Recipe For A Successful Sales Kickoff Meeting

Tis the season of sales kick-off meetings. Holding a sales kick-off meeting is a considerable investment of your team's time and money. A well-planned sales kick-off meeting should return an ROI of at least 300% over and beyond the sales revenue goal.

To achieve this goal, the program must be curated to achieve the following objectives:

• Building team comradery. The objective of this event is to ensure that the morale of the sales team is solid.
• A focused agenda. Every item on the agenda must achieve the overarching objective of building team morale.
• Great keynote. The message of the keynote speaker reinforces the theme of the kick-off meeting and the message from management.
• Celebrating the previous year's business success. Highlighting the areas of success and the individuals who made it happen.
• Communicating the new year's goals. Presenting the new year's products and goals and how the team and salespeople will win financially.
• Product updates (new and existing). Dynamic presentations that will excite the team to hit the ground running.
• Team building events. Activities that reinforce the vision and mission of the company.
• Celebrating key performers. An awards ceremony that recognizes and celebrates the successful efforts of the top performers and teams.

Team development

• Skill development - Select a key skill set for the team to focus on for their development.
• Networking with Peers and Managers - Provide several opportunities for the team to interact informally with each other.
• Technology overview. Tech session to keep the team up to date with the latest technology.
• Team building event. An activity that allows the sales team to compete in friendly competitions with fun prizes.
• Personal time. This provides the salespeople with some time to use as they see fit.

As I stated in the beginning, the objective of a sales kick-off meeting is to build the morale of the team and to inspire them to achieve the new year's sales goals. Following this best practice of conducting a well planned sales kick off meeting will position your sales organization for success.