The annual sales kickoff (SKO) is a unique opportunity to acknowledge your team’s efforts over the past twelve months and identify ways to increase sales success in the coming year.
The right sales kickoff agenda helps you prepare to grow in the new year. Dedicated planning and sustained follow-up can generate excitement among your salespeople and help your sales organization align on metrics, strategy and sales processes.
In this guide, we’ll explore what you need to know to prepare for and structure a successful sales kickoff event. We’ll also share expert advice and tips for running a virtual event.
What is a sales kickoff?
A kickoff is an annual meeting or event for your sales team, sales and marketing department or entire organization. Typically scheduled in January, this pivotal sales gathering lets you wrap up the end of one fiscal year and pave the way for the next year.
Part inspiration, part education, most kickoff events leverage some combination of speakers, activities and constructive discussions to help:
Boost team morale
Highlight valuable sales and marketing strategies or product updates
Relay key initiatives to implement in the new year
Build rapport among the team and department members
An impactful sales kickoff won’t just inspire your reps to land more leads and close more deals. It will give them the tools and knowledge they need to make that happen.
How to prepare for a successful sales kickoff meeting
Every sales kickoff needs an overarching purpose. You may want to celebrate recent wins or top performers, clarify goals for the new year or create energy and excitement around next year’s sales goals. You might plan to introduce sales training or teamwork initiatives to help your sales reps improve sales activities and hit quotas.
Once you know the goal of your meeting, consider:
What data or information will you need? Gather shareable data on last year’s sales forecast, results and successes. Clarify where your department or company stands now and where you want it to be by the end of the year. Establish key event takeaways that tie to company goals or team member objectives.
What physical items do you need? Sticky notes and writing equipment can be useful for note-taking and idea generation. You may also need AV equipment such as a laptop or laser pointer.
Who needs to be there? Consider stakeholders such as members of your other customer-facing, sales enablement, marketing and product teams. Depending on your kickoff goals, you may invite special keynote speakers, department managers, founders, CEOs, customers (particularly brand ambassadors) or company investors.
When and where should you hold your sales kickoff? Schedule your kickoff for a weekday when sales are typically slow or over a weekend to mitigate workplace disruption. Hold in-person events at your office over a single day, or consider reserving a hotel or conference center for two or more days.
The more prepared you and your attendees are, the more you’ll get out of the event.
Choosing a sales kickoff theme (plus kickoff theme examples)
Sales consultant and trainer Steve W. Martin said:
Running your event under a unified theme helps you focus on your overriding purpose or goal. Whether you’re predominantly celebrating success, motivating your team or educating your reps, the right sales meeting themes will make your event meaningful, memorable and entertaining.
Here are two points to keep in mind when exploring sales kickoff themes:
The theme you choose should align company strategy with meeting objectives
A colorful, vibrant sales kickoff theme is a great way to tell a story about what success will look like for your team in the months to come
Choosing a sales kickoff theme that distills the main point of your event into a single idea lets your reps know what to expect from the year ahead and can help them think more creatively.
Decide what’s most important to your company right now (growth, differentiation, innovation), then build your theme and agenda from there.
Here are some sales kickoff theme ideas to get you started:
Your company motto
Your organization’s slogan, motto or tagline makes a handy and serviceable theme for a sales kickoff, especially if you’re in the build stage and this is your first event.
Consider running a smaller, seminar-style event at your office to increase sales coverage or establishing a working sales model. Your motto can serve as the focal point for polishing your corporate presentation, helping your reps get more familiar with your products or sharing what’s been working in the field.
[Your company name] on fire
If you want to focus on your company’s stellar performance over the previous year – and fire up your sales team to build on those achievements – this theme works well.
For example, your company’s growth stage is the ideal time to acknowledge, celebrate and learn from sales triumphs by handing out recognition awards to high performers, asking reps to speak about their best wins and breaking key successes down into a step-by-step process.
Ignite your sales!
When your main purpose is to gather and introduce a new sales strategy, product, service or compensation plan, this is one of the best sales kickoff themes.
The key with this theme is to motivate team members by enthusiastically describing what’s new in sales for the upcoming year, showing exactly how it will benefit your reps (consider slides or a PowerPoint presentation) and demonstrating practical ways to adopt your novel approach, product or plan (perhaps with the help of a webinar).
Raising the bar
If you’re introducing a next-level sales tool, CRM or technology platform, this theme will prepare your team for a more robust sales environment.
You may want to invite a representative to speak about the benefits of their tool or tech (and what your team can expect to achieve with it), share video clips of the platform in action, run a training overview session and host a comprehensive Q&A.
All systems go!
Steve W. Martin suggests this space-related theme if you plan to launch a build, growth, sales or internal process improvement program in the coming year.
Don’t be afraid to get creative with your sales kickoff themes. It will make them interesting and memorable for your sales team members.
Avoid using vague kickoff themes such as “all in”, “in it to win it” or “unlimited”, as they don’t fully convey your key message to your salesforce. The more specific your sales meeting theme, the better.
Whichever theme you decide on, ensure it serves as the centerpiece for the ideas, presentations and activities that will make up your sales kickoff agenda.
Creating a sales kickoff agenda
The right theme is only half the equation. You also need to ensure that your agenda follows a clear structure. For an annual meeting that effectively improves sales, kick off the year right by scheduling any or all of the following into your meeting agenda.
State of sales presentation. An overview of where your organization stands in terms of sales, marketing, research and development or customer support (you can use Pipedrive’s dashboards to display the information you want)
Product updates. A rundown from the customer’s perspective will give your team a better understanding of client challenges and motivations uncovered by your company
Competitive analysis. Where your company is positioned relative to its competitors
Sales skill development. Insights, tactics or training to help reps overcome their biggest sales challenges
Sales strategy sessions. Based on real-world successes, whether inside or outside your organization
Internal speakers. Reps can benefit tremendously from hearing behind-the-scenes specifics of how colleagues nurtured and closed their best sales deal
As you build out your agenda, remember that you also want to keep people engaged and energized throughout your event. There are several ways to approach that goal.
For example, consider bringing in motivational guest speakers or incorporating video presentations, games or even skits into your kickoff.
Keeping sessions short helps focus everyone’s attention spans.
Using the morning for more creatively or mentally demanding activities also ensures your employees are more likely to be fresh and ready to go.
Finally, schedule regular breaks, along with time for breakout sessions, discussion, networking opportunities or mingling, so team members can have the chance to develop friendships and professional collaborations.
The state of sales and marketing 2024
Sales kickoff agenda example
Here’s a sample agenda for a single-day sales kickoff meeting:
8:00–9:00: Coffee, breakfast and time to mingle
9:00–9:30:Your year in review. Along with summarizing your past sales year in numbers, this presentation is the ideal time to celebrate wins, highlight industry trends or discuss key organizational changes.
9:30–10:15: Internal speaker. Keeping your event theme in mind, choose a sales or marketing team member to share a personal success story, provide a marketing update or demonstrate a new product.
10:15–10:30: Short break
10:30–11:00: Client guest speaker, customer feedback video compilation or competitive analysis presentation
11:00–12:00: Theme-based workshop, brainstorming session or sales or product training
12:00–1:15: Lunch, networking and a chance to catch up on the business of the day
1:15–2:00: Team-building activity or friendly competition group event
2:00–3:00: Keynote or motivational guest speaker. Their presentation should tie to your theme in an inspirational or educational way.
3:00–3:15: Short break
3:15–4:00: Workshop or guided breakout discussion around your guest speaker’s presentation
4:00–4:30: Lighthearted company skit or video
4:30–5:00: Sales kickoff wrap-up
If your sales meeting demands more in-depth coverage than what’s outlined here, you can lengthen your agenda into a two-day event by:
Extending session times (but limiting them to no more than an hour)
Adding a second keynote or internal speaker
Swapping out workshops, sales strategy or product training sessions with breakout discussions, Q&A panels or personalized team videos
Multiple-day meeting agendas typically require a more complicated planning process for accommodations and group activities. They may also include hotel bookings, happy hours, late-evening networking events or award ceremonies.
Tips for running a sales kickoff: ideas from the experts
Whether planning a sales conference or a single-day in-house event, how do you make your annual agenda as impactful as possible?
Three experts weigh in with great sales meeting ideas to make your event relevant, engaging and memorable.
1. Make it results-driven
According to Richard Harris, founder of The Harris Consulting Group,
His tips include overcoming practical hurdles (like how to help reps close more deals) by:
Defining the behavior that you want to change
Engaging in role-play or other interactive scenarios
Bringing in a professional sales trainer
2. Make it interactive
As Anita Greenland, Chief Experience Officer with The Brooks Group, sees it, lectures can be tedious. She recommends keeping your team engaged by adding interactive components to your meeting:
3. Make it stick
According to the seminal work Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath, 63% of attendees remember stories after a presentation, while only 5% remember statistics.
Storytelling is one of the most powerful techniques for communicating and motivating.
Business management guru Peter Drucker is often credited with saying, “What can’t be measured, can’t be improved”. Find a way to encourage team members to take measurable actions based on lessons learned during your kickoff.
One way to do this is by making a worksheet and time available during your event for attendees to identify their top three personal takeaways and practical ways to apply them in the twelve months ahead. Then, keep your reps accountable by regularly measuring and discussing their results.
How to run a virtual sales kickoff
In-person events are ideal, but a virtual sales kickoff is entirely doable and sometimes necessary when circumstances dictate that team members work remotely.
Virtual sales kickoffs have become more common since the pandemic, as more companies conduct sales kickoffs via virtual meetings.
Besides the stark increase in remote selling due to COVID-19, there are benefits to running your sales event virtually, even if you don’t need to:
It’s more cost-effective than an in-person kickoff since you won’t be paying for a conference room, hotel, transportation or meals
It’s more time-effective since sales professionals and other team members won’t have to lose valuable selling days or productivity hours to travel or multi-day attendance
Your presentations can be recorded, re-viewed and added to after the event
If a virtual sales kickoff is your preferred or only option, create an agenda that moves faster and includes more interactive elements than a live version would – that will help you offset the distractions and shortened attention spans often experienced by remote attendees.
Here are a few more things to consider when planning and running a virtual sales kickoff:
Logistics. Find a video conference application you and your team are comfortable with (Zoom, which can be integrated with Pipedrive, is a popular choice)
Timing. Consider dates and start and end times carefully, especially if participants are in different time zones. Using a visual platform like Miro will make collaborating live from anywhere easier for your team.
Priming. Send out appealing, relevant content in advance (get your marketing department to help) to energize and prepare your team members. Google Docs (which you can sync with Pipedrive) is a great way to both share and communicate about pre-work or event takeaways.
Scheduling. Keep session times short to avoid exhausting viewers sitting at their computers for the better part of a day. A simple meeting agenda app like Soapbox or Fellow can help you create, share and stick to a schedule.
Engagement. Inject games, riddles, quizzes or opinion polls intermittently throughout your agenda to help participants stay entertained and engaged. For example, Kahoot’s game-based learning platform is designed to ramp up engagement.
Breaks. Schedule breaks more frequently than you would during a live event, punctuating them with picturesque screenshots, relaxing music and a countdown timer to the next session. Use a free countdown timer and display it in Zoom using a simple video screen share.
You can also take advantage of your video platform’s chat option or a team messaging app like Slack to enable Q&A sessions, reinforce event messaging after each presentation and encourage participants to interact with one another during games, quizzes and breaks.
Final thoughts
Careful planning, engaging execution and meaningful follow-up are key components of a successful sales kickoff meeting.
Put the time into setting goals and planning an event that will inform and inspire your team. Follow up by getting feedback about the event and continuing to endorse and support the objectives and action plans you discussed.
A well-planned event isn’t just a one-time event. It’s part of your overall strategy for motivating and enabling your sales professionals to reach company goals.
