3 Ways to Keep Your Sales Kickoff Alive

3 Ways to Keep Your Sales Kickoff Alive:

Over the past few months, many organizations hosted their annual sales meetings to celebrate last year’s accomplishments, rally the sales force to motivate their performance, and communicate forward-looking strategic initiatives.  An incredible amount of planning goes into the holy Sales Kickoff – everything from finding inspirational sales videos, booking motivational keynote speakers, and landing on the perfect sales theme– all in an effort to recognize critical talent and highlight strategy for the future.
The question is, though, once the curtains are drawn and the music fades, how do we keep those key messages alive throughout the year?
We’ve seen many of our members approach a sales kickoff much like any kind of large-scale training session where retaining information yields the highest impact for long-term results.  While we can all agree that retaining information is imperative, but SEC research finds that reps forget 87% of content after just one month of completing a training program.
Before you compare this statistic to your Sales Kickoff budget, the SEC was able to profile strategies to make sure your sales kickoff doesn’t become a mere afterthought. As it turns out, we’ve seen leading companies find the biggest opportunities to maximize message stickiness before and after the kickoff – not during the kickoff itself.
Without further ado, here are three ways to keep your sales kickoff content alive across the year:

1. Prior to the kickoff, create social demand to build momentum and excitement for finding a new way to increase their likelihood of surpassing their goals for the year. While manager influence is important, tapping into peer-to-peer interactions is much more impactful in driving behavioral change.

• See Automatic Data Processing, Inc.’s approach to generating bottom-up demand before training sessions and check out the Challenger Pre-Training Guide.

1. In the weeks following the kickoff, be sure to provide high-quality opportunities for reps to practice new skills or act on new initiatives in real settings. If this year’s initiatives are focused on specific skill-building, consider implementing rapid-fire skill immersion role plays to apply new skills. If the kickoff is more of a concept-based session, consider reinforcing the message or theme in weekly coaching sessions or during regular team meetings.

• See how Siemens Water Technologies enabled reps to master new skills in just two days.

1. Finally, instead of merely validating real-world application of this year’s initiatives, be sure to certify long-term impact and consistent demonstration of embodying the kickoff content. Leading organizations have implemented long-term certification programs that provide a process for skill assessment, and even gone so far as to require customer sign-off on sustained impact to ensure full immersion of the changed behavior.

• See how Electrolux and Kennametal got their reps to embody new behaviors for long-term learning retention.

What other tactics have you used to help your sales force retain sales kickoff content? Let us know in the comments section below.
SEC members, see more member perspectives on keeping sales kickoff content alive in the Sales Talent Management Forum and check out our findings on Boosting Sales Training Stickiness.