Sales kick off meetings, when done right, serve as a launching pad for your sales team. Sales reps and managers learn how to better optimize the sales process and build their pipelines; milestones and big wins are celebrated; and everyone leaves with a clear roadmap to crushing their quota.

This is the sales kickoff meeting that’s dreamed about.

What sales kick off attendees often get are uninspiring lectures, back-to-back Powerpoint presentations, and deep dive sessions that don’t account for how they already operate or resonate enough for them to apply all that’s presented to the field.

Ensure your salesforce leaves with more than just a hangover by avoiding this common reason for lackluster results: Your sales kick off content was developed without any feedback from sales reps or managers.

What’s included on your sales kick off agenda is equally as important as what’s left out. Rather than guessing what may please your salesforce, you should be engaging them in an open, transparent process of deciding what the kick off theme and session content will be. It’s important to discern which elements of the sales process are crippling your salesforce from your salesforce when planning your sales kick off event. Without their input, there’s little to suggest that they’ll leave your sales kick off better set up for success than when they arrived.

Sales Kick Off Alignment Fix #1

Administer quick quizzes and polls to identify skills gaps, procedural bottlenecks and persistent challenges impacting your sales organization. Use this to direct your priorities and ROI measures. Your sales reps and managers will feel like valuable contributors. Rather than seeing the sales kick off meeting as an obligation, they’ll start to see it as a space for targeted learning.

Sales Kick Off Alignment Fix #2

Survey your salesforce on their understanding of the organization’s larger goals. Prompt them to suggest content ideas, speakers and content delivery formats. Use this data to measure alignment between your salesforce and organizational leadership. Share this data with executive leaders speaking at the sales kickoff. Deciding which organizational goals and strategic plays to discuss will be simplified.

Sales Kick Off Alignment Fix #3

Survey your salesforce on your company-wide sales strategy in the months leading up to your sales kick off. Prompt them to evaluate the effectiveness of your sales plan and marketing support on the ground. Aggregate this data for senior leaders to identify opportunities for change and use this feedback to refine your sales and marketing plans for the upcoming year. Devote one of your sales kick off meeting sessions to reviewing the data and recognizing your salesforce’s contribution to the direction of the upcoming year.

Best Practice in Action

A multinational medical equipment manufacturing company gathered its sales managers for an internal review of their sales and marketing plan 6 months before their sales kick off meeting. Using audience response technology, they surveyed their sales managers on their sales and marketing plans to date. Sales managers were split into two breakout rooms.

They collected feedback on what worked, what didn’t work, and, perhaps most importantly, what their sales managers would like to see changed. In the months that followed, their senior sales and marketing leaders used the feedback that was collected to refine their sales and marketing plan for the following year. The resulting changes in their marketing and sales strategy were presented at their SKO.

Refining your kickoff planning and content discovery process doesn’t require complex, overpriced technology. By avoiding this mistake and a few key others, you can ensure that your salesforce leaves your annual kickoff more educated on the company’s strategic direction and prepared to smash their yearly sales target. Download a step-by-step guide to upgrading your sales kick off meeting with our Sales Kickoff Meeting Engagement Playbook.