need to take throughout your SKO journey to own its success.
To help sales hit company growth goals, the most successful sales leaders often use their SKO as a jumping-off point for a broader sales initiative. If you need to take a similar approach — act now. Use time to your advantage: leverage these resources to define how to move forward with a strategic initiative tied to your sales kickoff event.
