3 Sales Kick Off Meeting Reinforcement Tactics (That Actually Work)
Sales kickoff meetings can be truly magical experiences when planned in alignment with sales and delivered as an interactive experience. New skills and techniques are debated. New messaging is circulated. New products are rolled out. Energy is at a high. Everyone in the room is fired up to make the greatest deals in history—until they return to the daily grind.
It’s a fact, amazing sales kick off meetings aren’t enough to create sustained changes in the behavior of your salesforce. Only a behavior-based sales kickoff reinforcement plan can accomplish this.
Reinforcement needs to start at the sales kickoff.
A sound reinforcement plan requires the sales kick off meeting to first and foremost be worth remembering. Audience participation activities and competitions achieve this requirement, and when conducted with audience response technology systems serve a second purpose. The data collected through these systems can be used to deliver personalized sales kickoff reinforcement content. Follow up webinars and practice exercises can be recommended or required based on job specialization, seniority, and, most importantly, understanding demonstrated during the SKO.
Sales Kickoff Reinforcement Planning Should Occur IN The EARLY Session Planning STAGE
To build a bulletproof reinforcement plan for your salesforce, you simply need to prepare your sales kick off meeting content with reinforcement in mind.
1. Organize the skills gaps and behavior change quizzes and surveys being rolled out at the sales kick off meeting and develop a grading system that will serve as the base formula for your follow up content recommendation engine.
2. Develop and organize reinforcement webinars and other content based on the targeted skills gaps and behavior change objectives of your SKO.
3. Apply your grading formula to the collected sales kick off meeting learning progress data. Use this to decide whether a sales rep or manager is recommended or required to complete certain reinforcement webinars and practice exercises.
You can further enhance your reinforcement content personalization engine by conducting a follow up survey one month after your sales kick off meeting. Sales reps who indicate that they aren’t using key skills and content from the SKO, for instance, should be required to complete matching reinforcement modules. Now, long term adoption and ROI can be both measured and maximized.
Pro-tip: Plan for your reinforcement cycle to span six to twelve months for best results.
Sales kickoff reinforcement content should follow the best practices of SKO sessions
1. Narratives use cases, examples and scenarios should be built in to bring key concepts to life.
2. Knowledge quizzes should be used to measure information recall and understanding.
3. Reinforcement content should be broken into short learning capsules (20 minutes or less) so that salespeople can refer to it with little disruption to their schedule.
With the proper planning and right tools, it’s possible to make learning stick for sales kickoff attendees. Using our three-pronged strategy, sales kick off meeting organizers and senior leadership will be fully equipped to measure the immediate and long term impact of sales kickoff meetings.
And the best part – planning in accordance with these best practices won’t add significantly to your team’s workload. The step-by-step guidance, templates, and use case examples contained in our Sales Kickoff Meeting Engagement Playbook make executing a new and improved process that much simpler.
